Blue Skies From Now On

The best two dollar tie
that slips under the wing span collar


comes to a knot under
the lump in my throat,

some green and red
growth that was the result of a fashion nightmare.

I had dreams you
had nothing to wear

but the clothes you bought on sale
in the mall where everything

except the parking spaces
were discounted.

No, I don't get more apartment
when the rent is increased,

I need to live more intensely in it
to make the abode match the rising sea of outgoing green.


The boy's pants are too short to
be running a marathon
with the god of desire:
soon the world that used


to standby as he stumbled
through the malls looking

for a hem to cling to
will become rife with strife

and impacted with
lust, desire for things he

cannot logically use, women in
shorts only military secrets address in sane fashion:

the secrets of the Invisible Country
will be revealed and they still won't make any sense,

and growing older will be the
sigh escaping from the chair
you collapse into when fireworks are done

and sulfur
cuts a path
over the
picnic that celebrates
blue skies,
blue skies,
nothing but blue skies


from now on.

The voice that comes from the stream

for jls,lho and lol


It's not the voice that comes
from the steam
nor the tide that turns

at the drop of dime
into a newspaper machine.
not a name that fades in the ear

when you turn a corner
nor a name that comes through the
ear peace of your phone that

rings at the dinner hour.
not a lover who misses you
after all the years in jobs

on a far coast where time zones and
temperatures are closer and hotter
that the hotel sheets
are to the mattress where you stare

at the door to the hallway,
the shadows of feet passing in
the middle of the night,
you wonder what your lover
has too say,
not about this meal you're eating

or by what you're reading
but instead about how you're living
in this world when
nothing seems real enough to
count on as if life itself mattered,

i say all these things
come back to us
always in the moments when
we're required to be
the selves we've rehearsed in mirrors,
at home, imagining interviews
and interrogations,
the way your lips grew puffy
the first time i made you cry,

the way you traced the words of
the book you were reading
before setting it down
to dress for openings, dinner,
where ever we might be going,

the masks cracks and falls to the floor
when some meaningless phrase is said
and suddenly, powerfully
it’s clenched fists in public places,
the world is removed just then and too loud as well,

it's all those things after all,
every last cough and bottle of beer we balanced
on the fire place, there's nothing i ever had

that i don't miss, you were everything
in front of me, passing by and gone
like a road sign that couldn’t be read

What You Were Saying

The first sentence you speak
has you asking
why comets soar slow
as rudderless boats in dead leaks
which are gone when
there's finally a telescope,
let's consider the grass at night
when the sprinklers are on,
the salads and cakes
we made wilt and go stale
under these kitchen heat lamps.

The next sentence you speak
starts a new arrangement
with the things
that confound you in the morning,
all these combs, used condoms,
matinee ticket stubs
are going into the trash,
this is the day nothing changes yet
there's no going back,

But the sentence you'll say
after that considers a lofty cubism,
a stick in the eye,
the adjectives make you aware
how hungry you've been
and will make you search
for her phone number,
if it still exists in the handwriting
you wrote but couldn't read
that night when bar lights blurred
and her stubble grew coarser
each minute vanishing 'til 2 in the morning.

The last sentence is you
talking about talking too much
during movies you watch alone
in the kitchen amid the pie shells
you've made for the bowls of varied
sliced fruit , each speared with
serving spoons and long tined forks,
crusts that will go stale
and fruit that spoils
as you let the room get dark
until the star spangled banner is played
and you can suddenly hear
the humming of the refrigerator
with it's door left open.