April 1: Stuck

You can shake sugar,
shake-a shake the apple tree,
but you'll never shake like glue.
No-sir-ee, I'm gonna stick
the apple,
the stuck you'll never shake.
Gonna run my fingers.
Shake-a shake.
Tighter.
Squeeze.
Because, because
your long black hair
keeps us tied.
I'm gonna grizzly bear
like wild horses
because I'm
stuck, glued sticks
hiding.
In the kitchen. In the hall.
A team of kisses
gonna do you good.
Ain't gonna take a tiger
from love. Grizzly kissin'.
That's how love is gonna keep us tied like side shakes,
like yes-sir-ee
Uh-uh-uh.
I'm gonna stick his daddy's side
tree starts stuck
gonna squeeze apart
Good.

Don't Date a Poet

Don’t date a poet

We’ll write you a hundred sappy sonnets

only three of which will ever be any good

all because William-fucking-Shakespeare

wrote 154 and bard is still a title we respect.

We’ll quote Pablo Neruda and Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

and eroticize you in ways you didn’t think possible

until you realize that innovative turn of phrase

is still a respected part of the craft

and all of us have this egotistical desire

to create something original.

The worst part though, is you’ll never see them,

because poets are hoarders of words

so… where’s our reality tv show?

Our documents folder and notebooks overflow with you

but you’ll only see a fraction. At least until

we’re up on stage shaking free psalms

like children under a cherry tree in July.

Dirty laundry is a synonym for inspiration,

because it’s an integral part of our truth.

We’re storytellers of the worst kind

lovers of the slant rhyme

perpetually unsatisfied because everything

is always still a work in progress.

And if half of us can’t even commit to writing in pen

because erasing makes editing easier,

what does that say about our human interactions?

Our text messages may be garbled

like a William S. Burroughs cut-up

or crafted like the haiku of Basho.

There’s very little in-between

unless it’s between the lines.

Don’t date a poet unless you can

put up with puns and keep

a thesaurus by the bed.

Our foot fetish is with a meter --

counting syllables to shoe them into neatly ordered lines.

Do you want to be another title in my next chapbook?

how about a thinly veiled metaphor for everything that makes me sad?

Seriously?! You - you don’t mind?

Then let’s get coffee sometime.

I know this great place down the street…

they host poetry readings every week.

Recipe for Chai-Infused Vodka

Think of infusing as a Cinderella story:

1 bottle of vodka

It’s just before midnight so it’s totally fine

to sneak a shot of the top and start from the bottom shelf

2 tablespoons loose leaf darjeeling tea

You wouldn’t show up to the ball in a bag dress

so neither should your tea

2 star anise

Every Cinderella has stepsisters integral to the plot

threatening to take over the ball if not kept in check

1 tablespoon peppercorns

Impossible to overlook, the see-through shoes

bring us closer to resolution and sparkle with originality

5 slices fresh ginger

Look, you can’t make a rotting pumpkin

into a serviceable carriage or add fire with candy

2 cracked cardamom pods

Prince Charming has never looked so good

adding authenticity as only heroes can

1 vanilla bean sliced in half lengthwise

The mice and birds might not be necessary

but are your friends through and through

Mix together with 500 years of variation

Let moral lessons sit for 3-5 days

Strain out misogyny and solids

Serve chilled.

Not intended for children.

Keyboard mashing

I wrote a text message with my toes

and sent it to my lab partner from freshmen year.

It read "aanfgls."

Their reply ("Who is this?")

came as no surprise.

It just wasn't the same after I spilled

the bottle of diluted acetic acid

on their lab coat.

The Prostate Poems Part 2

VIII.
a poke. a prod.
entrance granted with copious lubrication.
again. again.
no more. please more

IX.
This tingle radiates upward
ascending the order of functions
until it shakes the faculties loose
and returns them to seminal roots

X.
Wearing pink rings two, three fingers wide
reaching for treasures to be found inside
grasping at sheets, lost to submission
gifted with a plentiful emission

XI.
beneath a shower of silvery suds
white foam sprays upward
at the press of a hidden button

XII.
this gayest pleasure
misunderstands the appeal of pegging
though similar sensations abide

Sunday has become a day of bread

Increasingly, I find myself accountable to yeast.
I'm kneaded and folded by hands too tired to rest on the keyboard.
Honey oat and vegan avocado call to me with a voice that sounds like home,
but that was never my home.
The wafts of freshly baked embraces are a cultural memory
implanted by the white picket fences I've yet to see in person.
So I substitute,
I darn over the holes of missing traditions with
weekly practice in homely creation.
It's a glutenous trap of the homemade variety.

The Prostate Poems

I.
Oh spot of pleasure
hidden from view between
twin buns of steel.
Teach men your secrets

II.
Two rings stand sentry
before the passageway of the Prince
relaxing only to grant entrance
to the ambassador of a foreign body

III.
The sweet plum unattainable
convulses beneath prying fingers
and expels its seed from
the base of a newly grown stalk
as if to say
please swallow this again

IV.
internal walnut
only light stroking pressure
clipped fingernails please

V.
Greek protector of Exocrine origin
your contractions invoke Dionysian fits
drink now of the alkaline secretions therein

VI.
never a massage did produce
fluids so copious
or pleasure so shaking
as this assault on my prostate
even memories arouse erections

VII.
This pulsing thief of reason
entranced by the crown jewels
forgets what he is carrying
and drops a bag of pearls

Postcard Poems: Glitter in my Eye

I got some glitter in my eye
It's itch was something tough
But before it fell it sparkled so
a diamond in the rough

So superficial pretty it
flickers faintly the dazzled joy
reflecting an affected happiness
the bliss of a boy

It burned at the touch
bursting into a thousand matching flares
revealing to me the heARTland
at which this hero stares

I got some glitter in my eye
it took me for a turn
gave me incentive in glue to invest
lest again my eyes shall burn

Postcard Poems: Untamed Heart

You can't take pictures of nature
You can, but how does a picture
capture the majesty of the outdoors?
A picture is beauty removed from experience
you had to be there.
You had to feel and hear and taste and smell it.
Nature is a full body experience
gifted us by our ancestors.
You can't take pictures of the past,
only the right now
which quickly fades
behind.

Postcard Poems: EtOH

EtOH
I would find you
all the more intoxicating
if I removed but two letters

The Postcard Poems: Otoko

so great
the will of man
erodes
in the face
of this adversity
that is isolation
give me what i crave
arise

The Postcard Poems

Postcards should contain poems
because the medium has the message
and the only way to share this
is to hide it in plain sight.
If it slips off the sheet,
addressed and stamped
I mail it anyway,
forgetting for a moment
the eyes that might see
what so publicly I declare.
Postcards should contain poems
because nothing else fits so concisely
on four by three spaces.

The Postcard Poems: Say It

Say It

This one goes out to the lovers and the unrequited.
When did "I love you" become such a hard thing to say?
We used to say it all the time.
I love my mom. I love my dog. I love my brother. I love you.
It was an innocent love,
a free love,
a love unburdened by this fear of an exposed heart.
It was a love that embraced our vulnerability
rather than hide it.
I understand the hesitancy, the risk of devaluation in putting it out there too often,
but how can you place value on something so infinite as love?
I have more love in my heart than I know what to do with.
My love is a gift as free as rain and I offer it to you.
My love is unafraid of politics and society and I offer it to you.
My love is beautiful as darkest nights and brightest days and I offer it to you.
It cannot be silenced.
It cannot remain unspoken.
So this one goes out to the lovers and the unrequited,
I love you.

Funny story about this poem. I wrote it for my boyfriend Ethan on May 18, 2012. I remember the date because I wrote it on a napkin during dinner with my friend Morgan. I wrote it so I could perform it at the VOX Rox Benefit show at the Underground Coffeehouse on campus. I was filled with anxiety because at this point Ethan and I had only been seeing each other about a month and I realized I was falling in love with him and didn't know if I could say it. This poem was my compromise. That night I was drinking with him and some friends in his dorm room and afterward, he said it first: "I love you so much." Serendipitous, no?

Obscene

Obscene

Sometimes I feel obscene:

indecent. lewd. offensive.

Because I can't go unseen.

Somewhere along the line

I broke the dimmer switch

ripped the dial from the wall

and started to shine.

See,

this little light of mine

has never been so little.

It's obscene because

I refuse to hide it.

I refuse to cover it up.

Because this light is a fire from gods,

a fire called love.

And the love of gods is

indecent, lewd, offensive,

painfully bright,

and hard to ignore.

I'm not a burning bush

because this voice is my own,

but sometimes the words are inspired

and I feel consumed to speak

truths bigger than myself.

Dawning

Dawning

May Erato bless these words:

I am a child of Eos.

A bastard of the morning,

with warm-tinted fingers

I rise from the womb of the horizon.

A herald of the day, I brandish my colors

from mountaintops and flat expanses alike.

I am the settled orange
peeking from the liminal folds of my mother's dress,
standing with a sentry's patience
while pink and purple

ascend the heavenly ladder

to breach Nyx's encompassing grey,

and make way for Hemera in her shifting chiton of blue.

The four stallions of Lord Helios

pull His golden chariot o'er my spinal track,

leading the Helionic parade westward once again;
the consequences of Phaeton's trial continued.

I am sunrise, the final gleaming remembrance

of sword-fire in the east,

my only guide to follow the mourning star,

that last solitary beacon, once fallen,

now fading in the brilliance of the coming light.

Ties

Ties are a temptation
when that windsor wedding of silk 

presents its dimpled cheek
to this discerning eye,
magic abounds.
Why use four-in-hand when one will do
to take the knotted neck and pull –
Pull, pull close enough for lips to touch.
Yeah, there's the temptation:
One kiss? One kiss is not enough.
Make-out for as many minutes
as stripes in today's green and gold lined neckwear.
Are you hot under the collar yet?
Perhaps I can loosen you up,
but
you look so fine I
wouldn't want to ruin the aesthetic.
The philosophers would have us believe
that passion undoes us all,
and had it not been our first date, 

I would have ignited passion
under the pink tie that remained hidden
beneath your sweater vest all night.

I Keep Having Sex Dreams About You

I keep having sex dreams about you
all my secret daylight thoughts sewn together with starlight
you take my virginity and I'm powerless
paralyzed by desire as you kiss my neck
I'm addicted to the nicotine on your breath
left wishing for lucidity so I can caress and pull you to me
but even in my dreams you're the one in control:
I'm just along for the ride,
gasping for breath in your bed, waking alone in mine...
Though I never see your face, I can tell it's you and
I feel the guilt of the obsessed.
In consciousness I feel remorse over the
name my sleeping self screams in orgasm,
because every time I look you in the eye
I feel like you know:
I keep having sex dreams about you.