Taking a Screwdriver to the City of New York

One part vodka and tiny shards of broken glass
Then add both pathetic and preppy class
One part squeezed orange and then some money
You'll have to hold your nose but don't we all honey

tiptoe to the bar
you are the poison ivy
say your eh bee seize

Scissors, Memories, and Glue

The piano key a note higher
Please please the high-knee cigarette
She's Muslim for the evening
No drinking
But later she'll countdown

I haven't held a pen in my hand
Since it was a cigar
And I was in Tokyo
And I helped you step down from the car
No photographs
Just whiskey hands held higher
And a summer without any shade

You and I will samba step to the quartet
So many strings
A Bossa nova marionette
I miss you
But tonight champagne chandeliers

Indian Summer

There is an Indian burial ground behind my house
Where the flowers bend and grass is green silent
A place for sun-brewed mint tea and the trees to keep their distance
And my brother preferred to play at the front of the house.
From the porch my mind can only bear the thoughts of rituals for so long
The smeared signs of sacred practice dancing against firelight
Grate like the lawnmower and hidden stones
When there is a break in the reassuring stream of cut blades.
After my family is fast asleep in summer’s humid stick
The yard is mine for eyes and dewy sock-less feet
And the grass comes fast and easy as the drums echoing from a muffled depth,
My hands in the earth, pantheistical and crazed.
I will find the buried hatchets
I will hold them above my head
I will run from the field and into the trees
And beat mud handprints onto my bare chest
And bring war to the shadows of each part of this horror