God and the NFL


Were the twin pillars
Of his religion. Don’t
Get him started on the AFL.
The biggest regret of his
life was not being able
to play organized ball.
He had the size, the ability,
the desire but a world war
got in the way. Then a heavy
accelerated course load of
highly technical subjects.
As an adult, he taught
Sunday school, then
worshiped at the church
of football, like a mad priest
in an ecstatic frenzy.
He preached on the vagaries
of zone coverage and
the pure visceral thrill
of brutal contact, venerating
crippling tackles, knock out
blocks, venerating the courage
of tight ends who took hits
over the middle and never
dropped a pass. He bestowed
upon them his highest praise:
hard nose. Said they were
warriors. Real men. Knew
the meaning of big balls as if
the more macho you were,
the better man you would be.
I often wondered how he felt
When the baddest of them all
came out. Said he had struggled
with his sexuality all his life
and that he had been secretly gay
all through his career. That he was
dying now and it didn’t matter
who knew. I wondered if that
meant he had AIDS, that he no
longer had great hands, true grit in
the crease where manliness
mattered.

Red

Hands on my night brimmed pockets-
Diamonds and rusts as the song said
Penny for unkempt days
Diaries and flash fictions
Dreary and turbulent
Easy enough to pass on the moving choir.

Lullabies of my frisky fall days
My eyes on the outside autumn
A wishful longing
To taste the over brimmed autumn
In a soulful cup
Oversoul and honey quartz,
And homecoming with conjoined hands.

Sometimes my vulnerable steps
Paint ducked off lines
I want to make mandalas of 
Saturated bliss 
As poetry says bliss and autumn come
together.
Two red hats sun beamed musk roses.

Across the new building
A new wall of a graffiti of a modern art
Mon amor days of scented candles
I wanna stick chap sticks
And Paper flowers on my fragile necklace.

My red veined fear 
No more fear of the vulnerable steps 
Autumn will dress us for growth
To make a saturated redness 
Under the heavy fall
And the striped stream that calls on me
Come over and drape in bliss.

A NEW RELATIONSHIP


You're my lover,
self-congratulations, a high five,
beneath the slap,
a heart's tremor,
every woman I've ever known
gathered in a corner of this room -
how could this one stay with me?
why did she leave?
how come it went nowhere?
I want to know why the past
lies so heavy,
that even my triumphs
are the sorry slaves
of that first unwanted wet kiss.
The way ahead summons
the smells of fairgrounds.
cow dung, lakefronts.
This is sweet perfume
with the bitter odor of yesterday.
It's cool ocean breeze
atop hot sticky asphalt.
Even before we start,
I know where this is going.
It can't work because
I once thought it could.

 

 
THE CHANCES OF A CHILD HE NEVER KNEW EXISTED

 
Less than fifteen years of age but more than fourteen,
the fact of her standing before him is beyond comprehension,
with all the years between snapping like violin strings
in the presence of blue eyes fixated in him,
as he proffers a trembling hand that’s grasped by no one.

An unexpected meeting on the street. What are the chances?
She retreats behind her mother. What are the chances?
Tears well up in his eyes. What are the chances?
And who’s taking them? And why now?

What are the chances of a teenager graven with his old image,
of sudden lineage thrust in her face and his?
It’s as if they each in turn have discovered a new species.
But it’s already named…and by someone else.




CAR THIEF


A rock, a hammer, a lead pipe…
busting windows is a cinch.
Only you have none of these.
And the car is just standing there,
aching to be taken for a joy ride.
Why didn’t you bring some tools?
What kind of a car thief are you?
If only you had a couple of grand,
you could buy some beat-up piece
of crap to go driving around in.
You wouldn’t have to steal then.
And now, you’re so frustrated
you want to smash the glass with
your head. Over and over and over.
One over for the lack of tools.
The second for the paucity of cash.
The third because it’s never over.

just hard enough
 
the spanish princess brings
me a cup of coffee as i sit
at her kitchen table, her
bulging breasts falling
out of her lingerie
 
she blows me a kiss
as i take my first sip
 
she gives me the look
that we both know means
are you up for another
round of what we did
last night
 
i call her over to me and
kiss her, biting her lower
lip just hard enough to let
her know you're damn right
i'm ready for another round
 
we race off to her bedroom
like lustful teenagers
 
two broken souls finally
getting to relish the joy
of being truly alive
 
usually this is wasted
on the young that have
no fucking clue how
to use it

        Far from Home

 

We met for lunch in a café where the juke box was set to loud. Soon we were shouting, both of us angry. You over the divorce, me over your threats. Neither of us noticed the waitress or the cook until you pulled out your gun and slammed it down on the table, where it landed between the salt and pepper, like a referee. The waitress froze, dropping the coffee pot. The cook grabbed his phone. “He never means it!” I cried.  “Please?” While sirens screamed over the sounds of the juke box from whatever law was on the way. 

Autumnal


I was taught in school to never begin a sentence with “and” or “but.” But, realistically, how do you do that? And why would anyone even want to? At work your mother would eat lunch alone in the bathroom. I’m beginning to understand something about it. Nothing is ever the way they say it’ll be, and instead, a little flower between two abysses.

&

Buildings don’t burn up or burn down, they just burn. My own computer spied on me while I slept in. Whatever happened to the right to be lazy? Oh look, see how the leaves fall in gusts. Ah, darling, what blood and murder. Everything will shortly be turned upside down.

&

You can hear the war out there – machine guns and explosions. People quietly ask themselves: Who are we fighting? They are packing bags, in case the enemy comes this way. A very scared older woman confesses, “It feels like they’re already here.”

 

 
Being Me


There’s bad shit going on. Supply chain problems are said to be to blame. Often one has to make things oneself in order to have or see them. Just ask meth cooks what that means. I’ve been following a long, confusing route, down streets that twist and turn like Nietzsche’s enigmatic aphorisms and then in and out of rooms where people repeat phrases in the mindless manner of a talking doll: “Thank you,” “I love you,” “Awesome!” It’s all part of the inconvenience of being me, father of orphans and foster children, inventor of the fingerprint smudges on touch screens.

 

In the bewitched aviary.
The sonnet according to Mr. Shakespeare


Helots muse about moony Golden Fleece of the condor.
Drudges think of the dreamy eternal dew of the hen.
Philosophers ponder on winged fantasy of the crow.
Kings ruminate on a picturesque gold of the jay.

Priests contemplate the dreamed, soft, meek weird of the woodpecker.
Masters daydream about nice marvelous songs of the tern.
Soothsayers dream of fulfilled gold of the yellowhammer.
Knights philosophize about poetic dawn of the wren.

Hoplites fantasize about a red sky of the sparrow.
Athletes describe the most tender treasure-charm of the snipe.
Gods remember an enchanted, dear temple of the seagull.
Goddesses recall fairytale-like heroes of the kite.

Poets commemorate the elves-like heaven of the owl.
Bards reflect on most amazing dreamery of the rook.

weird - archaic fate

Five Weeks


So, here I am,
out of hospital
for three weeks
and five weeks
without a drink.

It doesn't bother
me like I thought
it would.
I was expecting to be
headbutting the walls.

But, no, the only thing
I've been craving is a
cigarette.
I can do this.
I know I can 

Earth Day

 
Just before being bored to death
people wonder whether creation is overrated,
life like a listless game
of pick-up basketball
played between bored millionaire basketball players
and everyone in Middle America
suddenly realizes Middle America is just a collective hallucination,
a broad black hole of nothing
burning through the conceptual center
of everything…
Happy Earth Day! cries Jesus
who bursts into the room
just as everyone finishes filing out
the door closing softly behind them.



Listening to Birdsong in the Predawn Hours

 
I hate it when I log on to social media
and die a thousand deaths
before I’ve finished my coffee. Even people
I might want to see on my screen
are buried beneath a barrage
of multinational advertising and how fucked up is it
that Dawn brand dish soap
advertises not with pictures of brilliant plates, glasses, and spoons,
but with fuzzy ducklings scrubbed
of planet-destroying oil?
In the dissolving gloom and looming new day
I think about the relativities of suffering
and die a few more times
before throwing my phone out the window
as pointless and expensive gestures
are all I’m capable of.
A storm has passed this way in the night
and the air and streets are clean
for the time being and all the trees very green.
Nothing but birds singing in deep green.
I hate it when I’m a hungover piece of shit
and life insists on being beautiful.

Behind Every Great Lion

 
A halo of flies buzz around his crown
Too quick for the snapping jaws
That bite down, briefly, in irritation:
They escape the click of his kingly teeth
In that gaping mouth which just finished
Feasting on Zebra meat. His Highness
Grows sleepy now in the unrelenting heat—
Having eaten, we might guess, to excess.
Nevertheless, his belly wouldn’t be so full
If such a pride was without a lioness.