Status Updates From Ecstasy: Poems

Change minds. Be an agent of change.
Please clap or at least nominate me for something.
Retweet this on the internet. Use the word problematic.
And if poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
And if you actually believe that.

What if you had to decide who to save:
someone you fucked once
or someone you loved and can’t stand?
If you had to die alone (as punishment)
for the cruel things you’ve done,
which ones would you repeat?

I thought life
would go on forever
like Saturdays when we were young.

Poetry
is not a self-help book.
Fuck the self. And fuck help.

Are you happy, he asks me.
I’m not, I tell him.
But I’m willing to chase it
the same way I’m willing
to chase dick or poetry

The job of a poet
is to chase a feeling.
The job of a poet today
has become kissing ass.
And I never liked ass.
I’m more of a dick guy,
actually. More of
a faggot and clearly
a poet and real poets
(Emily Dickinson
once said) don’t kiss ass.

Not everything is an ending.
Not anything’s worth believing.
And you can begin anytime
like this whole world began
out of nothing. You can walk out
tonight and feel totally new.
All you need is the right pair of boots.

I want to know you
like a dog touches the wind
with its tongue.

What do they know about
soul fucking anyway?
It’s sad how even sex
becomes eating an orange.
Exciting at first and then
juice. Only juice.

After whatever ecstasy is
and the feeling of knowledge.
Past pleasure. Past whatever
gets you off next.

the provocation is that the poet is gay and evil— (evil as in vile to women of color)— which historically is not a provocation. And that your ex loves him for saying parties are necessary, cigarettes are necessary. but lately i’ve been equating mastery with outpouring (I’m writing this in a downpour in Burnsville). thinking craft is not on the line level but something more sinister