You Just Can't Every Time

Several times in fact

Other times in passing

You can't be many for too long

There are lies and there are daydreams

There are buckets of blood and there are belly laughs

We know there was a rib, but that wasn't the beginning

We know the alphabet changes over time and place

That's what we have to record, even if we don't understand it

We may never see this luge run again

So perfectly modeled?

So thoughtfully planned?

So casually dressed

So gray and spongey

Clean and clean and save the day

Mythical soaps, manna, undress

These bobsled runs? Pristine

I could eat off your whole country

I am hungry and inches and Ingres

Not at you, at many, at daylight savings, at play

I apologize, there were lawyers and I couldn't place a straight answer

You're many getting many sleepy

Many this many world many is many many

You're tired.

I understand.

Let go.

Location:W Pratt St,Baltimore,United States

I'm Not Buying It, and I'm Usually the First One Buying

On a train, I prefer my seat to face forward

I wouldn't call that old-fashioned

I'm no early adopter either

I like hyphens

I like the word "wither" and I guess I like "whither," too because where'd "whilst" be without it

What's for dinner?

Where's dinner?

When do you ever think about Delaware?

Their next state slogan should not be "Dream a little dream of Delaware"

In my mind the river trumps the state

Everything old should have a river
Trenton should be a river

Indian names are great for rivers, they sound like rivers and nations to me

There were rivers before there were people

And all these complex atoms shooting out of dying suns

River vs. sun? River's scorched.

Man vs. sun? Man's fucked.

Iron vs. sun, though? Sun's fucked spectacular and heavy metals and uranium and just plain Wow! in seconds.

My daughter and I on the couch watching television. I fall asleep.

You came over to my house for dinner. There were carpets. I fell asleep on them.

My ex and my new girl's ex hanging out with me and my new girl at a good friend's house. I fell asleep! I shit you not! I woke up and all the exes were gone and it was just me and my new girl. It was like magic.

That was years and years and girls and boys and exes and friends ago.

But my good friend is still my good friend, and I think he's doing pretty great.

Sure, things could alway be better, but doing pretty great.

Hey there, Baltimore. Looks good on you!

Location:Cloutier Ct,Wilmington,United States

The World, Its Shadow, Etc.

You see ghosts around corners because you are dying

You smell woodsmoke through open doors because you are dying

Drama, drama, drama

Parabolic flight, radio waves, huge dishes of Indian cuisine

Patience is always cut thinnest around a bend

A curtain is happiest when hangs to the floor

Fabrics puddle or cinch

Circulation is compromised or cut off all together

The world explores strange shades of pink and purple and blue and none of them are good news

There are bad ideas

There are bad people

There are unfortunate situations and being in the wrong place at the wrong time

Prepare, prepare, prepare

And then let go

Blue and White and Black All Over

Is this how it happens now?

All over
All over

I'm gonna put on jeans tomorrow and a sweater

All over
All over

Two days is just not enough of a weekend

Things seep out of your skin slowly, in strange towns, we smell them

The Potomac is a river

The Chesapeake is a bay

And it was massacred on a sign earlier today

And it was mistreated more seriously

And the oyster disappeared and everything went to hell all over

Some people make a tunnel and fill in a swamp

Those are not our people

Some people take an honest job or work an honest day

Some people sell things bought and sold and don't even know what a boombox is

You're going to tell me about cosmonauts? For serious?

This is the nation's capital.

This is late at night.

This is she was smart and on top of things and a snappy dresser to boot, with a little tutelage.

Steerage, steering column, spinal fluid, the south of France, hexagonally yours forever and ever, all over, all over

There are more than 6 billion hearts beating right now -- and that's just the human ones. How many are beating as one? How many are all over? How many stopped beating while I wrote this? How many started?

Will tomorrow's breakfast sit well?

Will certain things always taste better in a restaurant?

Which things? Give me something.

Take. Want. Steal. Misappropriate. Remember. Remember. Remember. Forget.

Remember. Remember. Remember. Forget.

Fillllllllllter. Swish.

All over.
All over.

Filthy. Good for something. Carbon and carbon-dating and darkness falls. Curtains open just a bit on the world.

The whole world. Here.

You Know the One

Sorority suicide poem

You know the one and you know how you sneered

And yet there are college-aged women deciding to kill themselves everyday

What with their college-aged lives and college-aged problems

What does that balloon look like

Thirty-eight ain't doing me so bad

Put your thumb on this, discard that

You looking at a cube on one side then another

Field after field of lines

Give of yourself, take of yourself

Bad habit your way through a bad moment -- it happens to all of us

Which is like the best of us or the best of the rest or an average Wednesday

You see it happening, but when do you feel it happening?

I heard that the speed of light is back

A girl can dream

A girl can cross the street without looking

A girl can die, I hear

Cats Everywhere and then the Creepy Baby

Cats with eyes from every angle

Cats stalking, cats leaping, cats rolling, cats focusing

An edge can be razor sharp

The creepy baby is crawling in the snow looking for a bottle

The creepy baby is crawling in a green open field looking for a bottle, it wants to be held

The creepy baby in the rain and the sunshine

The creepy baby never in its stroller, never with its mother

It has no mother, it has no father

With your ever-white onesie, creepy baby, I've never seen you in your beautiful house

My cards are under a new bed for 10 more months

In the future I will peer into more distant futures

Hands used to appear from clouds and bursts of flame

Hands used to be upturned, fashioned of wood, realized in marble

The Help, a blockbuster book and a blockbuster movie

That new Underworld in stretch-leather and latex and 3D

They come in threes in death and backup singers and Japan

They come to me in the evening with staircases that weren't there and standing lamps made lances

All the better to stab you with, my pretty

My pretty, what small fists you have

All the better to punch you in the eyeball, you evil old witch

Punch punch punch

Dodge

Punch parry parry punch punch punch

Dodge

Lean into it. Leap into it. Give it what you got

Give it what you have, this is all you have right now

Cats, creepy babies, movies, nightmare adrenaline, and small fists so much better for punching eyeballs

Location:S Fremont Ave,Baltimore,United States

7 Things You Didn't Know About Me Cliché

Just past 8:30 and it's starting to pour in

Facts you don't know about heterosexuality

Jennifer Anniston getting sexier year after year

Someone dropping bombs on Kurds yet again

When someone tells a funny joke to someone they don't know and the teller is (way) more attractive than the average bear is the listener more likely to laugh or freeze up like a deer in headlights?

This is not one of the world's pressing problems -- and I'd agree, there are a shit-ton of variables to break down on the way to the answer

I'm looking forward to a cup of coffee

And I'm wishing there was a comfy reading chair by the front window to go with it

Then the Sunday paper could do battle with a friend's novel for reading time

Yeah, I know I said I was going to wait until I was on top of all this stress before I crack your novel

But that started sounding like, "it'll be a lovely companion after the Rapture," and that just ain't right

I ate better yesterday than the day before; today's goal is to eat well and breathe well

I didn't set any Resolutions this year, that isn't like me

George Clooney, you are a sexy, sexy man

To all the sexy men in my life, you are sexy, sexy men

To all the sexy women in my life, you are sexy, sexy women

Ain't life grand?

To all the people in my life, soak it up while you can

To all the dogs in my life, I know you can't help it and I'm trying to change my perspective

We took 10,000 years to make you what you are, who am I?

To all the cats in my life, keep tearing it up, beautiful

We'll nap together on a heap of our bleeding victories some day

With the sun spreading across our bellies

Just like you like it

Location:Portland St,Baltimore,United States

They Call Them Rungs (Don't They?)

That's gotta be a good gig. He's been there forever

More wishes, more children, more impossible things

The singing stays the same

Like cookies cooking on a winter's day

Like help for the helpful before we sleep

Like something quiet and something blue

Like finishing a puzzle with a friend, I hear

This fits here and there's always room for a little more pink

There's something wonderful going on with cute

These days cute can punch you in the face

These days cute can conquer a nation's capitol

What will next year hold?

Kittens and gators and sunsets and napping

A young man will walk a mile in someone else's shoes

The moon will shine down

He'll think about important things

And he'll think about a glass of water

He won't have time to paint a house or make a home

He won't see the sun looming behind him

His nose not buried in a book

His shoes wearing thin

A young woman will take a jetplane to a better place

Being better for not being here for a while

And days will wend until that better place is reduced to the rubble of "that place that doesn't have my bed"

And a second jetplane will sort that out

And grass will continue growing here and there

And she'll sit on a rooftop deck

With a good drink and weather and wonder what's next

What is all this stuff doing for me?

I really like some of it

Like I really like lunch

Certain Songs Have Been With Me

Certain songs have been with me these past few weeks

Certain sleep is at hand

Impossible wishes in a major American city

If wishes were fishes we all would be flowers?

They are all ways of thinking and they are all disappearing

One of them may be the cure for cancer, another for our broken democracy

Walt Whitman bare to the waist with his hair all floppy in the wind

What stands between a beard and forever is being able to enjoy a bagel with cream cheese, if you ask me

What you see is what you best

Man, that candy is killing me

Good night

Keep It Together

You can do this watching Grey's Anatomy.

You can do this piece by piece.

You can do this with stress, with the space between lines, with a ponytail.

You can do it with crystal blue eyes that go for miles.

With a British accent that goes for miles.

Everything can go for miles. Nobody gets to choose.

It can be your second wind or your third career.

Be kind. People will keep on dying.

That thing you read? It's happening hundreds and hundreds of times every week.

Mattresses are wearing unevenly all across America.

People are sleeping on floors all over the world.

I used to love sleeping on couches and some day I'll love it again.

Would "There Will Be Bleeding" be an even better movie?

There will be Thursday, first, and I'm hoping the big me shows up.

Location:Washington Blvd,Baltimore,United States

RiverLINE, Exit to Wallenberg Ave

I can't thank you enough for the uneventful ride.

And the weather out... perfect.

Thanks for the nice walk earlier, the woods were nice and the air was so fresh.

I thought I was gonna get mud all over my shoes, but I didn't.

Adrenaline's a funny thing.

Lots of Giants jerseys. And striped shirts. And striped hats.

Who has time for striped hats?

Who has time to see the doctor?

I better get on top of this throat thing.

Imagine all the geniuses gone.

Imagine everything, all the time, at every moment.

And that photon again and that neutrino and the beginning and the end.

I didn't sleep well.

Waiting happens one moment at a time.

Location:S Clinton Ave,Trenton,United States

When It's Saturday and Tomorrow Is Sunday

When it's Saturday and tomorrow is Sunday

When it is Saturday and coffee is on

When it is Saturday and all eyes are on Indianapolis

When it is Saturday and the sky is looking pewter and feeling good about the day ahead

When the whole world thinks one thing and so you can plan on something other

When you feel like a nut and at the times when you don't

Winter will never be Spring, but it'll always be more than you think

This is February, this is Saturday, this is philosophy of a kind, I guess

This is predictable if you've spent time around here

And my phone will tell me the weather to expect in Baltimore and DC and Princeton and Wellsboro and Paris and Marfa

Hit the road, hit the street, rent a van, rent storage space, make a dining room, make a good time, eat some lunch it is Saturday.

Location:Penn St,Baltimore,United States

Shit's done gone crazy.