Inconsequential isms
Please ignore this note I’m sliding under your nose
I’m waving it out the window at you,“goodbye, have a nice day at work” I sing out the window while
waving the note, and I recede to the parlor
to try and figure out the best way to cut avocados
I have a knife and four avocados, and I’m taking a different approach to each one, trying to say the word avocado with a
Spanish accent, saying it wrong.
Please ignore this note I’m sliding under your nose
I’m waving it out the window at you,“goodbye, have a nice day at work” I sing out the window while
waving the note, and I recede to the parlor
to try and figure out the best way to cut avocados
I have a knife and four avocados, and I’m taking a different approach to each one, trying to say the word avocado with a
Spanish accent, saying it wrong.
-
You’re driving to work but it’s dark because it’s that time of the year when it’s dark in the morning
and there’s fog and you’re grateful it’s dark; the sun has been rising the past four days in your eyes, something you once imagined enjoying
in Florida at a beach, sipping a Dixie cup of orange juice
from the welcoming center, but instead
you’re driving to work—you’ll suggest Florida to me tonight
but we can’t afford it,
I’ll say
and there’s fog and you’re grateful it’s dark; the sun has been rising the past four days in your eyes, something you once imagined enjoying
in Florida at a beach, sipping a Dixie cup of orange juice
from the welcoming center, but instead
you’re driving to work—you’ll suggest Florida to me tonight
but we can’t afford it,
I’ll say
-
I am at home with guacamole and four avocado seeds
the size of golf balls wondering if there’s anything
useful I can do with them, wondering what an avocado tree looks like, remembering something I heard:
apes evolved to see in color—to tell when
fruit was ripe.
the size of golf balls wondering if there’s anything
useful I can do with them, wondering what an avocado tree looks like, remembering something I heard:
apes evolved to see in color—to tell when
fruit was ripe.
-
You push the various buttons and operate a computer
making software, zeros and ones, zeros and ones;
on your lunch break, you go to Subway and order a veggie sub, an iced tea, you’re a vegetarian and you’re trying, but it was strange in the restaurant, the people,
the vibes, everything else, so
you eat in your car and it’s raining lightly;
you watch the drops collect on your windshield, you have sweet onion sauce on your face, but
there is something amazing about the way the
drops collect and run into other drops,
like it’s an omen, or a metaphor; it reminds you
of sitting on the floor in a walk-in shower,
counting beads of water on the glass door
the time you were in that hotel.
making software, zeros and ones, zeros and ones;
on your lunch break, you go to Subway and order a veggie sub, an iced tea, you’re a vegetarian and you’re trying, but it was strange in the restaurant, the people,
the vibes, everything else, so
you eat in your car and it’s raining lightly;
you watch the drops collect on your windshield, you have sweet onion sauce on your face, but
there is something amazing about the way the
drops collect and run into other drops,
like it’s an omen, or a metaphor; it reminds you
of sitting on the floor in a walk-in shower,
counting beads of water on the glass door
the time you were in that hotel.
-
I find a bottle of cheap whiskey
that I have hidden in the bottom shelf of a cabinet
in the bedroom, I drink this and when you get home,
I brush my teeth and my tongue, butyou know I’m drunk because I’m always drunk,
I roll the avocado seeds across the concrete floor into
a pile of them in the corner, I am a little stumbley, but
there is a pain in my lower back that keeps me awake,
I find the note in my pocket and with a dumb gesture, mock myself for waving
it under your nose this morning, and
I write a grocery list on one side of it, mostly alcohol, the other side,
the side I waved under your nose, is the obituary of a person we sort of knew,
someone who was at the same bars we were at,
when we started, a friendly guy, but nonetheless,
someone that is dead.
that I have hidden in the bottom shelf of a cabinet
in the bedroom, I drink this and when you get home,
I brush my teeth and my tongue, butyou know I’m drunk because I’m always drunk,
I roll the avocado seeds across the concrete floor into
a pile of them in the corner, I am a little stumbley, but
there is a pain in my lower back that keeps me awake,
I find the note in my pocket and with a dumb gesture, mock myself for waving
it under your nose this morning, and
I write a grocery list on one side of it, mostly alcohol, the other side,
the side I waved under your nose, is the obituary of a person we sort of knew,
someone who was at the same bars we were at,
when we started, a friendly guy, but nonetheless,
someone that is dead.
An Attic is the Place
I’m still in love with you when I’m drunk.
>see me
crooked and there like a
torque-eroding bend of the waist
like carrying a box would unscrew the spin.
I’m still in love with you when I’m drunk.
>see me
crooked and there like a
torque-eroding bend of the waist
like carrying a box would unscrew the spin.
-
I will spend all my money on nothing
>it’s easy
instant coffee easy like
sleep-stiff drool easy as god’s hunger
for light and who says? “sin is just the dark when he’s gone.”
-
Most of my difficult decisions involve cheese
>i’m worthless being
tears for fur and half-
led lives, half-led hours, half-
baked memories, concerned with half-and-half-.
-
My blood is made of electric space.
>drink-a-hallism
i am sun like starburst
infected ultraviolet leafs of nerves
that sink and get stuck between layers of thin air.
-
I spit on the sidewalk.
I am king of the desert
I hide in the leaf pile on the street.
I can’t work a fire extinguisher.
with dead battery carbon monoxide alarms.
I’m texting and driving and drinking and steering with my knees.
-
take this down quickly—I’m in a convertible—I’m going to Los Angeles—engrave your memory—and shut up—while I’m gone—shut up about me.
from no FRIENDS & MONEY to yes TREAD MILL & WHISKEY
Some People are Sending Each Other E-mails About Tiger Woods—the same kind of people that pay other people to count the days of the Mayan Calendar.
Some People are Sending Each Other E-mails About Tiger Woods—the same kind of people that pay other people to count the days of the Mayan Calendar.
-
There’s over 666 days on the Mayan Calendar.
-
Children huffing, puffing on a playground somewhere.
life hanging upside down on
jungle gymnasiums
life hanging upside down on
jungle gymnasiums
-
The devil is massaging lies out of the throats of one million footless snakes but everybody lies so no one believes them—Immanuel Kant, all in green, sits in the lotus position with a loose eyeball levitating near his forehead.
-
The children discover monkey bars and
jump off the swings at their highest trajectory,
some play basketball and
competition gets drilled into their souls
like heavy thunder
jump off the swings at their highest trajectory,
some play basketball and
competition gets drilled into their souls
like heavy thunder
-
Deep beneath the playgrounds of a state: charcoal splattered faces siphon tequila from the dirt—panning golden anejo from the dry hills; on the other side work boots stomp the ground compressing whiskey saturated soil into diamond.
-
Unveil the false disjunction: organic and
inorganic
It’s known anyway between every fold of the brain,
between every zero and one.
inorganic
It’s known anyway between every fold of the brain,
between every zero and one.
-
Deep above the playgrounds of the state: Tiger Woods enjoys lemonade in a golf course higher than heaven, the ice cubes in his drink are whiskey diamonds; he floats through the museum of Science and Industry, pondering the distinction between organic and
inorganic
he floats on top of
E-mails About Tiger Woods.
inorganic
he floats on top of
E-mails About Tiger Woods.
__________
captain j. moses is an award winning writer having won first place prizes in the stark-tinkham writing contest for nonfiction essay, humorous poetry, and philosophy essay. for work, he is a philosophy instructor and pizza delivery guy. he has an above-average amount of nightmares, and he likes music. he coauthors a poetry blog with maeve deswaynyo at unspecializeart.tumblr.com.
captain j. moses is an award winning writer having won first place prizes in the stark-tinkham writing contest for nonfiction essay, humorous poetry, and philosophy essay. for work, he is a philosophy instructor and pizza delivery guy. he has an above-average amount of nightmares, and he likes music. he coauthors a poetry blog with maeve deswaynyo at unspecializeart.tumblr.com.