There was once a time
When the concern was not
About feelings being hurt
But rather their collecting.
Wordsworth would lead you to his parlor
And with a sweeping gesture
Delight you with all his feelings amassed
In clean glass cases like intricate butterfly wings.
Oil paintings and photographs
Yellowing cracking and fading in your lifetime
But your mother keeps the urns in her closet
Of your first puppy
In which you should dig your nose;
These feelings that smell unfamiliar
But write the secrets of your blood.
Poachers kill feelings;
They write magazines and books.
I do not live in New York
But if you come I will
Take you on a tour of Wordsworth’s feelings
At the Museum of Natural History.
The dog bite display is not so different
From the whiskers and kittens exhibit
As with William’s orange juice
In which extra pulp was added
“And pulp,” he said,
“Is allowing feelings to be hurt,
And the more cushy”
Life becomes the worse
Our bulimia becomes and our girlfriends
Are great first Impressionists with warm smiles
That wrap us up just like the crazy they hide
But I’ll remind you
That all walls, edges, and sharp corners
Are equally padded.
Just before the Precambrian room
I can see his happiness
A pen a pad and some tinsel
“The actual thing is what you see
And not a rear view mirror
Image. If I wanted a replica
I would have left a book
Of poetry or stolen toilet paper”
Read the worn marker
Surely left by him himself.
The rest moves past
Like a storybook in a breeze
As if William were puling you
By the most ironic part
Of your shirt sleeve
Then he stopped
Before you got to the wooly mammoth
And said “let me prick your hand
With my pocket knife”
And
“Yes it will sting but not
Like a bee because you aren’t
That lucky to be getting a natural
Experience for we are
Indoors and they didn’t have
Air conditioning back when I lived
In the Upper East Side”
And
“If you let me prick you
I’ll pay your way
On the Coney Island Ferris wheel”
But he had already done it
And later when I watched
The city lights
He was gone again
Just like he always was
And my hand was bleeding
“Just in the shape of
Orion’s belt on
A Wednesday evening.”
We laughed together
And then stillness that was…
The last thought before my brainstem
Is wishbone broke
Is nothing but a snow filled mountainside
With just the idea of myself and
A breeze that is like third grade November
When I only knew few things so I listened to the breeze.
The snow is cold and with no food for days
My bony ribs could be a pretty girl’s.
I imagine birds chirping and the sun and silence
Are a perfect finish for my display case.
22.1.08
My Wife
My return to land
See the sails and mast
As the hull hits the sand
And the anchor is cast
I bound to the beach
With my lady on arm
To whom I will teach
Of the Courtier’s charm
What her mirror sees
I’ll short describe
Nor birds or bees
Did not I bribe
To give this love
Whom I adore
Alights this dove
On this warm shore
Let’s start with eyes
That on her face
Give silent sighs
Though stay in place
Yet go around
To spy her hair
And you will astound
By another stare
Two eyes she keeps
On the back of her head
To catch what creeps
Or else be dead
With this four sight
But just one nose
She knows at night
Where lover goes
Her tiny hands
Are somehow sharp
But make demands
She play the harp
The music made
Is of her choice
Though solely swayed
With just her voice
The notes on key
And never flat
She sang to me
And that was that
She had my heart
With time to kill
Though just the start
I fall yet still
Her teeth are white
Like this fine sand
Though none will bite
The feeding hand
These pearly gates
Were diamond cut
Poor breeding mates
The English mutt
At dinner time
She sits and waits
As food sublime
Will fill our plates
But at the bell
To bring the meat
She will not smell
Nor even eat
I ask her if
Her hunger grow
She answers stiff
Someday I know
And then she kiss
My rosy cheek
And just for this
My body weak
At this I grin
Her figure slight
Look just as thin
A fair queen might
Though better yet
Than any royal
And too I bet
She more loyal
With beauty great
Her love is too
My new first mate
And jealous crew
Who point at wings
And call a bird
Though well she sings
I hate their word
For I have found
A better name
That speaks of sound
And beauty same
With whom I share
My secrets all
And whom I dare
A siren call
And you may ask
From where she came
Or ‘twas a task
For you to tame
To this I show
Upon a map
Where I did go
And found her trap
It is an isle
Odysseus went
Within a mile
No time there spent
But there I sail
To lose my life
But I did fail
And found a wife
Our wedding day
The time is set
The first of May
Before the wet
And when it comes
Her eyes I peer
For wed cake crumbs
A hunger clear
See the sails and mast
As the hull hits the sand
And the anchor is cast
I bound to the beach
With my lady on arm
To whom I will teach
Of the Courtier’s charm
What her mirror sees
I’ll short describe
Nor birds or bees
Did not I bribe
To give this love
Whom I adore
Alights this dove
On this warm shore
Let’s start with eyes
That on her face
Give silent sighs
Though stay in place
Yet go around
To spy her hair
And you will astound
By another stare
Two eyes she keeps
On the back of her head
To catch what creeps
Or else be dead
With this four sight
But just one nose
She knows at night
Where lover goes
Her tiny hands
Are somehow sharp
But make demands
She play the harp
The music made
Is of her choice
Though solely swayed
With just her voice
The notes on key
And never flat
She sang to me
And that was that
She had my heart
With time to kill
Though just the start
I fall yet still
Her teeth are white
Like this fine sand
Though none will bite
The feeding hand
These pearly gates
Were diamond cut
Poor breeding mates
The English mutt
At dinner time
She sits and waits
As food sublime
Will fill our plates
But at the bell
To bring the meat
She will not smell
Nor even eat
I ask her if
Her hunger grow
She answers stiff
Someday I know
And then she kiss
My rosy cheek
And just for this
My body weak
At this I grin
Her figure slight
Look just as thin
A fair queen might
Though better yet
Than any royal
And too I bet
She more loyal
With beauty great
Her love is too
My new first mate
And jealous crew
Who point at wings
And call a bird
Though well she sings
I hate their word
For I have found
A better name
That speaks of sound
And beauty same
With whom I share
My secrets all
And whom I dare
A siren call
And you may ask
From where she came
Or ‘twas a task
For you to tame
To this I show
Upon a map
Where I did go
And found her trap
It is an isle
Odysseus went
Within a mile
No time there spent
But there I sail
To lose my life
But I did fail
And found a wife
Our wedding day
The time is set
The first of May
Before the wet
And when it comes
Her eyes I peer
For wed cake crumbs
A hunger clear
My Old Kentucky Home
Christopher Columbus
Killed all the Indians
Before they could pass on
The mountains,
My starving ancestors
Left to a widow of a land
That was no one’s.
Around obvious campfires the chief
Would have explained the dance
The dance with the mountain
His love and mother.
“Men climb mountains
because they feel they are
mountains but their skin
is made of sand and
buzzards will pick out their eyes.
The mountain is a woman
with embracing arms.”
But Papaw couldn’t hear him
And Mamaw could only smoke tobacco
And make apple pies.
John Smith wiped the blood
From his bayonet, the blood
Of the chiefs.
My people married the empty Appalachia
And forewent the first dance
Though they’ve made it work,
Mortgages in place of alimonies
And alcoholic funeral processions.
They borrowed coal
In exchange for their dead
Buried children.
Mamaw’s emphysema is that of the land’s
The warn down and mist exhaling mountains
That wait on the far side of the floor
Staring across waiting for a dance.
River’s will be dammed
And the land of my people
Swallowed by a reservoir
Of all their back porch smiles.
In the blue evening smoke
When the cicadas fall silent
A banjo still rings out
Calling stray dogs home
And the people who made my blood
Roll cigarettes in the fading light.
In this twilight
The chief dances
His shadow stretches longer than the earth
And he moves quick to the beat of a whisper
“There is light in the heir
of this land like the reflection
of a slow river where the mountain lion
takes a steady drink.
Remember every stone turned
on its side creates
another mystery.”
The chief was with the land
When wood met iron
And he would have told
The Spanish Conquistadors
“He will prosper
who lets the dragonfly
close to his stream.”
I stand in what can only be
The ghost of a perfect stillness
That lies in the unmarked graves
Alongside Mamaw and Papaw
Who made it up top
On account of good behavior,
A fair hand with the belt,
And no fear of the pain after death.
“This is gonna to hurt me
more than it’ll hurt you”
Said yellow Mamaw
Before the earth
Gave her the only hug that could hold her.
The holler my grandfather
Walked down as a boy
Is where I sit now
Staring into the green forests
That hide the mountains
And the chief would have told me
That they were the piled
Bones of our ancestors.
I am crying as I extend my hand
To the bluegrass mountains.
My mother is crying.
The mountain is crying.
My grandfather’s blue eyes fill with tears.
Killed all the Indians
Before they could pass on
The mountains,
My starving ancestors
Left to a widow of a land
That was no one’s.
Around obvious campfires the chief
Would have explained the dance
The dance with the mountain
His love and mother.
“Men climb mountains
because they feel they are
mountains but their skin
is made of sand and
buzzards will pick out their eyes.
The mountain is a woman
with embracing arms.”
But Papaw couldn’t hear him
And Mamaw could only smoke tobacco
And make apple pies.
John Smith wiped the blood
From his bayonet, the blood
Of the chiefs.
My people married the empty Appalachia
And forewent the first dance
Though they’ve made it work,
Mortgages in place of alimonies
And alcoholic funeral processions.
They borrowed coal
In exchange for their dead
Buried children.
Mamaw’s emphysema is that of the land’s
The warn down and mist exhaling mountains
That wait on the far side of the floor
Staring across waiting for a dance.
River’s will be dammed
And the land of my people
Swallowed by a reservoir
Of all their back porch smiles.
In the blue evening smoke
When the cicadas fall silent
A banjo still rings out
Calling stray dogs home
And the people who made my blood
Roll cigarettes in the fading light.
In this twilight
The chief dances
His shadow stretches longer than the earth
And he moves quick to the beat of a whisper
“There is light in the heir
of this land like the reflection
of a slow river where the mountain lion
takes a steady drink.
Remember every stone turned
on its side creates
another mystery.”
The chief was with the land
When wood met iron
And he would have told
The Spanish Conquistadors
“He will prosper
who lets the dragonfly
close to his stream.”
I stand in what can only be
The ghost of a perfect stillness
That lies in the unmarked graves
Alongside Mamaw and Papaw
Who made it up top
On account of good behavior,
A fair hand with the belt,
And no fear of the pain after death.
“This is gonna to hurt me
more than it’ll hurt you”
Said yellow Mamaw
Before the earth
Gave her the only hug that could hold her.
The holler my grandfather
Walked down as a boy
Is where I sit now
Staring into the green forests
That hide the mountains
And the chief would have told me
That they were the piled
Bones of our ancestors.
I am crying as I extend my hand
To the bluegrass mountains.
My mother is crying.
The mountain is crying.
My grandfather’s blue eyes fill with tears.
Storming the Beaches of Normandy in the Dining Room
Across the table my wife stirs in her chair just momentarily
Keeping her implied focus on the newsprint
But I can still follow her advance.
She passes the orange juice to the
Cuckold, smiling.
I can see them on the far shore
The sand white like picket fences
And the water boils bellow the surface
Foaming and turning over
The telegram in my hand
Like so many prickly Morse code thorns.
It is not the sound of the guns firing
That makes the heart drop
But that of them winding into place.
Why do I know the taste of the sound of their drums
The bloodiest day that you still managed to smile.
The scenery is emerging like heavy piano chords
Violent strings echoing toward you at the bottom of a well
Where the bride threw the flowers of her wedding day and
I put my silence and rhinestones.
My heart is sinking with the roll of the ship
And the sun is full of blood
Like the mouth of a wolf or a grapefruit
But my veins thick with clicks and stops
Diffusing from the unread pages of the telegram.
I can still see them on the far shore
Why are their teeth so white
In their happy smiles full of pampered knives
Why are their movements so delicate
When the day is so bright and grisly?
“We prepare the cannons” I announce
“No lead left sire, the crew has drowned itself”
Then “fill them with us then!”
In the mirror I can see in my eyes
Where scars were meant to be placed by pretty bayonets
And my bones are turned to jello made of fire.
I’m not going to read this telegram
“Then you’ll be spared”
“So will you sir” but he was
Talking to himself like a sunken ship. I tell myself, not him,
That I’ll stop. But the drums are ceaseless
For a reason and red wasn’t always
My favorite color, but it’s what I see
And the cannons are full and I can feel that
Myself is pulled between a multitude
Of tiny jawless blips on the radar
Each with my name and time of death.
The cuckold grins and gets his coat for work
He walks through the front door of the house
He built, the dog barks and the orange juice is
Fresh squeezed. His mother loves him.
This cuckold walks out the front door.
Keeping her implied focus on the newsprint
But I can still follow her advance.
She passes the orange juice to the
Cuckold, smiling.
I can see them on the far shore
The sand white like picket fences
And the water boils bellow the surface
Foaming and turning over
The telegram in my hand
Like so many prickly Morse code thorns.
It is not the sound of the guns firing
That makes the heart drop
But that of them winding into place.
Why do I know the taste of the sound of their drums
The bloodiest day that you still managed to smile.
The scenery is emerging like heavy piano chords
Violent strings echoing toward you at the bottom of a well
Where the bride threw the flowers of her wedding day and
I put my silence and rhinestones.
My heart is sinking with the roll of the ship
And the sun is full of blood
Like the mouth of a wolf or a grapefruit
But my veins thick with clicks and stops
Diffusing from the unread pages of the telegram.
I can still see them on the far shore
Why are their teeth so white
In their happy smiles full of pampered knives
Why are their movements so delicate
When the day is so bright and grisly?
“We prepare the cannons” I announce
“No lead left sire, the crew has drowned itself”
Then “fill them with us then!”
In the mirror I can see in my eyes
Where scars were meant to be placed by pretty bayonets
And my bones are turned to jello made of fire.
I’m not going to read this telegram
“Then you’ll be spared”
“So will you sir” but he was
Talking to himself like a sunken ship. I tell myself, not him,
That I’ll stop. But the drums are ceaseless
For a reason and red wasn’t always
My favorite color, but it’s what I see
And the cannons are full and I can feel that
Myself is pulled between a multitude
Of tiny jawless blips on the radar
Each with my name and time of death.
The cuckold grins and gets his coat for work
He walks through the front door of the house
He built, the dog barks and the orange juice is
Fresh squeezed. His mother loves him.
This cuckold walks out the front door.
Toin Coss
We would like for him to shadow again
Because he doesn’t recognize
All of his lower case letters
But are we not allowed
To make normative statements
Someone’s whispering, whispering in my shirt sleeve
Around the world, around the world
I’m in a cab in London with Timmy
And he’s the voice but he isn’t
Because I could be dead or waking up
King Lear it’s been a pleasure
Serving you today; tell us about
Batman and octopuses
Come and play football with us!
King Lear how would you like your meat?
Please stop need to stop his shadow
Wildfires are causing the icecaps to melt
And the penguins! “It looks like you’ve
Blown a seal” crude and no
Country for old men. King Lear
And the opera Macbeth in a pub
Performed by drunken women
With an infection of lidocaine
Don’t smoke tea Lear
“I can’t smile” he said
“They all sound the same on the phone she
Wasn’t comfortable with me sleeping
In her bed she always had to drink
Sprite and bacon in the morning” oh my
I can’t smile oh my
Call it
God oh my
Coin toss god
I can’t can’t
Smile can’t have my own parade.
Remember because she lost an arm.
This game’s gone on five hours
Royal football. My bed has no
My head has no sheets. Fetch.
This dog has downs syndrome
And my head has no
I’m going to take a shower
Bath pill sip vacation break my time
“What time is the parade?”
Common slang would be trolleyed—
“I haven’t had a crush since
I was fourteen when I
Could find myself in
The rainbow reflection of the screen
I’m more interested in long term cuddles
Rather than just
A night at a time or in the grass
Oh and it was pouring”—
Maybe you’ve made it too personal
Like writing characters in turbulence
Or phone sex. “Hello” “Yes?”
I can hear those muffled whispers
The shadows of coma my coma.
Why is King Lear still here
Wearing Bob Barker’s face he tells
Me “I can never die the world is round
The world is” mine.
King Lear
She is a musician the other a poet
One good with hands
The other with words
And tongue. We put a duck
Inside our turkey, then we put
A chicken inside the duck
I mean dick and fuck
My bed
Has no sheets. Don’t make eye contact
Please my bed is full
Full and full
Of cupcakes
The whispers are no longer muffled but
Real voices
I burst to the surface of the sea.
King Lear is a play.
Common slang would be psychotic.
Why am I cuddling with the radiator
Around the world, around the world
No alone in my room.
King Lear is only paper
This isn’t a legacy.
I’ll play tug-o-war between
Realities. My priorities are
Now lucid
In focus. Focus.
Steady now.
“Hello?”
“No.” Static.
Dial tone.
“Which side of your personality
Am I speaking with is this
Mean Andrew or happy Andrew?”
King Lear and I are on horseback
Riding into the wildfire sunset
Because he doesn’t recognize
All of his lower case letters
But are we not allowed
To make normative statements
Someone’s whispering, whispering in my shirt sleeve
Around the world, around the world
I’m in a cab in London with Timmy
And he’s the voice but he isn’t
Because I could be dead or waking up
King Lear it’s been a pleasure
Serving you today; tell us about
Batman and octopuses
Come and play football with us!
King Lear how would you like your meat?
Please stop need to stop his shadow
Wildfires are causing the icecaps to melt
And the penguins! “It looks like you’ve
Blown a seal” crude and no
Country for old men. King Lear
And the opera Macbeth in a pub
Performed by drunken women
With an infection of lidocaine
Don’t smoke tea Lear
“I can’t smile” he said
“They all sound the same on the phone she
Wasn’t comfortable with me sleeping
In her bed she always had to drink
Sprite and bacon in the morning” oh my
I can’t smile oh my
Call it
God oh my
Coin toss god
I can’t can’t
Smile can’t have my own parade.
Remember because she lost an arm.
This game’s gone on five hours
Royal football. My bed has no
My head has no sheets. Fetch.
This dog has downs syndrome
And my head has no
I’m going to take a shower
Bath pill sip vacation break my time
“What time is the parade?”
Common slang would be trolleyed—
“I haven’t had a crush since
I was fourteen when I
Could find myself in
The rainbow reflection of the screen
I’m more interested in long term cuddles
Rather than just
A night at a time or in the grass
Oh and it was pouring”—
Maybe you’ve made it too personal
Like writing characters in turbulence
Or phone sex. “Hello” “Yes?”
I can hear those muffled whispers
The shadows of coma my coma.
Why is King Lear still here
Wearing Bob Barker’s face he tells
Me “I can never die the world is round
The world is” mine.
King Lear
She is a musician the other a poet
One good with hands
The other with words
And tongue. We put a duck
Inside our turkey, then we put
A chicken inside the duck
I mean dick and fuck
My bed
Has no sheets. Don’t make eye contact
Please my bed is full
Full and full
Of cupcakes
The whispers are no longer muffled but
Real voices
I burst to the surface of the sea.
King Lear is a play.
Common slang would be psychotic.
Why am I cuddling with the radiator
Around the world, around the world
No alone in my room.
King Lear is only paper
This isn’t a legacy.
I’ll play tug-o-war between
Realities. My priorities are
Now lucid
In focus. Focus.
Steady now.
“Hello?”
“No.” Static.
Dial tone.
“Which side of your personality
Am I speaking with is this
Mean Andrew or happy Andrew?”
King Lear and I are on horseback
Riding into the wildfire sunset
The Founding of Child Psychology
I blame the smallest puppy in the litter
For the worst word in the English language
And I recently broke the prestigious glass
Around “fuck”
And there were little kittens inside.
I found frightened rabbits
In wedding beds
And there were scores of ponies
In the tears of strippers.
A reel of pornographic tape
Is the only forest left
For Bambi and the bears.
I gathered all these little
Creatures into my basket,
All 101 damnations,
And started a pet store.
Christmas, Chanukah, when beach houses are bought
And the little animals
Got into their heads.
Suddenly they are the fish flushed down the toilet.
ADD doesn’t mean one
Plus one but two
Little pills
That have the boogeyman inside.
For the worst word in the English language
And I recently broke the prestigious glass
Around “fuck”
And there were little kittens inside.
I found frightened rabbits
In wedding beds
And there were scores of ponies
In the tears of strippers.
A reel of pornographic tape
Is the only forest left
For Bambi and the bears.
I gathered all these little
Creatures into my basket,
All 101 damnations,
And started a pet store.
Christmas, Chanukah, when beach houses are bought
And the little animals
Got into their heads.
Suddenly they are the fish flushed down the toilet.
ADD doesn’t mean one
Plus one but two
Little pills
That have the boogeyman inside.
Orpheus
The underground is dark and humid
From the wet eyes of lost souls
Flowing past with empty eye sockets
That they fill with chewing gum
And New York accents.
The way is bogged down
By the melting asphalt
Under their feet and shoes and soles.
The city cop and his K-9
Stand guard over the flock
Like the pig next to the hotdog
And I descend the stairs with my own humidity
Fumbling poetry in my hands
Onto this scene of fluorescent mire.
She saw me first
And I felt the cold
Of a skeleton hand, a sacrifice to Anorexia,
Surging like the freeze of a snakebite.
Had she left three years ago
Or only minutes before
Nestled amongst genuine handbags
In Chinatown’s agora?
We begin to celebrate for the finding
Of those lost things
Which should never be found.
She asks for gum
And finds the poetry inside
Which I begin to recite and make
Those first vibrations that are for
Words that I promised her once
That I would make and afterwards
Seal with a kiss.
These are the words that I wrote
As if I were the old man in the subway
With a fishing rod and a dollar
Trying to save save save
Not money not time not green
But something not lost but stolen,
Telling yourself that the only reason
She can’t pick up
Is because she might have lost her arms.
Her eyes and dimples wait for the rhymes
And lyrics and song and harp
While the words amass along
The border of my trembling lips,
Marching in pink ant lines
Saying love like they do.
If I had read ahead
I would have known
That my words were sweet
And her steps would fall
In time with mine.
But don’t look back
Don’t look back.
May the Devil…
Don’t look back.
This being so Hades smiled
But just ever so slightly
As if it were nearly a smirk
Or even a confused frown
That wrought no disasters
No plagues nor fires nor recalls.
Just enough to where
The wallpaper comes undone
Around the edge or when
The glasses aren’t half empty
But just empty.
From the wet eyes of lost souls
Flowing past with empty eye sockets
That they fill with chewing gum
And New York accents.
The way is bogged down
By the melting asphalt
Under their feet and shoes and soles.
The city cop and his K-9
Stand guard over the flock
Like the pig next to the hotdog
And I descend the stairs with my own humidity
Fumbling poetry in my hands
Onto this scene of fluorescent mire.
She saw me first
And I felt the cold
Of a skeleton hand, a sacrifice to Anorexia,
Surging like the freeze of a snakebite.
Had she left three years ago
Or only minutes before
Nestled amongst genuine handbags
In Chinatown’s agora?
We begin to celebrate for the finding
Of those lost things
Which should never be found.
She asks for gum
And finds the poetry inside
Which I begin to recite and make
Those first vibrations that are for
Words that I promised her once
That I would make and afterwards
Seal with a kiss.
These are the words that I wrote
As if I were the old man in the subway
With a fishing rod and a dollar
Trying to save save save
Not money not time not green
But something not lost but stolen,
Telling yourself that the only reason
She can’t pick up
Is because she might have lost her arms.
Her eyes and dimples wait for the rhymes
And lyrics and song and harp
While the words amass along
The border of my trembling lips,
Marching in pink ant lines
Saying love like they do.
If I had read ahead
I would have known
That my words were sweet
And her steps would fall
In time with mine.
But don’t look back
Don’t look back.
May the Devil…
Don’t look back.
This being so Hades smiled
But just ever so slightly
As if it were nearly a smirk
Or even a confused frown
That wrought no disasters
No plagues nor fires nor recalls.
Just enough to where
The wallpaper comes undone
Around the edge or when
The glasses aren’t half empty
But just empty.
Low Light
The sun is thrifty on cold winter days
Moving so quickly
The day becomes a sunset.
Dark creeps between the alley cats
And in trees where the sunlight slowly dies
But though the sun leaves our city a cuckold
Pieces of the day are caught like fireflies
In the eyes of a girl and the cigarette
She only smokes when she drinks.
The light is held in the corners of the room
And shuffles quietly past lovers
Who have yet to share
Details that are shadows
Which only whiskey can reveal.
The room is jumping in candlelight
Against the walls like a seasick canvas
And I imagine the low light
And its large belly which swallows
All else in sight
Except her subtle eyes
That cannot blink.
My imagination thrives in such dimness
As if I were asleep.
We are invisible in this low light
We are in love
Let this day never die
Nor wake.
Moving so quickly
The day becomes a sunset.
Dark creeps between the alley cats
And in trees where the sunlight slowly dies
But though the sun leaves our city a cuckold
Pieces of the day are caught like fireflies
In the eyes of a girl and the cigarette
She only smokes when she drinks.
The light is held in the corners of the room
And shuffles quietly past lovers
Who have yet to share
Details that are shadows
Which only whiskey can reveal.
The room is jumping in candlelight
Against the walls like a seasick canvas
And I imagine the low light
And its large belly which swallows
All else in sight
Except her subtle eyes
That cannot blink.
My imagination thrives in such dimness
As if I were asleep.
We are invisible in this low light
We are in love
Let this day never die
Nor wake.
Your Mother Always Told You Not To Take The Last One
There is far more anxiety in the last time
This last one
Than in any of the fourteen virgins in heaven
Who by now are bored and thirsty
With lips as dry as stone.
The first is clearly marked on the map
Go three miles turn left
At the gas station
Then sigh and check the time
And it’s the first.
The mind can only remember
The first and the last
This one is important
Not like your driver’s test
More like your wedding pictures.
It’s not going to hurt
And the risk is to follow the well-worn path
Your age relies on muscle memory
And there is no creativity in a jungle
When there is no need for a machete.
In a world based on first impressions
Who’s there to help the florist
Clean the ruined stalks and scattered petals
May the last impression
Be the reflowering.
He takes a breath
Then sips the cup of coffee
He
Then sits the cup of coffee.
This last one
Than in any of the fourteen virgins in heaven
Who by now are bored and thirsty
With lips as dry as stone.
The first is clearly marked on the map
Go three miles turn left
At the gas station
Then sigh and check the time
And it’s the first.
The mind can only remember
The first and the last
This one is important
Not like your driver’s test
More like your wedding pictures.
It’s not going to hurt
And the risk is to follow the well-worn path
Your age relies on muscle memory
And there is no creativity in a jungle
When there is no need for a machete.
In a world based on first impressions
Who’s there to help the florist
Clean the ruined stalks and scattered petals
May the last impression
Be the reflowering.
He takes a breath
Then sips the cup of coffee
He
Then sits the cup of coffee.
I Swear I Don’t Obsess About This
My wife is sleeping with another man
Because we have not met and I
Myself am, mind my French,
Currently a fiancée
But it’s like your Christening or Bar Mitzvah
When mother brings a “you two should meet”
She brings a brace-filled vice of a mouth
She brings you a girl
But it’s the wrong one and you’ll
Never know.
I know she is eating
At a restaurant downtown
The one you would’ve taken her to
And she and not you are
Sharing their appetizers
Their froie grois and sipping wine.
She smiles and touches his leg
Under the table to remind him
Of every skin on skin.
“I love you.” but it’s too sweet
And you wish as you watch them eat
That in her eye
There would be the slightest doubt or flinch
That everything would be all wrong
And she’d never be happy again
Until you bumped into her at the bookstore.
I wonder what it feels like
For my wife
When I’m not the one doing it
Or when he passed the salt
At a family Sunday brunch.
Please let her be faking it.
Smiles holding hands and kissing making plans.
Will our tenth anniversary be
Ours or just hers and her
Husband who at the end of the
Day won’t know if it’s possible for others
To really care about their others
Or had I just been more aggressive
In my loving.
All of this I am watching and still
I want to know what
What changes in a held hand
From one to the next and I’m sure mother
It has nothing to do with
Chemistry.
My wife is sighing and admiring the pouring
Of a cup of coffee
Though none of this belongs to me
And I wonder when things are
Bought resale are they intact
And what’s my discount
Because the only person you can’t read
The mind of is the one in your arms.
When you’re the last person
She meets is it like when
No one wants to be it
Their hands sliding across the table
As they ignore the waitress and
Make keylime pie in their giddy
Sidelong glances.
I swear I’ll hit not me
Mother I’ll hit him if he
Touches her again.
And my lover sees all this in my eyes
As she kisses me open mouthed.
Because we have not met and I
Myself am, mind my French,
Currently a fiancée
But it’s like your Christening or Bar Mitzvah
When mother brings a “you two should meet”
She brings a brace-filled vice of a mouth
She brings you a girl
But it’s the wrong one and you’ll
Never know.
I know she is eating
At a restaurant downtown
The one you would’ve taken her to
And she and not you are
Sharing their appetizers
Their froie grois and sipping wine.
She smiles and touches his leg
Under the table to remind him
Of every skin on skin.
“I love you.” but it’s too sweet
And you wish as you watch them eat
That in her eye
There would be the slightest doubt or flinch
That everything would be all wrong
And she’d never be happy again
Until you bumped into her at the bookstore.
I wonder what it feels like
For my wife
When I’m not the one doing it
Or when he passed the salt
At a family Sunday brunch.
Please let her be faking it.
Smiles holding hands and kissing making plans.
Will our tenth anniversary be
Ours or just hers and her
Husband who at the end of the
Day won’t know if it’s possible for others
To really care about their others
Or had I just been more aggressive
In my loving.
All of this I am watching and still
I want to know what
What changes in a held hand
From one to the next and I’m sure mother
It has nothing to do with
Chemistry.
My wife is sighing and admiring the pouring
Of a cup of coffee
Though none of this belongs to me
And I wonder when things are
Bought resale are they intact
And what’s my discount
Because the only person you can’t read
The mind of is the one in your arms.
When you’re the last person
She meets is it like when
No one wants to be it
Their hands sliding across the table
As they ignore the waitress and
Make keylime pie in their giddy
Sidelong glances.
I swear I’ll hit not me
Mother I’ll hit him if he
Touches her again.
And my lover sees all this in my eyes
As she kisses me open mouthed.
The Boy I See Walking to School Each Morning
He’s dying
Not metaphorically but literally
His eyes sink.
He’s too young
But why doesn’t he speak
His insides
Leaving and left
Not right
Wronged.
He is dying
I can’t stop his fever.
Not metaphorically but literally
His eyes sink.
He’s too young
But why doesn’t he speak
His insides
Leaving and left
Not right
Wronged.
He is dying
I can’t stop his fever.
Everland
Have you heard of Peter Pan
Who killed the boy and now a man
Walks London’s streets in bowler cap
From low-lit pubs this grown up sap
Knows only the bell of old St. Paul’s
His evening friends like painted dolls
Who rubbed from eyes the pixy dust
And money short they spit and cussed
Who killed the boy and now a man
Walks London’s streets in bowler cap
From low-lit pubs this grown up sap
Knows only the bell of old St. Paul’s
His evening friends like painted dolls
Who rubbed from eyes the pixy dust
And money short they spit and cussed
Eight Lines on My Mental Status
April’s day of fools conceive
Then born in time on New Year’s Eve
His tongue was made to build the rhyme
To sting the eyes with lye and lime
With words already in his mind
As they emerge his thoughts unwind
Like limbs askewed in some great wind
Which reason break and crazy bend
Then born in time on New Year’s Eve
His tongue was made to build the rhyme
To sting the eyes with lye and lime
With words already in his mind
As they emerge his thoughts unwind
Like limbs askewed in some great wind
Which reason break and crazy bend
Cream and Sugar
The waitress refilled his cup of coffee
He winked and she frowned
His friend had asked for decaf
And swiveled a little in his diner chair.
The waitress and the friend had no idea
They could not see it
They didn’t know
There was the pie and there the salt
And yet he was still there
And they couldn’t feel the earth
Slowly slipping off its axis
Because of the way the sun angled
Through the windows
They couldn’t feel their memories
Slowly evaporating with the coffeepot steam
Because they kept family pictures in their wallets.
No one could believe
No one could have known
That he was pouring cream and adding sugar
He was slowly dismantling the universe
One appendage one atom at a time
With no feeling but fury
With his eyes calm and open.
The waitress and the friend
Couldn’t know they were hollow
For the pie and cigarette smoke
Even the nothing taken out of them
And sidewalks cracking, the world unwinding
As his spoon keeps stirring.
If they had any chance
To see before the flame
They missed it in a flutter.
All is gone in a wink,
A twinkle of the eye.
He winked and she frowned
His friend had asked for decaf
And swiveled a little in his diner chair.
The waitress and the friend had no idea
They could not see it
They didn’t know
There was the pie and there the salt
And yet he was still there
And they couldn’t feel the earth
Slowly slipping off its axis
Because of the way the sun angled
Through the windows
They couldn’t feel their memories
Slowly evaporating with the coffeepot steam
Because they kept family pictures in their wallets.
No one could believe
No one could have known
That he was pouring cream and adding sugar
He was slowly dismantling the universe
One appendage one atom at a time
With no feeling but fury
With his eyes calm and open.
The waitress and the friend
Couldn’t know they were hollow
For the pie and cigarette smoke
Even the nothing taken out of them
And sidewalks cracking, the world unwinding
As his spoon keeps stirring.
If they had any chance
To see before the flame
They missed it in a flutter.
All is gone in a wink,
A twinkle of the eye.
Belly Button
I awake suddenly
Like the protagonist
In an erotic nightmare.
She lies there still
Dreaming of edible rose pastures
And wedding rings,
The waist up
Of her world
Bared to the low light.
I admire the valley of
Her chest
And her thin figure
Though drawn most
To the button of her bell.
Even God needs a place
To tie off his human shaped balloons
And accursed lint needs a spot
Other than pockets to hide.
It is a crater, a trench
In the landscape
And it spirals down
A tornado of odd skin
That draws me in.
This is the last sign
That her parents had sex
And I can put my finger into it.
Unlike a red button
Nothing happens
If I press this one
Though I’m glad to know
That if it were undone,
Some things would come out
But not her heart.
This is the axis
Where we align ourselves
When we align
And I could fill it
With wine.
The belly button prevents
Her from being turned inside out
The way wine does.
She doesn’t wake
Even as I kiss it
For this is not
The first time.
Like the protagonist
In an erotic nightmare.
She lies there still
Dreaming of edible rose pastures
And wedding rings,
The waist up
Of her world
Bared to the low light.
I admire the valley of
Her chest
And her thin figure
Though drawn most
To the button of her bell.
Even God needs a place
To tie off his human shaped balloons
And accursed lint needs a spot
Other than pockets to hide.
It is a crater, a trench
In the landscape
And it spirals down
A tornado of odd skin
That draws me in.
This is the last sign
That her parents had sex
And I can put my finger into it.
Unlike a red button
Nothing happens
If I press this one
Though I’m glad to know
That if it were undone,
Some things would come out
But not her heart.
This is the axis
Where we align ourselves
When we align
And I could fill it
With wine.
The belly button prevents
Her from being turned inside out
The way wine does.
She doesn’t wake
Even as I kiss it
For this is not
The first time.
Afternoon
The needle is still moving on Hemingway’s record player
And the French doors to the veranda move gently in the afternoon breeze
A glass of whiskey, which he poured
Sweating in the sticky heat
The unbearable smell of wet paint
In this summer of wisteria
Southern shadows stretch eastward
And a watch still ticks in the neatly folded room
Aside picture frames and books
The dust invisible in twilight
No living human could make this quiet
This stillness of an Indian summer
Exhaling amber light into autumn
Like quiet pages of scripture
Or the gallows on Sunday
What if the phone rang
And the mockingbird chorus with the hum of heat and cicadas
Reached your ear
Though too late to turn back
Suddenly as surprised as everyone else
And the French doors to the veranda move gently in the afternoon breeze
A glass of whiskey, which he poured
Sweating in the sticky heat
The unbearable smell of wet paint
In this summer of wisteria
Southern shadows stretch eastward
And a watch still ticks in the neatly folded room
Aside picture frames and books
The dust invisible in twilight
No living human could make this quiet
This stillness of an Indian summer
Exhaling amber light into autumn
Like quiet pages of scripture
Or the gallows on Sunday
What if the phone rang
And the mockingbird chorus with the hum of heat and cicadas
Reached your ear
Though too late to turn back
Suddenly as surprised as everyone else
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