The gift of poetic license

1. Emerson wrote

and was closer

to God.

the Poet makes us whole.

the words reattach us to God, he said

he wrote.

2. When I write, I am God

an omnipotent conductor of consonants and vowels

I left my fake I.D. back in reality

traded it for poetic license

a privilege that comes with transcendence

3. Poets,

write your manifesto.

scribbled texts etched on tablets

delivered to the writer’s disciples

it is an ethereal experience

when the alphabet assembles itself

to create man’s own image in words

4. As your pupils invert

watch ball-point fingers

nearly touch by synapses of brilliance

on the domed skull of the Sistine chapel

5. Let mans arm rest lazily on his knee

as myriad pens of poets note divinity

words, are Truth rearranged constantly

in perfect forms we find

human souls resting in poetry

however, far less dense

than the alcohol I use to drown them

after six shots of tequila

the liquors, the sorrows, mix

and the latter sink

in my stomach, away from my heart

but the density gets the best of me

and again rises to the top

past my heart towards my mouth

and again my sorrows

are on the top of the bottle

fuck.

shoot, throw up, and repeat if necessary

the sound of another shot poured

reminds me that the density

is about to get heavy

good news.

I met a word dealer on the corner

of lost for words

you’d never expect em’ to be so quiet

the word dealer, but he is

he’s got words in baggies

in viles, powders, and tinctures

he’s got word relievers, word perceivers

words dissolving under your tongue

cascading you down the path

away from “I couldn’t say it, no matter how hard I tried”

he cuts words in thirds and gives ya good deal

cause’ ya pay him so often

he says he hasn’t been lost years, not since he got hooked on words.

His words sell me so I buy an eighth

Its like a dream come through

the wind calms and saying becomes easy

Im hallucinating clarity- enunciating clearly-

communicating the lapse of time

between mind and mouth- no longer exists

so I slip another slice of words on my tongue

and it dissolves into my blood and once, just this once

the words roll back and this is what they say,

words are all I have and when I speak them

you hear them

but there meaning proliferates the air between

so don’t expect to understand me

just listen and take them for what they are

words.

they say, see me for what I am

a simple sign in a sea of signified

dont try to hard to break down a word trip

a trip is a trip, don’t make it more

leave your eyes sore

from taking in the meaning

bleeding with infinent perception

they just don’t mean the same thing for everyone

so spray me a fire hose

and maybe i’ll get a sip

he asks, now do you get it?

i nod softly yes, i just cant articulate

not without more words

he smiles and says

you just need fifty more.

can take a break from beating

the shit out of my lungs

that are gasping, gasping trying

to give enough air to my drying lips

that are screaming nonsensical words into the abyss and my ears

ring like the myriad telephone calls im ignoring

cause my skull is too busy overheating

and im sweating trying to cool down but my eyes

spinning like slot machines through their sockets

aren’t helping the process

of my feet not moving but I’ll tell ya

i’m travelin’ at a million miles a minute baby

and you can feel me on the highway

autobahn speeding, dreaming

of the massive opportunities i’m missing

with all my might I’m wishing my brain

would calm down and take a deep breath so that my muscles

can stop squeezing warmth from the frigid air

and my bubblegum could hold its flavor longer

than the two seconds it takes me to chomp it all out

all out, balls out

“can you live for a living?” is written on every spoke

of the burning bicycle wheel that spins off its axis

in my mind.

Can you live

for a living?

casting shadows over fluorescent fixed geared bicycles who

are already five minutes too late.

Remember, 5:16 is not 5:15 so,

run.

On time is the new late.

Ambient rhythms crow like rising roosters in her ears

reminding her that schedules exist and its time

get up. Now.

Work hard to work hard unless

you’re not good enough

in which case suck dick

but you probably suck at sucking

For every downhill there is an uphill waiting

to grind your gears your

calves burning in anticipation

are you good enough?

-Lindsey Antonio

Maybe the sky thinks I’m a really small scary thing

like a spider.

Kind of like when I look at a spider and for a split second I think wow,

you are really really small.

Maybe the stars are hiding from me. Even though I can see them on a clear Gunnison night, can I ever really know them? Can I know these stars?

I mean, I can go online and pay some $50 dollars and register my name as one of the stars but could I take this starry sky on a date and get to know it?

So I ask her. I asked the starry sky to accompany me and that’s why you couldn’t see her. She pushed her clouds over, switched on those city lights and

we went for a ride

Just me and the sky

Excuse me, the sky and I

stopped at a bar in mid-arizona where she bought me three shots of tequila. Thinkin’ she was movin’ a little fast for me I apprehensively grasped the first of three.

She winked and said it’s orion’s belt.

From then on my world swirled a she held my hands on merry go rounds and as we twirled she complained about the moon takin’ up too much space in her sky. She called him

“crater face”

I thought that was kind of funny. She had a great sense of humor and if I had just one more night to get to know her maybe I could

wrap my head around how amazing she really is.

But the sky, she left me in the morning to catch a sunrise. I asked her just wait, don’t go yet. And she smiled like God would if you were nine years old and asked him for your dead goldfish back.

Baby, it was what it was and don’t try to make it more. That’s just the way existence is,

it is what is.