Monday, April 7, 2008

teenage symphony

in the morning
when the sun pulls shadows
to the roof of my bedroom
I drink coffee

in the evening
which never comes quick enough
as the moon sucks shadows
back into its swollen glands
I drink beer

the irony is that
too much of either
result in a headache
at some point in the morning

and these tensions
which knot themselves up and swell
in the architecture connecting
my brain to my spine
and pulse like a thermal bullfrog
seem like such a staple of adulthood

and adulthood is useless
when everything seems teenage

if you don’t believe me
set down your glasses tonight
and walk out into the driveway
the atmosphere is wallpapered
with photonegatives of bad skin
white head stars

it’s things like this
that keep me tossing
plastic cups into orbit
on the way to the sink

and finding out how many
pretzels the dog will eat
before refusing them

and in case you’re curious
seventy four
the same number
of bites the pale barking
universe usually has of us
before tiring and tossing us off

working out



before the treadmill
I am lifting weights
in the silent garage
this afternoon
only with
the meeting
and separating of metals
and the interrupted dark

I had a dream last night
of you standing in the tundra
with the dogs
your lungs exposed and filled with milk
vibrating like two engines

my brother was pressing bullets
into the snug slots of your spine

you were spitting the cold cylinders
from where your skeleton
comes through your gums
like a few white wolves
appearing at the mouth
of a cave

when I was younger
I wore metal snakes
around my waist
and two ears on each side
of my face
and no dreams as these danced between them

off the pool

i have brought my dog
to a neighbor's pool
at night, when the light
moves on the water,
as a shimmering
set of swords drawn quick
from their sheaths,
producing that sound
that lisp of metals
you know which sound
im talking about, don't you?
that single whisper of ears
falling from
the faces of men
on bent, wounded horses,
that song
of millions of years
moving beneath
the water like a dragon
like an accordion
like a deck of cards
and here, here
is the connection, if you
are getting impatient:
as i rake my hands
across his warm
breathing body,
through his fur
and come
across scalped
grapes and growths
i come across his cancer
and in battle tomorrow i will
think of him, and hope
the mannequins i stood
in the dark house
before his cage
are frozen fending off loneliness
and mortality.