My favorite poem of the last two years and maybe ever.

Today I feel like Jack Gilbert.

Michiko Dead

BY JACK GILBERT

He manages like somebody carrying a box

that is too heavy, first with his arms

underneath. When their strength gives out,

he moves the hands forward, hooking them

on the corners, pulling the weight against

his chest. He moves his thumbs slightly

when the fingers begin to tire, and it makes

different muscles take over. Afterward,

he carries it on his shoulder, until the blood

drains out of the arm that is stretched up

to steady the box and the arm goes numb. But now

the man can hold underneath again, so that

he can go on without ever putting the box down.

The beauty in sadness

Was that Cliché? I love Arcade Fire.

Arcade Fire-Crown of Love

They say it fades if you let it,
love was made to forget it.
I carved your name across my eyelids,
you pray for rain I pray for blindness.

If you still want me, please forgive me,
the crown of love is fallen from me.
If you still want me, please forgive me,
because the spark is not within me.

Parallel Lines

Sometimes I feel like saying Lord I just don't care,

but who has the love I need to see me through?

It's not you anymore.

We're not even close enough for you to keep the comment

that I posted on your wall yesterday.

I saw your picture and I said...

Hey I used to know that person.

But I don't anymore.

You're a stranger to me,

and where once I hoped to see you,

to share stories, have drinks,

enjoy meals, and experience life's comings

now I dread seeing your face.

I'm scared shitless of it,

because I know the awkwardness

and the forced conversations that I will try and create.

All that remains are memories that I know you

are so desperately trying to erase.

And what remains for me are memories.

Memories of a friend that I no longer have.

Goodbye my friend.

If I see you from a distance, I'll pretend that I didn't.

I'll walk on by and hope that you didn't notice me,

because our paths will never cross again.

I Hope I Don't Fall Asleep With My Glasses On!

My caffeinated consciousness will not let me rest.

I lay and type, and I ponder the decisions that will decide

the horrid immediacy that is everything upcoming.

Even more so I think about no longer laying

like a Lego that is scattered afar from matching pieces.

Why do I no longer pray, and look for answers

that come in the form of an odd shape in my eggs,

or the dirt pattern on my shoe,

or that fucking cup of coffee?

That coffee, that was heavenly,

and maybe I described it so for a reason.

Or maybe the tangible taste meant more to me than

box top riddles, or tragic happenings

that people just assume are meant for the better,

so that they can cope with the crappy conundrums

that we call bits of suffering.

Ah please matching Lego pieces where could you be?

Where are the pieces that allow me to connect

to others that are shaped similar in size?

Of course there is the one that is shaped so perfectly,

that my piece will conjoin with it

in a union of stability.

And our pieces will strengthen

our pending project.

Traveling

My eyes are no longer closed
To the foreign possibilties of worlds so far.
Yet I cannot travel to these realms,

because I have not yet met my guide.
Do I need to seek her in some alcohol infested island?
Perhaps she awaits in a sweaty disco dance state.
Maybe I'll find her in the least likely of places.
A place where intellect meets servitude

to ideas I don't want in my head.
Or even radomly on a concrete treadmill.
Wherever this mysteriously lovely guide is

I will wait in longing.
The things we will discover will only be surpassed

by the majesty of our experiencing the unity of a nation.
A nation of two.
Undivided by God
or shades,
or bits of paper.
We will believe in the socialism of each other,

and experience moments of unparalleled happiness,

that will make the nerves of our countries tremble.

Can't Sleep Lonely Haikus

Life without you sucks.

I do not like this feeling.

Always my heart hurts.

Forever is Never

Remember when you had a favorite toy,

the one that you wanted to keep forever?

You would play with it

until your mom made you clean up and eat,

or took it away.

And then you'd pout and swear

and tell her obscenities and mean things.

Because that toy was the world at your little hands.

Sometimes, later in life, you find something

like that toy again.

And again you want to keep it forever.

But just like before

your mom makes you clean up,

but this time it's because she doesn't approve of the toy.

Or maybe it's not your mom.

Your friends can be jealous of the things that make you happy.

They see your wonderful toy,

and they'll do anything to take it away from you.

And still maybe it's the men from a God,

who tell you that toys like your favorite one

are not to be brought to church.

After all there's only one right way to heaven,

and it's not through toys that corrupt your so called purity.

And despite all this,

you'll keep the memories of that toy.

You'll want to keep them forever,

but nothing lasts...

dreams of forever

are equal to never.

My Professor Sucks

If I could be anywhere I'd be in bed with her.

Away from this professor, and his monotone of inexperience.

Unsure, his lack of swagger destroys the class' attention span

like a Vicatin kills pain.

I'd rather be just waking up with her.

Holding her delicately clothed self

and smelling the sweet warmth from her chocolate skin.

Feeling her breath and her little twitches

and awaiting our awakening so that we can be

each other's morning caffeine rush.

Afterwards, when her lovely black like coffee hair

is draped on my pillows,

and we're done living inside of us I'll open my eyes and be back in class.

Thinking about yesterday in its majesty, and looking toward tomorrow,

and loving how I'm going to explore every inch of her being.

Through The Written Connection

We are so connected you and I

that I can feel you through your words.

Not your words spoken, but your written words.

The characters I see in your text messages

do not simply state the intended thoughts

that you have iterated.

No, oddly enough I can feel your moods, your anxieties,

and even wishes to continue to be barely conjoined.

These last two months

I could feel your numbness to our situation.

It was buried

in the plasticy black casings,

of the Helvetica symbols,

written in the social networking sites

that we gather in.

Yet last night in your Verdana styled email

I felt beyond the longing that you wrote about.

Beyond the little letters

I once again felt your head

draped on my shoulder.

I heard the heartache in your voice,

and I saw a tear lined smile.

For buried deep within those sans serifs

were the things that we will always remember.

And when you texted "Yay!" to me

I knew it wasn't just rejoicing

that I had read your email.

I could feel a sense of hope

reaching out through those html codes,

and the something that said

we will always be connected,

and I will always love you.

Slow Burning Pain

Like cloggy saturated fats in your veins

it slowly matriculates into your bloodstream.

Cuts off the blood flow to your extremities,

and numbs the sensations that they once felt so irreplaceable.

The disease drives into your brain.

Destroys the vivid things you keep stored in old film canisters.

Implodes your senses so that you smell

only the scents that have been contaminated

with the rancidness of decay.

Erases the wheel of color that your eyes

have pictured for your pleasantness,

and eliminates all of the auditory joy

that you've searched so long and hard for.

When it's at your heart, at your soul

you realize that it won't simply turn off the ignition.

Your motor will still run,

and your heart will still pump.

Except you won't want them to anymore.

You'll want that engine to explode,

for the cancer to consume the aching cells of your mangled body.

But when it finally does.

When finally the film canisters have been destroyed,

the pictures burned,

the sensations forgotten,

and the scents have dulled.

You can rejoice in your resurrection.

For the virus didn't kill you,

just remake you.

Our Cabinets

I knew I liked you when I heard Lykke Li

wailing on the background of your

white colored victorian-textile-patterned myspace page.

Her song drifted to me like little ants to a piece of food

left on the sidewalk to long.

Your jeans clinged to you so extra skinny and there

on that chair you lounged so seductively

waiting and wanting, yet napping.

We exchanged music last night

and we opened the file cabinets of us

the ones that say, "I like this sort of stuff."

The ones that say here you are,

here is a piece of me.

You can have it.

We Will Walk Through Graveyards

We will walk though graveyards together,

and take our tombstones away from the mourning.

They will sit in the sun eat late,

sleep in, and drink early.

They will grow moss in the damp misty settings

of our Skins.

One day when they are one,

no one will have seen them.

And we'll think about those things we watched

when we were discovering our Youth Novels.

Oranges

I love fruit. 

The apples, and bananas, oh and peaches.

Those are great.

But I enjoy eating an orange the most. 

I've been eating this particular orange for months now.

Months, and yet it still isn't overly ripe, rotten or whatever

other kinds of odd happenings happen to old fruit. 

The other day however, I was about to eat a piece,

when I realized that it was no longer an orange.

It had become a grapefruit.

I'm not sure if I like grapefruit.

Drops

At times I think our thoughts go on with hope.

They run like drops of water trickling down.

Into caverns where surely they will float.

Or maybe they will go and die and drown. 

It's sad to know our drops will cease to live.

They cling and merge into their lives to say,

we can't, we won't, fuck it, we won't forgive. 

Stand back, let us just die and go away. 

So we can turn our drops into a pool, 

and we can swim, and we can splash and shit.

These thoughts think that these thoughts are really cool.

Like water merging it sounds like a fit. 

But no, we know that time will fuck it up.

They'll take our drops and drink them in their cup.