The Uncertainty of Our Futures

For Taryn Kahle

sweltering hour
beads of sweat lick
my sunburnt nape
paddle and soap dish in hand
off some nameless bank
I slip into the Colorado

the Grand
the Rio del Tizon 
the Maricopa 
the cool lifeforce 
of this southwest desert 
as easily as I do 
into freshly washed sheets 

naked 
embraced
sweet surrender 

(I’m still working
on surrender) 

the Colorado, he/they and I
have rinsed ourselves 
our bedrocks 
of many a lover 
many a male admirer 
like John Wesley Powell
like the first time
I skinny-dipped kissed
the first boy 
I thought I loved

I don’t find it outlandish
to suggest the Rio del Tizon
branded flaming by colonizers 
is a he/they gay 

reject the stubborn American West
its invasive cis-het
white male explorers 
naming monoliths [ego]
bodies of water [conquests]
assaulting the feminine [recreation]

if the Maricopa
is to be called she
let it be by reflection
by her own accord
as he/they is with me
on this board
cutting through this spectrum
an exercise and practice
of self-love at once 

we try and keep things caszh
this river and I
too thin to plow
too thick to drink *
if you know what I mean 

we both know
this flight of fancy is seasonal 
an afternoon delight 
a summer fling
sure to wash out 

around this bend 
I look for coupling trout
whose rippled darts 
fleeing my invasion of their coitus 
promise the end 
of my own courtship 

I have always struggled 
with commitment 
even when I cannot tell us apart 
submerged in him/them completely 
there is peace I won’t grant myself 

as surely as my head
will break the surface 
I will eddy out 
return home to routine
to khakis and button-ups 
to commutes and spreadsheets
and plastic promotions  

he/they/I/we will be 
just another commodity 
to bottle
given back empty 
at a cost
as potential 
for tourist development 
as a force that’s agreeable 
when diverted 
and funneled, reshaped
into productive 
efficient pools of labor

into anything 
that’s not wild 
and free and roaring 
to California 
to an ocean of love 
that doesn’t know the meaning 
of binaries and borders 

the nature of our familiarity 
our temporal sojourn
privy only to that 
voyeuristic heron
our downy stilt-
legged fortune 
is not about the permanence
of our gender but

the uncertainty of our futures

* commonly attributed to Mark Twain (to “the Mormons” by Edward Abbey) but unconfirmed by this author

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I Used to Be a Poet

Listen to my first slam poem of 2021 and follow along with the text below.

used to be 
I called myself a poet
thought the words pumped out my mouth
were Midas fingers 

both a blessing and a curse
in the way they gave me value
in the way my vain prayers will leave me dying of starvation 
in the way a mediocre white man
thinks everything he touches is worth something 

that’s you 
and it’s me
to be fair 
I wager it’s more than fifty percent of the room 
it’s the Democrat in the Oval Office too

and we’ve all been cooped up a year 
and that year has lasted ten years now 
no satyr, Dionysus soaked, hive mind 
drinking sweat off strangers on the dance floor 
and these stanzas turned to gilded victory
well they don’t wet the whistle like they

used to be I called myself a poet 
learned how to make a buck
spinning trauma into gold 
in the way my father was no different 
than the bulk of cis-hetero patriarchs

to be crystal clear I mean 
in the way the nuclear family
I mean the nucleus of violence 
taught me God hates fags
turned me into a suicide bomber that survived the plane crash 
left me with PTSD dreams of what

used to be I called myself a poet 
even published a whole damn chapbook
to validate my mental illness 
thought my depression was “The Secret”

like, if I manifested it I’d get that first parking spot at Walmart
and there’d be plenty of paper towels 
and Karen would be wearing her fucking mask properly 

except the parking spot is applause 
and manifesting is ideation
and the paper towels are Instagram subscribers 
and Karen, well she’s just a scapegoat for my own accountability 

cause I can say Breonna’s name five hundred times on stage
but that doesn’t mean I’ve done something 
by the way we still haven’t done something 
by the way The Secret is gated community
new age self-fulfilling prophecy 
like Christianity if communion was wine and a Xanax

but I digress maybe poetry is just self-fulfilled prophecy too
both for my manic cycle 
and this country’s self-determination toward injustice
but who even am I if I can’t write some sad gay boy shit, ya know
and who even is America without pigs killing with impunity 
and mediocre white men’s less than mediocre boners 
for making American great again like it

used to be I called myself a poet
you ever call yourself a lie so much you start to believe it 
it’s a trick I learned with lonely
turns out middle school accelerated reading was 
kind of a grindstone for disassociation 
turns out the crowds who snap my verse 
enable my addiction to broken

but just because it used to be doesn’t mean it has to be 
which I know sounds like some corny self-help book crap 
a therapist would use to fill an awkward silence 
but whatevs 
I’ll roll with it 

and call myself happy
and call myself loved
and call myself worthy
call myself alive 

and maybe, sometimes
what used to be 
is good enough to be again
so I’ll call myself a poet 

The Laundry Load

there are days when i wake up
buried in laundry 

under ultraviolet light
these clothes would show a bloodbath 

there's no delicate setting 
on this spin cycle

impossible to separate 
childhood from the whites from you

quit softener and dryer sheets years ago
because it all comes back the same

one time in fourth grade
we all got caught smashing melons in a garden

not that cantaloupe is a tough stain
it just feels like a kinder way to tell you

i don't think i can carry the load today 

January 6, 2021

There is Joy in Sadness Too

today i cried
the sudden 
out of nowhere

wasp sting between the fingers
COVID swab up the nostril
kind of cry

for the man on the bridge
was a titan of grief
propped up on six legs

nothing special about today
or the bridge or the man
or the tears

just that the medication
seems to be working
better than expected

November 11, 2020

ALL THE WRECKAGE WE’VE WROUGHT

i don't know what tomorrow brings

the breathless ache
of begging pardon from the departed
or the lips of beautiful boys
in dive bars pressed to poem

taught me it's apt to be neither
the good or the bad 
or the absolution desired

how many hours
did i chase both
(hours and hours and hours and days and
weeks and months and years)
to find myself

here there is both
and you
and us
tomorrow

November 2, 2020

nesting

it feels like it's coming back / inside / a subtle shift / same as before / different / every time / shifted to the counter / to make room / boil pasta / never replaced / no one would care / why should i / who even has a decorative kettle / boy / it's easy / to shift / outside / tangible / nameable / the kettle / so i shift / the apotheosis above the headboard / clear my head / get a little / crazy / fuck alphabetizing / the books / deserve a little elbowroom / a shift / outside / doesn't fix inside / maybe i can / trick it / it's alright / i guess / no / it's right / just right / for now

September 9, 2020

Big Dominquez

Petroglyph panel, Archaic style (1000 B.C.) | Dominquez-Escalante Conservation Area (03/15/2021)

On the weekend COVID-19 hit my town, 
we descended into a canyon south of its outskirts 
named for the friars Dominquez-Escalante.
Their troop never explored this monolithic crevice, 
crossing the Rio del Tezon some forty miles north-east,
but the mythos of destruction claims much of the barren West. 
  
I wonder if aisle fourteen of the supermarket back home 
will suffer a similar fate? 
  
Two crows guard the trailhead, 
harbingers of a destiny inescapable.
Even here life has retreated to some secret refuge
from the coming storm. It is only us,
the whistle of riverbank grass, the eroded boulders 
of a dry inland ocean. The quiet.
  
We march on looking for the remnants of a people 
delivered by coyote. Sinawav has escaped
through his hole in the heavens. 
  
On a boulder face, hidden behind juniper and sage,
petroglyphs portray a mural of past abundance.
Melted snow-capped mountains run across its length
giving life to a forest of horned ungulates,
bear prowls the periphery,
the sun follows a reassuring arc.
  
Did they record this breadth of life 
in anticipation of its demise? 
Did they know the white man would bring his disease
back then, and now? 
  
How strange to panic about our history.  

March 15, 2020