Secret Identity Confusion
He drives home to his bat cave
So I wait for his return down the hall from his room
I guess that just makes me further from home
He can’t hear the red in my voice
So my mother calls again just to make sure
Modest thought and wonderful listless
July 28, 1999

8:00 Wed. Evening
Battered brain lumbers to auditorium A
Social constructions and missed rendezvous
Mixed because my head is separating terms
20 hours depleted by food and the telephone
never enough. 42 hours without
depletion
insanity. True, the point of surrender
drops quickly
Dec. 8, 1999

Nostalgia
A strong wind whipping the scent of freshly cut grass
Across the field behind the playground
Where I found the arrowhead
Hot pinch of stinger inside the shoulder of my t-shirt
Callused foot bottoms mildly poked by
Driveway stones
Camping near a green pond with small
Frogs splashing
The snap of taking my first stud earrings
Out to put in new pink and yellow
Ice cream cones
Rivers and their tributaries eroding my sandbox and floating
My brother’s he-men to the wooden corners near the grape vines
Laying face-toward-the-sun on a partially
Deflated
Inner tube in my neighbor’s above ground pool
The rubber prism grip on my pencil the first time I wrote my own name and
That wonderful new car-type smell
Hay stuck in the rolled bottoms of my
Jeans after looking for kittens in our hay loft
Fighting the force field holding my arms to the wall when
My evil brother “lex luthor” wanted to stop my wonder woman powers in
Matt’s basement
Going to visit Aunt Darlene and Uncle Ken in Cincinnati, excited to eat
Sugar smacks or any cereal our parents wouldn’t allow our flourided teeth
To chew
Rolling down a scorching sandune with sand in my bathing suit
Aug. 15, 2002

Vicariously, Politically Incorrect
During the football games these men are doing other things
Which they deem more important because they
Have no choice
Or because they feel trapped in a routine
Or they can’t face their lives
Without self medicating
Poverty, low self esteem, broken soul

Negros and the night watchman are more similar in their shame they
Have no choice
Polacks may be alcoholics or nursing away problems, or a hard day at work
They may be the most “ashamed”

These men are proud in both senses of the word
Proud of their sons
Proud men—marked by constraining or exacting self-respect

Irony
Because these men provide for their families
They can’t be with their families
Why is the Pollack not with his wife
Or his son’s football game?

Dreams of the heroes they wish
They were to their families
Dreaming of the heroes they want their sons
To be
In the football game
Living vicariously through their sons
Who have freedom and valor
And possibility and opportunity

The sons’ power and determination—beauty of soul—contrasts the father’s
hopelessness and shame
The night watchman is ruptured, his soul has been crushed,
His pride and hope have burst and drained out of him
Over many years

Women are starved not for food, which their hardworking husbands provide,
But for companionship, “love”
Beautiful lines

No one thinks their activities or professions
Are heroic and no one, not even their families
Respect or thank them
This absence of gratitude is like
Those winter Sundays
Even though the workers families probably appreciate the hard work the fathers
expound
They don’t acknowledge
Just as the son whose father warms
The house for him every morning.
Aug. 15, 2002

Faithfully Intoxicated
Amid mastodon faith
I shirk fully comprehending my duty
Where I walk more cautiously,
I have stumbled
Cower beneath thundering, righteous
Hooves with integrity
And attempt to awaken
I observe through calloused pupils
Like the bulbous bottom of a beer schooner
Your pressures, your strengths
Shudder from the painfully vivid
Reality we endure without intoxication
Drumming my finger tips on your skull
Maybe you’ll also wake
April 28, 2002

On the Road
Watchful, weary
Uphold your hold on novelty
Two weeks to know me,
Two moments to forget
Where you wear me, aware
Of the lack of commitment necessary
Flailing, keep from failing
Bad days good nights another
Solitary lunch
Poetry on napkins
Bypass passive hesitation by
Ordering another
Repeat receipts for familiar faces
Digital memories of each
Leave the landmarks
And leave my mark
April 30, 2002

Who?
She wipes crushed epiphany from her cheek
Smiles and says, “you’re ok, too”
She once learned the stealth of spellbound
Merry-go-round self-transformation
Always another creation
Of her own
Learned to tie her shoes early
And now walks bare soled
To bear which soul she chooses
To define her today
May 6, 2002

80 MPH
What calms better than
Cuticles when driving?
Directionless mastery
Sooths every pore with
Pounding cool air that
Still holds a memory
Of the day
Roll the window down a
Bit further
Gravel road and paved
Plan, but not until tomorrow
May 7, 2002

Comfortable Relapse
No, but two wrongs makes a hypocrite
You’re awfully nobel
Somewhat lame
Your are wrong like beastiality
But much less sick
A taboo term for you, you
Fear the association

The next morning of our relationship—
No makeup and foul breath
Turn away in disgust or to spare the other?
The point of no return

Hide from the things you fear
I take cover from you
May 7, 2002

Justin
White the way its supposed to be
White the way the grass sleeps
Memorable masterpiece
Green the way its always been
Green beneath the happy grin
Aggressive behavior and
Jarhead scowls
June 25, 02

Cards in Car
I live in monetary desolation
Hopeful ruin without exhaust
Where I beg for my drinks but
Reside in luxury
Avoiding mean finance through
Others that love me
Happily chat with my potential assets
Curse them after positive yet unwanted response
Solve this with new credit card,
Pasta in a box and stubborn demand
Adult demeanor or satisfaction
The meaning and benefit of both, but
Possible like a cold July in Orlando
June 28, 02

Create
Embryonic mishap
That was our fate
Bastard of social conformity
Stop all to prevent deformity
Look now at what you create

Cancerous melancholy
Of those alone
Mosquito bite reaction
To losing life altering traction
More offspring others condone

A need to create
New born successors
Bare naked link between
Her lineage benefit seen
Lost weakness of feeling lesser
July 15, 02

Justin
White the way its supposed to be
White the way the grass sleeps
Memorable masterpiece
Green the way its always been
Green beneath the happy grin
Aggressive behavior and
Jarhead scowls

June 25, 2002

Michigan's Canada
A country of metric
Minded filth
And
Legal
19 year old
drunks

July 14, 02

Tax
Accidents happen

Cases of Basket
Seething with embittered passion
I wait and scrape and
Expect the impossibility of
So many possibilities
Back up and run over another ambition
Age defying minefield where I
Trip painfully
Wish I could move mainly
Without debt
Laborious, whittling new passions
Work toward a goal but lessens
The objective because I forever
Wonder where I went wrong
No wonder I choose not to hold
On for long

July 15, 02

Performance Anxiety
The yellow sulfur of loneliness bubbles in my brain
Socially quarantine myself for monetary gain
With more friends than I can remember
I grip my credit scepter like a competitive queen
I’m forced to present things as they seem
If I cupped my hands I might retain some of my fluid integrity

September 30, 02

Commonplace Dream
I long for banal schedule
Void of fraternal debauchery that
Eternally internalizes true relations
He benumbs any seismic situation
To spare my feelings
As I wade through dismal withdrawal
From knight-on-white-horse fantasy
I allow my delusion to fade
How I degenerate, how I long
How I let it all go to live this life
Of stimulation

October 1, 02

Pop Culture
I want to improve the situation, but
You’re like I stepped in some shit
I can’t get off my shoe
Every time I hear a
Knock, you haunt me
I keep my drapes drawn
My volumes low
Hours of repetitive
MTV
Gotta get by
You are just my friend
Forgive me because I
Did this again

October 2, 02

Hotels
There is a beautiful wasteland
Outside my motel window
Rolling hills of construction
Haven’t charged my cell in 3 days
Yet you still leave me voicemail
One more frat and plenty of offers
Long distance definitely doesn’t
Connotate this situation
Too bad I love you so much
Too bad I want you here
Instead of any of them
Mean jokes and everyone says I’m a bitch
Was I this hard to get along with before you?
I make them dislike me for an excuse
But I want universal acceptance
Too bad I don’t love them

October 4, 02

Scorekeepers
Temporary pretension
Staring pupils past
Empty table…
Slowly, bumping
Excited by lessened
Co-dependence
DJ with less opinion
Than I—and hopefully
Less bass.
Tonight—the bar,
And a big fucking fan.

Feb 3, 02

With Benefits
I feel like I deal with
Backlash everyday
You amaze me with reality
And punctuality
I appreciate the outgoing lengths
With which you visit me
I will thank you
With my body and occasionally
My mind
I need to be sure
More than you need me
I want that feeling
Moaning forgiveness
At least we both benefit

October 8, 02

Resolution
I can’t write shit
What if these words cause
More harm than good?
Harmless release and expression
Stokes the fire that engulfs resolution
Fuck politically correct
Forget best wishes
I mean it, truthful wish for
Your happiness
But dammit
Don’t belittle mine
I wanted “closure” and here it is
But now I second guess
My poetry

October 17, 02

Overreacting Jealousy
Too many of them make you uncomfortable
-- my poems

too many situations make me sob
I don’t want to drive my car into any
More ditches and
I don’t want to leave you
Behind again
Michelob ultra should benefit
Me in more ways than one
But last time you just hated me
Facile and sexualized solution
When all I want is devotion

You just can’t take them
Too seriously
-- my poems

October 18, 02

Just to be There
Travelodge covers the lampshades
In plastic
My mother calls after bedtime to make
Sure I’ll survive
Someone hurt me and that hurts her
That in itself gives me reason never
To procreate
She deserves mad props for putting
Up with me
Let alone this level of devotion and love
I can’t imagine many others are capable,
Including me
She wants me home to comfort her
Little girl
But I’m here writing under the light of
Plasticized lampshades

October 19, 02

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