growing into echo

(June 2022. Reunited with my LA gang briefly, we wrote a decentralized poem on Billy’s porch. The first line is mine, then Libby, then Matt, then Stroth, then Stanley, then Billy, then Evan. It’s a pretty good poem and holds up well against the other Billy’s porch daopoems from the LA period a month prior. Matt’s stanza about me is probably my favorite but I’m biased. Evan’s stanzas are funny because their neighbors have it out for them, and the big blue bus certainly wasn’t helping. I really like the different personalities that show with everyone’s different voices, voices I’ve gotten to know better and better having written many poems with these friends.)

i am across from an echo of echoes
ready to grow a poem

growing into echo

weeeeeeeeeohweeeeeeeeeee
big toe thumb rumbles on and on then less and less under an underpass
a dog in tow on to meet his mother

meat my brother
it‘s scary
the bathroom that is
black mold,
evidence of my insides

i tried writing my thesis on a piece of bark
The red couch fell on me and was trapped for a week
all i had to eat were left over scraps of halal guys
The Sprinklers was what i drank and used my brain to make me think i was drinking ginger ale

an evergreen liquid puddling out of,
more often than not, busted spigots

when i grin and strain my mind
i can hear the sleighs and bells

pruning rectangles into front sidewalks
and swimming down storm drains with my brand new family

if i listen while i’m thinking softly
drinking in your smile as the hissing always soundtracks my favorite poesy

The councilmen do not approve of our antics.
They staple pictures of our faces to the bulletin board at the post office, and wish for our demise.

They may have a point. But I refuse to see it,
for your sake, more than mine.