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

Elevated Trains

poetry

Caught the last train to Belmont
then the expressway back to Granville

Cops in their cars and
drunks in their gutters
with the wind just cold enough
to keep the stepping lively

and the jazz was swinging all night,
I can assure you.
From the diner on Irving Park to
the Green Mill down on Broadway.

The jazz was
swinging,
I can absolutely
tell you that

pissed off

poetry

my fists are my sanctuary today

i throw them at:

the chinese clouds
raining their water-torcher

my box
and pet roaches and in
animate objects

cans of pop
indefinitely tipping

my own hands
knocking things
over and off

my eyes for their
tricks

every thing that
does not bend to
them gets broken
by my fists today

(i try so hard on every
other day but today)

and i hide in them
genuinely wanting to be
left alone from even
myself.

Drafting is so last summer

poetry

A bottle of wine sits on my desk
staring at me with those red, red
vinegary eyes.
Daring me to go on
daring me to sing along
to the tune of decoration
and endless elaboration.
“Look at me,” it says
“I’m patient and I did it,
You can do it if I can.”
It seems simple enough,
let the words stand alone for a bit
don’t be hasty,
bottle them,
close the door behind you
and come back in a week.
Things will be better then.
A nice body of work is
like a nice bottle of wine.
Or so they say.
I tend to agree really,
I just prefer to get drunk
sooner rather than later.

Nameless

poetry

And who I am
Abides in this Irish hand
Extending into a bottom
Of this collected basin
Is it any wonder
They cannot find me anymore?
Yes, I would agree.
But not all the time.
So much rests there
Shivering residue
Laying framework, I say
But do not listen
If the wound still smarts
It is only temporary.

The Nature Of The Unknown

poetry

You know what they told me?
They said that people die,
and they get wrapped and
dressed and burried and then
they’re gone.

Gone forever.

They said
you can’t talk to them no more,
can’t hold them no more,
all those long conversations about
nothing
only linger in the
expanses of
memory.

They drew a simple diagram
that looked a lot like a
connect-the-dots, to show
the differences between
where good people go
and where bad people go,
while omitting the
methods in place
to figure out who is which.

But the little things.
The small happenstance,
the vivaciously vivid dreams,
the picture they paint is
polished and clean and
clear as day. There are
faces looking in
through the windows.

But you know what they told me?
They told me poeple die,
They told me people
die and disappear.
And you know?
I just can’t believe them.