Pine Hill #4

Pine Hill #4


I watched dust turn to mud before my eyes
And my conflicted mind was cleaned up by the rain
But my feet were still dirty
And stuck in the ground

The sun was out
But the rain still came in waves
the sky opened and closed
It couldn't make up its mind

So I sat and wondered
Why someone would carve "fuck" in a park bench
Or throw cans in a creek bed
Or hang a noose from a tree branch

And I got sucked dry by mosquitoes
And plagued with an itching
And I thought about leaving
But feet were still stuck

So I sat there forever
Because my feet were cemented
In the mud dried and cracked
Like my skin from a sunburn

Something Like A Dream

Something Like A Dream

I got turned around

On April 25^th

On a walk to no place

With my eyes half open

It was the day after a good day

And I floated unconscious

And in 24 hours

I had forgotten myself

This new found numbness

Was less cold than expected

And it felt like sleeping

But my legs were still moving

I don’t think I noticed

The swollen clouds moving

Or the pouring rain pouring

Or that my shoes were all wet

And I sat on a park bench

And I swear I saw Jesus

But it could have Buddha

And it could have been Elvis

And I asked him, “How is it?”

He said, “What have you done here?”

He said, “Where are the children?”

He said, “My minds not right”

And I walked to a classroom

But no one was teaching

And though the doctor was talking

No one was learning

So I asked her a question

I asked, “What do you do here”

But she just kept on talking

As if her words were scripture

And I went looking through windows

And I think I saw Nietzsche

He was in a straightjacket

He was praying Hail Marys 

And I needed a nap

Because my eyelids were heavy

And my legs, they were rubber

And my shoes were not dry

So I fell on a futon

In a room full of people

They were screaming and laughing

While I slept like a baby

When I woke I was older

And my hair was much longer

But I didn’t cut it

Because I couldn’t find scissors

And all of a sudden

I missed the ocean

I missed the mountains

I missed my brothers

And the numbness got colder

I guess it wasn’t numbness

And I guess it was over

So I guess I was cold

So I reached for jacket

Or a hat or some mittens

But I only found tank tops

And a copy of Dude Ranch

And at once it was sunny

And I was out at the campground

And I was walking toward Lauren
But she was looking beyond me

So I got in a paddleboat

But the waters were raging

I got knocked in the water

And I spilled my last beer

So I reached for the dock

But I just got a splinter

And I didn’t have tweezers

And I didn’t have patience.

I was swallowing water

I was reaching my hands out

And kicking and screaming

But they just let me drown

 I woke up in a safe place

Full of boxes of records

And it smelled like the 9^th grade

And it looked like Belle’s basement

And I saw Belle there crying

And I asked her, “What is it?”

She said that the doctors

Prescribed her the pills

And she was shivering  always

So I gave her my jacket

Leather sleeves but no letter

I never made the team

And I told her I loved her

But I had to be going

I had to keep chasing

My lost good vibration

And I passed by Bob Dylan

On my way to the outside

And I couldn’t make noises

But my moth was still moving

But he was holding a pistol

And a bottle of whiskey

And he said it was over

He said please don’t think twice

So I climbed to the rooftop

And I sat like an Indian

And I lit up a cigarette

And sang “Lost In The Flood”

And the sunlight was fleeting

So I stood like a soldier

And I thought of the evils

Clouds, Distance, War

And my fear overwhelmed me

So I stared down at the streetlights

And I screamed it like Andy

“I am fine. I am fine”

But I didn’t believe me

And I forgot I was crying

And I forgot I was breathing

And I forgot to keep trying

And I woke up In my basement

Which I swore was dorm room

When I first started sleeping

But I guess I was home

But the word home confused me

So I picked up my lighter

And set shit on fire

And  put none of it out

But this wasn’t a movie

And I was bound to go crazy

If I kept chasing something

That had never existed

So I fell out of love with

The girls I was loving

And I began to breathe heavy

And I kissed them goodnight

And I began a new life

On West Egg with Daisy

And I threw the big parties

And I died in a pool

And I thought I was Gatsby

And I thought I was a mystery

And I thought I was a martyr

But I had it all wrong

So I started it over

And I played the dark records

I played Elliot Smith

I played Iron and Wine

And the songs made me tired

And the songs made me anxious

And the songs made me feel cold

And the songs made me do it

And just before I hit pavement

I woke in a cold sweat

And I couldn’t remember

What I was writing this for.

Questions

Questions

I’m sick of songs

And poems

And words

About girls

Have all our questions been answered?

Where are the philosopher kings?

Where is Plato?

And where is the good?

Or the God?

Or the sun?

Where are the questions?

And the bullshit answers

Where is Hume?

Telling us cause has no cause

And there is no effect

At least the bullshit broke the silence

Where are the virtues?

Because I see the vices

And where is the justice

That’s sought at by all?

And where are the words?

The ones that held value

And substance

And beauty

Apologies and Republics

Right are wrong

Where is truth?

And what happened to people

Trying to find it?

Pine Hill #3

Pine Hill #3

I stare down at the makeshift dam

We built in the creek last summer

The rocks stand tall unmoved

By the barely moving water underneath

It was once a raging river

At least it was to us

As we would wade in the water

Waist deep in creek

Rivermen

Rolling logs and rocks

Perfectly into place

Letting the water build up

Until it crashed

Over and through

Foaming like the crests of waves

So we would work

Until it got cold

Or too dark to see

And we’d pile in Chris’s Jeep

And head to big boy

Or to DJ’s basement

To play Eucchre
And drink cheap gas station vodka
Unplugging the clocks

In a futile attempt to stop time

In a futile attempt stay right there

In the creek

Where everything was easy

And our shoes were still wet

Pine Hill #2

Pine Hill #2

I found a notebook of old poems

In the basement of my parents house

And they were filled with an angry innocence

And metaphors of the sea

I have never been to sea

I read the words

As I sat on stone

Tearing out the pages

One by one

Letting them drop out of my hands

And into the water

Floating slowly with the stream

Away

They were not my words any more

Pine Hill #1

Pine Hill #1

The water in Pine Hill Lake moves slow

Like my days spent at home

When my friends were still at school

I sit on a bench and watch geese in love

And skinny jean couples with flat iron hair

Both clinging to each other

Like today was the last

And I catch myself a cynic

Scribbling the same sad words

On the same sad pages

Each one as dark as the clouds

That surround the sun

And swallow the last rays of light

The pages get wet

Denouncing Petty

Denouncing Petty

Writing words in a classroom

In Ohio

At a private catholic college

No struggle

No movement

No revolution

Just words

About pretty girls

And cigarettes

And broken hearts
But not bullshit

And anyways

I like lemons

Petty

Petty

All the sentimental shit

Crossed out and crumpled up

Lying lifeless around a wastebasket

Trash

I sit stuck

Baraka fought the power

My poems are bullshit

Teeth and Trees and Lemons

Sex and Sunshine and Cigarettes

HA

I’m sure the man will let my words slide

Unopressed

Unchallenged

Unnoticed

Who am I to complain?

Weekend

Weekend

And at once it was all real

The innocent fun

The lights turned off

The only light

A Christmas tree

Early March

Dorm Room Warriors

Dizzy

Sneaking sips and glances

From plastic cups

At plastic girls

They looked like the real thing

Hometown Heroes sitting courtside

Spitting into cups

Shouting out the rules

Futile attempts

To be in the game

This is not their hometown

Princesses left stumbling

Toward some room or bar

Forgetting what the light was

Forgetting what the day was

Forgetting what no was

They’d never be the same

The pounding bass-drop bedrooms

Stood as no competition

To our subtle screams

For we were the kings

Of thunder road

And Whorehouse Arizona

We were safe

 Until it was time to close

To go

To swallow

Pills or sex or smoke

Drinks or God or pride

We just hit the lights

Or closed our eyes

This was never our intention

We woke up stained

Reaking of weekend

Piled into pews

Pleading for our penance

To make us clean again

Nineteen

Nineteen

Nineteen years old

Private catholic college

Wishing I was Ginsberg

Writing Howl

With the angelheaded hipsters

Listening to jazz

Nineteen years old

Wearing Nike sneakers

Wishing I was Dylan

Writing songs

Wearing boots of spanish leather

Smoking cigarettes

Nineteen years old

Waiting on the weekend

Wishing I was Holden

Leaving this

For the streets of New York City

Watching carousels

Nineteen years old

Cincinnati suburbs

Wishing I was Lincoln

Freeing slaves

Saying we will live forever

Or die by suicide

Nineteen years old

All my friends around me

Wishing I was Charlie

Writing letters

Sticking my head out in the tunnel

Feeling Infinite

Nineteen years old

Standing in a city

Wishing I was Vernon

In a Cabin

Writing thick falsetto poems

Come on skinny love

Nineteen years old

Healthy, Happy, Living

Wishing I was Treplev

Shooting seagulls

Hourglass

Hourglass

The other grains of sand

They fell through

Into a pile

A pile

Of themselves

But not I

I I I

That Romantic I

Stuck against the glass

Clinging to a past

Stubborn

Like a wall

But much less respected

Like an ass

56, 57, 58

We’re one on one

My grasp goes weak

The moment gone

My future is a second

The last grain falls

Flipped

Comes a new moment

A new past to cling to

Daydream

Daydream

Catching fluorescent rays

Wishing I was riding in a station wagon

Smoking cigarettes with hippy girls

With beads around their hair

And hair across their eyes

And songs upon their lips

Singing hold me closer tiny dancer

Like Almost Famous

But without the band

No money

No shoes

No map

Drunken teenage haze

Hazy summer days

Poems that never rhyme

Words that never pay

Always tired

Never sleeping

Stealing kisses

In a gas station parking lot

Or the backseat of a moving car

While the others turned away

Head out the window

Let the wind blow

Back your hair

Cause tramps like us

Baby we were born to drive