Invisible collisions of star
and star create electric-tar,
swallow acres
of galaxy from one
violent stone into another.
Like dust particles
and their pixie explosions,
we shed these stars:
pieces of gold
thimbles of sky.
One by one, and magically
another, finer than grass
we combust.
We burn in this fire
our thick bundles of papers--
ink dissolving with wasted thought.
And it scares me to think
how many ideas dissipate in sleep,
in reverie.
for Rock
We have tiny quarrels,
around 1 or 2pm, when
the simmering clouds begin
to boil. I'll shift weight in my seat
while you go on about it all.
In the evenings we enjoy a fire
and our small company.
We'll tire of tea and find new
inspiration in the bottle,
everything becomes reflection,
revision-- the forgetfulness
of living.
Discussing the lamp shade,
first drafts of long
distance poetry,
where we're going to go.
I've spent so much time
with you today, you
who should have become
bothersome by now.
Only once I've seen
my father weep
and kiss my mother
on her cheek--
You were there
all dressed up,
your casket
like a chariot
swinging peacefully
off to battle.
Every night we lie awake in your bed,
facing each other, looking,
with the urgency of cocaine addicts,
our eyes- smoldering red traffic lights
on opposite sides of the intersection
daring the others to turn green.
Before I grab your hair, soft as green
September grass, before the bed
sheets tangle like drunkards at an intersection,
before skin feels skin, before looking
at your face one last time under fluorescent lights,
my fingernails digging into you like recovering addicts,
right before I surrender my lips to their parallel addicts,
before the sun melts into the moon behind the green
and red of the sunset out the window, before the lights
dim with the horizon, the shadows on the bed
go with the dusk, the intensity of the darkness and looking
at you is too much, before our bodies find their intersection,
there is this perfect moment. The intersection
of our thoughts, the way addicts
know other addicts just by looking
into their eyes, the understanding that green
means go, that this bed
is our vehicle, our flashing breaths- its headlights.
Do you remember how my lights
took so long to change at that first intersection?
How I never touched you all those nights in your bed,
your stare burning through the back of my head into the attics
of my selfish mind? Do you remember the green
in your brown eyes when you knew I wasn't looking?
Forget those moments. There's no looking
back. Nothing matters but this moment now. It's ours, and it lights
the room from black, to white, to green,
and back to black again. It's the blinking yellow at an intersection
on a cold, dead night, and the tormented addict's
overdue suicide. It's ours, until the shadows reclaim the bed.
Like not looking both ways at an intersection,
ignoring red lights, befriending hitchhikers and drug addicts.
All the colors sink to green, there is nothing before or after this bed.
Think of the brain:
glorified, vulnerable--
a snowy field
without footprints,
a glass bell hanging
in the library.
We've forgotten the palms,
the soles, the lips, the eyelids.
Victims of air,
of calloused mistake --
these are the doers, the knowers.
For to know is to try,
to touch every page, to stroll barefoot
through clean snow,
the bat of the eye,
to have kissed you.
When the glass bell tolls,
it shatters, delicately, and
everyone looks up to stare. See!
The brain is not for knowing, but
for remembering.
Nearing November now,
sweet Julia, are you still
biting your nails?
The tea has become
interesting to study--
the charcoal of your face,
dusting cold off the page.
Oh Julia, my mind's
not right, is yours?
Are you up with your birds
too worried for words,
for weather, this time?
Let us drink tea again,
let me draw you while
you draw me now. Smile,
Julia, I want to sketch
those wrinkles around
your tilted eyes.
I feel like a pocket
turned inside out, caught
empty-handed
outside of its pants.
And those earrings--
were a gift.
my Mexican novio,
straight out of Mexico City.
we dated for the second week
of my two-week vacation,
we got naked and rolled
around in bed downstairs
he was no bueno at kissing
i thought i might lose my virginity
to him, then i thought no,
i'm pretty sure i shouldn't
lose it to a Mexican.
tomato, potato
i spoke english to him,
he spoke spanish to me
we understood each other
sometimes, but we tried not to do things
that involved talking
we mostly just made out.
some nights we'd go with friends to the local pool hall,
held hands down the cobblestones,
one time we went ATVing
i drove, he couldn't understand
the concept of shifting gears.
he showed me what to do if i got held up in the street
you say, soy tuya.
that's it, you say i'm yours and they take your money
and you don't get shot.
he put his finger-gun to my head
say, soy tuya
i said it, we made out for a little
and kept walking
he slept over the night before i left
i had a really early flight.
when it was time to go,
i was squirming like i was ready to fuck
he had bad breath per usual
he begged and begged:
no quiero que te vayas!
we made out
okay bye
I stayed
out too late
because of him.
Because I was thinking
about you.
The triangle is
the strongest shape,
like Father like Son like Holy
for PHB
It's about a boy who was raised by lions and tigers
in the jungle, all his life knowing nothing other than ultimate
intimacy with the natural world. One day, when bored and
wandering, he finds himself on the outskirts of the jungle, intrigued
by the stream of sunlight peeking through the outer-most layer
of vegetation, beckoning to him with its luring aroma of unknown
territory. The light sucks at his eyes, as though magnetized, and
his feet loyally follow, under the same trance, bringing him to
the other side. Stepping out into wide open spaces - he points
toward the horizon, it's flecked with tiny buffalo (to us, this
scene might resemble a picturesque postcard on which someone has
sneezed chocolate). The jungle boy is confused out in the open,
for growing up in the jungle's tight, crowded quarters, he is
unable to perceive such depth of field. The buffalo out here
are the size of ants, how strange, this big world, how
impossible! Satisfied, the boy turns, laughing, steps back into the jungle.
I
Painters are creative,
they say, novelists,
even architects. You,
Becca. You write poems,
you're the creative one.
II
There is a tragedy.
Ice crackling, lonely
sticks stuck in ice falling
like frozen birds
from these dying trees.
Please, somebody tell me,
what is creativity, if not
the ability
to put pearls on a string?
III
I shiver.
Bundled on the porch,
admiring my thick breath,
that solitary lamppost,
an orange twilight.
This sky will create snow.
I say it aloud,
This sky will create! Brother
Sister, Mother, Father:
listen. There is a noise.
I write for you, and the trees
will live again with spring.
Thoughts of Sophia come
like mosquitoes after a rain storm --
the compost pile ripens and I'm
finally writing down what I've been trying
to ignore. Feels like home,
but you're here -- what is it
to long for someone who sleeps beside me?
New bites adulterate our bodies, we scratch,
we break skin, and Sophia's
mother tells you she's still counting the days until
you love Sophia again.
My shadow doubles
like a rainbow across a puddle
in the driveway -- guests are fashionably late.
I look to my right and the trees turn black
against a faded sky -- there could be stars.
Airplane tail-lights
flash through a far off cloud, invisible
passengers smiling, waving.
I wonder, does Sophia look the same
on land as she does in the air?
I might not know a starling from
a mockingbird, but you don't know this:
Sometimes the sound of your voice
makes me want to eat cigarettes.
Eat and chew and show you
the crunched contents of my mouth.
Be flattered. You're foolish to think
I don't love you, to believe
this is replaceable. Addiction:
Is it really so wrong? Do I smell bad?
Consider being considerate,
for once. If love takes time,
what does time take? More
time? An empty suitcase?
Yes, and a hotel room
and a cheap alarm clock in my ear
that only turns on when I sleep.
Wake up! You torture me.
So spare us, dismiss me. We
are rotting, with the broken
umbrella under this sour porch.
I wanted you to call when you didn't,
you called when I didn't want you.
Go ahead, blame me, tell my mother--
it's all the same. But when it passes,
think of the silence in your absence.
Think of that candle, sex molten pulse
on our bedside table, snuffed
in its prime. I'm fine if you are.
Silly whiskey. Glass
breaking like dominoes,
but don't worry
it isn't the whiskey.
Just watch it happen. Play
those games, wind.
My moon is piss test yellow
tonight, so what.
Someone's got to
take the fall for everybody else:
the son of god, autumn,
Bukowski. Tonight, it's my turn.
But don't worry,
just watch it happen.
Daybreak and Jake
is ready for school.
Screen door slaps
Jake makes his way
to the car. Mother follows
looking down. Sad eyes
widen, a creeping omen
at their feet,
the snake.
Mother screams
Jake looks down,
smiles.
The snake slides
between his sneakers.
Mother calls the dog
and grabs the rake.
Together, mother and dog
slaughter the snake-
the teeth of the rake
then those of the dog,
they take turns.
Jake cries, he weeps,
Mother looks up.
For heaven's sake, what Jake,
what makes Jake cry?
Mother reaches for Jake,
Jake pulls away.
That snake, Jake wails,
that snake.
It could have been
somebody's mother.
It never occurred to me
to look on the other side
of the street, into that car,
to inspect everyone on
the elevator, in the subway.
It never occurred to me
that I might find you finding
me and that we might be
wearing the same clothing,
have the same part in our hair.
It never occurred to me
that you hadn't occurred
to me and I may never
occur to you, but you
occurred to me today,
when I swore I saw Mitchell
driving someone else's car.
He was smiling at nothing,
then red light turned green.
It was a Tuesday morning and the bird shit on the top of my pack of cigarettes suggested that a bird had shat on my pack of cigarettes.
This, I thought, must be a sign.
That afternoon, I shared a handicap loveseat on the subway with a fashionable, thirty-something woman.
I figured, why not tell her the shit story, why not have a warm moment with a fellow human-being? Maybe she could use it later, say, to show off at a cocktail party:
"...I assure you it was a female. Obviously not a New Yorker," she'd boast, the Chardonnay kissing the rim of her glass with each emphatic gesture. Whatever.
As expected, after telling her my story and showing her the dried shit on my cigarettes (it must be a sign), she darted her eyes about the train car for several moments, visibly uncomfortable that I had the gumption to address her on the subway.
In the end, she said nothing. She pursed her lips and stared down at our feet.
I didn't mind. I turned back to myself, settled into the seat, and imagined the two of us, right then, praying side-by-side in an empty church somewhere - I for her, and she for her mother, or maybe for rain -
when suddenly, she erupted from our subway seat as a filthy, New York pigeon. Swooping down, she perched on my shoulder, and murmured, to everyone, "I'm Sorry."
alone, walking by
my ex-lover's place
is like coming
upon a playground at night
the red slide glowing
in blank moonlight,
the monkey bars
darker in the shadows
the swing creaking
as though it was
just barely dismounted,
its novelty lost
Somewhere, a man is
undressing in front of a mirror - his
butter skin, carved with wrinkles,
blood, green and swelling inside
wormy veins. His cold lips, deflating
as their stale breath drains out from
his eyes, and I've been sitting in my
study for hours, not writing, just staring.
First at the air, then the dust, then at my
drinking glass, which is empty but for
a few kindred ice cubes at the bottom,
silently growing into water.
I don't know you
you don't know me but I never have to
wonder what the snow looks like
in a sunken New England sun
because I already know -
the things we put into our heads stay
there forever - it's pink when it's fresh
as if it wasn't ready to be fallen
you died in Chicago on a Saturday night
while I lay sleeping
and we all came to see you off-
you should have seen your father
well done, son, he kept saying
job well done
we were all there to see you off
but I wonder and to wonder is to lose -
if we cut into you
would you be pink the white snow
what's a poet
to do when
her lover writes
her a love poem?
I don't want to hurt you
but your tense here
is wrong
your last stanza
fizzles and
what is a pleura?
here I am
workshopping your love for me
and for what?
a revision?
Death is the mother of beauty.
--Wallace Stevens
every time she
goes to look
in the mirror
she's expecting to
see her seventeen
year old face
but if death
is the mother
of all beauty-
mom turned fifty
four on sunday
she made blueberry
blintzes we drank
fine champagne and
I laid her
body naked on
the bathroom floor
spreading my fingers
over her skin
learning each wrinkle
scar and regret
how beautiful she
was she is
she will be-
I was sober that night, straight as Sunday.
My proud father's house burned down to the ground,
Midnight on my sister's sixteenth birthday.
Old wood succumbed to fresh, flaming waylay,
Wild wind smothering thick smoke without sound.
I was sober that night, straight as Sunday,
Deafened by sleep- a breath-thickened hallway-
While the house swam in flames, soon to be drowned.
Midnight on my sister's sixteenth birthday,
Ashes painted the late-August sky gray,
Buried prized fortunes that never were found,
I was sober that night, straight as Sunday.
After the fire, the whole house burned away,
A skeleton hunched on a black background.
Midnight on my sister's sixteenth birthday-
It was my fault, I lit those candles wind-way,
My father in tears, his ship run aground.
I swear I was sober, straight as Sunday,
The night of my sister's sixteenth birthday.
Yes, the air is clean. Yes,
It's warm and wide.
Yes, the door is latched. Yes,
The dog's inside.
Yes, your father loves you. Yes,
Your lover might.
Yes, you can go left. Yes,
You should go right.
Yes, the road is open. Yes,
Your eyes are closed.
Yes, this is the way. Yes,
Yes, yes, sings the quiet echo.
And when you reach the break
At the top of that first hill,
Yes, Snake Mountain will
Spread out before you. Yes,
Kayhartt Farms will be there,
As will Sunset View.
Yes, the grain will sway and bend,
Waving goodbye all over again.
