poetry

The untouchable

poetry

Our fate was sealed standing there that night
Like macadam, bolted down and tar heavy
Months later my thoughts are still there,
Standing like little urchins outside that same pub,
Sipping ale, wearing moth-eaten black coats and
Smoking charcoal cigarettes while glaring at strangers.
They go back there only on weekends now,
Looking for a sign- my thoughts do,
Looking for a logic-god in a white Mercedes Benz
To pull up by the side of the road and
Tell them to go home, that “it all makes
Sense now”. But you’ve got a spare set of arms
To body- double with and so do I. So for now,
And since I know you don’t read my poems,
How about we just leave this thing in the storeroom.

baja part deux

poetry

we pitched our tents on wind carved
sand pits and fought with ants the
size of mice. we woke and ran along
dolphins jumping just off shore as
curious at us as were of them.

salsa. oh… the salsa.

we took directions from crazy
ladies driven to their insanity
by their taste-buds after years of ingesting
the salsa. oh… the salsa

fish taco after fish taco we turned
right through a field on a dirt path
through mountains and passed in
twelve hours only one other moving
vehicle.
stopping for tacos in a village so small
the only restaurant was a hole in a kitchen
where 50 cents buys two grease balls

we stood on peaks no one should ever
have to leave and bathed under
blue skies, a sun anyone would have
worshipped had they not known better.

and then came day 3.

BAJA

poetry

We floated in
Warm muddy water
Calm and lapping on the
Gummy sandbars

Woke earlier in the night for
Reasons that I don’t know or
Reasons I forgot

Dark night scatter-lit
From above and we marched out
To catch the receding tide
Heels sucking in Mexican clay

I’m pretty sure
Cortez was an asshole
But I didn’t know the guy

His sea, though, is just
The kind of adventure that pulls
Some kids from far away

We floated in
black and starlight
and I can’t remember what
we talked about or
if we talked at all

but that night I was sure that
mystery was real and that
life was a stunning gift

it rolled over me in
tides of curling diamonds –
phosphorescence that
I hope Cortez saw too

gorgeous

poetry

only when lonely men
howl at the impostors
does the world spin justly
and thrustly it shall be
when on nights like this
i swerve and weave
through the traffic claim
a mailbox or two on this
evening of leaving and
solitude
thinking of leaving mount
pleasant, soon.
at night i rise to grip her
thighs the dark’s supple
trouble stirring my coffee
and ready to fornicate
with this nighttime i am
holding and riding the
best that i can like a madman
howling away at impostors
making the world spin
proper.

You me and an art gallery

poetry

A fat cram of color in front of us
Screaming like a flat footed baby
For attention. Or worse, appreciation.
You muttering something about
The brush strokes, as if they were
Exotic birds no one had named yet.
And me embracing the smell of oil,
Freshly polished brass, coffee, someone’s
Over-applied day-out perfume,
And the comforting muttering of
Museum voices, pressing their backs
Lightly against walls and pushing off
Again, to rest in softly lit corners,
Beside the gallery attendant, a
Mysterious beekeeper. A wise man.
You had found something on the
Seventh wall, something that itched
And amused in the way only a close-friend
Can. So I walked over to get a closer look.
There it was. A painting of the very gallery
We stood in, one hundred years before us.
So we took it in. Savored the snap-shot
In time. A chrysalis around us for just
A few moments. Until the bell rang
For closing and we left through the
Royal roof-scraping doors.

When shopping, make sure you read all the silly round labels on the boxes

poetry

Genuine is
leather, gold, sugar, diamonds, Kentucky bourbon,
You.

Coats need tailoring,
gold the work of practiced hands,
sugar only comes from canes
and Kentucky Bourbon is one thing only found in
Kentucky.
(check the label).

Oh, so pay the man and
buy that stamp on his degree.
Buy the gold medal on the
Barbecue sauce wrapper.

I’ll drive an hour and sit
singing loud enough to
wake the neighbors. And we
won’t say anything of substance
until we’re safely set away.

But we’ll say it.

And the only genuine I’ll pay for
is the only one I get for free.

cliches

poetry

minutes, hours, days pass
stretching into weeks
of glassy eyed starring,
just starring at the screen
searching for something
searching for anything
searching for creativity
but finding only befuddlement
in the never ending quest
for words and ideas
that i haven’t written before
and knowing deep down
that i have written this all before.

Alchemic

poetry

Sprigs of spring,
uncut, uneven,
twitch in the breeze,
I distribute myself in particles
abandoning anchoring roots.

As the oak watches the world,
stony in its indifference,
so I slip into the wind
airily ignoring.
Nothing is as quiet
as the blossoming redspire pear,
as the wisps of cirrus
reforming.

The surrounding red brick buildings
hold their tongues as they always have.
Infused in the soil, I feel everything.
The nervous skittering of the squirrel.
The slow shifting of growth.
The soft weight of supine bodies,
like fingers checking a geologic pulse.

My molecules
having drifted so far,
the shadowy rustle
of last fall’s leaves.

8.14am blues

poetry

The mayhem of morning
with its black black shoes
and white white shirts
and extra shot this
and three sugars that
and freshly applied
hairspray- ultra hold
and please move further
down the carriage to
make room for other
passengers, thankyou
really just
stresses
me out so
much that i
want to
commute all
the way
home again,
open the door,
get
inside my
warm bed
and
listen
to
prince.

Deference

poetry

It was never a specific night,
I don’t think.
I can not recall the moment our
deference occurred.
Perhaps,
the job a summer
(A lifetime?) ago,
where you met an
entirely new
sort of situation.

They were big plans
and long nights and
days and days and miles
and miles and miles
together,
our words still
worth a good god damn
weighed up and even,
with twenty dollars between us
and a quarter-tank of gas
if we were lucky.

But millions of screaming insects
drown even the strongest
swimmer, and even when one
puts to port, there’s
never any guarantee
of safe and greener
pastures.

The soul tends to shake
-and violently-
when suddenly ripped apart.
I’m sure you both screamed,
but trees fall every day,
and no one hardly
hears a sound in these
forests.

But deference is a fickle thing,
subject to wit and apt to whimsy.
There are a million roads
all across this great wide planet.
Some run long, others but a
zig-zag.
Maybe these paths will
jog again together.

Then again, perhaps,
we have ever and finally
Deferred.

upon reading a poem titled “upon my demise”

poetry

i saw the poem you wrote
and figured it fancy
and although i’m a poet
i’ve just got to say
no words are proper,
upon my demise.

that is at least to say
that upon this day
my command of language
and knowledge of words
and understanding of death
and thoughts and processes
are not sufficient,
i suppose,
to write a thing
about after i die.

let us hope that i do not
die soon,
because all that’ll be read
is the poem about how i hadn’t
made up my mind about what
to say upon my demise
(along with everything else
i have not made up my mind
about yet).

daily ritual

poetry

i wash dishes
in the low yellow light
of my small evening kitchen

while my lover’s voice
paces and animates
the ins of the day
and the outs

i wash dishes
with my back aching and
my shoulders rounding to my core

my mind rushing and
utterly still in the
warm water and suds

i wash dishes
in the atmosphere of music
on a bright weekend morning

while enormous white
clouds roll through the
wild blue in the window
behind me, bidding
me to live abundant
always

with help of course.

poetry

i cannot hope my feelings will wane
with my fever leaving me once again
healthy. in charge of my emotion.
it’s april and the sun has yet to shine
leaving me today groping around in
the dusk from dawn until the end of
dusk as there’s nothing between.

in three months i’ll have a city. but
for now i’ve nothing but a thread to hold
so weak it would break if i used it to
floss

i cannot hope tomorrow will change
with my switch from beer to gin in
hopes for something better, stronger.

but when reality hits three months from
now and out from under your thumb
i emerge stronger and brilliantly naive
ready to engage in something like battle
ready to do something like conquer