You are staring at the blurred lips of the waves passing us by
And I am staring at yours.

You’re trembling on the Galveston shore.
The dipping sun illuminates our shadows harshly
On the polluted sand.

It makes me feel small.

My eyes ache from insomnia
And I am so tired.
It feels as if I’ve run a marathon
In vain effort.

Perhaps the meaninglessness of life
Is what gives brilliance to this moment
Because that one moment belongs to me alone,
To what I’ve learned.

And I’ve learned so much
About life and the nature of the universe
Yet still all I know to do
For a friend crying in despair
Is sit beside them uselessly
And recall old conversations.

To what extent are you willing to believe in useless things?

If we don’t, would we have anything at all?

I am watching rich people watch the game
From the best seats in the house.

Am I jealous?
Probably. But I don’t regret where I sit now,
Where I’m watching my best friends scream
At players in Spanish and Swedish and French
And the elderly woman in the next booth over
Is unleashing her wrath upon the referee

The best seats in the house
Are right here,
Sixteen bucks and a few cans of Dr Pepper.

I tell him that I want to skip
To the coda, to what comes after
The age of white men; after, one by one

The satellites drop from the sky
And you can no longer see me
You can no longer hide the past

Although Andrews change from Jacksons to
Garfields, animals drop from millions
To hundreds and I want to
Skip to the coda now,

To the beautiful promise of a new tomorrow
As the stars pass in front of my eyes
And my friends do, too

Until the moon is all that is left,
That beautiful bird.

we spent our thursday in an occupied country
and the sheep lent a certain charm

to the broken streets
where children once played football
and the nice man on the corner plucked the guitar

so pardon the silence
and the cigarette smoke

still, every dawn an announcement screeches;
another citizen drops dead

across the bright sea

wait for me
out on the street
the light is playing colors on your hair
which you died red, you dyed red

i missed you last thursday
but i didn’t know,
i didn’t know

who were you
before you headlined
head lined with dirt

       and

                appellations                   ?

listen: crows were perched on telephone lines like epaulettes
and the doves cheered the ringmaster
through the sun, we shut our eyes.