Sending poetry to the world
the girl snuffed ink
freshly printed and pressed from every
corner paper and fliers and stickers
on lampposts and street signs.
she stumbled Eastern in a haze
ink sinking into the grooves
of her fingerprints and pupils
and never looking
fell to her knees while her nose
smelled deep the black asphalt.
in floral housedress
an old woman watched
while one wrinkled hand
patted lightly grey hair
matted on that one same side.
Pen on paper. Sometimes I curse learning
those 26, curse that pen on paper.
If you say I’m a writer, I’ll slap you.
Just smelling that pen on paper
makes me queasy, makes my hands shake.
Don’t trust anyone claiming to write original.
Blame the alphabet, blame the ego that
all us opposable thumbs possess, just
don’t trust words on paper.
The narrator lies. The pen knows only one path.
It’s all been done before; there are only so many
combinations possible.
Happy Easter to all those who celebrate it and happy happy beautiful spring day to everyone else! Played a volleyball tournament all day yesterday and am busy eating as many jelly beans as possible today… so I will be back tomorrow with more poetry and stories. Good news though, just found out I will have a poem published with Everydaypoets.com! Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Enjoy the day~~~~
6am “morning — stupid roosters crowing, house/trailer sleeping — I’m awake again clouds above are so thin drift on like a fine layer of lace on a blue sky dress. view partially framed with large skinny fingers of a green brown palm plant curling around each other in a tango. my feet are really dirty. one big toe completely black the bottoms look like I walked miles without shoes in a charcoal street.”
2pm “play on Jerry, got to love the Dead on a day like today, all sunshine in a cloudless sky light breezes carrying me away sand crawling like ants and the little waves rolling in, rolling on, rolling over clumps of seaweed smelling like the beach whatever that means and it’s probably time, as the song comes to an end, to reapply sunscreen.”
1am “till the morning comes again, we’re gonna drown our minds dissolving our thoughts like sugar into tea sweet colors and sounds become their faces longtime friends and those we’re bound to meet eventually. till the morning comes again with rosy fingers we’re gonna dance legs and arms moving like a slow motion trance in a silent movie white and black the night sky forgetting and showering drinks, drops satisfying tongues like rain.”
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.
it was all
so clear that night
the plan
my skin tight and ready
only a few hours of
time that doesn’t exist….
but I slept
I did. Head crooked awkward
on a pillow with a black cover
and a bed
of scientifically formulated sleep foam.
and the colors
and the ideas
they came and they went.
The man’s gnarled hands
fingered his coat collar absentmindedly
and pulled it close to block
the relentless cold March wind
his back curled over slightly
and what had been immaculate posture
fell to gravity and weight of years.
Secrets loves wars won and lost
the battles that were never his to
fight and die for. He, without regret, considered
himself dead since his return
thirty-seven years ago.
The park bench dug into his jeans
with splinters. The man dug his hands
into a snack bag of Cheetos, lightly
devouring and sucking off the cheese
from his fingers. Across the way
a squirrel tenaciously nibbled a nut
and the whole of the park groaned beneath
another gust of March wind.
Satisfied momentarily, he lifted his head, back
still bent. Dogs, babies, people all
were walking by, trees heavy with blossoms
drooped towards the ground, and
ducks circled aimlessly in the man-made pond.
Above them all on Hamstead Hill
the pagoda glimmered with a light that
seemed to shine from the inside. With
respect, Union ghosts let the man
disappear into the park bench with
a contented sigh.
When the poet discovered Anne,
he had a razor blade
draped delicately over the blue
rivers running back to his heart
in steady
P ul se s.
Anne is not just words,
but perspicacious ideas
thoughts he thought were his, the details
sketched in
early morning dreams that
he believed were singular and unique.
He sits with her in the dark
just a glimmer of steel and those whispers
of déjà vu.
He thinks perhaps she is
his sister.
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.
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.
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