end of january. updates.

1) Book one. Trying to get it published.

2) Thinking out my magnum opus, book two. Planning, with minimal amounts of actual substantive writing. In time, friends.

3) Poetry. It's come up again like it does. Open mic on Sundays. Writing feverishly so as not to repeat myself. Gotta keep it fresh.

New poems below, "dustcover" and "clockwork". Feedback please, whoever reads this. I feel like they are different which I think means worse. I dunno.

clockwork.

like clockwork springs up in time and winter spring's up with her.

she dances in the white outside, says it keeps her warm

so long as she never ever stops to breathe.

says she steps off time sometimes

not off-beat, off time sometimes

with her left foot anchored in '86

and her right tip-toeing 'round right...now.

what with all the spinning

she drops here somewhere

in the cracks

between warped floorboards

beneath her soul

and the soles of her feet

and if you want to watch her

be still i mean coma still

and she might not spot you.

me, i'd rather be seen.

she found me in a cupboard of time called never

right beside when hell freezes over and october twentieth

gazing back at her. i smiled and offered myself up

here i am you found me i'm yours

she took me out

and studied me like an antique doll

and held me, let me spin in her hands,

sketched a history of us and a song about a crane

into the blank of my back

and put me back.

i'm back

out of sight, out of mind, out of time

but if you find that drawer the one cracked and chipped and worn

having been slammed over and over and over,

open it.

like an antique

i like to think i appreciate in value

over time

even just a little.

we all do.

some things such as human beings

are not disposable.

she skips six months and i can't taste the coffee over small talk.

no. it hasn't been awhile.

i've carried you in my eyelids

and when i blink i see your hips

and yes. i've lost some weight.

i've taken up running

away from this kind of conversation

and i've cut my mile time in half

and yes. i miss you now

but still carry the bruise from when we hit,

settled on my ribs in the shape of a heart

and it still hurts and i still cry

sometimes.

and you still sway on the backs of minutes and hours

and break off the hands of a clock,

using them to catch those white seconds falling

in the shape of snowflakes, oh god don't let them go

'cause seconds sometimes last for minutes and minutes for hours

if you hold them right, so gather them now

but when you're done,

i think i'm ready for you to come back inside.

only if you want.

and you will age and it will hurt.

but it's warmer in here.

dustcover.

This one's still a work in progress.

This one's about music.

It's about death and forgetting it,

the rhythm in your breath and hearing it,

if I could count the in and out I would be a C or C sharp

'cause I'd rather not sound dull.

This one's about that lull after laughter, the quiet.

It's about the gods sitting chest-high in the soil of distant planets

and a little girl wandering, wearing a gas mask

and other ideas just sitting, playing solitaire, waiting for an author.

A Muse pushing a pen in his lazy hand and a gun to his lazy temple

and knowing the lazy bastard would rather die than write,

it's easier that way,

and she mutters "this writer's broken I'd like another."

This one's about half past the end

and the sixth of june eighty-eight,

it's your birthday everyday,

it's never too late to begin again.

It's a bout between the child in us all and

the news the schools the rules the roles the fools that beat us down,

build yourself back up.

Sometimes it helps to shut your eyes so hard you

erase the world outside the dark

and you see that black for what it is -

a canvas.

Every sob is a scene.

And we all cry paint.

This one's a bout between me and the me I fight to be

every hour of every day.

This one's about breathing out the smoke.

This one is for you and only you so don't tell a soul.

Like I said, it's a work in progress.

We stole the dustcovers off turntables and kept them on our heads and on our hearts, I hear it takes years off your age.

Ah fuck.

Lift yours up and put on an old record, any album at all it's up to you.

Let it spin in your chest

and listen.

Hear the keys and melodies and heartbeats

over decibels of dissonance of discharging rifles and dishwashers,

glasses shattering in the heat inside.

I know you still carry the shards

and the dust on your ribs,

we all do,

it's all right.

We all hide decks inside our chests,

it's just that some of us forgot it's there but it is.

Some us forgot love isn't a diamond stone you hold so let go,

it's a sound you hear so listen.

Some of us forgot our hearts aren't set in place, they spin sometimes

if you play the right songs.

Let the vinyl scratch awhile and I will too, I swear.

And I can't believe this thing still works

but it does.

shitty nights yield new novels, i guess.

"that's something you never forget. ever."

"what?"

"the sound of the sirens."