These are poems that reminded me of one another. I post them because they’re not like my usual poems. No, I ain’t trippin’.

• I wrote this one after I saw Deerhunter last November. For all of those familiar with Bradford Cox, go figz.

Making Love in a Room Full of Chemicals
And this is the place where I know myself the most.
Human zoning.
Your self-established mojo, right here.
Your presentable “vintage” outfit.
Looking at the front man is a rude shock;
I’ve stepped out of my warm car and into the snow.
I set my hands on the amps. I touch it
Like a man’s naked back,
Spreading all of my fingers, pressing down,
Testing it for ripeness,
Like a pear,
Long enough to feel new vibrations begin. My ears burn
From the despairing sounds of opening bands. Now it’s
The deep, sweet, lyrical cadence of a pretty male voice,
Transcending into loud loops of
Inveigling melody.
Making love in a room full of chemicals.
So loud now my hands feel like dull plastic.
My face implodes.
The noise is cordial revenge
A hypodermic death shock because
They love you.
The air smells like cigarettes and fried food.
The guy behind me closes his eyes and kisses
This song that he knows. His lips move to the familiar words
Like my little plastic hands slide,
Still across the speaker.
A room full of breathing silver and gold.
Feet beating.
Little fettering love sounds from the mouth of one
To the memory of many.
There is a skinny woman with a shaved head
Humming so diligently
To the tune of this song
About
Jacking off
In an art museum.
My fingers rape the amp, push the speaker’s
Little let out holes,
The size of Spaghettios.
My stomach lurches like a kid’s kicking me from the inside.
This is solace.
It smells like beer on the breath of a hipster boy in an undershirt with buttons.
It feels like chewing chalk, wet kissing that tastes like
Heavy cherry cough syrup.
Cleaners and hand soaps from a public restroom.
We’re standing like rubber growing out of a garage floor; they all settle in front of
An oblivious mural of a woman whose nipples have been drawn on in Sharpie.
This is the place where I know myself
The most.

• SEQUEL! Listen to the song “Loser” by Beck when you read it. I forget what album that’s off of? Mellow Gold maybe? Correct if I am wrong.

Words To a Hip Young Man In an Undershirt… With Buttons.
Get posi!
Play “Down the River” in a dirty bedroom with cheap, strong vodka.
And cheap, sweet juice.
Lick your chops, put out matches with your little wet tongue.
Smile at people who you don’t know in the sharpest of ways.
Do comb your hair.
Shoegaze, like a tag on a song.
Be tough like an orange peel, bold and tart under your skin like the quietest of all hot high school math teachers.
First you’re ruthless and you write with that tricky, sneering chalk, then you’re cheeky, staring at the dip between some young girls tits like it’s nothing.
Fly a fucking kite.
Yeah, throw your television remote into the lake next to your sister’s boyfriend’s apartment.
Make poetry sound more personal by adding a string of personal relations.
See that? Like I just did.
And did you question me?
Naw. So try it because I know you think you should write something for some reason.
Be a shocker, but not like that, pervert.
Don’t watch any movies made after 1994.
Eat processed food while you’re young and thin and pretty.
Get inspiration for the music you think you can make in the weirdest of places.
If you see a chinchilla anywhere, pet it.
Buy college text books and highlight good analogies.
Wear very thin socks.
Spend a whole day in a book store and don’t use one contraction in your speech.
Smell the air in bars with a blindfold on.
Kiss your palms.
Take a shower in the dark.
Dig your nails into something.
Use the word “flaccid” to describe anything that isn’t your dick.
Don’t rely on anyone but yourself.
Don’t talk to God.
Don’t make promises you cannot keep.
Stop drinking PBR, please.
Go shine a light,
Make all things into terrible little pieces of advice,
Just like this one.

I am adding a WORD OF THE DAY for today. It is “NEFARIOUS” as in:

Jafar from Aladdin is NEFARIOUS.