Tomorrow I venture into the ocean cave. Remember when we killed ten bears with nothing but our hands and a set of butterfly knives? Too often I have eaten flaming barrels of ants while screaming obscenities. It’s a good thing you have that invisible cape, or I don’t know how we’d be international spies. When should we replace our bone skeletons with those of platinum?
Documentary Poetry: 2010
The next generation has never heard of Friendster.
Consequently, the next generation does not
get your jokes.
The next generation has brighter shoes than you,
and the next generation has a softer face than you (acceptable), but the next generation’s hair really does
just dry that way.
The next generation is being prescribed different mood-altering drugs.
The next generation is being diagnosed with similar mood-altering diseases (new letters).
The next generation wants to share their opinions on the world
vis-Ã -vis music
by way of this bathroom stall chalkboard wall.
The next generation is fully familiar with high fructose corn syrup and soybean subsidies
The next generation has never used a tanning booth
The next generation has always been on birth control
The next generation is sensitive to the plight of the diminishing honey bee, the
next generation says “like” far too often, the next generation is unfamiliar
with the Seattle sound, the next generation
is pretty independent, so.
The next generation would like cheaper gas.
The next generation is open to your religion.
The next generation is sexting you now.
The next generation is dreaming of farm shares, the next generation takes good care of their dogs,
the next generation thinks that’s art? The next generation is
post-blog post-FTP post-artificial-intelligence post-Ikea post-sarcasm pre-next-amazing-thing
The next generation doesn’t know what to do with their lives, the next generation
is cool with that, the next generation is shrugging this worldly economy,
like enlightened Atlases,
sweetly off their shoulders
the next generation wouldn’t mind a fulfilling job
the next generation is buying organic salmon with their food stamps
and inviting you to their potlucks
the next generation is keenly aware of their unoriginality
the next generation is becoming disenchanted with fame
The next generation
just
wants
to know
How to Write a Decent Cover Letter:
How, in our inbox flash floods of words, doc after attached doc after attached doc
to have one’s name remembered, for a time?
(And the next generation is never growing old)
Formalities
The night before I left I
entered an elevator.
I.
Flying upwards into space or
pitching downwards, it’s all the same
Midway each dream the doors open:
Everything stops.
Suddenly the decision must be made: do I get out? Step freely
into nothingness?
Or remain, blind to the rushing air
the elevator / my protector
and casket?
I know, right.
The subconscious is sophomoric
in its metaphor.
II.
Before I left you I thought it was impossible.
I’d heard
that if you slept through some fatal, nonexistent accident
you’d simply never awaken —
Just die like that,
however you’d
inadvertently imagined.
Always wake up before you land. Always.
Or else.
Well.
Each night, my life ends in elevators
The body contracting
bones splintering,
goring some regal floor / ceiling
(depending on direction of force)
Lungs jammed between lips, liver lapping spleen, everything thick, wet
tonguey and lolling, skin bursting
a fractal of fractures, my
china plate ribs
And I wake up calmly, without a start, I am splayed like a starfish in our old sheets
heart all exposed.
III.
It is a dark wood, simply engraved
the buttons crackling white
And I press 8, because 8 was where I wanted to go but as soon as the doors chime shut,
I have a sinking feeling about the whole thing, and
sure enough we begin plummeting
down deep into the earth
the elevator and I
until
there is no earth left at all:
mantles, cores,
everything shredded around the edges, obliterated
Ladies and gentlemen we are approaching maximum height, in fact we are
now entering the thermosphere,
now entering the exosphere, oh heavens
we are
completely outtasphere, ha ha
darkness, and infinity
my elevator and I.
IV.
The other night I didn’t dream about anything.
The other night I was sleeping under the Milky Way
This was Rockport, Maine:
Insects rubbed their arthritic legs
in the tall fading grass
And across the way, a giant wooly dog slowly kicked a curved paw behind his giant wooly ear,
his faded collar swinging,
ringing
sweetly into the night
Somewhere, in all of this space
I lay sleeping
A satellite soared
brightly overhead.
Minnetonka Blvd
How could we bear to live here then;
These large green lawns spilling into curbs, winding roads
the flatness of it all
strip malls, Kohl’s, DSW
mailboxes at the end of each driveway
some with a little painted bird
Sweet mother of God I am 26 years old and
Hairphernalia is still here!
Best Cleaners still here
Ax Man Surplus and Eric The Bike Maaaaan and
Beek’s pizza —
We’d wander here when school got out and
maybe even order something, if we were feeling rich, I’d
play with my hair
like I’d seen girls do in the movies.
I stood outside that Elks Lodge the night I dyed
my hair platinum, he would see me
standing there, grinning love in a Penzoil boy’s t-shirt
and it was over, he didn’t like blondes.
The swamp where we used to play
and the woods where we built our treehouse, dragged
the slab of concrete for a table has been
paved over, now
Houses with roofs bigger than ours
stuck into new lawns like
mailboxes
and the neon pink house with brown trim has been
repainted:
a more agreeable beige.
Across from the unpink house the road to Johanna’s
has a new wooden fence, which at first makes me suspect
I never knew her at all,
she never existed
and then I get lost trying to find my first job at the two dollar theater, but when
I turn the corner and it’s there! I cry
oh
I miss you
we are betrayers! how could we
have left this place
The Swans
Prologue:
We have always compared ourselves to ugly ducklings.
I.
After the swans had surrounded us
we headed home
Grabbed bicycles and adjusted helmet straps and
got back on the trail,
to land, smack dab eventually
in our kitchen
As if all of this had been nothing out of the ordinary.
I said,
“Did you put the cheese in the fridge.”
I said,
“We’ll wash those later.”
Plastic plates clattered in the sink.
I washed the sunscreen off my face, brushed
sand and grass off bare legs.
Darling did you see the swans?