no technical value

(untitled)

i have been listening to the music of old you
and angel city of that winter when i was happy
and i wonder if who you were isn’t really dead
it just lives in the sound because when i hear
it i can smell the musk of your skin and of the
lilies that were beside your bed that week both
of which became stronger when the sun went
down and you played bill evans for lovers except
that single track you didn’t like and always got up
to change in the middle of things and i’ve got one
of those snapshot memories in my head of you
stark naked switching the song while i tried to
sit at an attractive angle on your little gray twin
bed waiting for you to come back and we didn’t
sleep until three and even then it was only for an
hour or so or maybe you never slept at all because
you were the one who woke me with your hand on
my waist and your lips on the back of my neck and
we kissed for hours again until the sun started to
come up so we went to the balcony to watch it
rise as airplanes left l.a.x. like slow crows and
you made strong black coffee and ate those
brown sugar poptarts you like and i sat in
your lap with the cats watching us wondering
why we were up so early why the person you
were has crumbled through my fingers like the
clammy sand of venice beach where i took
those pictures that have since been the
background of every electronic i own
because i want so much to go back to
that to go back to you to pull your
pieces out of the music by taking all
the letters of this big block of words
and linking them into a chain that
will lasso the you that i so loved
and that so loved me back into
the cramped twin bed where
we never got any sleep after
christmas in california

hacking it off in May

Cutting Ties

I know the statement that a
short cut puts off to society:
“Screw your female ideals
I’m sexy in my androgyny”
either that, or “I like pussy”

and I know you tend to like a kind of
those girls whose hair is shorter than
yours; the ones who smell wild like blood
and sex, with their septum piercings and
shallow paintings – ones with elaborate
clothing, expensive habits, and who
self-destruct like fireworks
that explode over and over again

but I am nothing like that. I smell
like Dove shampoo, wear simple shirts,
and there’s a different metal in my body.
What I’m really after
is the irony
of that look on me

so I’m going to cut off all my
hair, my long long hair, and
with it all the memories that
it carries, the frayed splits
and dead ends, the last years
of my purest naiveté, my most
meaningless wastes of time;
I’m going to stop holding it
back with elastics and bobby
pins and big jaw clips and
stick barrettes and just cut
it loose, so maybe I can lift
my head for the first time since
everything stopped making perfect
childish sense and run the course
without the weight of the past
on my shoulders and in my eyes
I’m going to cut all my old ties