Pimping my poetry

 

What began as a hobby, fitting in between

kids and the groceries, leads to obsession;

no longer pastime but the day’s main event.

 

You see that you like it. You want to

be noticed and hope that the lits like it.

 

So, what came from the gut, now needs

the seamstress. You tweak and you

modify, in accord to the monthly theme;

its ethnicity, demographic, even its politics.

 

As you change/rearrange, geared to the

place you’re submitting.

 

So, Joe becomes Javiar.  Mary, Maria; the

Goldbergs, the Smiths now, etcetera, etcetera.

 

The knish on line three, becomes manicotti,

or arroz con carne, dropping the carne, for

the zen and the vegan blogs.

 

And the scene shifts location; the Bronx, now

Belize, Manhattan, the midwest.

 

You write what you live, but you kill off your

accent. Fuggedaboutit Brooklyn, when you

meet with the higher brow.

 

And you write and you write

till your knuckles turn green,

 

some nights, not sleeping

 

just you and the moon man

and a half pack of Marlboros.

Dinner for Two

 

We went out to dinner

just the two of us.

You wore a buttoned-down shirt

with a collar that framed your freshly

shaven face. I, in a dress & heels,

tired, shivering a bit from the cool air.

How many dinners have we had

like this one? The memory of them fades

like a replica, a watermark in a book that

wanes with each page until barely perceptible.

We were happy once. Maybe we’re happy now

thirteen years later. What will it be like

in another decade or two? Will we still be sitting

across from one another quietly searching for

conversation, holding hands out of habit

rather than desire.

JOY

06. 03. 2022.


Disorder 
by Joy Division randomly 
plays on my mix, 
as I stare out of the window 
at my mum’s house - 
cracking open a beer, 
whilst the sun outside  
sets on the city 
and another week dissolves.

Footage of war and brutality, 
plays on mute through the TV. 

I think back to the years 
I spent in Spain 
and a Ukrainian girl 
in my Spanish class. 

She was cute and we met 
for coffee and broken Spanish 
several times, before she 
eventually returned to Ukraine. 

But I think of her now, 
with no way of knowing how 
she is and I pray she’s okay - 
as I stare back outside,  
at the sky and birds - 
thinking of the bombs dropping
elsewhere and how it looks so 
unfairly beautiful
and peaceful here, for now. 

Eye (‘I’) Trouble

The nurse trainee administered numbing drops to my left eye only. Three days earlier, I had seen black letters of the Hebrew alphabet outlined in fire in the sky. The room where I now writhed in the exam chair was uncomfortably warm. As the doctor bent over me, I thought I heard him use the vague but sinister phrase “tattooed mind.” An object is never so closely attached to its name that another can’t be found for it. For example, dad. He tried to kill himself three times – well, four if you count the time he fell asleep smoking in bed and woke up with the world in flames. 

HOLD THE MAYO

Life
is a death sentence
written
in the stars
sandwiched
between
eternity and yesterday
on whole wheat.


Previously published by Rat's Ass Review

Wheelman


This run is my swan song, after tonight this smugglings gonna  stop, every headlight in my rearview mirror, looks like it’s a cop, all these kilos in back, they’re weighing heavy on my mind, I can’t get busted, Lord knows I’m too old to do anymore time.

I sleep with one eye open, I keep the other on my gun, I’m the only friend I’ve got, and I’m not sure, he’s one I can trust, you think it’s easy money, it costs far more than it’s worth, profit made from broken lives, blood stained and cursed.

I run on stolen luck and unanswered prayers, no guarantees in this business, my only insurance is some criminal’s word. Everyone with an  alias, my real name I’ve forgot, lost my wife and my  family, and too many friends to count.

Don’t judge this life of mine, don’t put your blame on me, I'm only a Wheelman, Supplying you, you and you with what you need.

A POEM ON THE BEAK OF A BIRD
I am a lonely tree inhabited by birds-
who have learnt to enjoy their songs.
they sing because this is the life they’ve come to know.
I am by a trench & my body is stealing; 
I melt once in a while so I can embrace a new shade & shape.
Tonight, the moon is seated on my balcony. she watches how I struggle to tally the pictures of my life.
I have also learnt to count the stars 
in cumulative frequencies, say the mean is; [summation of stars] by [the wishes in my heart].
I’m wrestling for words to slash this voyage into syllables.
Once in a while, I empty my mind into a pail by the booth.
Today I fade like a leaf fleeing its twig
I grope like one stranded amid a crowd in a strange city; it is part of life.
Getting lost is another way to know a place.
How does a dead man discern the parole of the earth if he has not learned to inhabit the grave?
The longer the ground knows your body, the refiner your bones become.
I heard a poem in my dream
I lay a sheet of paper on my bed & breathed on it; a bird jumps out & sits on my shoulder. & I become a poem on the beak of that bird.

Crippling Fear

My fears are not a car crash
As in they don't come, attack me, and take me by surprise like it did to the a school girl of
Hiroshima on 9th August 1945. 
It's not like a blinding light that puts a blind on my existence's door 
My fears are like waves 
And I am like a dead body on a sea shore
With fish like eyes that seem to have no life
But it cannot close so it takes in all of its share of dread without a semblance of choice. 
The waves wash over me. I just lay indifferent, accepting the inevitable drowning and
resurrection 
Like an unholy baptism in death
Again and again
To end up with a new life. 
I hate circles

with lady macbeth

something                                                                                                       
like a
salty spit
stays in your
mouth
regardless
of swallows:
some uranium
half-lifed
out of bloody
comprehension.
something
sub rosa,
a clue or maybe
a potent source
of fuel
too thick
for burning.
and
that’s the
problem
always
unburdening
itself
heavily
on our ears,
no one believes
a glaring lesion
that
won’t go away. and
in ad hoc night,
you hail a cab
in the 
street
without a trace
of sanity,
without an end
to the sax’s solo,
without one
pathetic pill
to 
at least
make the echoes
softer.
and now,
unable to understand anything old
or hear anything new,
still listening for music
in the sidewalk rain, you are
a hair’s breadth
away
from a simple tragedy.