the timekeeper

you and your adolescent wandering/ all the dark places and that lurid glare/ your river stories/ the villages are always deserted/ your age was that summer a jury/ morning snowstorms and we just went back to bed/ the virile ivory in the temples of taboo perceives the shipwreck and the…

post-card nomadic

first-one features the camera will come on again dragging out revenge to some stupefied consensus i used to take you to all the shoots pizza for breakfast you were hungover from the night before you called me a post-card nomadic i have been called worse limited access studio shoots are…

Vous l’avez fait

J’accuse Vous l’avez fait Tu m’as tué Avec ton amour Avec ta bite Avec votre Langue Dans mon Trou Vous avez rempli Moi avec Ton sperme Que je Merde Dans votre Bouche Vous l’avez fait

It’s just business

every sunday morning here in appalachiaville they take a head count to see who’s in church and who’s not in fucking church religion in america and what is so intricate so entangling as death you numberless infinities your mouths are filled with dust the absurd in the depth of winter…

stop asking me

stop asking me if i like it/ stop asking me if it needs something, stupid boy, they all need something/ stop asking me about light/ what the fuck do i know about light/ light only is/ stop sacrificing my kingdoms of the dead with your hearts and flowers and sailboats…

orphaned by the tide

in some place of sun/ the light spills dancing on your work/ the quick day is just an accent of bones and dust/ even the word work is more drainage than sweat but sweat, too/ i need room to think/ i need equivalent deserts of the sky in pain/ ripped…

your pain what pain your pain

he denied he was in pain i ignored the fuck out of him i did eat his ass out though his life was an animal of stealth but i could always smell his desire long before he arrived 

I Used to Walk These Places

the air is always cool there, and sleep is what murmurs in the older oaks/ i am just another old man among all the old men who are seen as shadows and what we do is walk around/ i wonder what it is we look at slumped over like we’ve…

WhoWillLoveYou

WeCanOnlyAffordAMotelRoomfor1. SneakingIn. AFewExtrasNoLoudMusicNoJumpingOnBeds. IAskU:AtTheEndOfAllYourMomentsAtTheEndOfAllYourSorrowsAtTheEndOfAllYourLives. WhoWillLoveYou. WhoWillFight. WhoWillLoveYou. YouSayNoOneLovesYou. ThenWhatTheFuckAmI. 

Ordinary Matter

the human animal is made of ordinary matter/ the elements the animal is made from have a gravitas and interact with light/ when you left, i could not walk through any of our rooms without being hit in the face with the subsequent warmness that you were still there/ all…

Tim Barrus Poetry

his solitude was the soft breathing of a morgue everyone in morgues breathes like that our road trips together had us following the grateful dead whose heroin bones had that damp smell of honeysuckle just outside the farmhouse door https://timbarrus.tumblr.com/

Most Galaxies

most galaxies will hang out near bigger galaxies/ in orbit not unlike satellites/ large galaxies routinely collide with smaller galaxies in a violence warped beyond all recognition where newly induced bursts of star-forming regions escape the idea of time itself, and then there’s humanity, watching like a nest of hawks,…

That Boat Has Left the Dock

i bought a boat from old man hughes for five bucks/ it was really only worth three/ the boat leaks/ i can’t afford to fix it but who wants a boat anyway/ i do/ i take the boat out to the middle of the lake and sit there with a…

drinking with the dog

u sitting on the bed again/ explaining yourself 2 me/ u looking downcast/ u unable to meet my gaze/ and this secret life u live is supposed to be unknown 2me/ please/ i have known u since the age of the dinosaurs/ like i give a flying fuck/ but i…

you carried him

you have carried him on your back through oceans of your sweat for a long while, now/ we both knew it was only a matter of time/ the big old boogeyman, time/ before you’d push back/ hard/ that way you push back when you push back/ it is always a…

His Second Self

The assignment was to create something that tells the story of your second selves. Many of the stories were about armor and fragments. https://medium.com/@timotheebarrus/i-opened-my-eyes-80939561c66a

Guyz and Dollz

LES BOUGIES N’A JAMAIS FONDU AUSSI LUMINEUX

je suis tombé dedans sans bruit/ pas même le vent/ c’était tellement instantané/ c’était comme si on me cherchait dehors/ je ne le recherchais pas/ une autre personne me suffisait toujours/ plus qu’assez/ beaucoup plus qu’assez/ c’était ma curiosité d’être dans un trio qui était une violation de plus de…

Mon Incapacité à se Propager

je boirais du vin rouge de ton trou comme du sang vous avez été cassé ciel et colline votre enfance de la bouche et tout le monde chante à leur horreur ils sont tous seuls ils sont tout seul

Chichén Itzá

only the earth endures/ bearing upon its awful breast a world that has no ghosts to haunt it/ whipped in the desert/ half broken and overthrown, the lost temples strewn in ruined images, no heads, nothing has been done in stone/ even your family is glad you are dead/ less…

Voyages en Famille

Blood and Money

you were always leaving not in an angry tone but in no tone at all and then you’d be back and crawling into bed most of my kind were awkward in our peasant hostility you were with the boys with money it all came so easily for you knowing as…

INTERVIEWS WITH BOYS WHO DO SEX WORK

As I interview these kids, there is an undercurrent of arrogance – it is the arrogance of truth speaking to power – and it says you put me here and here I am so don’t you dare whip me with your morality because I know for a fact you have…

U Know What I Mean U Know What I Mean

you burned holes where my eyes had been the nagual doesn’t have to be the desert we had it in our hands not knowing anyone could fall down that vortex and the gravity of the thing could easily crush diamonds into the sound of a piano i was the guy…

I Want To Cum When I See Real Art

The first time I ever came in my pants was at the Louvre. Jean-Baptiste Roman’s statue’s Nisus and Euryalus. Best friends from childhood, both warriors are slain in war. Here, they are naked and fighting off something or someone we cannot see. Euryalus is dead or dying while Nisus stands…