Elephants hate the circus
like Kurt Cobain hated fame
Elephants hate the circus
& the tigers aren't thrilled with it either

I'm outside the tent tonight
smoking a Camel & swigging Dimetapp
The show's about to start
& I'm signaled by the corpulent ring master
to kick on the spot lights
That hard buzzing snap that blasts the beams upon us

I'm out back with the clowns in the rain
holding a tarp over them
Bourbon & grease paint
I'm offered a bit of each

The bearded lady calls me to the trailers
for a dice game with the Daredevil & the geek
But I haven't been paid for last week
Sometimes I don't get paid for weeks on end
A felon can't complain

That's why the livestock pens are unlocked
The tigers are missing
& the elephants are just starting to rush the tent
I got six padlocks in my pocket
I roll the dice against the wet plywood
scoop the pot
Elephants hate the circus

-Joshua Fink


http://www.joshuafinkpoet.com/

Get Going Gone

Come away with me
We'll pull up our stakes & rattle down the coastline
stop at all the greasy-spoon joints
pool our money for smokes and fun
We'll just keep going until we can't drive
anymore
I'll get some job washing dishes & making breakfast food
You can sit in the motel bed
paint your toenails
& sip rum until I get back
We'll break out the old tape deck
& play something older than us
dance in the broken light until we fall over drunk
Laughing & mad
& we'll make love in those borrowed sheets
& everything will be expendable
Paper cups and tiny soaps
& maybe while we're gone
the law will forget us
Our friends will forgive us
& some day we'll make our way home

-Joshua Fink


http://www.joshuafinkpoet.com/

Any Day

Hear the song the finches sing
Hear the melodious church bells ring

Walk the concrete/Feel the cracks
Feel the warmth your spirit lacks

Hear the hustle of the street
Watch a first time couple meet

Grab a bench & watch the trains
Count the nights beneath the rain

Send a letter to yourself
Polish off your liquor shelf

Burn a message in your chest
Put on your best suit & vest

Put a record on a loop
Place your letter on the stoop

Choose a blade, some pills, or worse
Kiss goodbye your maddening curse

Say a prayer or have a smoke
Accept the promises you broke

Breath a sigh/Embrace the sorrow
Set the clock for more tomorrow

Little Rooms

I put myself in little rooms.

A room in a larger room. 

A trunk in the little room in the larger room.

My head is a room too. 

I thought I'd take more walks. 

But I stay in these little rooms inside rooms like Russian dolls. 

Today I woke up wondering why I stay in these rooms so often. 

I like everything outside of the rooms. 

It just becomes so hard to leave them.

Stepping out of these rooms is like jumping off a cliff into the ocean. 

And sometimes that's all I think about. 

September 20th, 2013, 3:46am PST

I cried

From the stoop

Outside, the harvest moon 

had fallen into fall and

it smelled like winter

And each lover

sat beside me

Fresh like the weather

an olfactory reminder 

Of each year 

These walls 

hold silent 

their ears

Keeping secrets 

beyond their means....

 

For James, with patience and strength

I don't want to do anything but miss you for a while.

There are a million coulda shoulda wouldas that might pass through these lips.

There are a million things I've forgotten and a million moments I'll never forget.

With you it was all or nothing.

In the beat of a heart. 

You were beauty and all it's flaws.

A million stars born, exploding, and collapsing into nothingness again. 

You were the shape of that heart. 

Beating ferociously. 

Lone man, part wolf. 

Standing, howling at the moon, simply for the breath that filled his lungs.... Silhouetted as the sun blazes and burns out behind him.  

Out There in the Night

A cold still night found me
Sitting by my fireplace
Sipping bourbon
In my rugged little cabin
My glass filthy-
from the soot on my fingers
As I sat in silence
Listening to the woods outside
The owl out there in a tree
The gossiping crickets
And suddenly
The crunch and snapping
of the dead leaves and twigs
on the ground
I tabled my drink and found a window
Nothing yet in sight
Just hard/heavy footsteps
Bringing someone large in my direction
I brought my hound out and put him on a chain
I squinted into the dark
Waiting
For brush to shake
For branches to give way
As I aimed my little rifle
Just a .22
I stood and waited
Shaking and shivering
in the cold
Knowing that this gun
Will not stop a thing that size-
those steps are carrying
with less than ten rounds
The slam/crunch/snap
Those soul-shaking footsteps
Out there
in the dark
The forest gone silent then
The crickets hushed
My chest and shoulders jolt
With the sound of each horrible strident stomp-
coming from behind the trees

http://www.joshuafinkpoet.com/

Winter #1

Radiator warm,
           uncomfortable;
Like unwanted love.

May 31st 2014 1:07pm

When we walk Joey hums the sound of my footsteps hitting the street.

And the rain falls but it's ok because it makes the roses come up.

Joey stays awake so I can sleep. He takes my hand off the wheel and puts me to bed. 

Nathaniel tells this story.

He's telling a story of his sister.

There is a calm and the light in the sky is yellow. Thunderstorm weather.  Everything is ok, I feel safe.

I am their only sister.

These dreams are rare. 

May, 2014

I was alive for one moment

When you touched my hand

All the blood rushed to my head

I toppled over 

And never got up again 

The Picking Moon

gently blushing now
as gravity pulls her in
to a grand adage

the demure rising
long before she says adieu
'til the next harvest

Maybe I won't have to tell you all the things within my infinite heart.
Maybe you will just stand by me and already know.
Maybe you will understand things they never intended there to be words for.
Maybe you'll look me in the eye and that will say enough.
Maybe you will hold my hand and find home between our fingers.
Maybe you'll know what love really is.
How it holds no shape.
And of its endlessness.

Now

This one time I called you when I was drunk and I barely knew you it was like we had just met. Like we hadn't slept next to one another for months. Because we had and we hadn't. This one time you called me and I had never known you and it was like we had known one another for lifetimes beforehand. We talked until the sun rose or until one or the other fell asleep on the line... I've always been vulnerable. I've always been right fucking here. As far away as I may seem. This is all I've got. Take it or turn away. Or hold me here forever. Cause that's what I'm asking from this frenzy life. Take me or turn away. Don't keep me for the sake of keeping. Take me or turn away...

There are things I want dead in my life.

There are three candles; one of them has gone out. 

Ballerina

I had a dream that you loved me because I was a ballerina.

That there were glasses of wine on the floorboards and I took a glass on my way down.

There was a girl critiquing black irises and adding pearls for depth and layer.

There was a girl upset over a lost wedding ring she claimed was stolen.

I had a dream I took your hand and lead you down between the floorboards. 

I had a dream I was a ballerina. 

I was thin and wearing blue and you grabbed my waist. 

You wouldn't stop talking. 

The girl with the ring wouldn't stop talking, or the girls about the irises. 

No one could stop talking. 

People will talk to you if you are a pretty girl alone at a bar.

I became aware of the shape of my kneecap the third drink in. When I stand up I will be drunk. I will use my newly discovered joint to move the rest of my body out the door into the oddly frigid LA air. I will smoke the remainder of a cigarette I rolled earlier. 

I will meet someone I know I've met before who is drunk and kinda sad but still fun and aware of himself. We will know some of the same people if we talk long enough. 

for the sake of secrets

I want to give you all of this if you just take the time to give to it

I don't have things you want to see

I have secrets hidden under my skirt

I have broken bits left on the floor 

no one careful enough to sweep them up

they'll stick in your feet

Unmeasurable slivers 

that embed themselves into your flesh that the body then attempts to reject 

with a throbbing 

feeling like a bruise 

You leave me with an itch 

You bow and smile and only we know what the other prays for

your touch is so far away

we brush by one another

we catch each others eyes and I want to rip them from your head so you can't ever look at me like that again 

you would still with empty sockets 

because when some things are born they are given a life beyond their bearers that lives on so strongly without their presence 

for the sake of secrets

Ovals

I am leaving flakes of skin everywhere hoping that its enough.

things happen to people

and they go away

things happen 

old shapes die

circles are pressed into ovals and wobble instead of rolling sweetly along 

you can't live in the past 

although there is no denying what the past has made you- your past is something maybe you can't live in, 

but you live with forever

the past has left me crippled 

things happen to people

they go away

Sometimes I think we have forgotten what love is.

it's thought to be something you seek or obtain or yearn for or live without or are void of or overflow with or need or want or have or don't or feel or see... something that is lost or taken or given...

these are ways we complicate simple things like love

No, love is like silence.

Love is like breath.

Love is a bowl movement.

Love is a hiccup.

Love is like waking up.

Love is the grey hues of night 

Love is a blur

Love is the space between two objects

It is something that simply is and always will be.
It's just there.

Don't complicate it.

My hair, the flakes of skin

they are the same as love 

anywhere I have been they are left behind

everyone leaves skin and hair all over everything. 

Precious

Don't let anyone in

Don't let them touch you

Don't let them look at you

Don't expose any part of yourself

Be the lone tree on a hill

As the sun sets; a silhouette 

Be a mother bear defending your feelings as cubs 

To roll and tumble careless in the sun under the sky with leaves 

Be the baby cub who knows its protected dancing wildly

Be the silence, in its patience and wisdom

A mouse with quick tiny eyes that is hard to catch

Be the beauty in stone seen through water; the light that reflects when you move your eyes

These are things to remember 

Because these times are different 

Very few in fact deserve you

As always, give kindness freely

But do not give away your kind as freely 

You are precious 

Untitled

Hearts beat
For as long as they want

Hearts belong
To no one but themselves