Poem-A-Day #363 : 36

36

6 years pass
& you seem to remember the cake
from the party

There were faces then
instead of paper bags thinking themselves
into humanity

At the corner of bakery
& Waldorf School was the same feeling
you always have about relationships

What the fuck

& then what the fucking fuck

The impulse to speed away
is so strong that the blur lines come in packs of 100
for $.99 at Party City

They run the gamut from black
to neon anime hair
& even then they all seem too realistic

Looming near the Barclay's Center
the Nets seem to want to play water polo instead
of basketball

And the apartment you sat in
for 7 years melts
into a pool of metallic Studebaker gold

Here is a door frame
it goes to the roof
& manages to deposit you in Bed-Stuy

Don't look back
it wants you to feel fear it can blood let

Instead stare into the ocean & feel its boil

Poem-A-Day #356 : Stuffed

Stuffed

i
The bear has a birthday hat on
is sitting calmly - pink chair - is
staring at the ceiling

ii
The eyes are cataract - chipped
glass - they are windows in
a church bombed in a war

iii
Pray at the pew of it - hard - unfeeling
the sort of colors streaming on your face
that make everything seem alive

iv
And the hat came from a night concert
the man who I have obsessed over
placing it on my head - no reason given

v
Pink like grapefruit
faded to bubblegum on your shoe
Grandmother's chair

vi
Addiction to history - ashes on skin
bear that traveled in boxes and bags
- it's too much honestly

vii
Let's pretend that we had kissed
that the chair had been reupholstered
that the fruit had been bruised

Poem-A-Day #11 : This Geology

This Geology

Elk preen on the edge of the canyon
clasping themselves to the rocks - lichen around the knobs gray and feathered

Wind boils itself - fire in the eyesockets of lime

Shapes make and unmake themselves - grasping soil and then letting it go
like birds from the nest

This geology is angry

Blood in out over - the universe begins with a shallow grave spun from a river
and it ends in the palms of a bee

Harlem Shake

In November 2011 I posted a bunch of poems based on songs that were #1 on my birthday. Then I posted my 2011 and 2012 songs in May of last year.

This year Harlem Shake was #1 on my birthday. The week before it was Macklemore's Thrift Shop. Then after only another week Thrift Shop was #1 again.

That is the Backstreet Boys.

The song is inoffensive - though annoying as hell - but inoffensive. The weird viral-video crap of white people acting foolish...just NO.

This happened because Billboard changed the rules of how they calculate the #1 on the Hot 100. They have added in views on YouTube and other social media platforms. Harlem Shake would have NEVER been #1 otherwise.

I went to college with Macklemore. I wanted his song to be my birthday #1. It would have been right.

But...I made the rules and must live by them. So. Here is my 2013 birthday poem.


Harlem Shake

Con los terroristas

with those 9-5s - making dollars

do the Harlem Shake

Walk yourself to the 2 train

take yourself to that dead-end job

con los terroristas

History in the concrete

history in the basements

Do the Harlem Shake

This city forgets itself - breaks bread

with whomever has the dollars

con los terroristas

Dance your ass off

for the man? - or yourself

and do the Harlem Shake

Eventually everything blends

every block looks the same -

con los terroristas

and do the Harlem Shake