Dear Darling, (poem)

Dear Darling,

Day. Darling dear. Today, I woke up. I stabbed the bottom of my foot on the pointed tongue of my belt that I left on the floor from the night before. But I hopped. Foppishly. Got in the car. Went ridin' to your door. Knock knock. You there? Dear? Knock knock. Darling? I went around. I did. To the window. Looked through the back, it was cracked. So, I billowed in. Smoke stacks. Your throat smacks. Not coughs. Not clearings. Your unhappy snap-backs. I don't like snap-backs. But, I've got a strong back. Upright. You're uptight. I wrote to you. This letter. I read to you, this letter. I tell you things like. Girl, I wish I was gay. Men could never make me feel quite this way. She looks un-mellow. I don't wanna say cold. Ice cold. It's too overdone. Cliché. I needed a phrase to run fresh my way, but the only thing fresh my way was me and this letter. Hear me. Hear me. I knew you couldn't wait. For me to make some mistake. Maybe the same mistake as one of my many mistakes. One of the many mistakes that I'm unaware I make. One extra reason for you to think I'm a flake, or that I'm like a fly on a wall continuously landing, forgetting that every time I do I vomit. That's the pain of being awake. But. Not today. No. No. Today. My letter. That I wrote for you, inevitable you. Astoundingly predictable. Just waiting for me--you. I'm not gonna hold it in. I want you to know now, I called this in. There's not much to say that I know the insanity in...being with you.

  Love,
Your man.

Melt (poem)

Melt

Either air that has color, must that I can swim through
filling my lungs like the bad drink;
Or swarms of tiny things with needle faces poking
red insecurities, itchy mounds.

Either the exploding heat of leather exposed to leg
and frion-less AC blowing murky from vents;
Or a selfish sun screaming from two surfaces,
sucking liquid from skin--leaving red and thirsty.

Imagine a departure from sameness, particles of sweat
dangling from anxious hairs. It's a sunken highway,
an underpass away from the scenic route.

The swells of swelter like erasers clapping against dusty
chalkboards, forgetting what was written and recalling
only the cough caused by all those particles that collected,
a cork in your throat.

Don't tell me fun and sell me on breezes and beaches,
because you will fail as we all do

as gawky creatures. As we do.

The Wolf (poem)

The Wolf

I'm taking in old air, the kind of air that's filled with a year's worth of dust being thrown from a fan blade. I'm the big bad wolf lookin' for a reason to blow a house down. I'm huffing and puffing, but my lungs are filling with dirty cotton particles and dead skin from the clothes and bodies of my family. It turns into a hacking...hacking...hacking  until it snuffs me out. Subdued on the guest bed, because my old room is just too full of those nights I was left alone to think about what I had done. Everyday dreamers die, or, maybe they just go home and are looked upon by their mothers as if they never left.

Uneven (poem)

Uneven

Out my living room window I watch a little girl trip
on uneven sidewalk tile and crack her knee against
sunlit concrete. There is a little scratch and a lot of crying;
her father kneels down to kiss the knee--blood between
his lips, he mouths something I can only read as,
All better? And the little girl says nothing, instead
she looks up and stops crying.

Sunlight hits me from between the cables of the Verazzano
and I remember your fingertips.

May 21, 1972 (poem)

May 21, 1972*

Oh, sweet Mary, your sadness swallows

me downward

                  to stone,

                                    luminous

marble grown from the goodness of the ground.

I dropped my keys, left them here

                  they too sprouted--

                                    a dome.

An awning to watch over you, mother--

                  dead

                                    beautiful

in the eyes. Too beautiful

                  in

                                    the

                                                      eyes.

"I am Jesus Christ--risen

                  from

                                    the

                                                      dead."

Oh, sweet Mary, your kindness swells

through immortality,

                  I'm your son

                                    and I bring

                                                      glorious life.

Do you feel my presence? 

                   Thunderous

                                    Hammering

                                                      And quiet

as an asylum.

                 

*On May 21, 1972 I rose again and was arrested

                  for the desecration of my

                                    mother.

YES, Poetry (published photo)

My photo of St. Pats on 5th Ave. has been published in this months issue of Yes, Poetry.  Click on the link to see my cover photo.  Also, you can download the issue for free as a PDF.  Just follow the prompts to do so!

http://yespoetry.com/post/20753310779/vol-3-issue-4-april-2012

Why aren't You Laughing (poem)

Why aren't You Laughing

We are rock
spark clacking
rock sediment
with no sentiment
the devil crawled
into my eyes
just as he has
into yours
no love, none
only waking
lonely fingers
lanky bones
crush Adam's apple
and your eyes
roll backward
can you see him
the devil stare
head bowled
cackling at you
and I'm cackling
at you, my darling
nevermind the world
and never the birds
who flew behind
why aren't you  
laughing, why don't we
shake hands

Blue Manhattan (poem)

Blue Manhattan

I.

What is this my hand can do?  It's something like

                  electric. Charge. Flicker.

                                                                        Fry.

Put your tongue to me and tell me I taste like battery.

Oh dear God.

                                    A god.

Ray Evans

did not have me in mind.

Whatever will be, will be; but,

                                                      it will be,

                                                                        this time,

                                                                                          up to me.

I can move the molecules in your body, so fast that you skip

                  a shiver,

and before realizing

                                    it's not cold,

I'll turn you inside out. People will wonder where your skin

                                                      has gone.

                                                                        To be afraid is truth.

It's more fun this way.  That's truth.  Can I learn any different?

Or anyone--

                  something different

from blown up chunks of bone and tissue and fat?  My finger

is a death-note and I'm conducting

                                                      a symphony.

II.

I recognize my life now.  Some people only understand the past

but I have

                  backwards and

                                                      ahead.

My mind's eye is my own spoiler and I'm positive there is no

                                                                        protagonist,

all of what I see is certain.

                                                                                          Gods are not wrong.

I am certain that I have loved and found both, shade and sun.

I couldn't tie my shoes until I was 10.  When I was 5 I got a girl

                  to fake my test.

She loved talking to me.  I remember her black hair.

                                    Maybe she's a mom now.

III.

Turn it off!

The government and I agreed that fighting terrorists is an infinite battle

unless I close them up

                  between my fingers

and open them

                                    up to everywhere.

And then I knew.  I knew that the way we ran our schools and arranged tax brackets

was wrong.

                  I said,

Please listen to me.

                                    They didn't.

                                                      So, I did the finger thing again.

IV.

If gods can feel, I assume they feel like shit pretty regularly.

If you know what happens next

                  you try to be the sanguine.

                                                      If I smile too much, the power

                                                                                                            is gone.

How would you like your god to be?  Is it enough if he tries?  Or do you need

                  results?

I woke up this morning to Philip Glass and ate no food because

I'm

                  never

                                    hungry.

I'm only an epic now, except shorter.

                  Flat.

Call on me when things go

                                    stale.

V.

Things I used to take for granted:

• Not eviscerating a good section of town when I throw a tantrum

• Aging

• The importance of being, at least a little, ignorant

• Driving

• Skin

• Headaches

• The way people seemed to look through me

VI.

My mother once told me

                  Always keep that good heart of yours.

I once made a girl a big red heart, out of construction paper and cardboard

and little macaroni

                                    pieces

                                                      all around.

I wonder if she still holds on to that.

Once a girl told me that I was her best friend, and that she would love me

until I

                  died.

VII.

I'm not dead yet.  I am blue

                                    singularity.

As much as I look, white-eyed, fatigued--I feel not present--

and ultimately unable

                                    to bond.

I'm formulaic on a superhuman level.

                                                                        But, you will presume

                                                                                                            to understand.

He's dangerous. Because I'm

                                                      nuclear.

He's criminal. 

VIII.

My brain blinks like gaudy Christmas lights that never

                  get

                                    blown.

I used to look into your fragmented blue eyes every morning,

                                                      I called them snowflakes--

I'd whisper

                  I love you

and before releasing the snow, your lips would slowly create plot marks

at the tips of a crescent, pointing

                                                      upward

until your eyes opened.

The lights are flashing, but the damn cord still gets

                                                                                                            tangled.

IX.

I realize I'm impervious.  But, I still come in

                  with

                                    the dirt.

You say that you're miserable yet you don't mind me asking

to make

                  things better.

Is it because you know I can't help?  Or, because you know how

I

                  want

                                    to.

I once knew a boy who was regular and he was so happy. Until,

                  one day

the world pulled him out a son.  Then the world

                                                                                          grew fangs.

X.

All the good kids on the block are the ones who

                  die

                                    early.

"Let me drive you to therapy".

I'll bring radiation to you.  Blue radiation.  It'll warm you up

                                    cook

                                                      you.

My eyes will become vapid, and then you'll look at me and say

You're staring off a lot more than usual.

Don't

                  cry

                                    on me.

And I'll say: "I won't my sister, I won't"; but, if I was powerful for a moment

I would trade brain

                                    stems

                                                      with you.

Only two more hours to go. 

XI.

The last gift I bought a girl was a locket with no

                  pictures

decorated on top with filigree and a trinity, like the one

                                    tattooed

to her hip.  I used to think about getting ink done, not because

I had a statement to make or an image

                                    worth remembering--

I wanted one more

                                                                        connection.

Now, I draw on images of time passing

                                                                        on

                                                                                          my

                                                                                                            head.

You're more of a man than anyone I've ever known.

In between the white glow of pupil and the paper thin peach

of my eye lid I have that

                                    tattooed.

XII.

My father once told me

                  Son, we are here for you always and we are proud.

Once I emptied a bottle of Jack:

                  blacked out--

                                    woke up

                                                      crawled to the couch

                                                                        crying

because I realized that the world spins.  And I looked out my window

at a city covered in snow.  Only at night it didn't look white

                  it was blue

                                    and it wasn't a blanket--

                                                                        it was a tarp.

I went away after that and the world was the same.

Love Me, Windy (poem)

 I was inspired to write this poem on a car ride home from Chicago.  Somewhere in Ohio...I was sitting in the back seat of my friend's Mazda 2...all scrunched up...spilled some gatorade in my lap...was a little sick...but somewhat excited from what I saw in Chicago and for things to come.  I felt that this time I would explain a bit of my process, because this time the circumstances were humorous/coincidental/ironic to me.


Love Me, Windy

Call you windy, drifty

Between these buildings
Always shifting looking thrifty
Take notice, I've stared off
Because you're tricky tricky
You're a trick to me
If I say it enough it'll start sticking
You stick to me, windy
Unabashed, that's the word I'm thinking
At least I think I'm thinking
You're unabashedly sticking tricky, windy

Anticipation (poem)

Anticipation

I knew you were the type of girl
that would
      take years.
Certainly more than one night.
I'm so fucking pissed I wore
      my kiwi colored shirt.
And that I didn't dance.
But I had time---you would
      take years
with your snappy sarcasm and
not-so-smooth logic, gnarled in your head
      to notice
that we are the space between spaces,
that mood that sits in you as you
      miss the train
and wait 20 minutes for the next,
standing on the platform while you
      "mind the gap".
We are that moment that passes during
the off-beats of a dog panting--tongue out
      dripping.
That instant of escalation when I look up
at something towering and realize what wealth is
      and that I may have it,
before I slip back down and understand
that even with some luck, you would
      take years from me.

Violet Dances (Poem) and John Sings (Poem)

These are the first 2 poems in a series about these 2 characters (John and Violet).


Violet Dances

But John sings, belting notes like beating bricks
with bare hands, hoping the noise breaks--
hoping that when he's done his fingers won't retreat to pockets
and find that ten that went through the wash.

Violet dances, sending symptoms of stasis
through onlooker's backs.
Swinging in swing circles,
and skipping through the notes that John attacks.

Violet, how long has it been since we've tasted
uncorrupted wind? No haze of bar baked smoke
from the sidewalk hoverers, or the juice
from beer-embalmed breaths.

Instead, we have a filter that works through osmosis of the eyes,
spheres launching from far ends.


John Sings

But Violet dances, twisting limbs and twitching hips
relaxing her body through twirling motion.
Relaxing her muddy eyes that only see
what each tumbling black curl will allow.

John sings, throwing fits into the grated cage of the mic,
curling his lips to accent the high notes he's about to hit.
The snap of his voice cranes necks to center stage,
but Violet's neck swivels through.

John, how long has it been since we've littered
a sidewalk? A losing lottery ticket dropped
to meet concrete and left to float on...oil-soaked
cellophane thrown from a window, it may never dry.

Instead, we have the mobility to launch our arms skyward,
fan out our fingers and hope someone else does the same.

Lead (poem)

I'll swing beside you
and pay attention,
notice that a sonnet rises
with each step; but,
I have to move you,
make sure that you shift
how I want.
Squeeze my hand.
I can't get creative with this
and you can.
The end of your back doesn't notice
my bumbling palm, stumbling
along with my sputtering bravery.
One step
Two step
Back step
One step
Two step
Twirl
And come back
And come back.

Time to Play (poem)

Serve me noise on a platter of lyrics
and I'll suck in the harmonies of rot--

That's my license. State of Virginia.
Look at that big mouth in the picture.
closed.

Mouths open all the time now. Remember
when folks used to just jump out windows instead?
I'll sue the city if I get hit by a plummeting carcass--

Bone bags drop, dead before they crack against the ground,
the fall is not that far when there's led lodged
between eyes and--

I know how to escape. Take my piece, force it
close to my chest, until I learn how to play.
How long does it take to learn?

By the time this track is done.
Listen, listen, listen--
He's fingering out:

Executions and abortions and how much he loves Jesus,
and how it makes sense to kill and leave others
wanting to feel, like they want to be killed.

And I sit here with my game piece,
plotting out my strategy.
Listen, listen, listen--