My duffle bag!

My duffle bag is ripping
Orange fabric straining to hold together
White cotton poking through the seams.

The bottom of my duffle bag was once a bright orange to match the sides.
And now the bottom is the brown of the dirt on the roadside

How do I describe the particular joy in burning out?
Kind of like how in hitch hikers guide to the galaxy they describe flying as "falling and missing"
I can't decide whether the feeling in my stomach is excitement or dread.
The reason they call it burning out is that the flame is so bright.
And you hope that maybe the burns will be superficial.
That the light is worth the pain.
Because you know you can't tear your eyes off the flame.

And my duffle bag is falling apart and I am falling and missing and one of these days something will hit the ground.

Another New York City Poem

It's hard to write in metaphors when you live in New York city.
Today I saw a homeless man's penis. It was shocking and horrifying and I felt anger and anxiety and pity and I don't know a how to wrap that expierience neatly in a metaphor and tie up the lose ends in a bow.
The subway systems are maybe a metaphor. Vital and important and dying and screeching.
I got harassed by a man on a nearly empty subway. He waved his hand in my face and as I stared straight ahead he called me a bitch. Homeless men and women wandering endlessly through the cars. Hoping for money.
Or maybe there's metaphor in a street fair. The block closed off and the smells of food and bright colors of clothes and the overlapping chatter and the tight, hot press of bodies.
New York city's packed street with the passenger cars and taxis and bikes and pedestrians.
Prospect park with dogs off leash and big, green lawns and homeless people sleeping in the tunnels and hidden kayak rentals.
This would be a terrible poem.
There's no theme. There's no rhythm. Just a jagged, throbbing life. A heart blood being forced through the streets and the tunnels and the tragedy and the joy.
Too fast to understand and too slow to even notice.
It's hard to write in metaphors when you live in New York city.

Subway poem 15: Bound for Manhatta

Bound for Manhatta on the morning train
Sweating in the obtuse humidity
To return to a land I'm not sure is worthy.
But still the tide must rise on the hudson.
Tonight it will fall again:
The river that flows two ways.

Napowrimo day 30: unbelievable facts

*pause*
At the earth's equator, the earth is spinning at about 1,000 miles per hour.

And I have trouble sitting still.

My hands are always moving.

They draw, they finger knit, they tie braids in scarves or hair or little bits of string they found somewhere.

I always spill water when I'm trying to pour it.

Or rice or pasta or cereal.

Too much movement to put in whatever container I'm trying for.

And the earth is revolving around the sun at about 67,000 miles per hour.

And I have trouble sitting still.

I go out a lot.

To see friends, to dance, to make music, to farm, some weeks I clock over 60 hours just at work.

A friend once asked me how I did it and I joked

I fall asleep every time I sit down.

I fallen asleep every single day on the subway to work

For the past two weeks.

And the solar system is turning within the galaxy at 514,000 mph

And I have trouble sitting still.

I don't remember last time I slept in a bed for longer than ten days

I run every morning in hopes of pounding my restlessness into the ground

I tried to learn spanish but I couldn't stick with it. 

I set fires to see what will burn.

I make explosive art but I'm never around for long enough to finish a project. I've started writing four novels in the last year but didn't make it the first chapter in any of them. I've fucked so many people in the past year I've lost count. I'm not sure what day of the week it is and I don't know what time it is because my watch broke and I don't have the time to go out and buy a new one and the milky way galaxy is moving through space at 1.3 million miles per hour and

I have trouble sitting still.

Napowrimo day 29: a love poem

Love poem to the silverware drawer:

I find you next to the sink or under the dishes
With your straight lines and steady sections
You bring order to a chaotic world.

Napowrimo day 28: post card poem

Napowrimo day 27: a tarot reading