Category Archives: poem

to you in Bulgaria

Thinking more about paths that I might have taken…. One was a writing trip to Bulgaria. I didn’t go~ for a variety of reasons. That’s the thing about paths not taken. There is always a complex variety of reasons for choosing one over the other (yet we still talk of destiny and fate, how does that fit in?). A million synapses that add up to say, let’s go this way instead….

[It’s like those “choose your own adventure books” although in those I always cheated and left my hand in place to quickly rescind any poor decision].

To you in Bulgaria

Write for me,
oh you in the land of roses
across the great ocean and in the sun.

Write for me,
oh you sedulous student of words,

Write for me,
who stands in high heels dug in
by a bricolage of complex inhibitions—

But wait,

maybe there is next year
in London! A revenant carrying roses,
I come back to you.

I see us then
under the great wheel,
drunk on the ale of white space and
cheering the accomplishments of
26 characters speaking in accents.

Ursula (in Fells Point)

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.

Deal (hustlings in a Baltimore back alley)

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.

never mix hawking and kerouac and coffee

is it
the Jeff Buckley or the Hawking?
or the coffee or the Kerouac?
making my mind
alight brighter than the pregnancy
of a rain sky
seeing clearer all these
coffee shop signs marketing to me:
billboards singing,
“lover
you should have
come over”

what is it about
Mondays? is it space time
or caffeine
saying to me
if you could do it again
you would ~
and don’t believe it otherwise.

people come,
they go,
outside to smoke
while I wait with my books.

I heard in a movie of
a man
eating an ice cream cone
for every book he finished reading ~
and he became fat.

is it the Kerouac
or the Hawking?
is it the tedious reliving of
a day
after a day
after?

each is the same. but either way,
the grey sky is bright
and alight
with the heaving breast of
possibility.

Domesticity (pasta cooked past al dente)

Now quiescent words
Between us—
Earlier it was all howling shouts
Starting those
Angry tears that I hate so much.
Shaking, shaking,
A sapling expecting to survive a hurricane…

Then, what was it
About the way I was standing
Spoon in hand like a weapon,
The water boiling over and creating a hiss?
What was it that made you deflate faster
Than me reaching over and
Turning off the burner?

Now, silence,
We sip wine and
Eat pasta cooked a minute
Past al dente.

Voyeurs are Artists (in southern California)

There, a girl,
thin, in a light black sweater,
green suit bottoms,
legs bare.

She forms
an “O” with her body.
Her arms twisted comfortably,
her head tilted
in
to
her subject.

A shutter clicking
soft
against the backdrop of
waves, and
she
moves into another contortion,
into another
frame of
photographic art.

We, in southern California,
are artists
covered in sand.

Dreaming hour

Upon the late hour,
the fog and mist settles in and tucks my bones
into a soft sense of belonging
so I may sleep at once.
But no sooner do I close my eyes
then fantastical bright lights,
the colors that used to dress my body and flow through
my veins and out the cuts in my arms,
are dancing off into some distant masquerade.
In one scene
cutting through the fog that is now a sea
a shark is there.
And he moves so carelessly to and fro
gently cutting the waves. Suddenly he is by me
my hair extended in a hello, and
with an understanding, he passes.

Confessions (on a rainy day)

Driving rain on the skylight makes perfect music for reading. Have Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and Kerouac’s Book of Blues and I’m not sure that it is such a great idea to read them at the same time…..

Anyways, a confession.

Confessions

What I wanted—
This writhing naked soul.

You, the ancient samurai,
Split in half with your guts spilling
With a sense of duty.

What I thought I wanted was
This blank admission.

You, as a great artist,
Throwing paint in heated frenzy. Desperate
Through the mess to speak.

You, as a lover,
Throwing your arms around mine
And lifting me up, and up,
until.

What I need now—
A quiet meditation,
a hushed whisper and time to think.

Finding an Old Master: Leaves of Grass (The Deathbed Edition from 1900)

One of the coolest books I’ve ever held in my arms, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass from 1900, publisher David McCay. Found when going through my grandparents’ and great aunt’s things. How many have felt that same spark when holding it. Sigh.

Finding an Old Master

The smell of dust, dirt,
years of basement trappings
wafts to my nose
and surprises my brain.
The book heavy in my arms,
the spine aches
when I turn the pages.
It is old but prescient.

With its age it realizes
many things–
among them
a collection of dewy sighs
and fingerprints, some ghostly,
settle into my own
and together us pioneers
continue the story.