words of wishdom

As I lie awake with him

2009-01-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

Every short breath,
Every cloudy glance,
Every crushed pill
In peanut butter,

Studies
And examinations,
His kicking leg,

Stored away
Into the future,
Like the walks,

That pass through
The past without a word
Between us,
Hold on to him,

Watch his breaths,
See the moments
As his memory
Moves through time.

Graves of ashes

2009-01-03T05:05:00.000-08:00

My father has never been laid to rest,
His name left upon no tombstone,
There is no memorial to remember him by,
Or marble to weather the ages.
More than seven years have passed,
An entire body’s rebirth,
And his ashes remain in a box on the mantle.
This obstinate stance is pitiful,
Though this vigil deserves memorial.

My shadow dog lies in the hallway
With a tumor in his spleen,
His sleeping body trembling
With the cold grasp of what is imminent.
He’s stopped eating,
And since we cannot let him starve,
Soon Smiley will join my father
In a grave of ashes.
We’ve already decided it will be cremation,
To spread him in his favorite park.
He will die, then, and not die,
Every time we take the others to Walnut Creek.

Handsome rests his head between my akimbo arm
And hip. It’s as if we’re both
Refusing to let him die alone.
As evening grows quieter,
With only the scratching on the dogs and shaking of tags to break it,
He is not letting his allergies interfere with the mourning.
We sit like this until morning.

A Difficult Cadence to Maintain

2008-12-22T19:33:00.000-08:00

U / / / / / U
U / / / / / U
U / / / / / U
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U / / / / / U
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U / / / / / U
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U U U U U U U
U U U U U U U

Limbo of Infants

2008-12-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

November is forever falling leaves
As long as I can remember
The scattered piles of the day’s labor
Undone by the icy wind
Whispering words of childhood names:
Rover, Polo, Oxen free.
Of all the seasons I prefer the autumn,
Her sacrifice
For beauty, nature will pluck the limbs of trees
Sending her children forth,
Each one a wish,
A lifetime.
These curled corpses of spring
End up on the embers of a distant fire.

Limbus Patrum

2008-12-09T10:03:00.000-08:00

Each of us will one day remember
That feeling of having misplaced a glove
In winter's first snowfall,
Or of losing a loved one to a hard-fought battle
With cancer or to some other question
We cannot answer.

Let of us each remember,
So we don’t need reminding
By another one lying on the cold table,
Tomorrow excised with a scalpel,
Or turned back into yesterday with pharmaceuticals
Whose real names we’d struggle to pronounce.

On the side of the street I am reminded
That a man in his seventies is out of work,
With sick children at home to care for.
Who cares for him at the end of his days?
Does he go to a home that’s out of the rain?

Let each of us know what this man thinks
Every night he enters this place,
Out of time, out of mind.

Heiligenschein (or The Glory of Halos)

2008-11-25T01:57:00.000-08:00

On a clear morning with dew on the grass,
Nearly spherical dew drops,
Focused and reflected back toward the sun
Along almost the same path that it took originally,
Retroreflected like memory.
But light doesn’t travel an exact path;
Spreads out just enough to be seen as bright white light
About your head on a damp lawn.

Sunlight enters the small water droplet,
Along its edge
Is refracted, then reflected
off the backside of the droplet.
If I could only remember her face,
her figure.

Light skims along the surface of the droplet,
A surface wave for a short distance.
Diffraction drops in off the edges of meniscus,
Blows the ring of light recast as glory and the brocken bow.
That split crescent descended to the floor,
Tipped an arrow into the dark, off-target.
Collecting my wits with a quiver,
I cast my spectre to the headlight of the moon.

the sketch (version two)

2008-11-25T01:53:00.001-08:00

a shaded line
can be illuminating
by adding layers
of surrounding shadow,
echoing history, passing
hollow notes of a harpsichord
permeating the evening air.
peaks of poles
at five o’clock attention,
the masts rendered
with single strokes
of pencil.
drawn in this light,
the shadows fall out of frame
and out on to the floor
that once was a harbor.

Dogs in the morning light

2008-11-07T22:29:00.000-08:00

Dogs in the morning light,
Paws marking the floor,
Tongues lapping at the door,
Live lives in tiger’s eyes.
Dogs in the morning dew,
Streaks the window pane,
Streaks cross the fertile plain,
I cannot name but a few.

Should I unlatch the gate
Closed since two thousand one?
Should I go unleash the beast
That calls to me to run?

Beyond this homely hound
Of jaw-hawking dusk,
The nose-diving husks
And pockets of teeth
Scattered in the pink light
Of cloud-infested sky,
The mockery of shyness
Diaphanous as the night.

Would it please you to wait
For eternal permission?
Would it likely endanger
Your personal mission?

A cat in the midnight light,
Beyond hearing, beyond sight.

One the eve of hope

2008-10-31T21:33:00.000-07:00

I carved a pumpkin
To show support for my candidate.
Though it may seem immature
To introduce politics
Into annual office events,

Isn’t every breath political,
Arguing life over death?

Next week Capmetro will strike
Because they’re not getting their way,
And my way to work
Will be paved with my wife’s worries
That I’ll be hit
If forced to cross the highway.

I tell her that with a name like Braker,
the road I walk is already a highway,
So what’s changed?
We can only hope the long-term
Future plans of the next round of officials
Fix this commuting problem,
That they have learned
Highways kill communities.

Isn’t every job political,
Arguing work over pay?

Election day,
Four days early,
And the people
Snake through the stripmalls
With slithering sneers
Of pro prop 2 supporters,
And those who can’t decide
End up the difference.

That’s why I’m political,
Arguing overtime.

The Bard of Swansea

2008-10-27T23:43:00.000-07:00

The bard of Swansea,
Steeped in old lore,
Drank himself to death
When he was two score

He’d break the Welsh bread
Past the angels in his head
And write himself a book
Of lyrics and verse instead.

The man they called Dylan
But not Robert Zimmerman,
The man they called Thomas
Brought tea for the sea.

The mad bard of Swansea
Went on New York tour,
He drank too much whiskey
And then drank some more.

The day he was born
They threw out the verse,
The day he was young
He made up a universe

The man they called Dylan
But not Robert Zimmerman,
The man they called Thomas
Brought me to Swansea.

Before he grew old
And his songs of words waned,
He laid down and died –
The rules had all changed.

One sip in a Swansea hall,
One step down this wave-swept path
“Bewilder ‘em” is all
that’s left on his epitaph.

the sketch

2008-10-21T08:19:00.001-07:00

a shaded line
can be illuminating
by adding layers
of surrounding shadow,
notes of a harpsichord
permeating the evening air
peaks of poles at attention,
the masts rendered
with single strokes
of pencil.
drawn in this light,
the shadows fall out of frame
and out on to the floor
that once was a harbor.

Sinisteria II

2008-10-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

You want to be noticed?
Walk down Braker Lane at 6pm
and see the yawning maws
in the drive-by manslaughter,
inspire the fumes of auto locomotion
curling the hairs on your arms and throat.

Even the name sounds down-and-out.
Walk the hundred degree mile,
while the seats of passing comfort
trickle change between the cushions
from drive-thru coffee spots,
lending more all the rage to the road.

You want to know why I walk,
now in my mid-thirties, down a dusty path
reserved for the city's transients,
along sidewalks that go nowhere,
islands of development on a stint
considered a no man's land by so many.

Before I answer your nonchalant question
with left-handed verse, teetering on a rant
with gnashed teeth and ill-chosen phrases,
I'd ask each of the drivers passing by
if they'd ever stop if even for a moment
to watch a bee orbit a bluebonnet.

Sinisteria IV

2008-10-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

"Hey, you forgot your smokes,"
an elderly man said
pointing at a pack of Winstons
and a lighter,
to the kid who'd gotten
up from his seat
as if he'd forgotten them,
as if this older generation
wanted youth to catch up.
"They're not mine,"
he replied looking slightly
embarrassed at the thought
of smoking.
He left the bus
as the elderly man
changed his seats,
drawn in by habit,
by the lure,
another reminder
of his own youth.
He picked them up
and slid them in his pocket
like so many memories.

On how insects clock a quantum

2008-10-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

An earwig runs circles
around a chunk of asphalt,
twitching antennae
like an outerspace robot
who has lost his direction
and gone on the fritz.
This dance goes on round 15 minutes,
spanning the distance of a foot.
It maps this circuit
in fits of sprints
and returns to the spot
where it set off
an eternity ago.

Waypoints (2nd draft)

2008-09-29T20:56:00.001-07:00

In those autumn evenings when the sun dripped dry
we slept in the harbor, swam in our clothes.
We picked up the drunk at the liquor store,
and from the bed of your truck, he asked us
for a ride home from AA,
and then for some beer.
We left him on the corner of Wilkens and Fulton
and he popped some pills, ducked into a stoop
and out of our lives.
We never went back.

Left on Rolling Road, we pulled into U.M.B.C.
(You Made a Bad Choice we'd joke),
threw such lofty fits in the the dorms,
pushing each other into and out of new -isms
and your finger slammed like an apple
in the basement door, its skin
dangling from the bloody core,
and we rushed you to St. Agnes in our pajamas,
sat out front with the addicts for hours
throwing bottle caps in the birdbath.
Those sirens were little lobotomies.

No wonder we were so lost then.
Past the rowhomes we ran downtown,
the city’s charms rising in Bromoseltzer hues
and were we falling to the sidewalks like beetles
drawn in by neon letters, places with names like "BAR."
Did we want to die like Poe,
right there in the gutter?
or to pass through the Blues like those other
kids bitching about their mothers?

We rode through the streets and out to the diners,
the Double TT on Rt. 40, smoked cigarettes,
drank coffee until dawn, our books left in their bags,
wrote poems one line at a time, sharing the rhyme,
the paper accordioned with doubt.
It’s odd how in these habits,
you blink and you miss it.
We paid the bill and out in the street,
the sun etched our impressions onto the bay.

In those days we looked forward to so much more,
but time has no direction or memory,
like the Chesapeake, only buoys light the way.

Leaving the Parish late one autumn night

2008-09-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

It was ten before we'd arrived,
But they had been on for a half an hour.
They only played another thirty minutes,
Long enough for just one beer,
Not even time to shake out the rust
To consider dancing.
Maybe it was the fifty people,
Maybe it was the smoking ban,
But we couldn’t help but wonder
How a once British supergroup
Could end their show before eleven,
Even on a school night.
Is this what happens when we comb over the spots in the past?
His long hair couldn't hide how tired he sounded.
I'm glad I gave that shit up.

Sinisteria III

2008-09-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

Showered with a rain of golden nouns,
passages of a midsummer harangue,
I found myself on the defensive.
Daring not respond, I bit my tongue
and held it tight against my lower lip
like a child with a lisp
at the first sound of thought.

And that was how I spent my summer
in a pool of pride, eyes open wide
but tongue-tied at the tip,
daunted by what I wanted to say
and how to express the duress
that presses against my palette,
a pendulum in need of a fulcrum.

The Word

2008-09-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

There was this foreign feeling
Encountered this cool morning;
I caught myself soaking
The marrow out of the Word

Something I thought myself
Incapable of comprehending
For the many years of my youth
Which I have somehow scored

Differently than my peers,
Marking yesterday more than tomorrow.
I sit waiting, staring at a his life-sized
Statue or more precisely, toward,

And accuracy is important
Since in this pale light
With goose pimples on my arms,
From acclimation to long summers,

I see in his shadow more
Clearly than light,
More in his dying for
Than in his life.

3,000 angles on a raven

2008-09-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

There is something significant
about a single black raven
perched upon an episcopal
steeple in the afternoon sun.

Maybe it's the heat that walks me
to and from these hallowed doorsteps
or perhaps it's the growing cold
to compensate for the global
climate getting warmer with change.

In this era of instant cause
and effect, tangos with terror,
religion must repent, relent
on its claims the world is error.

Though traditions die hard, lying,
one thing I will never forget --
crying wolf will call them, baying.
But change is a moving target,
and is flying a steel carpet.

The raven lands, still as a tower.
Always has, always will to power.

St. John's Episcopal

2008-09-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

I walked by my local Episcopal
on a daily path that serves penance
for the ten years of driving
to wait ten minutes for the bus.

As I passed the arched windows
I stopped to contemplate the statue
of Jesus and then my receding hairline.
This is my humility.

Sending my hands wringing
through a primeval forest of anger
Why are there no bells on modern churches?
with their ringing holy recitation.

The angelic singing reminds us of vespers.
Today they are but whispers.

Sinisteria I

2008-09-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

Never having thought
I'd know her
I never learned how to ask,
and always feeling so
left out of love,
the thought of entering her,
becoming her
was always further from my mind
than what I imagined
I would do
if I were her
and I knew me
the way she thinks
she does.

A Reminder (2nd draft)

2008-05-25T22:52:00.000-07:00

You haven’t known humility
until you’ve had your foot run over
by a woman in a wheelchair
smoking an off-brand cigarette
She rolled off as I stood in the middle
of the crosswalk and she flicked her butt
to the pavement without a single glance

To know this humility, like knotted seaweed,
those emotions that stumble over grace,
you must sit in Veggie Heaven
on the drag in the off-peak shadows
for hours and watch the window
as the pane is passed over by hand-holding lovers
(flicking butts without a single glance)
and study your reflection as a palimpsest

In this position, you’ll notice
someone’s aging mother with arthritis
ambling on cloudy sandals
with a lone tray of leftovers
tossing rice to pigeons (in Tok Pisin
muttering a prayer for the many starving people
on the islands of Melanesia you’ll never know)
which crumbles on the parched pavement
in the shape of Indonesia

Why do you care to notice?
Because at the far table
beyond the edge of your known world
the Spanish-speaking busgirls
sit down after the lunch shift,
enjoying an energetic picnic
in the empty restaurant,
their three voiceless whispers
echoing the cadence of confidence

Sunburnt men in their seventies
with tired rage encasing their faces
creep along the sidewalk,
mumbling to pigeons as someone’s mother
hands them meals in styrofoam
(which didn’t exist in their youth)
to extend time with a smile

I am the silver man from the Dobie
(the one who sweeps the floors in a stained uniform)
charging across the street
between the #1 bus and the bicycles
shielded by a black plastic bag
with all I own – a blanket, two shirts,
and the last picture of my mother before she passed
(to bury it behind a dumpster)
Though you can’t help but wonder about my childhood,
how I always wanted to be in the movies,
know that my last job was Fear
and that you too will one day be ensnared as a metaphor
by some scared poet searching desperately for an image

So go back to your uneaten
curry bun on the table,
savor it now,
and save the humble prayer
of words
for yourself.
One day they’ll be all you have.

Monday Morning

2008-05-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

The tiles in the kitchen
have warped and cracked,
attacked by too much expansion,
too many contractions,
too many breakfasts in flames.

Last night we laughed like jackals on wine
but in the morning you screamed
sirens and slammed the door,
the dogs baying under the table.
They weren’t waiting for scraps.

Your words were sleeping dragons
startled from a century’s slumber,
the volcanic breath expressing
this week's frustration with
me and my stone schedule.

Why couldn’t I make the time to take you to dinner?

There were too many starts of fights
and ends of loaves of bread,
compliments cut
short
by loathsome crusts
burnt
by your anger
crumbled to dust and crumbs,
falling

apart like weekends
that rush by like menus
said all in one breath.

Waypoints

2008-05-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

In those autumn evenings when the sun dripped dry
we slept in the harbor, swam in our clothes.
We picked up the drunk at the liquor store,
and from the bed of your truck, he asked us
for a ride home from AA,
and then for some beer.
We left him on the corner of Wilkens and Fulton
and he popped some pills, ducked into a stoop
and out of our lives.
We never went back.

Left on Rolling Road, we pulled into U.M.B.C.
(You Made a Bad Choice we’d joke),
threw such lofty fits in the the dorms,
pushing each other into and out of new -isms
and your finger slammed like an apple
in the basement door, its skin
dangling from the bloody core,
and we rushed you to St. Agnes in our pajamas,
sat out front with the addicts for hours
throwing bottle caps in the birdbath.
Those ambulance sirens were little lobotomies.

Why were we so lost then?
Past the rowhomes we ran downtown,
Charm City rising in Bromoseltzer hues
And were we falling to the sidewalks like beetles
drawn in by neon letters, places with names like “BAR?”
Did we want a death like Poe,
worthy of the gutter?
Or to pass through the Blues like those other
assholes bitching about their mothers?

We rode through the streets and out to the diners,
the Double TT on Rt. 40, smoked cigarettes,
drank coffee until dawn, our books left in their bags,
wrote poems one line at a time, sharing the rhyme,
the accordion paper stained with doubt.
It’s odd how in these habits,
you blink and you miss it.
We paid the bill and out in the street,
the sun etched its impression onto the bay.

In those days we were looking for so much more.
but memory has no direction or logic,
like the Chesapeake, only buoys light the way.

Soufrière, St. Lucia, December 2005 (2nd draft)

2008-05-07T11:01:00.000-07:00

Under déz Pitons, the cinders sing with charcoal springs,
rocks ruddied with sulfur cascading down Diamond Falls –
the bearded men with carved baubles and beads,
You on vacation mahn, no pressure, no problem –
mahogany straddles the stilted houses in the hills,
River Doree cool and deadly as a lady
snakes through narrow streets, pastel faded façades,
past the Church of the Assumption and central square,
childhood home of Napoleon’s Empress Josephine de Beauharnais.
The ever-windward waves,
catamarans anchor tourists just-offshore as the wake exerts its will
on rows of canoes and buoys, beckons like beacons to divers,
muscled men blowing conches over cruise ship horns,
parade their tuna-colored shells,
and soté boys from the jump-up in Gros Islet dive from docks,
dreadlocks as golden as the crests of hummingbirds,
mister, madam, coin, coin! plead tourists
to throw cent, five cent, ten cent, dollar
into the deep water, shoving each other,
nosediving after the coins,
bodies dancing upside-down, the feet flit
like minnows, racing for the specie,
specks of silver sinking under the sea,
flipping end-over-end like the island’s history –
which side you on? no pressure, no problem,
then surface and shout for more, raison d'état,
their voices a soca chantey, a chorus of gulls.

12 years

2008-04-30T01:04:00.000-07:00

Guilt is such a pathetic word
that nobody knows where it came from.
I had been meaning for years to talk to you,
but like a fish that’s a prize from a county fair,
all I could do was sit there, gills gasping
for water, my mouth for air that’s way too human
for forgiveness.
You had never approached me about it;
we always went to different schools,
and avoided each other after,
but this was our one shared cell,
a detention that would never let out.
We went to dad at Walter Reed,
watched him wither under cherry blossoms.
Why not now, when our worlds are changing?
There was a silent moment in the parking lot
between the visit
and the ride home –
I chose then to confront my own illness.
You said that it was fine, but we’re all affected
by what’s said, what’s not, and what can’t be forgotten.
Damn I felt so rotten, eyes clouded with tears,
like a fish left out for a week or for years.

Soufrière, St. Lucia, December 2005

2008-04-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

Under déz Pitons, the cinders sing with charcoal springs,
rocks ruddied with sulfur cascading down Diamond Falls –
the bearded men with carved baubles and beads,
You on vacation mahn, no pressure, no problem –
mahogany straddles the stilted houses in the hills,
River Doree runs cool and deadly as a snake
through narrow streets, ill pastel faded façades,
past the Church of the Assumption and central square,
childhood home of Napoleon’s Empress Josephine de Beauharnais.
The ever-windward waves never still,
catamarans usher tourists ashore as the wake exerts its will
on rows of canoes and buoys, beckons like beacons to divers,
men blowing conches over cruise ship horns,
parade tuna-colored shells around visitors,
and soté boys from the jump-up in Gros Islet dive from docks,
their dreadlocks golden as the crests of hummingbirds,
mister, madam, coin, coin! petition tourists
to throw cent, five cent, ten cent, dollar
into the deep water, shoving each other,
and one-by-one nosedive after the coins,
bodies dance upside-down, feet flit
like minnows, racing for the specie,
specks of silver sinking under the sea,
flipping end-over-end like history –
which side you on?
then surface and shout for more, raison d'état,
their voices a soca chantey, a chorus of gulls.

A Circus Elegy for Dad, June 25th, 2001

2008-04-08T16:55:00.000-07:00

I

The simplest way to start is to say
We stood together without you.

The salt and pepper crowd filed in, 
    More than I ever knew you knew,
        In charcoal suits you fought so hard not to wear
            And the chaplain with all his pins and medals
Intoned an urgent prayer for the retired sergeant.

The base chapel smelt of microwave popcorn
    As you sat, ash in an urn,
        Salute half masked by the flag.
            There are certain aspects of tents
That provide a singular backdrop to my life – 

Their blank canvases, telescoping poles, their portability,
    Transported from town to town with no foundation,
        Never a firm fixture, the loose faucet handles
            Spill out way too literally, spell out
A place I’ve never heard of but would soon call home.

Under $30K, the fixed wage you earned until I was thirteen,
    Your soldier’s salary poured salt in wounds of service –
        Indentured by fractured dentures, 
            Teeth pinched out by a 2-ton icy windshield
In that German o-dark-thirty  when you were just thirty.

Mom stood years on the highwire balancing finances,
    Feeding a family of five without driving
        When you’d spend months TDY,
            Our clothes on layaway until the next school year
And mom’s part-time teacher’s pay blew chalk in my face,

Like those other kids, the many black eyes.
All those young minds, not one left to waste.
 
II

I read aloud from his personal copy of “The Road Less Traveled,” 
    His favorite poem, the one from the collection 
        That mom’s mother inscribed “Happy reading, 
            Xmas ’74,” two days after my birth, 
The year they hitchhiked down parenthood together,

She, teaching English to Tehran’s alleycats,
    He, stationed to maintain foreign relations
        Passing coded notes as an embassy liaison,
            Floating into Soviet water with Iranians
Behind enemy lines in fishing rafts on the Caspian.

Waking in cold sweats unable to share his secret fears,
Turned into beers in the officer’s club afterhours.

Every word reverberated against the chapel granite,
    Each rounded vowel altered the chambers,
        The plain and simple message of a pastoral walk,
            My understated, monotonous prosody 
Spoke of suffering and loss between the lines.

My father’s cold war friends and heroes
    Lied low in the last few rows
        As if exile were second nature,
            As if keeping distance from a caged lion,
Heads bowed, bronze as a statue, a monument.

A layer of Frost coated stone faces
    As squeaking pews slipped into silence.
        They silenced their breathing with memory 
            with each tentative, vocal step through the passage. 
As the final line was uttered with a stutter,

I sat back down between my wife and mother,
And that has made all the difference.
 
III

We return to the scene of the mourning,
    Every thought itched with stubble on my face from staying up late,
        packing our place to move halfway across the country.
            I had followed in the beard of your name for 26 years,
But this week mom lost both her Stephens.

I held my wife’s hand like a breath, 
    Circumnavigated emotions with the rings we’d exchanged
        Two days before; noticed mom still wore hers, 
            The smoke rings had signalled carcinoma,
Some form of semaphore over the tumor,

Folded in among the radio and microwaves,
    You lied in silence sipping shaved ice, beard ever silver,
        Until the night we walked you to the back door
            To get one last look at the home you’d hoped to retire to.
You caught the lightning in your clenched fist.

We were lined up like a firing squad,
    The rifles in cages on the patches of your folded uniform,
        As your friends shared our grief, shaking hands
            like clowns who can’t look at themselves in a mirror.
If I had succumbed to tears, this would be a pure memory.

For this I offer an apology – 
The chaplain forgot to read the eulogy.

A memo to tomorrow’s pride

2008-03-04T03:11:00.000-08:00

You haven’t known humility
until you’ve had your foot run over
by a woman in a wheelchair 
smoking an off-brand cigarette (She rolled off it
as I stood in the middle of the crosswalk
and she flicked her butt to the pavement
without a single glance at me) For true humility
to stumble over grace 
you gotta sit in a vegetarian restaurant 
on Guadalupe in the off-peak shadows
for an hour and watch the window
pane passed over
by hand-holding lovers Yesterday’s woman 
                                         Someone’s mother
(tongue soothing the memory
of her brittle lips)
ambles with arthritis
with a lone tray of leftovers
tosses rice to pigeons (in 
                           Tok Pisin
muttering something about the starving people
on the many islands of Melanesia
you’ll never know)
which tumbles on the peaceful pavement
in the shape of Indonesia
and at the far table beyond the edge of your world
the Spanish-speaking busgirls
repose from the lunch shift
enjoying an energetic picnic
in the empty restaurant
where three voiceless whispers 
echo with the cadences 
of confidentiality Multiple men in retirement
from what you wonder
with tired rage wrapped around their faces
creep in cardigans shielding their wings
talk to the pigeons as they pick up styrofoam meals
(which didn’t exist in their youth) 
and buzz away To become humble
you must stare as a silver man in a lavender uniform 
charges across the street
between the buses and the bicycles
wielding a black plastic bag 
filled with you wonder what
and you wonder where he is taking it
(to dispose of in private you suppose)
though you can’t help speculating about his childhood dreams
and what his last job might have been Fear 
how you will one day become netted
                                   as a metaphor
by some image-hungry poet Return
in silence to the uneaten curry bun
on the table
studying the significance
of employment, voice, food, and locomotion
in this haven of workers in and out of motion
you have prayed the humble prayer
                                  of words

Kristin (2nd draft)

2008-02-13T19:50:00.000-08:00

The last time I saw you
we shared a dinner off a slingshot,
then curled up with our pillows
like willows in early winter weather –

I massaged the day off your body
and the light was like a t.v. mosaic
of seltzer bubbles in my fleeting
fling with a Tom Collins –

Your hands reminded me
of a comb across a balding head,
the careful caress of your nails
like club soda fizzling flat.

After those long summer days at work
I imagined some nights you dreamed of
Kindergartens and Cristkindlmarkts
under Allemagne skies.

I will give you, and you me, a child
and we’ll waltz through Marienplatz,
like two marionettes in tune
with strings untangled from today.

Kristin

2008-02-12T17:43:00.000-08:00

The last time I saw you
we shared a dinner off a slingshot,
then curled up in bed –
I massaged the day off your body
and the light was like a mosaic
of seltzer bubbles in my misdirected
fling with a Tom Collins –
the ginger caress of your nails
and your hands reminded me of
a comb across a balding head,
the gin fizzling flat.
I imagined some nights you dreamed of
this summer’s return to Germany.
I will give you a child
and we will plan a return trip to live.
I wish to waltz through with you
Luitpold Park, Königs- and Marienplatz,
like two marionettes in tune
with strings untangled from today.

A night in Bal'more

2008-02-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

I still recall that autumn evening
when we picked up the drunk in your truck
at the liquor store, and he asked us
for a ride home from AA
and then for some beer.
We u-turned back to the dorms
and your finger slammed like an apple
in the basement door and we rushed you
to St. Agnes in our pajamas,
sat out front with the addicts for hours
throwing bottle caps in the birdbath.
Down Rt. 40 and Wilkens Ave.
the main drag road downtown,
Bal’more rose in sky scraping towers
and we were falling to the sidewalks
like beetles drawn in by the neon
blinking of three letters: BAR.

apostrophe

2008-01-08T01:44:00.000-08:00

there are so many days
when the hours are arranged
like a computer's keyboard

in perfect rows running,
digits climbing 'long the top,
and jagged columns perceived

like a feuding couples'
divergent sense of time
that sends them into fits

and then there's this
tiny little character
on this gigantic key

staring me down to a hunch
from across my desk,
beckoning me to contract

the droning hours
spent spinning lyric yarn
when the whole house is resting

but i won't truncate,
i can't cut short,
telescope my distant vision

and i'll stay at it 'til dawn
because that tiny little
character is my witness

on the great big key
'tis the key to writing
with any sort of dialect

the only chance i'll have
for you to believe me
when i have to write you letters

once you've had too much.

breakfast

2008-01-02T04:43:00.000-08:00

the tiles in the kitchen
have warped and cracked,
attacked by too much expansion,
too many contractions,

too many contradictions
of protein and carbohydrates,
too many starts of diets
and ends of loaves of bread,

the loathsome crusts
crumbled to dust and crumbs,
falling apart like meals
that rush by like menus

read all in one breath.

under this evening sun

2007-12-20T09:12:00.000-08:00

under this evening sun
brighter than neon streets

some unidentified motion
a light in the night sky

caused some great commotion
among commuters home

no amount of media coverage
cold help them uncover

this most mysterious
fantastic flying delirium

how could anyone not believe
such an objective function?

another sunset has past

2007-12-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

another sunset has past
without me as a witness

day slipped into the tub
under cover of darkness

the bubbles sizzle
bacon in a griddle

crackle evening breeze
through leafless trees

emerge from the LCD
into this altered nativity

to find my vessel
all alone in an asphalt lot.

pecan tree pigeons

2007-12-19T07:18:00.000-08:00

balding limbs are carolling
as they sway in the winter wind
songs of holiday joy

mild giving of trinkets and toys,
experiments in sentiment,
adornments and scents

arranged in flights and patterns
deranged avians of urban heights,
living monuments to dinosaurs.

a patio of uneven bricks
scattered with broken terra cotta
and icing planters white droppings

as they take flight with black wings
frightened by canine insurrection,
alerted by their collars.

in these eternal moments
between a gust and a flurry
everything becomes a fuzzy blur.

emotions connote unrequited intent
carry a weight beyond measure
invent stochastic signals of pleasure.

and to where are they flying,
to whom are they delivering
mixed messages in mottled earth.

they are bottles set adrift,
wash up in backyard coolers and planters
land the pecan tree pigeons.

a lone pecan tree

2007-12-19T06:27:00.000-08:00

a lone pecan tree
dangles its cojones
over outstretched limbs

surveys a tenuous tremor
over fallow fields
littered with signs

for suburban developments
which sway like wildflowers
in the breeze.

your liturgical smile

2007-12-18T10:05:00.000-08:00

your liturgical smile
connects in moments
many miles of asphault

bracketed by billboards

comments on moving scenery
the silent symphony
the synergy of symmetry

you ride on a highway

built on lowballing
tolling you just so
just enough to complain

to pass your surgical bile

not enough to investigate
another investment in space
another divestment in time

mile after mile for godsake

to shave five minutes
off an hour-long commute
at seventy miles an hour

is this a higher calling?

canyon run butte

2007-12-18T09:56:00.000-08:00

power lines cutlass the open sky,
rising suburban sewage tide
washes over the wilderness

in sevens and elevens,
in diamonds and shamrocks,
this retail must be curtailed

as forests are felled,
fuel to this sprawling disease
of so much impersonal property

left in the hands of scaly
cotton mouths and copper heads
with water in their moccasins.

there is no place left to hide.

tears saved for a rainy day

2007-12-14T22:24:00.001-08:00

water trickles from rooftops
into pools with plosives
in a steady counterpoint

to passing traffic
streaming rubies that shimmer
as each revving engine

peels out, having waited
at the busy intersections
in the mid-winter bustle,

the preparations for holidays
when family flies in
and people are bound up

like wreaths like packages
shipped a day too late
to arrive by that sacred morning

when paper litters living rooms
and a million smiles echo
the same forgotten feeling

that started it all 2,000
years before in a tiny town
woven into the fringe of an empire.

apothanein thelo

2007-11-29T22:34:00.000-08:00

We have idolized
Ancient Greeks
who, few are aware

were the first to veil women,
electing to remove
them from sight

We put their democracy
on marble pedestals,
columns rising

the District of Columbia,
chiseled statues in the same
proportions, the same

golden mean, the same
ratio to overturn a veto
this is another step removed –

representatives of
representations of
a cross-section of a district.

Aristophanes imagined
women in charge
as a form of humor,

Plato imagined
removing the family
as a unit altogether.

We have copped their forms
with the Parthenon
in Nashville,

taken the Memphis name
straight out of antiquity,
out from Ancient Egypt.

As a fine morning mist
settles in over
The national capitol,

the very foundations
of our system leak
history all over the street.

a tenuous tuesday

2007-11-28T15:32:00.000-08:00

some days you just gotta hang on,
it doesn't pay to be in a rush,
grasping tightly the bent limb
like a squirrel dangling from a bough,

or a snowplow with no traction,
skidding across the ice,
into a shopping mall.
result - window substraction,

shards, both ice and glass,
scattering over the pavement,
like when you love someone too much
and are shackled in enslavement.

celestic dispute

2007-11-27T04:42:00.000-08:00

venus and mars
split custody
over the moon,

the sun of gaia,
daughter of earth,
which gave birth

dislodged with
a prehistoric
asteroid,

dropped loose
from the chastity
of eternal orbit

in a belt held
so tightly
by gravity

and sending forth
a runaway
in a cloud of dust,

luna to the moon.

you are cherry blossoms

2007-11-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

(for Kristin)

you are cherry blossoms
i would like to scatter,
unlike the many beings
whose lives do not matter,

yet every year, born anew,
every day another spring,
i would like to ask you,
but it would be nothing.

Stourbridge Glass

2007-11-19T23:13:00.000-08:00

a single red cone
rests in earthen tones
where natural fireclay

and fine sands from Ireland
down the locks and canals,
navigated by narrowboat

down the Dudley No. 1,
to the outlying areas of Wordsley,
Amblecote and Oldswinford.

in the town whose foundry
lent the first steam locomotive
to New York City,

these factories have been
fabricated where labor is cheaper
and the glassblowers have all gone away.

Secret Life

2007-11-17T11:50:00.000-08:00

Regardless of how often
the actor plays the role,
some part of the secret life
slips thru the pores
that separate with thin membrane
of diaphanous tulle,
presentation and interpretation
of life's most golden rule.

If only I could say that I
am only this and nothing besides
If only we could work together
without such open divides,
but some ideas do not transfer
over borders, under radars,
like a soviet defector,
society's meddling detector.

And lo! these are the songs
that shout out of showers,
ring the decks with wrecks,
put head to shoulders,
rubber to roles,
masks to characters cast,
reasons for all the past
excuses, excuses, excursis.

between two towers

2007-11-16T17:40:00.001-08:00

I started this
in the living room,
with no clear trajectory;
two large towers --
a symbol of the old,
columns with glowing embers
announces all's right
on a Saturday night
pointing skyward over the capital --
the other a prod of the future,
ridges rising like thorns
or the horns on a lizard,
with all the incoming people,
how do we keep them
out of the afternoon sun?

I sat in the shadow
of a clock rimmed with bells,
suspended between
the future and the past,
the taut slack,
thoughts, comments,
and questions posed,
neither well-conceived
nor well-received, but asked.
In this distant present tense,
when moments elude
the abacus of memory,
the collector's appraisal
shortchanges value,
and I don't know how to finish.

catch a tiger by the tongue

2007-11-14T02:42:00.000-08:00

once upon an evening jaunt
from down inside an unknown swamp
i came across a striped feline
which made for me a right beeline.

with obtuse fangs in mighty pangs
and anise in his pounce,
he shaked his head quite fussily,
but must have weighed an ouce

too much or more the branch he left,
bereft of hue, it snapped in two,
and cleft just like a sentence through.
but deftly did the tiger up

and found me so alone hopped down
and pounced upon his little snack.
i hope you didn’t want me back –
you'll never get me home again.

so if perchance you come upon
a tiger of your own,
do unlike me the wiser thing,
and leave that cat alone!

The before and the after

2007-11-06T04:05:00.001-08:00

He was never concerned
with how things had been.
As the ash dangled over
the precipice of his fingers
his snore caught a chortle
emerging from dream's portal,
he spoke of future memories
dreams of retirement travels
that lingered in the closed-up
basement with second-hand smoke.

Rising from his recliner,
taking an angle from late night
broadcasts of Larry King
from a timezone six hours
behind the ticking clock,
the second hand counting down
his days left to pass.

He rarely spoke of the past,
always the impending soon
beyond misty Bavarian mornings
fantasied as our ancestral home
drinking the amber lager
that ran down in barrels
tapping out oompah, the opas
in pheasant feathers and caps
the frothy mugs and beards
in the shadow of the Alps.

A-rings and strings

2007-10-27T15:24:00.000-07:00

zero-dimensional point particles
have done my brane in
an implosion on a pinprick

Cassini has found moonlets
in the rings of Saturn
footballs orbiting end over end

yet the size of entire fields,
and two thousand miles across
but an eightieth of the system

rings, propellor-shaped wakes
perturbed by gravity
the weight of discovery

that shatters history
like a prehistoric moon
Pan's nemesis the nymphs

which dance through the rings
undisturbed by the vacuous
meaning of celestial things.

vap poya

2007-10-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

this evening's hunter's moon
looms low on the horizon,
rising softly at sunset

we point the body out to each other

helping hunters track
their prey, farmers work
the fields into the night.

we dance among the stars

the moon punctuates the sky,
there is no long period of darkness
between sunset and moonrise.

we make our own constellations

the ecliptic plane
of Earth's orbit around the sun
makes a narrow angle

our arms entranced and entangled

with respect to the horizon
in the evening in autumn,
acute gesture from the heavens.

we laugh at the world's pace

in the northern hemisphere,
the Hunter's Moon appears
late in the year, usually October.

a beacon of hope, stepping stone

This day is a feast day in parts
of western Europe and among some
Native American tribes,

means to the path's dusty end

the Feast of the Hunter's Moon,
though the celebration had largely died
out by the eighteenth century.

which we walk from star to finish.

Piedmont

2007-10-22T23:19:00.001-07:00

Among northwest peaks, where water
Is bottled, in a domain of Occitan,
Turin sets eyes on foreign favor,
Brings together regional fare,
Hosts games, conferences, events,
In alpine serenity, mottled air.

Rivers have carved up these valleys –
The Po rising out of the Monviso,
Between Monte Rosa, a Grand Paradis.
This terrain was once Savoy and Alba
Then Genoa reclaimed the mountains
To ward off Napoleon.

Today as if with frayed rope,
Vineyards grip the dry clay soil,
Grow Barolo, Barbaresco, Moscato,
The lesser known Barbera, Dolcetto,
Nebbiolo, Grignolino, Brachetto,
Freisa skins distilled into grappa.

Fiats come down from industrial works,
Turned out by workers in Turin,
Railways bead the hills with prayer.
Tissues and silks, finer wares of Biella,
Famed factories of chocolate Ferrero
Bonded with banking and insurance –

Berlusconi is not alone in the afternoon
Shadows of these winding, sinister valleys
Under a left-center local minister.
Miracles moved by these mountains
Maintain the pinnacle in massif
Movements teetering on an avalanche.

Stellaphane

2007-10-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

Imagine dim and distant objects
Flickering in the sky, uncountable miles
Billion and billions of light years old

Globular star clusters,
Flickering chandeliers
So close in the eyepiece

Yet stars remain beyond reach,
Beyond the limits of the atmosphere,
Firmament immemorial.

Charged particles in Saturn’s rings,
Leaping off the surface like scraps
of tissue paper levitating to a comb.

Stars linked with exoplanets,
Companions in the night sky,
Networks of constellations

Virgo rising from under the world’s horizon,
Cygnus, sailing swan of the night sky,
Draco of such celestial scale,

These conscripts to human invention
Will appear different to beings
From any planet orbiting any star.

In all of these constellations,
Any meaning is bound to Earth,
The significance perspective from a window.

Moments and clusters back in time.
What Draper must’ve seen as he photographed
The first human face and the moon.

Andromeda’s tilt offers an angle on the birth
Of humans as light from the back predates us,
From the front follows us into the night.

Kepler called the sun the fireplace of he world,
Yet averted vision reveals spokes of galaxies
Passing back and forth into eternities.

Would you care to

2007-10-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Dance we now a break from ennui,
For what could be more dismal

Than to sit idle on a Sunday
As the clock counts its ticks,

Those seconds down to the six,
And, Hell, lost to the nine.

moon in an ocean

2007-09-30T02:55:00.000-07:00

Cast in a pallor
draped in grey canvas
twin semi-circles shine,
half-sunken beneath
waves of shadow
another half-drunk
sailor on wine,
bottle bobbing
with a single solitary
message, a will.
The darkness exhales,
light of the moon
the only beacon
stands in the sand
night still and warm
reminder of noon
salty eyes blinking
in the still waiting
barefoot and stranded,
miles from his son.

Found on an English Version of La Monde, September 26th, 2007

2007-09-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

Up in arms
High finance — a game of risk
Riches beyond belief
The many battles for Turkey's soul
Who will make our shirts when China is rich?
Shooting the messengers
Israel’s cost to the Arabs
Russia: the polar grab
The Arctic, a sea surrounded by land
Venus from the Poles
Education for sale in the land of the free
Closing the door on the poor
Facts and fees
The summer return
Who lives where
The boats that take the Moroccans home
At the gates of paradise
Françafrique Sarkozy-style

Father of the Poet

2007-09-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

What I remember was his silver hair
as he reclined in the supine bed,
the plastic band loose around his wrist.

Eyes surveying the monitors, he told
a story of being tied to the cabin
on a pontoon that skipped the stormy waves.

Once the bonds were cut, the cleat
wrapped up with rope, he collapsed
from the exhaustion of another life lived.

Language

2007-09-26T02:08:00.000-07:00

Beyond bilabials 
                 past the rapid 
decay of dentals
                 downtrodden glottus

Your words mean more to me than any analysis

Forward, clean, break

2007-09-26T02:00:00.000-07:00

Somewhere south of the river,
I lost my way,
somewhere between
a live oak and a stream,
crossed one too many times.
I found one way back
to where I thought I had been,
looked back,
and in a stream of consciousness,
which burst from some pocket
in my frayed jeans,
gave up all hope of return.

A Drowning

2007-09-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

Deep in the shallow trunk
of the esophagus,
an utterance emanates
with gutteral resonance.
Upon a bitter countenance
a bilabial gulley
washes up between two
driftwood logs, rising
with the lofty timbre
of a familiar name.

And you swim toward the shore,
each salty stroke one of luck,
that the waves asunder
up against the rocks
then drags back the undertow,
retracting nouns and vowels
into the the open maw of the sea.
Those bellows echo,
another breath to wind up,
another fellow to expire.

We have no more heroes

2007-09-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

We have no more heroes
To carve up the skies of adulthood
Everywhere else, children look up
Out across the horizon,

Run through fields of mysteries.
Once grown, this wonder
Is lost inside a photograph
That bog of the mind.

Canadian Northerlies
Shake mortal flesh,
Shivering down to the bone.
Out of the soil coils a cone

Wrapped up into cyclone,
Cuts through wood and stone
That stood for a hundred years
Left splintered like a dream.

Memories frame the fields
Of visions that foreshorten
As limbs grow limber, topheavy,
And buckle under the timber.

Only the charred frame
Of a barn remains standing,
As men rebuild uphill,
nestled in a gap in the treeline,

Inwards and upwards,
Ever closer to their maker.
Each year they grow taller
Until all at once they falter.

September

2007-09-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

Staying up, outlast the dark,
With no alarm or bell to ring.
Our kisses kept back to themselves
as morning glories, too early up.

Autumn lies, awaits in ambush,
Ash trees swaying evening breeze,
Tightly leaves cling hold to branches
At each parting path tells time.

We are lost two miles from our house,
Memories only take us home.
The thorny gloves release their grip
And summer gives way to the wind.

In these minutes, seasons turned
and in each others' gaze of pools,
cast aside the lake's amnesia,
and kissed upon the bridge as fools.

Hill Country Winter

2007-09-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

The treeline lopes with a gnawing slope
Down to the lakeline, that icy sheet
Pulled over the eyes in winter.

Then the head comes up and over
Disarming suspense with a lifting motion,
The sky a staircase of stratus.

What underscores the face of every lake,
Every meandering stream that awakes,
A simple reflection that climbs into the dawn,

Burrowing in a bed of delicate moments
Which bloom in the light and wilt by nightfall,
This is the heart of Texas after all.

Rush Hour

2007-09-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

He sat in the traffic among the other drivers
Along the wide interstate highway,
Thinking some unique thought
Then someone cut him off
And he raised a fist with such fury
That the shimmering glint off the silver cars
Under the hazy indivisible skyline
Where the buildings are barely visible
In the foreground a surreal image
And a witty quip on a billboard
And he forgot what he had thought.

Lisbon

2007-09-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

I

Waves batter the sandy shoreline
In this Golden Gate of Europe,
Where history ebbs and floods.

A statue resembling the Redeemer in Rio
Directs the westward pedestrians,
As streetcars stroll astride cobblestones.

This city still lingers in memory
Of the Age of Discovery,
When diamonds emigrated from Brazil

To the old country, traded in for a language
That frames the Catholic saints.
In São Paulo, those tildes make waves.

II

Then one All Saints Day, an earthquake
Sent tremors and fires through the city,
And tidal waves bounding up from the shore.

The crooked streets of rumors and lies,
Were awoken in the illuminated night,
And rebuilt in a modern grid of boulevards.

Between these ramparts and bulwarks,
Castelo São Jorge shelters the scene,
Survived the flames, beat back the Moors.

That remaining maze of alleys in the old town,
Runs tawny along houses of red clay rooves
Where cadences of fado echo in the night,

Melancholy folk with mandolins
Sing sad shanties of lost loves and fate,
Wield guitars with sauntered Iberian gait.

This is the only city I know of with a lift,
That elevates between eras – the old and the new.
This city that elevated itself out of a dark age.

St. Anthony’s song of what was lost,
An empire of centuries of liquid capital
Overlooking the Tagus and the sea.

Foreword

2007-09-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

And what does it mean to be so sure of yourself
That the afternoon light from a window
Cannot illuminate you, that the writing
On the wall does not challenge your countenance?

From one human to another, let me assure you
That you too will know humility,
When the crowds vanish and you are left to prove
Once again that you are alive between two bookends.

Time shelves all words, healing all wounds
But in those forgotten corridors of covers
In tomes that make a maze of memory,
One more book on the shelf never stands by itself.

huggermuggery

2007-08-31T00:53:00.000-07:00

i gave a talk recently
about the use of many models
to solve a single problem.

it kinda felt like gang warfare,
all those conspirators,
each providing his or her point of view.

that's what it feels like
to be in front of a crowd --
like you've had no sleep

and you have to fight each breath
for the last cot, the final plot
in some murder mystery.

i felt like ten little indians
were counting down
like bottles of beer on the wall,

ticking and talking about things
that i barely understand
and watching the clock

to see just what i had to skip,
to save for a future presentation.
and this was voluntary!

as sweet as ornery

2007-08-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

as soft as loam
as vapid as foam
as rapid as nomads
as nomadic as the ocean
as oceanic as islands
as palm as fronds
as friends as fingers
as fingers as hands
as hands as some
as some as many
as many as possible
as possible as i am
as you as us
as romantic as moderne
as modern as english
as british as behaviour
as behaved as a flock
as floppy as a hat
as mad as a simile
run on like a sentence
in the middle of road.

koblenz

2007-08-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

at the deutsche eck,
the confluence of two rivers,
the mosel and the rhein,

there is a corner of germany
of history, a monument,
an occasion to come together,

wenn ihr einig seit und treu,
under the shadow of kaiser wilhelm,
Nimmer wird das Reich zerstöret.

along the steep wineyards is kochem,
the cobbled streets and promenades
manned by a castle reconstruction,

the verbal mythology never reads
its own biography, that's past
up in the winding of river paths.

and out along the meandering valley,
burg eltz, over 800 years in the forest,
its courtyard a confluence of tourists,

this modern feudalism, the vassals
paying their lord a fealty, fidelitas,
a form of medieval realty.

in another town from another time,
in herrengasse we find fine rhein wine,
take to the hills with our bottle,

and behind that cork uncover a mystery,
a language we do not comprehend
in its limitless confluence of vowels.

lorelei

2007-08-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

along this rock-strewn bend
in the main vein of germany,
where in historical tales
wunderbar maedchen
would sing their songs,
in their sirens flirted
with passing sailors hell-bent
on passing the time interwined
in this land of mosel wine.

now upon a jut in the land,
a rock adorned with the german flag
keeps watch over the winding
sluice where barges run loose
beneath the trees.
a stein above the rhein
an anchor of a landlocked region,
st. goar is famous for hospitality,
where sailors would spend
the night with romantic sirens
and give prayers of thanks.

now stores with steins
stretch between the alleys
and under medieval arches
raised as fortificatins
in the days before gunpowder
when sieges were the norm
this town had its own
bakery, pharmacy,
livestockery,
well, brewery,
where five hundred people
huddled to outwait their attackers.

now the snackers, the backpackers
the knick-knack trackers
have turned this region
on to a new medievalism.
fortified upon a cliff
this high-on-a-hill hamlet
as european culture frowns down
from the precipice of days past.

bmore

2007-08-19T00:17:00.000-07:00

kids are growing up
in the shadow of gang violence
nervously joking
about the number of murders last year

not gangs that match their skin,
or gags that match the kin,
but people of an entirely different
social strata removed and unarmed

but wielding their dignity.

the kids in baltimore
are doing hard time
living in neighborhoods
they don't understand

across the railroad tracks
in converted duplexes
triplexes, quadplexes
town and single family homes

paying too much for too little.

trapped in the ratrace
these kids are in over their heads
shielding themselves
from the eventual collapse

of the marketing companies
with their online dealings
and other stealing of their dignity
the ignominity of anonymity.

working too much for too little.

these kids have asbestos-laden
walls exposed in their basements,
live frustrated lives
in suburban tenements.

across the country, i have moved
myself well away, but i am no different,
staying up all night with a chisel,
sculpting out one moment at a time.

making too much but too little.

one bloody happy day

2007-08-14T08:29:00.000-07:00

perhaps this day
was the happiest
in all of human
memory.

perhaps this day
was the culmination
of international
cooperation.

perhaps this day
was a day of release
after 60 million died
in fields and bunkers,
but most died in their homes.

perhaps this day
was a day of finding
mass graves and bodies,
but also living beings,
emaciated.

this day was definitely
a day to remember.
august 14th, 1945.

inishmore

2007-08-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

peat farmers
are spreading the hay
by hand
anticipating rain
inishmore

the british
pushed the irish west
of their own isle
onto the aran isles.

sent away,
galway
town of the foreigners
12th century

and then the
dispossessed british
inside or out
of exclusive
ferries and selves,

british overlords
the heritage surviving
in tiny pockets
of ruined wall
the central park

the river corrib
runs through the center
of the town,
the fishermen
take turns in waders

casting their lures
beneath colorful facades,
the youthful crowds,
university.

the many dark centuries
of souls gathered
are layered like the soil,
ignite todays fires
in the young country
with so much history.

dad was

2007-08-08T01:23:00.000-07:00

dad was
half a thousand things
before the wedding ring
encircled his square
he'd been everywhere

dad was
ten thousand things
he had shown to me
without ever being there
like pupping a tent alone

dad was
a million things
wanted to say to him
and now in review
saw aloud but a few

dad is
dead as dust
calm as ash
living and well
in my sleeping cell

prediction

2007-08-07T22:50:00.000-07:00

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
-- Niels Bohr

So many mathematicians
statisticians,
and beauticians
devote their working
hours to prediction.

Any why is it so important
to know the future?
Is there really so much fear
to be unarmed, now and here?

Half the work of statistics
half again logistics
and still more combinatorial
effort into gubernatorial
predilection.

Instead let's embrace Mandelbrot,
stretch our heads and arms out wide,
let us stand outside under the stars
and ask the world for a surprise.

da

2007-07-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

Beyond these silver linings
the day holds tight to the horizon,
unwilling to let go.

Its own volition is to remain
free from night's gaze
the many eyes the opaque watchers

over a transparent sea
of limitless light and silence,
like that day you left us.

One single elusive syllable
that first was uttered
was your one name to me.

I still call out to you, awake
in the night, that one single name
that no one else will ever take.

That moment at your wake
still plays each day in my mind.
The sound of wave on rocks.

hallelujah

2007-07-26T22:50:00.000-07:00

My eyes
cast back a gaze
that clothes you
in a dress of confidence
that strips you
of the stress of conference
drawn around the spot
of my circumference
exposes the curves
of your body
My eyes
have seen the glory

environmentalism

2007-07-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

the conversation about conservation
has worn on
the observation of overcompensation
and pompus privatization
the deprivation of public lands
without any publicity.
now that being eco-friendly
is so trendy
people can rank themselves
based on their rancor
for the many of hang on
to what few dollars more
than the poverty line
but these people are aligned
with waterfalls of money
windfalls of hegemony
and sail on without acknowledging
without the knowledge of self-sufficiency
but their allowance is sufficient
for them to buy a hybrid
and try to make you feel bad about it.

my os

2007-07-06T10:36:00.001-07:00

(in the style of gil scott-heron)

my os doesn't need to be activated,
it's hacktivated.
my os isn't backwards compatible,
it's forward looking.

my os needs no service pack,
no value pack,
no packaging.
my os comes with no warranty,
my os doesn't allow focus stealing,
my os needs no backroom dealing,

my os needs no monopoly,
cause it's a technopoly,
my os is not property,
it just works properly.

my os even makes toast,
not coasters,
my os boasts no coastline,
my os has a great bassline.

my os has no blue screen of death,
no angel of death,
no death wish,
no bad breath,

my os has no cup holder,
no paperclip,
no wallpaper,
no desktop,
nor other cliche'd novelties
of metaphor

...my os has no release date.

you're a peon

2007-07-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

When I was nineteen
it became clear
that I wanted to be somebody,
if only myself.
Now at thirty-two,
I remember walking
the back streets of Europe
admiring the gardens,
the shared spaces,
the clay, fitted rooves,
the yards maintained
with care and compost
the trains whizzing by
benches and trails
built of beer barrels
coopers and coops,
nearly every plot manicured.
If I am lucky in life,
the weathered patina
will rub off on my mind,
that european dream
to which I succumb.
None of my friends
appreciated this,
nor considered this
of vast import to their souls.

some large lady

2007-07-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

some large lady
hailing her way from giverny
at a claude monet buffet
ate by herself all day

at 2pm when she felt ill
she went to the window
and resting 'pon the sill
let out a winnow

then down came the rain
all of her lunch
and ran down the drain
except for the chunks.

transatlantic

2007-06-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

Our love took off a 777,
lucky triplet numbers,
then split like a headache
never will even by a pill.

Our love was a moist towel
on a transatlantic flight
burned hot in our hands
then quickly took on a chill.

we were miles from ordinary
then became too old and weary
as our bleary eyes met
in the starry sky kismet

and fell thirty-thousand feet.

phoney buzz

2007-06-29T16:44:00.001-07:00

the women swoon,
the men ogle
as the retail
employees engage
them in boondoggle,
swoop in for the sale,

assailing them with adspeak

trapped in this maze
of hype and buzz,
their scripted chatter
becomes a fuzzy haze
since what they say
doesn't matter;

everyone bands together
on this wagon of the week.

9am

2007-06-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

grey vapor clouds
crawl across the horizon
the snails of sky
and closing my eyes
tight
i can smell
at the center
of the spiral shell
a rain so fresh and still

circus day

2007-05-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

Turkish women watch their children play
as they talk away the waning day.
Men unfurl the tent, its red and white
stripes speaking of a simpler age.

A boy, hat turned to its side, kicks a ball
up and down the left and right sides
of a mown park. The innocent clinks
of the hammers nailing pitons, spikes

into the moist turf, eight-foot poles with spikes
like spines supporting the scaly skin
of a maker of childhood fantasies, like dragons
shirtless men carry large loads.

Women shake their hips, suspending hula hoops
as kids cycle loops around the park.
The trucks, flatbed, stage their production,
a celebration of childhood memories.

An elderly man lunches in the shade
watching life progress as his waves
from the campers step strong men
who lug huge loads to and fro.

One of their husbands arrives, come from work
and sits amid the six women, legs akimbo,
joining his family in the afternoon
around tea time.

The circus family emerges from a camper,
the young children scampering down the makeshift
steps, as one young mother changes shifts with another
shouting an order to her man and chastising her young son

and her own lack of chastity, and as the afternoon
winds on they launch a motor revving.
One kid raises a red flag as her siblings run
about, a lone soccer ball between them.

The Turkish mothers, the German mothers --
all stay at home as the men go to work alone
or in groups for the laboring class,
trying to cover the costs of the burgeoning EU.

alto adige

2007-05-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

Life moves at its own pace
or rather stands completely still
in a stone house high on a hill.

As tiny autos wind their way
switching back and forth across
the fields grow wild and forest with moss.

Wildblumen wave in whiskers
of grassy wheat curling back
toward the hilly expanse from wind

men mistrust the gusts
clip drying clothes to lines
the only straight segment anywhere.

The roads as lined with walls of stone
along tome stretches one alone
can pass to cross the stony bridge

the brook passes rushing beneath
as Italians in their daily way
pass us without pause or care.

We are truly visitors here,
but then why oh tell me why
does it feel so much like home?

ex

2007-05-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

After twelve years apart
we're reunifying our lives

You have another lover,
and I'm bringing my wife

The party will be us two
singular and duly appointed

In our roles as the family head
we grasp tightly the reigns

Trying to arrange these strange
encounters in the fantasy of void

Without witness to our recollections
lest they be both suspect and annoyed.

early retirement

2007-05-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

Today my father
would have turned
sixty-five, reached

that career pinnacle
a well-earned
retirement

instead he chose
between a nicotine
forefinger and thumb

hitched an early out
a buyout on his
contractual obligations.

all that life's lived
all the wisdom
concealed in his tight lips

could not reveal
the will to live
beyond his rustic roots

in Carolina's fields
strewn with tobacco
the barns drying

the filtered taste
of warm smoke
years of life wasted.

I still occasionally
light up myself;
I'm not so bright.

my colleagues / the sun's dawn

2007-05-03T22:18:00.000-07:00

my colleagues at school
place distance between us,
seeking to bury axes

in my hatchback commute
hunchback from a packed
backpack and a gym bag

filled at the library,
late night research for
last-minute assignments.

In my age summoning the size
of stamina for night after
all-nighter bleats my eyes

making me a B-student
across the multitude
of disciplines invented

to spread my mind against
to jam with into the night
dance up the sun's dawn.

raven mad

2007-05-03T22:14:00.000-07:00

that same dead bird
back two days ago
sat staring up at me

with a lone eye
cartilage missing ripped
from its flapping abdomen.

Have I mentioned
I've passed on over
passed now beyond my own mind

Have I noted
that infinitely singular
sensation that

loneliness of intellect
that moment before sunset
when death comes to collect

back taxes to that day
when you flow in
down into your mother's arms.

He approaches with piqued interest.

may day

2007-05-02T01:05:00.000-07:00

a day of many sirens
buses crashing
into brick walls

passing one another
on the road, dialogues
across dotted lines,

a day of communiques
to long-since seen
friends and family.

these days linger on
beyond the walls
of sleep, beyond

the satin of sheets
against which and
sandwiched by their

where is castro
on these once
celebrated days?

raul has certainly
wrested full grasp
while fidel rests

in peace.

rainier day women

2007-04-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

around mt. rainier,
lone peak rising
above seattle

on a clear day,
the light cascading
down its snowy slopes

the rainy weather,
precipitation
from the pacific

olympic climbers
test their mettle
on the mountain

helicopters rise overhead
lifting unfit climbers
up off the faces.

dangle, tongue, and rot

2007-04-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

since words have such power to make all men cower
dangling from a lariot by the proletariat
the poet hasn't much time to think of a rhy-
some quick tongue fling to resonate and ring
in the minds of his captors who devour like raptors
his inner-most thoughts left to dangle and rot.

open lots are / posh lifestyles

2007-04-09T00:13:00.000-07:00

(an anti-poem)

open lots are being grabbed
the speculation has begun
leading me to wonder just

and unjust

how long my neighborhood
will retain its special funk
that currently keeps out yuppies

to adjust

the preparation by their caring
elders underscores the lack
of understanding and investment

of mine

as far away as -Park
and -Heights in their whitewalled
fenced-in pre-determined posh

lifestyles.

how many headless / a loss

2007-04-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

how many headless bunnies
lie in chocolate repose
while children hunt down eggs
on their twinkling toes
in spring-time dresses
the rain making messes
mud on their spindly legs
far too many I s'pose.

how many legless lambs
are roasted on spits
and frightened way out
of their four-legged wit
cut through in shear terror
but through the human error
spout off the cuff like doubt
fists curled in startled fits.

how many spineless men
hang a lone man upon a cross
responding to crimes with crimes
then celebrate their earthly loss
marching on like reel legions
through so many worldly regions
tell me how many times
must we revisit such a loss.

the nautilus / through musical cascades

2007-04-08T00:19:00.000-07:00

the nautilus was a vessel unique
as imagined as can be rational daughters
nemo treated her special to speak
her pilot through outernational waters.

exactly where to the craft had dived
nobody fathomed but the captain
he kept her depths in his mind's
size and in his leagues mapped them.

through the eyes of professor aronnax
surviving giant squid, hurricanes
cannibals, whale hunts, shark attacks
in chapters that wave through musical cascades.

sundays are a / shared morning

2007-04-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

sundays are a breeze
the late-rising sun
the endless snooze

dressed in our best
huddled under warm
sheets in rest

news shows at noon
not leaving the room
dual supine perspective

then rise summoned
by sumatran or
columbian beans

grounds for waking
beyond the zone
of our comforter

ranking determination
priorities against
daunting domestication

beyond the remote
reach of each other's
occupational constraints

prior experience
posterior pride
and do not hide the warning

the newspaper stories
that escape the editor's
internal agenda

propaganda of real
estate offerings
ads classified by

shape, size, color, gender,
partitioning criteria
like our shared omelet

we say all and nothing
in a single solitary
sedentary, shared morning.

wisdom / youth surmise

2007-04-03T00:33:00.000-07:00

wisdom, though empirically
acquired is not intuitive
no matter what your sources say

no matter how often many
times you're given advice
it's not until you slip

trapped in the grip of a vice
handcuffed to the radiator
as they go through your socks

in search of tiny, crystal rocks
that the absurdity of your mission
the sating of addiction

of your daily life become
so apparent you wonder how
your parents didn't catch on

but they too are not so wise
or so you in your youth surmise.

a warning / a voice

2007-04-02T00:57:00.000-07:00

a warning

honesty
never heeds

(humility means
never having
to speak out of turn;

earning means
never having
it all given to you;

silence
never shows off)

a voice