poetry – Page 52 – Press Send Poetry

Becoming Alexander Supertramp

From the lower 48,
(like me)
from a bustling city
of crime and hustle
and modern wants
it seems that Alaska
has an allure like
cold mercury, it
seeps into the blood
and changes you physically.
Mentally you’re a mess–
you think of nothing else
you want nothing more
than one more hit of
sky, mountain, water,
clean expanse of land
hard living that involves
back breaking work
a daily struggle to survive and
when you walk off, you go alone
one small pack, sturdy boots,
and only the Lights
for companionship. Then
when the night falls hard
and you realize what you’ve done
you will remember
that charm city, that
charmed life and find it gone.
Your mortal self crying, your
new self finding solace
only in the sky.

untitled (future sunny days)

future sunny days
will remember
now as the season of rain,
the never-ending crying of the sky,
the flooding of the streets,
the swallowing of beach, bank, body
now as the time of disbelief
the desperate want and need for things
we just can’t have
the feel of warm
the feel of orange melting into the
sultry velvet summer night
the feel of skin tingling tan
instead of white
now as the overwhelming overtaking green
lawns like jungles where kids would swing
if the rains would end
but the windows now are streaked
still dripping wet and slippery
so hoping to end the
waiting.

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.

On My Back – Ceiling Fan Above

Mesmerized
by the fan
while lying on my bed,
it circles
in expanding loops
my tired mind desperate
to
keep up, keep up, but no,
I fall behind
then, the blades
start to blur
into lines,
rings like Saturn,
I follow mine, expecting a fall,
but they keep on, keep on,
I expect an
abrupt brutal end but
they keep on. I watch until my eyes
twitch,
blur,
settle quiet
into a Trance,
the quiet wind has dried the old tears and
created new ones.

The quiet wind
has stilled my lips
And I am no longer alive as before.

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.