Listless

My days lean heavily to the left
and to the beat of the pandora
which knows me better than myself.
Hunched like an ape
at a computer I write poetry
and attempt to tactically
add “running for my life”
to my resume.
As if people would hire me
knowing that in desperation
I would do anything
to breathe clean air.
The dream of doing anything
bobs like a lure
in the ocean of surviving long enough.
Some fish are caught
and furnished in tropical fish tanks
with bright colored friends
and a tiny castle to call their home.
Others are eaten.
I eat a rather depressing tuna fish sandwich
with light mayo
on wheat bread
to stave off the sensation that I too am dying

and it works. The tuna works.

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Scissor, Rock, Paper

The summer of 2008
is still neatly
cut away from my forgetting mind.
Protected by a holy space –
a vacuum that the eaters
of words cannot
travel.

Our apartment
was a typical
triple-decker. Cluttered
like the 20 somethings
that shambled its
ancient wooden floors.
Everything creaking.
Underneath discarded shoes
separated from their pairings,
scattered papers,
and underwear
there existed a skin I don’t
think we ever saw more than once.

The action atop that firmament
played out very differently.
In a room discarded by everything else
I sat with black coffee,
keeping time with circles in a cup
to the constant heart beat
of the house,
and I wrote over the prayers
and whispers that came through the walls.
It was isolated but not lonely.

You
were more interested
in unions than exposition.
More than one person
lead by an extended hand
past the womb in which
I feverishly wrote.
The bright light of the kitchen
silhouetted your umbilical march.
Sometimes slurred or staggered
yet always like a salmon returning
to the place of its birth.

Laying amidst
so many discarded half-poems
I could keep time
to you and be jealous
that while a fire raged inside you
I was left only with messy sheets
and a laptop. It wasn’t until 5
years later that you told me
you always felt the same.

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I am Bic

Carve.
The father and the bird.
The hand of Bernini
guiding each
subtraction.
The food we eat.

Words were frantic
on our first date –
nerves mortising
our stories.
The effect
was shortened distance.

Squeezing away the spaces.

The heroic couple.
Nobody rhymes alone.
Born of wood
and kerning,
nature, the hand of Bernini,
forged us
into symmetry
as he holds every
atom in check.

Squeezing away spaces.

Sometimes
when we hug
I imagine one
body subsuming
the other. Unity.
Prosperina’s meaty
thigh sinking into
a tight grasp. I have to remind
myself we are stone. Not blood

Squeezed from the spaces.

 

 

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A Piece About Pieces

Some write
to honor
memories.
They write
from an
advantaged space
reclining
and reminiscing,
their eyes
descending
into the horizon.

I write
to form memories.
To order
the storm
but not to honor it.
I let things slip,
things I shouldn’t let slip.
But it is a need
and so I do it.

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Counting Leaves

202… 203… 204
bright green
made separate
by light cracking through.
A silent shore
brings a breeze
and I watch one
fall.

A green ambassador
from a heaven
slightly out of reach.
Did I already count
this angel
or was he yet unknown?

I watch him hit the sand.
I bless him in his graceful fall
because now I must restart
the count, and in counting
return to art.

Where is my leaf savior?
To make these black
feet go away. To uncount
these stone words
and bless me with the ability
to experience again
the refreshing wind,
the green canopy,
the fallen ones.

It cannot save me
like that.
This poem remained
in my mind
despite trying to forget
and emerged
like a leaf
to flutter
to the ground.

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The Rider

Turning the corner we see a rider
hanging
moments before an altar
we spent with his face
wiping his dew drop mirrors
as they run
down his quill and onto sheets
hanging
an echo to put clean linens on.

It is our turn
to reflect
on the water bed surface
where we used to float,
our backs turned on Hell.

O pinion plucked from Pegasus’ wing!
How you view the world,
your head dipped in black
standing, your end toward heaven
you see upside-down
your master has given you up
swinging like a pendulum
for certainty
you can run free
like a whirling dervish.

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Mr. M’s Cat – For CM and JKS

Mr. M’s cat’s tail curls like a question mark
and punctuates a body of work
that begins with an Augustinian smile.
It’s paw bats the black coffee
the old man drinks to slake
his thirst for imagination –
the nectar of his operations.

Mr. M drinks down slow soft suicide,
the kind nature once provided,
mixing contemplations,
while his cat caters
with all the birds it can kill –
but not for thrill or satisfaction,
for salvation
and it licks its theology from its skin
in the name of a humane God.

Mr. M’s cat’s tale turns like the world
its kitty cat calls are cries at the television
and its all for the moving image
his master doesn’t pay attention to.
A history channel special on a Cold War
he lived through,
the anatomy of the modern man
he has grown into,
documentaries on mantises –
lovers devouring, love devoured.

Mr. M’s cat has arthritis
so it’s steps are purposeful
like a poet’s pause.
It doesn’t pity itself though,
it pities the man
who scratches his terror
with pen and ink
rather than play outside.

Mr. M pauses to think
about his cat’s curled body
sleeping under the
crucifix of a risen lord.
After jotting down some notes
he grabs his coat
and while his cat sleeps some more
he walks the streets
speaking to people
who don’t know his language.

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Jenn in December 1989

Jenn,
We found your letters
in a book of Velazquez paintings
20 years afterward.
Your writing red,
and as neat as
an old typewriter.
We feel your love for him
to feel his clean white dress shirt
drape over your barely clothed body.
Military time is slower.
You fear his shirt is red like your ink.
You haven’t heard from him
as you prepare his Christmas presents.
Did he ever call you? Is that why you left
your lover’s words in
this old Velazquez book?
Did you meet him instead?
We postulate for no reason –
you left us no more letters.

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Nervous Habit

I watched her hand scribble words
looming lazy loops
her working mind needs a working body.
The objects around the room:
a lamp, a bed, a map
all being put to paper as cursive
half-meaningful symbols.
Perhaps, she thought,
if these were intentioned then
some meaning might cling
like collecting dust.
She thought about moving them
but let them be
to light the room,
to hold her dreams,
to take her home.

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Stockholm Syndrom

Inspiration is back
to steal and reveal
I hope my hands don’t fail my eyes
or the heart they inform
because the brain they conceal
Doesn’t trust our conclusions.
It can’t know what they know.

First Impressions are back.
familiar things are new
as if more real than real
words made material
A girl’s hair, the wind, a moving car,
A symbol, a sign, a detour
they’re being metaphorical.

Imagination is back
like lemonade on a summer day
quenching but conditional
sweet before sour.
Its always eventually sour
like a last kiss
(that’s the one they never talk about).

Impersonations are back
trade one face for another
because nothing is really new.
Besides which it’s easy,
and unavoidable.
Was I supposed to believe
I’m the only one she talks to?

Temptation is back
to call me a king or prophet
to offer me alchemy for ink
gold for words
greatness for loneliness
exile to paradise.
The devil has inspiration too.

Inspiration is back
the called lover in chains
welcomes the captivity
for a change of pace
there is a tenderness in her embrace
despite its inescapability.
Love devouring. Love devoured.

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