last week’s poems 01

who is more of an american poet than an immigrant 

dear, reader

dear, writer

dear, painter

dear, fighter

these poems are for you

always have been

digital words don't mean a thing

the screen hums and the keys clink

but it all doesn’t mean a thing

you and me 100 miles apart don’t mean a thing

i saw a photo of you it didn’t mean a thing

the man you are with doesn’t mean a thing

none of it means a thing to me

you sent me a postcard from switzerland

i thought it meant something

you skinny-dipped with me under that waterfall one morning

i know it meant something

just, now, it doesn’t mean anything to me

and i have her and you have him

and that was all we would ever be these words on a screen

do you believe in me?

i believe in you.

her and i in manhatten, or you and i in brooklyn,

it’s telling about the english language that

Basquiat is not in the dictionary

but Warhol is 

ive been hammering

away at the keys for far too long today

and still i haven’t created anything magic for you to taste

yet.

the start of a poem

don’t date a shit poet

the end of a poem

you used to come in through my side door at 3am

roommates never knew

and i’ve never been more tired

or happier

than that season of life

Basquiat feelings of rage were locked in tight behind a smile

they are open until 5

but if you know the owner

you can stay till 10

start to party

and go till 5am

if you know the owner

you are in

i called her old friend because

i’d definitely met her

in another life

just

turn

your

phone

off

and

start

writing

poems

you’ll

feel

better

i

swear

shes got a boyfriend - a Jack Carty tribute

shes got a boyfriend

hes got a studio in echo park

he wears doc martens and corduroy pants

he’s got a Chalamét haricut

and he's funny

shes got a boyfriend

he rock climbs at his local gym

and he’s making good money

some typical way

i've got a few poems that won’t let me go
i've got bad habits and a broken motorcycle
i've got too many stories i want to share

shes got a boyfriend

he bought a car with his dad’s money

and he never drinks more than 2

he’s not on ritalin

and he has a group of friends

everywhere he goes

i’ve got a few hundred poems that linger around

i’ve got a phone but the battery is always dead

and most of all i’ve got a journal full of stories i wrote just for you

i used to drive that mini cooper

with the stick shift

and you and i, would fly

around town

doing this and that

and always feeling relaxed

and creative

and never running out of gas

i used to drive that mini cooper

with the stick shift

to the bar on colorado

where we would start our nights

and id drive you home to the apartment off villa

where we’d end

curled up tangled

and happy

old friends

would she really come and visit me

in thailand

what if i just flew there

and she came

holy shit

she really might come

and visit me in thailand

like we had always planned

there’s this musician i like on spotify

he’s not very good

right now

but he used to be

every song he writes

you can tell how in love he was with a girl

he really loved her, man

he really loved her

and every song gets sadder and sadder

and his music is getting worse

because its unrequited love

and he’s married someone else now

damn. its going to take more sacrifices than i thought to get where i’m going

a frenzied pen

a caffeine den

i looked at my analytics

and you watched all my stories

but never said a thing

even when i wrote poems

about you

never said a thing

maybe what we had

wasn’t true

digitally,

but in person

i knew

and you met me again

at the caffeine den

with my frenzied pen

i’m three different for you

three different cultures i was raised in

all came out differently

brazilian lover

kiwi worker

anxious american capitalist disaster

three different for it to work

you and i,

the 1 freeway

and an offwhite dress

surfers at sunset

photos i never shared

of you and windswept hair

the california coast

was a good look for

you and i

for too short a time

our little secret hideaway bar is closed now

we’d go to that hidden bar

at midnight most nights

and sit on the patio

with the dim lighting

and we’d sit real close

and we got to know the bartender

and he was the only one who knew

what we had

it was always the pillow talk for me

you and i didn’t want to sleep

because we could stay up all night

chatting about dreams

closed café

just me alone in a closed café

barista let me stay

but she had left for the day

so it was just me alone

in this closed café

and i wondered

if you were going

to come around this way

a secret

if you write something when you are tired

you will

then be able to

write something else

and then

something else

and then tell me

are you tired now?

fuck off

we told eachother that if we ever needed

to take a step back from eachother

we would say ‘fuck off’

like a codeword that should never have been said

i let the words come out

one messed up day

and you took two steps back

and i couldn’t bring you back

i had started writing poetry everyday again

and it made me miss you

even though

you were right next to me

most nights

a haiku that makes me sad

you got back with him

and stopped sharing your art, were

you making it still?

you always deserved better poems than this

better poems than i could give

i got drunk on a monday with people i didn’t like and it turned out worse than i thought i should’ve stayed in my room hammering at my keys and the lesson has been learnt before but now my instincts are better i should’ve known the signs were all there these were people i didn’t like and i should have kept hammering away or painting something instead of wasting my time and feeling drunk like this poem about people i didn’t like.

and i wondered what Keaton Henson would think about these poems

on losing creativity to materialism and capatalism

you are a god

but so am i

but we are gods of different things

you, a god of material things

and me, a god of dreams

except these days

its mainly nightmares

of me snapping awake

becoming human again

and losing all my creativity

and falling into the trap

set by all the gods of material things

i heard ‘Feeling Whitney’ and felt it’s weight

i read ‘Big Sur’ and heard Kerouac’s plight

i wondered if i would ever feel alright

i’m an obviously self-taught artist

thats all she wrote, this week

fin,

for now


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