Monkeys and Typewriters

The leopard's poison--
lots of beer--
was poured in my ear.

Step 11--
Do not connect the USB cable until prompted in step 11.

The accompanying child of the fire pit--
I dug a small hole with a garden spade;

Here’s another ball of yarn!
She set up a big sewing machine in the royal halls
and began to weave.

And as we wind on down the road I wanna hold your hand.

But they want to talk to us
about this script for Hamlet they’ve worked out,
while outside, there’s an infinite number of monkeys.

Inside Today

Iron wrapped in a goose-feather comforter.
A steamy bathroom shower on a hot day.
The slipping of socks on linoleum.

Outside the window--a hovering hummingbird;
Eating my flavorless berries.
Still yet constantly in motion.

The Hobo Who Lives in Your Swamp

I am it.
Unknown and unpredictable.
My clothes tattered beyond recognition
and the color long faded away.
Everything but me seems to be the same.

I sit here,
rarely moving, slowly rotting.
My clothes, skin, hair, and teeth
smell like the swamp--
Afraid.

Live it!
Stand out--
run while you can!
And don’t look back at me.
You won’t stop.
Don’t stop.

I didn’t stay out.
I stayed in.
Afraid of the swamp?
Hell, I’ve become the swamp.

The Ocean in My Room

My ocean is my haven, my heaven,
my escape.
I dive into you,
blue water bringing life.

Your sheet spilling over--
blue as the ocean--
into a puddle on the floor.

I watch a single hair on your pillow
as it wavers and falls to beige desert.

Playing Baseball

My roommate Liam and I were playing a football video-game in our apartment. I forget who won but immediately afterwards he asked if I wanted to play baseball, referring to the baseball video-game we have. I said sure and, in a joking manner, put on my shoes and opened the front door. As he stood there and stared in confusion, I asked him if he was gonna come and play baseball or not. It was one in the morning.
He called my bluff by way of getting his whiffle ball and bat and following me out. We walked out to a grass field surrounded by other apartment buildings; the grass very wet but the night warm enough. I took the yellow bat and set up in front of the chain-link backstop near the playground. First pitch--miss. I broke my stance and tossed back the ball. It was really hard to see the pitch because the lights over the pool were blinding my dilated pupils. But on the second pitch I connected, the crack of hollow plastic on hollow plastic sounded like a gunshot in the dark. We whispered in worried excitement to each other about how loud it was and how we must of woken people up. We found the ball and continued to play for another half hour, but no other hit shattered the silent school night like that first one.

Light From the Shadows

Lights From the Shadows
It was the night of our first date; both of us shy but you especially so. You wore a black and white dress to match your black and white self. Your heels not quite putting us at the same height. I don’t remember what I wore but I felt you were a little overdressed to go see a Coen brothers movie. I picked you up at your dorm, Shasta, and walked you to your car in the on-campus parking lot. Along the way I complimented you on your dress and you awkwardly accepted the compliment. You drove us to the theater in your silver Saturn; I believe I refrained from criticizing your terrifying driving, but I was nervous for reasons other than being on a first date as you veered across the roads, never slowly but always suddenly braking, jolting us both forward at every stop. You’ve certainly become a better, yet still unfocused, driver since then. It always terrifies me when you drift across the median, not seeming to notice the bumping of the black tires over the yellow reflectors. And when other cars close in on us, their headlights reminding me of the light at the end of the tunnel that I refuse to walk towards, I nervously beg u to please move to the right side of the road and we live to see another oncoming vehicle.
We parked and walked in from the light of sunset to the brightness of the lobby to the mildly lit black of the theater where “Burn After Reading” was playing. I had insisted on paying for the tickets, not knowing how you felt about that kind of things.
The previews were amazing, as always. I don’t remember what movies they were for but I would certainly remember if I saw bad previews. The lights dimmed; the room went to a pitch black, focusing everyone’s attention to the screen. Except mine. I was too busy trying to figure when and how to get my arm past your curly blond hair, so as to reach your shoulder. I have yet to go to a theater with seats that easily allow you to do this.
About halfway through the film you leaned forward for a second and I snagged the opportunity--putting my arm across your chair so it would lie across your shoulders when you leaned back. You happily kept it there. I don’t think I was quite as happy about it since you never let me move it much and it really hurts to leave an arm out like that for a long time; especially when most of the forearm is past said shoulders, hanging out in the open with nothing to lean on. Too bad I overshot. Though it certainly would have been a lot more awkward if I undershot and you leaned back to find your head clenched in my hand as if I was trying to crush an egg. I don’t think I could have recovered from something like that.
Well, my arm survived. And the pain it endured was not in vain for it made us closer and more cuddly on the drive to the lot and the walk back to your dorm. I’m pretty sure we were holding hands by this point but the clock was running for me to try for a kiss. We had talked about my astronomy class, so I asked if you wanted to walk out onto the baseball field and share in what I learned. I pointed out every god damn constellation, star, and planet I had learned and since forgotten. From the Big Dipper to Polaris. From Sagittarius to the Summer Cross and the Northern Triangle. Or was it the Northern Cross and the Summer Triangle? Doesn’t really matter I suppose. They’re all just pinpricks of light amongst the cold, empty, and unforgivingly brutal darkness that is our universe. The universe; a never ending immensity containing all of that which ever has or ever will exist. And I was attempting to harness it so as to make our first kiss seem natural and spontaneous rather than plotted since the date began. Probably would of worked to but you were too short for me to go into it without being pretty straightforward and obvious about it. And I simply don’t have the confidence to go in for a first kiss in a manner that leaves me so open for denial.
Strange, that in the mortal world I fear not death nearly as much as dejection. At least with death, it happens once and your done. As done as anything can be. But with dejection comes only the opportunity for sadness, despair, and darkness. And in darkness, we are all alone. For even if we are among each other, we do not know. Our sight fails us in pure shadow. And our others senses do not strengthen but dull. We dull the outside world, believing their is nothing there for us. Instead we search for light within. Hopefully we find it and use it to light our way out of the lonely night, lighting torches along the way. But if don’t find a light, we simply fall into further darkness. Sinking deeper with no hope of escape until a savior dives after you, lifeline tied about their waist, and brings you back up to the world of the living. But if no one will take this risk and you never find your own light, you will only become enveloped by darker and darker shadows until you don’t even have your thoughts to keep you company anymore.
Anyway, I walked you back to your place; both of us mumbling something about it being to cold to stay out much longer. As I brought you to the front of Shasta I knew there was little time left to let you know I liked you. Possibility at dejection be damned. If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far in this life, it’s that I always regret what I didn’t do much more than what I didn’t. I hugged you goodnight and, as we pulled apart from each other, quickly kissed your cheek. Unfortunately, I picked a cheek your hair had fallen across so that’s what I kissed. Hair. I said goodnight with a smile and quickly walked away. A little embarrassed, but I’m pretty sure I got the point across since we’ve been dating for over a year now. Certainly not dejected and certainly not regretful. Things don’t work out much better than that. Because even when we are in the dark, with no lights to reflect off of your golden locks, I can always find light within your irises of chocolate.

The Lonely Aspen

The teacher walked her class of a couple dozen third graders in from lunch with a stern look on her face. She cooly waited for them to settle into their chairs and quiet down in that slow manner school children take on when they know their teacher is about to dish out something seriously scary. The last embarrassed child stopped at the end of a sentence; the words bouncing through everyone’s ears and out the doors and windows. They were escaping from the icy doom; palpable through the stale, pencil shaving scented air of this arboretum of our nation’s youth.
“Someone has stolen something from my desk,” the teacher announced, “A pair of sharp scissors that none of you should have.”
Everyone shuddered with excitement as if they were all the same aspen; except for one aspen who shuddered nervously. To steal sharp scissors from a a teacher was to steal a gun from a police officer.
“Empty your pockets onto your desks and leave your pockets turned out. All of you.”
Now two students we’re shaking nervously; the rest still with excitement. One of the two had actually stolen the scissors but thrown them away on the playground before anyone could have known that he had them. Yet, he was still nervous that he’d be caught. He couldn’t even understand why he took them. The other of the these two was Charles Roberts. He was the only one not to empty his pockets.
“Charles?” she asked with cold stillness of expression, “Do you have my scissors?”
Charles shook his head numbly and mumbled in the negative.
“Then please empty your pockets.”
Charles took things out of his pockets, one by one, carefully placing them in front of him. A worn buss pass. A house-key with a green and blue lanyard keychain. A hand-me-down cell phone with many dents and scratches across it. And last, a small pile of change he had accumulated through the day from leftover lunch money and what he had found on the playground, which he removed one coin at a time. He liked to count it and this was another opportunity to do it. A quarter sat with a scratch on the veneer. Another quarter plinked on top of it. Three pennies, two nickels, and no dimes. Each stacked by denomination from lowest to highest, a space left in between the nickels and quarters for the dimes that would never be there.
“63 cents,” Charles thought to himself; his pockets still on the inside of his pants.
“Turn out your pockets, Charles.”
He turned out his left one.
“Both,” she quietly demanded.
Charles turned out the other and put a small jagged rock on the desktop next to the quarters, as if they were the highest denomination in the row. But in the eyes of a faculty member he might as well have drawn a knife. He’d only taken it from outside because a rock of sizable proportions on a modern, paved, and padded playground is a rare and precious thing.
Charles was suspended for three days for what he did and no adult could understand why he did it. Of course, the rest of the aspen grove understood all to well the need for a fellow sapling to find nature in the artificial environment they had been planted in. But all they did was sit there and quake. For that is all that even the most mature and strongest of aspens can do. Quake with each and every shift of the winds, as the winds intend. No aspen tells the wind what to do.
Upon returning to school from his suspension, Charles wanted only one thing. Not revenge or even justice. No, such actions are not befitting of a tree. He simply wanted to be replanted in the soil of his root brothers. Especially his friend Ryan Plinks. But Plinks, unknown to Charles, was behind Charles’ suspension and he felt a strange guilt about it that he didn’t want to admit to himself. So Ryan didn’t want to see Charles. He didn’t even want to acknowledge that there was any such thing as a Charles Roberts. To do so would only remind him that his silly and nonsensical theft of scissors is what got his best friend in trouble for the very understandable possession of a rock.
So when lunchtime ticked its way into class, and all the students rushed out with sack lunches and lunch money, Ryan did not sit where he normally sat with his lunch; waiting for Charles to arrive from the cafeteria. That day, and for all the days of elementary school to follow, Ryan strategically sat with his classmates at a table that only had enough room left for Ryan. This would insure that Charles couldn’t sit with him.
As Charles left the cafeteria register, tray in hands and counted change in pocket, he quickly noticed the absence of his friend. After doing a quick scan of the tables, Charles saw Ryan chatting, eating, and generally avoiding eye contact with his friend turned fall-guy. Charles, in his fateful ignorance of the situation, walked to the table. Ryan sat on the edge of the seat so their ensuing conversation was kept mostly to themselves.
Their conversation didn’t go well. From the perspective of anyone in that lunchroom who had decided to observe, it seemed that the conversation started pretty normally, except that Charles was the only one speaking. As he continued to speak, and Ryan just quietly sat there, Charles’ movements and expressions became steadily angrier. Eventually Charles tossed down his tray and, in a crying fit of rage, knocked Ryan off his seat with a flailing right hook to his chin. Charles and Ryan were never seen talking together again. Few people at all ever talked to Charles again. He had acted against the winds. He had flung his limb through the wind; rustling the leaves and snapping the twigs of another, and therefore, himself. He had taken on the actions destined for wind, not trees. Blasphemy.
The missing scissors were never brought up again and quickly forgotten by all who’d been involved in the incident, but Roberts’ suspension and assault loomed over him and his reputation amongst classmates, parents, and teachers until he was presented with the opportunity to begin anew in middle school.

I Write...

...because I have been told to
because I have been told not to

out of boredom
out of excitement

when it is dark, late, and lonely
when it is bright, early, and crowded

when I need to
when I really should not

when I am inspired
when I need inspiration

to find myself
to find another

for romance
for vengeance


because I am good at it
because I need to be good at it

because it is what I do
because it is what you do not

so thoughts do not die
so ideas can be born

under pressure
when nobody cares

when I can not sleep
when I dream

out of pity
out of despise

never for others
always for the world

under the influence
over the habit

into the night
until another day

in my room
in my world

to find hope
to demolish what is left

to scramble brains
to expand minds

so I can sleep in the day
so I can awaken at night

so I can be anything
so I can become nothing


to slip under the radar
to charge head-on

so you will leave me alone
so you will come back again

in reverence to the light of stars
for fear of the darkness behind them

of life
of death

without hesitation
with full procrastination

on paper
into minds

to learn
to teach


when deceived
when reprieved

in a cave
at a carnival

when my muse is around
when I write behind its back

when they had it coming
when they are too innocent

with pen or pencil
with Mac or Windows

about fire
about ice

when I am tired
when I am enticed


for me
for you

I write.

My Dad's Cousin

My dad often speaks of his cousin. I guess it's his don't do drugs speech. The one who was a soldier in Vietnam. Dad said he was one of a group of men who’s pictures made historical, headline news. The photographs were of the soldiers smoking weed out of the barrel of a gun. My dad’s cousin was demoted back down to private for it. He’d stayed longer than a draftee was required. He was doing well as a soldier till those photos hit the news.
He didn’t mind killing people. Before he’d been sent over he and his brother were always fighters. They spent high school hanging with low-riders, taking downers, and picking fights. Violence didn’t bother him. He left Vietnam because of the dismemberment.
His fellow soldiers would dismember the bodies of the enemy. They’d remove the heads as trophies and wear the ears as medals. My dad’s cousin didn’t like that. Once while posing for a photo, a fellow soldier came up behind him with a head in each hand and held them above my dad’s cousin’s shoulders as the photo took. That’s when he decided to leave.
It seems they were all taking the heavy drugs sold to them by the natives. He told my dad a story about it. A young boy came up to him and the platoon to make money off of a sticky, red resin he presented to them on a plate. The soldiers smoked the opium and were barely able to crawl back to their tents. They were sure they’d been set up. The kid must have been in league with some Vietcong. They’d come in while they couldn’t move and massacre them all in front of each other. They simply wouldn’t be able to resist them.
They all woke up alive the next day. The kid was just making money. When my dad’s cousin came home he didn’t show for his welcome back party with family; my father included. His cousin had gone off with friends from the airport to go shoot up somewhere. He didn’t go home that night.
My dad’s cousin died many years later. My dad’s cousin died dirty. My dad’s cousin died a dirty junkie’s death. He was a decorated warrior. As a soldier, he’d almost made a career and a life for himself. He became a part of media history. He didn’t want these things. He only wanted the red resin. His brother now preaches repentance and reform to prisoners.