paranoid/lovesick: found poems 1-4

a mixtape and companion poems generated by different methods of extraction.




found poem 1

1.

not sure
if you mind
if I dance with you

2.

now I’m watching
the moon

I’m watching
all turn

electric lights
I think I’m falling

for you



3.

you were out of my league
at a distance that I didn’t want to see

I still believed in the phrases that we breathed
but I know the distance isn’t fair to cross

at a distance that I didn’t want to see
I wanted you nearer

I love the place where we shared our tiny grace
but just because it’s real don’t mean it’s gonna work



4.

it’s a secret
I’ve been keeping from you

it’s a secret
I’ve been keeping for you



5.

tell me that

the temperature is rising
in your head

tell me that
love is not to be

**

this way
the reason why I’m trying
to make it

alright trying
to drive through
girl wish it

**

tonight don’t you expect to
make a phone call

tonight treat me
like a motherfucker
who was right

**

take me to your bed
and show me some trees



6.

then she’s gone and my friends can come along
and it’s never strange just how long she stays



7.

I like the way you hold
your head

let me stay here
for a week on your couch

but I would rather
sleep in your bed or

even better yet we could
run away
and never rest

your mind is filled
with fantasies

you give me
your insanity



8.

so tell me why didn’t I leave
four hours ago at least
I’ve seen your glare

down county road 8
salty lips and whirred fans
shine on

catfish angel
you know they can’t
hurt me like you do



9.

I have your good clothes in the car
I have your dreams and your teeth marks

I don’t have any questions
you were right about the end

you must have known I’d do this someday



10.

fluids of a summer night
a delicate blend of sweat

take my lip between your teeth
fingers underneath
stains and scars I can’t explain



11.

I don’t want to be your friend
I just want to be a part of you



12.

you know I went home
last night sat down on my bed
and cried

**

I woke up to find it
nothing but a dream
that’s why I sing
this lonesome song



13.

tell me
you don’t want me anymore
time don’t matter anymore

if you want to fight
just bring it on
and if the glass will shatter
it’s deeper when you fall



14.

a young man came by
with a beard on his cheek
and a gleam in his eye



15.

I sailed a wild wild sea
beneath a weeping willow tree
afraid to do the things
that I knew I had to do



16.

anyone can see
I’m in love with
how you feel



17.

the sound of the spectacle
everything we ever said

we like to get our kicks
in this way sometimes

you tell me



found poem 2


1.

dancing like heroes would,
it’s sad that you think we were all passion;

it don’t think it’s all flailing limbs, twisted dispatches—

it’s you,
it’s me.



2.

the universe is everything,
I always thought

now I’m considering watching
the trains, and the clouds--

I didn’t have to be all ashamed;
it’s the universe.



3.

I was and you were the sea.

Down to the bottom—bubbles
and twenty-thousand affections—
my depths made a pressure,
and all your fluids the force
underneath my distance.

I wanted you nearer,
and affection floats like a stone:
so close, so all alone.

And you were underneath,
you were nearer.



4.

I’ve been
a secret
for you.



5.

all the little words down
like a spider through the cracks;

all the things I thought
come through a song;

all the glass will try
to tell you: nowhere.



6.

you’ll never see;
I’m happier.



7.

undeclared: a dream
stays vanity.



8.

wild stars hanging there—
they know she floats beneath.



9.

hair and fingernails
arms around arms.

time riots; they
must have known



10.

tongue forced: quoting
what had been devouring;
things left unsaid.



11.

it is so hard to want
just a part of you.



12.

I can’t know the nightmare
when you go.



13.

I remember, bright-eyed,
the light fell:

maybe time don’t matter.




14.

dear, take from me; shove and steal—
brick and barbed wire to beard, cheek, and eye:

to remember a parting, stiff and sore,
from nights heard perfectly and time brief.



15.

wild and brief, the pieces of light;
short is the night, and the sun a young fool.

an escapade sailed beneath some
questions, lay time as short as song.



16.

a shadow swinging in the church,
the trees rumbling in trying fits:
Don Quixote is at the bottom of anyone.



17.

the spectacle wasn’t everything;
everything means ourselves, I guess.



found poem 3


if there’s one thing that I could never confess
that will be the end of everything:

at a distance that I didn’t want to see, I wanted
you nearer—it’s a secret I’ve been keeping from you.

I know we’re going to need a lucky one
that I don’t think I recognize, but

if I had the chance to hold your hand
and I’d know you’re hanging there for me—

out among the missing sons and daughters,
head awash with what had been.

I just want to be a part of you; I don’t care
when you go; I don’t care how long you stay;

time don’t matter anymore. I’m stiff and
I’m sore; afraid to do the things that I knew

I have to do. I will find my nitch in everything
we ever said, everything we might have done:

you tell me.



found poem 4


Out in every song is the back of my mind: expanding
out of clouds, confused and electric; falling
and waving—first at a distance. Nearer, a pressure
punctures the thirst, because it’s real: of the sea
of affection underneath a secret, a kind of trickle
coming through cracks in the sun, through a phone
call between trees: perfect and lost all night. I wouldn’t
hold a dream undeclared; at least hanging stars shine
on, sweet-toothed fans of difference, and everything
must be forgiven by questions of imperatives, trampled
impressions of things unsaid—to see a part of it,
when little shines through. It’s a fight to shatter
the secret, singing with a smile and barbed wire
and a beard and a brick—meeting and parting and sore
from sleeping on suggested time. Distress, though,
like a wild sea beneath my feet, is brief: pieces of this
song now lay broken and short, but starry
pebbles trying to love in shiny fits of everything.