Shortcut.

This wind keeps snapping at our feet
through shoes unravelling.
Gales are hungry.
          Night's abandoned,
               streets have emptied.
Still, we own them--just keep talking.
           Winter's wailing.
           Fuck the old days.
Clutching coats closed,
                         tread nostalgia
past these sidewalk intersections.
Claimed by rambling conversations,
               often
               we're only
               rehashing
our worst mistakes
                                  and
                 shivering
                our way be-
             -neath stoplights
lit by good memories.

          I've got this notion tonight
          that we'll find our way
                                                  back
         ­ into the warmth found behind
          our locked front doorways.
Ways we've found to always hide
our faces from the cold outside
          have been running dry all night.
So drink down the cold street light
          and we'll make a blur of those green-white street signs.

This cold's still clawing at your face
through scarf unraveling.
Chapped lips smiling.
          Nights like this have
               kept on piling.
Winter owns us. Just keep walking.
           Winter's crying,
           "Fuck the old days!"
Frostbit footsteps
           slip nostalgia
past these frowning checkpoint questions.
Retouch same old observations.
                Sometimes
                we're only
                 retracing
the same missteps
                                but
                    ­frigid
             friends like us
                are melting
into old habits

          I've got this notion tonight
          that we'll take this route
                                                     for
          one more familiar cold flight
          from here to daybreak.
Say, "let fly those bomb bay doors!"
We've bombed these frozen streets before,
                    and I've got a couple more
          so keep moving 'til we find our front doors.

Sequester

November rolled down I-90
into this town
with the year's first snow and wind
                             I closed my mouth
into a fading highway line:
straight, short, horizontal
as the grey stains shade its white.

It's Wednesday night
          and the tunes inside my car
underline a quiet month
          strained through these bars

"What's the score?" say apartment walls
empty seats tied with unreturned phone calls
It stood that way last I took the tally
on shivering walks' shortcuts through alleys

                                  This is just another rut
                                  walked into these roads
                                  where my unabashed feet
                                  and my aching toes
can save my face some embarrassment
when the bent skies straighten out this cracking pavement

Just a little while later,
look back to the Sun,
gonna warm my face in the Winter dawn
and shake off these somber streetsalt thoughts
                                    caught
my friends on the rebound,
we'll remember now
                                    caught
my friends on the rebound,
we'll remember now

                                          I'll be fine again
                                          come February.
                                          Line my stupid fears up,
                                          shade their eyes.

Overruled

I'll grab the year by its goddamn nostrils
drag it through a mirth-soaked Autumn.
I smell another couch-bound month,
          so I'm churching up November nights
          with chips on sour luck

"Who're you to judge?"
Well, I'm the fucker with the gavel
                                          in my hand
and a burning, short fuse in each eye
And I'm sentencing this lengthy Fall
to muster up some wherewithal;
to keep me off the fucking pile of scraps
                                         'til next Spring.

Make this the Year of the Dog
                                     if you must
but understand I'm not a lamb
or a lion or an ox;
I'm a windy, cloudy Saturday,--
a kid from out Wyoming way--
The only guess I've got is
keeping still means getting lost

I'll grab the year by its goddamn collar
shake until it bleeds the future.
Drag it out--I'm gonna drag it out
toss it on the pile of burning years
                                 to light my face.

Keeping still means getting lost.
Burning years'll light my way.

Camera 1/Camera 2

There's a tiny park a short walk from here
where no one ever goes.
Though it's always abandoned,
I like to walk there when it snows
               'cuz it seems like
                     a relative.

Don't complain to me, my friend
if your face is feeling raw;
It gets cold here in Montana,
and December nights get long.
               and they have not
                   failed me yet.

So salt your frigid frown
and lay down bets on warmer times
in five more months, the thaw will come
and we just might quit rolling snake eyes.
Icy air is not your enemy
and neither are this small city
                                              or I.

The same park, it has a baseball field,
leaf-covered, looking old
the dugout's still in good repair,
but the basepaths overgrown
               remind me of,
           A New Year's alone

Remember one warm night when we thought
we were in the mood
to walk to the convenience store
for some box wine and some food?
               we played cards,
             locked in my room...

Now we're crying California tears
from laughing all night long.
And you don't really hate Montana,
you're just doing Winter wrong.

So lay your anger down
and hedge your bets 'til nicer days
don't stay inside, 'cuz you don't have to.
Graft my smile over your grimace,
this dull white-out's not the end for us
and neither is the bitter cold
                                                   outside.

Seams

13 years, so many jobs
so many names you half forgot
got caught and collected
                    at the corner of your mouth.

Outside, it's one more night,
one more stitch in this rag doll year
and you can still hear the way she'd
                    try to talk while laughing
any given Sunday night.

Might be you half forgot.
Might be the roaring years
drowned out the hum of their names
in your ears
              earned your stripes, now wear 'em well
spell out your name in snow, then
go lay down in the bed you made.

Outside, it's lights and noise
and visible breath
footbeats on sidewalks,
forgotten names with smokers' coughs
all caught in the roaring tides of
                                                the time.
But it's blood clots inside;
a parenthesized appositive
                      redefining what you lost.

In the clot, one sunk to the silt,
                  to the dregs.
In here, your living room
               is outside the parenthesis,
closed out of the open air.
Spare change beneath the lamp
strangely mocking outside lights,
                 glinting bright,
                    but silent.
                       Inert.

And, just outside,
          those city lights
they flash for others;
those with jobs and funds,
          with lovers,
with smiles still left
                         in the tank.
Not fake ones constructed
by nights getting fucked up
or upended frowns painting faces
like clowns'--
                 you'll get out.

                You'll make it back;
              black clouds blow past
       and the tide runs out fast. And--
                           lastly?--
    You're made of better stuff than that.

Where's My Hat?

Your feet got tangled
in your own damn name
                             Layed
nights out end-to-end,
now you're the oldest one here drinking
in this dingy, shaking basement
                   by at least "a couple years or so,"
so shrink from searching eyes.
Strike up that shitty band again--
                  your teeth have grown tall enough
                          to ditch this ride

                          Outside,
              some drunken crusty's
             trying hard to pick a fight
      and shadowed necking in the corners
           punctuates the "Got a light?"s
                  like drowsy eyes and
             yawning sighs parenthesize
the way you check your phone a thousand times

                                       "Hey, don't you work tomorrow?"
                                        Yes, I fucking work tomorrow and...

Though all these fresh-lit fuses
                                          sizzle--
--starlight studs in leather night--
the morning leaves you spark-singed
               paper, sulfur lungs
                 and sagging eyes

The stairway's fucking crowded
with a thousand younger yous,
feet creak the upstairs floorboards
cue the crooked smiles in familiar hues

               Bug pigs have pens
               and feet have boots.
               Old hats need heads
     and birds, they need their roosts

So let the lines fill in
on this fermenting face
and lay this craggy grin
          into its worn-in place
          beneath these creaking stairs
          and let this basement shake.

Un-Moving Day

Check off
     all these belongings from a list
that I wrote in thick blue marker
on a cardboard strip I ripped
    
                    There's a book I lost at 26
                    with dog-eared pages fading gold
                    16 pens, 45 cents
                    a dented tin of birthday cards
                    unnumbered rolls of mints

Sit back
     on the carpet in the heat
take another sip and press on
to the bottom. To the green.

                    There's a look you had at 28
                    with bow shaped mouth and arching eyes
                    15 hours, many road trips
                    your crooked tooth would slant your grin
                    Never saw me fall right in.

                    And today I pace apartment floors
                    or sit amidst a box flap hall
                    halted breath, an iron hour
                    clad in sweat, still packed away
                    in taped up, cardboard yesterday

                    There's a photograph, from back '09
                    atop the slippers that you gave.
                    Raging smiles, orange lights at night.
                    The River Walk in wintertime.
                    And it's my favourite pic.

But the 21st was moving day
and all I've got are pickled dreams,
an empty house and waiting boxes,
"Tear my guts out," so they say.

                    No fight quite like a duct taped box.
                    No companion like your face.
                    No shrink quite like an empty bottle.
                    No wake-up call like moving day.