o, the dreadful wind and rain

the hose made a stream like a swimming pool in the alley
i could hear it.
i lay in bed, listening for the air conditioner to shut off
so that i could know when i should have been asleep.

from off in the distance a police siren screamed
from ten feet behind a baby started to howl.
outside three dogs began to bark.
next door baby jumped into an above ground pool.
from the other room a dachshund began to pace.
furiously.

from here i can tell you we are waiting for the weather to be less symmetrical
we are waiting for the wind and rain
we are waiting for the red light in the icee machine to turn on
we are waiting for the kind of tub you can take a real good soak in
and we are waiting.

at that exact moment

we watched
as everyone sat around in the room,
listening to the thunder clap
on a portable stereo
with a plastic handle while
out the window and behind another
a woman
turned a very bright light
on and off.

at night i wake up with the sheets soaking wet

the next time i see you i will be a towering figure.
the next time i see you there will be a fire
there will be lights on poles and strung like flags.
there will be a biting wind
that will require a sweat shirt.

i want to ride my bicycle around the block thirty times
and get progressively faster each time.

before i pee i feel full up and
when i pee i feel emptied and
i feel this is a good thing.

and if i see you tonight
is a sentiment that doesn’t really go anywhere.
tonight the sky was pink and yellow
and then suddenly it wasn’t.

so long

we were driving down columbus ave to oregon ave and we were next
to the train tracks and
there was a single train only the engine
and it was just sort of moving
just ambling on down the tracks
and i thought that would be a pretty great job
to drive a single train engine down columbus all day
then there were these three cargo beds
or whatever they're called
and then we passed all of that
and i didn't forget to look back on it
i just didn't.

*

i went to the acme to get some chicken
because it was not really in the oven
it wasn’t even anywhere

on my way there i walked past a long gone supermarket
and in the parking lot grass was growing
in a series of grids
which i found very exciting.

i walked down a side street and i
walked down a main street and then
several more things like that happened.

it was late and there was a park with some benches
and i wanted to sit down and just not do anything else
but it was too hot.

i am on fire

if i see you tonight
is a sentiment that doesn’t really go anywhere.
tonight the sky was pink and yellow
and then suddenly it wasn’t.

the next time i see you i will be a towering figure
the next time i see you there will be a fire
there have been two in the past ten days so this is not too fantastic
there will be lights on poles and strung like flags.
there will be a biting wind
that will require a sweatshirt.

when i pee i feel emptied and i feel this is a good thing.

i want to ride my bicycle around the block thirty times
and get progressively faster each time.

*

this is for you,
it feels like forever ago.

there are things moving quickly overhead
i think they are clouds.
it is easy to think a gunshot is a bottle rocket,
or a car misfiring it is easy to think
that everything is a threat and that
there is nothing we don’t understand
there is no great mystery here
or else we’d all have magnifying glasses
and special hats.

i wanted very badly to swing something above my head
i did eighteen push-ups
i ate an orange popsicle
i took out the chicken
i told myself several jokes
that i will never repeat.

*

she came home with a tree under her arm
i looked at it.
she was holding it awkwardly and looking around for a place to put it.
i said what are you doing with that tree.
she said i am saving it
i said for what?
she said no. i am saving it. i am giving it a better chance.

i said in the living room?

*

someone once told me that it was very important to them
to be making history. to go down in history, to make things
that become historical.

i wanted to say to them look when you make history you do just that.
but i just sort of sighed.

i thought it would be nice for a giant amount of water
to come crashing down and carry them away.
or interesting.
it could be interesting.

the 'i have to tell you something' suite

i have to tell you something

across the street from my old apartment
there are three building in a row and one of them
doesn’t have a real door it has plywood that
used to be red but now it’s white.

there is a friendly man who lives there.
when erica came home yesterday there
were cop cars everywhere
and the whole block was cordoned off
and she had to prove that she lived on the block
in order to get home
where the air conditioner dripped into the bathroom
and the cat had not been fixed yet.










it was not drugs it was better than that

in the building next to the friendly old man there
is a woman with a mullet. she was standing there
with high black socks and those orange foam rubber shoes
and an old dirty baggy t shirt.

in her house there were 8 feral cats.

into the back yard she had sent years of torn paper.

one day the old man was at his window which is six feet tall
and saw 8 cats peeing on his window
because they were walking on the paper.

the fourth of july was coming.
he called the police
in case there was a fire.

one month later they came, and they tried to get the 8 feral cats
and get rid of all that paper.


then they found out an old boyfriend
had deeded her the building next door
and there were in there about 30 empty cages
and feral cats
everywhere.

the policemen left the house.
they paid neighborhood children to bring them ice cream on sticks
and waited in shifts to collect the cats.










a series of addendums

the cats were never collected.

before being interviewed by the people filming the removal
the woman changed into a t shirt for the band poison.

the air conditioner in my old apartment got fixed.

the sun is setting
and everything is good here.

*

i felt like i was beginning to feel alright.
i went to the roof with a beer and waited for the sunset.

i started thinking about things to see if they would come true.

i thought about being buried alive
i thought about being swallowed by a whale
and living there for a small period of time
and what that would be like
i thought about a giant flood coming and everyone being drowned in it
i thought about things descending from the clouds
to take you away
you in both the communal and personal sense
i thought about how it would feel when my dad died
and i thought about comparing situations to pearl harbor more often.

i thought about global warming and its effect on polar bears
about them migrating to land sooner
on emptier stomachs
and this increasing the possibility of polar bear – human conflict.

i thought that the perfect time for an enemy attack
would be during an area-wide power outage
i thought about bringing things on home
and competitive cooking shows.

i thought about the chicken that was cooking for dinner tonight
and rapidly descended the stairs.

*

a long time ago we hurled bottles into the sea
on a deck that was slowly being devoured
by the beach on a beachfront that was slowly being devoured
by something else.

we stood there listening to the waves crash and break
because those are the sounds they make.

everything was very dark.

there were stars in the sky.

here there are just these low-flying planes
and chicken in the oven.

*

there was a kind of bland despair
and the sky was filled with tin foil

everything crackled and hummed and felt buried
or just out of reach.

you asked me if i’d returned that package yet and i said no
i said i was busy investigating
you asked me if i’d gotten dinner ready yet
and i said it didn’t matter
i said you couldn’t even see through the skin of my hand.
i said i had noticed a thin circle of white flames
licking the center of my hand
for which i had no explanation.

you said you had no idea what i’d just said
but that you wanted to eat soon.

i said the chicken is in the oven.
it needs twenty minutes.
give me a fucking break already.