poetry

poetry

Sometimes someone comes and knocks, something like two or some three times.
And then sometimes you have you kick out that someone, or do something like punch that someone once or sometimes twice, somewhere like in the face.
But usually it’s not a problem and you can just sit on your couch and continue eating your onion rings without worrying about it.

Someday Your Ship Will Come In

poetry

Is life summarized in empty soda cans
or stacks of boxes of fine old clothes or
the silences of long car rides after funerals
and tragedies? In movie quotes? In filing cabinets
in debt collector’s offices?

You are a book with a table of contents
and and an index in the back
and your best friend indexed a lot of it,
for you, until he got bored and did other things.

Then you spent your time with a beautiful woman
or an electric guitar or
both, but neither for long enough
and so your reference notes grew more confusing
but less meaningful, really, with
every passing day.

Now you tend bar in a seedy town
and the money is pretty good and you haven’t
seen what’s her face in years but who gives a shit.
Your guitar was sold at someone else’s rummage sale
last January.

There isn’t much fight in you these days
and you pour as much for yourself as for
everyone else, though you haven’t had soda in months
now.

The cans are still scattered near the kitchen door.

no parking Sunday

poetry

turning left
on 56th,
I step out of Brooklyn
and into a festival, the
moment my feet leave
the sidewalk.

in the distance I see
the whole street blocked off,
and decide to make my way up
on the pavement.
it feels no different
through the rubber soles
of my one pair of sandals,
but the breeze seems
more accessible, here,
separated from the rising buildings.

without fear of rushing cars,
barbeques have sprung up
to offer all their smells of summer,
and trays full of burgers
are eagerly passed around to
hungry grandmothers, who,
finishing each in three bites,
argue over which has been
prepared best.

children blaze by on tricycles and scooters,
all of which are the same
candy shade of pink.
the kids tirelessly race
each other down the small hill
of this block, before pushing
themselves back to the other end,
scooters dragging limp behind them.
some pass me two, and even three
times as I continue walking,
their hair sailing and smiles
set firm in their cheeks, as the
eyes of mothers hide secretly
behind tables, with
hands ready to spring out
and prevent any impending crash.

an inflatable pool is filled with
young boys in t-shirts, and
cupfuls of water are brandished
against any girls who
make an approach.

a haphazardly tossed Frisbee,
also pink, makes its descent
out of the sky and lands
directly in front of me.

Dare I pick it up?

I too have reveled in games
of catch in the middle of the street,
though one very distant from here.
Perhaps I could toss it back
to the triangle of boys, and,
seeing me join the game,
the men nearby would put down
their deck of cards
and come play as well.

visions of a street-wide game
cross my mind, as well as of me
sitting with the grandmothers
to judge the burgers, and, later,
being taught the secrets of dominos.

Yet,
with a thick book under my arm,
my eyebrows firmly serious, and my
too nervous anticipation of rain,
it becomes clear that this street
was not closed off for me.

so I leave the families
to the cool breezes they have
rightfully won from life.

and I head upstairs.
to apply for jobs, and eat
leftover pasta, and find my hill

that is worth climbing up
just to race down.

in cairo

poetry

in cairo they throw
rocks in the streets
and are stacking bodies
to rig the death count
to get the air time
and off the cement bullets
ricochet with the words
allah akhbar
young men hurl themselves
towards the crackling streets
looking up at red sky
hoping today is the day
and i hope there is something
for them there
i hope they get lifted off
the streets of cairo in some
bright, elegent light
and horns will play heavenly tunes
while their brothers
pose for the camera
screaming “allah akhbar”
and loosely bandage
the marytrd wounded
with his eyes glazing over
i hope he is floating with
the virgins and his dead
relatives in peaceful content
forever-bliss
and there are no stones to throw
and you will not have to say
anything
and they will write your name among
the dead with an emphasis and
the young souls will look to yours
in awe and say “I want to
go his way:
on a street-corner
for the cameras
as a hail-mary pass.”

Thursday

poetry

A melee
of soul eaters
flower pickers
world shapers
subterranean raiders
bleeding speeding through the universe
poking days

Monday
feverishly saying hello
friday
both ends burning
releasing life’s dye

wednesday
sparkling bubbling in a fluted glass
talking seam foam
heartaches
vapor trails
nature’s hard work

sunday
crawling
licking the dust of
a church’s floor

tuesday

these sweating bones aren’t real
nothing is
in the end

But…

Any day

God Hums

day five

poetry

last night
I accidentally used
the toothbrush you
accidentally left behind.
it did not taste of your taste,
your lips were not present
in the bristles, nor the sweetness
of your strawberry tongue.
in my hand, it felt
not at all like the small
of your back, nor the spine
that my fingers traced so long ago.
it was not soft as you are,
and its residue carried
not a hint of the autumn smell
you perpetually wear. your ghost

was not to be found. Not even
when I chanted your name to
the mirror, nor when I did the same
in my sleep. You had left me

a toothbrush. With which I was
to conjure you in your absence.
And I could not

even
do that.

hopper, jumper, thumper. whatever, we just called him hal.

poetry

i string your toes together on elastic
like penne on a string brought
home by a child.

but these have been severed post-mortem
due to the crudeness of my new
moral values eroded by a slow
loss of respect for anything
of value.

your finger’s i’ll leave in the bowl
on the counter and wish i wasn’t so
disgusted by the cruelty (although
it’s not like you felt it).

and your feet i’ll make in to keychains
and sell them in a market. i’ll call
them good luck charms. and we’ll
miss, or so we’ll say. but we might
actually find we rather enjoy the excess
of carrots and lettuce all of a sudden
available to us for meals and juicing
since you’ve been gone.

a day in the life by the beatles

poetry

as i walk in the clerk behind the counter debates with his associate when they think i will kill myself. i tell him that i was raised on the american dream. and i drove down here with my windows down. and i’m never happy for very long. we traded currency and i went back my hole. it was dark and dry just like i like it. i’d like to have a much bigger hole, however. and maybe one with an adjustable darkness knob. i never let my mother visit. she thinks i live up high, with the star-fuckers. drinking that currency in a bitter drink that is awfully bad for you. i’ve come to understand that for as much as i do, there is more that i don’t. my nights are very dark and dry, i only go out to be insulted by clerks, usually. they live in my neighborhood though so it’s not that big of a deal.

i just wish i could invite my mother over.

this is not my land

poetry

this is not my land
it is not your land
we were just born here
orphans to an island
you may build a fortress
but time moves like water
existence is arbitrary

i go walking
i don’t claim it’s my way
all ahead of me
lie omnipresent highways
and below me
there are metal bi-ways
this land was made
for you and me

i move and trample
with the fall of my footsteps
my will imposing
destruction begetting
and all around me
no horns were playing
this land was made
by you and me

the sun is rising
i am unknowing
of who got it going
now the clock is rolling
each tock is tolling
and my pride is growing
this land is for me
and only me

this land is my land
this land is your land
from california
to new york island
rom redwood forest
to the gulf-stream waters
this land was made
for you and me.

Mourning Poem

poetry

death makes me want to shut down, shut up, shut in and be a child again;
one who doesn’t understand what it meant when grandpa P passed
and mom and dad said he’s in heaven,
one who got excited for him and hoped he’d write a letter and tell me what heaven is like
and for a few weeks whenever we would be in the car I looked at the clouds
hoping I would catch him peeking over and wave to him.
all I want is to be that same child
pulling out plastic figurines and directing toy battles on the carpet with my brother
with an evil boss and his entourage of saber-toothed tigers running and leaping on the hero and his knights and army men.
and even though many of them fall, in the very last moment the good guys win the fight,
killing the boss and his dinosaur minions… and yet, they were never really dead.
as soon as they went into the Tupperware container and the lid snapped shut and opened again, everything was as it should be,
because everyone died, but everyone came to life again to play their timeless part
and even the bad guys got a break…but it’s not like that, and people stay dead
the good and the bad die, the heroes get old and have strokes, and the villains get pneumonia
and I miss them both because the bad never got to know what it felt like to be good, to be loved, to be the hero, to be in heaven.
and I miss the good, because they were good, and it’s selfish and I don’t care because I wish they were here until we could all go together.
but that’s not how it works and grandpa P isn’t in the clouds and I’m never going to see some of those people again.
and I want to cry, but I don’t,
I stare vacantly remembering and wishing I was a kid again;
where none of this mattered, where none of it hurt,
where people like Florence get healed of her breast cancer and where husbands like Danny still got to still sleep next to her at night and hope for the future where somehow they could still be together
and not have to bury his wife
and I tell my own wife “it’s times like these that people get angry at God, when instead they should be running to him,”
and as I say it, I feel myself getting angry.

emotional capacity of a potato

poetry

there are times and places
and people and things,
but this is none of those
and i find it highly suspect
that you’re still trying
to stuff it in your pocket
when the jar, the bag, and
your heart, failed to hold
it. but the misunderstandings
you’re perpetuating make
me believe there is also
little reason in attempting
to explaining it to you.