Category Archives: social

with headphones on

wrote this little piece during my first job out of college, sitting in a cubicle, working on a task…. actually “pre-iPod” but still relevant, maybe more so now. since I’m “working” on this Sat morning, I thought I’d post!

with headphones on

a lucid dream
where legs in blue jeans 501 walk by
in time to the drumbeat in my head
and the carpet has a twinkle
and the lights a wilder state of white, pulsing
one gray shirt circles and pirouettes
unaware of his own awkward grace just being
in a hurry
the music crescendos and although there are walls
i am not alone but with you
while something of a fevered world, those
conferences and committees, i see
him and her
move those fat cat lips
but there is no sound but me
hustle and bustle on by you world
i have my colorful Thelma and Louise escape
where my wheels are the heavy rhythm
and the sky is
my eyes filled with blues

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.

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.

For a Moment

Wrote this quickly a long time ago (circa 2003 maybe). Most people, I think, will be able to relate in some way or another…. Now, heading out to enjoy the weather and a great concert with BRMC tonight (black rebel motorcycle club) Till tomorrow… Oh, and if you can, let me know if you like hearing background on the poems or if you prefer just to see them posted alone!

For a Moment

for a moment
when it was safe
she thought about him
when the world wasn’t paying attention
she ran her fingers through the memories
and remembered him
when the day buzzed by
and clamored on with heavy ideas
she slipped away
and felt him smiling slyly
as he always used to do and
she sang with him
away from the paperweights and mouse-pads
she danced with him
when it was safe
she kicked back and dreamed of him,
sweetly and sadly,
then the world came roaring in again and
she can’t go back again
though for a moment
she thought she had.

The Firehouse Coffee Company

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.

stoop sittin (a Baltimore tradition)

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.

Cast away

he spoke to himself
with a soft slur like sand in the mouth.
his eyes rolled around in his head
like waves lapping the shore.

he tries to remember, but her face becomes the rings
around the hot island moon predicting the rains.
he pictures her lost on the horizon.
he punches the palm tree till his hands start to bleed.

for years alone, he knows only the coconut rum.
it stains his lips brown as his skin tans to leather.

he passes out
in the hot island sun. he snores
while dreaming of nothing.