Cooking Lessons

You never were one for recipes

But at age 12, I

bursting into newfound pre-teenagehood

was hungry

and you

tiptoeing into late fatherhood

knew the ropes.

How to crack eggs of no particular number

with just one hand

The proper finesse required to

sprinkle powders

and mix oils

all without taking a measure

“I don’t have the patience,”

you said of the unopened recipe book

And for your disobedience, I am grateful 

Food never tasted quite as good 

when I followed the rules

From the Atheist on Alternate Wednesdays

God is a bill I can’t afford

But still, I admire those people that bow and

fall before stones 

with concave stomachs from holy hunger

I can’t pay my dues

so instead, I tuck faith in

between laundry and cleaning

and other chores that I’ll do before bed

It’s absurd, I know

I think that’s why I need it

How to Grieve

The first thing I notice

is his new white shirt

which isn’t strange, until I see

that tear, 7 inches of total despair

zigzagging from his collar crease

to his second-to last button

It’s weird to be here

at my best friend’s mother’s funeral

I can hardly see him

through the throngs of praying men
and women who must mean well

I am just another Mourner of Zion

willing the good words to 

finish my heavy lifting

and wander, in quorum, to him

I never liked the prayers of death 

but today my friend says them well

How easy is it to learn 

the right way to suffer

how easy it is to forget their genesis

Maybe I’m wrong

but if it were up to me

I’d take him home now and

let him sleep

we’d play Call of Duty

maybe

if he was in the mood

It isn’t up to me

so instead I thank God 

for the words and the books

that tell us how to heal

in some other language

that I don’t fully understand

I guess I don't really need to
Because I do understand videogames
And I'll be here when he's ready

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl

In modern film and literature, borrowed from early American folklore with British influences, Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is as rare as a Carbuncle or Baldander. One requires multiple modifiers to be correctly classified as MPDG. That is, simply being a Pixie or a Manic Girl, while nice, is irrelevant if not in context of the other characteristics. 

MPDG looks like whatever you’re into at the time of introduction. She likes Indie Rock. She wears yellow sundresses. She eats a lot but is eternally fit. She smells like strawberries.

When the angel Gabriel was sent to earth to find a perfect specimen for his master, Avicius, he stumbled upon MPDG by a river and begged her to come with him. “I can’t,” she replied. “I need to be fixed first.” 

Perhaps her most alluring feature, MPDG isn’t perfect. She longs to be cured of something, whether it is feelings of inadequacy or her inability to actually love. MPDG is always looking for more.

A warning to those attempting to “fix” your MPDG. Don’t get too close. MPDG is always more beautiful at a distance.

Twitter Poetry

Daughter's First Date

First it was you
clubbing the open air with your fists

challenging the earth
of our tiny backyard lawn

to fight back like a man

Behind our screen door 

I saw you kick your limbs

in figure-eights and karate chops

crow like Peter Pan 

to no one in particular until

I dragged you, lovingly

back to me

1,895 dinners later

after karate lessons, piano recitals

broken ankles and hearts

your grip on our browning lawn 

gradually lessened to 

a playful squeeze and then

a tender caress until 

it was you

slamming the door as

you ran to his car

A sequined purse, rosy cheeks

slender limbs that hadn’t

punched in years

Through the screen I saw

your small hand in his 

as the car started with

a sputter and a hum

and you moved

slowly and certainly

away from me

Burn

Why I Never Started Smoking

We were at the 7/11 by my house

parked in your Mustang with the hood down when

you took out a box of Virginia Slims

and asked me if I smoked

“No,” I said “I don’t like the smell”

You shrugged and lit a fresh one for the road

It’s good you started driving then because

I couldn’t stand the smell of you, like my father

Waning like a morning moon

Through sandpaper chords and weary eyes

he wheezed his last goodbyes from his bed

the stench of his last smoke still

etched like invisible ink

on the tunnels of

his broken lungs

Why I Can’t Quit Smoking

When the fire escape creaks with my clumsy entrance

and windows slam on an alley draft

I want my lips on your papery body

slim and barely lit

to breathe you in like a mistress’s breath

Today, I lost my love, so I am

more than primed for rotting

To have you fill every part of me

And I’ll take it all: Cancer, yellow teeth, an untimely death

Just give me your word, your ghost inside my lungs

Stick with me, and I’ll keep you burning

Trading life away like poker chips

banking on the hope that

you’ll be there when she leaves

keeping me warm with no intention of

ever burning out

I Cry When I See Men on the Fields

What is it about high school

football players

Dressed in second skins and

rain soaked masks
Living our pastimes like
unpaid mercenaries 

Content to bleed

on newly cut grass

if it means they’ve got a chance at fame. No, a chance at relevance. War is much nicer to our boys than organized sports. At least in the trenches they wear their dreams without shame. They can cry because death is so much bigger than a loss to Avery High School. And I can cry for them because they fought for a

grand old flag

a high flying flag

waving with the

frailty of a dying man

Edges tattered like

Hand-me-down fatigues

Those stars and stripes

never looked so

cruel

as they did the day you came home, wrapped in mahogany and sealed in primer. We all wept because you had lost. And it was okay. It was noble. All fields hold dying dreams of crying men but some dreams are more heroic than others and high school trophies and touchdowns are not. When I lowered you into the ground, I wondered if

the grass still held

the memory of you before 

you left

Could it still taste your

teenage blood

that stained the fields with

simple dreams of

simple victories

*This poem was influenced by the writings of Sherman Alexie

Evidence (A Sonnet)

If you could see the dogs I watch at night
These beasts that listen more when they are fed
With meat, they hear me talk about my plight
My dearest wife is surely mostly dead
I tried to kill her many times before
But only once, with dogs, came out to dine
And when her blood dripped off the teethy gore
My woes spilled out at once like aging wine
If you can sit with me at heavens gate
You'll hear the story that I long to tell
That time when I arrived for my last date
And mutts grew silent from the tolling bell
That night, I too, did wash my fingers clean
From crime and blood that only dogs have seen

Rosie The Riveter

She wished she had worn make-up

the day she became an icon

But sweat burned her cheeks like gasoline

her shirt stained with factory oil

hair cut short, efficient

She barely even smirked

Some lipstick wouldn’t hurt

A little color in this black and white world

If she had the time

she’d pull out her old paint

sculpt brows on a flawless face

throw on her dependable red, his favorite

flash her whitest smile for

a camera that made her look pretty

Outside her industrial fortress 
guarded by structure and lines

Before biceps bulged and

eyes turned gray

She was Mary from New Hampshire

Homecoming queen, wife, mother of four

Now, she is the new woman

immortalized in propaganda, the good kind

Hope, equality, something grand like that

But still, she hopes

Somewhere far away

a man remembers his wife
a pretty woman in a red dress

To the boy with pretty hair

You are an unfinished poem

Half-formed ideas and phrases

sentences that couldn’t make it past the page

We were almost there but you

couldn’t help me find the words 

You are my writer’s block

a love poem written while half asleep

whose metaphors die with dawn

I awake to a page of scrawls

finger smudges in my half-baked mess

The seeds of an epic narrative, maybe

But for now, nothing more than

symbols, lines

an unfinished clause
A sonnet that ended before its final rhyme

Haunted

My father is having an affair with God

Last night he picked up his phone and whispered to the other end that 

he would be there soon

Shoved his keys into his jeans and slammed the door

Left my living room pregnant with cologne scented silence

Three hours later I knew he was back because

his headlights danced on my bedroom walls and cast

phantom masks on my knick knacks

He sat in his car for twenty minutes before the lights went off

I imagine he emerges from His chamber each night

tangled in white shrouds 

the star kissed linoleum tiles,

reminding him to get home

He has another life

Before God came into the picture my dad was

the first act of a Greek tragedy

He had it all figured out and I knew him well

I thought

I knew him so well 

The Rabbis teach you to admire those people

Preparing the dead is the kindest deed you can do

they say

My father, I guess

I admire him

Mom says “It is not easy to do His work”

while she prepares his dinner

She says she is proud of him, when I ask

but 

she doesn’t say she tried once and

couldn’t stop hearing voices

Seeing their profiles beneath white sheets

When I was seven, my brother and I saw a movie where

a man’s face melted off like jelly

We held our palms on our eyes and screamed but my dad just laughed

and then I noticed

his eyes colorless and sunken like 

a corpse

regarding death with ease

a rendezvous, a lover's bed