I can’t have you
whistling through the vines
out there,
teasing cool
in the summer heat
and bringing,
for just a moment,
the fragrances
of another man’s
supper
My head lays
on the kitchen table
like a chopping block,
pressed against the scratches
in its perfect,
marred surface,
lolling on
the center leaf
it is seven PM
exactly
when I will lift
my head again
to gaze in to you,
cool night air,
like a memory
to think your name
and dream of you
in winter
And I need you to remember
that even after the coldest,
darkest, rainiest days,
sometimes the clouds break
just enough for the stars
to shine through,
and sometimes the night
warms up enough for you
to take your coat off,
after all
So it was a cold dark January in Michigan
as they often are and we
would pull together for warmth every
now and then and I would consider you
and I think you would consider me, also
While the cars screamed down the avenues
and gangs of howling young-adults roved
to and fro before your otherwise relatively
peaceful abode I tried to steel myself
from the knives you would find
The lacerations always sting a bit but
they usually heal quickly enough with
a lot of pressure and
a little bit of time but they cut
somewhat deeper than they look sometimes,
those knives of yours
Sometimes while nursing a particularly
gruesome slice I would be speechless,
though I never mean to keep you waiting
and I want you to know that I won’t bleed out
and I need you to know that I’m sorry
Sometimes during these long cold Januarys
I know you have your own wounds to clean
because it’s still cold and dark here in Michigan
and I find plenty of my own knives, too.
I sit in warm light
and a draft like ice
cuts through me
The man on the stereo
he never stops playing
even when the temperature
drops
Oh to be trapped in
an entertainment center,
and worry not about
the world at all
i first heard your name the
winter of my returning home
you were the promise of respite,
a gentle wave lapping on the shore
your words were hyperbole and
placeholders for others and
you said i didn’t have to stay
or that you could go and
some years later it is finally
the morning after
the waves are garbage trucks
the sunlight is acidic
and my arm is rotting
from the paths you traveled,
krokodil
Vantage from the park bench surveys fallen snow like manna from heaven, raining frozen stars in promenade.
Sparks of spirits springing into step; orbiting fires spell majesty in constellations.
Grated clouds in the cold bring warmth, and a silence that I eschew and do not quite yet understand.
It adorns, gowns every vista in panoramic pageant, the bride made without stain or blemish presented to her groom.
But this bride of cold feet, indecision and logic soon tatters herself.
Countless footsteps in snow unknowing, tracking innumerable roads to sanguine eternities bending backwards to vaults and beds, stages and beakers finding steps to stairways, up mountains, ziggurats, podiums, passageways, pyramids; zenith ascensions and tombs.
Bare trees pronging branches like upside down octopuses, arching tines; a million fingers stretching heavenward;
One-hundred thousand forks spoking to the skies, waiting to taste paradise.
Every atom yearning upward, gravity shackles in opposition and the snow descends to cover us.
The Bible I read says you made all this, but how?
The scope to see is inconceivable, if only I could understand why? But who would you be then?
The demand for attention is indomitable; I’m jumping off the edge of me and falling into you.
The plastic playground, a Lincoln log cabin made life size:
with green plastic tiled roof, with red plastic cross beams, with yellow plastic fencing, with swirling blue plastic slide, with brown plastic walls; a menagerie of color.
And a bridge, bowing to the most tentative of pressure, connecting plastic palace to another plastic palace.
Swing sets: here, gripping tangible yes! almost, slipping BACK! there, gone, distant, lost! nothing.
Rings, rings, links of promises looped together, groaning to stay fast, afloat, and hold on to their terms of words and actions.
Built wrapped around one another, the weight of integrity, the dismay of compromise.
Whine chinking, frictioned, shrieking like witches cackling over cauldrons foretelling prophecies of fallacy; moving, but always stuck.
Higher! So much, not enough! Enough! When? Too high! Too high! The chain slags, snags, jumps, rattles, can anyone withstand?
He curses him, the air curses him, slaps cracked lips.
Snow soggied foundations, rubber and woodchips loosed on disillusioned endeavor unmatched by fallen snow covering hills in white stitches.
Every blade of grass illuminated in whited pencil pricks, competes with hungry moon.
Frozen in white, Lethe has forgotten itself: petrified waves, streak rippled statues, apocalyptic landscapes. Oblivion pauses.
The snowflakes smile, slide beyond, absorb sound, render me unto solitude and silence where all is holy.
The brave beauty of heaven stands naked; shades of ash transmute to linen white; transient, poised and everlasting.
and once again I’m alive,
seeing the waning light
at the end of the fall;
gaining strength
from rotting leaves,
dying grass,
general decay;
hoping that i’ll survive
while watching everything else die.
You must have missed the memo.
It’s October 26th, but there you are
wobbling over the reflection of my face in the window—
squeezing out intermittent bleeped blinks of morse code.
Does your light keep you safe from the cold?
You must have thick skin, or exoskeleton, I guess.
Poor firefly, head south for winter,
go stuff your tiny belly full of firefly food,
go hibernate or go do whatever fireflies do.
Whir your wings feathery fragile to where the rest have gone.
It won’t get any warmer.
The winter is a comin and
I have got no potatoes left
Oh Lordy lord I am on my way
to starvation road,
Little scrawny Gee points at the holes
In his shoes, saying
” oh sister will we make it to good ol christsmas ?”
Da and Ma ran away to heaven, and so
Baby Jesus comes each year to us with charity soup
He is a nice old baby, thousand years old and everything
I wish he’d bring cake instead.
with its sweet lilting voice
i have succumbed
to the lull of summer
and the interminable desire
to hibernate until winter
(or at least fall)
when i shall again arise
in magnificent chapluzkian glory
refreshed by the cold,
rejoicing in the blizzards,
no longer oppressed by unending heat.
snow fall this morning,
melted away by the afternoon;
fearful me-taphor.
dragging out of bed
into the living room,
watching snow flakes
slowly whipping,
slowly whirling,
blown here
blown there,
finally coming to rest,
in a white bed,
looking so warm,
looking so cozy,
leading me back to my own bed
to sleep away the day,
warm and cozy inside.
the best line i heard all day
was a jab, directed at a young kid
trying to hide his girth
with an oversized coat:
“why don’t you go live on hoth you freak!”
which made me think
i’d like to live on hoth
where not only would it always be cold
but i would no longer have to worry
about my girth.
if only march would never come
if only winter could last all year,
and i could stay in the cold,
wearing coats and scarves and gloves,
not feeling the strange feeling
of warmth in my pants
that comes with humidity,
that comes with spring.
cold bites fingers
toes nose driving us into the car
for ten minutes of heat.
the sieve and the sand 