10 Poolside Haikus

 

Butterfly by pool

try’s not to get wings wetted

by splashing children.

 

Below the surface

hand and feet fish swim about

leaping and flapping.

 

Always turquoise hue-

pools where sapiens cool off,

edge-grasping the trough.

 

All sizes and shapes-

floating apes between ropes,

shallow end and nope.

 

Rainbow, neon-pink,

caution yellow, and blotched ink-

swimsuit colors blink.

 

Guardian of life,

omnipotent on your perch,

a whistle’s your might.

 

Running and diving

are strictly prohibited.

Glass containers too.


Hanging round pool shack

teen lifeguards, on break, crack jokes.

 Laughing, they sneeze Coke.

 

Legs tucked- cannonball!

A bigger splash is better.

“Let’s never get out!”

 

Waist-deep in water,

Madonna on a shoulder,

tattooed man shivers.





 

You can’t wait forever

for a better date,

prevaricate bravely,

or hesitate before

the dancing monster.

You can’t do better than

the present intensity.

Time’s watering can

showers down on me

the warm affection of a late

morning in early June.

 

This is the awaited day-

a garden of delight

that’s equal parts shade

and light, made for taking

notice of the virgin

terrain, replete with bowing ferns

moss-draped branches

and the tinkling music

of a sun-dappled creek,

not to mention thorny plants,

biting flies and a risk

of ticks.

 

From the vantage of a fallen tree

footbridge I see, in the muddy

stream bank, the entrance

to a muskrat’s den. Through a thicket

and up, I stand on the overlook

as a siren wails noon

from someplace too near.

 

 

So long, brief morning. I did not

embrace your dawning. Too busy

yawning in the slow lane, too low

on the horizon, in my recline,

to behold the growing smile

of the new day. But now,

in the center of the sky

spiral I am capable

of flight.

 

 

 

Awosting

falls

is at full

roar

this morning

calling

its continuous

cataract

chorus from

a layered ledge

sixty-six feet

straight

down

erupting into a pool

with a sound-devouring

thunder

even the full-throated

breeze

I feel and see

swaying the ferns

festooning the forest floor

or the birds I know to be

conversing from

tree to tree

cannot be heard

here beside

the cacophonic

falls

 

 

 

 peeling paint    ain’t it fine    on beat-up boards    in sunshine?    green leaves and glare    I’m seated in the chair    where future merges with past    I watch it come    and go    through an abraded window    snaking south    on parallel rails    September scenery     beside the tidal Hudson    where a whale swims    bearing a city on her back    Manhattan is my goal today easily achieved from a swaying seat    on the express train    passing tangled trees    castle ruins    and Sing-Sing prison    terminus of bad decisions     in the window my dim reflection is superimposed    on playground billboard underpass parking lot cattail swamp    someone with a can of colored aerosol mist    scrawled on a wall    a message    that none can decipher but the sage of Yonkers    who skulks here    among weed stalks    and storage lots    face among defacements    sometimes a change of subject is needed    if you want to exit the tunnel of vision    into a state of swell being    I am on the lookout today    for shapely shadows in shades of gray    and signs un-designed by wind rain and sunshine    crossing a bridge where birds perch in rows    the train slows to a halt    the perfect weather is no one’s fault    but so much is hidden    due to my clouded view    arrival soon so they say    to the filthy sublime    time moves slowly    when your stomach is empty    and your bladder is full    the bull has horns you must grab    or be gored by    so stab your ambition into the aorta of grins    and accompany your shadow on an expedition    to ornament the time allotted    with sanguine perambulations    through swaying canyons of glass    reflecting the most recent past

 

Soundscape

Picture a horizon—water and sky,

A sea of sorts—Long Island Sound, to be precise.

Resolution—crisp.

In the distance, edging over curved earth,

The northern most tip of the island itself—Orient Point,

according to the framed map on the hall wall.

 

Picture trees, newly leafed out, leaning

into steady wind—a sea-breeze blowing

As if from the mouth of a sky-god on an antique map.

A fringe of phragmites sways

Before a strand of smooth rocks,

lapped by water—green with seaweed.

 

Picture a motorboat breaking the surface

of the sky mirror with angry throbs

and a tail of froth.

White caps, buoys and a jumble

of jutting rocks and boulders

complete the panorama.

 

One could paint it with watercolors—but instead

picture me leaving this chaise and heading to

the water’s edge to study the spaces between stones,

where elements meet—water, mineral, air and light.

My face, reflected, overlaps and merges

with barnacles clinging to submerged surfaces like teeth

 

and mussels huddling, disguised as darkness in their inky shells.

The air I breathe is an oxygenated exhalation

from beyond reasonable expectations.

Picture a white heron hunting on the rocky shoreline—

Motionless, taking aim—all patience

and reflected symmetry—invisible to the crab in the crevasse.

 

 

 

 

 

Bird Music

 

throat flute

articulated trill

ungraspable display

 

 

summer morning

capability nil

eyeballs roam

 

socket windows

hold still

and listen

 

 

again start

stroke flesh

fresh page

 

living life

caressing facts

untold truth

 

shaded light

woven breaths

taking flight

 

beating wings

once twice

and land

 

 

on branch

water laps

darkened edge

 

 

tidal ebb

ocean sky

horizon stripe

 

 

creation all

summarized by

bluejay squalks

 

Emperor

 

Across the invisible keyboard unseen fingers blur,

blending an eleven o’clock sunbeam with

Ludwig van Beatific.

Notes float out into vacant fields of vision.

Emptiness surrounds my pounding heart.

 

I’m playing dead,

couched on the mild earth among

the aftereffects of a wasted morning:

coffee cup and attendant crumbs,

book splayed open, to-do list not begun

The dog-sergeant snores on the floor.

 

Heroic hands bleed ecstatic crescendos

clinging to the furious joy of arpeggios,

fluttering over shimmering keys,

as maple leaves in a November breeze.

 

Raindrops of sound drench my quiet, caffeinated

madness. My cold frog breath chills

the petals of a late lily.

On my pond perch, I pound

a clenched fist against

 

the womb of mystery.

Someone is dreaming me into technicolor being,

as I beseech the maestro

not to annihilate my contented existence with a stroke

of his magic wand turning

music into applause.

 

Open

Open your fist

     out flies a pigeon.

Open your ears

     years fall through.

Openly exist with everything sacred

     on condition of planned obsolescence.

Open the door 

     for a sorrowful dinosaur.

Open your mouth 

     and let the Higgs Boson out.

Open your heart to me

     I’m the surgeon with the warmest hands.

Open a book

     made of sand and wind.

Read it to the shadow 

     of your former self.

Open an eggshell

     full of bird songs.

Open the curtain

     for the actor playing you.

Openly beg for forgiveness

     for not knowing what you thought you knew.

Open your body at the cellular level

     to the possibility of rain in November.

 

 

Graphite and Wood

A pencil is the point of entry between the seen and the invisible.

A pencil has a nuclear core that radiates sparks of vision.

A pencil speaks in a whisper.

A pencil waits with infinite patience for a hand to unlock its gray matter.

A pencil makes footprints across a snowy, white field.

A pencil is a finger to scratch the itch in my cerebellum 

A pencil is a weapon for battling ennui 

A pencil is a rocket ship to the center of now. 

A pencil is a condensed ocean.

A pencil is a dripping icicle of feeling.

A pencil is a hiding place for denunciations and vows.

A pencil connects the dots that form the curve of your spine.

A pencil is a seismograph for a thumping heart.

A pencil hums inside the closed drawer of my chest.

A pencil has all the answers.

 

 

Nice Weather

 

Let’s take a drive to the void ocean sky- incandescent blue as a droplet

of joy. Let’s dive into the deep end and fly like penguins. Let's save the day

 

and spend the night. Let’s drink the scent of a bee’s honeyed breath,

have a wrestling match with life, and embrace dear death dressed for eternity.

 

Let’s ride the elevator to the top floor of a weeping giraffe and leave

the calendar date behind. Let’s enter the fray a year from Monday

 

when it rains in the bible belt and drowns out the laughter of armadillos. Let’s,

like we always do, run for the sheer amusement of seeing the dark side of paradise

 

reflected in the mirror on a wall of noise. Let’s do yesterday tomorrow

and skip the foreseeable future in favor of uncharted wastelands of green.

 

Let’s jump off the page of a book of photographic memories and land

at the foot of a mountain of sighing overcoats. Let’s take a leaking boat down the Ganges,

 

mother of corpses, and up the Nile, red with iron, fighting white caps on the black sea,

our shanties overheard by mermaids. Let’s sleep under a blanket of stars

 

and lie awake dreaming about how sad it all would be without each other's hands

to warm our icicle feet when the sun sets in Cincinnati. Let’s welcome

 

the inevitability of pain because only then can we endure the ecstasy

of swimming in the lake of burning love.

 

Personal Enterprise

what else could I

mere mortal be

but a minute portal

pinprick hole

through which to see

the universal whole

for a holy Nano second

while balancing

at the end

of an endless

sentence

navigating U-turns

around gluons

translating meat

into eat

an evolutionary byproduct

heating the earth

with rubber feet

while losing the race

to be the new and improved but

proud of my status as

a fountain of dust

survivor of the tectonic crust

sporadically dispatching dissolute

utterances to the wind

a temperamental scruffian

in heaps of sheets

listening anew to

Bitches Brew

 

 Lullaby for an Insomniac

waiting with a pencil in my hand

an hourglass of sand

head buried in a cloud of hours

waiting for rain to fall from my brain

strange precipitation on a clear night

 

the clock perched on the shelf

time itself a thing

like an oak tree’s annual ring,

a mound of acorns,

a rusted swing, dust in corners accumulating,

dark hair gradually turning gray-

fragments of photographs torn from the day

waiting to be mended by the smiling moon

 

waiting for my bones to melt

for my vision to meld with the weight of

an evening breeze

waiting for answers to float up from the lake

and take a gulp of air

a breath exhaled from my snail lungs

 

words on my tongue

tasteless and pale as light shining from

the eyes of candles hung

in the ceiling of sky

waiting for someone to sing me a lullaby

 

 

It is always like this-

One slippery day merges with another. Thursday is Wednesday in tone and proportion, yet in fine detail their filigree is individual perfection. Duration too is altered incrementally,

day by day, minutes shaved or added depending which half of the orbit we are on.

It is always like this-

In-between, about to begin, almost over, usually all at once. The moment has no identity, no self, no flag to mark a spot.

Get ready, plan, assemble, clean-up, stand, sit, steer, listen, feel the road, feed the need, dance the laundry clean, kneel before the oven, evade disaster.

 

It is always like this-

Chair leg shadows on the linoleum floor form an exact demarcation of the sun’s angle and the earth’s movement, appearing still, but they too pulse and vanish into completeness.

No one foresees these patterns of sunlight, or the suddenness of voices, or the appearance of age in the mirror.

 

It is always like this-

Searching for a lost dream, a memory or an idea. Hesitating to speak, waiting for the light to change. Holding back a lung-full of breath then

dispensing its fate-altering trajectory into the weak current of air. Shuddering in a cold draft. Identifying a noise in the bowels of the house. Listening to the whisper of want.

Worrying over the evaporating bank account.

 

It is always like this-

A piece of paper flutters and floats off the table. A roaring motorcycle, drives in and out of existence in mere seconds. A herd of elk welcomes another hoary dawn

under the dome of the aurora borealis. An iceberg unseen. An ocean liner en route to port. Chance circumstances that alter not what is, but what was presumed,

anticipated and scheduled, or seem not to matter at all. 

 

It is always like this-

I hear what I don’t want to hear. I see what I choose to see. I don’t know what I don’t know. It would be wonderful to die, to step across the threshold and stand on the other side,

then turn around towards the light, shove the boulder aside and step back into life for another try. But that’s not how it is.

 

It is always like this-

 

 

Rubbing My Eyes

rain-soaked night    streetlight    puddle bright    spectral reflections splash    in all five neon colors    pizza    laundromat    convenience/gas    walk    don’t walk    glowing omens    seen from a wind-chiming porch    here I am    no traces of the day    no sign of Sam    disquiet abounds hard rain pounds    dousing the town    town with too much nothing    to be done    too many ways not to have fun    no need to lock the door and go     no destination to lead me astray     no vibration    in my jacket pocket    where cold keeps company    with my fists    there’s no way to hold    a bouquet of yesterdays    no noel not like every other    ghost of x-mas past    no reason not to fear orcs    Voldemort    Bin laden    Bush    and ecological genocide    believe it    you cannot hide from what’s inside    closing the door on night    I give thanks for the haiku    immediately washed away by the rain    beyond my calm exterior    I see clearly into the negative depths    of December’s so-called miracles

 

Take a picture of sound

In the sky overhead, fast planes soar past. Clang-clong-cling goes the manhole cover- tire upon tire, insulting eardrums with every round. A great diesel engine greets a green light with a loud dinosaur roar, eternity bound. A breath of wind chimes in. The bell in the steeple, poised on high, holds back for a sigh. The extended arm of eternity nearly touching noon. An empty hum. A somewhat somnolence-inducing pregnant pause. Then the inevitable...

ding-dong  ding-dong

dong-ding  ding-dong

bong  bong  bong  bong  bong  bong  bong  bong  bong  bong  bong  bong.

 The music oscillates in holy C. A hollow ring over everything. On the street, a man scuffs his boots in gravel and detritus. Fading, an ambulance siren dies, revealing an adamant hammer pounding a noise niche- crack-whack-thwack, into the urban vibration-scape wrapped in echoes. Abrupt eruptions of cacophonous noise, then, in no particular order, sudden quiet, din, clatter, wail, thrum, rustle, rasp, screech, babble, gable, hum, patter, sneeze, yelp. A wholly, profane, mundane, midday hullabaloo parade. And how are you today?

 

 

I seek it along the shore.   

It jingles brightly in my pocket.   

I store it in a jar on the shelf    

where it glows   

like a light from under a door.   

I taste it on my morning toast,   

glimpse its flicker past the window pane,   

listen to its laughter in the rain,   

drink its naked musk    

through the open doorway at nightfall.   

When I brush my teeth with it   

you complain that my smile

keeps you awake.   

So I stow it in a chest full of stones,

bones, leaves, sleeves, arachnid webs,

threads of decay, day-old bread

and sunlight ebbing away.

Cupped in my empty palm it shimmers

like a psalm of affinity.

 

On this Day in History

 park maintenance guy

rodeo rides mower

sowing dust clouds

a weed or two survive to touch

 

another aquiline bay-side

park bench 

jet-skiing cop    

giddy-up morning

 

two toothy selfie-girls grin

in sun-slathered

multi-hued tank tops  

blonde coaches’ brunette's expression

 

clouds accumulate

in the middle blue forever 

a fishing friendly climate 

dotted with bleached white

boat hulls

 

and white house’s sinking 

into late season green

on the reflecting edge

of the flawless bay body

blue and red

a buoy bobs in the wake

of Zephyr   

 a sound-bound fishing craft

decked out with sea casting regalia

 

beach roses pink    

and yellow black-eyed Susan's

flutter in the rebuff

of the speeding Amtrak train 

late again

 

en-route to ancient history

the yesterday of tomorrow

riding the expanding universe

which is time itself    

expressing impatience

with a gull's yell    

a fishing line fizzing

off a boat's bow    

hurled in blue-fish hopes 

 

in the white triangle sail  

halfway across Niantic bay    

in the hum and rumble

of draw-bridge traffic    

in the rippling light projected

on the concrete undersides and columns

of the overpass

reflections from the tidal basin    

where a cormorant's snake neck

sneaks’ periscope-like

 

above the surface shaking

wet wings

then again dives unseen 

boats pass     

passengers gaily wave as if to say    

glad to see you

 

way over there   

 they wear sunglasses and grin

in appreciation

of the luck that is theirs    

while disappearing from view

 

leaving behind wasted

motion and the exhausted

grumble of an outboard engine    

fading slowly like an ache

 

therefore    clouds speed    heavens whirl    oceans yield    occasional pearls    and cyclones    mountains heave and melt    hail pelts  an iguana slowly rotates    her eyelid dome    infinite kernels grow on countless ears    a rainbow flag    sags slack at sundown    striped light dapples a tiger’s frown    naked truth    hides in plain sight    my silhouetted    ancestor stands in an archway    with my hands    ears    and grin    a flock of egrets   cross the misty moon crescent    in a lake of stars    and satellites spinning away    beyond the white noise    of frothing falls    smooth river    tree mirror    brown delta seen    from an orbiting eye    as an oxpecker bird rides    a rhino’s head    through tall grass in rain   crack of thunder    no    tree harvest    gravity assisted    pink-faced desolation    hacked nature reflects back    houses hatch on hillsides    crowds step in and out of stores    wide asleep walking    inside a cage of many    a dragon tattoo or two    to be seen while wading    through a throng    waiting for the light to change    day into night    I could go on

 

A winter’s day

in a sleepy January subplot. I am

alone,

 regarding infinity, falling in every direction-

snowy whiteness receding into indigo.

I have no time for slippery hopes.

I’m climbing the leeward slope of a dormant volcano,

bound by rising tides, on an island

in the Azorean archipelago.

 

I’ve worn a shell.

An excellent exoskeleton-

four walls of books by gods and mortals.

Portals to other lives, of sea breezes and verandas.

Infinite walls expanding, shadowed by trees

and hunters of memories, like these.

Your laugh— our shortcut to early embraces.

So we wade ashore, through jade water onto an island,

in the Azorean archipelago.

 

Don’t talk of feelings to a man of sublime concealment.

I’ve heard the wordless morning penetrate my waking dreams.

Gazing at a gazelle, on the snowy incline of a warming volcano,

encroached by swells and mobs of gulls.


I am Satyr, weeping in an arbor, crying for you,

but to consciousness I retun

alone,

on an island, surrounded by schools of Portuguese man-o-war,

pods of orcas and riptides galore,

on an uncharted, far-flung rock, somewhere, out there

in the Azorean archipelago.

 

An island feels the cold. 

A volcano steals the sun.

 



 

Alone in a mirror, space-time April, afloat in an ocean of gray, washed up on the shore of today, me and my blankets lay sleep-twisted and upbraided, dreaming slender revelations as consciousness threatens like rain. Outside my waking life waits patiently on the gentle hand of morning. I hear a thrumming hum through Wednesday windows. Eyes blurred-open read the daybook of cumulous pages turning their usual 8 0’clock blue. Lord have mercy and infinite wisdom for the milling mid-day mundane into which I must vertically pitch my repose. Reclining on an indoor plane I ponder my mixed-up-in every direction view- poised and ready in the west, mild resistance in the east, up north dishevelment, down south wakeful uncertainty. Curled as a nautilus here on the outermost rim of a light-swallowing hole I glow like a white dwarf on a shady side street.

 

A Permanent Ship

 

A permanent ship, such as the Mayflower, anchored at its perpetual port, can no longer set sail, but instead will be restored until not a nail or board remaining is the same as the rot that was once the wood that comprised the identical original vessel.

 

Like the cells that fashion the mass that is me, dying and replacing themselves such that eventually a completely new being supplants the old one with one that is older still.

 

But, unlike the permanent ship we will not forever be restored by a conservator no matter what we believe, or how fervent our plea to eternity. Like those pious pilgrims of old, some moonlit midnight, or a daybreak with swooping birds and tree buds bursting, we too will set sail on the ocean without a shore, knowing nothing of our final destination, or even if it is final.

 

For some it well may be to a hell of their own devising. For others the kingdom of disappearance will receive the pleasure and pain of existing in time’s refrain, in which every beginning is also an ending and every atom now me ultimately belongs to the heartbeat of the expanding unity.

 

 

 

Welcome to the Waverly :) 

 

Is it brain or brains whose assistance I enlist

when choosing eggs from an epic menu? 

All the way from yesterday. Sipping from the Mississippi.

Once again, I’ve crossed the lot, lost the plot

fostered an attitude past eight o’clock. 

I've gone away, gone to hay, 

a stray cat out of lady luck.

Waiting for a waitress. 

Over easy always pleases. 

Dear, I wear cashmere when you’re near. 

I am waiting for fulfillment. 

I am waiting for: _______________________ 

                                  fill in the blank.

I am waiting for a common-sense cure for out-of-body occurrences. 

I am waiting for a coal train to bring Suzy back to Swaziland.

I am waiting for caramelized pecans on a bun.

She she she= cosmic constant. 

Is no idea a good idea?

How about some rainbow trout?

To be loved is a survival skill. 

In the beginning the number. 

Time to go. 

What the heck is an atom of marmalade made of?

electronneutronprotonneutrinoquark

Star craving mad in a neutron suit. 

Atom time. 

Particle physique. 

Drinking salt from

a cup of hours. 

√ please.

 

 

Monday in The Park

 

It’s a kind of glory, this sought weight of sun found in spangles 

at the palace of noon trees, where Chinese music 

 

blossoms bright as poppies. Scarlet crescendos

from a one string fiddle fill a large sphere of hearing.

 

The musician's glance seeks open ears and pockets

in a landscape of birds and contentment.

 

Wave on wave passersby smile. Invisible as a gray cat 

in a patch of shade, I contemplate eternity and lunch.

 

I might have died and here been sent to bear immortality among strangers

wandering scenic paths from bolder to bench ever in range of a single string 

 

instrument. But without you it would be an obsolete heaven. 

Without you I might end up like that overcoat guy 

 

darkly hunched, chafed by the sexy sun,

agreeing with no one, cursed by April, no.

 

I have sent myself here in an envelope of hours to loaf and lean 

and glance admiringly; a man woven into the fabric of changing light.

 

The scene on Cedar Hill is a fancy bauble. If you hold it up to the light you might

see me encased in its amber, inwardly grinning.

 

 

after hours

   

   ours   

the sound

   rain on leaves   

not loud

   between   

gray and green

   among boulders 

ice age soldiers

   embedded in a hill

where

   fallen limbs sprawl 

in fading dim   

   autumnal brilliance 

distilled

   drizzle glossed weed throng

along the meadow creek  

   capillary trickle

runoff from the capitol   

   of never again   

neither day nor evening

   this whispered vesper   

en route to the cellar of night

   forest of wet smells

day like any   

   strange as no other

Mill river   

   keeper of quiet

carries corpses of trees   

   and lost memories 

tidings   

   from around the bend

look again 

   a hidden path

calls forth a spirit   

   only the dog can hear it  

 

 

we all pass through the same door    on our way    to the black oasis    getting feet wet    in the waterfall of spent breath    where I stop  to snack on a cubist apple    and catch perhaps an octopus    or swordfish   from the teeming stream    of echoes and vibrations     my tired dog    rests his head    on the stock of my rifle lying on the ground    where vines rapidly trap    the gun’s barrel    Marcel Duchamp    from atop a picnic table    lectures on  greyhound racing    but none of the proximal life forms take notice    to extract my weapon    I blow-torch the speedy weed growth    by filling my mouth with kerosene    and purging it    in a flammable mist    over a lit match    the dog raises his head and says    you can do this    difficult    occult    adult    give me the fish    before it slithers up your sleeve    and disappears into the depths    of your armpit I know what’s under your mask I reply    a nymph named Echo    who stumbled into me    when I was hawking rocks    in the diamond district    to this the dog sits up and says    maybe you’re correct    or maybe you’re mistaken    but on this we should all agree    a bottle of wine is better than a battle of kindness    tell that to Captain Nemo I reply    but the Captain’s head    is stuck inside a jar    he refuses to remove it    for fear of losing its contents    the Captain’s wife    Calypso    disapproves of his attitude    so she sips milk from a sacred cow    and begins an affair with a moose    disguised as Zeus    nobody’s head is right around here    Calypso’s is a fragrant rose blossom    Duchamp’s resembles a raw oyster on the half-shell    what about me?    I consider my face    in a polished pyramid of ice    a shiny otter stares back    only the leech    reclining on a divan    has a face a mother would kiss    but the leech’s mother is too busy for kisses    she’s putting on a human costume    to attend the wedding    of a witch to an executioner

 

Ballyhoo

On my way

the nose follows

we sway to an irregular rhythm 

slowly strolling in and out of shade

and light sniffing bright

hues of odor 

the residue

of yesterday's dog dreams

deposited for the astute reader

of smells who’s nostrils hover 

an inch or so above the ground

 

What’s left of a cold day

walks half a block ahead

he lists and displays a slight

hobble but we can't keep up

me and my fur lined shadow

abandon the chase

as the day evaporates

leaving no trace

or aftertaste

 

Our six-legged gait

is a halting incongruity

on a thoroughfare

polished by avarice and taste

through pools of streetlights

I lose thoughts and find

it hard to decide

left or right

continue or cross

 

we hesitate by the highway

we spark no interest

we have no agenda but to obey 

the demands of splendor

we are lashed by leash

to a lonely acre of night

dense with the scent

of circumstantial evidence 

 

week of waves    dog days    biting flies    horseshoe crabs   mussels at low tide    cherrystone clams    sawgrass    hot sand    mudflats    and this bliss    the surf is my lullaby    a perfect 3 o’clock sunbeam    erases post-ocean shivers    over under inside through    frothy-white seawater    molten silver    I glisten dripping brine    distance unfolds before me    layer upon layer    toward the uncertain edge    of the curved horizon    the infinite contour of the continent    is polished by the rhythmic tide    I stand at the center of all    and enter the instant    a backlit bather    among calligraphic characters    all inked    onto a sandy page of Aquinnah   

 

to shinny a silver birch   

reach up    and grasp the trunk with both hands   

spring-load your stance   and jump

wrapping knees and ankles    around the narrow

diameter of the tree shaft    biceps bulging

hoist your body    off the forest floor   

use the combined strength of arms    back    feet   and knees   

to send your palms scuttling up    the limbless gray pole    

hoist yourself again and again    aided by powerful thrusts

from  muscles and bones    of shoulders and thighs

repeat this motion    as you climb toward the canopy

once you arrive at the point    where slender branches

splay out at angles from the trunk    you may notice

a swaying sensation    as the birch upon which

you are perched    reacts to your movements   

if you thrust your head    into the green

crown of leaves    a beam of sunlight    

from the noontime sky   might poke you in the eye   

if you drop your gaze    for an instant   

inclining slightly to one side    gaging the gap

between the ground below    and you

the tree too will lean    use your body-mass

to bend the trunk    like a bow    and hang

sagging toward the ground    touching lightly down

before catapulting yourself    upward again

if you continue doing so    the silver birch   

will soon tire of hoisting you    and remain permanently    disinclined   

avoid telling your dad     about the sad result of your   

 joyful crime    or you might face grim disapproval    but

should the opportunity arise    to shinny

and ride a silver birch    do it

but without reprise

 

Acceptance

 

Five am, awake again.

One day more equals one day less.

An infinitesimally insignificant pinprick

in the expanding universe is where I reside,

with a little canary flapping and chirping in my chest.

What makes this day different from the rest?

 

I wonder as I lie on my back

gaining consciousness by degrees,

chilled by the desolation of the bedside light

as fragments of my to-do list float to the top of the dark pond

where my face has just broken the surface.

The canary hops from rib to rib.

I burrow my feet into chilly sheets

 

and remember that being nipped by arctic breath

is sweet because it quickens my core.

I embrace it with a shiver and a yawn,

and dress for the weather in cotton, wool and leather.

“How do you like my naked disguise?” to the mirror I enquire

and receive a grimace in reply.

 

Eat a slice of well-being, buttered well.

Sip a bit of bitter brew.

In this instant everything is as old

as it is new.

 

Apprehend, Suspect

 

1.

Slipping in, in spring,

a tunnel to the far end of a gray day

(rain & wind).

A stranger's sneeze could be the breeze

that triggers our species' demise but,

we’re almost certain it ain't so,

so together, underground,

on steel wheels, on steel rails

gravity assisted,

nearly exceeding maximum speed

we go,

encroached and encroaching each other's

cellular spells, our glowing faces 

lit by bytes. Fixed in flux,

having foreshortened conversations

with the odds.

 

2.

DO NOT LEAN ON DOORS or

we cannot ensure you will endure

the duration of your journey

in the final car of the One train. 

The swiftest trip I have found for

getting downtown is this subterranean ride

in a capsule of waiting,

hurling through a tube of time.

 

3.

BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION

     your progress is being delayed

BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION

     you will be late for your obsession

BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION

     you might miss the resurrection 

     of your reputation

BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION

     there must be some destruction

BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION

     rain will shine my crown

     and gloss the ground 

     in the puddles plashing afternoon

BECAUSE OF the weather the 

CONSTRUCTION is delayed

     my location in space and time 

     is being undermined 

BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION

 

4.

DON'T WALK

Stride 

a woven path through the delirious

hubbub rubbing up,

whose glances are protected from retinal

apprehension by shrouds of suspicion

and sun glasses. Strangers

whose existence is happenstance in the field

of unfathomable dangers

and impossible pleasures

along the avenue of plentitude.

On my way, arriving and departing at the same time.

Who among this self-replenishing throng

might snag me with an unanswerable query?

“Can one be right, but also wrong?”

 

5.

Sorry no-

I don't know how to exit this aquarium,

or when a rainbow will bend again,

or how to un-hum the drum with nothing but religion.

No, unfortunately I cannot offer advice

on how to send a postcard of a palm tree

telepathically to a penguin,

or how to spruce up one's fading youth

without losing touch with the truth.

There are no more gas stations in NYC

the banks have moved                                     offshore.

Dogs and rats have equalized in size with cats.

The man slumped on that doorstep is a ghost 

of his former self. But, deep-down he knows

that once, long ago, he ran the show.

NO- I cannot direct you to the Museum of The Day Before Yesterday

or to the Extraterrestrial Zoo. Nor do I know where you can find 

John the Devine without consulting the uber-mind.

I’m no climatologist endowed with weather foreknowledge.

I know only that this gray April drizzle, this windy

slap in the face will eventually end, But I know not when,

or what becomes of a child’s pink grin, or how to pick the winner,

or why brave a chilly drizzle with penguin determination

in pursuit of a well-shaped moment of cognition?

I settle for a glimpse of a man’s self-importance

in the passing window of a black limo.

 

6.

A PARKING space is a thing that is nothing.

A nothing that exists for no longer than a nano second

in Manhattan, on a saturnine afternoon. A catastrophe

of nano importance in the cosmic scheme,

(except if it is you who’s stranded in forward motion).  

 

7.

Blur of words.

Mood of solitude.

Alone in an ocean of restless shoes stepping 

over curb puddles into waves of wet traffic.

On Broadway a hyena laugh peels from the dark interior

of a woman’s mouth and fills my ears with the pitch

of a dull existence hurled asunder

for an instant.

On 7th Avenue taxi tires squeal, 

heeled girls reel feelings from hand-held 

rectangles glowing like life itself.

Hunched number crunchers on lunchbreaks munch fast food. 

Junkies wait in line for latte's. Finger drummers hum along

to mental metal. Bargain hunters stalk steals. Short builders

build tall structures behind plywood partitions pasted with notices:

POST NO BILLS

Loaves of money rise skyward.

Rain clouds shroud the shunning sun. 

Forgettable advertisements, admonished by neglect

yield to the ravages of disinterest.

Tumult of delusions and decay. Same story as yesterday.

 

8.

NO- I can’t help you

find to FedEx in Spuyten Duyvil,

or hide a brain-storm in a basement,

nor do I know when the Buddha

will cause my niggling apprehensions

to evaporate like a lifetime of todays.

Sequestered in Manhattan with rain

forecast for the rest of eternity. Wet cardboard,

flooded gutters, passing vehicles splashing

slippery sidewalks and sodden boots.

The tired, huddled, colorless mass that is me

contentedly awaits the underground comet’s

cosmologically calculated return journey.

 

 

 

Undertow

 It takes all the power that I can will to hold my eyelids open, to keep my mouth from shaping itself into a gaping yawn, to remain like Homo Erectus surrounded by gravitational forces great enough to hold an ocean on the floor.

I struggle like an action hero under a sleep-inducing narcotic; a mickey slipped into my black coffee by a villain called Undertow, who seems determined to undermine my will, to cause the demise of my ability to absorb the words spoken by the blue suit, the boss, whose bald pate glints in the distance like a buoy bobbing on restless waves.

A mid-morning sunbeam delights a trapezium of gray carpet so near I can almost touch it with the tip of my shoe. I might just have to slide off this molded plastic chair like a silk scarf and wind myself into a neat pile of sleep right in that patch of glowing heat.

Eyes held open with fraying threads of consciousness, heavy head wobbling on a slim stem of spine. I am the unsuspecting victim of a force that I must resist while remaining upright and bold.

But sleep I love more than gold.

 

 

Q

 

In the list of letters known as

the alphabet 

between P and R one

finds a curious fellow with a tail

called Q.

 

Q is used in words

spoken infrequently

like queer, quill or queasy. 

It is also true 

Q doesn't easily leak

from the tip of a pen.

 

Just as often as not Q

is irritatingly imitated by

that lesser letter, that

chameleon C,

in words like cute

cuneiform or cupid

words that belong in Q's

lonely domain,

 

but were instead 

captured by

that open-mouthed letter, 

that incomplete circle

which often has

the audacity to disguise

itself as S.

 

One wonders when pondering

the plight of Q 

why must it always be

propped by the letter U?

Why can't Q stand alone

supported by its own appendage?

 

But no word has yet been

discovered in the Oxford or Larousse

that allows poor Q to stand aloof

without its ever present

chaperone U.

 

 

At a Dog Park in Manhattan

New green laces the limbs of upper east side trees along the sparkling river. Here, within this fenced enclosure of dirt, size-segregated dogs (med. to 3XL) run and circle in a bunch. Dog owners, on benches, bask and sip caffeinated beverages under a perfect beam of heaven. All objects in its glow cast illuminated shadows in the dusty enclosure. Our dog, the four-legged prince, welcomes any and all forms of attention, from head pats to neck nips. Nary an encounter can he resist. He follows the pack at a trot. He asserts his intention and triggers a bark. He rolls on his back. He wedges his head between a stranger’s knees and is rewarded with a forehead wrinkle massage. Dogs en masse peel through pebbles towards the newest fellow to arrive.

Over at the basketball court a man in a Yankees hat drives to the hoop and makes the shot. The playground sounds of children is like bird tweets and dog barks mixed in a blender. A girl, waving both arms from atop a half-buried truck tire, rivals a howler monkey for tone and amplitude. Her brother, dressed in green and blue, is getting tossed into the sky by his padre. He is light as a balloon. He wants the tossing not to stop. A smiling couple walking by, pause outside the fence to watch canine shenanigans in the sun-dappled oval of a urine-dusty dog park in Manhattan.

 

 

Alps

In the afternoon, or is it early morning here,

rising above the clouds,

or is it the sea I see, white and frothy,

from my window seat, Philadelphia bound?

A glimpse afforded, a glancing look

toward the upward surge

of cloud-peeking peak

upon zigzagging, alpine peak,

bright with summer snow, sunlit

below our outstretched wings.

We follow an invisible line on a virtual map,

as you nap in the seat next to mine.

 

Hours pass slowly in thin air,

high above gray-green waves,

through the underbelly of the stratosphere,

above Atlantic-crossing freighters

full of tangerines from Turkey

and plums from France.

Not a soul aboard the cruise ship,

a mile or so below, gives a second thought

to the distant roar of our jet engines,

as we fly by, a speck in the blue

and you snooze in the seat next to mine.

 

We shoot through headwinds

propelled by gale-defying forces,

flouting gravity like gods with wings on our sandals,

over the hidden ocean of currents, turbulence,

and giant cephalopods in canyons

of darkness, fathoms deep.

Far from home, far from lost, we trust our pilot

to chart the course and skirt disaster.

In my asile seat I’m determining the calculus of soon.

You sleep in the blinding light of heaven at high noon.

 

March

To put one foot in front of the other and move forward towards an uncertain destination because you are so ordered. To walk in a steady rhythm, as to the beat of a snare drum. To do so despite privations like thirst, hunger or weariness, or dangers from Molotov cocktails, stray bullets, jeering mobs, land mines or IEDs. To march is to become one with others marching like a many-legged organism. This, of course, is march in the literal sense.

 In the metaphorical sense we all are on a life-long march, beginning at birth and ending when we fall into a rectangular hole in the ground surrounded by sad faces looking down. My own metaphorical march began in the month of March. A month of seasonal transition from harsh to humid, bitter to better, frozen hard to infused with glorious chlorophyll.

 In other words it is not a time in which to pause, ponder and take impressionistic delight in the fecund glow of everything. March is downtrodden and blanched, with a sky the gray of an overworked palette. March is a mud puddle to be stepped over, a month in which to awaken from the dread of cold and get older once again. March is where the parade of colors assembles.

 

Underground

 

Harmonica player on subway platform performs

for dollars, nickels, quarters,

ob-la-de-ob-la-da,

hokey blues and Christmas tunes for us-

the others and me.

I lean here against a safety yellow pillar

in the filthy MTA labyrinth, still filling,

nearly full of bundled beings

someplace beneath 77th & Lexington.

Wearing my street face, under-dressed

among men in cold proof coats,

fuzzy helmets, mittens and mufflers,

carrying cases for auxiliary brains

and women with backpacks, cell phones,

toddlers, French novels in Polish,

shopping bags and sideways glances.

We’re all too familiar with the melody that

surrounds us, as we wait

in self-imposed silence, or as we tell and retell

events from futures foretold and pasts embellished.

Words passed back and forth over and above

the wailing harmonica, bits of each other’s lives

that crowd among us too,

as we absently-mindedly sway.

The music offered, or offensive depending

upon how long it goes on

before the downtown 6 rumbles into view.

 

Oil Paintings by Tom

 

1.     A white and red lighthouse perched on a grassy rise, overlooking the curved, blue horizon.

2.     Two squat towers, united by an arch, on the edge of a mild green sea, under a sky, ever so slightly pink,

as though embarrassed by bad architecture.

3.     A cozy cottage, lit by chrome yellow, on an inlet, inhabited by herons, swans and hermit crabs.

4.     A permanent jumble of pink boulders, fringed with kelp and mussels, lapped by glinting waves.

5.     A nameless stretch of grass-tufted shore, like a hairy arm holding back the dusky twilight, as evening’s dark wing brings

fresh footprints in wet sand, made, perhaps, by drowned sailors on shore leave.

Five seaside reveries painted by a wizened orangutan, named Tom O’Callaghan, and hung here in this hippie café

for a caffeinated man to consider, on his off day.

.

 

There’s a place where combustion lurks in the outskirts- a spark away from raging flames.

There’s a place where iron trees grow rust leaves and the hills look like piles of filings.

There’s a place where water spills from the fingertips of laughing sycamores.

There’s a place where wind carries away everything, from last night’s dream, to tomorrow’s calendar date.

There’s a place where dust rises from corners and takes on the shapes of sleep.

There’s a place where coal is sacred and gold is left in slag heaps.

There’s a place where ice struggles to freeze even though the sun is a distant star.

There’s a place where islands walk on the shoulders of darkness.

There’s a place where shoes wait to be spoken to before speaking.

There’s a place where dragons gnaw on eternity with broken teeth.

There’s a place where bees go to avoid the gaze of flowers.

There’s a place where books absorb the dark memories of captive primates.

There’s a place where light bulbs hum the melodies of unwritten hymns.

There’s a place where windows look in on the architecture of clouds.

There’s a place where rain never quite reaches the thirsty ground.

 

Theorems

 

Possibility of rain. Chance of snow. Daylight remains until it goes 

To a more deserving longitude on the reflecting globe.

 

The blue sea is green. Passing through the in-between,

A vertical apparition looking up from my three-dimensional hole

 

in space time, I find visions hidden in plain view--

A steeple back-lit by sea shine is a rocket ship to God.

 

The cross on the steeple tip is latched to this dimension like a kestrel's claw

clutching its own motion. The kestrel and I are interchangeable integers.

 

I glide in a downward spiral over marshy patches at high tide peering through

tracts of leafless woods for signs of life on a day with a tiptoe in spring. 

 

Angled at a fierce tilt the sun turns the train tracks into parallel bolts of high voltage glare. 

The kestrel catches an updraft of sound; the train in which I travel is New York bound. 

 

I ride beside the approaching nearness of one with whom I happily reside 

In a shadowy upper east side cave on certain astrologically lucky days, 

 

Like this seven-dimensional fractal known as Friday. Who can tell where

One sense ends and another begins, when you are tangled up in string theory?

 

Who can perceive the scent of the wind stirred by a bird’s wing when we are all

just the skin cells of a white leviathan tattooed black with theorems?

 

A yellow crane in a pit of its own making stands in high relief on a map of neutral hues

in a landscape crushed, blanched, damp and chilled by winter’s worst abuse, 

 

Which I, frizzled, also survived by virtue of some kind of daft determination. 

I am first in the queue because I am last, on the circle that connects future to past.

 

Ink

bleeds black blood

on sheets of blank

white paper

it seeps toward the margin

washes into shadows

that grow and roam

dark halls of trees

shadows full of memories

torn to bits

layered like decayed leaves

that scuttle down

the lamp-lit street

by force of a cold November breeze

memories made from the music

of fading afternoons

recollections swept into the dustbin

of oblivion

ink sleeps in the shape

of a black cat

at the bottom of a well

ding-dong-dell

a well full of unspent apologies

second thoughts

and discarded wishes

where crows go

to dip their wings

before flying over

Saturday’s children darkening

their green laughter

with the shade of forgotten dreams.

none can contain ink

not pen brush bottle or sheet

even when imprinted in skin

ink’s blackness is final

and complete

 

 
 

Blast of Heat

 

102 degrees on the highway at 3:47

me a/c and The Hare with Amber Eyes

surely a sun flare is whipping us

but the chateau on the grove

was cool-ish upon entering 

now under the ceiling fan I'm waiting

for the world to be too

 

out the backdoor birds in treetops 

discuss bird-wise the extreme temperature 

and where to locate dinner

and steer clear of my nest dammit! 

 

last night I discovered

embedded in my upper latissimus dorsi

a tick

I was appalled by this bold attack 

on my flesh just beyond reach

I countered with tweezers

and a mirror and was the ultimate victor

hurrah for the human

 

these words are avoidance behavior

I should be finding ways to make my dough grow

or to be braver in my pursuit of the goal

or riding my mighty fine bicycle

or scheming schemes for enlightenment

or writing my fractal will

 

I opt for the speed of my Cannondale

petals pressed to the hilt in pursuit of hills

on a fine hot Friday late afternoon

tomorrow it will be June

 

the sun creeps up    for a moment’s glow    then turns skyward    by way of Atlas’ forearm    down here backlit trees are cracks    in the blue dome    we wrestle in flowers on the hillside    observed by cloud faces    mountains are sleeping bison    blued by humidity and distance    high meadow goats nibble    thistle and clover    a man in a nearby bus shelter    strums a tennis racket    beside him on the bench    a woman hums along    the song in her head is stuck    like a dolphin in a pond    a cool nod lands on her glance    by way of a virile truck driver    who wears a dirt crown    the classic nudes are enraptured    their lips turn vivid red    suddenly someone’s shot dead    but oops    go back to bed    it’s only a hunting accident    a salty scene    we turn green and pray for deliverance    from the stain on our brains    we wrap ourselves in steam    from dreaming grates    and make our way upstream    near the hidden entrance to Hades’ Den    we see Jesus    smiling with his friends    perched on poles    holding hands we sidestep holes    dug by giant children    this is a real flower you say    as you steal a cattail from a molehill    I reply let’s stop here    for fruit in a glass bowl    a vessel of spheres you correct    a curious pear sneaks around the corner    on a frayed patch of shade    a gray cat grins from the Ottoman    and strokes her white moustache    a man of god approaches    with pictures of his wife and child    he offers wafers and water    or martyrdom    instead we board a boat    the moon’s full countenance    beams yellow    on our facial highlights    on the shore as we pass    a gloomy saint suffers in deep shadow    mentally viewing naked Eve    as she procures apples for Adam    who accepts each    with a bowed head

 

Portal

 

On a foolish Friday in April, a thin, fleeting slice of heavenly marble has been sculpted into warbles, trills, twitters, tweets, caws, quacks, and the full-throated chants of frogs, freshly-limbed, basking along the wet edge between brown water and cattails. Glory hallelujah! they intone. The pond winks a sun-eye as heavy clouds shuffle by, bumping and pushing their increasingly gray masses. Incandescent sunbeams are spotlights on the stage of this sparsely attended pageant.

 

Incessant is the impulse to somehow submit and become one with this moment of cacophonic harmony. But for now, I must play a separate part in order to understand the sighs of pines, grasp the universe in the decomposing harvest of acorns, interpret the yelps and cackles of iridescent grackles as they impatiently peruse the compressed field for seeds and worms. Vapor trails crisscross the luminous dome of sky, continually changing, mirroring my own atmospheric emotions.

 

I won’t enter the waking woods that lie pulsing on arboreal sub-straits just beyond the screen of vision, where invisible forces act on loam, clay, sod and soil, where voids and hollows are filled with remnant chill. Today is a tale of winter un-writing itself. I imagine gathering it up into my being to carry with me as I trek the trodden, sodden trail to the parking lot. So, my solitary hour in the park trickles merrily away, making a pleasant gurgling sound as it goes.

 

 Palimpsest

 

Erase these words. Cross them out with emphatic strokes. Eradicate and obliterate this meager chicken scratch with a small cube of rubber. On the page crowded with letters shaped by hand, abolish and un-intend. Leave only dim projections, ghosts of graphite, echoes fading in the hush of elapsed seconds. Don’t study the remaining palimpsest of smudges and indents. You won’t find damning evidence or clues to be decoded. Only missteps and false starts, an awkward word transgression heading down a cul-de-sac lacking a suitable adverb. Fill your bronchial cavities with a volume of clear afternoon breeze, and blow away this dusty bone-yard of spent vocabulary. If necessary use the edge of your hand to brush the empty page, making sure that not a comma or period is left behind.

 

Write new words on top of this freshly tilled field of absence. Words to build a stairway leading out of your chair and over to the window, maybe even up on the rooftop for an unimpeded view. Words that reveal a mirror day in which the pencil point meets itself while making its slow descent down the page. Words that form a dome of blue over this snow-covered pasture of the future. Words extracted from the thin air of Everest and transported by Sherpa, mule, bus, taxi, train, plane and finally by the hand that places them on the sand at the beach where you write with a stick beside the in-coming tide. Words like promenade, modicum, calisthenics, or spumoni. Words that you can ride on like a toboggan on a steep run, or a hot air balloon floating over the island of Manhattan. 

 

 

Words for Vic Chesnutt

 

Always one more,

always one less.

Expectations seldom being met.

Let me assure you

the day, despite its valleys,

still has peaks and perks.

Columbian coffee on the side

porch in September when

others are at work.

 

Here I am, come find me,

a breeze-sniffing dog

and a passing deer or three.

Yesterday we spotted

a fat groundhog attempting

to climb up the pear tree.

The dog directed his vocal objection

to this bold attempt at thievery

but gravity intervened

and furry chuck

soon retreated into weeds.

 

Today is an ice cream cone

with a scoop of time

and a scoop of sunlight.

The cone is made of cicadas

sawing into the silence

with a seventeen year

vengeance.

 

Time and sunlight

leak from everything

into steamy heat,

like vapor from the blackness

cupped in my hands,

like the beat of Vic Chesnutt’s

angel wings as he sings

the soundtrack to this fleeting scene. 

 

Great Recession

White dog sits on gray carpet watching stock market experts expound. The TV’s sound is turned down. An oldies station on the loudspeakers fills the chapel of capitol with pure affability. It says mutual agreement. It yearns to transmit trust and trust, as we all know, equals cash.

It is Tuesday hum at the car dealership de-dum. In the waiting area, I am parked in an upholstered chair in the company of a white-bearded tribal elder who wears clean, white sneakers. To no one in particular he says, “I have all the time in the world”.

Twelve brown armchairs face opposite TV screens. One over-stuffed seat is occupied by a human vehicle of dreams. Eyes closed, head, propped on a meaty fist lists slightly then rights itself automatically. Large salesmen, sipping styrofoam cups, meander hungrily through glassed-in rooms pitching desperate glances at our idle gloom.

Shiny cars on the showroom floor go entirely unnoticed. In this strip mall limbo, everyone sighs and no one buys. Along with these neighbors and a table full of distressed magazine daydreams, I’m stranded here at the whim of Mr. Toyota, waiting to pay through the nose for a hose.

 

Flight Attendant

the smile dawning on her face    is like the glint on the glass    of pure water she pours for me    joyful bubbles brighten    the blight of bland cabin scenery    six hours of headrests    and scalp-scapes    it’s what she’s paid to do    fill our cupped palms with sips of renewal and hope    we are thus kept and cared for    while airborne    but this sweet sip of melted sorrow    only leads to more metaphysical quivering    I cannot sing    or speak    or swivel my hips    or cry out-loud    I have become bloodless    bodiless    a heap of matted matter    poised at the tip of an extended pause    winging through the lung of night    the instant undreamed    in real time    even the taste of my own tongue    left behind    the backs of stranger’s heads    fill my navel-gazing view    along with endless rows     of blue seat-backs    in the upright locked position    we are fastened to a bullet    in a ballet of speed    stillness heaved    across datelines time zones and dark oceans    in a weighty vessel    defying death    survivors of an un-lived interval    gradually sucked toward a pre-determined place    palace of arrival    where we cross the gate entering a new state    shifting back into our familiar shapes    exit signs glow    landing gear lowers    slows our descent on a cushion    of breath soon to be exhaled

 

Alone

 

alone on the beach

alone in a crowded museum

alone with a mouse

alone with a terrible television

alone in the shower

alone on the phone

alone in my boudoir trying on cologne

alone with my schemes

alone with parts and parcels

of homes I lived in before I was alone

no one home but me

before I fell out of my chair into

nothing but sky

before I ate my dinner alone

before I sang this lullaby

to no one

before I waited to die

for someone lovely 

to dream of when I’m alone with my hands

alone with my eyes 

searching space for signs of life

alone with my gray area rug

alone with my delusions of grandeur

alone with my head in my arms

alone beside a windy windowsill

alone on the spine of a mountain clinging

to the wind chill factor

alone with my subliminal perspective

alone with my take on the truth

alone with a heart ache-the size of a rhinoceros

alone as a bear in a forest den

 alone among six billion women and men

 

Empty Words

 

I want to empty my pockets

of coins and keys,

empty my shoes of feet,

empty my body of what I don't need,

empty my clothes of me,

empty my eyes of fractured sight,

empty the lamp of lemon light,

empty my lungs of sighs, 

empty my muscles of residual gravity,

empty my nerves of static,

empty my heart of music and ravens, 

empty my mind into Montana,

empty my palms of belief,

empty my emptiness into the thin,

black current of night and catch

the private whisperings of moths 

on the invisible web

of my empty words.

 

Vending Machine

 

Call it vague hunger, distant desire, gnawing need,

fuel light on empty.

Call it a dearth of combustible energy.

What would satisfy, what would please?

What would nudge me from inevitable entropy?

What would buoy me?

What would hold me over

for another hour’s worth of meanwhiles?

 

My bones rattle with every bump.

My heart is a thudding muscle.

My feet fester in the darkness of tired shoes.

My eyes pulse. My hair aches.

My face is a wasteland of stubble.

My smile is an abstraction.

My wallet is a gluteus tumor growing incrementally thinner.

My phone is on its last lap.

My radio is between stations.

My audio book is beyond my range of insight.

My memories are forgettable.

My thoughts… unrepeatable.

 

Call it one point perspective on I-95  

What cell of my soul would I exchange

for a change of venue?

What would fill an emptiness that I’m too numb to feel?

I know I won’t find it at the mall,

packaged on a shelf or poised on a rack,

or in the dull glow of a highway billboard

bored with itself,

or even at the public library

full of closed books and stolen looks at clocks.

 

Where can it be? Where is it waiting

just for me, that transcendent

candy bar

in a lost highway vending machine?

 

don’t forget    to nurse me back to health    to breathe life into my lungs    with your lipstick red mouth    to shoot me in the forest    your camera focused    on my clouded gaze    don’t forget to use my shining scalp    as a mirror for your grimace    as you grow your nose    and dance around the rose bush    with your octopus lover    holding a bat to battle bats with    in the attic of your bateau    don’t forget not to regret your decision    to dangle with me from a tree    two fruits    talking like monkeys    with arrows in our throats    nothing to say anyway    while climbing a velvet rope    don’t forget to spray      acorns into the crowd of crows    they may laugh at your curling horns    when you dress up as a lion    and sing to me    from the bottom of a hole    where a diamond might be buried    below the garden of swords and smoke    as you bleed at the edges of your    seahorse mask    when flying to Alaska    on a basilisk’s back    don’t forget to raise me    from the sick bed    where you left me for dead    due to my missing head    don’t forget to drink the silence    on the end of a spoon    to kill the ghost of evil    tomorrow    or the next day    late in the afternoon

 

Time is a rowboat

tied by a rope

around my neck,

like a bad luck charm,

as I swim over a body

of darkness,

preparing to dive to the bottom

where I’ll attempt to retrieve

my baby teeth

buried in a muddy bed

of lost sleep.

 

Time is the void that gives form

to the night that fills

the house that holds

its breath and keeps to itself

the secret of my demise.

 

Time cannot be saved, altered, amended,

lost or found. Time cannot be passed,

used up, wasted, grasped, or bound.

Time cannot be untold.

 

Time is a river, navigable

by skill and luck. A river

that cannot not be crossed.

Time is a freight train

that makes no stops

until reaching

your final destination.

Time gives weight

to the wait.

 

Time is a silver ladder 

that can be seen only in certain lights.

 

 

All writing copyright John K. Norris 2022