Poetry

I was featured here.

Apology

If the trees outside your bedroom are too low

I apologize

I must have cut them too often

too much, too even

we will have to gain perspective again

through the branches or 

through the wire

Recipe

The recipe is very simple, you

take a gummy bear and you

don’t eat it

Itchy

One more day

and the thread you left on the windowsill

will have grown too much.

It will take flight

to a land where castles are made

from stardust and cupcake sprinkles

not just for the ruling class

not far away

just like a cat seeing a tiger in his shadow

just like we used to be 

before our skin itched

Sunrise

It’s in moments like these 

when you sit on my chest and

purr like there’s no tomorrow

the sun barely rising

as long as it isn’t

this moment could last forever

Trees

To all the trees inside me:

stop it 

though an expert or two would say

it doesn’t work that way

you have to do this

or that

but that’s exactly what makes things

treelike

again

Soup

Imagine we’re all made of soup

out there in the tenements

where being solid is

bad

Imagine less is more

and yet

even here

I’m the tomato kind

with grilled gouda on top

and in my world

this is also very

bad

Troublesome, fearsome

Can we have some

gentle beats to study to

gander treats to smell and chew

To fly towards a time when

thinking wasn’t as easy

blinking wasn’t as greasy

and fear was reserved for

imminent danger

Sometimes I vomit a cockroach

I just cough a little and it comes right out,

it comes right out.

Sits on the floor like that, still movin’ a lil’.

To me this is not cruel,

nor is it sad –

it’s the circle of life and I own it,

I own it.

Sometimes I speak and nothing comes out.

Just a little bit of air and maybe spit,

I don’t dribble, though,

not as much as others do.

I clean up anything that’s dropped. Not just that

         I kill your enemies

         and lick your babies.

         I rarely drop a flower pot,

         and only if need be.

Sometimes they call me a motherfucker.

Is that a little bad, who knows. It’s extreme:

         small, but fierce

         fierce, but warm

         warm yet mute

Mute and decorated with little white hairs

         some would say it’s a

         sign of wisdom

I don’t pretend to be anything other than I am

Don’t look like that at me

If you can see my belly, you know what you have to do

Otherwise, I don’t understand what you want from me

         domestication does not confuse me

         I will always be myself.

Sometimes I hear myself breathing, nose-mouth-out.

For a little moment I know I’m the king

         I looked out the window and saw the leaves.

         Not only that,

         they saw me, they recognized me.

I’m doing alright and looking after them.

         I love you all

         I know you all

         and I’m damn good at football.

$10 for a week with moray eels! $10 for a week with moray eels!

everybody gather up – in fact, you know what, don’t bother

(it’s not for everyone)

$10 you get to spend a week with famous famous morays, the eels

they don’t fool around – spend it well

(the time and money)

$10 and you will be able to hang out with the mother******s

see how they go about their lives

(more stoic than you)

$10 and you catch a glimpse of chill, something to inspire and remind you

work or Xmas present anxiety is unnecessary

(eels show no such thing)

$10 the amazing moray eels! no better investment than this

they don’t even care where the money goes

(it’s all about the ride and they ride)

$10 guaranteed to change your life; no joke, moray eels are not interested in deceit

as aforementioned, they're not money-grabbers 

(they can't even grab)

with $10 you may understand a thing or two about the situation around eels

no pressure – there’s customer service

(your call is very important to us)

$10 is not a big price for moray eels. It’s not a big price for anything

sort out your priorities now

(if anything matters in this world it’s morays)

Listen: give me $10 and you won’t regret it. Can’t go wrong with this experience.

they wear sunglasses in Spanish and listen to jazz

or soul. They help

(by offering a sight at something you cannot forget)

$10 for a week with moray eels; give it time and it will make sense

don’t wait up – you’ll have time

(nothing gets wasted, eels provide a cozy revelation)

Kalughin​

I looked in the reflection

of an ashtray and I saw you,

Kalughin./ I smelled you in

the obsolete Lucky Strikes the

phenomenology teacher smoked.

It was the same day, it was

as dry as it would ever be./

I felt sweat and dust, sticky

on my skin and that also

reminded me of you, boy./

Kalughin, remember when

you sat on my school bag to

watch me panic about my

exams?/ It was like cinema

to you, you were laid back like

nothing./ Your most tense position

was the Ripe Avocado –

hard skin, softest inside, and

the core, like a hippogriff

on crack./ Like a hippogriff

on crack, Kalughin./ Kalughin,

you don’t have the slightest idea

what it means to be tame. It cost

us more than you know, but don’t

worry, you don’t have any

explaining to do./ Us?

We don’t get it, never will.

I was running for the bus,

not successfully, when I tripped

and fell and scraped my knee and hand

and I heard you, Kalughin./

You were laughing in your hoodlum

way, because you know errors,

dirt, blood, and the fact that you

have to keep searching for them./

Kalughin, your nose could inhale

the world if you wanted, but

you chose to see it by foot./

I went to a rave and someone

was puking in a corner,

I thought of you, Kalughin./

I scratched the bad allergic

reaction from spider bites

and once again I thought of

you, Kalughin./ I thought of

you when I prevented a

bike crash with my weak hand wrist,

and I thought of you while sadly

contemplating the inert

fruit peel on the table

and the confused lonely fish

in the carelessly designed

round tank./ It’s not normal at all.

Kalughin, if I O.D.,

I hope I go like you, with a hint

of a pipe smell and a Tom Waits

soundtrack./ Lit by a flickering

light bulb without a lamp shade,

used and left on the side, near

the beans and the cheese grater./

I went to a dirty street

market, Kalughin, and for

the first time it seemed beautiful,

and I saw you in the fish

and the ice below them, cool

as ever, and in the plums

going bad in the August sun,

and in the all for £1, the

invasive Moroccan shoe stand

and the neverending trail

of elderly customers,

being ungrateful for having

what you were never given./

But that don’t mean shit to you,

boy./ You still ride a fantasy

that changed the world, while you were

munching on McNuggets and

purring like nothing matters.

Everyday pistachios

they groove like they’re supposed to

    written all over the goddam

walls

lit with a second hand chandelier

    stolen from a corner shop

    stolen from a Neoclassical mansion

            stolen directly from motherfucking paradise

sold to the seraphims by Poussin himself

all noble they must think he is

   why am I writing like this

in any case I seem to like the flavour

more and

more and

more and

I never said anything that I meant

vocabulary restricts me a lot

cynicism doesn’t do me no justice either

    but thinking in a brand new way is just another brand of old

    what I wanted to express cannot be contained

in words

nor in words

or flowers

or fucking

dinosaurs

even though I love them I love them with all my heart/brain

    you see

    the more I look into it

    the harder it is to find a solution

    not even speculation that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to share

whatever we know from within the objects

    the subjects

has to be separated from our projections of them

and I want to, I want to

but your image is so nice these days

​The day I saved a courgette

was the day I broke into a thousand pieces

         don’t worry, I reassembled them all

         into a nicer shape this time

I went to the veggies aisle

and felt very sad at the sight of a lost one

         placing it back does not achieve salvation

         but no one gets there anyway

Many times I feel upset

at a scene not yet complete, part of a tableau

         still I’m not the first one or the last

         I learned to wait and grasp the wind

The day I saved a courgette

I said I’d never let fear interfere again

         it was a striped courgette

         it made me think of drugs and candy

It was a regular day

followed by a regular forest of here-nows

         hard to get used to it, though

         no time to hang your question marks on a line

Ofttimes things get intertwined

Mixed up from a philosophical p.o.v.

         it’s not bad or terrifying

         just a fact w/o a faux fur hood

There’s no cover for extremes

just like there was no cover for that sad courgette

         but you see, its exposure

         got it saved from a certain angle

The day I saved a courgette

was the day I put my head in the squash soup bowl

The day I saved a courgette

was the night I came to terms with this steadfast whir.

You’d think I’s gonna throw it down

on the ground

    spices for the sauce

I’d say I’m cute and late and great

to talk to

    nevertheless

    however

    unfortunately

I gotta finish here, it’s the twelfth one

but I won’t

I’m taking everybody down with me

see, I’m in a playful mood

    killers    

should just stay

            home    

is where the pillow that smells like you

            is  

it time for a haircut

            yet    

everyone is still

          dancing    

in the street is just a bad

          song    

of every swan in the

          world    

is a difficult word to

            understand    

that I just like you a

         lot    

49    

        years to

              go    

to the doctor before it’s too

          late    

at night I lie awake and write

            this    

is it, this is the final

           list    

here your favourite activities from top to

        bottom    

of the drawer then you’ll find

        my    

wish is that we get to spend it in Greece

        or    

I’ll just fucking kill

         you    

are the

        best    

is yet to

        come    

baby come as much as

       you’d    

think it’s easier but in

        fact    

is irrelevant compared to the

       memories    

are in the making

are in the shaking

and baking

because it’s getting later than poetry hour

did you believe me?

I sincerely wish you no regrets

no outdated soft drinks

no spam in your mailbox or fridge

    and if you want to eat meat from time to time,     so be it

shame is more poetic than causal

not a lot of meaning since the great abstract wave

    but if there’s anything I    

    want to tell you

    it’s to tell me everything you know about

me

in a language I can’t comprehend

so that it’s mas sayon ​​nga maplano ang maayo nga mga butang mahitungod sa atong istorya

you know what I mean

and Tom is right, everybody’s talking at the same  time

    is now to set some things straight

actually let them stay crooked

but just offer me what you’re bored of

so that I can repurpose it

    into children’s rooms’ tapestry

I’ve been meaning to tell you

    for quite some time, too

that this is what I do when your voice is too loud.