Beach
Laughter and terror
drowned in seas of
spectators as waves
lap at ankles bound
by broken panties.
Texture of Yearning
Her day will end at crib,
nude, trembling, gyrating
staring, still not touching,
still apprehensive, morality
hanging by the thread
holding his diaper closed,
her fingertips burning for
the texture of yearning.
Farewell, Maternity
Spread eagle in view of airplane mobile spinning over infant eyes burning imagery of nude maternity: Pleasure from Her treasure.
Memories
I try to take
a snapshot of
one of them.
Of him sitting
in a darkened
coffee house in
an August afternoon,
staring at a sad
omlette and reliving
mayhem. His van is
parked outside and
it comforts him.
I like to
imagine these people
in pathetic surroundings—
Details like that
help. They help
them seem more
genuine, more
credible as
human beings.
Sandstorm
She walks colonial and monstrous,
cloaked in sandstorm and prophecy—
fallen men at her feet
who tried to weather the storm and pluck
cranial verbs from skeletal clouds whirling
around her Death’s head
like winged, almond scented plague—
embracing and breaking bodies
of knowledge
for Her amusement.
Taller
In the darkness I
learn she hoped I’d be taller.
I stretch in the dark.
Collision
I must now take care and think
of the origins
of my fruits and vegetables.
(Doubleplusungood)
I try to write politically
to be compassionate,
(but be compassionate globally)
And though you may try
you will never make it illegal
for me
to disagree.
Laws are as sane
as the number of
people obeying.
Insanity is merely
a trick of dissent
and disagreement
A collision of Weltanschauungen
A collision of black and white and Technicolor
A collision of different definitions of Human.
A collision of regimes.
A collision of years.
A collision of Nineteen Forty Eight and Nineteen Eighty Four.
A collision of history and our story.
A collision of past and facts.
A collision of democracy and empty chairs
and flawed laws.
Common Experience
Poetry of life—experiences
that inspire—keys to unlock
perception—rationality
as a source of madness
or evil or as an augmentation
of common experience.
♥
Do not like this. I
will not have you belittle
these lines by liking.
It takes more than a
computer mouse’s click to
enjoy poetry.
Poem
This is a poem because
the lines break,
because I write it so,
because you read it so,
because it is surrounded
by Culler’s margins of
silence—but mostly
because everything is a poem:
be it a group of friends eyeing
a Mexican stripper,
or a bearded man remembering
his insane mother.
Mosquito
I saw a mosquito die today.
Not by human hand; I didn’t
kill it—merely watched as it
fluttered erratically and during
its downward spiral
into the floor I gave it a name
and we shared history.
You came out and asked
about dinner—ignoring
the bloodied corpse in
the middle of
our conversation.
Cookies
An oversexed woman
in blue house dress
bakes hope and cookies,
brings them to
the living room:
We can eat
the cookies
and fuck our
pain away—
away.
Those Damned Violins
I was conquering my own little world
to the sounds of Beethoven’s Ninth
when she entered the room and
sat in the large leather sofa.
“Want to listen to music with daddy?”
She nodded somewhat dumbly
while tugging at the bottom of her dress
—a little speck of peanut butter on it—
intent on making it larger.
“What are you listening to?”
“Well, if you’d concentrate for a bit, I’ll tell you.”
She looked up at me, her hands slowly
dropping the stained hem of her dress.
I put on the first movement.
“Sounds like they’re tuning their instruments.” She belts.
“Indeed it does. They’re getting ready.”
“For what?” she asks, her eyes
wandering toward the buttery
mess on her dress.
“For the man-demon.”
Her eyes snap to mine,
the dress forgotten.
“Man-demon? What’s that?”
“Sewer of sorrows,” I tell her.
“Malevolence. A bringer of pain,
a harvester of misery.”
The music is at its darkest now.
I close my eyes and lift my arms,
clawing my fingers and turning toward her.
I start growling softly as the horns
do their horrific back and forth, and
the violins scratching my brain
and I raise my voice to a roar,
my arms above my head.
“I am the Man-Demon!”
I approach her, mouth wide open,
tongue thrashing to the sound of the tympani.
She screamed and jumped
out of the chair,
running in to the living room.
“Mommy! Daddy is a demon!”
I ran after her, howl-laughing,
arms waving
until she jumped—crying—
into my wife’s arms.
She was actually crying.
My wife was displeased.
She really felt it. Both of them did—
didn’t shy away from it but grasped
the feeling until their stomachs twisted
and their eyes bled.
And I hear nothing but those damned violins.
I would kill to feel something.
Talk Show
Warm. Shirtless. Typing. Pedaling
on a stationary bicycle for mind
through streets black with people
in White Night.
Greetings. Hatred. False hellos
and fast farewells to
herds of clapping primates
and precious canines.
They like it and yell under windows.
One of them has won something
and the others circle him with smiles
and sticks.
Smile for the cameras, apes—
none of this is real
and we’ll
be right back.
Harvest
Day. Walking to work,
much too hot for morality
and such luxuries.
I watch through air distorted
by guilt and heat and see
the living field of humanity
prematurely harvested.
I am not the harvester,
nor am I harvested;
the frenzied farmers
spare me, waiting for
an errant branch
or root.
I will be picked soon.
