No longer that girl

Contrasting the verse that I now pen on smiley
face topics, like leaves birds and butterflies,
slipped in a notebook, stuffed in a drawer along
with the jeans that got tight now, are dozens of
them, of decades thematic of times when I'd
"loved" with a slice of my spleen, poetry musings
on "dirtbags" I'd known, when wayward and dirty
and destined for therapy.

And once in the while I take a peek back at
that younger girl, the one in contorted
positions with "jerks" at a rest stop, overlooking
the Grand Central Parkway and wonder..

**
to where go these poems
when I'm miles past that lifetime,

to where go these poems
when I'm no longer that girl.

Any Sort of Fun Flash Becomes the Past  

 
Turn it all off.  
Shut it down.  
This world will huff 
And it’s full of clowns.  

Keep that vision  
In your eye.  
Leaves decay.  
Toe prints  
Get eaten by the tide.  
Time deteriorates;  
You're gonna die. 

Not Cupid's nor Your Father’s Moon
                     ....wetter than previously thought—NYTimes
 
Your dad’s old goddess has fallen asleep
in her retro waterbed of arid arroyos found
under the Sea of Tranquility, dust steeped
in invisible acquifers of space that gave ground
long ago. Does that make the moon more a love
symbol, or less? Wetter means it may endure
like a faithful old nun and yet prove
sultry. For these unfeathered hopes, no cure
but another heavenly body, less wet and cold, fired
in the kiln of another galaxy or the fresh breast
of an as-yet-uninvented temptress desired
by some poor mortal like me, a guest
here under the cheesy ph(r)ases, the liquid lies
of myth like tears in your dying father’s eyes.

In the Spirit (of Kentucky Photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard)

Back when the world was black and white, 
folks had no use for Halloween.
Any occasion sufficed. 

People of all ages apparently 
went everywhere wearing nightmare masks.

A one-armed man at the end of his long workday
would pose beside a headless mannequin in lingerie.  

To impress friends or on a dare, a child wearing a dress jumped
from a granary or icehouse loft in a blur.

This optician made his unusual name
taking these oddly mystical pictures
mostly to amuse himself. 

Faith is weird that way.

GETTING TO TOMORROW


Grass poking through snow.
Countless chickadees and titmice

at the feeder, shower seeds
on a fat blue jay below. The sun drags

its long fingers along a pine fence.
A sleepy St. Bernard heaves a sigh.

A man with knuckles raw
from beating his steering wheel,

raises bloodshot eyes to a winter
night’s first few pinprick sparks.




WORK EXPERIENCE

 
Snow falls
in street lamp
light
on the windowless,
fire-gutted
mill
where my uncle,
fresh
out of high school,
lost both thumbs
in a metal press—
his first day
on the job.

 

You Appear Tentaculoracular

i see you thru the window of your motions
calm down maya i’m like fuck you
jellyfish juice in my knee stings
and suddenly i’m with you
again for ever and
ever as an ocean
is quiet is quiet
as all the ways
you come to
me only as
i’m fever
wild
passion
i say i am but
you wouldn’t say 
would spontaneously
combusust unless you
appear tentaculoracular
would you piss on my wound
if i ask without remorse to dull
the poison and pain of the stung
pumps into my heart i’ll remember
this the clappers and steel drums one day
i’ll remember you suddenly down broadway
when life’s one long hourglass and lightning splits     

     t h e   m i d d l e
      s i f t i n g   o u t
           m e a s u r  e s
      o f  m y  p a t i e  n ce
     s  p  i  l  l  i  n  g 
o u t  o f  p a t i e n c e

“imagine the magnificence wash invisibly away”

a n c i e n t   r e a l m 
      o f w a v e  r h y m e s 
i n t i m e ’ s n o m ea s u r e

eyes


there’s a dying ember of tomorrow
smoldering in her once brilliant
one electric blue
now red watery despondent eyes

she can almost remember a time
when everything mattered
when all of this was nothing
and everything else
all of the outside of these hours
was much more than simply
something to get through

get through to get where
here
this

this seems less a destination
less a reward
more a prison
constructed by careless frivolity
and inevitable desperation

there’s a nagging silent hope
that sometimes claws at the
back of her brain
but she’s gotten good at
drowning it down

every time she comes in the door
her self hatred grows a little stronger
She doesn’t know she’s thought of this
but she has
and maybe if she’s lucky
someday she’ll realize it

tears threaten to burst
every time she motions
for another
mile marker to familiar blackout

some people are so broken
you never have to share a single word
you can find their whole story
suffocating in their eyes

Different View 

A club member confides:  
"My dear father phoned
with bad news."
He told me,
"Mom's friend upset us. 
We arrived for dinner tonight.
Our hostess opened the door, 
then collapsed in front of us. 
A heart attack."
The club member ends: 
"I think she was inconsiderate."  

It's All Good

It's all good.
Life, enjoy everything.
Nature is wonderful.
Music and art marvelous.
Fine cuisine delicious.
Just being alive is fantastic.
Enjoy every minute of it,
Hang out in bars.
Meet new people,
Make jokes, have a laugh.
Enjoy a damn good beating,
What the hell did I say?
I'm sure my doctor can
Reset these bones.



The Language Thing

See, there's this language thing.
My first time in Europe,
I get this naked woman
Lying across my midsection
Fondling my tool.
She says, "French"?
I say, "American".
Again, she's with this "French"?
I didn't have time to answer
Before she puts this lip lock
On my stiff cock and gives me
A fantastic, world class blow job.
Yeah, the language thing.
I'm well into this "French" now.

This World Is Too Full of Us

 
This world is too full of us
Getting and spending, we lust for power
Little we see in Nature that is beyond us
We have given our hearts away

This world is too full of us
Dreaming and coveting, we are insatiable
There’s nothing we care about but our own interest
We have lost the sense of beauty

This world is too full of us
Fighting and arguing, we stopped looking around
All we see is how well we look
We have no real passion and love

This world is too full of us
Bragging and showing, we are blind to knowing
Most of time we care about winning
We destroy the world where we are living