Relative Poetry Goes on Hiatus

We'd like to thank our wonderful readers, but sleep has fallen upon us.

Zzzzzzzzzzz..................

Why Must You Try and Hug Me?

Oh no.
You're here again.
Don't you have anything better
To do with your time than
Visit Me at My Place of Workship?

What's that? No, Crazy Stranger,
I don't want a hug. You smell
Like gasoline coated with
Gasoline.

I think I'll hide here in the backroom
Where it's quiet and dark and maybe
You will mistake me for a mop on
Steriods and confused, you will go away
Happily cackling as you hug the UPS man.

How Much I Loved You

You entered the room
Smiling,
Shy.

We both laughed, because we
Felt like laughing.

I wanted to hug you right then,
Lift you off the ground and
Press your softness into me.

I could not believe
That you made me believe
In something I did not believe in.

Kissing You

Your tongue and my tongue wrestle
Smackdown! style and you grip my shoulders
Like I want to get away but I don't,
I'd like to stay and get to know you.
I'm a bit rusty here, but girls still wear bras
Right? With those damn hooks and whatnot
Did you eat something with garlic? Man,
Kissing is just so romantic just so freaking
Great who needs sex when you can wrap
Yourself in anothers slobbery tongue?

Dear Jackie, from "That 70's Show"

Oh my god oh my god oh my god
I'm, like, your biggest fan. Really!
You wouldn't believe how many times
I've checked out what outfit you were wearing
When I should have been following a perfectly
Good plot. You sexy sexy thing, I want to brush
Your silky black hair and slow dance with you
To George Jones. If you let me grab your
Butt, I'll be in Heaven, all the pain I've ever felt
Receding to nothing. Please Jackie Burkheart,
Be my Valentine and I will keep you well hydrated.

Poem For My Ex-Girlfriends

Ladies,
You've grown up so fast.

One of you is married, with child
And husband, now carefully nestled near
The place you grew up. You don't
E-mail me, but your mother does,
And I'm glad for you. I really am.

Another of you is getting married
This summer. You represent
The hopefulness I felt in college,
And at your wedding I will try
Not to get too drunk and embarrass
You in front of your friends, most
Of whom I dislike immensely.

And the third of you is dating
Again. That's cool. I can dig it.
Just don't let me meet the guy
For as long as possible. I tend to
Say things, and do things, but you
Know all of this already, we held
Hands for a good long time.

Ladies,
Did you know Valentine's Day is coming up?
I think I'll watch Apocalypse Now
And laugh at all the napalm.

Fresh Air

Impossible

This light and airy creature

Giggling in my arms

As if she has been here all along

Just when I thought

I would never breathe so freely

Again.

How to Deal with a Thief

If you try to steal my wallet one more time,
Serious consequences will ensue.

You don't believe me?
Just try! Just dip into my
babysitting money one
More time you freakish
Drunkard with your big
Beer guzzling throat and
Tremendously LOUD voice,
Out-shouting everyone and
Their Mom. Buying drink
After drink like you think you're
Some sort of Captain of Industry.

Sure, laugh it up now,
Mr. Happy Go Lucky,
But we'll have to work all this off
Together, in the Poor House
Of weekend revelery.

Jesus Song (For Ned, Who Sat With Me on That Christian Music Only Bus Ride)

Jesus,
You are my Jesus.
Better than Cheez-its,
Jesus!

Jesus,
You are Awesome.
You are truly
Magic.

That thing you did with water & wine?
Fuck ya!

Jesus,
What did you think
Of the "art piece"
Piss Christ?

I bet it pissed you off,
Didn't it?

Jesus,
You are
My Jesus.

Better than Cheez-its,
Jesus.

Atlantis Blue (Written Five Years Ago)

I will gather myself and follow Ishmael to the sea.  
I will search for Atlantis by swimming down, way
Down into the chilled darkness of blue gone black.
I will grope among the clammy blind, the bottom dwelling.
My proof will lie in the places known only to the drowned,
Where they are forever gone but still entering your sleep,
Shouting wisdom you cannot remember.

I know Atlantis is there.  When I find it I will scream
And kick and defy the midnight ocean until I return to
The sunny surface of our fairytale world
That must ignore the Lost City.

when it's too early to be awake...

I stumble out of bed
in the darkness of my hidey hole,
thirsty, arms outstretched,
trying not to think trying not to think
to stay asleep as I open the
door to my refridgerator,
its radiant electric light
showing me more
than I'm ready to see.

What Leo Tolstoy Knew About Love

You will be changed and changed again.
And when the storm is over, you will
Have to pick up your heart in a pail and
Keep walking along the shoreline, the smell
Of rotting fish either perfume or pestilence,
Depending on where the voyage has taken you.
Kneading sand with your toes, it is your own
Heart you must answer to, not all those ships
Broken on the rocks then washed back to sea.

Poem By My Cousin, Steve

“On waking at 4 a.m. to the floor shaking, and going downstairs to find Mrs. Robinson, twelve hours on the lam from her hamster cage, jammed in the smoking furnace” by Steve Norman


Her name was never so ripe
for parody, we hum the bars
God bless you please
and laugh a little, the furnace switch
now flipped to off, the floor above us
no longer a fault line.
We close the door to her aluminum
tomb, deciding to leave it all
for the morning, and upstairs we collapse
back onto our beds
with closure.

I lay and think for a moment
how I don’t care that she’s dead – she’s
someone else’s
eight-dollar emotional investment –
and yet I recall
the secret joy, the thrill
expanding inside me like helium
each second after I discovered her cage
empty, her door
open,
hanging awkwardly from its hinges,
a challenge to us and the world to create
something better, stronger,
less conquerable.
To think it all only came to this
waste.

Though, a week later
when the Minnegasco man hands
us a hundred-dollar furnace bill
I’ll understand the true hell blaze of glory
she went out in, and I’ll swear I hear
her laughing a high-pitched
nasally hamster laugh as I write out the check.

Drunken Rave #2

The other night I met a girl at a bar
And she told me I could not be a writer.
I could not possibly be a writer. Astounded,
An entire alternate history rushed before my eyes.

I would have married that woman who was good for
me.

I would have gone to football practice, instead of that Springsteen
concert.

I would have worked with my father, I would have lived in
Hungry Hollow.

I would be zit free fat free Lutheran unthinking investing in shipping,
And real-estate.

I would have been as dull, and solid, as a post planted in concrete.

You would have met me at a party, I would not have been in my room
Typing.

This poem would not exist.

Put Me in Your Pocket

Please put me in your pocket.
I bet it's warm in there.
I bet it's safe.
Your pocket is a wonderland.
Your pocket is like a veteran, all-pro offensive line,
Feet well-planted in pass protection.
I won't cause any trouble,
I swear, I have no sharp objects
In my own pockets,
Nothing that will prod you
Overmuch.

Don't Mind Me, Placid Suburban Family!

I'm just here to hook up the cable.
Also, the plants need to be watered
The cat set on fire and then
Allowed to roam free in the backyard.
Don't mind me, I'm just sleeping with
Your daughter for the hell of it she likes
It when I sing opera between the sheets
You should think about re-decorating
Consider re-sale values add a bathtub to
Your dry existence no don't get up I'm
Just going to smash a few kitchy items with
This 42 ounce wooden Lousiville Slugger;
Now that's heft! Please allow me to eat
All your lite microwave popcorn
you might choke on a kernal and then
Where would you be?

Dead, stupid!

Dead as a Beanie Baby!

Ancient Love in the Afternoon

His love tackled him
And he gasped.

She was strong,
Golden muscular without
A forgiving inch of fat.

“You’re like a Spartan warrior
Woman,” he said, laughing
As she subdued him.

“It’s called exercise,” she replied,
“You should try it.”

The man considered exercise and basked
In the lazy sunlight
Of their shared afternoon.

“No thanks,” he replied at last,
“I am a born Athenian.”

Somewhere in the depths of history
Socrates laughed,
Patting his fat belly.

Reality is Crashing

Monkeys are everywhere
You cannot run
You cannot hide
So many monkeys
Feel dead inside

It Comes In Waves

Tonight

I want to sprint barefoot
Into the ocean

Until a wave
knocks me down and
I will laugh

Like a maniac
Swallowing seaweed
Clawing sand

As the riptide
Pulls me out so much farther
Than I would've gone

Alone

thoughts from the moon

I would curl up with you
In a soft crater. All that dust
Sifting between us, settling
Over us, like a blanket as the
Stars burned and Earth rose
In the sky (so blue with water,
Oceans deeper than you'd think).
Your fists would relax because
If you think the moon is beautiful
On a clear, silvery night in winter,
Try looking at everything you love
From the sterile vacuum of space.