Loose
To be scared to say what I wanna say
We’re on that warming griddle
Just in the midst
Of those waiting ruby flames to lick every one of us
We’re warming
Warming fast
Or slow
And sow these seeds of resentment
Towards myself towards these others I’ve felt
That could have been my lovers and loyal friends
But when we meet this velvet end
Like the top of one of those tables
You know
The one you see in your grandmother’s place.
Was made in a time with different tastes and feels and thoughts
In a moment where people seemed bigger and more foundational within this world and the next
Like layers of bricks and mortar
One held the other in a strong gravelly embrace
Now though
I don’t know what happened to that communal bricklaying
Might have been taken away from you or I
Or we might have a fresh attempt at in our palms
To lay bricks of different
Colours
Sizes
Feels
Textures
Material
Some would say
‘What a shit wall, how’d that stand boy?’
But this the experiment I’d hold true to myself and I’d show to others
Each brick may sag or sink or shift
Each will sag into another
Sink only to be lifted up
Shift so others can keep that void filled
Use of this wall has to portray our wild relationship too
So it can’t block
Or evict
Or isolate man
We’ll make a home from it,
One blessed by welcoming fellows
Who’ll take others and love any
They will be the shields of many.

Vital news
If you want to play life like a fiddle
then throw out the fiddle
and buy a grand piano

Untamed
my hair
it’s coarse, rough, always in bristles
Why should I care
But how did these sweet birds
come to swallow those hard whistles

Staying Far away for Obvious and Not so Obvious reasons
To whom
and whom
should I make it out to?
you wrote down an address
However just like the rest
you never gave me a picture of
the last sight you saw
when in dreary Ohio
Or in crisply starched New England.
You never gave me that lava-like kindness you felt in Vera Cruz
Or that warmth on the sides of your neck in Berlin
I am or we are
Dishearten to hear the news
the one you already knew
back when you were in homeschool
with that alcoholic father
who only passed, he threw, the baton to mother.
You knew more then the next
but you let it slap from your sides
Only to lead to a new wild game of chutes and slides
and slides
and sliding
into my life
That is exactly what you did
For the best of two futures you left that other to see
that you needed me
And now
from this point on
Who should I make it out to son?

Instagram: @jacktheveganhawley

Cover photo by Javier Padilla Reyes