eat your heart out

quiet even from the crickets

holes in the fence

and climbing at walls

no poison ivy

thank god

from the top of texas

we looked into space

and i decided

very much i like your face

a picnic in the parking lot

arms around the waist

the smell of something new

void parties lasting for days

finally breaking in

the southern place

cant help but thinking

and insolently knowing

that it will never be like this again

can't help but knowing

that christ never had it like this

Lonesome blades of grass in the cracks

man, i love brick sidewalks

mostly because small blades of grass

and lonely flowers sprout between the cracks

walking by reflections of people

and glass windows

some empty some full

worthless merchandise and commodity

the pinnacle of civilization

you must be shitting me

i walk in any direction

others follow but blocks apart

buildings separate us from curing loneliness

i'll never know them

and they'll never know they're lonely

the wind inhales and waves goodbye

to buildings painted on buildings in disguise

signals sent miss the mark and the creator

sighs in disgust, reflected in his art

a lost creature which blends with all the rest

the conductor

The Conductor

The eleven o’clock light pours in through the blue blinds and filters softly through my eyelids. I awake slowly and shift my weight on the memory foam mattress, never regretting all the extra dough that I shelled out for the bed. Fumbling at the night stand, I find my watch and realize that I should probably head into work.

I shower quickly and decide on some light colored clothes as it’s probably hot as balls out side. A quick check of the temperature gauge on my iPhone confirms this notion—another day above 100.

Jesus Christ. What a city.

I drink a quick breakfast of orange juice and an energy bar, returning texts from friends and coworkers as I do so. Right before I head out the door, I decide to brush my teeth. My mouth still has the vague pine taste of gin in it, and by this point it is getting old. Afterward, I almost pour myself another glass of orange juice, but remembering that I had just brushed my teeth, I decide to pour it down the sink.

I take the steps to the ground floor of my apartment, still playing on my phone. I’m trying to get a hole of Tina to see if she wants to have lunch later this afternoon, or even dinner, at that place on 12 and Lamar that serves bad ass chicken sandwiches.

As I reach my car, I hit the unlock bottom and slide onto the leather seats, realizing that I’ll probably need to get it washed. The summer dust accumulates quickly around here, and it annoys me to see the black coat of the Audi not as shiny as it should be, as it could be.

Tina returns my text with a call as I’m stuck in traffic on the highway.

“Yo Tina! What’s up?”

“Oh you know…just working.”

I smile, knowing that Tina is too shy to really start a conversation. I crack a quick joke which loosens things up a bit, then shift the phone to my other hand as I turn on the car’s Bluetooth so I don’t have to deal with the phone while I’m driving.

“So, I was checking out that place on Lamar—Gardens—and they have a pretty badass menu. I’ve gotten their chicken before and it’s pretty good. Wanna hit it up for an early dinner? I haven’t eaten anything all day.”

Tina agrees and mentions that it can’t be too late in the afternoon. She has to go running, or to yoga or something-- I miss part of the conversation because some douche bag in front of me is going fifty in the left lane. I quickly shift and pass him on the right, trying to flip him off through the tinted windows.

“Alright, that sounds good.” Someone else is calling me, and the console screen tells me it’s my business partner.

“Alright Miss Tina, I’ve got to let ya go, but I’ll give you a buzz later tonight.”

I hang up and switch calls to Ryan who runs the company with me. He’s already in the office and tells me that we’ll be meeting with some investors later this afternoon. I let him know that I’m on my way but stuck in mid day ridiculous traffic.

“How’d the reviews go in New York?” I ask him, almost as an after thought.

“Really well. They loved the designs, especially John’s. They’d like to sign him on for more work in the upcoming year, but those clowns are so vague half the time that I feel like it the window will have to be so much larger than usual.”

“Have they drawn up any specific layouts yet?” I ask. I pass a broken down car in the medium and turn my head around to take a look. A Buick. Typical. God, I hated those cars.

I conclude my conversation with Ryan and turn on loud music to drown out the traffic surrounding me. I’ll probably be heading into the office later than I anticipated, but as I open the moon roof and the hot sun is nullified by the air conditioning, I try to think of weekend plans--maybe a show downtown. I think a French DJ is in the city, and will be performing at Mal Verde on Friday night. I call up Tronche to confirm.

July 29th 2011

Walked to get beer today. The street was busy and hot like always, reminding of that October I moved here and shoved a mattress on the roof of my blue car so I had somewhere to sleep. The concrete roasts the city during the day, and in the evening it decays into the night. Late July and August are prime times for some one to go nuts - just absolute apeshit- on a bender of sun lamp heat and cheap booze.

One year I gave my best friend a bloody nose.

I made it across the street and right before the gas station where they sold Coors Light, I passed a couple walking arm lengths apart. The man was talking about software, and the woman was hanging by a thread, barely even threatened by my staggering presence.

They hardly recognized anything outside their world, and I thought, how boring couples are. But in some way that the lights on the North side of the bridge some how inspire, I envied them. And wish I had stood there looking at the water, instead of looking for paper towels to make Alex's nose stop bleeding all over the god damn street.

choices

a poet can face many choices

be brilliant

in bar lonely room darkness

hot parties in the vacant

pockets that once housed talent

but now mere intoxication

or find a subtle ground

underneath the mean

kiss girls on the street

and go home on a bike

and look for something to eat