Dude, Polar Bears Are

so
Different
from Actually
Other Bears

Andrew Gaddess

Dude, Polar Bears Are so

Different from Actually Other
Bears
a small chapbook of poetry
written by Andrew Gaddess
2014-2015

with thanks to Cam Kuhn

for art and being good

The Firewood

1
The mountain-like clouds dissipate
and on the sunset buses and metros
you falling nimbus human being
your heavy water is too much to carryI watch the rain.

2
Every time the river is still
enough to reflect the stars I think,
"So the Milky Way is in high tide,"
and laugh at it all
heavy firewood on my back
on fire but never burning
face held like a star
on fire but never burning.

Boy Plays Too Many Historical Stealth Games,

Thinks It's Okay to Burglarize Stately
Homes. Boy's Dad Says, "It's beautiful, I
love him,"

In the woods it is calm and cool

Making my jackets and hats,
so unfitting for the season,
now at home on my body.
I dance on the myriad branches.
I sing like the birds on the branches.
(I am not naked but fully clothed)
I mean to give of my own accord to the
mosquitoes and the horse flies and all
other buzzing things, but they take
what I mean to give.
I mean to give to the wide winged
butterfly in the lavender, but I am not
made of the laughing of the earth or
the dust or drink of flowers.

i'm a sorta a anteloupe

Dew drops on a cactus

Dreamy misty desert island
The scarcity of rain
Flowers on a cactus
Old earth earth old routines
Bats on a blooming midnight
Licking the nectar
Of the blooming midnight

Rising from the turbulent stretches

I rise 50 miles a day
Since its all one ocean
everything is the adriatic
Bed bedpost bedside pillowsides
duvet comfort comforter comforted
We all fall asleep to the same
beautifully inevitable chase

my smarmy tweets

No one feels good anymore

the reasons for a blood moon
the snaps of you running through
the woods against the current
of the branches
big smiles, lit cigarettes
basking in retrograde
the moons of jupiter
the wolves of jupiter
my smarmy tweets
the novels of deleted tumblrs
family home movies
documented solely on vine;
it has become a beautiful place
because of the families
with the sunflower cakes,
displeased little daughters
trying hard not to have fun
in the crocodile sprinkler,
arranging the water
in the air like photos
of unnatural light
all over the earth

(untitled)

cyberbully me
push me into an online swimming pool
verbally abuse me in habbo hotel
hack my runescape account
get me kicked in club penguin
tear out my virtual heart
and compress it into a single
polygon
then email it
bit by bit
pixel by pixel
to every single one of my gmail contacts

I'm only in love with bill murray the idea, not the
person maybe

welcome home,
the pancakes are done
and i imagine every
love story taking place
in a high rise hotel
room in tokyo
and bill murray is
involved somehow.
bill murray is
more beautiful
than everyone but
he might not be
close to as beautiful
as you are. i think
you are prettier
than bill murray.

all i have to do now

is skateboard
and pretend
the past doesn't exist.
all i have to do
is kiss a face and
erase all worry.
sorry is like a name;
you watch me repeat
it in front of the mirror
and then my mouth
is clay and my tongue
is a bird that explodes.

i take sorry from you,

and make it into nothing.
now all i have is
bill murray in this
inside out shirt
and im drinking
sake and wondering
about buddhism
in the sort of way
i wonder about
quitting smoking.
bill murray says,
"You're not
hopeless," and i
believe in bill murray.
the air shakes.

early. morning. pasta

Early morning pasta

and on the windowsill
the little doors begin opening
I'm wearing old clothes
in the light coming through there

I keep finding lost pieces

kicked under the fridge
or by the shoes,
covered in dirt and dust
I put them on my bookshelf
with my hands kind of worn
into a definable shape

I run my weird fingers

over the contours of my face
mumbling, "After Rain the Blue Sky,"
and can't stop thinking about
that fox in the woods
on the day it stormed
It looked heavy with wet
in the inauspicious silence

We practice piano together like

the smoke in the ashtray
(sleepy n misty)
and our hair smells like
predawn fair trade coffee

Heck I'd kiss you

as actually different as actual polar bears
in the blue light from the now
fall evening through the hundreds
of open doors on the windowsill
I wonder who keeps opening them
and where do they go while
I eat a half cup of pasta
with my weird hands
sometimes on the scratched wooden table

Would you like to come over

and drink water
and talk about hemp hammockscount the fibers in
whatever holds us up
at least this high off the ground

This time we don't even look like ourselves

When I skateboard on your closed mouth
there is 100 more things about us,
they aren't even new

The thousands of tiny orchids

in the windows of the window
send themselves on me
and I catch myself

smiling in that way

that worries my friends
or the overnight store clerk
that can read maps good
who thinks I smell like
firewood and honey
and keeps insisting on
showing me a specific
point in the topography

I try to tell her

I'm not lost,
but her chipped nail
finger is like
the silence of the
woods during a storm

I'm nothing like a fox,

but I might be
more like one
than sleepy piano
and a half cup of pasta

im either american ultra or i just nicknamed this

skunk kristen stewart

Let's go get really high in the type of small town

where the murders turn into t.v shows.
We can listen to vinyl in the motel and when you look
over I'm concentrating and pushing my hair back
reading something good like kafka on the shore or
dharma bums or something.
I don't know It'll be fine with lots more detail and care
and precision in the language. Descriptions of what
we're wearing and eating and how we smile and
something about at night as the needle pulls away
and its dark blue from all the stars. Something about
in then is reserved without reservation. Something
about turning heads and heavy breathing. Something
about swirling ankles and wristwatch cogs.
Something about a meadowlark swooping and
singing as to take shape in the dark where the ouija
boards cause fire, heat friction between spirits.
Dancing around puddles of water running with
gasoline then immersing ourselves in the colour oh
god.
Lamp that I read under pulsing white and brighter as
it expands over the room, the needle is skipping,
playing, skipping, playing, skippingi sleep like a cub curling in the warm dark with his
hands on you and his face on you.
"I'm a better actor than Jesse eisenberg I think" I say
"In most movies but not the social network"

consensual oral sex with a spirit and/or demon

asking you questions like

a spirit board in the woods
and who forgot the good bye
where i am the entire mount fuji
misty
your stomach a planchette like
my hands in the heart shape
tucked neatly under your legs
arms
D
O
Y
O
U
F
E
E
L
T
H
I
s

yes no
and who forgot the good bye

I wrote this poem on tissue paper but I actually

only had tissue paper

#1
I want to get high with u
and kiss u lots
U have a very cute smile
U are very darling to me
All my cigarettes
are bent
and u remind me
of Earl Grey tea
I romanticize
fucking about u
When I am in
swimming I will
think about u like
how you think in
the water
When I'm eating Jell-O
I will think about
u like how you think
in Jell-O
all wavy and dreamylike
I am being held
in space
and I spoke to an
old man, he said,
"In space the
stars are held in
space. They are surrounded
by the void, it is
in front of them
and behind them.

They are always

bathing in it, they
are always waiting
for it."
I am fishing, my
tackle is stuck
in the shoals and
I am excited
because I've hooked
the big catch
U are already behind
me.
"I was not expecting
u there" I say.
"I felt left alone
so I am here"
I'm brought
to the space by
ponds, I reel in
and tug the earth
I feel it tugging.
Hello, I am
swinging above the
sea, a big earthquake
and oatmeal
There are many
stars and I
pretend fewer
planets. I sleep
and miss u, u
very sweet human
The rainy morning
at your school
was pretty to me
I think u are
pretty in the rain

But in the sun u

are sunflower dandelion
beautiful! Like a tiger
lily that really roars. I write on tissues for u. U are silly
with cantaloupe in your mouth. Let's drink green tea
or mint tea and get very drunk. U r very sweet, I miss
a strawberry or raspberry. These last couple days
I've felt very close to the void. It surrounds me and
holds me off the ground. Now I am high at 3 AM and
I feel placed on the earth. Something is bending me
to this spot. My lines are curved and goddamn music
notes and stardust are tumbling me to u. Wow, a
moss giant and tiny sapling are living in your lungs.
What a black coffee I've been given for these few
couple coins. I want to get high with u and we will
kiss and kiss for hours and then I will be sleeping in
the warm dark of u. And singing a millionths on your
warm neck. Right then I will be talking about u like
how you talk in love; Soaring above and below u,
being held in your space, maybe the void of u but
probably I hope not.

#2
If there is a scorpion constellation I saw it tonight. It
looked like a big patch of blueberries way up in the
sky. I wonder if there is graveyard up there like down
here. Let's get comfy by the wood fire in the forest
cabin my grandfather owns and I will read 'Into the
Wild' by Jon Krakauer to u out loud. It will be very
"Fleet Foxes" of us. Folkies around the world will
cheer to us as I put down the novel and we begin to
kiss through my beard which I am working on. I aim
to look like Robin Pecknold by the time we open our
eyes and finish kissing. The fire will be old coals by
the time we stop kissing. The oil lanterns will be bone

dry. We will stop kissing in the dark and it will be like

we don't open our eyes no matter how hard we try,
so we are always kissing each other faintly that way.
We will stay like that so long we will begin to forget
where we are. Eventually, we will think we are stars,
growing out of space like a patch of blueberries way
up in the sky, in the perfect shape of a scorpion.

#3
I wish there was a Halloween in the summer so
people would carve watermelons. We could give out
strawberries or flowers to the kids who'd stop by. We
could cut the strawberries in half to save money
There should be a designated day in November
where everybody has dimly lit dinner parties with
close friends. And we all drink wine and listen to
Norah Jones. The kids will go in the other room and
watch the King Kong movie with Jack Black, but one
of the kids in every house will be a bit too young and
get scared, and his mom will pet his orange hair
when he scurries out to her. She'll tell him it's just a
movie, it's okay. And at the end of the night everyone
will go home and I will put u up on the granite
counter top and kiss u like the kids are asleep. Then
we will cuddle like candles on the leather couch that
isn't that comfy but we bought to impress our friends.
Our flames will merge and separate, merge and
separate over and over as we stay still, dreaming of
Hawaii and how I sound sort of like Jack Johnson
when I sing to u. And in the summer we will carve
watermelons, and in the summer I will give u
strawberries and I won't even cut them in half.

the night is dark and beautiful for you

The night is dark and beautiful for you

Claire de lune
I will paint varicose veins on my ankles
I will tie my hair in a knot
Let's get old dejected records from the owls nest
And play them textural on our fingertips,
Sitting down in the pool parking lot
Let's read old poetry to each other softly
When the moon is gold in your back
Until I kiss you breathlessly
Like the french countryside,
The rolling fields of Europe
Two years is not so long
But I will love you at least forever until then,
Je t'aime
Ma cheri
Hehe

falling in love in the schengen area

I mention how beautiful it all is

and a (shooting star) falls in front of us,
hot tub,
1 am
There's no need to complicate anything,
let yourself fall into your chest and
swim
it's easier to drown in the dead air
up here
There's cobwebs spanning
from the branches in the trees
You can walk on them in the sun
when they glow and shiver
in the warm breeze
Shimmering like the hairs
all over your body in the
warm breeze

In a golden thursday dream

you saw mist rising in the saint john
harboring a few good minutes
for just us.
It was deep enough we were dripping with it
and every time we moved
it would rain off of us and down us
like quiet rivers and storms.

when i go backpacking in april

with my friends in europe
i hope one of us falls in love
in the schengen area
and never leaves but,
i hope it's not me.

the week of the meteor shower

the week of the meteor shower

passed in a plane across
the cloudy pale blue late evening sky;
passing under low clouds
////////////////////////
aching purple on the windy river
i swam in the dark waters;
past the bend
i dived
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
apples on the wharf
and avocados
cut in half
with a goodlife fitness membership;
i can't believe it,
i'm in love with you