Saturday, June 30, 2012

Union City




All I wanted was a photograph
Of a memory
A meeting in a diner
Then a walk and a talk
When anything was still possible,
In this world where all else seemed wrong
The roots of a family history
Dug deep here like a grave
A place we were later fated
To roam like ghosts
The sadness of the tales
You told me rooted in me
As if I had lived them, too,
So deep a wound we bled as we walked
Still thinking of that one girl
And the eve of her wedding
Still mourning her as if I had
Helped to give her birth
This city so full of grit
That to walk in it
Is to get stained
And all I wanted was to capture
That moment and treasure it
Perhaps – as I framed it in my mind
I did not see the edge
Until I stumbled over it.


Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Junkies




I watch them watch you
Their need, your need
You feeding off them
Like an addict
Needing to know
They need you,
And want you,
The tension crackling
Through the air
With a laugh
Or a toss of hair
Always painful
Always leaving
A puncture wound behind
A junkie’s needle
Always threatening
To deflate them
When you move on

Knee deep but still drowning




My uncle Ritchie drove me nuts
every time I wasn’t looking
he jumped into the river,
intending to drown himself
but with the drought
the water was only deep enough
to wet his knees – and mine
as I went in after him.
I’m always trying to save people
from themselves
a regular spider man
but without spider man’s reflex’s
just the usual befuddled complexes
modern super heroes have these days
too guilty to screw the groupies
after some band member dumped them
for some other, prettier chick
I just couldn’t think of making love
to a woman still clutching
and empty bottle of pills.
or the girl I liked in the old rooming house
naked expect for the red oozing
out of her slit wrists.
I’m a sucker for trying to make everything
come out all right in the end,
even my poor fool uncle who I loved
like a brother, but could barely keep
his head out of the shallow water
as I dragged his heavy body to shore
me screaming the whole time,
“You have to help me help you,
I can’t do this by myself,”
and guess what, I still can’t.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Drenched again




The rain comes in waves
rolling over me before
I can move
like a cavalry charge
stampeding on me
before I can believe
it is happening,
Me, unable to get out
of the way
until I’m already soaked
a drenched man
feeling every drop
of the felonious assault
dripping down my face
and lips
as I take the long
walk home
alone

no peace




life is never simple
after the bombs go off,
not even bits of shrapnel
left flying in the air
only silence of the enemy
who simply wants you
to cease to exist
and is willing
to perpetually pretend
it’s true
until you do
cease.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Terms




“The most you can expect is a kick in the ass,”
the old man said, his gnarled hands firm on my arm
“the world tells you, son, that nothing last
not the hair on your head, not your youthful charms,

“It goes like water running from a cracked dam
and seeps away without the slightest clue
goes and never comes back to your burnt hand
like old tattered pages in the weekly news.

“the answer is there inside of your angry brain
the searching, the finding, the lost and the found
and everything goes with it, even the pain
that a life time seems to perpetually hound

“But child, don’t rush, don’t in a haste
and don’t let one single second go to waste.”

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Shelter from the storm?





I almost go out of my mind
When the first cracks of thunder come
flashes of lightning
leaving their mark on me
like secret messages
I cannot interpret
I feel so out of control
as the first splat of rain
slaps at the pavement
near by feet
No one ever has total control
over their own life
but it’s terrible to watch
the last bits of it wash away
pouring out the drain spouts
like extended tears
you knowing that the debris
of your past life
can never again be retrieved
sometimes, you want to let it all go
letting it spill through your fingers
so you can start life from scratch,
but the rumble in the air scares you,
you see the waters rise
and you think you might drown
you don’t survive storms
by leaping into their most furious parts
you find shelter
and if your shelter leaks too much
you find another.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Lightning strike






I get scared when lightning strikes
I think it will strike me
and when it does
I get scared it won’t strike again
I never really get over the shock
or tingle or thrill
even when it hurts
I keep searching for meaning in it
asking why it happened
and wonder if it happens again
will it feel any better
knowing deep down it will
always be the same
always hurt
and I will always miss it

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Keeping love zipped





You zippered your mouth closed
For a secret you dared not tell
A well-wished fantasy flawed,
Your eyes telegraphing the message
I could not read,
A look so boasting I wanted to belt you
For the envy I felt,
You thinking yourself so cool,
More like an overworked air conditioner
Who exudes a frigid air
But always over heated at the effort,
Your life the life of a thermostat,
Always watching what you say or don’t,
Unaware of how your eyes betrayed you,
Winking, blinking, a stop light
Full of reds and greens
But leaving me to determine
Which you really mean.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Happy hunting ground




I still walk these paths in my dreams,
the old trails that weave through my life
my roots always exposed,
the totems of my passing on every side
wearing faces I no longer recognize
as my own,
sweat lodge brothers gone now
from days when we hunted together,
not buffalo or deer
but some more illusive game
we could never identify,
I can’t even now
when my brother has moved on
and I age here waiting for the call
that would bring me
to that sacred hunting ground
so that we might hunt together again
What can this thing be
that we would waste our youth
in its pursuit
or has age made me no wiser
that my feet and heart
pursue it still
tripping over these same roots
drawing up the same pain
I thought had passed
wisdom, I learn,
does not come with age
merely from experience


Venice




We probably passed each other
more than once along that stretch of beach
back when we both thought California
offered some escape,
me, a lost soul struggling to find myself
in any big city other than New York,
and you, a free spirit dancing
in sunset and moonbeats,
and spirit I never saw,
though in my haze of desire and panic
I must have dreamed of someone like you,
Thinking of you as goddess or angel
wonder how a man like me might
draw the gaze of someone like you
a most, perhaps, too ordinary man back then
not yet certain about life or self or desire
only that I ached all the time
and wanted someone to help east of the pain
of being alone, of being ordinary, of being human
passing goddesses on the street
or on that beach, without ever knowing it.


Sunday, June 17, 2012

Entwined




The leaves rustle
with each breath of wind,
making their entangled limbs
moan and groan
each soft leaf rubbing
the tough hide of the other tree,
searching out the crevices
for the most tender spaces
tree trunks rubbed
and being rubbed,
moaning, groaning
as the limbs shift,
hopelessly looped
one limb inseparable
from another
so neither knows
whose limb belongs to whom,
or even caring
learning to lean against each other
suffering the same aching together
each easing the other’s pain
through long years of intimacy,
casting off their cloaks
in season,
but never each other.


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Mother and child




I can’t stop looking at them
an intruder into a moment of love
I have no part of.
I never saw love caught on film like this
A pregnant self portrait
followed by bloody afterbirth
and then, searing passion
not love-making for a man or woman
but love between mother and child
so raw and potent,
I can’t stop looking,
your naked shape drawing me in
as if I was still a child, too,
my mouth aching to go
where your child’s mouth has been
I can’t stop looking,
mother and child riding utterly calm seas
setting sail on some new life
as companions,
your face showing the future
like a map of a new world
over which there is no edge to fall,
a black and white world,
full black clouds against which
the sails seem immune
I can’t stop looking,
and wishing I was there,
traveling back in time,
seeking out those people
as if to fill some void I sense
when there is no void between you
love bonding the two of you
together in ways
nothing else could,
time cementing it so that these moments
these pictures
draw me in
with envy
your sensuality as blazing
as sunset on horizon
scorching me
each time I open my eyes,
too intense, I ache to be there,
rocked in your arms like that child,
my mouth inches from your breasts
waiting for substance,
each image so passionate
I want to embrace them all,
to be there,
to witness it,
to love and make love
in that black and white
world where you
have always lived.

Stopping in the middle



“Never stop the train between stations,”
the old man told us as we rode going west
dust swirling in every open window
of a train straight out of another time
the raw desert stretching out on both sides
raw and remote, thick with that lonely ache
I sometimes get waking up alone
“This world is full of snakes and pitfalls,”
he went on, his wrinkled face testimony
to all the things he’d seen,
while we stared out at the passing things
bones stripped to white by unrelenting sun
and perhaps the bones of things that
may have resembled us, greenhorns
coming west for some adventure we thought
of as fun, not deadly or painful or worse.
How many have gotten off their train too soon
thinking they could huff and puff through the desert
only to end up bones,
“It doesn’t matter where you’re going,” the old man said,
“as long as you don’t stop half way there.
Don’t get off until your ticket tells you to
and you plant your feet firmly on a platform
not the remains of someone else’s misery,
and we stared out at the scenery, wondering
how many lost souls had chosen to get off too soon,
and whether any of them actually managed to get
to the other side, how many are still out there
waiting forlornly as we pass by.

Seven days in the desert




The silence consumes me
Except for the whisper of wind
This all or nothing existence
As stark as unrelenting sunlight
Blistering me for saying
In the wrong place how I feel
Nefertiti banning me
And my existence
For questioning the nature of things
Condemned to exile
Seven days in the not so silent desert
To live among the slithering things
As if I was one, too,
As if I had done things so bad
I should get
down on my belly
to crawl over sand and stone
until I rub myself raw,
my throat parched from silent screaming
so that I may never speak again
I envy Christ
For surviving 40 days like this,
But he was a god,
Me,
I’m not even a saint.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Ships that pass in the…




The sea wind blows through her hair
as if it had fingers
each strand stretched out
along the sides of her face.
This is the face of a ship sailing
through harbor mists,
beasts pressing into the fog,
exposed to each new shape
her hair, her face, embracing all
owning them all,
aching for all to adore her
eyes glowing with the artificial
illumination of their reflected
admiration, each ship paying
tribute to her as they pass
and vanish back into the fog
the wind whipping her hair
as she stares ahead,
into murky mists
for the next ship
to embrace her.

Men of Tin




How do you stand us like this
egos protruding from our pointed heads
like oil spouts, letting our brains drip out
so we have so little left to think with,
men of metal whose clomping feet
march over tender hearts like blades of grass
women’s souls more vulnerable
than their tough skins portray
wondered from the inside out
lust thrust into your faces
you have no time to duck
No time for honesty, tenderness
or even self-reflection
enduring our rusty touch as part of
the price you must pay to survive
our faces plastered with sports headlines,
dirty jokes and lies,
we so transparent in our wants and needs
you don’t even need between the lines
to know us, letting us lean over you
plunge into you, all with the pretense of love
you taking us in, but always with a price
we always pay, even though the real cost
is born inside of you,
each thrust leaving bruise that later bleed.
How do you endure us
and this perpetual game of trivial pursuit,
we seeking to match wits with you
when we have no wits left
while you sit with your oil can waiting
the one man of tin that still has a heart
waiting forever,
knowing down deep,
none will ever come.

The last gift





Sometimes,
the only thing
you have left
to give
is silence
to all the secret looks
overt threats
the tease
and the aborted
tenderness,
no words will do
without sounding
hollow,
only silence

Bones in the closet




I trip over old bones in her closet
from the last man she brought here
bits of things left behind
which she forgot to throw out
meaningless out of context
except as clues to some journey
some other man took
one of many failed columbuses
who turned back before
they fell off the edge
of her world,
and I wonder
if I am any less scared than they,
and if I, too, will turn back,
the way they have,
l.eaving little clues to my passing here
more bones to collect in her closet
for future sailors to find.



When you grow old.





You look different
face so yellow, yet still young
I’d hardly have known you
but for the expression
and the sun
bent upon you
like a big white spot,
painted when the artist
still had paint.
I’d hardly have known you
and me?
What do you care of me?
This old face
could never look like yours again
could never be apart
of a cartwheel
or a swim,
well, listen, I will tell you
though you’ll still not hear
hearing is for other ears
more aged,
like cheese knows mold
you’ll grow old
then you will look like me
and then this photo
will be complete.



Roof shot




I see the shadow of you
on the ground below
leaning over
the edge of the roof
as if waiting to leap
outstretched,
clicking off one last
photograph
before the air takes you
down to the ground,
but you don’t fall,
the night air swirls
the shadows shift,
and here I am
with the image
firmly fixed in my head
your shadow
showing on the ground below
but it is me falling
not you.

(2012) 



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Friday, June 15, 2012

The feel of it




I miss the feel of it
gone dry after such a brief taste
the desert stretching out before me
with no end in sight,
the soft touch that I won’t touch again
in this prickly place
the moan of wind in the air above me
the shudder of the earth shifting
because of me,
I am Moses mounting his mountain,
my fingers search out each crack
in the rock for that place
where god resides
and the earth trembles
and the softness defies the desert
and the jagged edges of life
I miss the feel of it
after such a brief respite
a man dying of thirst
let to wet only the tip of his lips
before being cast out
of paradise
again.

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View from the walkway





The water slaps at the river walk foundations
where Hoboken kisses Weehawken
the dark cover water reflecting the line
of buildings on both sides

Ferries cut across the river like snakes
slithering against the rough water
to plunge deep into the recesses of Manhattan
no gentle massage,
just a bump against the dock
spitting out passengers
in a rush to pull out again

The tug boats and barges
do not rush,
caressing the waves
with slow and steady speed
not cutting across the current
the way the ferries do,
but moving up and down it
flowing into the folds
where the currents collide
their glistening stacks
huffing and puffing
as they move up and down,

I stand on the walkway
fingers clutching to cold wet rail
as if expecting the next wave
to suck me in,
wondering the whole time
if I am a tug boat or a ferry,
whether I cut deep into the flesh
of this great river
or caress it,
wondering in the end
whether I sink or swim.





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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Fog rise




Traffic flows like a steel and plastic snake
in and out of the Lincoln Tunnel tubes
Me, sitting on a rock staring down at it all
the spiked horizon with its ever erect Empire State
rising out of the mists of gray
Nothing soft in that place until the fog rolls in
swirling around it and me
rising up to its tip so that it seems to ooze with fog
The soft fabric wrapping around me and the sky line
soothing our edges with tender rhythms
the ins and outs, the heavy sighs,
all born out of an over heated water,
the river lapping at our feet, our breasts, our eyes
drowning us with its lace
until we succumb.



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Her laugh




Her laugh is always seasonal
like a narrow twisting brook
in spring it gushes forth
full of loving and lust for life
beaten down to a trickle
by the summer’s heat
to be refurbished by autumn
but a temporary flourish
multi-colors hinting of dying
a beautiful rain that leaves
her barren and vulnerable
to the winter’s frost,
her brittle, bitter laugh
the last thing I hear
before she closes
the door.

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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Silk





You dressed in moth wings for dinner
Spiriting down the stairs in a flustered flight
your satin hands and eyes a feast glistening
Your smile etched in silk spun out of silk worms
devouring us like mulberries so as to weave more
as we sit, too stiff, or drunk or high to move
our mouths wide open each time you paint your lips
each move you make spinning us round and round
so we couldn’t find the door to escape
your finger curling inside of us, yanking at us,
turning us inside out with our own desire
a gift of the magi, a witch’s brew, or something more
we waiting for the moment when we can stir again
or breathe, or make out way out into the cool air
where our thoughts are our own thoughts
and not all of them thoughts of you.
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Office




I want to turn it all off in my head
The way I do my computer at night
But I can’t.
So I grip the keyboard
And focus on the screen
Hoping I can pretend
It will all go away,
When nothing works that way
We’re programmed to continue on
Long after the input has ceased
And the reason for this app or that
No longer exists
Grin and bear it, I think
Shuffling papers even when
The worst of it starts
When the hard driver overheats
And the disk drive keeps on spinning
The images reeling across the screen
Of what once was or could have been
A musical sound track of beeps
Suggesting that it all still his
How do you turn it off
When there is no switch
Grin and bear it,
and hope it doesn’t show on your face
we’re all professionals here
all struggling to make sense
of this crazy space we share
trying never to care too much
when sometimes,
we just can’t help it.



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Looking out for number one




“You can’t depend on anyone else,”
I heard myself telling someone recently,
Hating the whole idea of it,
Always wanting someone to need me
Though I knew it was true.
“In today’s world, you only have yourself
And you have to make sure you have all
That you need to survive.”

I was talking about the poor fool
I knew who had set himself adrift
At middle age, struggling to find
A new place to anchor
Something more than a temporary harbor,
An old fashioned idea
That wasn’t true even when fashionable.

“You can’t lean on anybody,” I told him
Over the telephone during an extend conversation
“You have to look out for number one.
Sometimes, you’ll find a friend or two to help
But never long, nothing permanent
No one matters more to you than you do
And shouldn’t.
If you don’t look out for yourself
No one will.”


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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Right to exist





I see the foot in the dark,
A toe nail bright against
The backdrop of a cat
A sphinx for all it’s dignity
A monument among
The barely visible icons
Of the darkened room
Everything full of secrets
No one dare unveil
This universe spinning
In its own orbit
With no real design
Full of false gods
And hasty assumptions
That only the most steadfast
Can defy
This foot and its mate
Set upon a path
No mere god can defy
No deity carving
Can intimidate
Inspired by something
Grander beyond
The vision of this room
something inside, not out
that only this sphinx
fully sees
knowing that this
internal reality
won’t fade away
but will remain as fixed
as the universe,
born of some
big bang long ago,
shouting for its own right
to exist,
one foot with glowing nail,
one cat sublime
shouting with silence
for their own right
to exist.

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Monday, June 11, 2012

Dog house




My uncle, Frank, used to talk about being in the dog house
When we all lived together growing up,
He was ten years older than me,
With pretentions of becoming an artist or musician
While everybody else, but me, thought him crazy.

A mountain of a man, Frank did the work of three men
And my grandfather never let him forget it,
“What do you need to be an artist for,
When you can work like that?” he said.

Sometimes, I posed in the kitchen for Frank,
Glorious morning light fall over us and the tiles
With Frank desperate to capture it all,
But never could.

Sometimes, he even let me hold his guitar
Putting my fingers in the right places
So I could make chords
Only my chords never sounded
As his chords did,
And he said his chords
Were never good enough

I loved that man better than a father
Because he was the father I never had
But he was always down on himself,
Always in the dog house, he claimed
Always trying to make up for flaws
Other people saw in him,
But I could never see

He claimed he always said and did
The wrong things at the wrong time
And always felt bad about it,
Worse than grandpa could make him feel

“You can’t feel good about yourself
When you know you’ve done wrong,
And don’t know what you can do
To make it right again,” he said.

For years, I didn’t understand what he meant,
But now I do,
Because I’m the one in the dog house now,
And don’t know any more than Frank did
how to get myself out.




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