On December 16, 2009, I read at Velvet Guerilla Cabaret, Michael Slobotzky’s reading at Unurban Coffeehouse in Santa Monica, CA. I read four pieces: “I wonder how Baltimore is…”, “Davi come on!…”, “The hate in the mirror is bait…” and “Broken arm summer…” Please visit www.adambresson.org for more poetry and writing. Hope you enjoy!

Watching him go through it with the worthless cellphone calls where you plan what not to say
And the fucking hang-ups in the middle of the night where silence substitutes for “I’m sorry”
I imagine he struggles with the same horrible rush of bad will & faith
That sin gives you in the long, dark time of one’s soul or after guilty sex
You told me stories of how she couldn’t say she didn’t almost not love you
So much complexity caught up in contractions, maybe a whole sentence missing
Things that sound like “I love you” become “what do you want me to do about it” & even clarity
Seems so distant in the same mechanical din of bad nightclub conversations
Short, staccato, flashing lights & the comfort of bitter seven year-old Scotch
You’re not human until you’ve been so low that anger seems better
An emotion more genuine than the middle of it all, this midpoint
Calculating the median between her & you & coming up with
Awful heartache that sucks out the air, leaving you to invite ugly girls over
Crying on their stomach, lumped & tucked, hand reaching up their shirt
And someone to sleep next to you who doesn’t forget to say goodnight

Then one day you call me late for dinner & tell me that your Iranian barber
Invited you over to his house in Woodland Hills, fired up the cinnamon hooka &
You slammed down Amstel Light while having a staring contest with his pit bull
Talking about fire-breathing all night, slay your demons in this Year Of The Dragon
And this is what building up is, a gradual freedom where the circle breaks open
Frees itself of geometry & becomes the anti-curve
We will become straight lines, dead on, straight shots
Bring the courage back of first kisses when she turns around from looking away
Things to do to feel better include: falling asleep drunk on the beach next to a girl
Forgetting someone’s last name you just met, asking her to go down first
Dancing on the street corner to someone’s music driving by &
Taking a picture of the girl in bed sleeping next to you while her eyes are closed
In the light of a candle burning out on your dresser & illuminating the pile of her clothes
You took off her to Coltrane’s smooth notes & syncopated moves

The challenge of cohabitation that ends in sorrow leaves her with a key to your house
That doesn’t work, doesn’t unlock anything & the more general loss of responsibility
For mathematical proofs, no more bell curve emotions or theories about complementary angles
I bet by now you have your own sad country song running around in your head
Dress down, go out & think about why the world isn’t flat
© Adam Bresson

I have mastered short wave radio, know the greetings & salutations
Know the frustration of announcing you’re on the radio before speaking
Like modern communication should have made us better at saying
What fits & lives between the seams of put together things
Every time I take the backroads I think of a new handle
To fool those who remember the last time they heard my monotone
While they were enclosed in the safe tin & steel of interiors

Cradling the comfort of static like an old time gramophone
Everything sounds better on vinyl LP’s, baby
Old things are more worn in, burnished leather & the smell of Jack Daniels
The thrill is long & I’ve got so much time out here
Recalling the conversations about low-grade sorrow & surrounding afflictions
Sick of this silence that makes me forget the back alley alcoves & smell
Of your perfume that I would wash out of my sheets weeks later

There’s nothing as disheartening as the click finger communication of Morse
Waiting for the next long & short tone to come over the copper wire
The harrowing shudders of divorce hanging on me like poor reasons
I remember the times we recycled over & over again to be back at the same place
And now I have to remember not to call you & maintain this closed-eye, closed-mouth
Radio silence where the violent need is to tell you…she looks just like you
And looks are quiet when there’s nothing left I should say
© Adam Bresson