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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

 2012 menu

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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.

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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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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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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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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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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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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