Christmas Party

I toasted you
with an empty cup
which unto itself
was almost
too much.

Talisman

Feather

you keep
in your
pocket.
You believe
in the god of things
found
on the ground
in the morning
when the Red Tail
soars above your path
just like that.
From the corner
of your eye -
a small quartz stone
flickers.
Eureka,
you've peeked behind
the curtain of
ecstasy.

The Sea is Here

The way 

by which she weaves
and bobs
and writhes along
the side of satin waves
where it shines
like monkey shines
about her breasts
and the other beast
her boyfriend
speaks babble
fury of feet
iPod creatures
on beach blanket
dance floor
summer drunk
beyond all reason.
So strange.
So unexpected.

Where did I leave
my toothbrush?

The Nature of Things

Lost in thought, 

hemmed in by

not knowing,
trapped
in the work-a-day world,
I took a walk,
found a Toad
in the leaves
by the woods
slowed down
to a stand-still
by the cold.
Will you be my
good luck charm?
I wasn’t superstitious
but I needed something - a sign
of good things
to come.
I carried it inside,
but it felt out of place
in that place
where the natural
is not.
I thought,
I'd better bring it
back, let it go
to the wet ground
it knows,
to the somewhere
I wish
to go.

You Texted Me

How it might have been a nice day

if not for the parade of

world-weary, saggy-assed mavens

limping past bargain bins

size 22 stretch pants

groping and grasping at 2 for 1 Mu Mus

Hibiscus flowers big and bright as

a baboon’s come-into-season vagina.

It might not have been so bad

save for the air perfumed by

pregnant 16 year olds wearing

Love’s Baby Soft and their 31-year-old

mothers trailing fogs of Shalimar.

Even the reek of just baked Subway sandwich

like a locker room full of old jock strap

might not have been so awful

if you didn't have to wade through

the pharmacy line

knee deep in Walmart weirdos, waiting,

muttering, one turning back

with lazy, dazed eyes

confusing you with a dear one

from that opium-addled past.

It might not have been so horrible

if you hadn’t heard the mother

greet her daughter

behind an eyeglass display, unseen,

happy, then voice suddenly sad. Daughter

didn’t make it through rehab again

for the 4^th or 5^th time.  

“God, you look like shit. “

Daughter – no response.

“And just how

you gonna pay

for all that garbage?”

said the mother, trailing off

into silence

leaving you as empty as

a summer school yard.

You tried to hide your eyes

in scuffed-up linoleum, dull

yet clear enough to see

your own distorted reflection

a sad Quasimodo face among

gargoyle friends.

Where did grace go?

you wrote. I replied,

I didn’t know,

but I did.

It comes and goes

like satisfied Crows
flying away

leaving only
scraps and bones.

The Garden of Denial

In black, rich earth he plants his eyes and seeds
furiously, digs deep hole after hole.
More motion than thought, he rips out all weeds
blindly, instinctive like a busy mole.
He moves and talks not missing a beat, quick
in his answers, perfectly measured, selling
a point you know not true, wonderful trick,
so good, fools even him in the telling.
But doesn't he see as the time creeps more,
the truth will be revealed in a bit,
and hiding the obvious is a chore,
like all habits, it is so hard to quit.
He digs and digs, this is the life he made,
oblivious, he has planted in shade.

Death in the Woods

Ah, to be the ceaseless beast
heart thumping, pulsing,
hungry, humping
just because,
not needing anyone or love
not a thing sucks,
no words worth
repeating
when the Blue Jay
sounds alarm
300,000 leagues away
closer to life and death
farther from anything
neighbor Doe will ever know.
He knows no better
but you're the piece
of meat
lobo teeth
locked on your throat,
dragged to the ground
spewing fluid
gurgling
suffocating
miles from cliche
you smile
knowing this was how
it was truly
meant to be

Death Wish

Hold me tenderly
I will return to dirt
covered in a verdant pelt
fur rippling in the wind
forgotten by all
save the last murmurer
of eternity

White Sands Morning

A woman dreams


a breeze


across her body,


a lover's finger


glides up her calf.


She wonders,


should I wake?


Dreams die,


Reality sucks,


but possibility


awakens. Yes,


The Doomsday Clock


creeps closer to Midnight,


but that warm touch


makes her glow like


Uranium 235.


Let isotopes leach out into coolant,


allow subsequent failures


to breach the last layers.


"Hello, lover."


She arches back


silent


ready for meltdown


forever.

Song of a Fool

It sits
above his head,
a dark question mark,
he asks, "why
does this deliciousness
hijack me whole,
vibrates nerves,
balls, brain,
libido." He can't say,
stars wheel and turn,
and he, a desirous dirigible,
ready to burst,
dreams of that picture,
her legs,
thighs down to feet,
landscape of black diamond nylon,
fishnets,
a road less traveled, again.
Beyond,
the horizon is blurred,
uncertain,
fraught with pain, possibly
pleasure. His tongue
dreams serpentine,
slithers up a landscape
of salty skin,
happy-sad,
doped, drunk, hopeful.
She is a river of bliss
he swims down,
drifts in her current
in acquiescence,
surrendering
to the falls,
empty,
alone.

Monday Morning, Somerville

I rise out of body lighter than hydrogen,
avian, I leap from uncertainty, strife,
fly unhindered on fluid wings
like a Crow disappearing
into the distance.

They Sent A Photograph

Oh, happy family,
silent and bright, smiley.
The oldest boy, thirteen, wiry,
a lean bean plant growing
at his father's side.
The younger one, Afro-ed,
exuberant, almost leaping
out of frame. Mom,
coy yet confident,
doing what she
must do - succeeding,
so she thinks.
Dad,
the pillar of dreams,
stands in the back
looking taller than
Kilimanjaro clouds
that push down
on the world.
He holds them at bay,
Atlas of the Suburbs,
but only for seconds, until
the shutter snaps open-close,
and he can no longer
hold that pose.

Hernia (with complications)

Help me, I've fallen

into the pit of mortality,

the rot of the body,

the ruins of a being

I no longer

recognize.

I'd be happier, freer

as a Paramecium in

a Petri dish.

If only my skin

was a cocoon,

I'd wriggle out

into a new form,

not butterfly-beautiful.

I'd settle for mosquito

or amoeba.

Everything is enemy,

the sky, my work,

memories

infest my hippocampus

like determined termites

burrowing into knotty pine.

Heaven is closed

and so is my colon.

Open, Sesame, please,

deliver me to dreams,

from nights of fearful,

fitful sleep.

I make my own music,

bark hard syllables

from mouth to feet,

a kick, a plead,

a cry over the commode.

My sphincter's frozen,

my bowel's busted,

my urinary tract's backed up.

I'm sick of being in pieces,

a cesspool of yellow and feces,

waking up five times a night

while the Moon limps along

like a broken hobo under

coffee stained clouds

and the wind blows sand and pebbles,

polluted music, across silvered stones.

I pray: Poke me, probe me, prod me.

I'll denounce beauty if need be.

Turn me hideous or Homo Habilis,

return me to some semblance

of what I was. I'll do anything

to live life again and pee freely

like an unobstructed

garden hose.

Home is not just an Address

Is that Jesus, 
mid-picture, cloaked in red,
misty, yellow ball over heart,
arm half raised with big,
bruiser, butcher's hand
about to bestow
a blessing?

Is he Jesus
of the Streets,
eyes like Tyger Tyger in the night
pointed, piercing,
ready to pounce on
persona-non-grata,
who, in his own ignorance,
might tra-la-la,
tippy-toe away
indifferently,
forget 'ah, the humanity,'
the line of them
flowing back into foggy,
one-point
perspective?

Of course,
The Four Horsemen are
at the front. 
Keepers of the gate,
beaten, broken, busted to dust,
creating a moment
for all to see.
Is it grace, indifference, arrogance,
spite, Deus caritas est?
Men on four points of the compass.

Mr. West: orange, radiated face,
blissful look,
stares into midnight
remembering Moon Pies and
other delights.

Mr. South: white billed cap contrasts
burnt umber skin. His t-shirt
is the sea. He holds
an Eleanor Rigby expression
in his hand.
Everything else
is gone.

Mr. North is free.
The wind repeats
a childhood verse
sing-song
over and over
Crimson and Clover,
an ever forgetful
tape-loop, tin-whistle
symphony.
He wonders
what's for dinner.

Mr. East, burgundy jacket,
once thought John Lennon
was the answer. Life led him
on an Easter egg hunt
with no way home.
Eternally topped with 
scarlet ski-cap, he lapsed
in and out of rage,
cage to cage. Prozac sailed him
on another course,
or was it just
the tides of time
lapping against
the jagged shores
that turned the werewolf
into
the lamb?

The End is the Beginning

Like a woman in repose,
on display, dead, or at peace,
the mountain stretches over horizon,

shadow for hair,
girl's pinched nose of stone,
her breasts free clouds,

they rise smoky,
Marcus Aurelius mist,
stretched and pulled toward mystery,

see them go
like Mother's soul
up it went long ago

under cerulean skies
where yard met scrub,
she fretted her hours

upon a dull kitchen floor
slip-sliding away, daydreams,
mop in hand,

transistor radio sounds,
Marvin Gaye, Mo-Town bus ride
she waited to go

but he kept digging holes
many holes
drier and deeper

some water,
enough to tickle
a dying one's tongue,

but never enough to raise
crops or quench pride.
He rode the ghost horse,

black hatted, villainous,
Eli Wallach contra Eastwood,
man defeated, burned up in sunset

left his hatred
pulsing through me
like a gathering storm.

I carried it,
this thing, this wound,
drifting nomadic, lost,

close to my own end,
I dreamed of the mountain
again

in sepia silence
amidst Charlie Chaplin tears
in the theater of 10,000 awakenings

swallowed by shadow
vulnerable and small
I let him go

New Apartment

Your coordinates have changed.
Satellites twitch their antennas
confused by the new x and y.
After two more orbits
error messages cease.
Console blinks and purrs
knowing
this is your
home.

Building my Dream House

If I had the wood, I would,
but knowing I've developed no skills,
nor desire to pound nails,
I'll just write a few lines and
eat my banana.

Girl Ditches Boy

The day he asked,
"Do you still care?"
you giggled, turned away,
walked into a dirt devil
throbbing in sunshine,
abducted,
taken to a place
where words, oaths, promises
carried no weight,
where the wishes
of a foolish boy -
heard no more.
Heart-break,
your mother at his side, calling,
"Talk to him - he's traveled so far."
You, fleet swimmer, surged beyond
the boundaries of crashing waves,
found peace in the open sea,
knowing no allegiance, whether
Jesus, Big Bopper, Big Dipper,
or Rama-lama-ding-dong.
It might have worked, you thought,
but those hands of his - too damned clammy,
then fled the scene,
a smoker on break
racing to
sweet, fiery freedom.

The Woman Who Camped Alone

The drooping

Stars and Stripes,

newspaper-sized,

yellowed by time,

sticks in the Maple,

a reminder

like a note on a fridge.

Perhaps, she recalls

when they sat by the fire,

eyes in magazines,

compatible and content.

Does she pine each time

she pours the coffee

or stirs the stew,

smells

that hint

of Sage?

"Everything

in our life

was spiced

just right."

At night

she lies

tent-less,

head propped up

in the back

of a Subaru,

her face painted

Billy Holiday blue

by the light of a lap-top

she pounds upon,

hopeful,

excited, even,

like an astronaut

ready for take-off

or a Heaven-lusting poet

writing sonnets

to the other side.