some work

mikeswanberg


all of it all of you all of it

I hear the hunger in you as a different girl
I watch your body turn to matchsticks then bloom
So are you surprised that the voice in your head
is unapologetically mine, that he sings dumb songs
from the bathroom washing his hands but forgetting
to brush his teeth Does it surprise you that this boy
wants to lick you clean c arry all of it all of you all of it
down to some river he made up and wash you there as
well Standing in it to his ankles with his pants rolled up
casting an invisible net over what you swore could never be caught


Authority
For vincent

It is the sound of authority that allows this all
How you say fuck and everyone waits, heads nodding
For you to clarify or help them along
Because you say it and it seems clinical,
clean not at all like the girl I fucked on Justin’s futon
Or how fucked up we got just singing songs
pretending the world was ending

when you spoke with no authority about the bookshelf
and art and how lonesome it gets and the girls
who fill it all up. I trusted you more then when your
words came rushed like water through a hose you thumbed
and for the first time maybe I knew that you were
in love with everything like you had said

so friend keep your authority close, I think you and she
have a lot to give each other, and I will call you as often
as I can for drinks and conversation. But know I must move
forward without that authority you have found my feet forever
just kicking the small pebbles of every shared experience


Destinations

Tonight lets drink to that point
where everyone agrees but you
still want to have sex when we get
home oh if that was a destination
on a map I would never stop driving there

Tonight lets laugh at our own mistakes
just this once and I wont be secretly hurt
nursing my wounds like the proud and stubborn
child embarrassment turns me into

Lets turn out the lights and lay like cobras
then like concrete lay like your hand on my
forehead when he left and I couldn’t stop
crying again the proud child who wanted
none of his friends to know

Oh how I once considered my weaknesses that
Instead of gateways to the parts of me I truly needed
to reach my lungs work so poorly when its cold
but I can sing my hands refuse to be delicate
Oh I have embarrassed myself

But who would know when the look on my face
Is always one of surprise surprise that I am living
surprise that you are carrying the same colored robes
as me surprise that when we look towards the future
there is still a place where we make it

So let me mark that on a map instead
a beautiful town off the coast that I can only
reach by walking forward as blindly and as
resolutely as my ancestors had so that when
I finally make it to that town I have at least one story
worth telling my children


elegy for everything

I knew of them but had to see
The videos of snipers in Afghanistan
With guns designed to split men
It made me sick but I had to watch
What looked like rocks on a hill
Turned into bodies into bone
And all so close to independence day

That It could have been fireworks had I not
Searched it out not watched it again
and paused at different moments, as though
If I walked out of the room that man might
Still be alive someplace with the sun on his back
Before war walked to his door and bade him
Pick sides

Oh let us pick the side that always kisses both cheeks
Let us find a side finally that lets the little things go
I watched the buildings fall, I changed my shirt
I watched them fall again, I sighed

Let us live in a country with no memory
So we can forget that we were ever taught to be afraid
And maybe then men wont be split and sent to every corner
maybe then I can understand fifteen boys
Trying their hardest to get to god

Oh we are the children’s crusade all grown up
Useless and loud but ready to fight
I refuse to throw my hand up in agreement
To any of this done to protect me
Let them come and bomb my city bus
I will walk I will walk