Everything Yellow

His bride pulls down their driveway
greeting us after popping the trunk.
"Did he tell you?" she asks
as my friend loads arms with groceries.
I know what's coming next.
I'd been wondering when
their house alone
would not fill the equation.

"How far along?"
"Four months and counting."
"Do you know if...?"
"Not yet."
"Some people save the surprise."
"Some people are foolish."
"How would they buy things?"
"Everything yellow."
I let it soak in.
It seems to make sense.

My neighbor returns
the shopping bags gone
while the mother-to-be
ascends the front steps--
her body a vessel
transformed into glory
that seraphim even
would secretly envy.

"I wanted to wait
for an intimate time,"
he says
apologetically
with hangdog eyes
omniscient.

The cap'n of cop-outs and quinine
can't hide.
The walk home on sea legs:
as useless as landlines.

Driving in the Breakdown Lane

Tonight it's a Swiss white
with a leather-bound hymnal
of sentences eternal
from a sentenced man
I've never met
but know through
laws of physics
despite his fight with cancer
that ended as it does

while a woman
I could almost love
if only she weren't perfect
says too much about her husband
before the separation
divulging secret stories
and origins of pet names

until I almost heave
and it's not to do with grapes.
Too intimate, those sacred seconds
shared by fledgling thespians.

It's the reason that I don't attend
the weddings, uninvited.
It's not a lack of formal wear
that's wearing on my soles.


Currently reading:
"Within the Limits of Self" by Rick Maertens.

Nature of the Business

The church bell tolls
through bird calls
on a dripping Sunday morning
while a family converges
from three separate states
to bury a woman
again, two years later.

The headstone is new
though the feeling's the same:
None of us here are immortal.
Of all the customs that make no sense
cemeteries seem the most useless.

The Intruder

To find and wed
a Saint out of your league
striving every day
to deserve the same air.

To keep her in a cool, dry place
insulated from your abortions.

To wear a watch you tried to sell
perhaps to prove some unknown point.

It's go-time when her hair goes back.
It's tires on the pavement.
It's the hopeful part of stubborn
and it won't be your demise.

Elective Surgery in a Gin Mill Outmaneuvered

She saw Sailor
on an off day
when his rash was acting up
bags as blatant
as cigarette ads
in vintage skin mags--
a cordoned off coronary
just under the skin.
Undisputed bragging rights
like knives that hold no edge
dug into in his forearms
from the oak that no one noticed.

The problem was the shift:
he stopped producing fiction
and lived the tales he told;
traced a vein in grout
while perusing an illusion
and traced his troubles back
to a list of secret names.

She lost him
when the room filled up.
Saturday tends to do that.
He found a choice
in midnight snack
that most would shy away from.

Like him or loathe him
starve him or clothe him.
If Old Scratch
and his ilk weren't there
someone would have to invent them.

Mixed

I whip up a batch
and take a premature taste
thinking back to the woman
who wouldn't let me lick it.

Filling the bowl with water
as the brownie pan stares back
I swear not to fall
for a person so concerned
with salmonella again.

Newburgh in June

His buzzcut fit his features
like his tank-top matched his shorts:
both utilitarian, determined by his mother.
A strip of dirt comprised their yard
between the tattered sidewalk
and the porch his father failed to fix
between his cans of lager.

As the tanker truck approached
that land became less interesting.
I was stuck behind them both
and witnessed the whole thing.
The boy was jolted, face lit up
and ran along the roadway
tugging downward with his fist
elbow bent, a perfect corner.
He was begging for that horn
but the truck driver denied him
and the kid's mom called him back
while his father killed a Coors.

The boy in red changed a shade
jogged, then walked, and stopped.
He threw his palm the trucker's way
tasting dust and not the Rockies.

Left Hand Man

But sometimes
when that song you shared
hits your speakers
at the end
of the latest Day from Hell
you've got to turn it up
instead of tuning out
since otherwise the gods win.

We can't let that happen
can we?

Weak Teeth

The shower's running when he shows up half an hour before her specified time. He's greeted by a quiet canine with wet, inquisitive eyes as confused as his intestines. Without a sound he slips from his Levi's and Hanes to join her behind the waterproof curtain. She's surprised for a second time when he reaches for her razor and stoops to his knees. They've never played this way before. He begged her to let it grow with the insistence that one facet of classic feminine beauty had been lost in recent decades. Slowly, between trembling thighs, his steady hand strips her of the small sacrifice she'd made at his request. He rises when he's done--the remnants of a promise catching in the drain--then lands a hard kiss on her forehead while the showerhead pummels their faces to form a memory they'll view differently over pending weeks and years and cocktail conversations.

The look in her eyes is harder to stomach than any absent words would be. Her guilty razor's returned to its perch among the products and soap scum. A step onto tile is easier to make than he'd anticipated with no slips in the script. Denim and jersey stick to his skin since using a towel seems trivial now. While seeing himself out of her apartment for the last time, that familiar form of solace in the quest swells up and swirls around him like a squall of possibilities. Somewhere, he swears stubbornly to himself. Somewhere, regardless of rainbows.

He may be a wretch for feeling it, but he'll miss the dog more than its owner.

A Humbled Hymn

It's the shape of her face
that has me intrigued--
triangular, Irish, feline;
nothing like the one I love.

She's the rain we need
but never want.

Glassfed

We're smoking barfront on East Main
instead of in his mother's garage
like ten years ago
the coffee can ashtray
overflowing shamefully.
His arms flail in conversation
proving his points
and that he's Italian.
He pushes his thick-rimmed glasses
back against his face
sometimes in the middle
sometimes at the edge.
I assure him that his mannerisms
haven't changed with time.
"Your laugh's the same,"
he tells me, a compliment
if true.

He built something and walked away.
He didn't profit where he prayed.
He knows about integrity.

Admire whom you're not.

Rellenos de Papa

There's this place on Broadway
in Newburgh where I go for my fix
of Puerto Rican food
once in the bloodiest moon.

My grandmother's dead
and wasn't allowed near a stove
for the last decade of her life
for safety reasons.
My mother doesn't make
most of those country kitchen dishes
fried and basted in garlic.
Besides, her house is off-limits
since I'd speak my piece to her husband
once and for all and with legal ramifications.

Instead I barter with strangers
pointing at trays and forcing a stubborn tongue
to pronounce the nostalgic delicacies
of my youth, sneaking to my refrigerator
to savor a bite at a time
for precious days later.

If growing old is learning to lose
and filling the voids with distant replacements
then Peter Pan was right
though he shot over the moon.

Stucco

I started the day by saving a turtle
lost on a sidewalk next to the road.
He paddled away in the nearby pond
and I washed my hands, patted my back.

I've only seen the man once
in the last two years
and even that was an accident.
He's more of an acquaintance
than a friend, but he's got enough
charisma for the both of us
so I like him
and I'll bail him out of this jam.
Only a plumber
can truly relate
to the martyrs of this world;
the cheaters of fate.

"Have you been punching walls?"
I ask as soon as I notice
the gouges in his knuckles.
The routine's familiar from formative years.
"Any domestic disputes as of late?"
I had to throw that jab.
I had to.

"Nope," he replies with a gleam I misread.
"My father's dying. I'll find him in a puddle soon."

One of us changed the subject
though I don't remember who or how.
Everything went dull in sound
like a dive made too deep
at the neighborhood pool as a kid.
Another man would have decked me
and I would have deserved that bruise
but everyone needs a trustworthy plumber.

If that turtle could talk
he'd say he was fine
without me.

A Memorable Snapper

She's spread-eagle in the shoulder
of the road, dripping between her legs
as she deposits her clutch of eggs
into a hollow clawed in gravel.

Her pride is prehistoric while she scowls
at passing vehicles, braced inside her shell
like stubborn proof across the board:

Humans aren't the only ones
who curse their offspring's fate.
Some hatchlings might avoid the cars.
She'll never know their faces.

The Flowers He Promised

A timeworn codger
phallocentric in his voting
tips poorly for undeserved service
thinking of the times
he threw last handfuls of salt
for their sake
so they wouldn't bother
to look back
after donning dancing shoes
in anticipation of a night's worth
of forgettable revelry.

Immeasurable Hells

He's got a truckload of groceries
but there's a spot
in front of his stoop
for once.
Some Spanish girls in their teens
run away giggling
chalk in hand
leaving a message on the asphalt
that could only come
from the same place
as that parking miracle:
"God is not ashamed
of you."

It still takes five trips
up three flights of stairs
arms laden with thin plastic bags
and purple without blood
but there's Someone on his side
that he can't acknowledge.

They say if you try a food
you don't like ten times
you'll grow to like it.
The same is true of people.

Jim Jones Bullhorn

An orange prescription bottle stares back from the vanity, merciless in seeking its justification. Howard finds it difficult to wash down any more of them; not without Tanqueray dressed in rocks and tonic. The sun has killed the grass in a record-breaking heatwave. Is this the Promised Land that they spoke of at the Academy? "We need a good rain," a radio personality comments from the kitchen. Howard only hears, "I need a new name." The voices, the changing--other things they don't mention when issuing your gun. There were lies and libations. There was a light under his bushel. I've been humbled by the god of my transgressors, Howard thinks into the mirror. He fumbles with the kid-proof cap and downs his dose of laughter. Some crazy people walk these streets. Howard's here to save them.

Cohiba

A Spaniard in his fifties
tipped me with a Cuban
without asking if I smoke.
The unapologetic flare in his gesture
loosened the tools in my hands
as I packed up the van.
"Sure," I said. "Thanks."
In his country
that's still normal.

Later that evening
I ran into a man
from my formative years
known for his penchant
for scotch and cigars.
"I won't tell my wife,"
he said with a weathered smirk
pocketing the gift
I couldn't retain
since I wouldn't know a Cuban
from a dime-store counter stogie.

That's what you do
with a gem you can't appreciate.
That's why, sweetheart
I've got to let you go.


Currently reading:
"Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx.

Bildungsroman

We're in the back of our father's minivan
en route to celebrate the kid's fifth birthday
at the sushi bar of his choosing.
He gives me the devious grin
that I know all too well, a sick sparkle
brooding in his eyes before he forms words.
"He's not your daddy anymore. He's mine."

The old man pretends not to hear it
possibly since he bailed on me for six years
the last two of which spawned
my loving sibling seated to my left.
Guilt's one hell of a motivator.
He's old, but isn't deaf.

It's the boy's mother who turns
from the passenger seat to scold him.
At first he pleads innocence
but when it doesn't work
he offers an apology
and reminds me of his affinity
for his one and only brother.

I can muster nothing
in the form of a reply
to any of his sentiments
so pure, so young, so wicked.
He's stunned me into silence
despite the gap in age.
There's a looming truth
that gathers in my forehead
like a storm:

The Vahsen mean streak
runs in blood
and skips no generations.

A Realist Crunches Numbers

The dogwoods blossomed hard this year.
A woman with a sense of humor comes faster.
Only the dust doesn't settle 'round here.
He speaks in tongues like a Pentecostal.

Bookended cheap shots she couldn't resist;
This is how never tastes.
This is your fear.
We tore down our painting, aborted our kids.
Our hearts are bastards searching for fathers.

Shopping Cart Dings

Paul waddles through his wallpapered foyer
complaining of the hips
he had replaced last year
while stroking his liver-spotted forehead.

"The problem is," he confides
"your mother didn't give you life.
She gave you death."
A benign grin creeps across his face
as he blooms into the likeness
of an Italian Rodney Dangerfield
waiting for the rimshot
that would have come
in his bygone black-and-white television era.

I finish working on his boiler
and bring my tools through the garage
only to catch him dancing
to '40s Big Band 8-track tapes--
cane in one hand, Death's neck in the other.

The best men I've ever met
were also the best liars.

He tipped me five bucks
and told me to buy a cigar.

The Nebraskan

I remember that hospital--

How the nurses
brought me
paper-thin, open-backed
gowns
they watched me don
referring to them
as "modesty garments"
and I wondered to myself:

How can a woman
like me
ever be modest again?

A History With Backwater Nuns

When the gin works harder
than her Little Black Dress;
when 'my bed' turns to 'the bed'
turns to 'our bed';
when you realize that she hasn't
divulged her last name
since technically she still has two;
when you've both comprehended
that Tiffany's doesn't serve breakfast;
when bringing the severed heads of kings
to the altar of your Almighty
gains you nothing but a handful of hair

mayhaps it's time
to alter your routine
of sleeping with strangers
easy on the eyes;
of getting it wet
outside of the shower;
of wasting time with women
named for heroines in Hemingway novels.

Pardon any rust in this approach, young harlot.
The State of New York deems me
ready, willing, and able.

We all know
that the government never lies.

Gridlock Golgotha

Behind me is a Charger
white with black accents
and vanity plates
that say "SINNER".

The rusted sedan ahead
that's weaved its way forward
has a tattoo-emblazoned arm
hanging through the driver's side window
with an overgrown pinkie nail
for snorting cocaine.

A phantom limb twitches
in its sweat-beaded holster
and I wonder which of us three
will find Dante's deepest layer--
Foxes in the henhouse
beaten like driftwood
on a highway that's destined
to crumble.


Currently reading:
"Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami.

Modern Art(?)

I'm sorry, J
I'm sorr
I'm sorr
I'm sorr
I'm sorr
I'm sorr
I'm sorr
I'm sorry, Ja
I'm sor
I'm sor
I'm sor
I'm sor
I'm sorry, Jacklyn, for the words that sliced too deep.
I'm sor
I'm sor
I'm sor
I'm so
I'm s
I'm
I


[But the whiskey works wonders for putting kids to sleep.]

Pet Sounds

My father turns 64 this week
So the Beatles are stuck in my head
Though he wouldn't catch the reference.
The Stones weren't his bag either;
Too many drugs, too much blatant sex.

He listened to the Beach Boys
Back when he still listened;
Sometimes the Righteous Brothers--
Wholesome, soulful, safe.

My father turns 64 this week
But his head's still in the sand.

A man who's put down music
Is a man who's aged too soon.

A Starlet and a Harlot

That turn comes
as expected
though the radio throws
a curve of its own.
Some announcer who sounds
like he's high on cocaine
prattles off a promo
for a charity event.

I ease off the accelerator
as the hydrogen drops:
a tigress I bedded
three years ago
has her name announced
as part of the upcoming comedy show.
"A local gal," he specifies
while I fumble for the brake.

Life makes jokes of all of us.
Some laugh while others wince.
If I could stomach penance
I'd sit through her routine again.

Prayers Through Broken Teeth of a Cafeteria Catholic

"Don't be sad, mom," he pleads
through smoke exhaled
outside a fast food joint
on this call cut short
by lunch break
ideal for breaking news
of break-ups.
"We wanted different things."

Some would mistakenly tout
Reverse Parenting
though Freud be damned
it's no such beast.
At core it's saving loved ones
since we can't protect ourselves.

The Special Sauce
shifts in his stomach
staking claim of conquered land
from a meal too rushed for comfort.
He waits for affirmation
through the intermittent signal
part of him believing
the words he's said in haste.

The drive-thru girl walks by
to burn one in her car.
She leaves a trail of cheap perfume
that lingers as it shouldn't
though it beats the reek of onions--
Doused like the fire
that stubbornly won't leave.

It'll make for better memoirs
that every inch was won.

The din of midday traffic
drowns his mother's sigh
while his best friend
twice removed
swears off tertiary chances.

Luna in Vacuo

I've known her half my life.
We've woven in and out
of paths and arms and blankets.
Most communication
occurs when we need grounding.
It's not about the physical;
we know each other's souls.

"The moon is cool tonight,"
I told her down in Texas.
She traveled there for work last year
and never made it back.

"I can't see it
from the windows
of my place,"
she responded.

"It's time to move again," I typed.
My fingers hid my tone.

The conversation shifted
back to happiness and illness.
Those two can coexist.
That's more than most can say.

Antebellum Vellum

I've yet to meet
my newest neighbor
but I heard him
for the first time last night
crying through the door
of his parents' railroad apartment
as I exited our building.

It hit me then
as hard as when She leaves:

There are doors I'd rather be behind
and tombs I'd rather leave behind
and anything less
than knowing the joy
of a pink and screaming baby
would be a wasted life.

I'll risk it.

Faraday Bag

And if you think
for one red second
that any of the madness
the stale cigarettes
and potholes on the ride back
the afternoons spent alone
on a couch, clutching guts
and a bottle and a smoke
burned down to the filter
while words replay
in a mind unduly cluttered
by the need and search for love
would be traded
like a baseball card
for one that's twice as shiny
and might increase in value
in some parallel universe
where everyone knows what matters
then, my friend
you've missed the finer points:

Read English;
speak Spanish;
try not to hurt anyone
on your stumble home.

Pontius Pilate of the Alps

Maybe
there's a layer
of Hell
hotter
than burning
jet fuel.

Savings in the Circular

I was mostly going for produce.
It was a Sunday afternoon
with the golden hour approaching.
Two cars were parked
on the far end of the lot
nowhere near the entrance
of the supermarket.
I knew.
I knew because I'd been there
twenty-something years ago.

Pulling closer to the scene
revealed that I was right.
A father hugged a daughter
of elementary school age
one last time for the weekend
before she'd hop into the sedan
where her mother was waiting
to bring the child back
to her version of home.
The courts call it "visitation"
but that's far too fair--
an overabundance of sharing
with a kid who's more like cargo;
a childhood of goodbyes;
sunsets fucking ruined
since they always meant the end.

I lucked out.
There was a spot right next to a handicapped.
My cart wandered the aisles for awhile
but I found those vegetables eventually
and brought them home to share.
I lucked out.

Armed Cosmonauts

The old man wasn't home
and the boy was taken hostage.
I didn't leave a note
for fear of being honest.
There's comfort in an evening ride
as dead conversations
play out in my mind.

Colors fade
from warm to cool
a border of white
between them.
Heaven's reflected
in silent ripples
on the only river I've known
above another mountain
refusing still to move.

The skyline's a melon rind
and I'm not finished chewing.

"Christ, kid.
I'll protect you from Christ."
A flock of one sleeps safest.



Currently reading:
"The Martian" by Andy Weird.

Deposit Slip

There's an engraved sign screwed to the heavy wooden door that seems more official than is justified. White letters stand out against a maroon rectangle that vaguely suggests some clinical version of warmth. Regardless, Rich enters the Production Room as if he owns the place. For a few minutes he does, and will be rightly compensated. It's not his best work, but that ended years ago. A masterpiece is only a craftsman's last achievement in the forgiving world of fairytales that dies with income tax and puberty.

Eschewing raw material left for his endeavor, he thinks of things outside of what's expected while coaxing his contribution:  virginal nicknames unused by prior suitors; the only person he knows who folds a fitted sheet with ease; a case of wine that soured when it froze in the back of his car overnight. "I'm doing this for us," he tells a beaker, unsure of whether walls have been soundproofed--or if some nameless nurse is giggling or frowning or both. The corkscrew motion settles the matter as it has since some ancient fellatrix informed him of its merit. It seems a shame to leave so many possibilities behind. Fate is out of his tired hands, parallel universes be as damned as the torpedoes.

After the crescendo and sterilized cleansing, he stops at a reception window to collect his check. The woman filling it out reminds him of a dream he once had. Rich wonders if it'd be like putting his tongue on battery terminals. He shakes his head free of the intangible world of maybes and reaches for his payment. Fifty dollars richer, he walks through the double-doors and ponders where to apply this temporary bandage--a typical modern American with just enough credit card debt to remind him of his follies.

He kicks his heel inadvertently while stepping off the curb, smirking since none of it matters more than what's waiting. At the end of the game, the pawn and the king enter the same box. He heads home, where he'll shower, eat dinner, and be taken by the woman who knows what scares him most. There's little more to ask for than a love as strong as sickness.

Triskaidekaphobia

It's in the mail already
though its meaning is uncertain.
The postman holds an envelope
that must, to him, feel empty.
With so much pinned to words
it's a wonder that we love them.
Ink is never permanent;
in air, in print, on skin.


Currently reading:
"Pulp" by Charles Bukowski.

Cut the Kid in Half

An old version of myself
would have rolled back out of bed
to make a tall White Russian
opened the living room window
lit a smoke for old time's sake
and told you some misquoted
parable from the Bible
decreed by King Solomon
the wisest man to have ever lived
aside from Charles Bukowski
about how "Power is the ability
to destroy something, but not."

This newfangled variation
of the same flawed heathen
who insists on bastardizing Scripture
in the name of a few drawled lines
has mostly followed suit
but this time, as the smoke's sucked out
by a fan perched on the table
I'll leave you with some words
uttered through the vodka
that may not be profound
but hold the weight regardless:

Power is the ability to love
from a distance
and I, like this cocktail
am stronger
than any
dead and buried king.


Currently reading:
"The Giver" by Lois Lowry.

The Universe, etc.

"The thing is,"
he says, whiskey-swaying
in his kitchen
"that shard
from the glass you broke
is never gone."

He slides a sweating tumbler
and dries the countertop
hanging his towel
from the oven handle
as early punctuation.

"You'll find it again,"
he assures
his captivated guest
"in your foot."

I Needed a Pack of Smokes, or The Day I Saved My Block From Exploding

So I decided to put pants on for the first time all day and walk to the bodega on the corner for some nicotine. While traversing a section of sidewalk in front of the Beacon Theater (the local one, not the good one) I noticed the pungent aroma of natural gas. I paced around, sniffing through my congested nostrils to see if it was a case of wishful senses pretending that I was back on the job engaged in some repair work. A neighbor-friend walked by with her dog and I asked if she detected the scent as well. She did. I called the police to report the circumstance and waited for the proper authorities to respond. "No big deal," I insisted. "Don't send the whole cavalry."

They did. Seven fire trucks descended upon Main Street, closing off the intersections at either end. Some guys in fire-retardant gear approached me and I showed them where the utility company, Central Hudson Gas & Electric (whose last bill was outrageous, I may add), had done some underground work a few nights prior. I remember seeing them out there with their excavator and some guys messing with something in the ditch. I'd been drinking wine with a good chum all evening while the boys in blue collected overtime for shoddy craftsmanship. Anyway, the firemen agreed that the presence of natural gas was evident and called the utility service to send a crew to the scene. The block is still shut down so parking and traffic are hindered, but I can't bring myself to apologize to any inconvenienced parties. I did what I felt was right and may have prevented the loss of life and property; at the very least, a waste of natural resources was curtailed.

If you smell something, say something. Union pipefitters don't leave blatant leaks of combustible materials in high-traffic areas in their wake. Smoking saves lives. My work here is done. Carry on. 

Winded

We were fueled by rampant hormones
and an awe of unknown sins.
Those with true experience
had the least to share
while the boys who bragged of conquests
romanced their own hands.
In the locker room we pulled on shorts
and T-shirts like thin armor.
Earth Science had bored us
right until the bell
but that period of basketball
gave us time to vent.

There were teams picked
based on strategy.
The Spanish kid was fast.
The Mormon had a three
and socks up to his knees.
Those whose parents didn't come
to conferences were best.
I was never first
but I was never last.

I threw my weight for rebounds
since I didn't know the rules.
No one ever called a foul.
It didn't get us ready.

Fourteen was a funny time
of change and mass confusion.
I wonder where those kids all went
and if, like me, they find themselves
still playing in their dreams.

Atelophobia

It's a good thing
I wasn't born
a woman.

To be expected
to throw a baby shower
for a friend or relative
the same year as my miscarriage
or abortion--
they don't make a bourbon
strong enough for that.

To be slowly, unsurely
entered by a man
who barely knows himself--
what can be more frightening?

To bleed for days
without death;
to live for decades
without a level table;
to stare at false perfection
dictated by children's dolls--
such standards would crush
a lazy drunk like me.

Tonight I take my whiskey
like unholy communion
thanking long-dead cells
that met to form a louse.

With hair unkempt I'll sleep it off
and wake to imperfection.

Eastern Standard

The hands read correctly.

Her living room is right.

"Did you fix the time?" she asks

like such a thing is feasible.

"No," he says

with grapefruit on his breath

and ruffled hair.

"Twice a day

even broken clocks 

can pull it off,"

as he tugs away the blanket

they've been hiding in

all weekend.

The forecast called for snow

though windows seem so far.

Detritus

"Leave it for the Emperor
of Doggerel," they threatened.
Coke off college toilet tanks.
Clinging to an era.

The angel wings on shoulder blades
you slept between were flawed:
heavy-handed shading
not centered on her spine.

Wine obscured her recollection
of the time she grabbed your hand
walking home on Main Street
both too gone to go.

But she always wiped her makeup
to spare your favorite pillows
and she understood innately
why you left her for a chance.


Currently reading:
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.

Strays

His mother sends a message:
something vague about
the status of feral cats she feeds--
how they're freezing
in this record-breaking February--
and a birthday, coming like
taxes; asking of his plans.

"I've got somewhere to be,"
he says, leaving out key details
that imply his girlfriend's insides.
"And besides, I haven't seen you
in three months. How's Monday
different?"

She retaliates in form
throwing guilt likes balls of shit.
It doesn't matter.
His family's changed
to men who pull wrenches
and a kid who still pisses his pants
when he's excited.

"Spend it with your cats,"
and he means it
feigning nothing.

There are homes
without an address.
There is love
that doesn't break.

Misophonia

Shamefaced and gelded
the aspiring numerologist
drowns himself in fever dreams
Rivers That Have No Names
and the milky discontent
of a dozen ex-lovers
poised for cruci-fiction.

(You'll conjure yourself
in here somewhere
so I beg you
to refrain.)

Noble Slings and Arrows

I used to play guitar;

sold most of mine to strangers.

Now I lend lines to the faceless.

It seems a better fit and pays about the same.

My favorite chord has mostly been A Minor (Am).

I've written songs around it. 

People left the room.

I plucked its notes in solitude.

People left my life.

It came to be my friend.

It came to be my life, for awhile.

Some would compare it to E Minor.

They'd be wrong again.

A Minor requires more digits.

A Minor necessitates more work.

Isn't that more admirable?

Besides, even lifted fingers find it just fine.

A Minor only uses five guitar strings.

It says more with less.

Isn't that the aim?

That's another one you don't answer.

I loan the lines--remember?

Maybe you play already.

Maybe you'll learn someday.

The next time that you strum that chord let it be for me.

Cold War Carcinoma

All points west--
The women come
from sunsets
and tongue sex

too much of life dictated
by ersatz stunt doubles
and dry Irish pussy.

For fuck-stains:
hydrogen peroxide.

Alabaster.
Opalescent.
A mess of succulent sin and semen.

The only feat harder than finding her
is leaving her in the morning.

Bubonic

A ball of gray fur caught the corner of my eye and bounced across the linoleum without the aid of traction. I picked it up, palmed it, and showed it to my father.

"Get rid of that before she sees it," the old man said, referring to his skittish wife reading in the living room. She was from the city. Mice were miniature versions of giant subway rats to her. To me he was an unexpected guest, but it wasn't my place to extend an invitation in the home where I grew up. I was a visitor in a museum that housed a separate story. There was no bed, no dresser--but the heat pipes sounded the same.

I opened the porch door and tossed him toward the yard, the arc his body made like a living howitzer round. It was a quick response to an old man's request, something done under the assumption that benevolent actions yield happy endings. It was before I learned that only cats always land on their feet.

I slid into boots after dinner, taking out a bag of trash as a convincing cover. The mouse was lying motionless. It'd escaped the trap in the pantry, but not my lazy liberation. I winced with executioner's guilt and tossed the corpse into the bushes, hoping my kid brother wouldn't find it.

There was much to learn on mercy. There was ice cream for dessert.

Lover Fell Late

Nose against cheek
her mouth smells sourly of me.
I rock her like my mother did
as we lie, digesting breakfast
thinking of good names
for the children
we've prevented.

There's a blister
filled with blood
that will rub off
with some work.
There's a time
for being stubborn.
There's a blender
in my chest.

Late is always better.
Great Ones don't look back.
Taste the wine of yesteryear
and deserve it every day.

The Drawbacks of Having a Vivid Imagination

Faces change, but
the Dream's the same:
-Pistols won't fire
-Cars won't start
-Legs too numb to run
from personified subconscious.

Waking in ripped sheets
to dial fathers, lovers
lifelines
"It isn't real,"
you tell yourself.
Still, you load for bear.


Currently reading:
"The Dark Tower:  The Complete Concordance" by Robin Furth.

Green

I'd lodge merciful lead in him if I could.
The dog's been hobbling, nearly bedridden for a year.
My father's wife won't put him down.
He pisses and shits on a pad in the kitchen.
He yelps and whines with no goal in mind.
It's horrendous.
Someone should make it look like an accident.
Instead they thread their needles blindly.

"They're collectibles."
"What's that mean?"
"Don't bang them."
It's useless.
The kid will do what most boys do.
My Hess trucks are six times his age.
Somehow they survived one childhood.
This second bout will kill them before long.
They were safely retired in the cellar for decades.
"Why's this one missing a tire?"
"Because it's twenty-five years old."

The ankle-biter whimpers in the kitchen.
I pick a bone from tonight's steak out of the trashcan.
It's too big for the wounded Chihuahua to lift.
I trade it for a smaller one.
He pulls it into his bed and stops crying.
The miserable pooch almost looks happy.

I hear a collision of plastic on plastic in the living room.
A wince hits me until my brother laughs.
My muscles loosen to a smirk.
Nothing lasts forever.
Nothing is collectible.
The only love that matters is the type that doesn't hurt.

Associated Press

An Idaho elementary school
sponsored a time capsule project
in which students, faculty
and denizens of the community
were asked to submit
their favorite personal possessions
valued under $20
which could fit inside a pill bottle
for burial in the town park.
Not one person produced an item.

"The experiment was a success,"
declared principal David Vargas.
"If people aren't willing to sacrifice now
then nothing is destined to change in the future."

No one else was available for comment.

Mal de Ojo

The badlander plods on
in search of castles crumbling
and a market for spare kidneys.
He's marching off demerits
assigned by decades gone.
There will be a line to urinate
on his grave a mile long.
"I'm all right with that," he says.
The dust forgets to answer.

Steel against his thigh
strikes a nerve within his spine.
He stuck himself in crazy
and flushed out the infection.
They want to see the proof;
he's not practiced, nor a preacher.
Inamorata, lovesick, waits atop a tower.

Rambos We Are Not

Sometimes you need advice
through liquored telephones
from the kid you built forts with in the woods
with plastic rifles slung over shoulders
and cap guns shoved into pants
as not much has changed
since puberty struck
other than death's proximity
and vaginal complications.

A Fear Jackie's Ready To Face

She's got real
fucking potential
to break it off in your ass
again
but you'll still be you in the morning
that way
and if you happen to shoot a load
at the elephant in the room
you might wake up
to a goddess
every morning
for the rest of your allotted sunrises.

'Merican Sniper: A Movie Review

Let me start by clarifying my word selection. 'American Sniper' is not a film; it's a movie. The shame of it is that Chris Kyle deserved the latter. I don't blame Bradley Cooper as his performance was one of the strong points present in the project, though Clint Eastwood may have some explaining to do. One does not embark upon such a heavy endeavor without being sure that all bases are covered tastefully. It wasn't a complete abortion, but I expected much more. Before you continue reading allow me to warn you of the spoilers present in my assessment. I do not care about ruining any surprises for you. If you don't already know the ending then you haven't read the book, don't watch the news, and probably should stay home to masturbate to screenshots from a Clive Owen shoot-'em-up. 'American Sniper' was not supposed to be an action flick. It was supposed to honor a fallen hero--which brings me to another point. I'm not going to argue the pros and cons of any war we've sent men and women to recently. Any person who puts his life on the line so his buddies can make it home in one piece is a hero. Those in combat understand that mentality. When bullets are flying, it ain't about God, Country, Family. It's about the terrified bastard next to you in the foxhole with piss-soaked pants and not enough ammunition remaining.

There were some blatantly cheesy foul balls. The fact that a real infant could not be located for the family scene is appalling. That rigid piece of rubber used to represent a human child was about as realistic as one of those 1990s dolls that shit and pissed after some snot-nosed brat fed it fake food. Why would anyone want that thing anyway? Little girls are weird, which makes sense since they grow to be crazy women. Also, the 21-gun salute during the SEAL funeral was lackluster. While I appreciated the M14 being used for the tradition, the fact that the rifle closest to the camera did not actually fire once was too obvious for me to forgive. Shooting blanks is not that dangerous. Just ask someone who's had a vasectomy. The massive, Mummy-esque sandstorm which conveniently conjures itself during the final battle scene made me cringe with vicarious embarrassment, right down to the desperate hand-grabbing rescue of Chief Kyle as he ran to catch up to a briskly departing vehicle. I did appreciate the symbolism of the pocket Bible and bolt-action rifle being left behind in the dust, however. Chris was done hunting his demons--in this case the elusive enemy sniper who'd taken countless lives, American and otherwise. Therein lies another problematic sliver of the movie. The masked sharpshooter (who happens to be an Olympic marksmanship champion from Syria) scurries out of his bachelor pad to leap from rooftop to rooftop like a half-ninja version of Aladdin from the Sega Genesis days. Is that supposed to be believable? Even my girlfriend called bullshit on that one, and she's never shot a high-power sniper rifle, let alone pranced around with one after receiving a phone call as to the whereabouts of an American with a $180,000 bounty on his head. Speaking of head, allow me to back up. Since when would a redneck come home from a rodeo to find his girl having her back blown out by another goat-roping gentleman, only to kick him out politely sans ass-whooping? Since never. That's when. He tells her to pack her shit and leave, cracks a beer, and brainstorms with his asshole buddy on what is presumably the Meaning of Life (in Texas, where everything's allegedly bigger). I've seen 'Cops'. That's not how that story ends. There are at least 17 stitches involved and a few poorly-worded accusations to follow up said fisticuffs. I could go on ripping this movie a new sphincter, but I feel my point's been made. I admire the man, appreciate his sacrifice, and hoped for something better.

Here's the good part:  They didn't show him getting killed. I feel that added a level of respect for the man which may have been desecrated by the corny one-liners Clint must have chuckled at from the director's chair. The date is shown during that final scene so even those who went blindly into the theater know that something's about to "pop off". The creeper vibe of the murderous Marine is evident. The face Mrs. Kyle makes while seeing her husband off in the doorway alludes to our protagonist's fate. And then the portion that moved me commences. The file footage from the funeral procession and memorial service brought me back to the reality that I'd sat in that chair to see. This was not a man with a .308, a Hollywood hard-on, and Zach Galifawhateverthefuck's number in his cell phone. This was a real-life hero who died in the line of helping a brother in distress, though the soil was not from a foreign battlefield. PTSD is a very real issue that our society does not fully acknowledge, though I fear that in decades to come we will hear comparisons made to those who went to 'Nam and came back as shells of their prior selves. Bradley Cooper, for all his hungover tomfoolery, nailed this transformation.

Short version:  Read the book. Watch 'The Hurt Locker' instead.

Half-mast in Hanoi

He'd been living off the dividends
for decades in the desert.
He'd been separating fools
from their money
and their lives.
He'd been praying late at night
for redemption like Jane Fonda
cackling into coughing fits
uncured by arid air.

They found him in his cabin--
allocated isolation.
No one wanted organs
despite his donor status.
The burial was brief
fifth-rate gods in trite attendance.

Smoking lost its cool this week.
The Marlboro Man is dead.

A Cunning Conifer

Driving south toward Bear Mountain
I rip my focus from the road
and spy across the Hudson
for long enough to spot the giant pine
standing like a sentinel
in my father's front lawn.
I can see it because it's winter
and the leaves of deciduous trees
that would normally block my view
are dead and fallen.
I can see it because for the first time
in thirty years I'm actively searching.

It hinders sunlight from hitting the ground
so grass has never grown under its girth.
Branches entwine the power lines.
My father's taken a saw to lower limbs
repeatedly over the years
but a tree doesn't bleed out
quite like the rest of us.

He confessed to me a few years back
that he once tried donating it
to Rockefeller Center
sealing its fate with harvest, trailer transport
and hundreds of feet of lighting
over dozens of thousands of tourists.
The rascal in me would tell you
that they sent a helicopter
to examine the prospective offering
but satellite photos sufficed.
They told him it didn't fit their criteria.
The rejection curtailed his desired free removal.
My father, ever frugal, succumbed to Nature's victory.

I'm in the opposite lane
when my eyes return to pavement.
No cars are there to hit me.
I slowly coax the steering wheel
gliding back to my quiet half
and hope the old man's home.

A List of Beers I'll Never Drink

The party's makeshift ashtray bottle;
A roofied brew meant for you;
The last one in your refrigerator;
Chewable stouts darker than our pasts combined;
The one I cracked when this seemed like a good idea;
The rest of the one I threw at her living room wall;
The ones you owe me;
Anything with a widget at the bottom;
Anything with too much head (as such a thing exists);
Anything to celebrate a kid on the way inside someone I still love;
And Coors Light.

Caramelized Curmudgeon

Then there are the times
washing dishes two days later
when you'll need some extra muscles
to scrub the frying pan.
The onions stuck, you didn't see
since you lost track of minutes
laughing in the kitchen
while you shared a gin-and-tonic.

Dylan bawled nasally
from speakers gone ignored
plowing through his verses
born on Greyhound stubs.
You talk of travel playfully
planning spring adventures
though you've reached your destination--
The proof is in that pan.

Why I Believe in Cyberbullying

I attended an inner city high school, or whatever the dulled equivalent of that would be in the clipped tongue of today's paranoid lexicon. There was ethnic diversity. There were social imbalances. A caste system existed that even the faculty perpetuated to some degree. I was thrown into the Honors classes and took Advanced Placement courses that did little to ready me for college. Rather, the latter made me believe that I was a semester ahead by entering with fifteen credits already under my belt. The truth of the matter is that I was surrounded by nerds. Even in that melting pot of culture where the foreign language hallway was more of an arena, I was safe from diversity in the insulated fishbowl where leaders of tomorrow allegedly honed their skills. College was no different. My dorm was in the newly renovated hall set aside for brainiacs. Again, I somehow managed to weasel my way in like a fox among the flock. "Tattoo Mike", they called me, since by that point I had two:  a snowflake and Bugs bunny. Can you imagine what type of ball-less wonders would give a kid with lame images like those adorning his arms that undeserved nickname? I was the hard-ass of the pansies. I was the king of the losers. I was a lot of things until I tried unofficially switching my major to Jack Daniel's and had my independent study program vehemently rejected. I became a lot more things, one of them a pipefitter. Then the Internet came along and gave us all the level playing field that we'd been lied to about already having in school:  social networking.

It started with MySpace, but we don't need to go there. That'd be like mentioning the handsy uncle who's groped us all once or twice during holiday party photo opportunities. Facebook is the way of the world. Twitter, Instagram, and whatever other timesinks we choose to indulge in also contribute to the creation of alter egos that swing from rays of Wi-Fi. No longer must we limit our interactions to those that'd transpire organically through the doldrums of our beaten paths. We encounter individuals from all walks of life--from the neck-bearded virgin on a computer that could hack the Pentagon to the yayo-slinging thug who spies on his shorty's latest activities via smartphone--and are forced to make a choice reminiscent of an Alcoholics Anonymous poster I've never seen in person:  Adapt or die. That's what it boils down to since we are held accountable for everything we portray ourselves to be online; even the things we approve of through clicking the Like button. There's a great equalizer which holds us all in check. One should not risk acting the fool in the presence of strangers from other walks of life; or one does, and draws the wrath of the modern-day version of the Old West vigilante: the Cyberbully.

The Cyberbully is a direct product of evolution. If cyberbullying didn't exist then Al Gore would invent cyberbullying, possibly in a room full of monkeys manning typewriters. Our sore-assed society which spews new buzzwords like Oppositional Defiant Disorder every-other-month to define a circumstance which is perfectly normal has coined the word and cast it in a negative light. I don't view it that way, however. Cyberbullying plays a vital role in policing cyberspace and assuring that order is maintained. From an IRL ("in real life", for those unaware) standpoint, the benefits are even more critical. We live in an age where adults fear their children and the forest is ignored for the trees. Too often the coddled individual who should be smacked is glorified instead. The battlefield is red with the blood of truthful speakers, martyred by the media at the hands of left-wing executioners.

That is where the cyberbully (who now assumes a lower-case status for the sake of simplicity) comes into play. The war waged on the Internet (still capitalized) is not under scrutiny by the dogmatic groups and agencies that govern our everyday lives. A grammar Nazi will correct your ignorance of your own language now and then, but other than that it's a free-for-all. If you run your mouth--nay, flutter your fingers--in a manner that's unbecoming then you'd better be ready to incur the vengeance of the nearest cyberbully. He is armed with scathing wit, credible links, and array of memes that may or may not be culled from scenes from the original (and only, arguably) "Willy Wonka" film. He probably didn't get laid last night and you're definitely going to pay for that. You'll be bashed with words that you can't use in your cubical, like "butthurt" and "douchelord", and groaning about it will only make matters worse. His sharpened tongue will belittle you to the point of considering FB suicide, but that could never happen since one does not simply pull the plug on the Matrix. There you'll sit, spanked and humiliated by someone who may be a total stranger, with only the safety of distance and invisibilty to aid you. The monitor's a shield. The keyboard is a sword. And the kids you picked on in high school who didn't manage to become members of law enforcement are now going to sacrifice you to the gods of bandwidth if you rock the boat too hard. Deal with it, and be grateful for the last stronghold of political incorrectness in this pussified America that'd make her forefathers weep.

Now excuse me while I go rattle my canary cage and rub one out to those leaked Jennifer Lawrence pics...

Sour Mash Beatitudes

Marc found Dale rummaging through a trash can between two gasoline pumps. A Hefty bag laden with plastic, glass, and aluminum beverage receptacles dangled from a belt loop at the side of his tattered dungarees. No razor had touched his face months, but the sweatshirt he wore managed to maintain its luminous white although it was months since Labor Day had passed. Broadway failed to notice his fashion blunder. "Perfect," Marc muttered to himself. "Perfect."

Dale glanced up from his industrious endeavor for long enough to strike Marc's eyes with silent spears that exposure hadn't dulled. No plea for pocket change came from his weathered face. Marc began to wonder if his prior assessment was correct. This outdoor entrepreneur seemed staunchly independent. Perhaps that's fitting, Marc thought as he composed a proposal in his head.

"What's your favorite brand of whiskey?"

"Maker's Mark," Dale shot, unhesitant to unholster.

"Want to come for a walk?" Marc asked. It was a gamble with odds like the literacy rate in Georgia, but he took it. "It's hard to find a man with a taste for bourbon in town these days."

"Sure," Dale replied. "Just no funny stuff." Marc wondered what he meant, then cringed at the possibilities. There were truths that no newspaper would dare to uncover.

There'd been a fire down the block. Remnants from the cracked hydrant coated the macadam. Rollers from the responders' vehicles reflected off the pavement. Two bearded thirty-somethings slowed their Zipcar and approached the curb in reverse gear. Rubber tore from the side of the rear tire while the god of parallel parking shook his head in the offing. Marc and Dale walked by, dodging a minefield of niggerspit on the sidewalk. Music from the adjacent barbershop blared through the fogged storefront glass.

"Ever been here?" Marc asked as he pointed to the hip new distillery a few steps ahead of them.

"Not lately," Dale replied, clutching his bag of empties. Dale heard the humor that hid beneath the dirt.

"Let's see if they've got anything as good as Maker's."

The two men entered a rowdy sea of revelers. Flannel was the dress code. Sarcasm filled the air. Marc led Dale to the counter unperturbed. A kid unfit for combat rolled his sleeves two inches higher, approached his two new customers, and gulped an imagined shot.

"What'll it be?" he asked.

"Something like Kentucky." Marc elbowed Dale, but didn't get a rise.

"That'll be eight bucks," said the timid employee.

Marc raised his eyebrows. "The sign says there's a tasting."

"That's for..." the kid behind the counter began. "Sure," he said, amended. He poured them out two jiggers.

"This tastes more like Tennessee," Marc said after swigging.

"Tastes more like my boxers," Dale belched without a pause.

The hipster with tattoos he'd regret in three years didn't know what to make of it. "How about this one?" He doled them out and wiped the bar. Marc and Dale sniffed their whiskeys, then took them to the hilt.

"Are there bubbles in yours?" Marc asked his companion.

"Sure as hell are. Are you serving us dishwater, Jack?" Dale inquired.

The youth behind the oak succumbed to his assailant. A given name is trivial. There were larger problems looming.

"What's that one in the small bottle up there?" Marc asked, pointing to a remote corner of the top shelf.

"That's not on the tasting list. It's limited. My boss would..."

"Are you some kind of test-tube baby?" Dale was proud of his contemporary insult. He once slept under a newspaper with a headline about that phenomenon. It stayed with him.

"Let me have a bottle of it; sealed." Marc eyed the slinger of booze, poised for swift retaliation.

"Sir, that's a two-hundred-and-thirty-dollar bottle."

"Do you take cash in this dump?" Marc replied. Dale seemed shocked. Marc plucked the bills from his wallet and waited for the change.

The clerk placed it in a paper bag and slid it across the counter. "Enjoy."

"It ain't for me," Marc said, passing the package to the stranger to his left. "Dale here's celebrating." There was no further mention of what fortunate event had transpired. Clarification was not required. One doesn't question greatness. One merely nods the head.

"For your troubles," Dale said as he laid his bag of recyclables on the bar. It was the first time he'd tipped in awhile.

Ten Lords-a-Leaping

There's a rare and certain comfort
when a story
lived or printed
ends exactly how it must.
The universe is sated
by our sacrificed desires.
Out there in the offing
Strunk & White are even pleased.

We mortals set aside
the arbitrary yearnings
that will someday drain
from catheters in deathbeds.
Taking fate's cheap shot
leaves us pissing blood for days--
days that seem longer
than those years we battled ourselves
without knowing our opponents.

The horn will go dead when the battery dies.
This isn't a soliloquy
to commemorate a path.
It's thinly veiled specific;
our futures drop like flies.
Consider it a blessing
to live on maps forever.

Sloppy Jalopy

But it's funny
this folklore we make;
how we sit at coffee break
telling tales of prior lives--
Kira Sherwin, the quiet student
who fucked five guys
at a high school party
thirteen years ago
and blew three more in the woods.
Whether or not it's true
or a rumor, like the pickle chick
we laugh and breathe
and pray that life's not over
then look to the apprentice
smugly perched across the room
and wonder if he's busted
hymens, hearts, and the rest.

It's a raucous life we live
chewing bacon-egg-and-cheese.

From the Chapped Lips of a Taxpaying Subject of Her Majesty

Be brave enough to put yourself aside
in the name of whom you think you are.
Set down the vices that make you human
for long enough to be the Ideal
that beckons you in the morning.

When an iron hand in a velvet glove
sends your head sideways
be gracious, ye sinners.
It is only a friend who tells of your folly.

Peter called the authorities
as soon you paid Paul.
Learn to drink the cheaper wine.
It suits you more than handcuffs.

And, if nothing else, beware of the uninspired.
Apathy is the drug of the dead
and every clock is a dealer.


Currently reading:
"The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.

Marauder Eyes and Water

She wants a Polaroid
and I think she's got one coming
since she isn't fond of cameras
but knows what shots to take.

They say a lady's hands
speak chapters on her habits.
I'd bet those pretty fingers;
I'd wager those blue eyes--
somewhere she still has
the notes I leave her in the morning.

Sash

She took her clothes off
for money, but that was OK
since for me they fell for free.
We'd met again eight years later
and it seemed some sick joke
which we foolishly pursued
for a few months.
You may remember them:
the ones when I seemed crazy--
really crazy.
It started as a pit stop
but became a destination
as toxic as the Chinese sky.
We ignored her monthly
with a black towel
and her profession
with the same.

She loved yellow flowers
so I brought them every week
although I wasn't working.
They were her mother's favorite
until she died a year prior.
The color of cowardice
didn't make sense until the end.

I'd watch my girl get ready:
makeup, hair, packing bits of lace--
putting her war paint on, she called it.
She'd text me all night from the club
counting down the hours
until she could crawl into bed with me
after a sad shower
rinsing lavender and glitter
but when she disappeared
for too long my mind wandered
and it stung.
One night I woke up
to her pulling piss-soaked sheets
off the mattress; three empty bottles
of wine and some whiskey
on the counter.
That was the worst of it.
After that it got better.
She framed a poem I wrote her
and it was on her bedroom wall
until she ripped it up
one night when it got worse again.
I'd thrown her flowers on the floor.
All of them.

Others knew her stage name
but I knew her real name
and that her stepfather raped her
until she was eleven
when she told her mother
who did nothing
so cancer killed her.
How can a man
who's worth a damn
blame a woman
so detached
when life
does that
to a kid?

Alexithymia and Other Happy Accidents

The source of my existence
was on my father's curb
and almost lost to the nearest trash heap.
I'm known to pick through leavings.
I thrive on memorabilia.

This token of nostalgia
is a rectangle of plastic;
an image of a lobster
above my mother's name.
The pin on the back of the tag
still catches.
If my old man saw her now
she still would catch his eye.

He worked locally.
She was a waitress.
The rest of the tale
is as rote as the franchise.
Here I am thirty years
after that missed pill
picking up trinkets
of a love that almost was.


Currently reading:
"The Stand" by Stephen King.

The Concubine of Lazarus

He suggests we round the corner
to admire his latest feat;
"later" meaning "now"
we comply and view his painting.
The title slips from lips
between his sips of stout.
I'm familiar with the book
from which he stole the name.
"You've read Céline, haven't you?"
he asks about my journey
hoping to feel superior
in our own predestined night.
"Any Bukowski fan should,"
I fire at his oak.
He turns away, a poet
still working on his tan
and I wonder if his walls
can scream through dusty glossies.


Currently reading:
"The Walking Dead:  Compendium Two" by Robert Kirkman.

He Limps Across the Plaster, a Body Drained of Grace

My lady was the pen
and I cheated with the bottle.
There were Claymore mines
and concertina wire.
There was blood unspoken for
on sheets that went unclaimed.
Plaid button-downs
covered chests unfit for medals
and when the eagle fucking cried
she really fucking sang.

Now hobble that sweet ass over here
and show an old pervert
how well a wounded bird
can kneel.

Currently reading:
"The Colossus and Other Poems" by Sylvia Plath.

Tabletop Bloodletting Americana

If I could get
my head out of my ass
I'd be a decent husband
and if you could keep
your ass in the air
you'd make a decent wife.
Now are you going to finish that
or am I taking it to work for lunch tomorrow?

A Sentence Worth the Crime

There's gravity and magic
that no physicist nor director
can capture
in absorbing a scene
for what one's gut knows
is the last time
like the sunset from Hither Hills West Overlook
while leaving Montauk, New York--
a first taste of the scale
tipping closer to the grave
with nothing about it
being anything short
of perfection
(Fuck you
wherever you are
Rocco Esposito, Jr.).


Currently reading:
"Howl and Other Poems" by Allen Ginsberg.

Cosmos

"Wait, what was his name?"
I stop my fifty-year-old cousin
mid-sentence in search of clarification.
He repeats the victim's name for me.
I lay my beer down on his coffee table.
"I played soccer with his son in elementary school,"
I tell him, dumbfounded.
The boy I knew fell off the face of the earth
or maybe I did when my parents split
and I moved out of that one-horse town
with my mother many moons ago.
The revelation feels fraudulent.
Things like that don't happen
to people we know;
or maybe they do
and that contributes
to the world's current state.
"How'd it happen?"

My cousin continues
after a long drag of Coors.
"He was on a snowmobile
with his son--your friend--
on the back when the old man
plowed into him.
There were targets
and casings in the car
when the cops searched it afterward.
He was on the way home
from the range when it happened.
As soon as he opened the door
to rip that old man out of the car
and pummel him for almost
killing his kid on the back of that sled
he was shot with a pistol.
Then the driver got out
aimed at the ground
and unloaded in his face
while he bled out in the snow.
His son witnessed everything.
The old man got away with it.
He argued self-defense.
It was sickening."
He punctuates the account
with another swig of his swill.

My cousin continues
his rambling, but my ears
are under water.
What else had been censored
by that hamlet's parents decades ago?
Where does that old friend
call home these days
and did I kick the ball his way
enough times on our field?
Sometimes the world isn't big enough.

Don't Tell Me How to Live My Lie

Casting aspersions over a sundowner
our genius stares into the offing.
Cesarean fleshpots.
Rheostat dreams.
He's crossing the Rubicon armed.

He'll never outgrow the symbols he knows.
That degree works wonders on townies.
An albatross hangs from his neck
to the rest of us;
fugazi, a cubic zirconia.

Forgotten the taste
of fruit that's forbidden.
Searching for devils in details.
A windowless room that reeks of bleach.
I've never grown out of that mean streak.

Crumbs in the Carpet

I wake to candles burning
and a third bottle of Portuguese red
that I don't remember opening
keeping guard from the nightstand.
She lies naked under bedclothes
on the side of the mattress that's typically mine
while I fumble in the 5 a.m. darkness
for my denim attire.
The notion of leaving
this warm place for work
seems ludicrous.
I lace my boots dizzily
and creep back into the bedroom
blowing out the final flame
before kissing her mass of hair
that conceals her face from sight.

You know what my versions
of Hell are by now.
Now let me tell you
what Paradise could be:

Five more minutes spent
in places like that bed
and a chance to address
a list of things I almost did.

West Point Folklore

A soldier on base
shared classified information:

When someone else is servicing
the wife of an officer
who's been deployed overseas
the invading faction leaves
some stripes from his uniform
in a corner of the violated party's sock drawer
to let his fellow warrior know
that his wife's been waging a war of her own
against the most sacred of orders and vows.

It's no apology, but honor amongst thieves
and if you think your freedom's free
then you've never had your wife fucked
by a buddy while you're at work.


Currently reading:
"I Am Soldier of Fortune:  Dancing With Devils" by Robert K. Brown with Vann Spencer.

Variations on a Theme

Sometimes I stand
and sometimes I stand
corrected.

She tried to see
the fading good in me.
I showed her a photo
of my brother.

The dog is dead
but we're going to keep it;
maybe have it bronzed.

It takes a certain strength
to pour wine down the drain
without a stubborn sip
to confirm that it has soured.

The Pacific's a puddle
in relation to her depths.
Ask a man with shaking face
since surely he has plumbed them.

And now, eight years too late
to matter to either of us
I see why she preferred to walk the woods alone.

Parenting in a Valley

Contents of their burn barrel
shoot sparks that flash the alley.

"Why do we hear the freight train
louder at night?"

A horn unnoticed in daylight
blares on through punctuation.

"Because the river slows down
enough to carry the sound.
Everyone knows that.
Now hush and eat your beans."


Currently reading:
"The Walking Dead:  Compendium One" by Robert Kirkman.

Through Disregarding

Her eyes arrive as words.
She picks me out across the room
pins me to the wall
with a stare no man would get away with
and whispers how easy it'd be
to regret it in the morning.
I tip my beer and focus on the band
while college kids around me
try to fill their dorm rooms
with strangers in their majors.

It's a young man's game.
I tire of statistics.

The pint glass in my hand
is the only thing that's definite
in measure, in existence
in the way the West was won.
"I'm spoken for,"
my irises reply
through disregarding.
"In love with someone
I've yet to meet."
Her retinas scan the taproom
for a nocturnal accomplice.

The singer plays the song
that he knows I came to hear.
It talks me into one more drink.
I tip a dollar extra.


Currently reading:
"Granta, Vol. 125:  After the War"

A Decade and Redemption

He made her out of always
from a pocketful of nevers
laden with revisions
to transform a sin to legend.
Memory was blurred
for the sake of new religion.
Edges of the facts
were chipped through use like flint.

A fool became a martyr
in worse cases
a jester
to consummate a marriage
of callouses and hope.

Somewhere walks a goddess
who doesn't know her power.
He made her out of always
since eternity can't fade.

To Vilify the Baptist

David holds the smoke in
while converging on the sidewalk.
It's what a man should do
when confronted by a lady.
She's wearing a doe-colored jacket
that extends beyond her knees--
an homage in the name of
some dead and buried Hepburn.
Her hair is barely darker than the cloak
that hides her form.
His trichophilia's tamed.
He keeps his thoughts from straying.
Neither of them look
at what they'll never know.
A stream of carbon's spewed
once the path ahead is clear.

Jim waits on the corner
dressed in haggard denim.
His overalls have holes
and dirt that's not from farming.
A Steinbeck novel character
escaped and found New York.
David's not a gambling man
but Jim's bereft a deck.

He's choking down a nameless brand
given by a stranger.
He holds his other hand up
in a gesture smokers know.
"Do you have another, Dave?" he asks
without the need to.
It's extended to a twitching hand
before his words are done.
"Enjoy it, Jim," David says
in a wake of jumbled street talk--
something about carpets
with the phrase "most folks don't know."
"That's a good cigar, Dave,"
the outdoorsman says with gravitas.

The clothes don't make the man;
neither does the smoke.

A Pedestrian Cresting the Ramparts

Main Street's not as bustling
due to recent change in weather
but some players are still out
being pawned across the board.
A gas station clerk
sweeps cigarette butts
from around his empty pumps
shaking his head in disbelief
that some would take that chance.

One block down
a crossing guard dozes at his post
STOP sign in hand resting on his orange vest.
He dreams of kids and grandkids
too absorbed to lift their phones.

Leaves fall arrhythmically
and mix with refuse in the gutter.
A storm drain waits for all of us.
It's merely a matter of when.

Even in the Hamptons

I'd stayed in some stranger's bed
a happy home away from home
while working out of town on Long Island
and was driving out against the piercing sunrise
to Montauk, a place they call "The End"
when a stoplight revelation
woke me from the recap
right in time to read the score.

In the shelter of a bus stop
three Latin day laborers
watched an old man on his knees
pounding lengths of tarnished copper
ripped from a house
to cram into his backpack
and sell at current scrap rate.
The light turned, releasing me roadward
but I'll never forget that man's sweat
at seven in the morning
stealing and toiling
and there with the aliens
in the wealthiest part of New York State.

I wonder if that bus ever came.

Rocks

"No, really. I don't want any whiskey,"
I tell him, subconsciously rubbing
my stomach while filling a corner
of his couch beneath the distant ceiling.

"I didn't pour you a whiskey,"
he corrects, handing it over my shoulder.
"I poured you a rye."

I sip it gratefully
and listen to his stories.

Prick a finger.
Sign in blood.
Hope that you make friends
like this.

The foulest days
can't steal the fact
that some men aren't afraid
to love.

On Crosses and Crossroads

There's tuna on my breath and I mean that in the literal sense. I had a can for breakfast, spiced by some seasoning with a marketed name that I don't remember buying. The ghosts are becoming more bold. They're stocking the shelves with condiments they enjoy. At least I can share this space with some company, even if it's not the variety I've been chasing off for three years.

That's not to say I'm celibate. Last night there was a romp. She's a grand old girl, a throwback to Dorothy Parker and other sharp diamonds who didn't care what society thought of women who admit to craving carnal pleasure much like men. In the twelve years that I've known her it's always been that way. I've left her place scratching my head on more than one occasion. Was that the beer talking, or did she really mean to have such a pointed tongue? It didn't matter. We came so we won, at least for the evening. Distance lends perspective. By the time I returned home I had that much figured out. How much longer I can pretend to quench the expected thirst is a different topic, however. Nothing seems enjoyable for more than thirteen strokes these days. It's equally trite and emasculating to confess that I miss making love.

The accent wall was her idea, but breaking up was mine. We'd been together for long enough to know that we shouldn't have been, and therefore did what most couples do in that case:  we moved in together. The dog was dead, but we were going to keep it; maybe have it bronzed. It lasted for all of a month until I suggested a rift. The rent is double what I'd been paying at my previous place, but sanity is more important than prosperity. I've managed ever since. I've chased them off with sticks, and by that I mean choice words. In the three years since my three-year relationship I've refused to settle and I've abided by the rules of the road I've learned along the way. There's a whistle in my head that keeps me sleeping alone at night, or as alone as one who's haunted by ghosts who shop for groceries can be. The Great Ones have been coming to me in my dreams more frequently.

The character varies, though the theme is the same. The theme is the only one worth a damn in any book or film:  redemption. Last it was Angela. Before that Stephanie. There are others on that list, but we'll stick to those two since they're recently married with children. The internet is a cruel tool for the lonely masochist. I'm not sure if the knowledge inspires the dreams or vice versa. The plot is usually the same. One of the Ones That Got Away returns to make it right. I adore her, dote on her, tell her all the things I used to notice without having the sensibility to say. It may be the tiny circles in the skin under her eyes or the way her teeth are so much straighter than any line I could draw or how she whimpers so slightly before she falls asleep. Whatever it is, it's rounded and softened by the dreamscape--and that's when I notice it's fake. At first the revelation's heartbreaking. I know that when I wake my euphoria will cease to be. Regardless, I savor every stretched second for the solace that it is. When a cab's horn or the need to urinate wakes me I'm out of luck again. The only fate worse than losing love once is losing it over and over in the mornings.

It's not entirely selfish. A part of me's elated. They've given into instinct, those stubborn former lovers. The Great Ones are all safe now. They're safe and far from me. The women I meet in the wake of my prime don't last as long as a carton of milk.

Nocturnal Calculus

Tires slosh the streetrain
on a tired Wednesday night
walking back from a delivery
that leaves a man's jaw sore

when it goes out
quite like clockwork
once it's stridden under
goes off like a gunshot
that'd send the sirens soon
(perhaps it's more reliable
than anything man-made;
more like Newton's Law--
the third one about motion)

though there aren't too many things
that trump the net of clockwork
unless we're talking streetlights
or a friend who keeps a secret.


Currently reading:
"The Juliette Society" by Sasha Grey.

Garter

I'd been drilling through foundation
to install a new hose faucet
one October afternoon
when the sin of my vibrations
startled sleeping fauna
back to slithered life.

It dangled from the doorframe
flinching not an inch
once its presence was detected
and my face went wide in wonder.
I exited the basement
making strides to grab my gloves.
Protection of the leather
would help me catch the vermin
but that brief time with my back turned
had let the snake escape.

I suppose that's how it should be.
There's no outsmarting nature.
The rest of that day's plumbing
was done with restless eyes.

Connie

There've been two years
of avoiding those serpentine eyes
"You didn't do this last time"
Fingernails dig into an arm
while their counterparts
run through wet hair
"Yeah, well"
No sign of the Messiah
but there's been a Second Coming

Protective rationalization
In his defense it's basic math
Steal their thunder playing 'possum
with an Ace up the sleeve
that comes through in the clutch
whether he knows it or not

"Thanks"
"Goodnight"
The scent will hang
in sheets; until shaving.


Currently reading:
"The Long Walk" by Stephen King.

Salud, Comrade

When it's gone
as it almost is
I'm not sure what will happen.
Maybe the boy truly dies then.
There are no by-laws for the supernatural.
I hadn't thought about it until today.

Mocking acquaintances
from a time when they were tolerated
called it the Dead Guy Disaronno.
The large bottle of Italian liqueur
had come from a cleanout job
I did in the East Village years back.
Cancer even kills in Manhattan.
Cancer even kills 21-year-old kids.
His family paid us to empty his studio
in order to avoid further heartache.
It seemed to be the right decision.
I'd want the same in a similar scenario.
We discovered a bong and dirty movies in the closet;
a used rubber behind the bed.
I found recording gear and a deviant
pornographic film script in a shoebox.
I haven't told anyone about that until now.
Among the syringes, pill bottles
and expensive pieces of plastic medical equipment
that didn't earn their keep
there were packs upon packs of empty Marlboro Reds.
He was Russian
and wanted to be a cowboy
but instead he died
an ocean away from his birthplace
nowhere near the O.K. Corral.

My employer salvaged some usable items
unworthy of the trash heap
and encouraged me to do the same.
It lessened our trips to the dump
and the fees.
I copped that bottle of amaretto.
My bar back home needed some sophistication
amidst the mags of whiskey and rum.
Wasting the nectar of freedom is abuse
and I'm not one to abstain.

It didn't get much play
in our weekend cocktail rotation.
Only now, in my hermitic years
has it had its cap removed.
Coffee is better with a bite
like a kiss
so I've sipped and been bitten
and grateful.
Tonight as I indulge
with a pungent cigarillo
the dusty bottle stares back
two portions left.
It's dawned on me
with teeth, as death often does:
When the vessel gets tossed
in a week when it's empty
that Russian stranger dies
for the last time in my life.

Persecution Complex

Her room's a museum
with blankets of dust--
a shrine to poor choices;
potential that was.
The saltwater therapy
didn't pan out.
Her legs found the land;
refused to leave ground.
To spit out a tantrum
and call it her art
is as useless as friends
who can't shuffle cards.
Damn the torpedoes.
We're coming in hot.
The flesh that's not burned
is destined to rot.

Lunatic Smiles of Guerrilla Warfare

Blood fills his left boot
as it pounds against his steed's sweaty flank
during what will be
their last ride together.
His wool sock soaks up
most of the warm plasma
though even through the ringing
of gunfire in his head
the sloshing sound resonates
giving a wet cadence to his unraveling.
"They're only flesh wounds,"
he'd lied to his Corporal
the darkness of night being a co-conspirator.
The good Corporal is dead now
so none of it matters.
Only the cavalry on his trail
will determine the final detail of his life:
When and where he shall perish
by a violent cloud of smoke.

Tree branches thwack
against his tattered uniform
as he rides through the cover
of close-enough-to-midnight.
The smell of sulphur
in the air is overwhelming.
The smell of copper
on his breath sours his nostrils.
He spits a wad of blood to his left, then coughs up
something large and nondescript
solemnly swearing that another bodily function
has shut down as a result.
No one needs a pancreas
as much as a few more rounds
would help him now, but the days
of his dealing in lead are no longer.
He tosses his carbine over his right shoulder
in an effort to lighten his horse's last load.
The stock of the rifle slung across his back
was cracked in half by a bullet, slowing it down
before entry to make the meeting intimate.
The good Corporal would have dug
the slug out of his flesh
with his bayonet like clockwork
but the good Corporal is dead now
so none of that matters.
The rhythm of hooves on the forest floor
gets closer and louder and more like ferrous metal.
A volley of shots ricochets off
the wood in his vicinity
splinters of bark exploding into shrapnel.

"It's as good a spot as any," he says to his
brass-burned stallion
running more on adrenaline
than any healthy sustenance.
When the next low limb
catches his chest
the Captain succumbs
taking him from his saddle
into the mud
where the contents of his boot spills
and is soon joined by the rest.

Through visions of love
he sees what never was
and by speaking of death
refuses to die.
Most of the barrage
lands in the softened earth.
None of the ones that hit
mar his face or chip his teeth.

Consider it a victory.

Confession of the Sawbones

One of the most terrible things
is when a man telling the truth
goes unbelieved
and can't sway his detractors--

which is why I never tell the truth:
to avoid terrible things.

Cheapskates Leave 15%

She lives in her parents' basement
and admits to nightly pale ales
while watching their backyard chickens
but from my corner of the ring
on the south side of our table
I notice that her bottom teeth, like mine
are deceptively out of line
and that's perfect.
It takes some extra stuffing
of a sandwich in my mouth
to keep from blurting out
the number of the faceless
who've picked children's names
like beacons plucked down
from a Van Gogh Starry Night.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.
Admit when the mission's been compromised.
That being said
I'm enamored again
as before; as I will be next week.

Canon Fodder

I really should read more Neruda;
spin magic like Garcia-Marquez;
Borges, romantic as Shakespeare's pedantic;
Rilke spits fire with Nietzsche.

cummings is mostly an acrobat.
Dickinson's caught in her pause.
Whitman walks right through the line breaks
while Jeffers confuses his neighbors.

Kerouac--the jittery camera--
does little for Plath's dance with death.
Artaud, Rimbaud, and that sad Baudelaire
slowly go crazy (in French).

Stevens' talent escapes me.
Williams is vague as his name.
Aiken and Auden and Lawrence and Browning
dive nothing like tragic Hart Crane.

Thomas, alone in the Village;
even old Hemingway played.
The filterless Hank gets a nod for his wink.
Oxygen, ink: overrated.

Postpartum Impression

"'V' as in 'Victory'," he tells the receptionist
through my telephone. The flower beds
I helped him build last spring
stand empty and waiting for Indian summer.

"I'm trying to find my wife," he continues.
You and me both, and my old man goes on:
"Room Number 12? Thank you."

The kid saw the ambulance
while playing in the neighbor's yard
but didn't decipher the same thing I can't.

Maybe they're marigolds.
Maybe magnolias.
My mother never told me the difference.


Currently reading:
"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller.

The Sneeze of the Nazarene

Her skirt was winter white
a creamy patch of fabric
compliant with the passing of Labor Day
from which her legs dangled
two feet above hallowed ground--
a lithe apparition alive on hot macadam.
The comprehensive presentation
seemed too good to be true
and its witness proved his genius
again. Everpresent fly-spots
unveiled themselves on the overhead lighting
and the deer crossed highways en masse
at 4 a.m., aiming for punch-drunk headlights
but if you'd heard the thunderstorm
that waited for penetration
maybe you'd believe that this time
it seemed real.

The Bloodiest of Gears

"It made a few uncomfortable
to see those burning tanks
but it was better them than us
smoldering and charred on the roadside..."

Spare us these threats of armistice now.
We've seen reasonable men
slaughter children with a cadence
not unlike a lullaby
while the anchor read the script.

A culture raised to glorify war
before the altar of a flag
far enough away
to hide its tattered state
is lured astray by shine
and gossip
while young men learn
the smell of human flesh--
the promise of a future
dangled high above their noses.

"It's not that we wanted to die
for our country, but the guys
to our left and our right
had to live."

The End of Aphesis

An amputated stairwell
thrice reneged by the castrato.
A newfound sense of duty
not as sacred as it's swift.
Black towels hide the blood
that was destined for the bedsheets.
There's a list of ways to slay them.
It's endearing 'til it's not.

A Hippie, a Heron, and Two Fishermen

When the sun hit my eyelids it wasn't stopped by skin. I felt the burn of hydrogen and helium from 92,960,000 miles away--miniaturized, purified, made safe for human consumption. My head was tilted over the edge of the inflated rubber inner tube which pulled me down the creek. Loose strands of hair dipped into the September Catskill water, and when capillary action failed to soak my head to my liking I reached back to cup some stream my way. In fitting fashion the words to 'Yellow Submarine' played in my head; the only part of the verse I knew: "In the land where I was born..." For another gracious instance I was grateful for that place: the Hudson Valley, New York State, and the sleeping hills of the Atlantic Northeast.

Opening my eyes into the stark, late-summer sky revealed clouds which would never harm a picnic. If white is gauged by absence then those nebulous bodies were barely there. The river's current was picking up pace. Rapids laid ahead in wait, but first a friendly denizen. He was piling flat stones atop one another, his gray chest hair shamelessly displayed, while his wife looked on in innocent bliss from her perch on a creekside boulder. "That's not a rock," I jibed, floating by, as he approached his zen creation with a two-foot piece of yellow-painted driftwood. "I'm bending the rules a bit," he replied. His submarine had landed. He knew right where he was. His wife, in her modest one-piece swimsuit, crossed her legs and winked my way--or maybe it was a reaction to that far-off furnace blinding her left side.

After the accelerated ration of ripples I came upon a fisherman, clearly from out of town. His pole was too long for the limited casting distance, his waders were too new to have experience behind them, and his gait within the water seemed as though a frog had stood erect. I pitied his doomed excursion and empty creel. The net tethered to his hip would not be needed today. I anticipated a glance and was ready to silently point upstream, then lift four fingers to indicate the number oncoming tubers, but no such look was given. His polarized lenses stayed in the eddies made by rocks. I wanted to warn him in case of collision. Instead, he focused on trout out of sight that would have laughed him back to Long Island if such a thing was possible. The Esopus carried me closer to Phoenicia. I didn't argue.

The next peaceful stretch was a lesson on the stubborn. I was just as guilty since I'd ventured north alone. It seemed a sad break in tradition to not enjoy this rustic pleasure I'd indulged in for fifteen years due to a lack of constant company. Abstaining from my annual tubing adventure would be silent confession to the sin of getting old. Thirty meant Reality, but thirty wasn't Dead. Neither was the river. There were strangers I could talk to. There was Nature, always listening. And as the case has always been the words played in my head. A heron, not so cheerful, watched as I approached. The shallow pool she hunted would soon be disturbed by my presence. Her four-foot wingspan opened and she floated, airborne, thirty yards downstream. A few half-hearted pecks at the water yielded no stabbed sustenance. From the corner of her eye she saw that dreadful human. I smirked apologetically. She lifted off again. The pattern repeated for what felt like ten minutes before she flew into the forest. I felt bad for my trespass. I knew the pang of hunger.

There are themes throughout our books and lives, though none of them as strong as redemption. The second fisherman I saw was a poem by Robert Frost. His sway matched the current, man and momentum as one. His clothing and gear were older than the teenager who rented me the tube in town. A pipe was pinched by the corner of his wrinkled mouth, giving him a mild resemblance to Popeye, and if the fish knew what was good for them they'd acknowledge this man's talent. I lifted my limbs from the water to avoid stirring up the muck or spooking wary trout. My right index finger found its way to my pursed lips in the international symbol for "Shhh" to imply I was aware that trout fishing's more like hunting. The old timer smiled with his eyes, creases jutting towards his temples, as he lazily let his lure plop into a hole he trusted. "If more people went down like you I might actually catch something," he said above the din of rushing water. "I thank you." I remained silent for the duration of my passing, well knowing that his modesty was not founded in truth. He'd had his shares of beauties. Those who have don't talk about it; still the sailor shares his day.

Hip Replacements and Gentrification

Mirrorless crusaders
haunt the city streets
one block in particular
more repressive than the rest;
bred like pit bulls
guardians of Children
spawned by guilt
they'd never have
if neighbors weren't so cultured.

Down back there's a strip of trees
too small to hide a corpse
but if they have their way
that forest will be named
with a sign to carve and paint and hang
and directions from the train.

Table Scraps & Doggie Bags

Sunday morning
mist commute;
colored ribbon
over job, wishing job
was over.
Bottom found
for first time
stemming from the Hudson:
Diamonds, but no gold.
We take what's left and precious
when the rainbow leads us there.

Birthday barbecue due east.
Fighting not to jerk the wheel.
No yellow flowers
either: a sign of growth
like shedding.
Ride home
to sweat it out.

Staring up the stairwell.
Scrapes of knives on plates
through deadbolt doors.
Found the rainbow's bottom once.
It can be done again.


Currently reading:
"Jorge Luis Borges:  Selected Poems", edited by Alexander Coleman.