Sending poetry to the world
1-800-Jesus
on a bus billboard
silently tells my old man,
outside the Burger King,
that the halfway house can
snap a heroin needle in half.
But my old man
was too busy
picking dirt from his nails
drinking from a bag
chewing his bottom lip.
My old man was
in a dirty argyle sweater,
just another on a bench
that sizzled in the heat
like a dying
cigarette,
like singed fingertips
black with ash.
Day after day, I have these cheap wood
Tables and chairs,
The constant chatter of
Two women, both wearing the same
Grey of the winter sky
And the one man
Sitting curled in a brown leather arm chair
In the very back, under a brightly lit
“Firehouse Coffee Co.” sign.
I don’t imagine that he is waiting for
A simple letter like I am.
Too intense, he is more like the stares of
Those painted black eyes of the Blues Brothers
Who sit and greet all us caffeine addicts. Or the
Strangely blank face of the firefighter on the pole
Who is forever a stationary decoration to this house.
He never looks up, which makes his features
Resemble now the bleak abstract
Paintings of the great Baltimore fire, smoke
Ash, soot, and still he never
Looks up at me; he does, however, take a small sip.
No, no, forget my previous thoughts,
This man in the corner is not any of these,
He is a government spy,
A landscaper,
A dock worker at the Canton port,
A philosopher and student of Keats.
He is a muse to all of us waiting on a letter.
The man’s gnarled hands
fingered his coat collar absentmindedly
and pulled it close to block
the relentless cold March wind
his back curled over slightly
and what had been immaculate posture
fell to gravity and weight of years.
Secrets loves wars won and lost
the battles that were never his to
fight and die for. He, without regret, considered
himself dead since his return
thirty-seven years ago.
The park bench dug into his jeans
with splinters. The man dug his hands
into a snack bag of Cheetos, lightly
devouring and sucking off the cheese
from his fingers. Across the way
a squirrel tenaciously nibbled a nut
and the whole of the park groaned beneath
another gust of March wind.
Satisfied momentarily, he lifted his head, back
still bent. Dogs, babies, people all
were walking by, trees heavy with blossoms
drooped towards the ground, and
ducks circled aimlessly in the man-made pond.
Above them all on Hamstead Hill
the pagoda glimmered with a light that
seemed to shine from the inside. With
respect, Union ghosts let the man
disappear into the park bench with
a contented sigh.
stoop sittin in sunshine
sloppy around the corner
book imprints my legs
burning with the last rays
of a day long in leisure
fantasy of characters
creaking shuffles of people
with no cares for me or my blues
so I’d rather stoop sit
glancing occasionally to see
a puff of luck caught in a sidewalk
a piece of trash gleaming
the cool marble on my hands
when I lean back to stretch,
glancing occasionally to see
a car, and then you, your braids,
your brown skin, your turn
to take another street.
In Fells,
her hair in short braids and
shaved sides
popular on boys in the 80s,
she stands
in the humidity that wraps
around her baggy shorts,
rolled socks, under a street lamp
that drenches her tie dye Dead shirt—
She is singing
“will it go round in circles”
guitars follow “will it fly high like
a bird up in the sky”
and the drums inside
remind me of the late hour.
She looks pleased on the cobblestones.
Her Robert Johnson voice
sings this valedictory song
to no one in particular.
This street is walked by 2,
in busted sneakers that let
muddy water leak slowly into
socks with a stain.
They turn a corner;
brick juts out and protects
their faces from any approaching
rats in the alleys.
Guns in their back pockets.
A car without headlights
swerves close. Stops.
2 take a hit and a bit of cash,
tip their hands upward,
continue to creep along the
lining of the night.
One more… this one less about Zach, more about the city, how violence is weaved into our consciousness until we believe it is natural, normal, and beyond our control.
Vultures
I peek between blinds dusty
On my fingers, nails,
Black with dirt; I watch through slits
The blood from kick after kick
A head on a curb, dirty with
City grime and lost hope and fury.
A body curled fetal around a tire
Desperate to stop the pain.
I close the blinds
With a quick clip of my fingers,
Flip my cell and make an anonymous call.
I sit on a ratty couch and drink
A cheap beer and think of the time
I saw a vulture
Eat the eye of a dead sea turtle,
the smell forcing my eyes
To take another direction and leave the bird
Alone with its dinner.
It’s been two and a half years since a friend of mine was attacked in Baltimore a block from his house and a few blocks from where I was living at the time. His name was Zach Sowers, and the brutal attack from three teenagers sent him into a coma from which he would never return. It was a time of immense emotion, waiting, upheaval, anger that rippled across the city, thanks to Anna (his wife’s) tireless efforts to affect change in a city so adverse to it. This profoundly experienced the way I view the city, and the way I view life. You can read the full story at http://www.zachsowers.com/. I wrote more than a few poems throughout the time. These are two.
9 months
At 27,
I was walking home from the bars
late, to the house, to my wife of nine months, to our dog,
and then there were shadowy figures and darkness.
The pain was intense. I floated above myself
for nine long months, waiting. Then the pain disappeared.
The waiting is over. I’m with my ancestors
and my heart beats on
in the breast of my wife.
(RIP Zach 3/25/08)
Decision
You vomited blood like coffee grounds.
And I read these words
of an unexpected setback
in a quiet office that overlooks a long hall.
I wonder
about the statistical chances of God
existing to send you
a miracle; weighing the prayers of those around me
against all of that
Existential philosophy.
Later on tonight,
when I’m sleeping, I expect to see you in my dreams.
I expect you to say,
“Cheer up. It’s my decision.
I’ll either walk the hall back to you
or I’ll go the other way.”
In the dim light of Chipparelli’s restaurant
tucked in a busy corner of Little Italy,
we sit at a small table,
red tablecloth with white cloth napkins,
and a warm glowing candle,
reflecting in silver forks, knives, spoons,
another year of family tradition.
I realize that my parents are just
a man and a woman. Two people
with past lives and younger faces.
They retell a story
and I can see vividly their first date:
my dad with two plates of spaghetti
he worked so hard to make
for my mom waiting patiently
in their private Italian restaurant
and that sudden slight nervous trip
to send both dinners straight
to the shag carpet with a splat.
We pass the fresh baked bread.
My dad dives into his usual lasagna,
and my mom begins her usual manicotti,
and I turn in my spaghetti for
some exotic dish I’ve never heard of.
I twirl my pasta.
Before me, my parents, two souls I love.
Before them, a little girl in pigtails
drinking Chianti.
Collapsing darkness,
the kind that singes like a dying cigarette.
Orange
streetlights
smoldering
at the end of the block
in a city that seems to have eyes in the back of
its scheming
hard head. It has plans for you—
Did you ever think that
you, that effervescent infectious
set of arms and legs, those
legs that go
on
and on,
could be here? In a back alley,
where rats crawl
and sirens slowly drown your voice.
Hush without pity, touch gently
the wall, another brick in
ephemeral
hope;
only the rats escape with
a snitch and a rotten crumb
of gouda that
your neighbor no longer wanted.
There is no succor.
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