Poetry will ruin your life

some of us many of you
love poetry as blackboard
and no chalk, toe nails and back flips
through a bent H
and screaming rocket calculus
as numbers pounding at the door
when dinner arrives,
saying
"fuck you and your attempts to
define poetry, you are squares
TOO EASILY DEFINED
and remember
JAMES BROWN IS DEAD."

too many of not enough of the rest of the city
believes parades are for them
if it's the third tuesday in a leap year
on a day named after a Norse god, goddamnit,
but some of the majority of the slim pickings
have opined
that newspapers are dead to everything
except the bottom of a
bird cage so therefore
poetry is the attempt to make language
an even crustier clump of cliches and dead mackerals,
line breaks
needed plaster casts,
similes that cannot find a soul mate,
genders and pronouns
unpronounced by married
inspite of the loneliness
that finds you like
that helicopter spotlight
that very night when
you slam your poem
across the side of the head
of a famous coot
who rhymed
like a trained seal
does
when the fish smells like
The Star Spangled Banner.

Every single every other of us still standing if not sitting or what have you
sigh and don't regard poetry at all
because
"PEOPLE ARE DYING. GODDAMNIT, CRAZY FUCKERS
THINK THEY CAN JUST UP AND LEAVE WITHOUT
A PARTING GIFT OR A LAST SLAP AGAINST THE FACE"
but poetry absorbs all this
what ever hoarse voice and harsh verbs that choose us,
guitars ,harmonicas and bicycle bells
are the sound track makes that big racket
against the black night air,\
the big black board scratched by stars
and smeared with
ashen tears as spirits rise and voices cry
and finally something like a song
of loss emerges and our hands come from our pockets and from behind our backs and we raise to the
nowhere that is our idea of heaven
and mourn the loss
and remember the joy
and write a poem in
between a toss of the dice
and a the release of breath
that it's always closing time
somewhere
on the planet that rumbles on , spits out gears, shivers and quakes with it's organic mechanics festering
the ground with spores and seed,
gas tanks go dry
and there isn't a dry eye
with so many miles still untrod
and sleep coming over us all the same,
cooing, eschewing the rules and agendas,
crooning a lyric, a word of every  song
you knew only half the stanzas to,
it all says
that it's time to rest,
it's time to come home
it's time to become the poetry
that was your pulse
and is now your name
when someone
new decides to get good and pissed
and full of themselves
in the life they find themself in.

partly snarly

when i sneer
all the leaves

i've raked up
and pressed

between the pages
where they deserve to rest

just scatter in a rank breeze
and scatter again

along the path and lawns
where i first saw them.

so i rake them again
and i snort some more

and do so until
no one sees the sky.


today's weather is
leafy, partly snarly,

with a 20 percent chance of grief
and night and morning black clouds

that will make the neighborhood
a sight worth seeing


if you were a gnome
under a bridge

loading a gun.

Paragraph Poem

Smoke alarms in the center of the night shift gravity with the shovels full  of noise as the cat knocks its plate of dried meat off the balcony, to the driveway  below,  where helicopters  scour the ground with beams and  pools of light  that scurry up alleys and over parked cars,  there are cans rolling into the streets,  shopping carts  slamming into mail boxes, this is where everyone wants to be,  tight and napping at the beach in a corner room,  over a dumpster,  next to chain smoking neighbors. Nothing to but grumble, shake my head, seek your hand, mumble, light a candle and curse the darkness. 

And just as the night seemed to blink it's last straining Thoughts of fun and give in too its darkness, its warm, heartless interior. 

Parties across the bay, patios that hug shore line, planks that Stick out like chins needing to be slugged with a hand that closes and hardens into the instant weapon that comes in handy as it reaches and unstrings the Japanese paper Lanterns that light up the hard, wet, sand with frantic, dancing light, fireworks, boats on the water, enjoying the music, no one takes tickets in the middle of the bay, there are other things we still aren't done talking about, snore as we might, dream where we may . 

Your news of your mom dying two years ago after the phone was shut off and mail gathered at the front door, in a pile, under the slot, addresses of advertisers selling shares in futures no can see anymore, You hold me and kiss my hand and wonder aloud when the next set of fire works goes off  following the next thing the cat knocks over Complimenting a contrapuntal groan of guitar from stereo on the patio someone was just pushed from to the hard, packed, cold sand below why it seems to be still in the apartment, the air not moving, the dark of the room disturbed only by a Television screen that throbs with images of abstracted passions, sleek icons wet with desire that seems a burden in a time when there is always knowledge, a good guess, of how much time there's left to play with the toys you already have, 

I wonder too, and whistle something that starts off as Charlie Parker and winds up a Sousa March, There are only so many days left that really have nothing to do with Shopping, I say, the cat grunts, spits something up, the fire works stream cross the bay, flames burst from the explosion and engulf the patio deck the rocket it, screams from the balcony, smoke alarms in the middle of the night, screams, electronic bass and rap assuming a burnt tinge that colors the holiday, I kiss you, I wish I was kissing you, wherever you are, there are lives that haven't touched me yet, nothing breaks the calm waters, and no oar violates the lake surface. There is only noise, commotion, a city consuming itself, lurching into the next decade, empty as a can.

THIS THICK SOUP

This is a note about the notes I've written
 concerning the notes you couldn't read
after I passed them on to you in the hallway
between classes or walking past your table
in the lunch room where they were piles of
wax paper, odd meat, bad breath by the current.

My favorite music was accordion metal
with according to guitarists fretting their futures
in commodities they can't scale, is the sort of jamming
that is performed in alleys behind banks while they're robbed
and getaway cars crash after they peel out from between
narrow streets to pile on traffic islands
after they note, still in their ski masks,
the song of the sirens who's only lyric
informs them that George Bailey or the plot
where they'll be buried
wait for them, patient as a vacuum.

Different ways of getting to the same point
is a math problem divided by two coughs and
multiplied with a stuttering attempt to retrace
the footsteps, tire tracks and litter trail
that bring us to the prime number
that makes or breaks how the day eventually turns out,
four cars going four different directions
at an intersection where the traffic lights are out and there are no police around to wave anyone
the right of passage.

How to suck

Watch Miley Cyrus Disguise Herself, Ask People What They Think Of Miley Cyrus:



'via Blog this'

         Jimmy Kimmel Live sent Miley Cyrus, punk-pop twerker and occasional singer, out disguised a  reporter named "Janet" to talk to the man or woman on the street what they thought of this tacky broad, Miley Cyrus. Kimmel, of course, has another on going segment called "Mean Tweets" where famous folks are asked to read the awful things others have written about them. This is a variation on a theme, but it's a smarmy presentation, a cheap laugh. It is, I would hope, the tipping point where audiences have grown weary of Cyrus's self-display and demand that do something worth paying money for.

• Mean Tweets" , where the celebrities themselves read the awful things America and the world says about them, is funny because there is a truly ironic element to it. The ones where the professional actors "get into" the 140 character limit diatribes that castigate them can be subtly funny. It can also humanize them a tad, free of film promotions and internet scandal; I forget who it was, but an actress during a segment read an especially vindictive slight against her and then raised her head afterward, paused for a beat and then said "that's just mean". What was funny here becomes human and reveals that mean things said,no matter who they are directed against, hurt all the same. Miley Cyrus in this bit , though, is just going further in playing her most powerful card in remaining in press, radio, films and social media, which is to be Miley Cyrus, famous for being famous. 
• 
  
• This bit , in effect ( and intent,I suspect) is a mockery of the famously anonymous "man/woman on the street" where there is every sophistication that they are out of the loop, unhip, square, stupid for not being up on Miley or the tacky antics she engages in. "Mean Tweets" at least involves celebrities who are famous for their work over everything else and acts as slight curative for the deluge of celebrity obsessed bile that crowds out a smarter discussion of popular art. Cyrus is becoming like celebrty bile herself, famous for being famously tacky and making her fame the formost part of her public identity. Perhaps she will find another way to remain in the headlines once she stops being percieved as cute in any manner; perhaps she'll go back to work, act, do stage work, write and record songs that can surprise us and makes us thank the lord that the insanity of youth had left her. Something similar happened to Cher when graduated from the relentlessly iirrelevant chains of her Sonny and Cher days and lit out on a film work where she did some memorable work, as in 'Silkwood", "Moonstruck", "Witches of Eastwick","Mask". 
• 
  
• True, her years as respected Hollywood actress were short lived and she re-morphed into a species of professional celebrity shill as she pitched products on cable TV stations, but there is at least a time when she did work even naysayers , or at least a good many of them, had to tip their hats for the fine work done. Not that I really care in the larger scheme of things, but i would hope that if Cyrus ever graduates from being a sideshow freak and makes the transition to the ranks of "working artist" in endeavors intended to be judged on their own terms, that she has a good run and so avoids being a  Danny Bonaduchi for all time.

Unitl it ends

You didn't slam a door
nor get angry with minor yelps
of neighboring dogs
so sad in their kennels,

the streets are covered in leaves
that have curled and turned
many hues of ceasing to be,

there was wind from a window
that kept you cool when
no one was watching,

the phone rings
and it rings again
until it ends,

and silence
is the only thing
there is
to be angry about.

It’s Not Like We Never Smiled Again

It’s not like we never smiled again after the bricks came through the windows and the secrets of the garden had become either dark smoke or something worse and chewed over at that.  There is no pleasure in seeing photos of past lives in present tense neighborhoods, there is the way a chin is caressed by a fingertip slightly familiar both to the touch and to the memory that has fingerprints and scuff marks on  its imagination.

We grinned, rather, turning our collars up to the cold and damp, victorious as battleships rusted an  in shallow waters that are ports that have derricks burning away the stars and turning every flashlight and lamppost glare a swirling corona of diseased aromas that seep through the tarp that separates the refusal to awaken with the sun and the urge to rise from the bed when the mist settles on the lawn and bring flames to the parties that began the year with lost accents and scribbled notes on damp napkins.

d retired

Needless to say, the palms are damp with expectancy, the tongue swells and cannot utter a groan or a wish. And then the screen fluttered, a sudden swerve of lines becoming something like swerves seen on highway signs telling you how typical this road will become in even the longest run-on sentences.

We blame scenery for our hunger and still we see each other thought one of us is not here in the room or any room the other of us has yet walked into. Fading into nothingness is over rated until it happens at last and there is little remaining of what was assumed would always be there but an outline made of mote and mascara.

 The vanishing becomes the light of our eyes blinking quickly to see all there is even faster because the watches and the clocks are set an hour ahead and no one knows what time it really is .

 Why does this take so long? The longer we talk the darker the light becomes, soon every window will be opened and there will be music of marching bands pouring into the opaque neighborhoods that is the hit parade of a movie we saw and mistook for something that happened in this life we shared from opposite places on the map.

For a blue moon

For a blue moon
who wouldn't cut off an arm
and hand crammed
in a coat sleeve
and pant pocket
too tight around the skin and
veins that pop up
like large roots
in old trees,

For a blue moon
you need an eye in each head
and be fast enough
to catch your profile
in each mirror
you walk by
up that hall
that emerges in every dream
you have about walking
through the woods,
the canopy of trees over head
and the light of the house
at the end of the path,
the open window,
the stars over the city,

For a blue moon
we have
lawn chairs
at night
on the lawn
while the fireworks
rattle and boom
in the distance
across the bay,
one chair remains empty
and the other
one of us
intends to sit in some day
depending on
which of us remains
alive
when the eulogies are read.

From the top of your head

Jill Moon, 1952-2015

 Jill Moon, the woman I loved more than nearly anyone or anything else, has passed away. This is a love poem I wrote for her back in  1996. It says it all and has nothing close to how deep our friendship was and how deep the loss is and will remain. She was 63 years old, a painter, a set designer, a college professor, a loving mother,  a glass artist, a wit, a smart person who loved beautiful things and interesting people. I love you, dear Jill. --tb)

From the top of your head
flowers grow that I’ve never seen
in the nature of my asking
the meaning of this thing, so beautiful, the wind.

The wind in all uses highlights
the shift of your hips
leaning against rocks, the meaning of this,
the earth, the mother of the deals
that have us eating out
of  the hands that pick the roots of your hair
that goes on growing like flowers on hills
with all the houses we ‘ve  never lived in.

A clap of thunder is applause enough for pausing
to smell the turpentine that revives the hem and haw
of  the wood under our shoes,
rainy nights are ovations and the trance
of  still looking into your eyes
where I’ve always seen them,
on pyramids, in circles,
thirsty yearning.

From my hands comes ruined meaning
about hammers and nails and the holes that made them,
I’ve stared at your face on the ceiling all night,
water flows where there is no resistance,
insistence makes me forget and remember your names,
every center has a heart
and every heart is broken.
Into your face    t
    all roads split down the middle,
    the wind is a whisper
and a rustle of notes
    coyotes cry
    in the wake
    of our progress,
    so beautiful, the wind,
    and water rolling
in circles, in circles, in peace.

Unmanageable

He wouldn't change his mind
so I mailed him a brick and a rose
postage due, of course,
because the wind had gone from my sails
and I was stranded at the bus stop
with no token, after dark,
falling asleep to the barking of dogs
behind a fence.

I wouldn't apologize
so she sold my books
and record collection
to a man who specialized
in another decade's glory,
I cried under her window,
I sang her a song
written in schemes that rhymed
and plots that didn't,
I cannot be sorry
for invisible gestures
committed while I spoke on the phone, I explained,
hooking my thumb on a belt loop
when I mentioned nothing
what you thought it might
when I mentioned
"cake" and "bombast" in the same sentence,
but you gather my hats all the same
and toss them to the oak tree
that hangs over your roof,
one hat per limb,
one duck bill spinning toward the gutter
where leaves burn, as if on cue,
or my, what shall I do?

The government wouldn't straighten its spine
and walk a straight line
nor speak something without qualification,
so we held our breath
and took on horrible lovers
who would take our money from our wallets and purse
after we are asleep ,
we buy things we don't want
on the basis of a cute photos of grand kids on cell phone galleries,
we get in the car we stole
and drive to the edge of the map
after which there is only the tile of the floor below us,
checkerboard pattern and spread out newspapers
where the cat takes his craps,
this world
gets so much larger
the more we complain,
there biggest box
contains the largest emptiness.

Life in America Up Until Now

The white people

have gone crazy

in the back seats

of All American cars

looking for the sex life

that fell between the cracks,

meanwhile screaming the rudeness

of Romantic love

that   finds them

hung-over in court

too early in the morning

of a business day

where they'll tell the Judge

that it's only rock and roll

and that there was something in the way

the singer dropped his "g's

and a manner

worth noting when the guitarist

grabbed his whammy bar

and that all they did was taking

Creeley freely and pile into

the four-wheeled remains of a rumored prosperity

and drove into

the running gag reflex of the night, down a blvd.

filled brand names and bored cops,

cruising to get "some", to find "it"

and where "it" lived,

a slobbering example

of failed bonding

locked into habits

where even as their language of outrage

is bought and shredded

in magazines whose pages stick together

just as they did

in the parking lot after last call,

harassing the cocktail staff

that's  going home,

they'll stick to principals

familiar and vague,

like that song whose words you never memorized

but tried to sing anyway, with a hushed secret at the core of the chorus

Saying that love is somewhere

just around one of these thousands

of and that it’ll shake your hand

if you drive long and far and often enough,

if you've the gas

to complete the journey, the journey

Celine dreamed of while lying in bed,

staring at ceilings, concluding

that his language of outrage could only

describe the surface details of wrong turns,

that it  had been bought and sold in a tradition

of literature that speculates about how wonderful

our  lives might have been

if only the dream hadn't ended

when we opened our eyes,

Our eyes are constantly

getting used to the dark

absorbs every inch of brick

in  parking lots

behind buildings and under bedrooms

of others who've made

their peace with

the sameness of the night,

the radio blares

more guitar solos

emerging from the

static of stadium

drums and strumming,

crazed cadenzas

whose neurotic notes scurry

and cleave to a neuron receptor

and keys a change

in the brains chemical balance that  changes

the language of what the nights' really been about,

But we remain where we are,

white heterosexual males bond

by nothing more than

the chain sawing motion

of jaws lifting and falling

on the pillows and

sofa cushions in

desert motels

in time to the pans of a camera

on the silent television

where it’s nothing but a wall full

of clocks telling

the time in

three separate

time zones while

temperatures are mentioned where

anger and rain mix in the fields

and valleys of economies

based on pride,

some abstract grip on selflessness that

needs no sleep

as do the bodies in this room,

dead to the world when the

engine blew, when the gas ran out, when

the last drop in whatever bottle of

cartoon labeled beer vanished on the

buds of a tongue

whose thirst could not be slaked by?

promise of fortune or even

water, pure and free of lies,

We sleep in shifts until

our time here runs

out on us,

until the phone that rings

everyday for twenty minutes on end

stops finally and leaves

the house quiet

from stairway to attic to porch,

with only the whir of the

refrigerator engine

starting up

and filling the stale,

stale air that

used to carry

mean jazz, drum boogie,

scratched riffs of declarative guitars,

the frets of God announcing

a life worth inventing in the notes

that passed through the room,

the boredom,

we realize in frozen moments

that any excuse for getting

out of the house

is a magic trick

that’s performed after

they’ve shown you

where they’ve hidden the mirror,

“Language is the house

where man lives”,

let us say

that this life is

like being a fish

that cannot describe the water it swims in,

endlessly at 3AM

when only the coffee at

the 7-11 has the

aroma of anything

real enough to make

us think of getting

out of town

with one suitcase

and a bus fare,

next to a goddamned big car,

five shoulders

to the wheel

and no one able to drive

between towns , from carnival to still spot

where ever we could

pitch tents and trailers

and set up Ferris wheels that

would rattle against a

large scowling moon

hovering over

Modesto and Turlock

on dry August nights

when dollars are

grimy with mung from

many a farmer’s and mechanic’s hand,

power chords slice through

the speakers, destroy the cracked dashboard,

your face is slapped

with a power not your own,

it comes down to something

that’s a secret that even The Judge

won’t cop to it before he lowers his voice,

“The beat goes on,

the beat goes on,

the beat goes on,

the beat goes on…”

We can do better

this far away

from our past,

we have something

we’ve turned toward,

a light in eyes, a sun

that shines a light

those blades of

grass and long

stemmed flowers lean toward

even when clouds

and the stammer of fire eating transistors

sizzling from car windows distort the

image in the minds’ eye,

I see a city where we come

and plant our feet on lawns

where we can sit

and plant in turn

new seeds, ideas

of a future worth having,

Let’s lean into the sun,

into the sun,

ride bicycles into the sun

on the road that becomes

a ribbon around the

heart of the world.