poetry

Pedals

poetry

Life is a street
On which we travel
Pedal over pedal spins the wheel of our years;
The end lost in futures,
They fly into our pasts,
We only watch their memoirs, stop/start.

Freighted with bitter,
Crimsoned with sweet,
We skitter around potholes to our bright potential;
Their cunning edges,
Their filthy centers,
We never shall know. And the bicycle as it goes
Navigates away,
Each one is overcome
Each beyond the turning spokes.
We alone pedal
While time journeys on,
The pedals churn wheels, though the memories remain.

Descent

poetry

From the brow we point—
‘Aye, they’s many a sea monster in the deep,’ we say.
Waves loll and rear-end one another.
‘Got to keep a wary eye out,’ we acknowledge, ‘they there.’

From cabin we clink beverages,
Jangling prisms refracting in the light.
Drinking down and never knowing until we go down.
Gazing between bars and goggles, our self-imposed captivity
Descends.

Down, the water swarming our feet.
Down, the green hues grow darker.
Down, the shattered light suffocating.
Down, the fading briny hull forename—Bliss.
And we are swallowed.

There are no more intermittent fins to marvel at.
No glimpses of accusation to position our supple fingers.
Consumed by teeth of an insatiable, blood lusting hunger.
Surrounded by sharks, swirling in a spectacle of slaughter.
Engulfed in a liquid grave, should we have stayed any longer.

And upon reemerging—gasping not for air,
But release from this elevator into a living hell.
‘They is monsters down there’ we say,
But it’s different this time.
‘Almost got me, almost plunged.’
Fins carve the waterline like serrated knives.
‘Them poor souls. You’d never know they was like that.’

Cheatin’ fool

poetry

Every drive home from
a day spent without the
sweet caress of my love
is so cruel and terrible
and I often wonder how
I can bear to stand it,
save for looking ahead
to another day with her.
But even then, my
fingers are sore from
the cut of another woman,
and she can feel, and
she can tell, but I know
she’ll never leave me.
Still, that short drive
is made long, and the
silence, oh so cruel
and terrible.

apparently tea somehow helps hold me together in the morning.

poetry

morning comes with no milk for my child
no water for my tea
and i leave the house without my routine
broken somehow in my own strength
buying breakfast on the street as i was
denied my granola
i hop aboard my bike and head in to work
munching slowly on my egg crepe stuffed
with spicy potatoes enjoying it almost exactly
the way i like it.

then legs emerge from the potatoes and before
i would allow myself to distinguish a head
i bite
and sans-chew i spit you out.
the rest of my meal untarnished is to be
now consumed because
dang it.
there was no water for my tea.

Mr. Wolf.

poetry

I wish that I could be there
to taste the juices leaking
from your eye sockets
And hold your skin-and-bone
hands as they tremble,
just to feel them tremble,
just beneath the necktie
that I’m sure you wore.
Though you probably felt
you may as well have been naked.
I probably feel the same.
After all,
It only seems fair to me.

strung

poetry

i had a dream
your skin was ten times silk
and grabbing you was
like grabbing heaven’s clouds
but it wasn’t true
and you like it that way,
anyway

on my ride home from work
i watched a jogger’s ass as i
passed
by
and thought all these sweet things
that grew stale in the air

and then there was all that decay
around me and
then
i knew its rate

Decisions, decisions.

poetry

All things culminate
All things are culminations
of other things
which are culminations
et cetera
but where is the bare-bones?
The stuff that makes the stuff
that makes the stuff that makes
et cetera
?
Is there time to worry
about such trivialities?
Are these trivialities
so trivial after all?

Hardly canI fathom these things
though, by definition,
these things are simple.
Give me something
complicated to think on.

in late summer

poetry

on an early morning walk
when headlights and sunlight are scare
i pass the dogwood on the next block
its branches sprawling at shoulder-height
still as night in supplication

i recall its spring blossom
the four milky petals pierced at each end
holding at their center
a cluster of marigold pistols begging to burst

but now: green leaves
wilt from heat and no rain
arcuate veins lead to branches
that lead to nodes that hold
knots of seeds seasonally shifting to red

i take a handful
pocket them like the thief that i am
and make plans to plant them in my house

image that
a tree in my house

away

poetry

away
away the incessant
away the incessant echoes
the little living lightning
letters looping and lapping
relentlessly
off the petroleum walls
off the left ear
off the right

away from the fake planets
and suns
away and floating high
taking deep breaths
of the thin air

love up here
love in the vacuum
away

The Secretary of State: Where souls go to languish and die.

poetry

Two little fans working double-time
trying with all their heart and soul to cool
this god damn hot-box.
Tirelessly,
Thanklessly,
They blow and blow and push
against the air and smoke and anguish
fighting all of the particulate dismay
out one of the wide-open windows,
but to no avail.
Less than distress,
more than discomfort,
something sets in and settles,
and the fans can do no good against it.
Too heavy, yet just fine enough
to powder every little crevice
and coat so thoroughly.

Then the coughing starts,
first in moderation,
then on in to bouts,
and finally a full on fit of it.
Red eyes and runny noses
with phlegm and snot and bile
spraying splashing compounding
until the walls of this hot-box
are damp from all of the excrement.
Between the hot and the sick
there starts the shivering until
one by one by one the bodies fall
down to the floor only to be left unattended
until the last man drops,
and no one is around to turn off those poor fans.

The Lost

poetry

Second story dive bar; October’s eve.
Lights dimmed, laced with red neon signs
Snaking shapes and letters; booze and boobs.
Flat screens; baseball; one on, two strikes, two outs; muted.
Glass bottles, glass shelves, glass panes overlooking
Gum stained sidewalks and grimy snow
And flakes—falling—mocking, from the other side.
Indistinct figures; faces ensnared in shadows,
Like hosts of lost spirits waiting for their curtain call.
Amateur Comedy Night; laughing in the dark.
This guy, the emcee postures, this son of bitch is here every time.
Let’s hear it for Jay Cruise!
On stage with no stage, no laughs for meticulous words.
He’d show them he could do it, he would show them.
He swore it would work this time, just this once.
Every past scorn—faggot, you worthless faggot—
Swallows his conscience in white noise:
Fuck it, he says after two jokes and descends; back next week.
Emcee recovers, all right all right, moving on, next up,
He says, next up we got a real funny guy, give it up for Mike D!
Applause, it’s all he’s ever wanted:
Dad, dad, look at what I can do, he said, and could never stop trying to forget.
Shut the hell up! What’s the matter with you?
Ever interrupt me like that again and I’ll split your goddamn lip!
Nervous lines in a tangled smile; please look, his hollow eyes plead.
Please?—but no one does.
The microphone passes from his trembling hand.
I know ladies ain’t people, and ain’t funny but we got one in the house anyway.
Put your hands together for this dumb broad,
She’ll be in back for twenty bucks a person after her set.
Loud cackles and refills all around as she faces the audience.
Hanging onto his last words she wonders if he’s right.
It was last night; night before; she prepared for tonight.
Can you just hold me? She asked when he finished.
Flicking wrinkled bills onto her yellowed and naked body, he glared:
You’re not my wife, he said, and spat on her.
If she only could convince them that she had more to offer,
But the set is already over and she’s feeling lonely.
Tough crowd tonight, emcee rumbles, but let’s keep it rollin’.
Heard him before, get his party started for the man known only as The Kevin!
Only a first name because he doesn’t want to remember more,
Believing that the more cracks about molestation, the less real it becomes.
I trusted him, how could he? How could he? Keep laughing!
They’re laughing, but he can’t hide the memories.
It’s our little secret, the sensuous whispers remind him with every feigned chuckle.
He’s used the same line too—can’t help himself anymore. She’s so young.
Met this character tonight, don’t care what his name is, the emcee laughs
Funny guy though, and I know cause this kid even looks funny! C’mon up Corky!
Tightened stomach with a drunken brain and its happened:
I’ve been waiting for this!
But the spectators are shrouded in darkness;
A meeting of the undead with vein-red eyes.
Something’s wrong. What’s wrong?
An imperceptible darkening in his eyes;
A gleam of reality fists a dagger between his ribs:
This isn’t what I want, this isn’t what I want. Oh God, this isn’t what I want!
And somewhere outside—beyond the windowpanes,
Like a glass house, it’s still snowing.
Flawlessly luminous flakes touching down in silent ecstasy,
Transforming like chameleons into gray flecks like sidewalk;
Like asphalt, like skin, like statues, like shadows—
Like asphyxiating souls scouring amongst
The living and the dead of an empty heart:
Still beating, still sacred, still loved, but still lost.