Excerpt from "The Silly Ones on the Backs of Receipts"

Use more verbs instead of adjectives. They have more punch.

(I'll have more punch, especially if it's spiked.)

He wondered aloud if the world would end on a cute note instead of a gruesome one. What if our days were numbered once a giant teddy bear appeared and hugged us out of existence, rainbows taking our place?

My teddy bear Velcro is as old as I am. He has no fur left.

Words I use most often in my poems: scatter, intention, and, tired...

My thoughts are scattered today, displaced. I wonder if there is a universal mind; I wonder if said mind catches these thoughts as they slip away from me.

Or perhaps I'm elevating humanity like we always do, like we are the be all, end all of everything, when really, we think more about nachos, bills, and attractive swimwear than anything remotely theoretical and salvageable.

I would now like some nachos.

Anagrams Never Lie

Evangelist, evil's agent--
a telephone girl, repeating "Hello."
Conversation, voices rant on.

The eyes, they see
the meaning of life, the fine game of nil.

Protectionism, nice to imports.
Eleven plus two, twelve plus one.
Admirer, married,
Spiro Agnew, grow a spine.
Anagrams never lie—reveals a renaming…

Untitled

Light                     scatters, your face, lined with light and shadow, a balance of dream and wake.

I told you of my nightmare, the cat screaming in an overflowing pot, backburner,         covered

to muffle the horror. That was the last time I saw you, tears connecting      your lashes, your eyes

      my mirror. I shake and you hold me. I yearn for a lullaby so that my dreams are filled with the

vibration of your song, even if the         words blend with the stains on the ceiling, take shape in

         imaginary clouds.

Negative

A
grainy image
leaves more to
the imagination.

Out of focus, it is
an unreliable inter-
pretation of your
face—

An
inkblot for your
nose—eyes are
speckles, or holes.

Somehow, I feel
shaken, like you-
’re missing your
soul.

The
canvas is there,
but not the pic-
ture. Instead,

A
blur, a shell
distorted, re-
imagined.

No Birds (Sung at Vauxhall)

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
“If you squeeze a little too tightly, you might kill the bird.”
– Ed Gein, famous American murderer and grave robber

Through trial and error, consequence. No birds, no bush.
When they found her, they said she was hanging by her feet,
headless, ripped open like a deer. Skulls used as soup bowls,
corner posts for his bed and living room décor. Her head,
however, was never found. When he was arrested, he did
not fight. He confessed to using human skin to upholster
chairs and lampshades. When given anecdotes by a
psychiatrist, he answered truthfully. “There are always
consequences,” he would casually say, sometimes unprompted,
sometimes through a grin. “I don’t care much for birds. They
make too much noise. I like silence. I can get more work done.”
It was a little bird that told me to be careful of silence.