driving through bayou

that daft punk song is on
I looked at the map
there is water everywhere
I'm thinking about the alcoholics I've loved
I guess I'm reading a lot of Raymond Carver
it feels like the closest I can get
to them
and I've been alone for long enough
which isn't long at all
but maybe it doesn't do well alone for long
it dies inside a little
the people around me love 2chainz
and they overuse the word yucky
I don't like it
it makes me feel lonely when everyone else is laughing and making noise
the white longlegged seabirds with the slender bills
sifting trash
from the gulf of mexico
I should stop reading these stories
or I should stop thinking of people I used to love
or still love
or I should stop loving
or expecting to
or I should stop drinking
even though they do love me
more when we do
I like living in a place that's sinking
I like keeping my mouth shut, just
watching for the other mouths
of sewers
to get taller than
I

what to do

I want to write a $10 poem

I want to smoke all of the cigarettes

I want to sit on this blanket

I got this blanket when I was born

and on it you can sometimes make out the names of old strange women

strange women I don't know,

who made patches for it,

and one embroidered balllooons

and one did bears

and one did a bible verse

and one, one did a map of idaho

and all that's left of that is a dot in navyblue thread where boise is

and a couple of scraggling rivers.

So I think that's sort of beautiful.

but I want to write a $10 poem, for nickey

because she said every time you spend five dollars, you should have to make a poem

and then she said, I don't even write poems

so I can't do this with you

start this project, where everytime we spend five dollars we have to write a poem, and we have to

she said, what about when we pay rent? and this is after I said, no

no

every time we spend ten dollars

we'll write a poem

so she said, everytime we pay rent we'll have to write twenty poems

*     *     *     *

so we thought about it for a few seconds

till she said, I don't write poetry.

(but she said it with a flurry of ellipses) 

Well neither do I but I can write

a $10 poem

I think

is what I said

little consumptions

In late nights I inquire, in daytime I look about sideways at the overcast. In the night I look at the map of a day following, and I listen to the slide guitar drops of permanent rain. A spark of his eyes, the words, the touches, the rekindling she says. Remembering and the sun! o that broad sparkle. Everything like the trains, sometimes they awaken me. It was like a date, but we weren't/ didn't know to think to.