For Ginsberg

-Author's Note: This is not the original (or ideal) formatting for this poem, but it's the best I can figure out for now and should give you an idea of where the breaks and indentations are supposed to be.



Laundry room at night with its musty breaths
exhales your troubled, semi-Freudian pseudo-wisdom
....great soap-smelling draughts down my back.

So much in love with vanity that I want to stop reading
stop eating over-processed semi-political platforms
....though I can’t smoke like Kerouac or type like him either

And I don’t know anything about the East or West
USA, plus I’d be too scared to be high, but
....maybe I see what you meant (…or might’ve meant).

Drip closer, smear a phrase or two from your paper
to my finger like honey or ketchup or whatever condiment
....helps me choke you down and call it good.

Translator sits in my eyes, tries adjusting for
more years than you ever hoped for
....Some angel-haired boy somewhere is probably thinking of you too.

It spills effervescent, transcendent, maybe false and I think
maybe my high came built it, something you lacked
....I’m sorry for everything we don’t share

Because I might never be anthologized, canonized
enlightened beyond my own well-being and maybe
....I’m not the best mind of whatever generation I’ve decided to be this week.

Hard Lemonade

I went to the place
by the creek
where I thought
you could make me happy
even though I’d lost my faith in joy.

I was alone
and there were empty bottles
of Mike’s Hard Lemonade
in the sand.

More than likely
it was not your lips
that drained those bottles,

but it was your lips
that spoke one night,
draining me.

Insomnia

The placebo effect
of my play-acted independence
slips chilly
down my throat
and stops the shaking of my shoulder blades.

My toes curl in on themselves
and whisper to each other.
“It’s almost two AM.
She should be asleep.
Can you feel the sweat pooling?
Me too.
How disgusting.”

White noise in the background
persuades my eyelids open
and fists closed,
almost as disturbing
as the silence.

And you are so far,
so distant
from this pooled sweat and medicated-stillness.
How can I hope to explain
everything that happened
before you came?

On the wall
in my friend’s fragile-lettered hand
is taped a card shouting
“Maranatha!”
and, in my blasphemy
my ribs compress
and sigh
“Yes.
You.
Come quickly.”

A La Gregory Peck

Paleness over a black collar
hair pushed back and gelled
á la Gregory Peck
in Roman Holiday,
but I’m not Audrey Hepburn.
I can cut my hair,
walk ballet-like
and mumble French,
but I never learned
how to fill up a room.