maudlin

bits of mullein in the light
my gentle promiss
persuasion song
hello?
it's my last time, roll a louisiana cigarette
some hickory street smoke
no
something about it
something about me liking
something about me
I'm liking me
the acoustics I'm all about
my environment, you know
my environment

I love Kyle
I love Kayla

but they won't be coming back
....................................................................
last night at 8241 Hickory St, New Orleans

obit

April 4, 2014

Conventional! I have a witness for volume, the neighborhood roars, the lap lap of the sea, the atlantic, little boise roars, the waves lick my ankles of the sand I'm of the sand. I think

 I'll smoke a cigarette. my name is molly, I am just short of 30, I've fallen in love a number of times, I live in little boise, I'm drinking strawberry beer, chad is cutting isaiah's hair sadly, crying at the lostlocks, daydreamy, cedar oil. I shaved half of my dog, she is flearidden. the era got eerie.

 Or, do you want to celebrate?

I live in a room up top, upstairs people land of balcony people, the haunting neighborhood roar. the roar of wet neighbors and dry neighbors, the land of faraway loveslost, lovelocks, lostloves, lostlocks.

recently I have acquired a weddingdress, of course we mean weddingguestdress, bestdressed weddingguestdress, the first lady would wear it before she was she.

pie slits. let out the steam a bit!

bring it up a bit. competing multitudes

signed

what now

what did I do today. I went to westwego, la to the department of motor vehicles, it's in the smallest building and you have to walk around to the back where you're surprised to find it isn't at all the david lynchian experience you'd hoped for but a quiet smalltown city hall experience, endless waiting room all quiet with one or two voices on a cellphone and then the waves of murmur, people getting up to go because their ticket says J85 when we're only at J16, let's be honest. I was trying to read this ernest hemingway story called up in michigan when dan came traipsing through to say it wasn't going to happen today. or any other day, I didn't say. Let's go get a thanksgiving po boy, he sighed. and then he got on the phone with his folks and said he'd need a new birth certificate. this is the first time I heard the voice of his father. he had a nice florida drawl I could tell. sometimes I can taste it on dan, and it's like beach and it quicksands one in. sometimes I don't trust it, which shouldn't be, in fact I distrust that I distrust. no matter. but we didn't, we went to his house, we had to, he's getting $ in the mail and his peacoat, its 49 degrees outside, it's like burgeoning wintertime, louisiana style. it's alright with me, it really is... but for some reason I can't fathom it. I am a hard-to-please. I am like the version of me I regretted years ago. I watch myself with the hands on the wheel, no traffic to speak of. how hungry am I, will there be a second chance for a thanksgiving po boy? is it thanksgiving yet? 

I took some offbrand nyquil about 15 minutes ago. My left nasal cavity cleared itself. 

I went to the thansksgiving po boy place, I thought I'd get us one. I even made danny call them to order it ahead of time but guess what, me & everyone else. so I drove on over. I realized as I got on orleans avenue that I knew where I was, connected the 7th ward to treme to bayou st. john to mid-city to uptown. I keep blowing my nose against this hawaiianprint skirt I've been meaning to dye olive green. a sexy beyonce knowles song called speechless comes on the headspeakers.

The line for thanksgiving po boys snaked through the restaurant. way more people in line, reading menus, applying lipgloss, smartphoning than those eating po boys at tables. it felt almost empty of spectators, just mad paraders. I left. I wasn't even mad, but I did leave, it was like the dmv all over again but without numbers. this is a terrible lovesong but it's straight r&b '93 style but who wants it like that right now?

I went to rouses. I liked it immediately because no one cared about parking places anymore, everyone was shoved together against the yellow lined drive and I knew it was not the legal place to park but that no one would do a thing. it was a small triumph, the first of this holiday season. it's strange to think that I might have moved to nebraska. I almost never think about that anymore

In rouses I got cranberries which were floating in a red pool, scooped them up with a slotted spoon. some satsumas, couldn't find a fucking orange! save for a bag from- get this- california! can you imagine? with florida just around the corner? 

The drungs are starting to kick in. left nostril totally clear, right, hmmm... I lit the end of my hippie smoke and another shitty beyonce knowles song comes on- rather die young

Then I went back to dan's and I drank tea and we talked, I laid on his couch actually and we ate all these cookies his mom sent to him. I'm sorry I'm such a sobby I mean snobby person sometimes.

Anyway I hadn't had anything to drink since I had this one beer on sunday when we saw the puppet show about the history of the red light district of new orleans, which was amazing. and I only had a la 31 roasted dark ale and so tonight I dropped aja at her place with the firepit for tomorrow's feastparty. she made me a hottoddy and it was great... I only worry I might not be able to taste thanksgiving. but there are worse things.

I just gotta finish this smoke and then I'll get on the road I might even stop to get you some ice cream

I'm still sitting here on the bench in front of work
still drinking the same old drink
Charley's steakhouse eliminated
I called my drunk boyfriend
he's pretty drunk
he said come scoop me
but I think I just got to smoke another smoke
I'm talkin to myself
making the most of myself
I'm following my instincts
it's nearly 11:30 p.m.
man that kids been drinking
Group me up
why don't you come screw me up
uh oh

this is a little bit after work it makes me think about to work

the street is empty and humid
I don't know what temperature is anymore
I don't know what I did this drink at anymore
don't know what kind of drink it is
it's free after work drink
I'm sitting in front of work out
and I'm wishing that I had all of the minutes of the world
to Castle Rock on me
to turn it rock on me
order it
rock on me
I sweat out this in the kitchen
the sins of the kitchen
the wet slimy under my nails
the slamming me under my nails
it under my nails meet under my nails
I have more meat for my bones
what I have in my milk crate:
animal on a sandwich wrapped in tin foil
chicken eggs wrapped in a brown paper bag
a quart container of coffee, dipping in wrinkled on the lead
addicted and then a peach and LA sky
and non negotiable pay stub with my name on it
a box of roasted brussel sprouts
a bottle of water I always forget to drink it
phone charger
sliced bread.
I'm in a good mood
I like my people,
and I like the scene
just wish I could call Kyle
because I miss him
any send me messages that a Dad would send
I could see how you could be lucky to have him for a dad
but I've got mad dads
every man I've been very close to, close to by choice
other than lovers
has been dead to me
they've been dads to me
but it's alright after work hard one
in short sleeves and short dress
and a compliment from a woman
and a smoke with new friends
but I forgot to change out of these Pumas
so my style remains fresh.

raise me up

in haunting backs, smashed up
all of the compliments
I have to go visit my mom for some first time
I have a whole family
to share my pits with, my grub
to not smoke in front of
to smile at
to not get too shitfaced, to keep it together for
to let know my excitement
they might make me go rafting, or something
which will be pretty
it's one of the prettiest places on earth, Hailey, Idaho
I'll sleep under the stars, I'll read my kafka & my baudrillard & my sontag in lamplight
I'll think of your haunting back
long smooth brown, because I'm romantic like that
of your mouth, the prettiest part on you
with a mole on a lowerlip
Do you like it?
I do, I do
I compliment you freely, no one likes compliments
  because they don't seem free
I'll drive alone, no
just me, my brain riding in the scrub seat
I'll say goodbye
I'll say hello to a secret you
  when we last met in the tropical bed drinking rum, running our bodies out each other
  but that was years ago.
  and we're brothers again.
all of my brothers, then
  and I'll be the failed aunt daughter sister
whispering, bye byeing at Idaho
    you little sucker
bye byeing at the mountains & clear summer waters.
see you soon, future turn, let me let's go peacefully, wrap my brain up
wrap me good, my little passenger

cruelbod

the teens are sitting on the bleachers at the highschool
but they aren't teens, anymore, basically 30 now
kelly is arched back in a vermilion haltertop
and tad lays flat, looking at the stars.
she graduated from highschool
and comes & drinks rose on ice
on the bleachers
she does reverse cowgirl on the bleachers
tries to pee between steps
as latenight athletes run the track.
God, why aren't YOU running with them, she accuses tad
who exhales smoke
and sips rose, ice clinking in his plastic cuppy.
I know, right
kelly sat with brody
on the highschool bleachers
when she was pushing 30, a couple of augusts ago
she was wearing a white dress and a denim jacket
and brody was drinking a big beer
he was trying to convince her to just drive with him all night to nevada
so they could get married
she thought that sounded like fun
but they'd just met the day before
and she knew they'd get sick of each other halfway there.
she never sat on those bleachers when she was in highschool,
just after she moved begrudgingly back after years away
and it was only twice, and past midnight
with guys named tad and brody.
kelly only fucked brodys, now
she was done with seths and aarons and todds.
she is feeling pretty superior in her vermilion haltertop
she is looking good, teenlike
she tells tad about the jeremy she'd been harassing
and tad tells her, kindly, that she's been humiliating herself.
she is gleeful
she doesn't care, has nothing to lose
she claims a lack of cruel organs in her cinnamon bod.
but she's a liar,
and pathetic,
and she's alone in life and she's mean
so she smokes & she chugs
& she takes her shoes off and pees freely.
she's got those good strong outside peeing legs.
she says Whatever
I'm Me
never growing up
just justifying her moves
with evil eye glimmers
and secret, hopeful tears

bros

boys sobering up
boys being jealous of other boys' ability to sober up
boys getting stoned in the car, listening to pop music
boys inviting girls they sort of like to the bar
boys sharing a chair with girls at the bar
boys looking like part of a couple
boys seeing their exgirlfriends at the bar & avoiding eyecontact
boys seeing other boys' exgirlfriends at the bar & trying to avoid talking to them
boys not using condoms ever, woops
boys drinking out of the jars they brought from home
boys going home to try to fuck the girls they sort of like
boys getting naked for girls
boys being annoyed at girls when they change their minds
boys insisting on having an orgasm
boys sitting up in bed at 4:34 am, crying
boys saying, I think I'm going to go
boys saying, I don't care about this
boys sobbing while girls comfort them
boys sobbing that they need to get their shit together
boys saying, I need a smoke
boys weeping and smoking with girls on the porch while they smoke
boys saying, I want to meet someone who is as passionfilled as I
boys apologizing for being so crazy
boys making girls come, surprised
boys saying Thank you for being so kind to me
boys sleeping in
boys late for work
boys with bad news
boys really needing other boys
boys finding how their own problems are nothing compared to those of other boys
boys acting like everything will be all right
  because it will be, for them
     eventually

regretless

I fell in love with a boy who told me I smelled better when I hadn't bathed

I used all of these products from the body shop,

we didn't have the body shop yet, in idaho.

I wasn't quite a vegetarian

and I didn't really smoke cigarettes

but he was, and did
he smoked parliaments.

and he'd come over almost every day, though we weren't dating

and we weren't fucking

and he'd give me a hug when he got upstairs to the apartment

on kedzie blvd

I was blowdrying my hair

and I smelled like candy coconut and candy pear and all of the most exotic candy fruits

and he said, You'll smell better in a couple of days

I felt like he'd given me permission

for the first time in 19 years

to smell like a human being.

I was excited

because he hardly bathed

or washed his hair

or changed out of his russian military sweater

or his pleated pants

and I thought he smelled like the best thing in the world.

I met him in a photography class, and he told me later that he'd noticed me for awhile

he'd thought, Who is that sad girl

I just liked his sweater

and I was excited to see what he'd wear the next week

but I never in all of our time together

saw him wear anything else. 

we spent two true nights together

and on the third, I went to his house

and he told me that he couldn't do it anymore, that I should leave

and he went into the next room and put on sigur ros

and was crying and writing.

I sat in his kitchen, on his blowup mattress

and I cried, too

and I composed a letter to him

and I refused to leave because he was too important to me

and I already loved him with everything in me.

I forced myself to start smoking. marlboro reds, I thought they seemed tough.

and one day I stopped him at school, and I told him that he was too important

that we were too important to not know each other

and he agreed to have coffee with me.

he showed up. we talked & talked like nothing had changed

he asked if I wanted to go with him to take pictures

and so we drove to indianapolis.

we ate caffeine pills and smoked cigarettes

and I watched the midwestern middle-of-nowhere constellations

and I watched the sunrise 

over the chicago cityscape.

he left me at my house

and we hugged for a long time

and we were inseparable

later on we told each other that we loved each other

and we were best friends

but I crumbled when he'd fuck other girls

and refuse to sleep in my bed with me

and eventually I crumbled so badly

that I couldn't keep anything together anymore

so we lost each other

but I will never, ever regret

the millions of things learned.

ammmn't, anymore

one pack a day on some summer night! I am sorry I tried that, I have hundreds of unfinished paragraphs. what day is it, even? trying to count in evens. I think we're at 45. all of my relationships are mountains. I don't like some of your names. I like mine own. a bull charging at me, charge me. I slept with the one who broke my heart for years. I was a whole person, again and I thought I'd never be. I said inside voiced, I guess you'll own me forever. I would do anything you say. I would move to chicago instantly at your urge. ready to be destroyed again. but of course, I am bigger than I thought. big enough to brush away memory shines, pull out the splinters. lamenting at seven whole years passed. you're not a matter-to-me, I'm glad I'm on the internet where you'd never think to look for me. I'm alright with your living, our earlymorning why not. I didn't tell you anything, and you faded like time makes. my hair still grows, I still sustain a body. the craze wanders, dissipates. but we must have known when we started, again. smoke a pack to your face and die of young too-much, much too young.

someone take care of it

someone put exhaust in the smoke
or maybe a body's trying to say something
we are a fantasy crowd.
we breathe out noses.
months away (not so very far distances away!)
  and I keep thinking how when I was in new york
  I really wanted one of those gold script ID necklaces
  that all the cool brooklyn babes would wear
and I'm not talking abt the williamsburg babes
highwasted jeans
long hair, big shades
with stick arms
I'm talking about the applebottom babes
  but I wanted one with my old boyfriend's name
  and the guy at the shop informed me that
No, this necklace should be mine
no boys allowed
it's a good thing I didn't do it
else now I'd have a necklace
of Adan
  and we're friends, I'll always love that guy
but I couldn't exactly wear proudly his namesake now, could I?
  how many chains could I wear
if I had all of the $$
  for all of the names
     of everyone I've loved?
just pounds of goldplated shines
  hanging from my grub neck
I'd have to have all of the world's $$, again
  and that would be a weighty take
     on forever

tether

anymore we can just ask straight each other
the anxious can pass, smoke
in an overcast bedroom
  chill
these being the words,
purity ring on repeat
well
may ends
well may birthdays are gone
well I have to move a mind again
  somber just doesn't justice

the flowers are so dead
  & so meaningless that I haven't bothered
  to destroy them
or to even throw them out
I just moved them from the table
onto the floor
  so I've room to elbow around

can it be managed, a life getting saved
time isn't what this was
the great length, big old distances
something so desperate
something so drown,
something so make gel bones
slither
  
   throw a brain away
   puff up a balloon heart & fly up in it
   trust only that
   your hands in the silk sand
   sands in your eyeholes, nostrils
  babybird it to me

I'm sorry my heart is an infant
it should never have arrived alive
it should have been stillborn
I should have had more to drink
  while it was parasiting, puffing
but now I've to raise it up
  nurse it
I can strap it to my back when I go camping
and I can toss it in its harness
  and pull it taught until it snaps back to my arms
 
come on, baby
    grow already

diarrhea, entrails, repeat ∞

   we look almost nothing alike
pushing gently at the soft 30
  babe in the rain
I have been a smoke cloud
I have been a sadsack
my smoke face
my smoke stacks
I've been   I've been stuck under the street, gooey
  gummy, gutterblast
a little petrified thing.
I feel a little snaky in my old-skin
but I'm flowing. I mean, this shit's a gust, we're august
  up in here
   thickoil
go down
  my drains. I draw it up, little guzzle guzzle
my body's a goodmeat, my heart
is a harness
  a wetwish
  a no-way bore
and my brains are wrinkles
and I've that good
  innards rope
     double noose, holding them, side by side

  noose me to your pocket
            the one you dropped
  we're on this high plane, now
out of the rot
     plains

I got no grief machines
  driving my bod
  its inward mechanisms, abuzz buzz buzz

Merrill means shining sea in Welsh

we learned a few french words
  we felt awfully proud
     we pooped our bits out
        we stormed the crowd with party
            we danced away
        with our cranks & cogs
      and our ropes are strong, metal
     and the slivers they make are silver shines
   like some
iridescent sea

FOREST HONOR STODDARD

"The typist lived in a kind of limbo, hovering between heaven & hell." C.L, The Hour of the Star

tiny brimfilled winejar

just colors to design us in

someone's exploding

across the lake

  catastrophe bangs echo

are we in a rough neighborhood

I feel like a tough place, sometimes

on the lake in a dark wet breeze,

    Do you think we do things on purpose that are harder & worse for us?

it's raining on me, on my books

  my winejar has turned into a kalimotxo jar

it's raining around that good lighter

 and on The Hour of the Star

   and on The Blue Notebooks

Forest Honor Bali

  at the cabin we wear our

cut off cardigan sleeves

  as legwarmers

over our jeans

     they end up looking like

  festival wear

      burning the forest down

       with all the lights & smoke & vibrations

I have smoke face

mouth, ears, nostrils all smoke

smoke in my eyes

do clouds get thinner when they rain?

is it just

  I  L  L  U  Z  H  U  N  N  N  N

trying to be a poet in the rain

  trying to use a notebook in the forest?

           Climb a boulder

           Drop a laptop in a lake

  attend poets diversity college

   and get one for free

     if you graduate

the smiths

dear diary

it's the last night at gayulz club. i lit the last smoke with the last match, am drinking the last gold beer. reel around the fountain is playing, i'm on sparkleporch, room empty but for floorbed and table, box & lamp. for the first time i can fit my clothes into a dresser, i'm suddenly dismissing & emptying. it feels almost just right. & the new room is a tall rectangle, animation blinds. i'd have to show you! come over, there's a joke closet. the stuff i keep is adorable. i'm writing full sentences, now. 

   oh just set up a table. oh just do it. the things are right, a rightbrain is you. many congratulations to strange summer. my brain is coming tiedyed, i fell out of bed twice. say something you've never said. 

   i got to hear about the bigger things, the deals of those i love. everyone is asuffer. i am a little perspective. you are a little. she is big to me, he is to me. may! you are a pretty month, in your surprise-destruction. you never do this before. i'm wearing the hat you left in the cushions. she said what to do with sad t, sadly folded reading only to keep, and i said don't tell me about it just put it somewhere. so who knows about that? mementos try as kill-futures. i didn't have a bad time,

   here at gayulz club, life was supposed to be a spa. we would steam everynight, and waltz out onto the patio in robes, reeling in the spring fall winter night, have a cocktail, rub lotion on i guess, nails.

   it would be soup & slowjamb sundays, which we did for awhile, so much soup & people would come and they'd eat it & compliment us, and we'd dance to toni braxton etc.

   last week i discovered that my office was on the patio, cushion seat near the ground, the small desk, & opposite, the job interview swing seat, you could meet 2 at once. A typewriter if necessary, plugins everywhere, & even an assistant in a clever white collared top (sassy) with imbedded black vestlet. she can't bring coffee or file or write because she hasn't opposable thumbs, what she's useful for is telling you when someone's arrived to see you.

   i am excited, i am looking at it, i will miss you gayulz club. i have moved in & out of you 3 times, this final forever no more. it's a relief. glad i got to sleep outside in a bed in you, so happy to have met all the ghosts here, & to have showered occasionally & painted the studio so it could be looked at. leopard carpet, marble bathroom. kevin over the fireplace, dumb dumb dumb

up

so many bugs in your hair to wake up in

a goodmorning place to be

shake the leaves out

shake the leggies out

iridescent wingers

green shine

morning muscle

in a back all taught with tough

morning tuft, curls
shake my halo

smoke hair halo

wave smoke, docile eyes

bee dance, twirl

such a shorty

mourning doves

all of the others in matutinal jam

singing for summer

and overcast under outside bedclothes

I can sleep through the night, now

I am a furnished hole

a piece of finish, sometimes

suspend it

not be disbelieving

shark chin

look at you go! in my dreams I was in a closet with a screaming close-girl, we were being poked by invisible fingers, but you can't hide from invisible fingers

I'm going to make that life-deposit, now. It's early late enough. The ropes are twisting, shredding, I feel the pull more, gravity more, rope shred

We've picked out our $50,000 wicker porch sets

We cut the collars from our shirts to make room for the real breaths

but we smoke a pack

into the night

because suddenly, it is night

and we've gotten there!

I always use exclamation points, and some people never ever do

I wonder when I will find those of you who do?

in writing & otherwise?

And question marks?? I know we all do from time to time

I want the exclaimers. Dig me out to find them.

as if you'd notice

It's early, it was sixteen minutes earlier when I wanted to write
I have been up since even more before that
I have smoke coming out my ears
I have nothing in my throat.
I am not a good friend
      to anybody
I go to bed before it's dark
& it won't be light for hours
I don't know how I feel about caffeine
and I'm halfasleep
with a project in mind
that could be dismissed as art-therapy for teens in distress
or it could be adulated
for its tenderness & honesty
and maybe it will be up on the walls
or sent on a plane to another country
between two mountain ranges
where I can burn it all up

plug

I've got a meal in me now, it feels pretty weird

it also doesn't feel like april should end today but it will

because I think it's my favorite month. 

it's the early early mornings, and the sick smell of blossoms, 

and the promise of may

which is historically my favorite times

& I guess still should be. I am waking up, now

I can feel the blood back in my legs, the bones replacing the gelatin sog

& the sinews hardening, or maybe it's just the poison leaving my system

and I was supposed to be there, a friend

but I have only been friends with myself

keeping a mirror as a pet

making promises to the past.

but I'm sitting up, now

& looking at my face again, and it isn't as bad as I thought

and my smoke hair

is coiling like silk on the end of april

and my breath is sweeter than the sick blossoms

even with dying flowers

finally

like a motto from a tea bag I used to carry around with me to

always do the most beautiful thing.

so I'll try before I die & long before the great byebye

vengeless & celebratory is me

we listened to yo la tango, remember them?

He will bring all of the candles

he said chocolate helps, jsyk

and she bought a bag of tiny tangerines, 

and I can see myself diving right into them

like when Amanda opened that tiny clementine

and she told me to look at its puffy section

like a little slug on her leaf hand

and its shell 

its pith a neon orange baby foam

and I put it between the rows of my teeth

and I teethed
and I teethed
all night

when I was 18 I listened to yo la tango a lot

in the tall dark dormroom

and I festered

(I asked you yesterday, as if this is a question, what do I do now

and you said,

wait

wait, and brood

and I said how can you wait for nothing?)

when I was 18 listening to yo la tango

I knew what I was doing

but I used to sleep till 4, when it would get midwestern scyscraper village dark

and now I am up at 4, before it is grey spring western light out

and I am very aware of the mountains,

big fool rocks

the continental divide

the crying light where the tears flow down east or west

and some get to your rivers, and some get to mine.

Maggie Nelson said something about waking up with your weeping, don't write me anymore to tell me about it

because she knows you're so in love with your weeping

or something like that.

And maybe you truly are

but I truly am not

I am not the type anymore

when I was 18 

I would scream into the bedclothes

I would rip & sob & cling & claw at my smoke hair

and my young face

and I couldn't now scream on the patio, in the livingroom, into the couch clothes

and throw up the young foam

my young brain foam

as my throat makes a sieve for it

and its goop pushes out, around, tries through the cheesecloth

to be swallowed, into the mash bod

or to be vomited

in bubbles & sobs

See now I'm 28,

going on 29

in about 20 days, I guess

so my brain is still there, it found my head again eventually

and my heart crawled back

slunk back, eyes downturned, embarassed,

out from where my bean stomach lives in struggles

and all of the organs 

fell back asleep

in their gooey cradles