White Coffins on Wooden Shelves

"white coffins on wooden shelves"
shortly after a head remodel by jake kilroy.

a lifetime supply of black coffee entrenched in your gums
to honor the dead poets you couldn't bury in college,
white men who wrote white things about white life—
you hailing the spectrum, colorblind in the planetarium,
inviting yourself to lectures without knowing you need one,
cranking out spackle work to cover the gaps in history,
a man amid ruins scripting dialogue about tiny renovations
"all we have to fix are the fixes themselves," a cure born
out of death, the feeble antidote an assumed anecdote
because hyperbole is hysteria to those in the front row.

even those with a poetic license tucked in their wallet
haven't caught a sunrise they didn't think rose for them,
inspired by sheer blinding power and recognizing fault,
poised to take the stage by sundown and finally deliver
that slam poem about whiteness before leaving right after.

the death of irony was always homicide until it was suicide,
as if the discovery of revisionism is worse than the edits,
clutching pearls passed from bloody hand to bloody hand,
entire centuries of flame devouring the land and its people
challenging a dinner party of forever budding politicians
who can't stop asking what the ruckus is, my goodness—
if only the spitfires and sprites could make love without seed.

the truth comes like an uppercut, a welcomed operatic blow,
dizzying the man whose bookshelf comes aglow as blinding white,
so rich and commanding, it could dry a throat halfway through a cry,
a color that comes with reckoning, that marches out in numbers
that look like letters that look like symbols that look like ideas.

truly a pummeling for the larks who "just needed a change,"
for all this has been, since time was first bloodied and coddled,
is a parade disguised as a riot, a magic trick seen from all angles,
waiting for a twist, but the trap door's beneath the audience.

breathless in its inevitability, effortless in its invincibility,
it's simply a lumbering comedian dressed in a top hat and tails,
unsure if he's telling a joke, a story, a eulogy, or a confession—
all he knows, and has ever known, is that he has the floor.

A Guaranteed Blast

"a guaranteed blast"
off-season while on brand by jake kilroy.

one summer in new york city
it got so hot our lips stuck together
from june's first jog to september's last ride;
my teeth ground down to snortable
from the tension gripping the power lines
ringing up gossipy calls,
mophead to gummed shoes,
each afternoon i went out for groceries,
blocks away from the a/c unit altar
we built to catch every degree drop
in the apartment of my redheaded sun
who wore overalls to paint the walls
a color as divine as a swimming hole.

our fever broke clean by sabbath sundown,
a night as loud as saturday morning in nolita;
we peeled each other off the sheets like paper dolls,
rough around the edges,
as fresh as old scars to new eyes,
showering as utility instead of winter heat,
and finally left our watercolor cosmos
to have a drink that wasn't from the fridge,
appalled i ever listened to the new yorkers
who begged me not to visit in summertime.

The Brooklyn Flag

"the brooklyn flag"
with a terminal case of wrong coast aloofness by jake kilroy.

i can't believe i didn't die
going through the lettered window
of a café named between french and fake,
cross-tongued and locust-mouthed
with a brimstone bloody mary
smeared like new year's lipstick.
a bunk season of fashion faux pas
clung to me like squirrelly demons,
dragging me through a parade
of the gentrified blocks
i wasn't able to name
until yesterday.

revival architecture in name only,
the movie set burnout scene
popped my eyes like wood-fired ovens
the last time i was in town,
falling asleep beside a redhead,
talking about travel and marketing,
waking up on a plane back to an agency.

years later, i would be in echo park,
making the same jokes and mistakes,
learning the same terms and lessons,
asking if i've ever survived anything.
coast to coast, breath taking
as a utilitarian solely via business card,
i'd wager i'll outlive people more deserving
and be buried like i did something
more than try new restaurants
with prices that drove up the rent.

Last Known Whereabouts

"last known whereabouts"
as if it were really possible by jake kilroy.

come up for air like an uppercut
just to fall in love with an old scar—
roasting your heart over a former flame,
forgetting what it's like to lose footing,
becoming more enamored by ruins than temples,
driving through a night thicker than guinness,
making it home just before dawn cracks its first tooth,
spending all day on the floor, waiting for the world to get bored,
blowing out the neon lights of a dusty small town,
wishing for all things to get better without the work,
so you crack your wrists and count anything as something.

rotate those knuckles like farm equipment
with a matchbook weaving between scratches
as if a phone number could present itself
as a hologram after enough spins to dizzy you;
you on yet another couch, unable to recall bed,
more familiar with napping at your desk—
hail ennui, the rotting carcass of a mythical beast.

snore as your nerves hungrily creep through your childhood home,
wild ivy with a pulse, able to see the breaths between school years,
clawed nails digging into the wallpaper your mother chose,
a color pattern you recognize as your asylum flag;
your mirrorless reflection without source,
a ghost without a life before it.
come now, come now, this tomb has always been here—
you just didn't believe in its purpose, brave tyro.
yes, yes, in this, your most sacred of earth crashes,
all you can recall are birdsongs
and even then mostly choruses.
welcome home.

Brothers in the Dark

"brothers in the dark"
written half-asleep and half-alive with a full memory by jake kilroy.

a room full of men
interchangeable to their core
reciting each line of the quiet man
like it were the lost work of beckett,
from thornton to danaher;
an inflection of emerald wit
for wily ol' michaeleen,
patron saint of irish drunks in love
(when not squaring bookie bets).

stone walls and roaming sheep
dotting the idyll of white o'morn,
heavy clouds above misty churchgoers—
the only color in the family room
not from the two-sided fireplace,
with the wives across the flames,
making amends for the family war,
so their children will grow up
knowing how their ancestors
spelt their names and waltzed into each room
before america pocketed the apostrophes
and shipped the step dancers off to the slums.

a den of brothers
technically talking to each other
in a movie dialogue curse;
a whistle choir for mary kate,
the only freewheeling peace,
before the guilt of county mayo
swallows their breaths
and blossoms into silence.

their children's mothers know
the eulogies will be the only thing
that makes any of them pen pals.

nothing can outlast irish pride,
not even family. hell, blood corrodes.
gaelic promises scrawled across a crest,
as if the catholics don't use lineage shields
to sever the nerves of heritage,
letting a last name bleed out,
strapped to the family tree,
awaiting salvation;
all of us martyrs, all of us tyrants,
all of us madmen, all of us drunks.

and so comes the pivotal scene,
a brawl between boxer and squire,
the all-out assault on would-be family;
a union of strength the brothers see,
each assuming they're the hero,
agreeing the violence was unavoidable,
nodding along to years of silence,
in the house they spent summers
crashing parties and dodging the law.
at their mother's wake, a day earlier,
one of the cousins recounted a story—
their redheaded mother, much younger with fury,
yelling, "i can't go to the hospital again;
i've been there twice this month!"
her fourth-wildest nephew cackling back,
"mary, i can't go back to the sheriff's office;
i've been there twice as much this month
and they're starting to know me by name!"

the hospital room where they met with nods
wasn't nearly as sterile as this former house of the wild—
the pool parties that were a risk of life and limb,
bolstered by american beer and leaps of faith;
holy writ stories of the mystic dogs they raised,
from the one that could reach the roof
to the one the milkman carried in;
a legacy of memories dropped as spoken word
over card games through their father's cigar smoke.
a boundless supply of madcap summer tales,
where the twist is everyone makes it out alive,
rolling off their tongues as easily
as the acid dropped onto them,
is now a memory itself,
lost to the eternal freeze.

so whatever cavalier spirit climbed inside their muscles
and pumped their hearts with fire back in the day
now wanders an increasingly empty house,
waiting for the boys to come home,
failing to recognize the men
sitting quietly in the dark;
a lonely ghost shuffling a deck
in the dining room, in hopes of gamblers;
but the wildcards have all been played,
taking only one secret to the grave
and that's how it all started.

Nightswimming After Years of Being in Love With Other People

"nightswimming after years of being in love with other people"
with every muscle ready by jake kilroy.

always fall for a house sitter in the summer, the one thing i learned
in my twenties besides what grief tastes like without a funeral;
i flip through a cookbook in a kitchen the size of my apartment,
listening to her whistle as she flips through records that aren't hers.
exotica plays and she strolls in from the den in an olive bathing suit 
and i have a flash of us celebrating an anniversary at an italian villa;
she holds the bottle of red she let me pick out based on name alone
and delivers a trojan horse smile and i think i smell jasmine.
maybe this is the socal life didion told me about, a prelude at least,
before i was old enough to learn bad days can follow good nights.
i estimate how many brain cells have died since i last saw her,
at a dinner party where i slurred my name to her plus one; 
last time i saw all of her was in a backseat at a wedding in the woods,
for which i was minister by day and punch-drunk by nightfall.
i behold this composite sketch of impulse itch, mindful of the details
apparent, from matching toenail polish to the brunette bun
i know she's waiting to let out before diving; "right this way, sir"
her voice crackles like a campfire and i haven't met a version of her
i couldn't stop thinking about; we move past outdoor furniture
worth more than my 401k, onto the grass, beyond the fire pit
where sane, proud people toast their good life, their evening returns
to what is always here for them; two interlopers with growling hearts,
starved eyes, and bodies filmed with ocean breeze and mood lighting
booming from a garden that has no need for kitschy signs of advice.
a few playful swims to seem less eager than we were much younger
until "i've missed you" vs. "i've missed you too" — similar sentiments,
but not quite, rather a contrast of vulnerability and empathy; then,
our chins bobbing, each with two grottos of light, removing clothes
we barely wore, we ask each other what happened to the years,
as if they were cufflinks one of us misplaced, heartily swallowing
every name responsible for tremors since our navels last aligned.

Misty Eyes on Repeat

"misty eyes on repeat"
about people we know by jake kilroy.

an entire generation talking
about the factory work of their grandparents
over coffee they chose over lunch,
worshipping city lofts like churches
and loneliness as a stage of life;
here they come at the world, small furies aglow,
somewhere between crack-up and cracking up,
reading recipes instead of body language,
cooking up storms as lovers pack their bags in the other room;
another lachrymose vagabond pouring sugar out of the stereo,
a syrupy echo of how hard it once was,
written and recorded in a house already paid for.
an exit stage right awaits before the map's read wrong
and the exes strut back in, mistaken for takeout delivery—
everyone the healthiest they've ever been, dying repeatedly.

The Patron Saint of Empty Gas Tanks

"The Patron Saint of Empty Gas Tanks"
written with a mouthful of hot teeth by jake kilroy.

The desert opened up like a drunk sonneteer at a party,
spilling heated secrets and wasteland wishes—
a piece of sunburned gold, the color of adored flesh,
as hard as the heartless and twice as cruel.

Give me the motor club mumbo jumbo.
Allow me to chant some oil spill voodoo.
Black magic in gear grinds and coughs,
I want the phoenix born from engine combustion.

I call upon you, Patron Saint of Empty Gas Tanks,
ride shotgun and don't change the song.
Just get me to Heaven a few miles over the speed limit,
channeling the lightest grin the Devil ever had in him.

And then He appeared:
the rider of all riders,
the passenger of all passengers,
the navigator of all navigators.
I couldn't believe my luck. 

Howdy.

I remained speechless, just a meandering idiot in the badlands.

 Thanks for the ride.

My eyes hurt from witnessing all.

And the snack.

The Spirit of Reckless Abandon rummaged through my bag of Fritos.

You don't talk much, do you?

No, I talk.

I had spoken the word of the aimless.

I was kidding. I've seen you on this road before. You don't really shut up.

Yeah? At least I got nicer shoes than someone from the High Plains of the Lord.

The Legacy of Joy Rides chewed fresh gum and laughed quietly to himself. It made me uneasy. But I was blessed! I was on the same metal and cushion as the Majestic Protector of the Hitchhiking Breed. I was chosen. Even in my beloved and sacred mumblings, I had been given the chance to speak my peace. But I had questions.

Who said I was bound for glory?

Nobody.

He snickered. My eyes thinned.

God told me to just keep you from getting bored.

 And after death?

Kid, after death's a long way off for you.

Ah! So I live a full life!

I chattered like a straight-C student. Meanwhile, the Guiding Light of Fast Cars chuckled and drank holy water from a flask.

Nah, you still gotta jive through limbo, bud.

My heart sank like a treasure chest. 

What's the speed limit there?

He ran glowing hands through immaculate hair.

You don't wanna know.

And that's when he put on the Stones and kicked up his heels. He was in it for the long haul—maybe out of sympathy, maybe out of freedom, maybe truly out of boredom.

As for me, even in the driver's seat, I wasn't sure why I paced the desert on four wheels, but this smug angel had his shit together.

Ever get sick of the job? 

You ever get sick of breathing?

This conked me righteously.

It's like that?

It's like that.

I wiped my brow and sucked my teeth.

What's the pay like?

Heaven.

Yeah? What's the deal with vacation days?

 Eternity.

I wiped my eyes and adjusted my sunglasses.

 Sounds like a good gig.

Sure is.

Then why don't you sound happier?

 All the slow drivers went to Heaven.

Ah.

You

"you"
put down at what feels like the end by jake kilroy.

you know such truth in a hot shower after a long flight home.
back in the arms of your family, as whole again as you can make it,
you breathe as if memories and hopes and schemes sludge out of you
only for stronger daydreams and harsher regrets to push their way in,
making you a silo of more than what a human is in appearance.

you consider how your bones sit inside you,
slumped over after dropping a duffel bag
to the floor of a guest room you scarcely recognize.
you concede that your sleeping bag of a body aches
from a different kind of exhaustion than usual.

you dwell on how the years got away from you,
how they get away from everyone,
how you let everyone get away regardless.

you think of the woman you exhaled for a year.
you think of the woman that was better in letters than practice.
you think of the woman that worked marriage into your lips.
you think of the woman that made love to the future
when she put on a record and read poetry in her underwear.

your muscles, more familiar in wear, creak these days
as loud as your grandparents' floorboards
back when you'd tiptoe out of bed
to find your grandfather making warm chocolate pudding
from a recipe his mother learned when she came to america.
you knew which planks would wake your grandmother
and you knew how you'd make the dish for your own kids.
but that was long before you learned how the world worked,
epochs before you discovered how you really worked.

when you were young, you worried about a cul-de-sac life.
as your limbs grew and weakened like vines,
you worried about what else was out there.

but you had to see the world.
you had to drive your spirit into the unknown
to live like the greats—or their editors at least.
you had to eat, drink, and be weary,
so you could eventually come home
to friends who figure you must be lovely with bartenders by now.
you laugh it off, as you always do,
because no one believes you ever sit in silence
and soon you have to admit that you were better at small talk
when you were a teenage waiter
rather than an aging writer.

so you recall your early college years
when everyone was an artist
and realize you sharpened a skill
that was only a hobby for others,
and you tumble down your heart like stairs.
you miss everyone being in bands.
you miss everyone working on a book.
you miss everyone confessing their feelings
in rainbow splatters and dancing them off.

but in moments like these, you can feel every jukebox song,
every pint toast, every carnival kiss, every cigarette on the road,
every handwritten letter, every swimming pool lounge,
every holiday fight, every morning-after bruise,
every birthday wish beg, every dogeared page,
every nerve lost in grief, every promise broken true,
every pair of waking eyes, every soul that zapped you,
all of which has brought you up like guardians
who expect nothing but give everything
and wait to see what you do.

so you write in the second person,
because it's easier to give advice
than take responsibility
and you know that
better than anyone.

The Heavy King

"the heavy king"
after a long lunch by jake kilroy.

with too much history, not enough money,
and no excuses, a man finally considered l.a.
it had been in his nerves the whole time,
mugging classical music,
caroling street graffiti,
making waste of youth.
the city cracked sharp teeth
and bled light to attract
the dreamers and the bingers,
offering a home away from home
when all they needed was a map and a blessing.

what good is the pulse
if it stumbles like a bent clock,
with hands flagging down anything that looks like a passing christ?
jesus, why did we retell all these stories
if they were only to mutate into idioms?
is that how it happens?
is that how we become patron saints of the afterlife?
yeah, yeah, carve up a grave in reincarnation bulk weight
so we can tell ourselves we'll avoid the madness
and kill the cancer next time.
surely these hands were constructed
by mother nature or lord supernatural
for more than holding prayer beads
and patting the backs of desperate local monks.

i was wild once!
i was the battering ram of night.
i was the only blanket in a lover's home.
i was clothes on the floor,
drugs in the system, blood unsure of source.
and now i'm the last king of land so barren
you couldn't plant a foot—
every merchant elsewhere,
all churches gone, nobody home but crows.
but here we are waiting to buy into anything that resembles the past.

Pulse

"pulse"
written after the worst by jake kilroy.

some evening,
after the day
(so broken
in color)
climbs
into bed,
heartbroken
and lonesome,
you'll watch
the news
with eyes
wet and still
and then shower
to get clean.
it won't be the last time
and it won't even be the worst one,
but you'll shove fingers down your throat,
unprepared for how good it feels to take action.
sounds you won't recognize will pulsate in your guts
as razorblades pump through your veins and arteries.
at least it's something, goddamnit!

and then you'll go to a comedy show in l.a.
where everyone's as sick as you,
the only yokels left alive,
all with the diagnosis and its cure so far away,
in a country no one can name, in a village no one will save.
so instead we'll ask for deliveries instead of deliverance
before finding god in the same line for handouts.

we can no longer write tragedies
because truth is meaner than fiction.
what a world.
what a time to be alive.
what a way to go to sleep.
how do you rise in the morning
when your heart feels like the shattered moon?

beat on, every romanticist recants.
that's all you can do.
in your tiniest of instances,
as the world haunts its patrons,
after years of adulterated hope,
with hot air so thick you can't see right,
you'll start to cry.
it'll be hopeless then.
it'll be hopeless for a long time.
drool will come.
tears will rot.
you'll dry-heave until sanity finally leaves you.
you won't consider character.
you won't understand time.
you won't remember anything
but this, your weakest moment,
your most exact nothing.
and you'll find steam,
a pulse somewhere,
motion adrift,
a fire incoming,
and then pop!
you're a lighthouse
suddenly aglow for any transport—
once as feckless as ambient storm,
now light in every sense,
in every direction.
the world waits,
and you stand,
100 lifetimes ready.

Blues in a Heatwave

"blues in a heatwave"
written with brief pumps of rowdy southern blood by jake kilroy.

when my head swam through that sapphire bar in new orleans,
my spirit dragged light behind me,
a glowing wake
from a star-shouldered stumble
awash in a pollution of hope,
proud but not perfect,
more gonzo than groucho,
with senses spun,
shaken not stirred,
dragging lines so trite you could walk 'em back twice,
before finally getting the rug pulled out from under me
so i could fly.

"say, what's in this whiskey?"
"i don't understand."
"me neither."

fine conversation skills for a talker
who smuggled in a mouth keen on its bourbon scrub,
selling a smile as brittle as an upstart's ego,
as loyal as a long shot, as crazy as washer eyes,
as moving as a poem read in an earthquake,
and that's only act one—even though the playwright's spaced.

still, i kept pace in a tailspin that could've been ballet,
head over heels for a drunker redhead in glasses,
snapping fingers to remember why she's familiar
before realizing she reminds anyone of everyone
this married to the road.

ah, glory be mayhem and music
when it's this hard to tell the difference;
all of us with songwriter business cards
though we've only got karaoke in our bones.

all of it blasts like background noise,
adjacent to the dying wish of a sunset,
booming love songs crashing through smoking patios,
hearing mockingbirds hum some lovebird tunes,
knowing what women are in season,
promising heaven in a courtyard,
delivering hell in the relationship,
and here i twinkle talking up the waitress
about what shelters she works at on weekdays.

you're in it for the fight of your nightlife,
i tell myself—or at least one of me—
and wonder if any part of my teenage heart still rattles.
what would you have from us beyond youth?

it's the only thing we're good at.
it's the only thing we love.
it's the only thing, many say,
as we beg god to go from death bed
to hospital bed to "your own bed"
to some gal's bed you can't name
(with a return to pillow forts as optional).

hot damn on the hottest night,
this pub crawl could last all life.
here, a marching band interrupts the jazzinites,
old friends trying out new jokes,
quaintly adored, always with rhythm,
them cats cut their veins by way of brass
to pour out a blue only known to us
by how we abuse depression for glory,
promoting the broken artist battle
while swinging the profits to get help.

so i watched hands curve around hips
like ten snakes taking a post-adam eve
to the dance floor of a wilder jungle
and i suddenly couldn't recall how i used to
write more little black books than poems.
but then the band stopped to drink
and a blues song strutted out of the speakers
and i was suddenly home
without knowing any of the words.

Funny

"funny"
written on a plane heading home by jake kilroy. 

blowing through town as mad as wind on a bender,
heels up on the rails of a city-wide waiting room,
where surrealists let the skyscrapers talk down to 'em, 
i found myself waiting on women to touch my skull like a piano—
a cave-like church of euphony where soft presses on thoughts count
as rock art dolled up like a rare jackson pollock of daydreams.
colorful spirits still die here, don't worry.
we just have better money for graves these days.
funny i don't remember the funerals.

still, what a breathtaking mausoleum for us to dance inside!
a carnival ride, the two of us, spinning colors
only seen when you get up too fast to see someone new,
we come at the world like a tidal wave we sewed ourselves.

you see, destiny was never only for ancient warriors.
doom just makes for a less jealous audience.
meanwhile, wildflower crowns make for better use of battlefields,
and so we sneer at the decaying lovers we only cherish
as the weapons they made us,
trying on bounties like boaters, framing ourselves as the victims.

oh, how the years wear well!
when i was young, i was both rodeo and stampede.
i could hardly keep my eyes tucked in
for any new bedtime story that cracked ear to ear and beyond
the two dozen good lines about an empty bed in flames.
funny i never saw any sequels.

but then my bones wore down
and my fingers slowed down
when i finally powered down,
and my memories were no longer string theory.
hell, they were hardly even decor.
memories became a stockpile,
making me a survivalist
in a one-man show.
funny way to throw a party.

yet,
even in another country,
alone in a splintering tavern,
i could say life came at me quick.
sure, i held on for as long as i could
before it threw me into the sea
where i came upon a passing sailboat of monks
that i mistook for a pirate ship of mermaids,
gleefully drowning myself by wearing out my arms in cheer—
funny way to exit the world, i imagine, 
curious, cackling, and crazy—
but i was always relentless,
forever sweating boredom
and making amends with the wildcard pneuma
that i often mistook for a hired gun asleep at the wheel.
see, even in death, i'd hear myself out.
at least do that.
at least die truthfully.

November First

"november first"
written in accurate timing by jake kilroy.

somehow drifting like a shipwrecked sailor
in japanese restaurants and all-too-american dive bars,
i found myself somewhere between jack-o-lanterns and turkeys
with christmas music rumbling in the heart of a woman out of focus.
it was so loud i thought the new year would come from her mouth.

what would that be?
a confetti laugh?
a showy promise?
a drunken kiss?

god help me every year i say that at midnight
in a top hat, covered in gold and black,
smoothed over by champagne and winks.
what drum did we order to beat this loud?
there's a marching band coming out of my sleeves
and every song is for whoever's in the room.

but i have to sit through the orange and black,
the orange and brown, and the red and green,
just to get to everything all at once
in the wordy backseat of a throat
that won't stop crooning auld lang syne
until everywhere becomes a bed
and we just stick to being wallflowers
until valentine's day or the spring beyond.

and without our tongues jostling the rain
of our stormy mouths, laced with lightning,
juggling two a.m. doesn't seem so wild
without sunrises to come cracking with whips,
as we slump into daylight like posters coming off the wall.

well, there was a night once or a dozen times
i came home with groceries
and had to stand on my front lawn
to consider the magic
that was possible
every waking second
once summer died out
like the bulb of a back porch.
and when the broom of my conscience swept,
it didn't leave so much as a matchbook.
it was a clean slate,
and it was glorious.

Fourth of July

"fourth of july"
written after a day of observing america and age by jake kilroy.

i shot into the fourth of july with a fresh bloody nose,
pulling muscles from my neck like this season's magic trick,
talking art with an illusionist i thought did impressionist work,
remembering a girl i caught wild in the city once,
years after i watched the san francisco skyline
sink into the road as i drove across the bridge
with hip-hop radio and two friends that barely spoke.

oh, to be young again, with pockets of drugs
and the will to live by keeping them down!
oh, to be young again, with time like a lucky coin
traveling the grooves of your newly minted knuckles!

but there, in the late summer afternoon of a backyard,
i felt my bones wear like the boardwalk of coney island,
and i read my daydream as a writer's block playbook,
diagnosing boredom with freedom, hope, and spirit.

so maybe it was the smoke in my nostrils and lungs
that made me set off the fireworks in my heart.
maybe it was the scrapbooks i can't believe exist
that made me wonder if she still had the photograph
of us happy, of us truly serenely gloriously awake,
after spending a morning in bed laughing our heads off.

and then before sunset crawled across my eyelids like a tired drunk,
i recalled the lingerie list of secrets and regrets as if it were scripture,
and i dried my nose and wet my eyes
and took a long look in the mirror,
trying to remember how many times
i thought it was all coming to an end,
only to surprise myself
by revealing how easy it is to create a memory.

She Was a Laugh

"she was a laugh"
between daydreams by jake kilroy.

with the curve of her lips,
she could howl at the moon.
it was slight, it was bare,
and i could hardly breathe.
she would stretch her limbs
like a yawning mulberry tree,
the kind built for childhood,
the type that looks good with age.
my eyes were strobe light vintage,
and her skin was papyrus sweet.
we mulled over our teeth
with cameras used in the war
and canvases that adorned palaces.
god, she was breathtaking.

i wrote the poetry into her skin
and pressed down with a caress
to make sure it'd seep all the way
into the wild rivers she called blood,
so the words would sweep through her,
truly burying each time she was alone,
leaving the past to waste away for good.
when she would sleep, and she slept wild,
my words would sneak out of her delta
and somersault across her prairie muscles
to take the railway that was her every bone.

she was the scenic route,
and i was the long ride home,
but we curved into each other,
crashing and reaching and traveling,
until we were dizzy with fireworks
and pulverized with poems and anthems,
lighting candles inside each other's brain,
so we could see what we were in love with.

but all of it,
absolutely all of it,
every inch of our bodies,
every wish of our beings,
could be summed up
in
one
great
big
beautiful
laugh.

In the Soft Hands of America

"in the soft hands of america"
written after an election by jake kilroy.

i was destined for america
long before the stilettos tilled the earth
and lipstick drew up the flag.
there were fireworks in my stomach
when i set sail as a proud maniac.
what was to come drummed on my ribcage
like the fingers of a waiting general,
and my best anthem harped
when i slid my tongue
over the red, white, and blue
of my mouth with a sucker still in it.

this country hugs and fights like new year's lovers
trying to make good on old promises
before getting tattoos of new ones.
all we wanted was freshly cut lawns and polite dinnertime kisses
and instead we got the finest of wines to coat our insides.
we didn't see it coming, the elders muse.
we didn't anticipate the youth sharpening blades
to be put to good work with backs breaking in the sun.
the myths told us they'd chop down the family tree.

but, now, in the fortuitous grace of statues and statures,
there comes a waking light that pulses in the distance.
immaculate rays, not quite sunshine, not yet starlight,
swell in our eyes as we take in what rattles us best.

so, for today,
with infinity like sleeves instead of handcuffs
and princes mixing blood with paupers,
go forth in the world with a sense of purpose.
smooth out the colors of collars,
drink everything in the place,
and let us finally talk freedom.

The Seamstress

"the seamstress"
written to a tune of remembering by jake kilroy.

she was a beautiful seamstress of nostalgia,
cross-stitching daydreams and memories,
cursed to remember her sticky popsicle youth
as children slowly running through a forest creek
with sparklers in hand and a sunset against the hills.
but these were commercials that graffitied her summer,
selling her jeans, selling her love, selling her her own country.

then years after she breathed every color of new york
as a college student set on having her eyes exposed,
she found herself adjusting a potpourri centerpiece
wearing her heart on a sleeveless cocktail dress,
until she saw the moon coming in the bay window.

she remembered the night swims with her girlfriends at the cabin.
she remembered all the poems one lover wrote about her throat.
she remembered the tea lights. she remembered the waltzes.
she remembered what the moon above paris tasted like
when she drank enough absinthe to think she had swallowed it.

and there she was, in a southern california mansion,
with a lawyer on the left and a doctor on the right,
described in the ad as art deco by a real estate agent
who had never left the country or been in a museum.

her toes curled against spanish tile instead of spanish sand.
her knuckles cracked like the poet she loved until it fell apart.
her breaths came as slow as the future was supposed to.
jesus, when was the last time she even smelled charcoal?

she wondered,
and then she untied her apron and her lips,
ready to never let go of the moon again.

Look

"look"
written as something it wasn't supposed to be by jake kilroy.

look,
we'd all love to listen to the velvet underground,
waist-deep in cool river water,
scrubbing the hymns off our chests,
burying our feet in the silky mud,
and always wishing for something better.
we'd all love to speed down the humming road,
sucking in dusty air and coughing up pollen,
barreling our way across the promised land,
gasping for breaths in between stereo poems,
just as the junkyard artists did long before us,
as we strike gold in our hearts and keep digging,
slinking in and out of parlors for magic shows,
wasted enough to be far gone, but not quite lost.
yeah, we'd all love to write home about bar fights
and spring flings and the riot we laughed
sometime after midnight when we thought
we were home for good, if only for an instant.
but this country, this spray paint mural of highways,
this magnificent land of whistlers and charmers,
this palm reading of a closed fist in the crowd,
it needs dynamite to move, twisting and shaking
on the dance floor in its best effort to stay in line,
so it can use sunsets as flashlights for nights
when no living soul gets eight hours of sleep.
but until we're moving money like dirty cops,
i say we've got another stretch of homeland to fix.
so you can tell the young jack kerouac gangsters
that we'll be sipping pleasantries soon enough;
we just need to tie up our shoes and a few loose ends,
but then we're gunning for the door and a future
you couldn't lose in a card game if you tried.