My heart is a brave and lonely soldier

My heart is a brave and lonely soldier.
It battles, exhausted, in the iron-hot sands,
And in the swamps, that grasp—
Like a lasso taking you under at the hip.
This war reaches past the devil’s deep trenches,
Rockets above God’s skies, as it drenches
The world with His unhappy bombs.
My heart, too, fights in the alley,
Among the drunk and hurt and ugly.
My little heart protects those solitary silhouettes
And the lovers, on nights, black and wet.
The couple folds one onto the other,
Like hands in quiet prayer,
Beneath a wide net
Of planes and missiles,
Disguised (brilliant) as
Sweet and watchful stars.



this one needs some tuning up. the word "rockets" may be confusing to the reader. and I always feel like an e.e. cummings imposter when I use parentheses in the place of commas. Like with "(brilliant)" i dunno. i was also sorta going for some slant rhyme, but it's sorta pointless since i don't really go through with it. just some self-critique...

chamberlain hunt academy boys

CHA boys

We craved them nightly
Like how stupid dogs binge on trash.
We loved the stink.
The reeking sweat and the ugly.
They were boys on the brink of being men.
Military schooling, carrying big-boy
BB guns, and fake identities in their wallet.
(To the left of a lonesome condom)
and the characteristic unmade bed of facial hair—
A man-mask.

It was drunk people and big fires,
It was whiskey straight and abdomen explosions.
It was wrong and wonderful at sixteen.

first poem

U (and sometimes Why?)

You are to me like lemons to ice-tea.

The lemons carved into sour laughter.

As your deep breathing swan-dives

Into every crack and scar and pore of my face,

Like the smell of my mother's bath powder.

It’s the tickle of your fingers weaving into mine.

And your taste, your taste: Cake batter.

The pinstripes glide into

The dark in-betweens of the bed and wall.

As I get lost like Judy Garland

In the world of Oz. Forgive me, guide me.

For you are home, and there is no place like it.

Dickinson wrote Two butterflies went out at noon

and waltzed above a stream, just as

Vonnegut wrote Life is meant to be lived in pairs.

Just as I write,

You and me will fall into the clear sea,

And cradle each other, as the ocean cradles the world.

Just as a heart kicks its tiny feet inside a chest,

It laughs just as you do.