Poems

Sestina for F3

poetry 
I’ll see you in the gloom,
before there is enough light.
I wouldn’t be here without a commit
becuause it’s raining out,
and it will be very hard.
I hope this is over fast.

The warm up goes too fast—
I’m fully feeling the gloom.
Waking up this early is hard.
If only there was some light.
I know it’s too late to bow out;
there’s no option, I must commit.

It’s better once I’ve commited.
The mosey is never that fast,
and my breath is good, not out.
I don’t feel as much the gloom,
even though there’s still no light.
I can do this, even if it’s hard.

I was right that this would be hard.
In each exercise, I try to commit—
I wish I was thirty pounds lighter,
then I’d be able to run fast.
I guess that’s why I’m here in the gloom,
showing up for this workout.

We line up and from the field head out.
The mosey back to the flag isn’t hard,
and in my head, there is no gloom.
From the guys around, I borrow commitment,
even if I’m slow and others are faster.
On the horizon, I can just see a light.

We end with an encouragmenent to be a light,
shining on others as we go out
into our lives, where things happen fast
and where circumstances can be hard.
But if we do the hard things and commit,
We can push back the world’s gloom.

While there’s still gloom, on the horizon is more light.
Trucks pull out, on their way to get coffee fast.
We’ll see each other tomorrow. That’s a hard commit.

Pantoum

poetry 
Our lives are too full.
There’s never quite time,
Always moving from this
To that, filling the days.

There’s never quite time.
I miss what used to be,
Before the days were filled with
Chores that seem important.

I miss what used to be
In the days before there were
Chores that seemed important,
when it was only us.

In the days before there were
Choices, choices made easier.
When it was only us,
And we could be selfish.

Choices, choices made easier.
Our lives may have been empty.
Enjoying selfishly to not be
Always moving from this.

a leaf, exactly

poetry

i receive the cat birds that frequent the oak
tree in the alley between greylock
and 49th as friends although i am
not theirs, and can never be

their friend is the flimsy oak
which stretches and groans with
every new perch
because it is dying
and the city is killing it
which is my city

my every greeting falls on deaf ears
not only because we don’t speak
the same language but also
the big city birds don’t have
the same fondness for the people
of the city as they do in the country

the city is killing everything
they love
i am lucky they do not
attack me

and it goes on and on like this
my romantic and naive love
blowing away in the cold january wind
exactly like a leaf

your unlucky heart

poetry

while standing in
the shade a strong
hand took you

and although

i would share
a million sunlit
hours with you

at that moment

i was so weak
i could not even
look your way

i ran

and i ran
and felt remorseful
but never did i cry

which is just what weak men do

—

standing in the doorway
with the light bouncing
off kitchen linoleum

i lock eyes with Lal
it’s an eerily quiet
afternoon in wichita

i turn as i smell
a hint of freedom
in the air

i spend a moment with
what is left of you
inside me

it’s an awkward moment
because i am ashamed
and i finally cry

for you

lift off

poetry

the shower’s a warm blanket
but the cold lives in my spine
if only i could see
then i wouldn’t be so blind

tell me i’m not fine
tell me not to cry

the president’s a virus
and my family is the host
they pull all of their pants down
to get lashed by the holy ghost

castigate my mind
tell me that i lie

my father is a rapist
and my mother cries all day
the sun dances in the window
but has nothing much to say

i’m starting to unwind
i’ve nothing but the time

let up
lift off

weeping at the visage of our glorious leader

poetry

be wary those that are born
into this prison
and straighten your spine
and look forward
for all eyes belong
to the great gods of hell
who filled walls
with your dead brethren
and covered them in
the faces of their family

eat love and pray
under their holiness, I say
although
it may pick at your soul
to do so
the sun will shine on
endlessly
but men can
block your view.

Billy

poetry

Billy lost his thirties
To hard drugs and cheap booze
And a wife that didn’t love him

He lost his money because
He couldn’t stop himself
When the crack-pipe came around
And besides, the boys on Cork street
Always treated him right

Billy lost his stride to gas station food
And he lost swagger to head trauma

He even lost his luck on pawn

And now he’ll lose his forties
To the tumor that’s growing
In the roof of his mouth
But he’ll never lose that look in his eye,
not that horrible broken one.

Not til the day he dies.

if time could travel backwards part 6

poetry

I would knock you over
before your new soft skin
ever touched the fire

I would let you slide
when you needed to
even if I hated it

Instead of snapping back
or head-butting
I would take more hits
more stoically,
I would take your lashing
with much more grace

But later when your skin was tough
I’d let you take your scrapes head-on
without an unsolicited word,
with all the fury of a desert storm

Fury there would be

And I would hope and wish and dream
that when a cold-front came in
you would thrash beyond it’s milding

You would burn bright forever

and sometimes I would light my torch with yours

If I could make time travel backwards
and make you whole and even
I’d give you everything I could.

Everything.

Summer Cold

poetry

It’s the cough that kills me.

‘Too warm for this.’ I think
to myself out loud as the shiver
sets deep in to my bones
– just for a moment –
as the crickets chirp
just outside my window.

This old blanket serves
just as good as new
for to swaddle me up
and keep me warm in this
65-degree-Fahrenheit night

And I lay awake wheezing
and wiping clear snot
on to the back of my hand
until it’s saturated enough
to flail to find my kerchief
– an old cotton T-shirt
that I’d already worn.

The chirping seems to swell
with the unconscious chatter
of my arms and guts – and
everything, as far as I
can tell – and it would
fade again, I’m sure,
if not for this headache.

‘Ain’t it just the way?’
I yell to the uncaring crickets,
‘Sore throat in the middle
of Goddamn June!’

It’s the cough, though,
the stupid fucking cough,
that gets me every time.

Datestamp

poetry

I think I think the world of you.

Unpaid parking tickets resting
in a drift of melting snow.

I think I want you to get
what you think you want.

Every moment lined up
in a digital calendar
in someone else’s database.

I think I think I love you.

Analog clocks
clicking every second
overhead.

I want you to get
what you think you want.

‘Art is never completed;
only abandoned.’

I love you.

The sun comes up
six hours sooner
than it seems that it ought.

Worlds are visible
from orbit.

the ant trap

poetry

at what point do
you know
that it is poison
that you are
eating?

you stupid bug

that smelled
your way here
as you were born
to do
looking for
something sweet
to take a little
for your
infinitesimal
self

while the lion’s share goes to your master

it was i who put that poison there,
you bastard!

for you and your kin
because it
disturbs me
to see you
i am repulsed
by the
very site
of you

you should know better
than
to be soft
and dumb

and fall for an easy trap
placed
conveniently
within your
reach

peter pan

poetry

you’re not even the shadow
of peter pan
said the old man
as time stood still
in the place where you
wake up and are not sure
if you’re still asleep
and he lifts you
a bloated codfish, you
off the ground with just
the one hand, that
of an old pirate
and the other a hook
while you look around
frantically and feeling helpless and lost because no one
knows you here, anymore

are you
peter pan?
or are you
peter panning?

last night you remember
leaning on the balcony
drunk on whisky
or nostalgia
your childhood dreams crushing
under the weight of you
a bloated codfish, you
so maybe you jumped
or maybe you fell
or maybe you flew
off the balcony
t’ward
the second star to the right
until morning
maybe you woke up a changed
man whom saved his children and
the whole neverland from
the scourge of the adults
the pirates
the hook

are you
peter pan?
or are you
peter panning?

but you fell
and didn’t get up
another apparent suicide
round christmas time

being white is to wish to never have been born at all

poetry

being white is to wish
to never have been born at all

it is necessary
to apologize

to defer all understanding
of real suffering

being white is to be wrong
and to grovel in apology

to be born a foreigner
bereft of origin

on stolen land
with borrowed time

inheriting bloody tools
meant for laziness

being white is to be guilty
by association

of placing guilt
by assocation

on those guilty
of associating

with your father’s
brown brother

neither of whom
anyone has ever
met.