Po eat tree

I probably shouldn't go all the way through May without a post, so - because I'm too lazy to write a new essay - here's another slew of poems.

The first three are up at GloomCupboard.blogspot.com (March #22)
and some of the others are pending publication at Istanbul Literary Review, Glass and Poetry Midwest.

The last one I just wrote today (cut me a lil' slack ... still needs some fine tuning. Ok, lots ...).

So, for all three of you who might read this, enjoy.


Laughter

Thursday night in America
only the hopeful walk the streets.
Frosted by dim lights,
painted in the murky
whitewash of the moon,
drunk nomads
wander like moths
to the neon signs
that dot the street,
offering promises
only the dead can keep.
While mothers, fathers,
grandmothers and grandfathers,
and children, and even birds sleep,
we wander our black
hole purgatory, caught
between Eden and the cubicle,
hoping the sun will finally let go
and drift into space
so that finally we can sleep naked
against the silk sheet of the stars.
And we send out our laughter
crashing against the shield
of the endless black sky
like prayers.


White Flowers

They sprout
like thin rolled
tongues, whistling
a familiar riff
from a free jazz tune
that you just can't place.
You watched me
standing
on that square of grass
where I peeled
back the paper
of my skin
and let the seed
of that tumor
fall
until the leaves
and the petals
and my smile
turned black,
crumbled
and mixed with
the earth.


Secrets

It's parked on Mulholland,
holding hands,
fingers tickling one another
like spiders legs.
Overlooking the night sky
mirror of the city below.
"Human hands twisted
each one of those bulbs," you say.

My heart twinkles
in the middle of Orion's belt.
The warmth of venom spreads
through the web of my veins
as you clutch tighter,
whisper the heat of your confessions
in my ear until the spider rests
and I can't move my fingers
when you squeeze my hand.


The Architect of Black

Aren't they the same, the stiff
body of a dog on the side
of the road and the road
disappearing into the night?

I whisper half of a prayer,
speed back up to chase the emptiness
ahead of my headlights.

I think about turning them off.
I could. But what might I see
trapped in all that endless black?
What swims here invisible?
What fiber weaves that blank
canvas which runs from
and chases me at once?

In front, white light pushes
a path for me to pass.
Behind, somber red
guides back the black I've moved
into the black behind me.

And me, a lone electric rose
in the middle of some inverse winter,
allowed through until the lamps
finally fade on their own,
until I go nowhere in all directions,
stuck in a web of sticky nothing.

Long yellow lines
crawl from the dark and fly
past in steady rhythm –
like the metered bark of the tires
in the groove of the road,
like the muted beat of a song
I know but have never
heard – falling off the cliff
of my rearview mirror.


Some False Spring

I played hooky
and spent the day naked
writing poetry,
half bored, pretending
I was a recluse genius
until I broke for lunch,
warmed our leftovers
from last night’s dinner
where we toasted soda
because we couldn’t
afford wine and celebrated
that you were not pregnant.
It made me want you more
but too frightened to touch
you, like the ceremonial
Czech drinking glasses
at my grandfather’s house –
if I take a sip I risk dropping
and shattering you
and if I don’t … then what?
Perhaps it was the soul
of our unconceived child
who stepped in and pulled
the muscle in my neck
so we could not make love,
so instead you could fall asleep,
leave me awake in pain,
wondering if I was relieved
or offended. The sun
seemed to be warming
the snow outside
so I showered and stepped out
to soak up the newness
of March – the coming of spring –
but got only a cold shiver in my bones
and a vicious breeze across my cheeks.


Song for the Ladies of the Soil

O Midwestern Girls
with your brunette pony tails,
too baggy jeans and aloof
shrug toward skyscrapers,
sing your pale-toned songs
in high pitched squeals.
Tell me your tales of work
on farms or life in the suburbs.
Let me be the poet that lives
inside you, in the Earthy void
where now subconscious dreams
wait out late night corn field bonfires
and the strong thick jaw lines
of cute, dumb-eyed farm and frat
boys with their shovel-built muscles
and tattered and creased-brim ball caps.
Cast the repetition and thrust
of their hot beer breath from you.
Come, read the stories in the stars
with me and find your song
in the silent power of the soil
on your worn shoes and grass
that stains your jeaned knees.
America has poured her history
into you in hope you'll embrace it,
in hope you'll see the poetry in the dust
kicked up by herds of wild horses, in the thick
heat of summer air and in the irony
of snow-covered black moonless nights.
Let your awkward notes slip
into the lazy country sky
until they become the wink of stars
offering dreams to the empty prairie.


Annual Toads

I was seven and named mine Gus. We'd caught toads
in a murky old creek about a mile from my house,
my brother said it ran straight into Lake Erie. I wanted
to train that toad and take him to school with me.
On the playground he would do tricks, the other kids
would want one too, they'd call me Toad Man.
We'd even make cover of the yearbook. But,
after two days all he'd done was pee on my hand.
I didn't have any idea what to feed him, so my brother
and I decided to release them in the sandbox. We set
them down and they hopped away. I stepped back
into a thicket of milkweed. Under my bare foot I felt
a rubbery squish. We rushed him to the ER of our garage.
I disassembled an old matchbox car and removed the rear axle.
Derek made the cart and the toad died when we strapped
it to him with a twist-tie from a bread bag. We buried him in a ratty
washcloth that summer, right underneath the Tulips
in the flowerbed. That was the first time I heard the term 'annual'.
Tulips were perennials, Gus was a perennial, and Derek
said that he and I were perennials too. I didn't always believe
him though. That creek might have run into Lake Erie,
then into the ocean, and all the way to China.


Wearing your Heart on your Ankles

I like to wear mismatched socks,
use them as a private metaphor
for my most concealed secrets.

There’s an excitement in knowing
what others don’t,
even if you’ve designed it that way.

But, sometimes in public –
say sitting at the mall or on a sidewalk bench –
I’ll stretch one leg first and nudge the cuff
of my jeans so my white ankle shows,
then switch and unveil the black,
roll my foot, parade it a little
like a mute devil on my shoulder.

Then I wait to see who noticed.

I rarely get a response, unless some man
pushing a stroller trips over my foot.

Isn’t there something jarring
about the holiness of babies
that uncoils guilt? A guilt like
only a son can feel for the love
of his mother.

Am I some bizarre brother
of that pastor on the evening news
spreading the wings of his trench coat
in the seam of the freeway?

(He told the police he’d rather
feel the wind fondle him
than let the confused teenage girls
kneel at his private pulpit …
and after all, he wasn’t Catholic …)

I watched the news that night
with my mother. She used the word grotesque.
I said jealousy and a man’s primal urge
to see his name in the paper were excusable sins.