your best isn’t good enough

dave k.

x xI

all poems herein are copyright © dave k. and banners of death press.

feel free to pass this thing around as long as you give me some credit; i’m a writer, after all, and my ego is very fragile.

beyond that, go nuts. print it out and put it under random windshield wipers or in the pockets of clothes that are way too expensive for you.

banners of death

shut up you idiot part one

if you’re a piece of bread, hell is a toaster in the biblical sense wheremy kitchen ceiling is the sky and my hand is solid ground and high fructose corn syrup is original sin.

the thing about being vegan is that t’s dumb.why wouldn’t you wantto eat buttholes and raw intestines every chance you could?

killing something smaller than you and eating it is what makes you a higher mammal, and shitting it out is what makes you a human and waiting for someone else to clean it up is what makes you an American.

salute your meat flag, citizen!

i’ll send you a postcard from europe

the ballad of your promiscuous mother

this poem is for sticky baltimore summershumid enough that you could call them vaginal

this poem is for the vain hope that i willone day play scrabble with ozzy ozbournebecause his lazy consonants and cocaine stutter have been a 30-year-long attempt tohide his incredible vocabularyas deep and unsounded as the ocean that separates him from me.

this poem is for nerds who are nerds because of what they knownot what they buy.

this poem is for finally at long last understanding the wit of modern danceof making peace with my bodybecause it’s the only one i’ll have

until science gets off its assand robots happen.

this poem is for all the times i hated poems that began with “this poem is for”

no but seriously hail satan

a large baby with a dog’s mouthstares at me from the mirrorits mouth opens and my stars i’ve never seen such dark dark dark

then my jaw hurts.

it occurs to me that the streets are not full of rubble. the trees are not stacks of cindersmy friends are not negative shadows in the ash. i am a living ghosttrapped between phasesi cannot see through these holes in my facei need all my toes to find my cats at night.

the sun is outthe stars are outthe sun is outthe stars are out

if only i could introduce them.

i need a new mirror.

for whom the Chris Tolls (do you see what i did there)

why is work in twerking? thatshit is supposed to be fun.

who put the manslaughter inlaughter? wait, reverse thatone or it won’t work.

i see trenchcoats flapping likesheets on a line and a wholeChekov’s arsenal of guns unfired.

there is more ado in an avocado thanabout nothing. i scrape plaque from my teeth with my fingernail and wish i’d brought some sunglasses. i can’t see through all this light.

there is too much cum in this cucumber for my taste.

we have about a billion years left.that’s not as long as forever.someday the sun will dieand its last rays will wraparound the earth and its finalwords will ride on stellar winds

i’m sorryi’m sorryi’m sorryi’m sorry

shut up you idiot part two

something happens every daylike a bike getting hit by a busa fire escape ladder oxidizesas someone climbs down whilehis friends sing away his fearof heights.

gum calcifies on the underside ofa subway station bathroom sinkand a tree branch sags closer tothe sidewalk.

maybe the leaves brush into the wet cement. maybe they don’t. who cares.

the world is an eye and we are the space between blinks.

public transportation in this century

this man on the light rail isa galaxy of nervous tensionsmoothing his mustache with his right hand wipinghis nose with his left handand scratching his head andleft armpit.

he speaks withdistant enthusiasm about Jesus, whose name is pairedwith the word “prison” a lot.

also swear words.

he speaks in footstomp cadenceabout a black sun over Paris andseeing Saint Paul in the half-open window and he attends his numerous tics even when the light rail skidstops and he has to grab the top of a seat to sustain verticality.

he disembarks at the stop before mine. he laughs and as he walks away his laughter degenerates into the sound of trains. if a train comes out of his mouthit will be on time.

i broke your crisper

i want you to love mei want you. To love me.

hence why i am sitting herein your refrigerator betweentwo halves of an english muffin.

i think your mayonnaise went badso i threw it out when i was clearingout a space for me to sit. you mightconsider a new box of baking soda too because this fridge is haunted byghosts of dinners past.

so when i was making room for myselfi took out your beer and soda and a half-empty orange juice and a big blockof store-brand cheddar and plastic-wrappedpacks of turkey cutlets and steaks that shouldreally be in the freezer unless you’re going tocook them soon, like tomorrow, and a couple bottles of salad dressing and some tupperware that was really heavy for some reason and a carton of eggs.

all that is on the counter and in the sink. i hope

none of that stuff is your roommate’s because ihave a roommate too and mixing up food makes things complicated.

your roommate is nice. she let me in.

Stop looking at me like that.

everyone keeps staring at my butt(alternate title: everyone, keep staring at my butt

look the thing isi’m sorry butit’s just thatyou see it’si know buti justif youif iif weand so that was that.i returned to my job as a butt doctor at the Baltimore ButtClinic for Butts wherewe believe in the honestwholesome principles of finders keepers andnever catch falling knives.you see i had to let you fall because you were too sharp for my soft hands.

everything i own needs batteries, which is what it means to be broke, i think. it’s one of those things thatsounds noble when people who

probably have money say it as part of a speech behind a podium in front of a plane talking about aboutwhat they learned building houses inrural sun-fucked argentina, but when you (defined here as “me”) say it, itsounds like an artful dodge aroundfailure. like you (again, “me”) don’t want to try very hard. if i’ve learned anything frommovies about vietnam it’s that i should strive for beautiful failure.

after all, most humansare monocarpic. we bloom once and die.

your family’s underpants won’t be racist

under the bed, the marbles redwe’re bowling for cryptic dreamsour brains are eggs our skulls arebowls of sticks and grass and string

it is just hot enough here to be uncomfortablewe have learned to fear the wind.

we cannot stop yawningour brains are leaking airventing steamgreen with brown blotches

dusty boards across our cloth sky are lines in a hand clasped over the mouthof our world

thunder is the cruelty of its laughter

the greatest fucking love song ever writtenbaby baby baby baby babybaby baby baby baby babybaby baby baby baby babyplease don’t go

There aren’t any more poems.