too much......

a weeks worth of writing, that i didnt even want to show the attempt audience... i dont know how many of you there are, and its okay if you dont wade through toooo many sentences and conflicted metaphors, well similies at least.

Whitehorse.....mike swanberg



PENWAY COMPOSITIONS
100 LEAVES

These are the first words
To ink this new notebook
And I am filled with the hope
That they might set the tone
The rest of my words could follow
Like children to school
Ducks
Anything

This is the second stanza in my
New notebook
And I would hope
It remains as powerful as the first…
If I have started a firm beginning
Then it is only fair that I continue
With strength, that my later words
Carry the power those first ones did
When I was a few minutes younger

This is the third realization
In a poem about a new notebook
That turns into a poem about
My father the longer you read it
Or maybe its more of a poem
About his dad, who is dead, or
Maybe his brothers who are not.

He is fourth in the line of children
And by some strange twist of
Whatever or whoever twists
These things
He was forced to become his own
Father
Forced to work in a steel shop
To provide for younger siblings

I watched his little brother, my uncle, the fifth
Look at him in the same way I do
With that some longing for approval
With those same sad eyes

These are the first words
To ink this new notebook
And I still hang to the hope
That they might set the tone
All my other words could follow


HALEY, and the blue moon
That left me standing alone

I am writing this in the library
October 4th, a day before you read it

And it feels like every time I move
My wrist I am signing my own death
Certificate

The death of a salesman
Who sold nothing but himself to
Spectators

If you give me five dollars I will
Deny jesus Christ three times
If you fill me with wine
I will fuck you
Then sit on the end of the bed
Glistening with sweat and your smell
Fumbling for pages to write
Poems

About the way I felt, inside of you
The way I felt inside of a t shirt
Some other girl gave me to wear…

And when I say some other girl
I mean blair-----

Do not confuse the name
She is she always…in everything
In ink, shadows the way I would
Kiss you, if I ever felt like kissing

Again

I am writing this the day before
You read it, a statement that will
Only come true once.
But it means something to me
That you understand that

This isn’t a comet
Or a cycle of the moon
There is no reader or writer

Only me, only you.

Tied in the fact that today is
Today for both of us

That tomorrow is tomorrow always



THE WAY DEEP WATER FEELS
I could tell she was beautiful
Even though she was only lit up
In a street light

And I must have been fifty feet away
But there was a certain grace to her.

Maybe it was her hair,
maybe it was everything but

the way it didn’t fit her at all

and I kept thinking I could
be the handsome guy who walks up
and marries her-

if I could ever get over the fact that
I could be that handsome guy who
Walks up and marries
Her-

So my life remains a story I tell myself
As I walk to and from
Conflicted conversations
Where hellos mean –please don’t leave me-
And goodbyes mean –I will call you when I get home-

And maybe im not that person
And this girl might grow

uncomfortable

With my blue eyes
On her tangerine skin
Dyed by the single street light
But perhaps not.
Because what if she wanted to be seen?
Maybe that’s why she was standing
Below it in the first place?



THE PEN I KEPT CHEWING ON

The red pen is for corrections
Blue pens for my mother
Pencils for me

But I sit here with a papermate-ballpoint
And consider the poems I might
Write
In red and white

My high school colors
Two thirds of a joke about a zebra
With a sunburn

And corrections
For the day?
For a lifetime?
For my thoughts?

I put the pen down and press
My ring fingers into my eyes
I need to sleep more
I need to need less

And my internal eye explodes
In a fireworks display
Of straining ocular nerves
A clear view of pressures
Response inside the body

Some people carry guns
I guess I should carry red pens
And apologize less








Why we will name our daughter alma
I sit and I write
A life time of false and true statements

Q: What are your new poems about?
A: you

Q: What about me?
A: the way you ask me what my
New poems are about.

I sit and I write
A lifetime of one sided stories

Q: do you think we will ever get married?
A: yes

Q: do you think we will have children?
A: would you like to?

I sit and I write
in one of my fathers
Old wool suits

Q: do you think you will be a good father?
A: I would hope so.

Q: do you tell your dad you love him?
A: ……………..

I sit and write an
Imagined dialogue with her

Q: should we get a dog?
A: probably, im allergic though…

Q: do you think you will be a good father?
A:………….

I sit and write
False and true statements

Q: what are your newest poems about?
A: Me

Q: what about you?
A: you















THE PROACTIVE SOLUTION

She pulled me into bed
With one of those looks that said
If you let me pull you into bed
I will fuck you

And I followed with one of those looks
That wants to know her middle name

Its Marie
Like my mothers
She had brown hair
Like my mother
She seemed lonely
…………….

And we both had a few drinks
So it was okay
It didn’t matter that I didn’t know
What junior high she went to
Or the places she drives
When she’s pissed off

And she started kissing me
And I wanted to kiss her
With my eyes closed
With my palms open
Grabbing for flesh
That isn’t the same shade as yours

But I kept missing
And I kept talking
About my childhood
The places I have lived
And the dreams I had

And the infomercial
That was playing on the television
For clear skin that I will never have
For white teeth, that I will never have
For happiness, that I will never have
In bed with the same girl
Who tried to fuck my roommate
Just last week.

And so I let her fall asleep
with her back to me
and I left silently

And she knew me
Because im the boy
Who plays guitar and screams

because
My words move
Through the vents
While everyone else tries to study
Or sleep
Or fuck
Or breathe

And I just write
And write
And need
















JAMES CASTLE and other phonies

I need to fall into the bed
Of another day
Between sky blue sheets

And sleep the sleep of
Mechanical
Engineers/ coal miners/ janitors
Anyone who spends their day
Actually working

As I sit in the library
And consider the weight of books
And how many it would take
To crush you

How many words that would be
How many hours it took
To shape those words

I sit and chew a pen
And consider

how I should gather up my favorite books
hold them in my arms like children
And jump from the fifth floor

Spread my arms like wings

Land with a clatter on marble
Right by the security desk

We would all have broken spines
And they would wonder
Why
I didn’t chose

The catcher in the rye
















How to gain three inches.

I was walking barefoot
Around campus
With my shoes held lightly
In my fingertips

Like a drunk girl
Who had had enough
Watermelon shots

they don’t even taste
Like watermelon

They don’t taste like
Alcohol either
Is that why she kept drinking?

And I would be the guy
Who offered up his bed
Who kissed her
Even though she didn’t taste
Like kisses

And then I would give in to
Heavy breath
And the pressure
Of my friends back home
And myself against blue jeans
And her against me
In a twin bed.

What if she slept with her earrings on
Would I let those silver loops
Halo
What she heard
Would I consider her an angel?

Or would I slip my hand up the front
Of her shirt
Bring my fingertips
Over the top of a black bra
And touch her like that.

If she didn’t resist would I try to put my hand
Down the front of too tight pants
Right past the Japanese symbol
For heaven

And if I ever met saint peter

Would he judge me as the boy
Who slipped his fingers inside because he could
Or as the boy who walked barefoot on a sunny day
And tried to figure out how to start a love poem










OUR SECRETS SLEEP IN WINTER CLOTHES
I never asked her to swallow
I never thought to

And my friends told me
In darkness’s
About how their girlfriends did
And about coming onto tits

They called it a pearl necklace
And I let my imagination
Run exactly where it was supposed to

And a girl talked about how
You should swallow
Because it lets the boy feel
Like he was inside of you
Really inside of you

But I already knew
That I was inside of her

In the way she wrote her name

And the way she kisses the roof
When she drives through yellow
Lights

And I try to go back to moments
With her and I
In a bed big enough
For the both of us
I was looking up at plastic stars

She was kissing me
And I was breathing so hard

And I knew she was inside of me
And all I had to swallow

Was my fingerprints
Any trace of a life before her
It went down my throat
And coated it

Taught me how to speak
So I did
Taught me how to sing
So I never stopped

And we always kissed on the lips
Even when she hated me
Even when she broke my heart