She

She makes writing easy...

She is time lost,
years spent daydreaming,
her life and body twisted and contorted,
as if shaped by a blind sculptor,
a process of interludes in my imagination,

She is wet clay ever changing,
a form lumped together in my mind,
may or may not be who she really is,

She is a distant satellite,
whose orbit has carried her sometimes close to my world,
and sometimes very far away,
but always visible in my sky,

My heart has been taught to not recognize itself in the mirror,
but it knows her face,
when she opens her door it remembers,
despite what I don’t tell it,
it knows why it came,

She is happy,
and as beautiful as I’ve seen her,
confidently in command of her world,
beaming with pride and self-discovery,

She shows me around,
but all I care to see is her,
her fragile smile,
disalarming eyes,
unkempt clothes,
those impossible tangles longer than I’ve ever seen them,

In her tiny apartment,
not unlike that ghetto pad and window bars,
we talk ‘til exhaustion,
the misplaced words of many years,
many miles since,
the sun comes up and the satellite moves closer,

She is in her panties,
reaching for a bowl of fruit,
and I am reminded that it has always been this way.

02.18.10

First City Kiss

Magic in New York City...

There was someone singing about the rain
outside your window,
saying that it was such a good feeling,
a summer thunderstorm in the city,
lifting the curtains,
the soft orange streetlight haze spilling over the couch,
the repetitive tubes of the cold radiator,
long shadows of your bike and the books along the shelf.

The stranger’s voice fading into the night,
his song about the rain becoming the sounds of traffic,
of the city bus and its lonely fluorescent passengers,
the braying horns in the distance,
like muted lovers calling,
the silhouette of your plants behind the curtains,
sway to the music lifting,
to the street cooling,
to the red-eyed wanderers who float from bar to bar all night long.

You weren’t asleep and neither was I,
pretending to be asleep,
only waiting,
until my racing heart forgot the city,
and no sound existed on the earth,
and my hand,
it moved,
found your hip beneath the blankets,
no sound,
no city,
no rain,
just your skin beneath my fingers,
and that was the world,
every planet and every star and every life I’ve ever lived,
there in that touch,
at the beginning of mankind,
in your bed beneath those blankets.

The song outside the window was gone,
the people carried on,
stepping out of taxi cabs,
smelling of the subway,
airbrakes at the intersection,
a bell jingles above the door at the deli,
I kissed your neck to ask for your permission,
and you said yes when your lips turned to find mine,
there in the orange darkness,
the city outside,
and rain on the way.

11.2010

Jim Bilt

A cowboy love story...

Jim Bilt held the cracked leather reigns split,
Dust canyons formed in his swollen knuckles,
Disfigured fingers a monkey’s fist of rope,
The sweat crystal on his nose under shadow thrown from  a sun-bleached hat,
A dry world of scrub and barbed wire,
Rusty tin and oaks bent,
Upside down in the prism hanging from his crooked beak,

He stood in broken boots in a sharp puddle of his own shade,
Heels buried in the soft brown powder of the round pen,
Where long dead men spilled blood,
Where the hooves of wilder horses were made to stand still,
In the field the bones speak,
The old nails back themselves out,
Jim Bilt swallowed his spit and watched her eyes,

She refused to blink,
But stared back at him through muddy pupils swimming,
Wide and alert and reading him – waiting for him,
Her black hair stuck to her neck,
Her chest was full and heaving,
Her waist high,
Her legs strong,
She had broken his heart and was testing the limits of his love,

The wrangler let the reigns slide through his fingers,
So soft and slow over what tough years had hardened,
He lowered himself before her,
Offered his head to be taken from his body,
Beneath the hot sun where nothing moved,
They spoke in soft whispers,
In silence,
To decide if the Devil had gone,
His heart struggled to find enough blood to fill his body,
But the limits of his love were endless,
She bent a knee,
And then another,
Until she was on the ground before him and resting her head on his chest,
Crying,
Jim Bilt take me home.

5.11.2011

How Mary Became a Saint

This one is about a wonderful/magical Summer night riding our bicycles around town...

We were moon tossed
saint streets secret playground park
where the diplodocus is measured by the tops of trees
and bats fly willy-nilly through the stars
bending our backs into the cross-cut wind
drowning on the night air
tracks snake behind us in the cast iron glow of
the few street lights like lazy comets at the edge of the grass
we descend in madness through the
sleeping streets
peddling our laughter on the passing doorsteps of strangers
fancy streamers flying from our knuckles
knee-deep in aluminum
and the city
and everything there is to love about life
drifting gently along her spine
where tar and tile and asphalt flow

ardent adventurers were we three
conscious of following some unknown
pleasure
tickling her tarmac
pushing forward into the future
aloof in the tears that streamed backwards escaping
the corners of our eyes
hopscotch playground plunder from one puddle of light to the next
spilling slippery pearl smoke from the
heartless soul of an apple
concealed in the one corner where the cameras can’t look
stealing each other’s reckless absurdity
sneaking past sleeping soldiers
spinning yarns
and rims
and rooms
kissed softly by the maniacal lips of darkness
of madness
of every joy that rides in with the night

until our tires slipped the bounds of Earth
until our loosed wolf cries echoed off of the
brick and glass canyons of The Drop
and the stars were caught in our hair
and we lost each other again at the end
so they heard us say
we will never be as young as we are now!

9.2011

Ode to the Mosquito

I was born and raised in South Louisiana... Basically, it was a matter of time before this poem was written...

Little Wily Shit-Winged Bat,
Him with the thousand brothers,
Times ten thousand more,
Proboscis needle-nosed vampire
     walking the vast tundra of my skin on six striped legs,
Who cannot speak but whines incessantly instead,
The sound which tunnels through my ear canal
     and deep into my brain,
Into my heart,
My soul,
A sound that no man can fall asleep to.

Little Perpetual Purveyor of the Water of Life,
A connoisseur to all varieties of the finest human blood,
Deviant drunkard dancing languid on someone’s soft flesh,
Feckless curiosity be the owner a cook or a queen,
Whose toes have you tickled tonight,
And at what cost, my tiny friend?
How are you so unconcerned in the peril of your own minute life
     as you attempt to steal some of mine?

Little Dark-Horse Angel of Death,
What manner of mayhem do you bring today?
What kind and loving God would
     breathe you into existence,
And for what purpose?
To give us a reason to stand in the bed of a pickup truck
     and spray heather mists into our neighborhoods?
To validate stagnant water?
To populate the forests with millions of unseen thirsty minions?
Or to canvas our skin with your puncture marks
     and give new use to our fingernails other than for back rubs and biting?

Little One-Horned Wonder
     hiding in the corner of my room,
My tent,
My car,
A drinking straw permanently attached to your face,
Born a thief of the living,
A bird on the wing,
You both fascinate and annoy the hell out of me!
For what creature is there that exists,
Who but you can I smash on the wall
     yet still spill my own guts when I do?!

9.15.2011