oscar & the wild things

Bachelor's Degree

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:20:11 -0400

Paper trophy—that
cuts that cuts that
cuts that cuts

that brands my XP
dry-skulled forehead
for what for what
for what for

that untuned urgent
grand piano
plucked a forte
‘plauding crowds are
worth some lint
a bunny dusted mopped

that floor—all wood—
and dry skin cells a blank-
et trampoline.

Horned yarn swords believe
the sound.

Sonnet of Disenchantment

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 23:44:00 -0400

This crown chakra’s pounding on
the doors, an unlit fire. The mind
matter match is struck, the strip
a brilliant liar—who wants to find

us as taped up boxes, “Fragile,”
stamped upon the package. Shipped
to destinations where, arrived,
batteries lacking. Ill-equipped

for proper and polite usage,
to the sewage with the rest. Tossed
into the fecal matter. The cost
of the pieces unassessed. Lost.

(But don’t fret, bro, we’re all foolish sheep.
Too dumb and tired—to fallow dreams.)

DRAFT

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:07:28 -0400

He said, “I don’t want
to bleed again,” implying that
I might be the cold concrete that ripped
the flesh from his knees
three weeks ago.

If not the concrete,
then the hand who stopped him,
the hurt that drove him to tears.

MSY

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:45:00 -0500

Innocence hitchhikes to the airport,
cracked Raybans melted to his diamond
nose, which scarfs a final nico-fog.
Where are you lumping to?

—I’ve just enough
for a one-way coach billet.
Your sorry burnt face will hang &
your sorry balloon is popped and raw,
………….in&out the oven.
………….It’s ashen and
…………………………..it’ll hang—

Picking and flaming another fruit,
he leapfrogs from the Honda.
His empty bag secured,
he puffs his chest and flies to Guam.

Pisces

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:15:00 -0500

You’re the kind of fish who
inches toward the bait, then
away retreats at the shiver of a finger.
Nibbling at what you know won’t hurt you,
leaving the ocean unchanged as you slip through it,
you bind my eyes and restrict them to you.

You’re the kind of boy who,
when a friend sleeps over,
doesn’t turn off the lights or the television
because, you say, you’re too drunk to do either.
But in the way you hold your arms
I feel the fear you have of me.
Turn off the TV, and we’ll discuss how to destroy the world.
Turn off the lights, and I’ll invite you to my bed.

No Lime

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:38:00 -0400

I know a little faggot
who likes to shoot tequila,
who says, “No lime,”
and scoots to a dance club.

That little faggot’s grin
absorbs bartenders’ eyes,
and they let him drink for free,
and he’ll drink them dry.

He’s been real thirsty lately,
though he’s always shitfaced drunk,
and I bet he’ll never wake up
in arms that are warm enough.

why did

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

why did
canal soot leech onto
a mix CD scratched by fear’s
unclipped fingernails if
a faulty bloodpumper
sweat the sweet
eye water to
compensate
for the
handsh-
ache?

Falling Easy

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:37:00 -0500

To be read in one breath.

I can fall in love so easy like a
baby falls asleep so easy quick and

I can’t feel my head it’s spinning round a
round a carousel around like spinning
wheels and weaving wishes in to thread so

easy falling like a beat just pulsing
jazzing dancing feet I’m falling down but
speeding up and slowly passing out of

consciousness whene’er I smell the music
stepping techno over near me kind of

losing equilibrium but not from
any alcohol just spinning in my

head and kissing faces for a second’s
time but not a second time just once and
only for a second but I hope for
seconds every second moment I am

pulsing falling spinning jazzing speeding
techno stepping easy weaving quick and
dancing losing passing kissing loving

learning I can fall in love so easy
fall in love so deep and easy.

—-

Started as an exercise in trochaic pentameter for an English class rhythm assignment.

For Emily Webb of Grovers Corners

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:35:00 -0400

Our conversations were mostly breaths,
impatient ones that feared the other’s
voice would ever split the tethers that
bound us in nervous, melting hope.

My little chair smiles and offers me the
motherly star who lets rivers chase
down the hills to raise wheat and rice
that my thirst and hunger may end.
My little chair smiles and begs me to
lie down and sleep when the sun leaves,
deny my tongue any more honey,

but I’d again trek through the blizzard
if I could start from the warmth of a
rooftop kiss that binds me in a sun
and sings joy to the storm ahead.

—-

A general understaning of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is requested but not required.

last Tuesday's abusive tempest

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:35:00 -0400

You were a jump rope that I
whipped ‘round myself and skipped over, and
every time you beat the ground,
your stripes were scuffed with
watermud from last Tuesday’s
abusive tempest, during which did we
herd the toys into their boxes,
the toys that held your face with
plastic, stubborn, immobile arms that
held my waist before I spotted
one galactic tear in your unblinking eye,
your clenched fists, your active tongue,
and hid ‘neath the bed scratching on paper.

Shine bright, little star.

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Shine bright, little star.
Pucker up like you do
after you’ve tasted a citrus fruit or
before you let me kiss
your mouth of orange and vodka.

Let me kiss you sixteen times.
I’ll count like we counted stars.
I’ll name the kisses for what they are:
Slop, Smile, Heat, Truth…

We’ll name the stars as well.
I’ll refill your glass until
you’ve met every one.
Having met you, they will shine brighter.

We’ll lie with vodka and to each other
until the year is old
and we have watched the sky fires pop
and fall into the river.

Sitting atop my roof, I've found

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:33:00 -0500

Sitting atop my roof, I’ve found
a route to the sky that had before
hidden above trees, smoke, and wires,
while I lay stupid on the ground.

The next door dogs bark song to me.
I speak one back with rough, quick voice,
then clutch the rotting, mossy wood
of lovely, unloved sycamore tree.

7th period with suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 05:31:00 -0400

Parabolas avoid Directrix and Focus
with a vertex or vertice. I don’t know this
method, so I place a 5
in my row #9, and I’ve
lost my binocular choochoo of thought,
so the test smiles bright, and I squeal that I forgot
how to factor a polynomial with four degrees.
Before sudoku captured my hypothalamus, these
fingers could scratch a brilliant solution set
with any numbers you might get
from a smart mathematician’s toughies du jour
but now my memory’s on a 3-hour tour,
so I tuck the graphite recording utensil away,
sacrifice my processed wood pulp whiteness and say
my prayers.

While you say you sing badly

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 05:25:00 -0400

I enjoy your
alto belting.
Your pitch is
baby bear’s porridge—just
right to our left,
the pianist is
preoccupied, so
you lie on the
ground and sigh
to the therapeutic carpet
of teddy bear comfort.

Smile, Miss Left-hand Girl.
Sleeping dreams
and the dreams that come true
are past the mountain.
they’ll be coming around
when they come.
‘Til then we
dreaming artists sing.
My tongue belts
showtunes and hip-hop.
My head whispers
you-and-me slow songs.

Ya'at'teeh

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 05:24:00 -0500

(1) T’ááłá’í

“Ya’at’teeh,” he told me. “That’s ‘hello.’
Say ‘song’ in your mind and start from there,
ngya’at’teeh.”

(2) Naaki

Ya’at’teeh was a song,
and to speak it was to sing,

like the wind that lifts the sagebrush, ts’ah,
and makes it tumble over highways with only two traffic lights,
or like the wind Kokopelli breathes into his flute
bringing children to their mothers’ wombs,

calm like standing atop a turtle hill
to watch shá rise in the east behind God’s tables
and melt yesterday’s wintry whites
as spring comes to warm the frozen juniper,

like Chinle waters,
washing away dirt for eons
carving mile-deep canyons,
and calm like Spider Woman on her rock,
weaving dreamcatchers and baskets,

calm like a constant drum beat,
of cast iron and elk hide,
as feathered dancers’ bells ring
while the smoke of burning sage drowns the air.

(3) Táá’

“But now,” he told me, “more people are
watching television instead of dancing,
and reading about Lee versus Grant,
not Askkii Dighin versus Col. Kit Carson.
“That’s sad,” I said. True, though, because
the girl I’d spoken to didn’t know what a kachina was,
and the flute salesman was Filipino.
“So if I say, ‘Ya’at’teeh,’ to somebody…”

(4) Dį́į́’

Ya’at’teeh was a sick hawk’s call,
the ruins at Tsegi.
It was the remnants of a dead cow’s ribcage,
it was shá setting in the west behind office buildings,
and it was plastic keychain designs
sold from station wagons in parking lots.
The horse thieves succumbed to áłtsé hashké, the tricky coyote
who makes sounds like lambs, chickens, and crying babies
so humans go searching, and a coyote has a tasty snack.

Lovely Left-Handed Ladies

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 05:24:00 -0500

K—-

Your tongue forged acoustic sugar,
and it’s still singing in my naive brain.
Your song’s been dead for hours,
and I’m belly-up on the dance floor,
rewinding, then pausing when I spot
lips carving your love into mockery.

When you left the room, the world
followed your tongue’s tune,
natural nicotine beguiling the foolish,
while I’m belly-up, mouthing lyrics to
dust-bunnies: “my girl scourged my
wooden shoulders with a velvet stare,
struck my cheek flesh, forced me
to my back on the dance floor, where
her marble eyes stole my airy head,

and we’d sung love for hours, before
our voices peeled, she snapped her lips
and dropped her voice, ran
through punch and dresses, balloons, wires.
Her sugarbaby held her like I hold this tune.”

A—-

We tangoed in the hall,
me spinning you in the leaves
and the trash that circles in corners.
My thumbs pressed your blushed cheeks,
fingers crocheted your curls.
Last fall, I hadn’t met you,
but one month was a decade of dancing.
I held you in that cold summer
until you stopped our song,
and we stepped quietly forever,
then paused to remember the music and laugh.

My Cans, My Cans

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:23:00 -0500

Brother sits upstairs,
homework, They tell me, so
my eyes keep rolling
when i hello the door and go,
me in my underwear tiptoes over
decemberly icy bricks to
my Cans, my Cans
who behave for me, just me They say
while prince Brother is televisioning,
Them chocolating him, and him liplicking

my eyes keep rolling
when i hello the spotted, wrinkled fruities
with tuesday’s lasagna
drowning in cola and ice cream,
that escaped the blackshining stretchy.
they all otherwise were deliciousing me,
but the blackshining stretchy yucked them
and that wheely plastic burning my nose
with diaper and diaper stuffing’s stench
from which i tissue-rescued Baby

december is colding my legs
and i tippy-tip-toe so my foots don’t cold
the wheely plastic heavying and
i can’t be a strongman, so my eyes keep rolling
when spotted tuesday’s cola
drowning in wrinkles and lasagna
outruns my cans, my cans and
escapes from the blackshining stretchy,
so me in my underwear cleans it
while They’re chocolating him, and him liplicking

Natchitoches

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 05:23:00 -0500

Nod your heads, boys, when I say to you:
A behemoth swiped your breath last week, and
The confidence can’t win for you.
Can you se the armies coming for you,
Hear their feet in the mud like mad horses’?
It’s true their steps are too quick to make noise.
Tears and sweat can’t happen anymore,
Or you’ll have to hide them when they do; you
Cannot show weakness, or you will be devoured.
Heads pathetically bowed at everything else, and
Everything else forced you to your graves.
See who laughs when the last gun is shot.

—-

It’s an acrostic if you didn’t notice.