Tuesday, April 28, 2015

sometimes i don't know what i'm stalking

skyscraper headed. buttercup heart. patches of awesome paired with footprints of air. i'm a cat, frightened at ferns unfurling. it smells of french fries and carnival on sundays. one time i was close, caught a hint of chanel no. 5.  uptown then? sophisticated beast? when its tracks develop they're always in negative strips, animal exchanged for imprint

 .

Monday, April 27, 2015

age of epidemic

i ran across a picture of us
                                          lost at sea, private boat
                                                                         fighting, laughter, ludicrous
poses caught /hung on a line          bitten with poet of the shaman's
             like so many    sparrows                                  teeth
                          at roost  nesting  in spaces designed for other things
                                                                    barely
             dusk                the unrelenting bright             sky folds into
                         when                                                                  we
       dawn                        persimmon and prions of light             unfurl    sails                                         traces                                     hoist the engines overboad
       sumerian hieroglyphs     dot  the bedsheets                     ripped for the winding
                                  deserted car bomb               recipe in our pockets                                on   our heads a                                                             ten gallon                  white hat
                          price for everything, you said.                        whatever

Sunday, April 26, 2015

the word for breeze is whisper-rev 3

pluto unseen, abstract, not even
a planet anymore, simply element
intact as wisteria, widening .

they found you bathing at kruper's
edge, nothing to say about your condition,
half spun, mending flour sacks
for the coming enunciation.

  an epoch, counted en fleur and forgiveness,
spelunking in memory's dark cave
where the source was kept- no one never
ever found it. unless it was  found but by you, so close

to the outside, the trembling stairs
breeze like a beacon, calling you home.

parts of awesome

april acting like march again
a rainless wind crosses the sky laden
with clouds that will drop heavy
storms out to sea.


precarious living at the bayou,
flotsam wahes up demanding
a favor you just.. this minute stopped
granting. calling the authorities

misfires but the bar closes anyway.
didn't mean to do that i bet.
it's ok, really. too much foot traffic
always brings thieves and rats.

time as a way of reinforcing forgotten
lessons. smell of rain before hail
breaks loose. canons of warning bells,
tempers on the loose, ptsd on the rise.

you think you got the formula
i's just that number 7 is so unstable.
it may be a lucky number, but not
for the elements

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

ruth, waking

shush now
still dreaming don't
wake the babe, she's journeyed
from paradise to be here sleeping
with you

you called this morning to let me know why you haven't been home in thirty six hours.
she's still in labor, she wants me here, i'm part of her entourage

first sight
that's how i loved
crowning milky, fist tight eyes
skin soft as air. are you really
here, now?


it's been a party. i crack them up, even my ex. that girl is slow because she's afraid to face her genetic pool. even the tornado's pressure drop didn't move her along much. she's taking her time. it's amazing how helpful the staff is here and get this, my ex? only got kicked out twice.

ok, listen, she said, this is not working. you want this flow like dusting. but it 's choppy and contrived. you need a word cloud. you need to stop writing drek and read some good poems. you need to not post this. i want to write a poem for abbey.




then stop being so artsy. 

lol.


i saw  a picture of you
 in your grandfather's house.
you were twelve, awkward hair,
bright smile/your father's eyes,
clefted chin, aimed
at the camera,  i recognised the girl
in a flash of deja vu no longer than a static shock.
 you are much older since
i've known you. once  after the psychosis
 abated, you thanked me for letting you live
 in my house while  you recovered since your
dad lives with me since your grandad  kicked you out after the first time
then your boyfriend's mom kicked you out during the second
and your boyfriend couldn't live  in the apartment you rented together ,after all,
without becoming a controlling asshat, so bascially,
 it was let you stay
or watch you and your dad
try to live out of a borrowed mercury marquis- but i
told you - ruth, i think i was brought
 into your life
for a reason,and even though i don't like the idea
 of determinism
 i think i am supposed to help you
because i knew you
in alternate universe,  i wasn't trying to push you
over the edge again, it was
a truth
but honestly this house
is big enough and you make the best
 oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
in the family.



******



there was
 a quietness to
 your illness.  you escaped .
how -unknown. seeds thrown, mysterious
rebirth.

we ate cookies four seasons, unraveled boxes of cables, snakey and 01. percent failures to sell on ebay.   we all read books on dreams, on finding them in the darkest places. some days she didn't come out of her room. but she had a computer. her family was on facebook. she   left to visit her mother at christmas .


she's new
cheesy, wrinkled.
her dark eyes stare at you.
you begin to cry holding her.
so new.


 a few weeks  later she moved out for good. couch surfed for a while, got a job, got another job, got a car, got pregnant. she didn't want an abortion, didn't want to raise a child. 

give her
a good life. yes.
hand her to the mom you
chose to be her mom.because you
love her




Monday, April 20, 2015

"Remembering times that we have touched things."

digging up shephard's needles
fingers on flower stem, pull and hollow snap awaits. gently
follow it furry to where stems congregate
in a viscous nub,spiny hub to subterranean thistles
tug it until you feel it give, dig fingertips
in grit, grip the tangle tips, knotted together at flower's lips
twist and rip these  seams mis-stiched  sand tumbles,
loose and sparkly it filters on skin. abrasive. nail clinging
tooth flingling.

times that we have touched things. i skin a thing?
once i went into your room, looking for a pen.
i wasn't looking for a pen so much as an excuse to search
in your drawers. you kept wearing those long sleeve shirts
in the middle of summer. in the south.  you asked
leading questions and gave me the answers.
i still didn't want to know. there was a bandage roll
the kind that sticks to itself a the absorption built in.
that's new,  i thought. i unrolled it. it made a small sucking sound
like newborn velcro. i re rolled it. it stuck. i wrapped some
around my bicep. i expected the softness of gauze,
a cotton wick. this was furry. i dropped some water on it
and it soaked it up. i considered astroglide to test consistency
but you didn't have any. i was surprised. the place i'd watered
was dry on my skin, damp to my finger. the bandage
clung to arm. i felt kind of bad it had no job to do,
i would have to toss a perfectly good bandage after
because the sticky only lasts one or two times and in my enthusiasm
well,
you know.the way your hair grows thick and i run my fingers
in the lushness softening your thighs closer than
i'll ever be they grow from roots, resisting  pluck and pull

the linen sheet is smooth but has texture. if it were a river it would be the suwanee.
it it were a taste it would be mashed potatoes. if it were a smell it would be rain.
if it were breakfast it would blended yogurt. with berries. no banana.

the anemone is nubby, rubbery. cold. if it were a lake it would be in the arctic.
if it were a taste it would be macaronit. it were a smell it would be tangenital.
if it were a car it would be a tesla.

the sandspur is pricly, piercing, sticky,angry. if it were a person it would be psychotic.
if it were a taste it would be red bull. it were a smell it would be treated waste.
if it were a dinner it would be uneaten.

this glass is smooth, even, cool. if it were a dream it would be idyllic.
if it were a taste, vanilla custard. if were a smell, mint julep.
if it were a racehorse, all bets are off.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

why do i always fall in love with a poet

a broken sonnet, as lise's behest.

so they make  pretty rhymes,,
singing, sweet  in my ear,
promises- pernicious
reminders, pretty lies

oh they'll sleep with you, fine.
play house , maybe a year.
things seem so delicious
that's when they realize

the cave became tighter
they  need  to switch gears.

i'm guilty of this too
caught in moods that wallow
through caravans of mud;
ride trains composed of stars.

i'm sure it's hard on you
should you lead or follow
me through fields of love
engaging in poetic ars?

it's  alike,we are- too. oroborous' wallow.

Friday, April 17, 2015

on a weathered wooden sidewalk
a young girl in black dress dotted with red valentines
crouches against a truckbed toolbox,  a plastic
 bottle in her hand. she wears pink sweat
pants under the dress. her face is red, hair tangled, dirty
blond. she is staring into a yard littered with faded
plastic toys. a bike sits on its side, torn white
and pink streamers hang from handlebars.
a thin acrid line of smoke
 rises from lumps of melted plastic
that pepper a fire pit in the middle of the yard.

what i wanted to say was this was all of it.
the coming of ancient scrolls, the washing of feet.
when that girl walks into your arms, asking
is it doll night, how do you render the innocent tale, how do you
put the beauty on page, i want to know how
to write a proper love song.

maybe i should just quote her. begin to write those things down
that make me remember why life.


























88888





no smells. my poems don't have smell. or touch.only sight. i think that's exaclty right .i think i smoke to drown the smells i've had to smell. but what color is it. no, that's a sight thing again. if it were a stuffed animal it would be a mouse, if it were a smell, it would be a salt encrusted beach.






at the hibachi, clanging knives command
 attention. this is art performed
under industrial sized metal box shaped vents
on stainless steel square tables, bordered
on three sides by  occupants of white leather
 covered chairs. the fourth
 is the artist's provence. the chef rubs
the blade of one knife against the blade of another,
a gong for a swordfight; armour, unzipping.
a hint of petroleum rises
 from other heating tables as if a tire
were burning in the kitchen.
a sushi diner at the far end
of the room, sitting under
a volcano sculpture  of mud
and pine limbs and light,
erupts in coughing fit.
this soup is cold, she rasps loudly
the whole room gets very quiet then the chef
drops his knife. it hits
the tile floor with a quick ping.
no matter, he has a spare
pulled out of empty space and without
missing a beat , slides sizzling
slices of scallops, lobster and shrimp
across the gleaming, steaming surface.
when it's time for the sauce bottle
he  cajoles the men to open up
for a taste. from a three feet away, he aims.
the liquid arcs across the table
 in an unbroken  stream into their mouths.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

hello Anastasia

 But yes she knows somewhere
Beauty exists.look in the handbag
Or the grand baby smile
When she wakes too early
Or out on the yard
where spring has set her skirts
Ablaze, slant with blooms.

Girls tumble, different blossoms,
No less lovely, at the gymnasium
And parents watch
 stardom on the mats.

Hey love she recalls the rough skin of trees in his beard, leafy hideout of his chest, nestling in his branches. Thick summer days under grapevines loaded with muscadine and cricket tune.swallowed by the month of June.



The community pool is almost empty.there are ripples from three children that match the white cracked clouds among a turquoise sky. Hey can you bring a pack of hounds to tree and then leave,since her glass bond zone found a grinning maybe.Tuesday night people with chronic hope.swallowed up in the beating heart of course for you. Hey love stanza,hey after noon photo,captured in a book.

Thursday, April 09, 2015

remembering the future

i had not thought of it that way, found
along the trestle, woven in the tracks
what sense could make today reknown
but that it comes from so far back.

or ahead you proclaim, flush
with innocence and pride.
time is never far enough
away for you to hide


relevance will lose its meaning
as the days go by so quickly
older ancient ones are gleaning
what you and i threw out. sticky

stinky,just plain broken down
trash in landfills, turning black
with tech's great evolution. crown
metals will be mined .the stacks, attacked

just where the money's at. younger us
meets older them telling secrets that abide
through centuries  to become, forests
treed with  pc boards, streams of melanine



















***((((






the poet tells the scientist
if it weren't for us your discoveries
would be meaningless.


for instance this idea of bullets
dissolving after they hit you
would be less armageddon
if they'd dissolve before hand

but that would defeat the purpose
unless you want to make new
 paint ball armaments.

 however if we put lsd
in those sugars you want to shoot...

that'd be a pretty effective battle stopper

and civilians wouldn't know what hit them
william s bourroughs can write the screenplay.

even though he's not a poet?





**(())))




for some reason asian countries are sufferring
from arsenic in their water.

can't they just get a filter? electro coagulation, really?





****



it was long past the time of black mold
but before the rads rose so high in the fish
we all stopped eating sushi. i remember walking
through ybor's alleys, hungry as a cat, looking for
just dumped dinners: the feel of dry udon; a grain
of rice, soy sauce. i licked the napkins. i watch
those diners from the corner where i busk for food
and chalk to write poems on the sidewalk.
i would say they're cancerous, but there's no
money in that. i could paint images
of fleshy pipes, bubbling with growth,
but they wouldn't be yours. yours is the fallow
field, erupting mutation and evolution.
























Monday, April 06, 2015

when the fire drills stopped

monday


the mellinial need for revenge, let's see how many
bodies we can take. it's fungible static writ
in the grave yard or mass grave, come to think of it
the whole world's a mass grave we momentarily 
crawl out of. there's a strange whine in the evening sky
sounds like armeggeddon. the radio's playing revelation's 
seven great hits and the horsemen are taking all bets
at the racetrack.  i 've been in a snarl since
everything went right this norning and i don't have 
no one to blame it on but me. i'm the one said listen let your life
be a friction in the machine, no wait that was some poet
who actually went to jail for mind crimes in old times
and it's like this guy spider he's got a rap on him
for pandering or something like that and he won't take
the plea which includes registering as a sex offender he won't
set his name down as a pedophile because he did not do  nothing
with anyone for anything so as it stands right now all the da got
is conJECTURE and i wish i'd get on his jury but i can't cuz i know him
so spider's packin all his stuff up, get ready cuz what they do
with guys with like him , unless justice somehow goes horribly sane
for a moment, is lock them away with no shred of evidence
so he's just being prepared. i tell it it's really sad what they done
with our fifth amendment and he says in this case it's the third
cuz it was entrapment sure and simple, while i was trying to 
entrap them , and who says i don't have as much a right to catch
them sickos as the cops, how the cops going to be everywhere
these sleze dogs go, i gotta baby girl myself, i gotta protect her
take these sick baby fuckers off the street and now they turned it 
round  and i'm the solicitory perpatrator i'm the one trying to sell
my baby to the muslims or some sick shit! 
 spider slams his fist into the thin panelling
of the trailor, adds a star to the constellation he's making
as the case drags on and on. he gave his daughter's furniture
to the woman down the street with a five year old because
his ex didn't have to let her over for visitation with this charge
looming.  i ask when was the last time he saw her and his eyes
crumble into  valleys. i look away. still it feels like
like liquefaction where concrete slips it's rigidity.
years, he wispers. years and years
he slides down , just kind of slips into 
the middle of his packing, mountainous 
and incomplete hugging his knees
making the sound of an emergency warning signal
just before the tornado hits.












saturday


she threaded a bobbin,  shaved
her scissors up a length a cloth  for easter magic.
a born seamstress,  she could have
been a designer  sewing was her art and
she was good at it. she made polyester leisure suits
for my dad that looked tailored. because they were.
our  dresses were sewn in the afternoons
while we  were at school. it is my
eternal shame that i begged for the 3 for 9 dollar dime store
dresses. moma why can't we have sears
i whined from the chair where i stood as she
measured the hem.



one easter she made us matching  frocks
of different colors. somehow we were never measured
in the finished product.  on easter morning mom called
look girls! look what the easter bunny left! we ran in
 and saw 3  dresses on plastic hangers with price tags
hanging off them laid out on the sofa,
next to the easter baskets .
they were smart dresses, a-lined
 like jackie o.
we carried store bought purses
and wore white patent leather shoes
 and white bonnets . you girls
are getting so big everyone said, and we shyly
twisted in our mod clothes, ready for the photo shoot
in gramma's rose garden in the house across
the street from the first baptist church.  mrs shaw
and mama talked  in the sun under their big hats.  mrs shaw
said, law leona, you sure do have a way with the needle.
those dresses are adorable! my ears perked up
at that, i had to set her right. excuse me mrs. shaw
but momma didn't make these dresses. look! the tag's
from sears, and she dutifully looked at the tag sewn
onto the collar. yes, indeed. it says sears right here, she
smiled, seventeen months she said to momma. they are
simply lovely, mrs shaw insisted. i wish i had found some
just like it.  i got so lucky, mama said, they had these
pretty lacey things for my rainbow girls. run along lynze
grandpa's ready to snap




Friday, April 03, 2015

holiday

twas unexpected, something new
work says, here's a holiday for you!
my auntie called, said bring your babe
up for  egg hunting on  easter day.

a family gathering at the farm
we'll have fun from dusk till dawn
watching grandkids from the porch
bounce ,hunt, sceam till they are hoarse.


the day has arrived now, so quick.
so much to do, the tasks are thick.
i thought i'd planned for enough time
but writing stole it from me again.

so i'll have to leave this all for now
no internet in the hinterlands. i avow
i'll return with new poems to post
to read yours as if poetry Host.

Thursday, April 02, 2015

this is not another moon poem

though she's bright in the mild sky
high above the last remnants of sunlight
covering her face with veils playing peekaboo

with a broken psyche all full
of herself. it's like iving
with a too young lover who behaves
like his lessons are yours to teach, like

this money thing, i don't know
what it is about tax time
that dries money up, has it playing tag
at the gas station, hiding deposits
in frigid winter conditions, but i'm glad
there was enough for stromboli tonight.

lesson one, everyone has to eat.  like the mosquitoes
that hover near the tablet's white screen
 i wonder if they believe it's moonlight
 descended to  their level or maybe they think

they ascended to whatever heaven
mosquitoes imagine because they're
 gathering at this bright white light
 like easter sunday service is about
 to begin and  they have no choice
but me as their lamb.


Wednesday, April 01, 2015

reality paces

The pond is already cooking
Summer's sludge.snow in Philly
means heat in Tampa.
Water shivers in a light breeze
As the sun runs a hand along goosebumps. Everything gets used to the to the weather so quickly.April they say
it's the cruelest month
it took a long time
For me to get that so I married on the first day. The union
Was skin to tornado
Till I broke it
Off. Now I think about
Bitter orange blossoms, their sweet scent
And how sour the fruit, pocket my lips fir the next bite.