A remix with thanks to Chuck Mee, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Cheyenne Mize

Sometimes
I drive past your house
your apartment
the park where we went on walks
the bench where we sat
a tree
pockets
of fresh air
and breath deep.

I haven’t washed the pillowcase
or the sheets
since you left
and I wont.

This is how I survive.

And I remember the time
we were finishing our lunch in a garden
on a hill above Lyons.
It was in June or July and hot
and someone suggested that we take off all our clothes
and jump into the pond.

I could hear Andre saying
his girlfriend would be with us in just a minute
but his voice sounded muffled
through the shirt I already had over my head
and then,
in the end,
no one went in the water.

Andre fucked me first
slowly
and calmly
which was his way.
And then Paco came and took his place.

i fold you into my mouth
that goes
that leaves
and now i will destroy it all
i can’t help it
it all embarrasses me
and so i’ll fuck it
and mourn it

what?
where was i?
now now now nownownownownownownownownownownow
crash
oops
crash

fleeting

tickle/giggle/fidget and bounce
a blanket of sadness
dropped on me from the gods
from the ghosts of grandmothers and illusions and dead cats
forget it
can i put you in my mouth?
because
cuz
i desire it
drop it
(i can kill you and take all your money)
and hold you tight
just lay on my chest
feel the comfort of heartbeat in your ear pressed to my skin
the weightedness
the love song
loins
don’t look
don’t behold
me

mememememememe
a wish

we were lands
without borders
histories lost
and state-crashed
we fought wars
and wrote treaties
in the skins of our backs
that would smudge in the rain
but when it was all over
we were peoples
we threw weekly revolutions
with stones
and pitchforks
and spatulas
anything our little fists could hold
we’d overthrow our minds
and fall into the mud
and sloppy and splashing
we’d claw for a future
in hearts without chambers
and rooms without walls and
countries without borders
until our tyrants
and tin can soldiers
would take over
and we were always
refugees not
you and just me
autonomy
sticking my fingers
in the promises of your back
i’d kohl up my eyelids
and walk tiptoeing
cupping poison in one hand
treasure in another
but today is a new day
but today is a new day
but today is a new day
but today is a new day
i can build fences and bridges
i could scrape out roads for thighs
and dam up my hair
and i can stop flowing
into you
into you
a handshake
a kiss
this is it.

your fist fell on me
and the moon fell out of the sky
and my shoulders are scraping the clouds raw
so i am extracting details of my life from

cardboard boxes
and my shoulders
broken shoulders
look better in the cracked mirror of my old friend’s pick up truck
than they ever did riding you
and it’s not so much black and blue
as it is gold and green
jewels and ruddy violets
of you
on me
to where i really wonder
am i pretty
enhanced by the spectrum
not grey
everyday
everyday
all grey
but lively like
fighting and fucking up
and making up
and fucking
and making out
and i am fucking out of here

like arms thrown back
surrendering to the drop
the wind of the rollercoaster’s climax
and here we go
and i’m outta here

and then you lift me up again
cradled
up
up
shoulders scraping heaven
shoulders reflected black at me
from the mirror
in the back of the truck

one road atlas
and freedom and a map of here
9:30: across my cheek
9:58: “you fucking asshole” landing on my spine
10:02, 10:03, 10:04: rib, pelvis, knee, head
moments etched across my skin
ride me
landscape of tuesday two weeks ago
and last thursday
and last night
til it’s morning sunshine
two coffees
hands of friends
soft horizon
cardboard truck
full of socks, hair ties, love letter, photos
notebooks screaming “why”
and the poster that hung over the hole in the wall

leaving you
details distracted
no moon in the sky
one hole in the wall
no me
in the fridge, in the shower, in the laundry bag
just hairs on your pillow

10:06, 10:07, 10:08: making up and getting out

now i’m getting out
shoulders scraping
the thick pink sky
swollen memories
not quite black and blue
just you

between no name and meek
i thought about you
picked at my cuticles
and busied myself with the left-side moon

at rifle i hit a dust storm
which lasted until silt
splayed across my eyelids
on this seaside of the mountains
and you’re over there and i’m over here
thinking about whiling away the winter here

locked into a camper trailer
i could pack myself down under the arch of red
and imagine i never knew you
pretend it’s winter two years ago
and i am so sweetly fulfilled by your absence
and not lacking

lattice slats
shadow my view like you
in light in dark
crisscrossing my summer
if you’re not too busy being the sun in my sky
will you be the flowers in my garden
you’re taken root in my earth
i know that the seasons will change
i know that the seasons will change
i will clip the pieces of you that are wilted
you will find solace on the sea
but the roots will still be
dormant but deep
they will seep
into the sands here
outside my trailer
between my junk pile
my burning tires on my left
my burnt out neon on the right

but i just passed meek
i’m in the cradle of the desert now
the desert that rocked me softly into adulthood
and burned me brutally through my adolescence
the desert
with the moon
the cliffs
the little candle in my trailer window
i will burn here
my skin will change forever
and it will have something to do with you
no shedding can change that
it’s July and i’m burning
burning until the ashes of my fingertips
fall into the soft desert sand

it’s meek and no name
and that’s who i want to be
friendless
in a trailer with the howling
and the sand
to blow my ashes through
i want the bluff i’ve been
to see
the dry riverbed reflected
in the moon’s watery gaze
first dark then light
crisscrossing my winter
on this flatbed trailer
where i lay my remains
to whisper my dreams to the moon
to speak of heartaches just soft enough
so the coyotes don’t hear
so that the wolf at the door
of my January trailer
doesn’t sing to me
of twenty-six years of heartache
doesn’t vomit ashes of meek into my garden

it’s just that it’s midnight
and i’m somewhere between you and me
and the moon is pouring ashes through my fingertips
turning the mountains into a dust storm
and it’s not January
and the arches in the snow are just like
the latticework of
you across me

i’m sweating in July
no home but my garden
my burning tires cradled in the desert sky
no wolf
no whispers
just a rifle
and i’m thinking
it’s a good day to die
ashes
sand storm
moon.
it’s a good day to die

today i crave

today i crave heavy darkness and cool mint tea

today i crave heavy darkness unsalted
and cool mint tea

cool mint tea unsweetened and spaghetti thoughts of you
thoughts of you bending through my psyche and under my skin
warm vascular you warm my interior surfaces
the planes of my body
ablaze with your drunken desires
defeat those fireworks baby
they just crackle like you
like you like your fingertips
twisting at my elbows my hips my recesses
you pound into me the beat
of pulsating balance
of anxiety
of meat and potatoes
cold beer and hot sex
you know how to do it

all over the litter on the floor
the lowest plate on my back
bruised from you squishing
screwing your fingers
into my deepest recess
rightie tightie
left alone you unloosen me
now fucked out and careless
panties smeared with your taste
the sunlight is hotter
the sweet tease of the trees fresher

today i crave the way the radio is more true
my quiet meditations more wholly
more utterly fearlessly
humbled
i put my face to the ground
my butter in the heavens

melting like butter
she drops her graces onto me
mercies onto my bruise
this has so much to do with you
and yet last spring and this autumn it had everything to do with me
i know that
so you
and me
we’re riding sidesaddle through the boxes of the days to October’s first dawn
it’s then that on the overlook
on the precipice as you say
in the drizzle of careless yesterdays
we may share on full real deal kiss on liponmylips
that smacks of November of even December

but its Tuesday and i get ahead of myself

right now it’s you over there

me: spaghetti thoughts and daily cravings here
twisting thoughts of you in the winds of my mind
you sway
this way and that
chiming in and out of focus
if it weren’t for the butter
the heat
the grace

of every moment
we may not notice that divinity is whispering herself hoarse at my shoulder
scraping her teeth against my fingertips
she’s here and when i’m not
occupied by you
laid siege to by my incessant you
wavering
tripping though my winds
i’m obsessed with her foreverness
her constancy
perhaps that’s all we mean by divinity
that which we know to be there
to be there and ever-changing

you think i’m a genius and sometimes i think you’re a mess
in my eyes we have a lot in common
a lot more common than our locking horns
and beating the hard dirt with our hooves
rather beating into each others’ softness
til we’re a little stronger again

so again
i don’t write
i just crave
love poems
wistful letterbox hearts
birdhouses of you swaying in the branches
through my winds
nests of you dropping from my limbs
snarled twigs resting in my creviced places
let’s just find each other therelet’s unwind the pieces of twine knotted into our fingers
let’s drop our dried yellow leaves
press blossoms out our lips
trip roots through the earth and for the sake of goodness

drink cool mint tea
drink cool mint tea with me today
for i crave
the heavy dark shade of your limbs
the sweet spaghetti strings of our conversations
and the cool divine restlessness
of all of this

you and me and annie oakley
you could be her sidekick and i could be her horse
or when i whisper
i’ll just be her thighs and you could carry her rifle
i know you desire her
wild mustangs and sunset dusts
stars seen though the rough pocket
of the campfire i’ll carry on my back
from independence, missouri

you be her lover and i’ll be your beast of burden
she could ride side-saddle
but you could just
straddle
straddle
i’ve got flesh to tear like an offering
we’ll find intimacy in your spurs
spurned and rejected
that’s how i show my love

and you and annie oakley
spent the night together
lovers
and i collected evidence and quartz crystal
i dreamed about you and awoke hopeful
greedy and sleepy
and jonesing for coffee
coffee-stained stretch marks and suede sleeves
that’s annie oakley, i remark
i’m hushed with a pull
you spun the pinwheel and i shat rivers
she snapped her fingers
we shook hands and called it a deal
you call it a day by allaying your gold-rush, good-fortune touch

and the agreement was

camp was cooked
and prairies were devoured
you chewed on your coffee
and i panted and watched
and slid wax through her braids
she cuddled with you, little pet
i shivered the cold on my shoulders
alone
on watch
counting coyotes and horned owls
Luna waxes fat onto my haunches
in the secret moon-night light
i’m annie oakley’s girl but Luna’s secretly my queen
she fills my open wounds
mutters warmth on the back of my neck
and wanes before the day
catches us at play

Stripping down all the fuck
we’re not left with much
what?
a show
a show of who you want to be
and me?
me, i don’t know how to be
in the show of you and me
and that’s why you went
(before you went)
because the show was clearly over and
the fishnet was empty and
the lockdown was dry

i think my life would just be better if
i knew spanish or
did more peyote or
practiced my guitar but
instead
six weeks later
i still haven’t
i still haven’t
plucked my feet up from the sand or
learned that song but
i followed through
i followed through

i sank into the bed this morning and woke up in a snowstorm and
deep in me
deep down to my cunt
in knew the time had come
(the time has always come, but of course you know that,
now’s the time, right, now’s the time?)
well it was like the old fog was gone and
a new fog was here
a fog i could live with
inspired by specks
i can tweeze out and
embellish
the old fog
the old fog of crushed potential
it’s left
crushed into the folds of my cunt
(i always find if i get stuck in a poem
just pull out my cunt and
it’s like a parachute
an easy exit sign
the aisle floor lights of the airplane directing me to the yellow slides of the next line
it’s the catch-all theme
and what has it caught?
well, avid pupil,
dilated and eager-beaver,
it has caught the cottony fog fuck of yesterday’s yoke)

i mentioned the other day that all she eats, freulein, all she eats
is chambord and sugarplums

wait i mean

i menstruated the other day that all she eats, freulein, all she eats
is champagne and shrink-wrapped smarties
slipping temptation and sour onto her tongue, freulein, onto her tongue
it’s the perfect marriage

forgive me for sleeping in—
right into the snowstorm—
i was waiting on you and
you
you emerged
as a fog and
i, your faithful servant to the end, freulein,
to the end…

Written on a wall (by anonymous):

to
destroy
all girls
less
they destroy
man’s
ambition
&
art…
Just ask
any 9to5er?

My (written) response:
to destroy all girls less they destroy man’s ambition and art…
just ask any 9to5er…
i say hiding a fart
this is the tune of the beer guzzling
gas guzzling
SUV owners
don’t let them destroy you
don’t let them destroy you
(ou)r planet what is the threat?
the girl graciously asked
(she could have kicked in the face or fucked him an ran)
she could have used his scrotum skin as pot holders
when making her best meat loaf
she could have used his meat as a recipe for his destruction
but instead
instead
she just simply asked
That’s threat enough
he snortled and snarled
ambition and art is all i have left since you have obviously more
beauty depth knowledge power compassion truth spirit savagery strength babies
oh…then the art and ambition are all yours
(the girl grinned) what good is ambition if you can’t ever achieve??
(Just ask any 9 to 5’er).