Monday, December 31, 2012

Getting it right




I sit on hard splintered wood
Even in winter
Cup of coffee in my hands
Steam rising up my nose
With each sip
Liquid usually too hot to drink
In a gulp
So I linger over it
the way I ache
to do with love,
Feeling always like
Goldie Locks
With love either
Too hot or too cold
With me waiting
On the bears to complain
About me being in
Their kitchen.
I can’t get Indian food
Right either,
Asking for mild
Only to get slammed
With spiced that tears
My insides out,
Some meals
You’re only supposed
To dabble in
Not plunge in,
But I always
Jump in head first
Always hoping for that
Perfect cup of coffee
Or a dish spiced
Just right,
And despite
The steam up my nose
Or the fire in my belly
I’ll always ache
For perfect love


Sunday, December 30, 2012

Corruption




They ease in
and take over
a couple at a time
pictures on
the front page
as if fair warning
of what they intend
to do over time
seducing all those
who get in their way
blackmail for later
when the real push comes,
when they can move
more openly,
knives fully exposed
glittering in the bright light
their teeth dripping blood
no more need
to be shy or sly
no more need for fear
with no one left
to fear
except perhaps
for themselves
always looking
over their shoulders
at which one
of their own kind
will wield the knife
at them.

Before the change




He walks the dog
Like my uncle did
Before the world changed
Before everything
Needed to get sold
Before anybody
Could make an honest buck
Before the landscape
Got raped and over developed
When the air still
Smelled clean,
When he stroke
The back fields
Before he needed to
Keep everything on a leash
Need to mark everything down
In an account book
Of who owes who
And for what
Before the change
When he still believed
This path led to someplace
Other than where it leads,
When we all believed
We had what it took
To get somewhere
Other than what we did
When we all thought
Love was enough.


Friday, December 28, 2012

Recruit (how to get dirty rich quick)




My best friend’s
Best friend
Thought he knew
A good thing when
He saw one
When Hank dated
That “dirty rich girl” from
Roseland,
Our friend telling Hank
She was too good for him
The whole time
Hoping to hook into her
Himself in order to
Get a piece of the action,
Offering to get Hank
Into the rackets
Where the two of them
Our friend and Hank
Would make a killing together,
Just another scam
To make up for how
Lonely our friend was,
Telling Hank how
Great things were
When it was all a trap,
Telling Hank how they
Would clean up
Knowing that if things
Worked out between
Him and Hank’s gal,
Our friend would leave
Hank holding the bag
All by himself,
while our friend
Got to be dirty rich, too.



Thursday, December 27, 2012

The Golden Goose



 It rains
Stiff cool fingers
Blister the skin of the world
Tears upon a sullied cheek
Glass beads on the windshield
Wiped away, only to return
Filled with reflections
Of the real world,
Blue eerie glow
That casts nets across
Each street
Light and dark
Shadows letting
Brown leaves
Dance before the rain
Contains them
You shiver slightly
To the patter on the roof
Drenching you
Despite closed windows
With something other
Than wet
A mood your high beams
Can not illuminate
You light a cigarette
Seeing your own face reflected
Back at you
Seeing your own
Haunted eyes in the glass
Watching you watch,
You are alone
Skating glass-like asphalt
Swerving with each
Gust of winds
With each new curve
Shaking at each reflected warning
Vague horns
Of ghostly shapes
And sirens blaring
From beyond invisible islands
As faces appear along the roadside
Full of circumstance
And danger,
You are alone,
And peer into the night
At twisted veins of bright light
That crackle and fall from the sky
Rolling like military cannons
Are they aimed at you?
The drum beat
Is your heart responding,
Beat for each beat,
You are alone
Sealed in a steel prison
Traveling at fifty
Feeling the cold metal rust
Behind you,
Shedding long red
Muddy tears
Behind you,
Expired rivers
Filled with dead leaves
And rattling soda cans
The thunder coming again
A giant’s rage
Over the lost treasure
The golden goose
As your hands tremble
On the steering wheel
As you round that last corner
That last stretch
Bringing your finally
To home.
Seeking warmth
Seeking company,
Seeking never
To be alone
Again.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

The best presents




 Some presents don’t come
In pleasant packages
No ribbons and bows
And even after you
Open them up
They don’t offer
Immediate appeal,
And perhaps
Some presents
Are not gifts at all,
But what you
Already have
Left alone
Unmarred
By life’s persistent
Spirits
Sometimes
The best presents
Are the ones
You give
With no questions
Asked
Peace on earth
No racket of reindeer
Rising from the roof
No ‘ho ho ho”
Either
Just quiet

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Titanic



We are always one step ahead of you,
Dragging our excess baggage on board
Like we own each ship we sail on,
Imposing ourselves on the most fair
While keeping you in chains,
We sailing first class
making our way around the world
with stiff cigars gripped
between our grinning teeth,
Wearing straw hats and white gloves,
As we sip wine from glass slippers
We make you wear,
You eyeing each strut
From behind cage of steerage,
Unable to break free or have
Any of what we have,
Until some old sea hag
Gives you the key to the gates
That keep you down,
A master key letting you
Make your way up to where we are,
letting you feel what it’s like
to ride on top even as the ice guts us
And with too few life boats
to accommodate us all,
who can blame you for scrambling
into the last seats you see,
before the cold water pours
over the last deck,
before it dawns on us all that
it has always been a matter
of sink or swim,
and first class is no longer
a luxury, but a matter of survival


(from Slow Drowning in a Fast River -- a work in progress)

Tomber (note book poem)



April 24, 1977

The night bends softly around a single glowing headlight approaching me in the dark, misaimed, with its partner extinguished and invisible in the night, staggering like a drunk over pothole, an unpredictable advancing stranger along unpredictable roads I must drive.
The drizzle makes it hard to see, dots of wet against the windshield as a drive, tapping on the glass between each wiper swipe, turning the dark world into smears through which nothing is certain.
And when the approaching headlight passes, and the car to which it is attached, gone, then comes darkness, and the moan of tires against the rough road, a wail of rubber against asphalt I feel in my bones, followed by singing as the tires mount the honey-combed surface of an expansion bridge, a bridge only barely visible with rusted arms rising along either side.
It stretches on endlessly, as if the steel was rubber pulled too tight, ready to break somewhere in the dark ahead.
My headlights illuminate nothing but a brown reflection, as if I am driving a boat along a river in the dark, and I am a drunken sailor, feeling the slosh of wet flowing up and over me, drowning me in a flood of feelings I can’t quite describe.
I think of you, like the missing headlight on the car I have just passed, leaving me half blind and alone, my moans matching the moan of the tires as I plunge ahead, without real direction, somehow knowing that I don’t know what I need to know most, feeling my way west to where you might be, feeling the tug of wind against the car steering me -- if not away then to one side, against the rusted arches that holds up this bridge, threatening to plunge me into the abyss beyond, with fingers clutching the wheel to keep moving straight, to ride through this  dark world, this endless passage, with the vain hope I will end up in your heart.

Friday, December 21, 2012

World’s end: September 21


They tell me
the end of the world
will come today --
As if we could
Put it out of
Its misery
The strife and selfishness
The tick tock inside my head
Foolish notions and fear
I always have
The wants and needs
And my inability
To tell the difference,
This wheel of Karma
This hamster cage toy
Upon which I spin
All coming to an end
Because some
Ancient calendar has stopped
I need something
To tell me what to do next,
How to embrace the end
When it comes as it must
How to face myself
In the after life
When I can’t yet
Face myself here,
To somehow find
Guidance
Etched in my heart,
No fixed date chiseled
Just the courage and wisdom
To face life here
And in the here after.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Riverboat Gambler


Tom tells me
He never knows
The game
Until he sees
Who the players are.
Me?
I’m always blaming
The wrong people,
That sucker
At the card table
Where everybody
Cheats but me,
Looking up the sleeves
Of the waitress
For aces
When she delivers
Me my drinks,
And no mater
How much I
Apologize later
I’m so broke
From gambling
I can’t even
Leave the tip



Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Swinging comets for Christmas


I trace my finger
across the face
not of Davey Crockett,
but of the boy I used to be,
sitting up in bed
at four years old
my aunt's pretty face
hovering over me
holding the book
so I can see the pages
can touch each image.
she trying to be a mother
my mother cannot be,
trying to give me a childhood
my mother's madness stole,
All these years later,
you give it back to me
for Christmas in one big wooden box,
a small thin golden key
to a past I forgot I had,
unlocked and overwhelming
my heart aching for it
now that I have found it again
my fingers slowly tracing
those spaces where my fingers
traced long ago,
bringing back Christmas
and snow,
and all those lost souls
who have since gone on,
leaving me here
the way mother, aunt,
uncles left me,
ghosts of past, present
and future,
and only the tiniest chain
to drag behind
me into the next world,
me swinging comets
like Davey Crockett did

(best present I ever got -- even better than the bicycle I blackmailed my family into getting me when I was seven)

Live to lie




There is nothing
in my voice
but volume,
single sentences
pronouncing
words I
no longer believe.
I used to live to lie
 because
I could trust no one
with truth,
lies splattering
inside of me
like slashes
of cold rain
against steamed glass
with my small ear
listening to the chatter
Of distant thunder
beyond,
lies and thunder
rumbling through my
childhood
enraged reason
rising and falling
like red running tides.
These days
silence prevails
inside and out,
storms long waged,
and lost
in the name of reason,
leaving lies
like loose threads
behind me.
I can live
with losing,
learning the game
from master players
who still
after all these years
teach me
how to survive.


Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Under the imaginary mistletoe


  
She was the girl next door
That longest lonely night in 1973
Who latched onto me at the diner
After those many months of me
Ordering buttered roll for breakfast
Who tipped me with her smile
And suggested we get together
Some night when neither of us
Needed to work, and when we did
I could do no more than sit
In the rooming house
Next to my rooming house
In that all too suburban Montclair,
Still wounded from a marriage
I could not make work,
Me unable to understand why
The woman she called “mom”
Kept popping her head through
A doorway that had no door
And kept asking if I was done yet
And reminding my waitress friend
That she had the mayor coming
Later and needed to be done with me soon,
And how that waitress and I
Shared that lonely Christmas Eve,
She whispering how much she
Despised this life and how she wished
I could do for her what her mom did,
And now, these three decades later
I still think of her, and the kiss we shared
Under that imaginary mistletoe
We both needed at that moment
To exist.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

I Wish



I wish I could spend one day saying
I wish there was nothing to wish for
I wish that it was all the way
I dreamed life would be
I wish that each moment worked for itself
I wish I could live my life and not need to pray
I wish for you to hole me
I wish I had remembered you
When it counted,
When it did some good
I wish that would call me and tell me
“I wish you were here,”
I wish I could end this poem
With a wish for happiness
And that it is a wish that”
might yet come true.


Saturday, December 15, 2012

Sandy Hook




I hear the sound
of shattering glass
Inside my head
But not the shot,
I can’t breathe
For thinking of that time
When I got lost
On my first day
Of school in a hall
So long I could not
See the far end
For the deep shadows,
My Kindergartener footsteps
Slapping on the dark tiles
As I plunged down it,
Calling for someone
To find me
Scared the man
My aunt said
I should never
Take candy from
Would, coming
Out at me from
One of those dark
Doorways I could
Only creep past,
and now all these
years later
that man came
but not for me.

Friday, December 14, 2012

“If” is not a blade of grass





I guess there’s something wrong in me,
Some distorted bit, an ugly flaw
That bites both you and painfully me
In different ways, a bit you’ve caught
And I have not, that’s my fault
I’m afraid. The blindness of a lover
Who has missed the glaring signs to halt,
I see them now, too late, and you’ve another
Way of living set in your mind.
I can’t blame you, I can only sit
And wonder if I’d been in time
Would fate have changed that little bit?
But bits and ifs are not enough
To turn you back to feeling love.

If I was only a wide pine tree
With needles jutting from my finger tips
I could stab myself and remove from me
This terrible, ugly, frightening bit.
I could grow new bark to heal the wound
That flames now from my chest
Where once a heart like a flower bloomed
Out of sorrow and loneliness.
But I have neither limb nor bough
That can stiffly stand your leaving
I have no roots that I swiftly grow
To seal this gap that’s bleeding.
I’m just a simple man, it seems
Who burnt his wood to light his dreams

If I was but a crow that sounds
Harsh and bitter and brooding life
There would be no heartless flame around
To ponder you and crave your like
A blind man must crave his sight,
I would never had you
Near me, touching here, and there, a knife
Cutting with pleasure, cutting me through.
But I am not a crow that caws
Or a bird that can fly away,
I’m hooked upon your feline claws
With words not wings to sway.
But you who once had a softer side
Have hardened into another’s bride.

If I was but the yellow sky
Glowing with a pre-dawn light
Growing into an ocean wide
Of love and warm and smiles bright,
Maybe that would change that mind
Which thinks long thoughts with short replies,
Maybe I could scorch and blind
and melt the frosting from your eyes.
But I am only a flickering flame,
a short match’s light that forever longs
for you to help me ease the pain
That comes with being forever wrong.
But the flame that flickers learns to die
Without much warmth, without much pride.

And I am, too, the sprouting grass
Not a lawn, mind you, but a ragged
Bit of green that grows and wiggle past
The granite blocks and crags, it
Doesn’t matter. I’ll still grow
Though yellow with you the light
And part of me will always show
Your passage, your blinding bright.
I am not crushed or greatly damaged
But bent again in my old ways,
Hurt and lonely yet able to manage
A future filled with dull dark days.
For you, my love, are the only ray
Left to raise this humbled blade.


Thursday, December 13, 2012

Poetic salvation






I know Poe
Life’s love lost in Tarot
Faith’s fate traded away
Like bubble gum cards
But without super stars
Or God or jest
Symbols need systems to exist
I need a new religion
Not Christian or Jew
Buddhist or Muslim
One without flying saucers
Or desert temples
One that praises
Enlightenment
Over entanglement
Purpose over pain,
One that says
There are reasons
For everything
Even if I can’t
Figure out
What they are

Santa’s sleigh





The trees are dark and empty
Their branches slim and bare
The frost has caught the sparrow’s next
And lingers in the air

The horse trodden path is icy
And snow fills up its cracks
The soft brown doe from the frozen lake
Has hit the southern track

The golden wheat fields have gone to sleep
Beneath a clear white frozen crust
The old pump handle is trimmed with ice
And must surely turn to rust

By breath is warm and steady now
As I breathe upon this pane
I draw a picture of Santa’s sleigh
With Santa at the reigns

He’s short and round like a circus clown
With a red and wintered face
His full white bear like a snow man’s ear
Is slightly out of place

He totes a bag of red and gold
Which he carries inside his sleigh
And he struggles down like a chimney sweep
With bag getting in his way

The small reindeer with their reigns and gear
Stand ready in the snow
For when Santa’s sleigh makes its getaway
Before anyone can know

Saturday, December 8, 2012

B's




The buzz in my head
Like bees in a jar
Wings flap trapped
Against the glass
I think
Therefore I must be
But am I really?
And how many am I?
Trees falling
In a silent woods
A mute madman
With a scream
He cannot release
Forever buzzing
Forever waiting
For the glass
To break

Friday, December 7, 2012

In what do you believe, if not in me?





Am I a ghost, a set of bones, that rattled
With words, their unions, an accident
A matter of chance?

Or am I something other
Than what I am?

A dull professor profession truths
For a bid-weekly check
A cold, hard, forgotten dreams
Who has no dream left to dream?

Who am I ?
What is the worth of love?

Am I to be transformed, realigned,
By the mallets of reality,
The less than perfect accomplishment
Of practicality?

The failed dreamer
Who gives up the dream?

That isn’t me,
nor will death itself stay me
When the dreams still stirs,
No more than exhaustion or that sick
Perverted life of labor which I must endure

What is to love when the dream is gone?

Who do you see in my shoes,
But an empty being with empty eyes
And nothing left to live for,
Working at nothing but empty phrases
For doctors or lawyers
or judges or fools?

It is those that can’t believe
That don’t believe

I will not be turned into a statue
I will not be turned like a car
I have my lived life very clearly
A pool of unmoving water
Out of which words spout.

Do not turn me into bread and butter
Do not demand what I cannot give

Do you dance with a poet
While wanting a banker,
Reading about us in books
But never really knowing
Who we are.


Thursday, December 6, 2012

Motel magic




Oct. 6, 2012

The bed groans
And so does she,
Pounding fists or feet
Against the wall
My sleeping head
Rests against
In the room next door
Each exaggerated
Breathe like a monsoon wind
Blowing straight through
The cracks as
My imagination
Paints in all the details
The heap of clothing
The entwined limbs
Woman astride the man
in an expression
so intense I ache
just thinking about it,
aching to be there,
dreaming later
I was,
Lost in the limbo
Of that early morning
Magic
A gift of the magi
I never expected
Checking in

email to Al Sullivan

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Real Fortunes






I read my life
In weekly fortunes
The grinning Chinese lady
Issues me
Each Friday night
Cookies crumbling
Beneath my thumb
Leaving fragments
On my dirty plate
Telling me big truths
In small bites
“Take no shortcuts
To success,” one says,
While another warns me,
“In order to take,
You must give first,”
and a third
telling me what we
all need to know,
“Whatever your
Life’s work is,
Do it well,”
And I try,
As in the fourth
Cookie I eat to feed
My need for sweet,
“Including others in
Your life’s work
Will bring great
Happiness,”
Perhaps the wisest
Of all
In this me-first
At all costs
World
In which
We all live
These days.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

A brand new pen




I think I’ll buy myself a new pen
One with new words in it so I
Won’t have to use the old words when
I’m crying on my pillow or cry-
ing when I’m down; I know it’s bad
When I can’t rise and face the day
That same old loneliness I had
When I was alone and used to pray
That someone somewhere could come
Along and save this dying soul
Of mine, and no one came, no one
And I dug myself another hole
And lay there in myself made shame
And moaned there in my peppered pain

Friday, November 23, 2012

More than empty ambition


People tell me I’m more powerful than I know,
Saying that it doesn’t go to my head
So I’m almost never drunk on it.
I get the same message everywhere I go
Friends patting me on the back
To keep back the people with knives
My life full of dark plots
I’m constantly resisting,
I’m always falling over clues
To puzzles I never intended to solve
Frustrating my enemies
Making enemies I don’t mean to frustrate
“Trust yourself,” my fortune cookie
Tells me with tonight’s take out,
“You know more than you think,”
and it knows more about me than I do,
knowing that the next steps I take
will be towards something other
than empty ambition or
pointless wealth,
“Your dream life is rich,”
My other fortune cookie says,
“Listen to your dreams.”
and deep down in my heart
I know this is right.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

In search of prefection





I keep expecting Spock
To step into my life
The narrative squeaking
Out of a television speaker
Life as hippie, hermit, writer
Listed in the order of their occurrence
The flaws of character
Made obvious by the screen
The craze of million of witnesses
To the demise of a man,
The embarrassment of wasted talent,
Years and years
Of looking for the key
That fits only me,
Flaws waiting as in California
For the proper seismographic catastrophe
To see me free
From this need of importance
To live life without identity,
Or worth
Or perfection.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

After the storm





When the lines fell during the storm
There was still hope
The cold wind blowing rain over the roof
Like fingers prying into our lives
Tapping at the windows
Doors and cracks of floor
Seeking to steal fire back for the gods
Huddled up into the corners, poor
Impoverish Prometheus waiting for the claws
Stepping from house the morning after
To dangling power lines
the swaying carcasses
of fallen witches from Kansas

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Blackmail




They tell her what to do
And she does it
Biting back the bile
In the back of her throat,
Knowing that they might do
What they said they would do
If she doesn’t do what she’s told,
Panicking each time
Something in the plan goes wrong
Hating the man who always manages
To get in her way
Thinking he will make them do what
What they said they would do
If she can’t do it to him first,
Whole lives put at risk
Because of one stubborn fool
Who has yet to learn
That this is the way
the game is played
And that people like him
Have no business
Getting into the game
If he doesn’t know the rules
Or for that matter
The consequences


Sunday, November 11, 2012

Impressions



You always were persistent,
your sure step shiftless in the sand,
inches behind mine,
refusing to fade the way mine do,
the wavering water washing up,
sinking in at the toes,
the deep impression of your life,
always remarked upon,
leaving that satisfied taste of completeness behind,
while I, in constant struggle within myself,
looking for ways to make my name,
a Wall Street broker, a notorious book peddler,
a hustling, rustling bandit of the street,
almost ready to wash your feet
or windshield for your secret,
me, the invisible foot on the sand,
my suit, tie and shimmering shoes
meaningless here among the pixies
and gypsies of your imagination,
like a gull's bloated body
in the low hung clouds,
grey upon grey,
while you, stark,
a white gull with black head laughing,
even at the waves that crush you....

Sea shore letter at six







I wrote to her from the sea shore
that short weekend vacation
when I was six,
a bragging man of inch-high printed letters,
who licked the stamp certain
she would be impressed,
the sea and gulls still aching in me,
the indelible impression of youth
marked upon my soul,
crashing waves and salty air
and broken ship on the reef—
old fishing boat filled with souring fish corpses,
which reeked for weeks,
though to me,
there might have been pirates to battle
or women to save,
swords clashing in frantic glee
before the inevitable Davey Jones,
and for the long ride home,
I imagined her, receiving me like Errol Flynn,
her long five-year-old hair gleaming
like gold from the porch,
small hands grasping my letter on the stairs,
shaking with expectation—
though when I arrived,
there was no one home,
just my letter, stuffed in the mail box marked:
address unknown.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

How?




How is it the goose
Lifts up from the pone
Or a child to walk
On own two feet
Or a bird to take
First flight of wing?
No one knows

How is it
We trust these wings
These bones and feathers
With each lifting
Of our heads
To rise from bed
To open eyes
To know
The sun will rise?
No one knows.

How can we trust
This world of ours
To keep its flowers
Or bring its green’
Spring coming after
Every winter
Without fair?
No one knows.

How is it
I meet you
This bundle of words
Sent to no one
For no reason
A bottles sailing
With secret message
To land
On your shores?
No one knows.

Faith is not a word
A goose would use
But feels it none the less
To know bones
Will hold wings together
For the thousand miles
Of flight
To come or go
From no one knows where

How can you doubt
The years ahead
When the world has
Done so much
To bring us together?
Why waste those
Secret energies
If it all must end
Tomorrow?
Why expend spirits
On such matters,
As if fate thought
Us trivial?
No one knows.

But when I life
My wings to fly
Or arms to hold you
I know it is forever,
It is for that time
Beyond winter
And the time before
The first flake falls
To all those times
All those buds to bloom,
This life, that life
The life that comes
Tomorrow – and all
The tomorrows after that.


Thursday, November 8, 2012

Buying the farm




Spring spreads green
With quiet qualms
Quilting the cold crusted winter
You come
Settle
Dress
Waiting the ceremonious hours
Before the ceremony
Bursting with the bubbling
Burning boils of love
Time ticks on too tenderly
moodily and wrong
Painfully aware of you
Telling you in your settled world:
“This is the moment.”

Out your window the gulls return
The geese squander their inheritance
In the church yard
Wasted the wet winter thaw
Somehow the house ahead
Seem haunting
The ghost of marriage
A little strange
The indomitable isolation
Of independence
Gone
With a ring and a chant

How many rings does Saturn have?
Or Jove?
Jolly and round
Violating his own rude rules
The ring rolls around your finger
The vow, in your head,
The quiet question
The preacher proposes
Whispers in the room
“What was that?”
You want to ask,
But don’t,
Can’t,
Caught in the aura of austerity,
This IS the moment.

Then,
You are one,
Holy in a whole world’s whispers
The music starts,
And stops,
And starts again
You turn,
Two to one
Standing at the alter
Standing with your hands
Bound piously
People pouring rice
Over you
Like water

Man and woman
Husband and wife
Terms that worm through life
And settle you
In these spots forever
For eternity,
I
Now
Take
This
Soul’s sacrifice of self for you
You love.
You and love
You and the eternity of love
To hover
Over like a glorious spirit
This is the moment.