These poems are for you to use in whatever way you see fit. All I ask is that you send me a copy of whatever it is you create. As long as it doesn’t offend me, it will be posted on my Collaborations page. There are plenty of video examples already posted there from the artist Deb Morbeto, but your work does not have to be in any certain form – it may be video, a new text poem, photography, music – whatever you feel inspired to do.

These are not my best poems.That’s not because I’m unwilling to share the good stuff; it’s because I already know what to do with the good stuff. These are poems that never quite made it. Something’s missing, and I don’t have whatever it is they need. Maybe you do. That’s why they’re here.

dark matters

halfway to home
a bolt of lightning
hit your plane,
& for 5 seconds
it was black
& silent & you
were a particle of dark
matter that, if eliminated,
would scatter
the mass of my universe,
gravity-less
& irretrievable

burn out

tonight the sky answered
questions i asked of it ages
ago, and so i wondered
how long it took my words
to reach the proper
constellation
& if
when the answer came
back to where I plant my flat-
footed stance in the earth,
the star that responded
was already dead and done
with its sparking

consumed

I am a sweater
in the head
a sock
in the jaw
my torso

a narrow corridor
of clothes,
stuffed from either side
somewhat organized

& slightly musty
from the hung-up
promises
of perfection,
my chest

compressed
by costume jewelry
mangled in a mass
& faintly tarnished,

my arms wooden rods
bowed and over-
extended with the want
they prop,

my legs shallow
skins that drag
against the boxtops
storing the means

of my protection
from ever connecting
with the earth
that gave birth

to me, this glutting
needing thing
stuffing its gut
& pitching the bones,

the scraps of plastic
& styrofoam,
into a gaping bin
consigned to the corner.

bi-polar

what can be said
about a broken window

that it hurts if you try
to climb through

& how from the outside it looks
like a violation

somewhat obscene, a woman
invaded

& hanging on to shards
at the edge, depression

out on a ledge
dirty prisms on the floor

that should have been swept
up

long ago
she’ll cut

you
unable to do

the one thing
she is meant

to do – reflect you
back to you, protect

from the elements
& yet what comes through

now – the light,
unrestrained

and violent

untitled

new year’s eve
i set fire
to a piece of paper
bearing your name

as per instructions
in a book
of cleansing spells
so small
it fit in my palm

& the paper too
was small
a little skin-
thin slip

& when
i dropped it
in the bowl
it was supposed
to burn down
to ash

but it glowered
upward instead
& i had to throw
my champagne
on the flame

to put it out,
charring a mark
against the wall
dark as a scar

resignation

there was no explosion
just a violent loosening
jarring the scaffolding
apart
like the skeleton model
we disassembled in high school
putting each bone
into a plastic bag
preparing it for travel

the sun room

my brother & i
never went there
in summer but
spent our winters
huddled up
against the space
heater that hung
from a window
of that drafty
add-on porch

we loved the bubble
of warm air
& its tremble
when we turned
the dial
the motor-thrum
that blanketed
voices
calling us back

A Hundred Words or Less

What you don’t know is
it’s what I don’t say
that matters, you aren’t listening,
you’re not interpreting
what you read, you just file
the words in your mind
like I’m a multiple-choice test
you have to pass by memorizing lines,
but I
am not objective, I am not interested
in accountability, I do not want
an easy A, I’m not a blank
to be filled in later, I demand
nothing less than
pure attention