The Marshmallow

The Marshmallow’s hella mattress;
It is the phattest.
I swim under the covers
And curl up with my favorite actress.
One big pillow, this Marshmallow,
Stealthy quicksand for a tired fellow.

Chloe Dancing

A feeling I caught, awash in sand and sea
Bringing back some faint, foolish memory:
Chloe and stickman and rockman and I
In love for an evening because we were high.
Iceplant and kindling on the Santa Barbara sand
A stage built for my improvised puppets and hands.
Under the star-patched, moon-cloudy sky
We loved Chloe dancing, sticks, rocks, and I.

Nesting

One time I found
That I loved the warmth
Excavated by nesting:
Burrowing so far
Into a pile of pillows,
A weight of blankets,
The I left the world behind.
These were the laps
Of my imaginary mothers;
They were the arms
Of my dream-lovers.
Safe and tight
Inside a womb of covers,
Tented fabric and
Down-stuffed sandbags
Kept me secluded
From the shellshock of
Existing.

For Dawn Again

Forever I wanted to please you,
Hold you and keep your eyes and halo bright.
I am shy of you now;
Unimaginably wretched when in your sight.
I shall never love another like you.
There is nothing to turn my heart away.
And so this hurts the most;
That I was not able to keep pace today.
Lost and still losing you,
Time was [...]

A Current Myopic Feud

Isn’t it tragic to be so wise
And profess to know the answers,
Yet I help myself to my most delicious lies
And avoid mirrors like they were cancer.
Can’t get it right – I am still hollow
Inflated, life like sleight of hand,
No deserters; the blind still follow
This blind man across the sand.

Big Olaf

Once, while sitting
On a tide-surrounded
Piece of Sunset Cliffs,
I smelled boyhood,
A summer scent:
Warm sand, blue cool ocean,
Seaweed, shells, swells, surf wax;
Coconut tanning oil
SPF 15.
The silence of waves before they break,
Bodyboard rash and sunburns,
The sharp asphault places in the parking lots,
Kicking sand on the backs of your calves
When wearing flip flops.
Bonfires and beer drinking,
Big Olaf’s waffle cones;
Smoke [...]

Punch Drunk

I’m trying to escape;
Now, too late
To unchoose what I chose
What seems like long ago.
The responsibilities come
Steady, now – steady
As the tide churns the sand
On the beach is another
Wrinkle in the lines of my hand.
Roll with the punches, punch drunk;
More are on their way,
There’s no use cursing
About the ones landed yesterday.

Something I Haven’t Quite Finished Yet

To the hip-hop rhythm of my break-beat bounce
I sing sun stars surf stoopid something amounts
To a funky fresh freestyle flowing fast and far
from the breakers to the speakers in the trunk of your car.
I get a little sparkle like the wind in my eye
When the sun is shining steady from the stretch of the sky.
Outside [...]

A Poem on a Note on the Fridge

I forget the joy of writing
then reading what I’ve written,
curling like a kitten play-fighting
with the same gentle hands
that stroke poems from the sand
of the beaches that I walk on
when I haven’t forgotten
that I love to be alone sometimes
with my simple childish rhymes.

Pennywise as a Lover

when I am away
I know that I am in love
with you,
with salts and breezes
from the ocean
that would go well
with your blonde hair,
helium balloons
for your big blue eyes,
dripping sandcastles
in the reflection of the sun
on the sealskin sand
of the tide on the beaches.
and I am the mist
that crawls in off the old pieces
of the sea that were [...]