here's what music can do

waiting long, outside the gate, I told a keyboardist
"your music has helped me write many english papers"

and he replied, "if you help one person write a term paper,
you've helped the entire world get a PhD, it goes something like that."

another night, I quietly held a pen towards a guitarist, who asked,
"what exactly do you want?" and he laughed.

"I like to make people ask me directly for an autograph,"
then he signed "yo! -TL" and we shared a sense of victory.

if I drank tonight, I'd drink too much—for the other, empty end
of a booth, for the headache, and for the music.

added up

added up
the zenith of every rocket ship
makes the earth a porcupine
and the nadir
of the appalachian hills
is a collapsing coal mine

added up
the migration of gulls
would be cirrus cloud cover
and the atlantic would be flat
like the face of my brother

added up
I'd be stretched out thin
like a headlight photograph
and for the time and light and speed,
I couldn't do the math

colorful honeycomb

in this dream
I was the size of my two-inch
plastic airplane.

and while the rest held onto the wall
I held onto the plane
and took a leap into the bright cavern
of that colorful honeycomb.

I think Andrew Bird
was whistling "Heretics" somewhere nearby.

"Hold your breath!"
it worked! and when I inhaled,
I swooned upward through the warm air
and my thin, orange propeller
went "zzzzzzzzzzz."

we all rose and fell
with the rise and fall of our lungs
and we swam in circles through it all.

I get distracted easily.

I think the way to enjoy a live performance
is to pick out the most beautiful woman in the audience
and laugh and clap only when they do.
or
I think the way to enjoy a beautiful woman
is to take them to live performance
and laugh and clap only when everyone else does. 
or
I think the only way to enjoy laughing and clapping
is to do a live performance
with an audience full of beautiful women.

all I meant to say was

all I meant to say was

"here's the place that made me,"
or at least
"here's where I don't feel guilty
for my mind drifting."

and
"here are my margins
and necessary empty spaces
all pushed outside"

location, location, location
like a constellation of thumbtacks
in a cork-board map
or a chorus of crickets, each loud voice
specific and unknown.

all I meant to show you was
my state, a field, my origin.

water, place, and names

Along the heritage waters of Corinth,
triremes once knew the coast
and held along the continental shelf.

I have to be known by a landscape, scoped into the diorama...

A gudiye is silent, it pushes the floes
of Icy Bay along its ridges
and the Tlingit hunt seal this way.

...where the landmine is sacrilege to the Earth.

The canoe and the kayak are their places,
with the personality of a river
and the width of a man's arm.

a vivid cinema dream I had in the middle of the afternoon

I was probably eleven years old with a younger brother
who ran behind me out of the station wagon,
around the A-frame and through the woods.

Mother had worked out a deal for childcare and vacation
at the cabins of our friends.
The first night set up the scene of a pale savanna landscape
and dust in the 70's.
It was immature exploration and news of a grandfather
who had recently and unfortunately gone away.
Then, "come in, have dinner and go to sleep, kids."

The second day was a drive to an estate sale at his house.
The widow was there in a chair in the corner
and my brother and I explored the trinkets
of an early time
in this man's life.
On overhearing the adults' conversation, I learned
he had spent the last several years
journaling evidence to convict a man, who was deep in crime.

That man came into the house next, dark and rough and tall
and he brought three others with him.
He had no respect or use for us boys, so he ignored us.
I think my mother was petrified, my father wasn't around.
They had come for the proof.
He had passed away but the grandfather's
paper trail was still haunting them.

They figured it out soon enough, that what they came for
was hidden in the second-hand sale.
An old camera still had film it in, so they ripped it out
but the film wasn't ruined, it showed black outlines and schematics.
I pretended to help examine the negatives, holding them to the light,
and I found it.
I had to quickly hide the incrimination in my lap.
Then they found a sticky typewriter ribbon of his article
and that too I had to wad up and shove beneath the table.
I had to show them everything they found was meaningless,
"It's just his transactions and stories," I lied.
I had the feeling they wouldn't be merciful if I was found out.

I wrapped everything up in newspapers and colored paper
and made an excuse for leaving,
though I know I must have looked guilty on my way outside.

I came out the front porch and onto the dry lawn.
A brown sedan was gently coming down the dirt road,
a man with his young son in the right seat. I think he knew the family.

I made them stop, threw my armload into the backseat
and said "here's all the evidence you'll need
now get the hell out of here."
He heard the urgency in my voice.  He understood me,
he turned the car around,
and he sped away.

But the road was quickly blocked by the henchmen
and their long cars and the tall man was soon there too.
From where I was down the street,
I could hear him yelling and see him look into the backseat,
freeze for an instant,
then shoot a dirty glare down towards me
and I knew it was all over.

It was dusk by now.  I quickly climbed into my own car
and though it took me a moment to understand,
I put it into gear and accelerated as fast as I could
toward the group in the road.
I could feel myself picking up speed.

I could feel myself waking up, now, in anticipation of the crash.
I had to decide whether to wake or recommit.
I knew the story wouldn't be authentic, so I got up.