a collection of poems
written over a particular chuck of time
now posted as is.

• table of contents
  – Room, at home alone
  – Being pretty
  – I do keep distance
  – Spontaneity
  – I remembered Heaven
  – Saw your little green car
  – Blasted
  – Doggo’s licking ice cubes
  – At the lounge at the Best Western Plus Williams where I’m about to order a New York strip steak
  – No, (we don’t talk as much)
  – Father’s Day
  – Pride
  – A text I sent Ryan
  
  
  
  

Room, at home alone

I’ve missed the comfort of my worlds, 
at home, 
alone–  
even when the night beckoned me toward the city. 

I’ve missed the cleansed stillness of silence, 
even on afternoons I knew Dad would bail
on one of our Tuesdays. 

Warm baths. Warmer tea. Bodega treasures. 
When the Village knew nothing of American Spirit, 
when the mind tired and I returned to the work– 
the making of worlds with words.  

The comfort of an embrace,
the one I was denied;
its absence I tried, 
to fill, for a time, with hangovers. 

Gotta try again, like trying for the first time.
Liberate the lungs. Go Burke Williams on the liver.
Until I billow with Sundays at the beach,
petaled cyclones of cherry blossom,
until the wind moves through me
and carries me back
to the comfort of my worlds,
in my room,
at home alone. 

Even when the night beckons me
to repeat yesterday.

Being pretty 

It’s lonely being pretty.
Knowing once it’s gone
no one wonders what was inside.

Sitting still.
Remembering cherries in blossom
while they look at your tits.
Ripe red. Robins at play
in the baking heat—
cigarette cavities, a can of Celsius,
mixed berry. Wanting it all to fade.

You’re never enough when all of them want you.
No one desires you as more than a thing.
They think you have it all.
Doves in the birdbath, without respect.
Sometimes I wonder
if maybe I do.

I do keep distance

I do keep distance.
I pretend not to know why.
It’s not failure—
or the lack of will
to live.

I accept the curse of my blood
the way one accepts winter:
that all of it goes.

Stepmothers, stepfathers,
stepsiblings—
an inheritance pawned off
for a Ponzi scheme in Galveston.

All of it already gone.

Love caught,
then tossed away.

And so
I keep distance
when
I know I should cherish.

Everyone has goals.
Standards.

Beating sun. White jasmine budding.
Hot wind along the Pacific.
Canyon drives, your girl on repeat
swerving Sunset.
An old man under a tree.
The harbor at dusk—birds on cue.
A mother on the platform
covering her sleeping infant’s ears.
The C train inbound.

Him in his glasses crossing the reservation.
Him without them after the gorge,
Blueberry Ridge—
where the mountains catch the light
and the name finally makes sense.

Maybe it’s always been distance.
The saturation just right.
Loving it from afar,
afraid to lose it tomorrow.

Like watching the dog heave
in the late-day shade,
imagining his last day—
crow’s feet creasing as he does
what he loves.

The two of you apart,
comfortable,
before the day he leaves you.

I’m working on this.

Trying to outdo what I come from,
I prove the way of things right.

I don’t say I’m not working on it.
I don’t say not to work on it.

But it’s hard
to forget how fleeting
tender touch is—
the shift to opposite sides of the bed
after a moment’s embrace.

Spontaneity

I’ve learned the violence of spontaneity—

that flowers don’t bloom
without patient tending.

Like lilacs,
friends require care.

One day we might see ourselves
blossom.

I’ve been beaten by irreverence:
a soiled pot,
no seeds worth watering.

Still, I remain foolish enough to hope
it’s worth growing something
once the seasons begin
to take shape
in Los Angeles.

I remembered Heaven 

I remembered Heaven
before the calamity of growing—

when you held me
at the middle of the bridge
and showed me where the river
made its bend,
after Pier K
at Wallabout Bay.

Some autumn evening
when the sun
went marigold into crimson,
before the mauve,
your stubble grazing my neck.

It belonged to us—
alone in the city
we claimed to also own.

We took a breath, a break,
and loved,
never needing to consider
what went on
beyond the river bend.

Saw your little green car 

Saw your little green car
parked behind the bar
on some side street—

not because you’d been at the bar
any given moment as of late,
but because your home
has always been behind the bar.
A thing always convenient.

And for a time
I was always at the bar, too.
Back when you and I still said hi.

Those strained
old times we once thought
would be a forever thing.

Still.
Tonight I saw your little green car
parked behind the bar
and I smiled.

Because you were home—you had to be.
Because you were safe;
I’ll always hope you are.
Because I know you wanted to be.

You were done with me.

Good.

It’s stupid,
but there was new Lana waiting at home,
and driving back,
Hollywood Boulevard
was chalk-filled, express lane,
the whole drag lit up green.

It was one of those nights
others like to dream about.

Blasted

Threw away the one that got away.

Sparkly bowling ball
I tossed,
watched roll
into tumbleweed.

Just—
jet set.

For the desert,
knowing there were no pins
worth resetting.

We’d already
blasted through them all.

Doggo’s licking ice cubes

Watching a man and my
dog lie on the turf
while I pull the table,
chasing the highland sun
before it takes its final bow—

Big Thief. Lit fag.
Tequila heaven
as the mid-desert
begins to blow its chill.

Something like release
after dipping into the pool—
an exfoliation of the inside.

Like a child,
reprieved
at long last
from the city’s tired.

At the lounge at the Best Western Plus Williams where I’m about to order a New York strip steak

Mexicans taking their matriarch to dinner
after bucket-listing the Grand Canyon,
third bottle of Chilean wine—
the niño taking his first sip.

Burnt whites at the table over,
goatee GOATs talking about them speaking Spanish
while he masticates cow,
lips smacking open.

Abuela clocks and eats her peas
like Douglas Murray.

Hick’s wife—hesitant—
burrowing into French onion,
wondering if the foreigners are Colombian
after chica número uno says
Medellín girls are the prettiest.

I want to insert myself,
insert my colonial Cuban muscle crisis,
course-correct her.

Pool’s open till nine.
Hot tub till ten.
My room’s got a mini fridge.
The dog run has a smoking section
by the ice machine
that keeps my Woodford cool.

Red clay, red rock trapped in the paws
before bed.
Golden Girls tonight.
The drive home tomorrow.

No more desert—
just basin valley after powdered eggs,
continental breakfast,
chocolate chips in the pancake batter,
no extra fee.

Just the extra hours
traversing the No-jave,
the bleak brown breasts of California,
screech-halting in Victorville,
forty on the left, ninety on the right.

Old book of pen,
to be typed into the book of new.

Knowing you’ll be there,
forever in awe of me,
forever finding me—
and me,
for once, thinking
now, at long last,
I’ve found me too.

Here at the lounge,
finishing a New York strip
and the last bourbon for a while.
Celsius in the fridge for tomorrow.

A reservation for some new stay,
maybe Zion,
maybe Ruby’s Inn.

Places now where alone isn’t alone.
Places for me, with me.
Somewhere to recharge.

To be with people
I’ll never know
I’ll come to know—
like this city,
the greatest way to know a guy:
completely.

No,

We don’t talk as much.

But he’s already on my mind—
the love he gave me as a child:
late-night drives to Perimeter Road,
watching airplanes land,
showing me how to be fascinated.

Even the love he gives me now.

I’m older.
I have the patience to know
I’ll come back to him.
That I’ll grant him
the same grace
he’s given me.

A patience extended.
An external love
with no demands—
safe harbor,
solid,
safe landing.

Sometimes
the most you can expect of him
is the most
you must endure
for yourself.

But it’s enough.

Because it’s still love.
In any form it comes,
it will be.

Even if distance
makes it absent.

Father’s Day

We didn’t speak today.

But I’m still holding on—
not out of desperation,
but from the fear
in your eyes
that I am no longer yours.

Truth is,
once Mom goes,
that’s it for me—
a thing I’ve known for a beat:
vagabond, beatnik,
no lineage left
to make proud.

Just friends who want me
and fathers who want to keep me.

This isn’t some kind of issue—
it’s the dry twang of reality.
Like sharing a cigarette with a cough,
a small poisoning
you hope makes you immune
to whatever the world
still has in store.

The necessary defiance
of knowing you’re long gone.
Over there,
as I smile every day—
weakly,
brightly—
trying not to imagine
how good it might have been
if either of us
had tried harder.

For now—
and for the days ahead—
there’s a pain I want to show,
but can’t reveal too much,
knowing distance
steals the intimacy of truth.

A reality I forget
only when we sip the scotch
you taught me to drink.

Out here in the desert,
it’s easier to hold things
when you’re dry.
Some cry—

I don’t know.
Better out than in?

I’m tired of waiting
for you to call—
all those times
Johnny walks you to the phone
and you text to say
you’re always there.

But I keep checking.
Mountain Time
is only two hours away.
If you can believe that,
I hope you’ll believe this:

like a goon
half-raised by you,
I’m still holding on.

Pride

It’s the quiet under the sun
before you’re humming
what he always played on the Key Largo
when times were good,
the tides were good.

A smile cracks
as you sort the mail.

The robin with a cherry at your feet,
taking in the final pounding
of the day’s summer.

Rum and Diet Pepsi on the lawn.
A holding hand.
A man’s warming chuckle.

An evening steak,
tomatoes plucked from the vine
you planted last spring
when you didn’t yet know
where you were headed—

never seeing where you were
until then.

Filling the birdbath.
Looking around Montclair.
Entertaining a home
under larger mountains.

A hello to Mom.
A catch-up with Rob.
Remembering to check on Michael.
Joey’s memes.
Ryan saying he’ll visit
the basin in August.

Speaking your mind
without saying much at all—
or finally saying it
after so much time.

Loves counted on one hand.
Losses on the other.
A hundred buds
who’ll never know you much at all.

Pride:
the acceptance
of not needing
to be known by all.

It’s the dance inside you
to a symphony of silence.

The jacaranda waiting
just after noon.
Moving your writing table
to catch the light
while it’s still cooking.
The dog on his pillow throne,
unwavering.

Evening gusts shake the pine.
The semi-desert lifts
with the roar of shores back west,

telling you it’s time
to come home—
reminding you
the home inside you
is a fortress.

A text I sent Ryan

Years ago—
Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 3, with my mentor.

The pier with the meadow
and the labyrinth
with the musical pedals
you can step on

Edge of the pier:
Manhattan. Distant Jersey.
Liberty. Governor’s Island.
Sunset—
mauve into indigo into crimson.

The sun dips.
Harbor sounds—
horns from the ships
Tom’s dad captains up the river.
Chatter along the promenade.
The ocean
coming off the bridge above.

We lean back
in chairs scratched with solar kiss
as mentor goes,
Cue the birds
And as he does—

hundreds lift from the trees,
filling the twilight,
celebrating the sun’s passing.

We just laugh—
as if for the first time,
I think our last together. 

God’s good humor—
our smallness,
our greatness,
bearing witness.

Ryan,
people unlike us
don’t understand.

That majesty's real.
that majesty is simple.
That it’s there—
even living in Los Angeles.

But I'll link you once I find it

See you in the Summer.