bright lights, loud noises

you have a tightrope and a web

and you have just enough grace to get by but

you get lonely and then

before we were old enough for the bars we’d hit the diner 2 AM black coffee cigarettes

there was always time for one more cup always time to plan for things that never happened

then we’d try the motels and if they didn’t take us we’d sneak into the park and

there were these two millionaires, a man and his wife, driving in a luxury car down an empty road somewhere in the west

they were driving really fast because you know, they were rich and they didn’t give a shit about cops

suddenly they felt a bump under the car,

“did you feel that?”, she asked

“yea,” he said

“should we go back?”

“no”

“I think we should go back.”

he made a slow u-turn

there, in the distance, they saw something in the middle of the road

“you look,” he told her, “I don’t want to look.”

they whizzed by it and the wife turned her head and looked at it.

“well, what was it?” he asked

“I don’t know, it kind of looked like a rabbit, but it was big. it had rabbit ears but it was like a fox I guess, too. I don’t really know.”

“well, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I stood on a san diego beach and looked west, there didn’t seem to be too many gimmicks there on the thin light blue horizon, just something that had been made neither on purpose nor by accident, it was truth and genius and it didn’t strain for it, it was just there, it was the hand of god, and that can mean what you need it to mean because I guess this is poetry, and standing out there on the edge of a young country I felt like an animal, which is a fantastic feeling, my skin devoured the sunlight and my ankles ached to move across the earth, raw, the way it was meant to stand, the empty hours and faces were dimensions away and I hope I felt a little bit of what the monks seem to be on about—

if I write it, it didn’t happen.

it’s a movie in my head; something that I can examine and repair, modify and improve

if I write it, it didn’t happen.

it’s a script for a failed play; the record they didn’t cut

if I write it, it didn’t happen,

so, I slept through the sunrise and I didn’t hear you straining to keep the pain out of your voice

I was in the middle of a story I wasn't sure where it was going I had just said something about a video clip I had seen with two blues players from the 30s playing together 40 years later— one vocal, one harmonica— they were at someone's house and it was shot on cheap 8mm film the singer was openly weeping and the harp player was making impossible sounds from wood and metal alloys, the singer finally gave up and began sobbing into a nearby pillow

she stopped me and asked, "so, that's what you're into?"

I thought about it, "I don't know, I guess it's interesting."

the question caused me to lose the entire thread of the story so I gave up

and we drove in silence for a while I frequently forget that things need to have a discernable point in day to day life and often beyond that

you looked at me, you had one leg out of the cab and one leg in the traffic was stacked behind you

I was a block down I yelled, “come on back” and nodded my head away from the cab towards the curb

everyone was watching us either remembering or wondering why it hadn’t ever happened to them

but you just stood there, one leg in, one leg out looking at me…

I am relearning love as the quarter pole shrinks into the distance and the halfway mark ruins the horizon,

the pain moves up from my stomach to my heart in this,

when the bottles are empty and the cigarettes lay in the ashtrays like small firecrackers used up in the morning

and the bosses wait and the sun looks down at us with disappointment

she pulled her mouth away from mine,

“you think you’re being like REALLY romantic right now, dont you?”

I said yes

then I said no

she slid down in the bed, her eyes and her forehead peeked out from under the blanket she had the eyes of a crazy person, they’re very hard to explain but very easy to recognize,

I used to have a bad habit of walking to bars, even if they were miles away, I’d walk

I made it to closing time one night and I stepped back out into the street to find that it was raining

I didn’t have money for a cab and I couldn’t go back into the bar

so I walked into a fancy hotel across the street and sat down in the lobby and tried to look important or like I was waiting for someone

I sat there all night and no one bothered me

I must have fallen in love at least 6 times that night they would walk in shaking their umbrellas loose strands of hair sticking to their cheek… I imagined waking up with them, fucking and then sharing coffee, laughing over stories about mutual acquaintances

but nothing like that happened

and the sun came up slowly, the rain stopped like it always does,

after the final drink

after you have told your best friends exactly what you think

when you’ve told your enemies their hate is correct and

useless

when you’ve walked 2 miles at 4 am back to your room

when your love is insane and crawling

when loneliness corners you with funhouse mirrors and rocket science

we have our private, invisible medals that hang heavy between our shirt collars

she punches above her weight class and she is all pupils all nerves all soul

life marches towards her and it’s a parade without topless cars stilts or redirected traffic

we laid tattooed, unfocused and discrete in a month without slammed doors, woke up with the mail truck

and felt nervous about checking the box

it was cattle shot and branded, cotton candy in the sunset, satellites and dollar bills on fire

sirens, paper bags, soft-serve, and limelight until we were full,