Category Archives: poem

Man, City, Sky

a similar feeling
of sky darkening and quickening breath

outside clouds gather and puff their chests
as if to say with a roar
I am here
outside the smell of rain perfumes my lungs
and soon thunder drives
dangerously close

tires grip the Jones Falls
that last turn
underpass by Penn Station and
the sculpture of woman and man as one

the feeling you get
right after the city skyline opens
and there skin prickles, shivers
waits
a storm a man
a city that boasts many
dangerous charms.

Vegas Tattoo Blues

Admittedly, this one is a tad* dark (written several years ago, revised today) but I imagine some of you who’ve have spent too much time thinking in Vegas like I have may understand the concept….

Vegas Tattoo Blues

Brown carpet is a
worn threadbare path
rough against my arches.

False air blows brown curtains
cooly, such a drag.

My hands so slim and tender
are steady.

Despite the night,
that mascara running, fishnet talking,
suited pusher, blinking neon,
jackpot empty promise of a night.
It stings.

Pills help, booze too
but nothing compares to this.

My eyes bead with water
like the rows of cars on
Las Vegas Boulevard, every
solitary mark belongs.

I gaze out the window.
Casinos blink approval
and bloat their bellies full
of quarters.

Portrait of Baltimore on a Rainy Day Rush Hour

Sitting in pouring rain
Cars like mine wait for their turn in the
Fort McHenry tunnel

We are worn out in our cells—
Outside the city
Wistfully waits for us
To find a speck of beauty in
That otherwise dreary face.

Around me smoke stacks make their way
Through low weeping clouds
And piles of salt and coal and dirt
Seem like shadowy mountains
And the train tracks are run with weeds
The buildings are rusted
Their windows cracked like the dim twinkle
In the eyes of a man
Who works hard for his family.

We are stubborn, strong,
And the steel is in our veins.

dreaming of Turkey

Today my head is in the clouds. I’m hoping that all this day-dreaming leads to something productive but I remain doubtful. This, below, just had to be jotted down before my caffeine-adled brain skips to another beat….[and if you have ideas for how I can actually get to Turkey, write me!] By the way, ever noticed how some of the most interesting people in the world aren’t the ones writing it down. Man, I wish some of these people would write their stories down!!

dreaming of Turkey

people like
you and me
we don’t need plans
we need dreams
of Turkey
and my hair unwashed
from days on a dusty bus
imagine old buildings
from that cradle of all cities
born, first we see the colors
then the people
their faces familiar despite
miles and years of difference.

Just another Tuesday on Eastern Avenue

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.

Working in Spring

I am in a cave,
walls slimed with apathy—
Outside’s topped 80 degrees and the trees are whistling
while they work at blooming, and
the fat groundhog plays
landscape architect with the grounds.

In my cave, there is a small hole
way above my head,
not unlike a prison window,
And in through it drips drops
of sun and smells of fresh cut grass;
I can taste the world turning into another season
even if I can’t see it.

Goes to show
The universe will begin and end
unaffected by my
work.