Family Lore

My dad’s dad, Zayde Jake, broke his nose long before we ever met. To refer to his nose as “broken” is frankly an understatement. It looked as if it had been flattened, macerated, and then molded into a vaguely biomorphic shape and left to harden. According to family lore, he broke it – or, more exactly, had it splattered across his face – in a street brawl with communist stooges determined to take over the union he had helped organize. Whatever the facts of the case, the truth is he was one tough guy and about as far from a doting grandpa as you could get. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes (Camels) that stained his fingertips yellow. He gambled at cards. He gunned a shot of slivovitz every evening before dinner. Most days he went around unshaved. My mom, who had a bourgeois abhorrence of rough behavior, disliked him immensely. I still remember the bristle-brush feel of his stubble when I kissed him on the cheek.

The Perks of Lockdown

 
During April 2020,
I bought a thousand-dollar mattress

and a wrought iron bed frame
for two hundred bucks

from a couple who ran
an estate sale business
in Bisbee, Arizona.

The bed’s previous owner
had died right before lockdown.

Every store was closed,
and restless shopkeepers
leered from doorways,
hissing like drug dealers.
 
“Psssssst—need some furniture?”

I bought the illusion of normalcy,
a high that lasted only a few minutes.
A tag on my new mattress read,

“Made for active lifestyles”,

meaning recreation,
not fornication.
Not that I was doing
much of either.

 

Self-doubt

 
Creativity is like a clock
That keeps ticking, secretly.

The moment you pause
To look at it
Is to savor it.

When it finds you not working
It must speak to you
In inner monologues
Of your heart.

So, it keeps you on guard.
Let the doubts fly
And your words settle down.
Like the wings
That envelops for warmth.

Experimentation is the science of expression
Self-doubt cuts your wings

You were made to scoop the sky
And taste the cream of the Milky Way,
Creative imagination is the star of the same sky.
It was a wanderer before. 

朦胧
我的爱，
构建在你和我的相处，
朦胧的爱，
不是对陪伴的执念，
是因为你，
你理性的将疯狂困住，
清晰的抽离感情，
制造虚假，
丢弃给我，
你不会主动制造浪漫，
你也被缠绕进来，
也许，
朦胧也是最美好的，
夕阳只是一瞬间的。



Haze


My love
Is built upon every moment we share.
This hazy love
Is not a desperate cling to companionship,
It exists only because of you.
You rationally cage all my wild impulses,
Coldly pull away your affections,
Craft hollow illusions,
And cast them aside for me to bear.
You never take the initiative to craft romance,
Yet you are tangled in this mess alongside me.
Perhaps
This blurred haze is the purest form of beauty.
A sunset lingers for but a fleeting instant.

 “A Happier Thought”
 
The bottle would break itself
before it ever broke my heart,
and that always seemed
a happier thought
than paying too much
for half dead funeral flowers
at the supermarket
or pretending the first drink
didn’t feel like a kiss
after another inoffensive day.



“lowercase versus uppercase poetry”
 
if i can stay on the black decaf
then the poems will stay brief
and professional as ironed slacks
on a monday
but if somehow
the whisky sneaks out
of my cupboard
like a teenager breaking curfew
it won’t matter
that it’s only tuesday
and my words won’t care
about shakespeare
doing it better than most
(according my old high school
english teacher anyway)
or the way a hangover is
the kind of muse
most let die of thirst
even if it means
another photocopied sonnet
sort of day
 

Last Play of Light


Sunflowers swoon
in the fading light.
Pollen gusts have ruined 
my eyes.

Thick hot soup
of summer evening—
a thunderclap follows
a sizzle in the east.

The sun dips off
as raindrops tink
the thin tin roof—
I clap mosquitoes.

Ice cubes rattle a glass,
whisky poured over
slowly so it chills
before the first sip.

Tip my Stetson
to the hombre
on the moon
in his sombrero.

Tip my Stetson 
to the sagging
sunflower army,
defeated and sombre.

Cage and the Birdsongs

During summer of 1974 I hung around the developing Boulder poetry scene. There was a guy from New York  there named George who was going to publish one of my fledgling poems. He was a big wheel from the big world who knew things. One of those things he knew about was John Cage who was going to do a reading from Thoreau’s journals in a couple of days. George told me and every young poet he encountered that Cage loved it when spontaneous sounds, bird calls, cat calls, whistles occurred while he was reading, that these sounds would add to the sonic texture of Cage’s performance.
The evening came for the Cage reading. The great composer projected random words from Thoreau’s journals on a giant screen. There was absolute silence. “b-r-r-r-ro-K-K-Keeee.” Cage spoke in an urgent whisper.
Syllables, vowels, aspirants: Cage proceeded.
From the darkness a sudden whistle burst forth, and then an animal growl, a bird noise, a cat call, farts, a kazoo, laughter.
Cage suddenly ended his performance. He stomped off the stage and engaged the interrupters in the midst of the crowd. An angry verbal exchange ensued. The kid poets said they were just contributing to the random sounds Cage was making. In a fury, Cage screamed they didn’t know what they were talking about. There was a link between intent and the provocative noises. This was different from random sound. At the way back of the room almost in shadow George folded his arms, and leaned against the far wall. He smiled.

"The Key"

Sitting in an Impala
in the city junkyard

tires not flat
and windows up

somewhat safe
fenced-in lot

surrounded
by rows of dusty cars

this car a new arrival
with an impound ticket

glove compartment open
containing a black book

I'll read later
every word in blood red

as this sick world steals
all that is right

reversing it
into all that is wrong

everything rewritten
by a hand in the dark

slapping my memory
I forgot my glasses

in my apartment top floor
on the corner of Main and Done

I'll have to go back
into the burning streets

helicopters circling
fanning the flames

playing loud speakers
Give-up or Die

I bow my head
for some way out

suddenly noticing
a key in the ignition...

Blue, White, and Red
The 250th Anniversary

 
Blue waves are coming
Water, clear and opaque
White bubbles rise
Crowning the surface as they surge

Rocks stay solid, brave
Unblinking as waves strike
White blossoms bloom in the air
Then dissolve upon the stone

Deep beneath the sea floor
Red corals sleep soundlessly
Ringed by silent seaweed
While small fish pass now and then

Let peace rest below
And honor the splashes above
Dive as freely as you can
Forever blue, white, and red

 

lost highway


neon veins throb dark.
glass veils gaze dull.

heaven floats lightly:
an ethereal corpse—

atonal, the night;
shattered, her prose;

speak softly, 
dear barbiturate,

my marble
repose.