i asked for prompts
from friends
on facebook
(thank you)
they are
the italics
rest is
the poem
picture of a temple on a jungle hill, jeremy
looking up through
jungle brush
a temple is painted
on a rock that pierces
bright clouds
i carried my orange banner
many miles
to ascend the hill
and place my flag
among the works of
the great romantics:
blake, nabokov, plath
standing at the foot
of god’s pagoda
it feels it may vanish
if i take even one step closer
a mirage
a photograph
a dream
letter to the weather on a hot day, stephanie
you give a soggy grey glow
and i sit in the greenhouse
you had me sticky in bed this
morning, my feet eager for
the cold shower water
finally drenching a reluctant spine
you sucked my will to achieve
but neither could i mourn
sunk in the hazy doldrums of your
wet heat
talking to a stranger outside a restaurant, jenny
i was going to
trudge back into drizzly swelter
(the host said “one hour”)
when I saw you.
something about
the angle of your phone said
“available”
you came from the same state as me
our brothers competed in soccer
“seven people died climbing everest this year”
you mention.
i look down, holding an orange flag
i see the detail of the fabric, not orange at all
but thin red stitches over golden yellow silk.
the table is ready
feeling of leaving a place you’ll never come back to, tammy
wet eyes scan the horizon
a smile on my lips
life isn’t long enough
to rebuild
your wonders
or short enough for me
to stay here forever
so i fall to my knees
gathering two tight clenched fistfuls
of your dusty soil
letting wind catch the particles
slips from grasp
recover or reconstruct familiarity, elizabeth
a peppery flavor to the
splash of crimson in your
gold nasturtium
feels familiar.
given even the purest water
that bouquet will wither.
just down the path there is
an emerald hillside
where spicy flowers grow.
these are new flowers
with the same name.
growing up, mo
remember when we were kids living on the north side?
things were complicated back then
but now things are simple
but now we’re told they have to be.
i used to wander in the hills of Oakland
listening to deltron
on a panasonic portable CD player
two double A batteries
lost somewhere in the
electrocrackle of a hot vintage porn
swarming with dream life
spirits and hallucinations.
trees don’t get me as high any more
but i’ll
still go half on sack with you,
dusting off my purple motive.
do we have to settle down?
i want us to settle up.
to put the same orange flowers
on that one ikea table
every day to
make it new.
shopping at Costco, vikram
is this being grown up?
when i push the cart aisle to aisle
drive it like it's stolen
because we’re gonna expense this:
brownie bites
coconut oil, olive oil,
twenty dozen eggs,
spices, cereals, earplugs,
jam.
there’s a proud
snap-worthy moment
when we pull up to the register,
cart filled past capacity
the man at the door signs off on our load
and we start wheeling it
towards the landfill
a couple of ants.
a golden retriever named Theo, summer
bleached targaryen mane
you were the star at graduation
the falcor in my
neverending insta story
what made me happy were
your pouty eyes
your triumphant shlump back into the dog
bed home from a walk
for those three days before
my date
you were the perfect digital wingman
if i walked you, you’d be grateful
but if not it would be chill too