Slate -> The Fray -> Poems#62915

Slate -> The Fray -> Poems#62915: "Wild Card
Dirt under cuticles and
motorcycles coughing
to a start
and the way I start
thinking
hours ahead in the week
is all I need
to add pounds to my load
and the gravity
of all worry.
She loves me and I love her not
But
I get knots
in my stomach when lunch
is discussed
and this leads me to think
of prayer and meditation
that the bombing
will stop,
my jokes , that is,
the hammering stammer
of banter
that desires utopia
and the role of a saint,
the fastest disguise
down the fire escape.
On some days the bravest thing I do
is climb out of bed
and breath
before
the brain is aware that
there is light in the world again, the planet has finished a rotation,
to breath deep
in a room with out signature aroma
and become Hemingway
for mere seconds
for the love of attempted haiku
he breathed the air into
his lungs and it was cold and crisp
and good ...'‘
and then shower ,shave
and plot
all the victories that will be mine
like pink slips to expensive cars,
mine like bankrolls of stiff,paper cut twenties,
mine like a solo at the peak of the day,
mine like this laundry
and dishes
that say have anyway you want,
but have it done before sundown ,
or get outta town."

GOOD FOR YOU

The nature of things
in the cold they cannot hear

the near human groan of the pipes,
tap water courses through

the veins of the house,
and nothing comes clean and

nothing makes sense and only
the dirt gathers interests

‘though there’s nothing engaging
about it, it’s a revolution on kitchen floors
with scuffed, slippery tile when trips

to the coffee maker
are spasms of what won’t

get done in a hurry or at all
lest the world conclude its business



and the crisp spring air cascades
through the house in swirls

like lithe, perfumed lace,through the screen door
that slides no more

and is always ajar
when a door is not room you can’t

walk into (say “mush) ,
getting sentimental over dishes and knives, forks and orts
as they are beheld months before

you’ll seen them again
as the layer of grime

that is gelled and congealed
on the tile floor

that contains generations of
dirt and dust, smashed ants,

notes to the milk man, indentations

from the heels of leather shoes
and sneakers, that bald remainder
that things get-dirty again
no matter how hard you



press your knees to the floor,
amazing, isn’t,
how utterly strange
that scrubbing pad feels in your hand,

trails of dull, lute warn water
running up your wrist
to your elbow,

where the water
gathers in
a pool that defies gravity
until the weight is too much

and it must let go
one drip at a time?

I See the Moon

Kate, a young girl edging up on two years old, said her first complete sentence the other week, "I see the moon". I thought, "Wonderful".
I see the moon
has a face
covered in ashes,
he reads under the covers
with a flashlight
made of dawn.
The moon is what I see
when my eyes are closed
and the stars
swirl in circles
around the edge
where the ocean
teases the shore,
the moon clears his eyes,
his smile lights up the water to the sand.
I awake to the sun
pouring daylight
in my heavy, swollen eyes,
every beam of light
a baton that taps
the window sill
to strike up the band.
Birds, bicycle bells,
low voices from boxes serious as salt,
the moon has vanished over the horizon,
the moon has gone to sleep,
the moon has pulled
a hill side over his face
and dreams of clear, dark skies
and the night song of small things
and all things in between.

SWOLLEN LIP TO DRUM WITH FORE FINGER

More gifts than speech fail me,
more lies than flies cling
to the static embrace of
the couch I sit on,
attempting drum solos along the
faded arm to the
rhythm of chattering teeth.

All movement suggests turns
of phrase that is exactly what 1'm thinking.

Only smoke comes from
my mouth and stammering
punctuates the coughing.

It's as if you've been
with me since the
start of time,
and that may be true:
my heart stops when your hand reaches into
your pocket book
to withdraw a pencil,
my watch stops and the hands on the
dial match the hands on my face
feeling for weaknesses in
the mask of cool, and, yeah,
a swollen lip
to drum
with forefinger
and blistered thumb.

There's more than my throat
I wish I could clear,
you're looking at
me in feline squints
that left claw marks
in the gap between our call and response.

My understanding of
what's happening is so complete and
subtle that it’s as meaningless
as bricked windows
and it makes
you looking confused while I confess
that I smoke when you're not around,
that professional wrestling is my passion,
that your legs make the history books
every time you get out
of car seat.

What I'm babbling about is
the poets' disease
of turning experience into stanzas
and arranging ironies in an order that
produces sighs like leaks in which
each emotion finds expression
in every bump in the road that
the flat tire drives over,
life gets lumpy like a
a plate of rocks a the breakfast table

--but oh, but shit, here's what I really see,
what dithering keeps me from, your lips, soft?
full bloom crimson crescent
under the exact pertness of your nose
pointing up whispering yes
along a frayed sting of desire
to the unknown land
of your eyes
clear as prayers in storybook churches
as they gaze back along the stretches and coastlines
of love that exists only
in the permanent promise of empty fields,

My eyes are soothed
by the cascades of twirled hair,
a bonfire mane that pours over your face
like curtains obscuring
a beautiful room I suddenly want to enter, your lips,
that is, I want to kiss, your neck I want to stroke,
hands tracing the lines of my back with fingertips and palms while my hands are likewise exploring the depth of your breathing against
my skin as they smooth down the lines of your back to your waist, I want to smell your hair and have my stubble get
caught in it like a stamp on a letter, refusing
to let me go, I guess this is my letter to tell you what the stammering is trying to disguise.

That is, would you like to start something neither of us has to finish?

Apartment

As knives rest in their
block of sieved wood
and spoons lay along side
cups full of hot, simmering tea

cops are busy at the curb with
a driver whose haste and fast turns
against lights, around pedestrians
gets him stopped cold by the demand of

swirling read lights, a voice on a microphone
goes deep for grit and growls, somewhere boogie- woogie piano
music drifts in from an open window, car horns and church bells
sing together in off cadences,

the shelves are stuffed with legal papers
and plastic glasses.

Knives rust as they rest in the wood,
the tea takes on the taste of the metal chain
that the strainer dangles in the cup from,
an insane dictator makes a speech to countrymen

wielding a shot gun that he’ll fire into the air,
maybe shooting at a passing flock of doves,
this is what the newspapers say, what the
talk shows prove, middle aged men with grey hair

waving their fingers at one another, clearing their throats,
the cops hand the driver a ticket, the swirling red light
careens off the front porches of the neighborhood,
there is no home to drink the tea,

no one left to take the knives to make a sandwich
with loafs of bread all partially eaten,
a refrigerators’ worth of bachelor eating,
mailmen have only the addresses given them
until the numbers change, or the building is destroyed,

it’s Pearl Harbor everyday.

flu

not years after tears
fallen over ash

nor days of malaise
after counting the cash

keeps this head buried
under arms
flat on the desk

as if in grade school
during a drill of some kid,

eyes peeking through
fingers attempting a glimpse

of enemy wing tip
seeding the sky with parachutes

that would blossom and foretell
bad fortune,

the trees were bare
and the sky looked grey, cold,

I cough and go through tissues
and wrestle with issues
in a greased, electric fever,
there is no lever
at the base of the bed
to open the trap door,

there is no trap door,
there is no switch
to lower the heat,

nothing is so neat
as simple things
adding up to
a theory of history
and forecast of
events no one imagines
in their waking life,

the land of sleep
is humid
with rumors
that another morning comes
all the same

if were all the same to me,

one strand of light
and then another
through the slatted blinds,

the limbs have all their leaves,
the rooftops are soaked in sunlight,

another box of tissue
and a bad taste
on the tongue tell me
this morning

"here I am again".

What you cannot see

We would all believe in God
if he were handing out candy bars
from a bag that even His long hand
could touch the bottom of,

We might all smoke the same cigarettes
if our lungs would last

a thousand years of deep woodsy drags
and long harmonica renditions
of Bird's serpentine serenades,

Guns would be allowed in churches
if Jesus were a wanted man in Rio,

Maybe the sound
of traffic would
be flute music
and dialogues starting with
"Please" and "Thank you"
if we could buy more time
like it were bandwidth
or an empty store next door
we could lease,

But I go on instead
with the meanest of expectations
about what the neighborhood
has planned for me,
my foot hardly hits the first step
from the porch
when a cell phone
makes noises like
water flushing down deep pipes
and the woman answers it,
brings it to her ear and
begins to speak at a volume that
would make Satan bang on the
ceiling with every witch's broom
he could find,

Every other son and daughter
of an imperfect marriage
between heaven and hell
yakking it up with all their hand gestures
even though there is no
in front of them,
speaking loudly short of yelling
with every move they could bust
because what they can't see
cannot be disproved
and who or which might
beat them up or steal
their seats at the cafes,
grim thoughts that make
the five dollar coffee drink
in front of them
taste flat as cans
that have just met
a the back tire of a
a really big truck.