God is a hoarder
Piles us up like so many
newspapers or cats or
other items that mortals collect
Has a compulsion to keep even
us degenerate,
withering souls
thinking one day,
some day,
this just may be worth something…
Sending poetry to the world
God is a hoarder
Piles us up like so many
newspapers or cats or
other items that mortals collect
Has a compulsion to keep even
us degenerate,
withering souls
thinking one day,
some day,
this just may be worth something…
and in a sky powdered blue
it appears a child has fingerpainted
a relief of lines breathed into life
by those traveling
like the eyes still blue of a doll baby
looking for those leaving and
those coming screaming back to
the arms of their lovers
waiting outside looking up and up
lines powered white like lips smacking
sugary and sure, guilty
like a child caught painting on the walls.
no longer even a specter,
your memory has lost edges the way
a dried tear evaporates back into nothing
edges become a mist
elemental, invisible, and
while i no longer recognize you
icy hands move the hair from my eyes
while sleep alone steals time.
the rain forms a veil for
my mourners
even the streetlights bow
orange tears
down to the harbor like the
first borns
who, for their sex, are set free
down river
relentless in their pursuit —
they, so stealth, bait
us with doubt, claw us with question.
it’s not enough to simply wake,
brush teeth and hair,
and sit calmly legs folded in the jungle.
the tiger waits, whispering, “you are all
too slow and too tubby and
too perfect to eat.”
and in a sunken corner of the coffee shop
the man dark slumped over and buttoned
bottom to brim in black, stares at her
in ankle boots with such a heel, tapping.
In a fractured instance he appears
to her a tired blues man, a fortune folk teller,
and all around them the caffeinated air hums…
hangs all glitter and shine
in the closet,
some of us wear it
as proudly as a real Gucci purse
notice how this year
these lights outshine
notice how this year
i take not one step for you
she says to the Wall
“if you only knew me
you would let me free”
Wall says in counter
“i know every position
you choose to sleep,
i know the way you tap
your leg when you are anxious
like now –
aren’t these things
the sum of you?”
she curls her feet over
her legs and sighs.
pour me a glass
of Domaine champagne
pairs well
with a faux fur coat
stilettos, nothing else –
you’ve got a guitar slung
low, singing Stills,
chasing the light as it
dims down low, oh,
just the way we like it.
and the bike lane takes me around the
belly of the city
business suits walk by
staring and moving
identical parts
then there is this man
playing trumpet
and only the lapping harbor gives
a hand.
bike wheels squeal, delighted around the turn
oh how the city shines
like a girl preening in the mirror.