The Black Book

If i were to make a chap book, this would be it i guess. shitty.



The Black Book

Forward: A Bottleneck

Each day has become passing
an elephant through the eye of a needle.

My way to eternity ends at your door.

However, burdened as I am by your absence
I am only able to glimpse heaven from my knees.

Dedication

For all the women in my life.

You were finer
than any piece
I could write.

About The Author

Sometime after midnight, the banging of the keys
put her to roll on her side, knuckle her eyes,
and find his back through sleep.

"You've been at it since 9 and I'm wide
awake, come to bed and help me sleep again"

"I'm Busy"

"What could be more important than...?"

"Bitch, I'm trying to reinvent the love poem"

Chapter 1

Cliff Diving

When my eyes see hers,
my stomach cliff dives.

Inches become miles.

Under her short gaze,
I look down
and my feet
never left the tile.

Porno Ruined The Complexion of My First Girlfriend

I was sixteen years old.

Back then, as far as i knew
all women preferred it in the face.

Booze-Quake

Ankles book ended
my ears listen to her say
my name, harder, and you like it
rough around the edges.

I watched the clock plunge
time and hummed softly into her hair.

We rocked candles from tables. The flicker
of glow danced across her face.


A Thousand Miles Between Bedroom and Livingroom

We shake hands like fish
but make love like Molotov cocktails
thrown against our foundations.

Man Of Action

What broke
when i wrote without a hint
of intellectualism?

Sped through all the chapters
on modernity, and she:

A fearless bird
working wings in the rain
from pane to pane.

Became,

A grade-school snowday

Cold

No class.

Chapter 2

"You are
halo-eyed vestibule holding
holy-water, awaiting a dip from the faithful
fingers of a penitant.

If i knew life
from my knees, prone at the altar of your ankles,
I would pray for saint-hood
and only find martyrdom for my worship."

They Were Brown and I Loved Them

She wore glasses
and I
drank from them.

Quickie Over Coffee

As long as you
keep laughing at my jokes
and let me pretend
I own that smile
Ill keep on buying

Universal

And she told me that she held eternity
between her legs.

"What a soft, soft bed", I replied.

Lets separate the planets,
and invent gravity
within the knees of the dawn.

Together, we can create the big bang
and send all universes speeding
from our tangled world
At the center.

Together we will surpass e=mc2.

And within the vacuum,
when we breathe our last
into the big crunch,
we will become a single point.

Finally joined as one
to explode again.

Prospecter

I survived on your lips
and their upturned corners
when they are for me.

I lay claim to all flashes of your teeth.

Guide For Escaping The Winter In Two Easy Steps

1.

Look him in the eyes.

Say the things he wants to hear
with confidence, he'll believe you'll suffer
the cold beside him.

Hold the benefits close to you.

2.

Blow in his ear to create a wind-chill.
The resulting shiver will freeze him in place.

While you pack your things.

Plugging A Pennsylvania Dyke

It stood between the banks,
a rocky pile of sod, protecting
undiscovered plains from the sea
of curved hip-like swells of waves.

"Ik heb meer lekken dan u vingers, Nederlandse jongen hebben."

Then why did you let me try?

"Because it was my job to deny the cracks
'lest they revealed the water"
Chapter 3
"I dream
the sands of Egypt.

Of leading my camel
deep into the desert.

When I am at my last:

Wild eyed, sun-bleached hair,
dry knee skin, crawling
dervish with cracked tongue,
and only a swallow of water left.

I find a lamp"
Rumble Strip
1.

You are slate-smooth driven
highway kissing the dawn.

2.

The trees whipped passed the edge of a valley.
Blurs of green, yellow, red, orange
traffic lights and horns.

There is no stopping the right of way.

3.

You hung bare feet out the window,
said wed eat the miles, pounding pistons
pedal to the floor forever, no exits.
Sandy Ridge
Summer.

They spent most of an hour
at the old picnic bench out back
bent over, scraping lines into the dirt
with branches of knuckled birch.

Her hair was blonde that day.

As the sun began to set
she stood up on one foot,
pushed off with the other, turned
a full circle, raised her arms,
and spat I love you into the air.
Flare Gun
I gave her fifty bucks
so she could get her clit pierced.
Agreed it would be sexy,
relieved it would be easier to find.
I Love You
But sometimes,
I want a tube sock,
named Anastasia, pretend it has ears,
and stuff it like a liberal you.

Violently, passionately, like a fevered musk ox at full stomp,
I want to stretch the fabric of your insides.
Building A Sphinx
Shes sits on the couch
cross legged, thumbing through
a magazine article about ancient Egypt.

If she had better parents,
she would have been an archeologist.

Its her nature to dig,
analyze, and delicately brush away
anything settling.

She turns another page
While I construct pyramids for her to exhume.

We speak in hieroglyphs
allowing time to erode the nose from our faces.
Another Thursday Night Without Cable
After reading through most of my poems,
she said:

You sure do write about yourself a lot
and when youre not
Theyre all about those filthy cigarettes of yours

I leaned forward
Brushed a few errant blonde hairs
behind her ears, traced a line
across her forehead
And told her:

you dont have to be jealous
I just dont have the right words
Three Blocks Till Home
Old lady Walshs Alzheimers orders from the porch
were not heard while a corner was turned
onto ninth avenue. There was no wrinkled gavel fist
pounding the wicker in accusations:

You stole my nation! That was my blanket,
I was saving it! And you work too much,
get up here and talk to me awhile!

Instead, I heard the robins chirp a rainfall warning from their perch.

The blacktop gave way to the slate
smooth concrete of park street.

There were no discarded baby clothes,
torn off arm casts, or pacifiers
on a bed of broken beer glass.

The dogs were quiet
content with their fence
and eyed me idle through the knot holes.

Three lawns down and four feet
of bad chain link later,
I climbed the steps and turned the knob.

I blinked, turned thirty,
and my clothes were out of style,

but Jessica was home.
Estranged
Seven in the morning.

Shes sitting in her pink robe
on the couch listing family
whos survived, cried, and died

From cancer, Annie found a lump one afternoon.
Three months later, she is down one tit and feels
removed; half a woman walking it off,

In the relay for life, uncle Dave was a minor league
base runner dipping chew
until they removed most of his lower lip.

He died of old age at home in the dark

With the shades drawn, grandpa Joe passed morphine
blind and whispering the name of his first
steady girl. His wife held his hand against no mentioning

Her name is Jessica, my wife, and sends me a glance
over the the couch that should be fresh
daisies bowing with the wind, but she's turned my living

Room into a cancer ward. She curses her familys luck.

I gather my coffee, bowl of frosted flakes, and the cross word
puzzle the kitchen and decide on the den where it's quiet
to ponder a nine letter word among our old letters.

2 down:

To be removed from associations or an accustomed place.