Love is a woman
ashamed of buying jeans
at the Dollar General,
who hears someone behind her say,
"Those would look really cute on you."

Love is holding the hands
of everyone at once.

Can you feel it?

If you place your palms onto the ground,
you can feel everyone.
You’re never more perfect
than when you can sense the energy
of every person at once.

It’s the same reaction
as when you lay your head on my chest
and I ask you why you’re shivering.
We are all too much to take in.

Now I find myself apologizing
to every new person I meet.
I put my hands on their shoulders and say
"I’m sorry for not recognizing
how incredible you are sooner."

I heard a rumor
that if a man at the top
of the Space Needle
locks eyes with a woman
at the top of the Eiffel Tower,
they immediately fall in love...

with everyone at once.
It means more than anything to them.
It’s the greatest moment of their life
shaped into a lit fuse
and multiplied by "fucking incredible."
They have experienced rays of sparrows
carrying a million hand-written notes
that say things like,
"Nothing inside of me is as beautiful as you,"
"When I close my eyes, you turn to gold,"
"I’ve imagined your hands on my face," or

"Those would look really cute on you."

I’ve set my tongue on fire
to instantly cauterize
the wound I’ll make in myself...

"Amalgam:  The Mix and the Maker"

There a single white bud
on the bradford pear tree
in my front yard,
shaking in the wind
like it’s afraid of the sun
at noontime.

Shaking is as futile
as sucking through a cinched straw.

My earbuds,
when turned too high,
electrocute my inner ear
like a tiny, sonic murderer.
He’s shaking in his seat
and afraid of death.
My ears are powerful enough
to kill again.

Listen, nothing is as beautiful
as the mix you hear.
Nothing is as sacred
as the internal belief system
created by the scripture
of passing voices
and eavesdropping.
The rhythm of a neighbor’s small talk
should drop you, shaking
into the aisles
of the church of everyone is god.

Shaking ears may lower shaking spears,
as fearing those around you
transforms into exalting
those around you.
We are perfect and afraid of it,
so we believe that
shaking is as futile
as sucking through a cinched straw.

When I go running to stay in shape
I usually bring my iPod,
but it was dead, so I left it at home.
The second I stepped outside,
Spring ripped my eyelashes out
and said "Look at what you've fucking missed!"
And all the scenery began to sing its name,
so the grass was going
grassgrassgrassgrassgrass.
It was annoying and repetitive,
but beautiful, like a grandfather clock
on fire in a hip-hop album.
The trees were whispering odes
to the nests inside their heads.
So, I decided to do the same.
I pulled my eyes out
like robins' eggs
and threw them into the air
to watch them hatch into
6-inch tall kick boxers with wings,
more lithe and spritely
than I could've imagined my thoughts to be.
The freedom in their movement
was unbounded,
etching its way into the sidewalk
that stretched into the horizon both ways.
I stood there blinded,
listening to eternity
and I realized this forever was inside of me.
My empty sockets were forced upward
as wings tore out of my shoulder blades.
My hands turned into swarms of bees,
dancing the location of every word
that I needed for a poem.
I've forgotten every feeling
but the silence I hear, perpetual.
When I open the lids
where my eyes used to be,
the vibrations of eternity,
the buzzing of over-weight wings,
and the energy of one-sixbillionth God
cascades down my face
onto a book created
when I hit my knees together hard enough.
And all of this would mean nothing
without the rest of God's
ability to dream.

I can't wait until
my last tether to reality
snaps and I'm hurled
into a world
where subways become snakes
rushing into over-sized pores
on the city's giant face.
Smoke like dancers pours
from the grates and vents,
worming it's way up to
the waiting pursed lips
in the sky.
They're whistling
for me to join them.
They said I'm just a dog
playing catch with my life,
and it's time I returned it.
The lips are telling me
to give them all my clothes.
I tell them I bought them
and they say no,
I'm just borrowing them
until I die.
I'm just borrowing everything
until I die.
The lips blow me a kiss
and disappear behind clouds.
I lay on a park bench
and let the litter
wrap around my head
like a turban.
My thoughts were encapsulated
inside my new hat
and bounced around
like Wild West saloon bullets.
I saw a dog walk by
with hair like a hula-girl's skirt
and teeth like Ronco knives.
The scenery changed when I stood up.
Like a Kodak photo-projector,
the scene chk-chked into
a magazine advert.
The advertisement asked me
if I was happy with my phone company.
I yelled that I'm not happy
with anything.

DrinkMoreDrinkMoreDrinkMore
I've thrown up all the city's potential
into the neighbor's bushes.

No matter how hard
I swing for the falling leaves,
I can't spin my limbs around
fast enough to fly.
So, I stand on some waitress's
phone number on a napkin
and jump off,
trying to catch a breeze.

I stay grounded.
My legs begin to take root
as rolling bark climbs my torso.
An owl lands on me and doesn't move.

For the last few weeks,
I've grown limbs and leaves
and watched my progeny
fall into the dirt
to become buried.

A flock of birds landed
onto my lattice-work branches
and bat their wings
like a bear at bees.
I lifted out of the ground
and was carried, closed-eyed
through the mountains of Europe.

The craggy peaks told me epic poems
about the time they fucked God
and Finesse was born.
Finesse always had cuff-links.
Finesse always had been about the details.

I was finally dropped into lake Geneva
and I sank to the bottom,
my heart heavy with verse and loss.
I laid at the bottom
until I forgot which way was up.
I could walk everywhere.

Long story short,
I got back home by plane and train
and decided
Dammit, Brad,
you're not dying fast enough.

I can't sleep.
I'm cracking my skull open
on cornered concrete.

I spent my last paycheck
on a taxi cab ride
in an endless circle.
I was chasing myself.
I ran out of money after 4 hours
and had to walk the rest of the night.

I used a new penny
to scratch at one of the
L-train trestles,
hoping for it's collapse.

There was a house party
at a friend of mine's.
God and Aphrodite were there.
He loosened his tie
and played beer-pong.
She said "fucking,"
instead of "making love."

I went out onto the front lawn
and played air traffic controller
to the stars and told them all
to land on me.
I thought maybe I could write
something empowering
with the weight of all the universe
on top of me.

They didn't land.
They just laughed at me
and kept spinning around
my grounded vantage point.
Like a Light Brite,
they arranged into a simple portrait
of Kurt Vonnegut frowning at me.

I went back inside to escape his gaze
and saw kings throwing up into their crowns
and queens writhing under the grasps of giants.
I heard an "Oh, fuck yes!"
and knew I had to leave.

I drove home drunk
over a series of lions' tails.
My throat still burns
from the fire I spit at them.
I coughed plumes of black smoke
out of my retractable sun roof
and watched the sky inhale it back in.
Part of me was part of something.

Invigorated, I rushed to bed
and slept, dreaming about bats
bringing me back my money
one quarter at a time.
The last one nestled at my nape,
posing at a bow tie.
I picked up a champagne flute
and tossed it off a balcony,
jumping to follow it.
I drank it all at once
off the sidewalk.

The next morning,
I reflected on everything that happened.
I decided you can't spell "surreal"
without "real," and you can't spell
"real" without
"What the fuck am I doing with my life?"

I wrote both of these tonight:

The Last Little Boy

I had a dream the world ended
and my bed-mate killed the last child.
She threw him into a fountain
because she was sick of him crying.

Light burst out of him with blood,
and I saw his real eyes.

I woke up
and couldn't shake the image out.

There's an indoor playground
at my local mall
and the light beams down
from a massive, circular skylight.
God, it was the same light.
The last boy alive might have been
nailed to the roof.
I looked up to try to find him,
but I was blinded
and I fell on my back.

I heard a little girl
tell her father,
"I'd like to break my arm.
It looks like fun."
I opened my eyes and the sky
resembled the end of passion.
All of my senses were dulled,
all I felt was floating.

I saw light burst out of myself
with blood on it's reins,
galloping up towards the skylight
to join the heavens it fell from.

The last little boy I knew died.

Kuh

Come quick, young God,
rushing from my bones.
Iambic pentameter hurts
being grated against your skin.
Tell me, melted heart,
do you lungs burn like mine with weed?
Are we falling from the same building,
slowly forgetting the tree?

Do my eyes deceive me?
Is the window eluding the pane
and bursting out itself
shining down white glass like the rain.
June called me
and told me to forget my name.
I keep my hairdresser on speed-dial.
Everyone on earth is hideous.
We're made in God's own image
and a snake bit me between the eyes.

I don't use fire to see -
I set the torch to my clothing
and sprint into the city.
People, watch me burn
and quit your running.
There's nothing at the top,
watch me dissolve.
In 60 years, we won't mean anything.
My ashes are part of the sea,
being carried by the albatross.
He can taste my foolishness
and smiles to himself,
"You've forgotten why we live at all."

In my next life,
I'm going to be a dancer.
I want to feel the rhythm of everything
with which I'm connected.
Grant me the mountainous Fuck-All
that lets nomads live out of backpacks
and forget the screaming of their ancestors.

In my poetry,
I've died a thousand times.
But never once
have I lived.

If you've ever seen death,
and many people have,
you know that death
is laying on his back
at the base of a stool
as a waitress with three beers
in two hands steps over him.

You're not an alcoholic
until you drink alone
and I'm underage,
in a bar,
becoming an alcoholic.
The three-step neon wall light
tells me to Go. Beer. Go.
and a woodchuck tastes incredible
after a woodchuck.
A man missing teeth asks me
what shot I just took
and repeats back to me
"Johnny Walkin' Rat?"
Yeah, sure, I say.
The waitress brings him a water.

The NHL is on every goddamn screen,
so I close my eyes and imagine
every single player
skating around in a three-piece suit.
When I close my eyes,
everyone is happy with their jobs,
everyone is skating around in their
three-piece suits, smiling
and making hat tricks.
When I close my eyes,
DB Cooper lands in my back yard
without a parachute,
but has a shit-load of money,
which is the next best thing.
When I open my eyes,
I drink again.

A man at a table next to me
is drunk enough
to hit on the table of lesbians
and they're too drunk
to realize he's not a woman,
so he sits down.
Ben, my waiter, and I laugh about this
for three minutes.
He takes a smoke break.
I finish my beer.
Life is a lot like
sitting down at the table of lesbians.
It's taken me too long to realize this.
Ben's back,
so I drink more.

Death, I'm drinking three dead nazis,
one of them is for you.
and if you were wondering,
a dead nazi is a splash of jager in
a rumblemint.
Ben can make one for you.
The hair on my neck stands up,
my jaw falls off,
and I tip Ben twenty bucks.
Death, I was wondering
if you and I
are the same person
yet.

a/n:  I don't have a title yet... I don't need one, it doesn't matter.  I always write about not being able to write... The concept doesn't make sense to me either.

Every single idea
reluctantly being clawed out
by the rat
in the back of my head
is an overplayed,
trite,
nightmare of a topic.

I need to find my center.
I need to find suffering.

I'm going to drink again.
Drink for the sun,
since it evaporates on her lips.
Toast the hatred of God,
then drink straight out of the freezer,
because I feel incredible and ghostly
toasting to a being
I supposedly don't believe in.

I need to go outside
and grab a stranger.
I should shake him wildly
like any bartender in a Bond flick
and scream at him.
Push out the hurt with my diaphragm
and watch their eyes shoot in,
white and rolled back
white.
"Why can't I just be alive?
God, I've killed every feeling in me!"

It's all in the look,
the way the eyes vibrate.
Shaking at the frequency to see a ghost,
that sight is my center.
The fear in a stranger's eyes
while being abused,
the loss in God-fearing eyes
when He is cursed,
the hysterics in my own eyes
when I can't feel to write again.

Those eyes are suffering.
Those eyes are pure,
unfiltered inspiration.

I like Bukowski and the Moldy Peaches
because they don't baby their audience.
I'm an adult.  Tell me how the fuck was.

I have a special routine
when I'm feeling self-depreciative.
I swallow all the glitter I can buy,
gag myself with a candy cane,
and throw up tinsel.
I hold it up and show the world
what I've created.

I saw myself shamefully out of rhythm
with the passing cars.
So now, I'm getting shit-faced
like I'm manifest destiny
and the bottom of the next shot
is the west coast.

God hung a hawk in my heart,
grouped me with more pretenders on a grape vine,
and asked us all to remove our clothes.
This is what living the dream is all about.

God, I've been meaning to ask,
and don't baby me.
Tell me what making the world was like.
Tell me how the fuck was.

"You're too depressing to sleep with."
Oh, like that helps.