A NEW BEGINNING/AGAIN

I  want us to fall in love
with each other everyday

To look into each other's eyes
like it is the first time

To kiss like we are embarking
on a new adventure

 To tell each other secrets
we never revealed before

To feel that fluttering of the heart
whenever we touch

I want us to wake up as virgins
and end the day as lovers
embedded in the other's body and soul

###

INSIDERS/OUTCASTS


The cocoon
                  that spins from the bowl
                  of the poppy plant

wraps the user
                  in shards of atomized napalm
                  that shimmers with the silken veneer
                  of a junky tempo Miles Davis solo
                                                      concise as rain
                                                      sweet as a wren’s chirp
                  on a sandblasted Mexican afternoon
                  with tequila swells splashing against the walls of
                                                      conquistador cathedrals

Time moves
                  with the viscosity of heavy oil
                  in a Dakota winter
                                                      every second stretched beyond tensile strength
                                                      and clocks are reduced to irrelevant instruments
                                                      measuring the stanzas of time in music
                                                       no one plays

Lids droop
                  heads bob
                                                      spoons sizzle
                  slapped veins wilt like overdone pasta
                  as the pathways of digestion
                  clog with wet cement

And when the parched membranes
                  and turgid organs
cry out like hyenas
                  in the stolid African night
there is no pause for weeping and regrets

                  only the constrained squawks of angels
bleating for a fix
                  so that they may stare into
                                                      the eyes of God


                                                      one more time
                                                      without blinking

This is an exclusive club
                  an elite congregation of chemical shaman
                                                      nuzzled in their private knowledge
                                                      suckled by the cryptic language
                  and transformed by their secret rituals
                  that separate them from the chattel of the unaddicted
                                                      for it is the confidential mantras
                                                      passed from junkie to junkie
                                                      syringe to syringe
                                                      bag to bag
those shared scriptures of the corner score
                  and the phosphorescent nod
                  that sets them apart

It is the private joke that no one else gets
                  and the locomotive rush
                  from the asexual orgasm
                  no one else feels
                                                      and the whispering of saints
                                                      no one else hears
                  these are the artifacts that give it all purpose
                                                      and meaning

You live for the titanic rush that rattles your heart
                  while the straights are asleep
                  and wound tight in their beds
and you joust with the city
                                                      burrowing through the hard blackened streets
                                                      where the outcasts rule
and where only the chosen ones
                  can feel the ballooning knot in the stomach


                                                                                                           
Only when the needle tip spits in the vein
                  and you begin to feel like warm butterscotch
                                                      can you share
                                                      the transcendent cackle
                                                      with your own precious
                                                                                           jones

EXPECTING

She basks in the roundness of her tummy,
        pliant fingers absently tracing its spherical profile
                as if searching for imperfection.

Two cardinals feed on the lawn,
        oblivious to the figure in the window
                who exhales with the ease of evaporating dew.

The two birds flutter, fly off like excited tourists.
        She watches them disappear beyond the rooftops
                while counting the pangs inside her tummy.

SHALLOW WATERS

You are not deep
at all

You slosh
around the ankles

A negligible substance
of thin consequence

More of an annoyance
with studied inconvenience

When exposed to the heat
of a new day

You will
evaporate

LEAVES

Wherever we looked there were leaves…

leaves like ancient parchment that would
dissolve at your touch
wet leaves the color of earthworms
leaves, monochromatic and spikey
leaves of rust and dew
stacks of leaves, mounds of leaves
mildewed and insect-ravished leaves
leaves rotted by the rain
and shriveled like dyspeptic
old men baked by the sun
drifting leaves, whirlpooling leaves
leaves in gutters and clotted sewers
burning leaves, their gray plumes
wafting over rooftops
raked and bagged leaves
decaying leaves reduced to mulch
leaves pressed between the pages of books
to mark a memory or phrase
leaves adrift on river currents
to be carried off to destinations
known only to leaves

THE SANCTUARY

My eyes take in the condo
with a quick scan, and while not large,
it isn’t cramped, either. Just the right proportions,
much like her: no wasted space, and lines that flow
in perfect symmetry, like classic art.

The décor is Pottery Barn meets Ikea.
Nothing ornate, but hip and efficient.
Satiny throw pillows sprawl across the couch;
her beige sweater hangs  lazily over the arm of a chair;
a laptop computer corrals the corner of  the coffee table,
an empty water bottle standing guard beside it. Underneath
the dining room table a sleek black cat glares warily at me.

She tells me to make myself comfortable
while she disappears into the bathroom.
I stand in the living room
to take it all in: the laminate floors
with the Indian throw rug dominating
the center of the room; whimsical art
decorating the walls; flip-flops tucked in a corner
next to the front door; a 50 inch flat screen.

This is all her and I am overwhelmed
with a sense of intimacy that we have yet to share.
No nakedness. No sex. No scent of her body.
Yet surveying the interior makes me feel as if
I’ve entered into the most private regions of her being.
Herein lies the nakedness of her psyche closed
to the rest of the world except for the chosen few
allowed to gain admittance.

My fingers skim the fabric of the couch
and I can feel her flawless skin. I inhale the
faint vanilla fragrance of a potpourri candle
and am engulfed by her essence.

And when she reappears in the living room
 I feel a new connection to her, an intimacy
that didn’t exist moments ago.
And when she greets me with a smile,
it is like making love without ever touching

MY FATHER

My father
(age 87)
lays in the hospital bed
his cadaverous demeanor
beneath the white sheets
sketches a portent of the immediate future

His face resembles
so many sunken caricatures
laid to rest
on the silk pillows of forlorn caskets,
death causing the ultimate implosion
as the body caves in on itself
like a Florida sink hole

The eyes open intermittently,
but their milky countenance,
wet and glazed,
like a freshly waxed floor,
are oblivious
and appear fixed on recollections
far removed from the present,
while the figures at bedside
are nothing more
than cloudy shapes in a foggy dream

Stubble on the chalky cheeks
creates a vagrant’s visage,
out of character
for the stolid father/steelworker,
the blue collar ethnic paradigm
from another era’s ethic

What was once robust and profane,
bustling with rude energy
and working class bravado
has been sucked and siphoned
by the cruel joke that is old age,

and like air escaping a leaky tire,
his wilting body has its life force
dribble away a wheeze at a time.

The skin on his arms
hangs like soggy paper mache
ready to dissolve at the slightest touch,
the wan flesh mottled with brown specs.
It is tired flesh, rippled and sagging
and evaporating like cotton candy
in humid summer air,
muscles worn,
their bulk and elasticity
fading like the ancient pictures
 tucked inside the creases
of his battered wallet.

CROSS THE LINE

I want to take you somewhere
                              anywhere
A place to call our own
Just the two of us escaping these boundaries

Maybe it’s Kentucky or Tennessee
or down to the Florida Keys

But wherever I go, I need you
by my side to achieve my one desire,
which is to leave this state and
                             cross the line with you

A FARMHOUSE

The farmhouse
stands alone
proud and scarred

A hundred summers
and a hundred winters
testing its resolve

One stalwart maple
hovering over the house
like a protective mother

And as storm clouds
roil the western sky,
foretelling yet one more crisis

the heart of that farmhouse
beats raw and warm
like the soil beneath it.

The floors creak, windows rattle
like the tired bones
of an old farmer

but the roof is intact,
the walls are solid
and the heart strong.

From the back porch
you can see the crops sway
like languid ballerinas

as the elderly couple
settle into their rockers
in the nurturing lap of the farmhouse.

BUTTERFLY WINGS

You are like a butterfly
in the palm of my hand

I purse my lips to blow,
not like a violent gust,
but with a soft sigh,
like a gossamer breeze
scampering over a Tahitian beach

It lifts your wings with a feathery touch
that enables you to alight from my palm
and flutter away to your destiny
as I cheer your graceful liberation

JUST FRIENDS?

JUST FRIENDS?

An hour ago
we were just friends

more like acquaintances,
a curtain of propriety
partitioning our impulses

Our mutual attraction as yet unnamed
but undeniably real,
like an expletive we dare not utter

We move with a stiffness
borne out of precaution,
like negotiating a strange room in the dark

Her smile is welcoming, like warm pastry,
my voice as smooth as Italian marble.
Our eyes lock, elude, and lock again,

wanting to speak with our eyes
what our voices hesitate to say
what both of our hearts are feeling

I reach across the table to touch her hand.
It is soft and warm as cotton.
There is a barely perceptible flinch,

yet she does not withdraw--
rather, she glances down at our hands,
then draws a short breath

before her lips betray an emerging smile
as I grope for the appropriate words
that will calm my roiling heart

and forever “end” our  “friendship.”

ENDGAME

ENDGAME

I want to die under the Gulf  sun
         saltwater seducing
         my feet and ankles,
                                        while overhead
seagulls and herons squawk
as they fly in ever-widening loops
against a bleached summer sky
                                        cloudless
and blue as my first love’s eyes

MALL WALKERS

MALL WALKERS

They walk the mall
on legs as spindly
as late autumn branches,
arms swinging like broken gates,
some with strides as timid
as grazing deer; others walk
with the aggression of rutting bulls,
arthritic knees and strained backs
be damned.

Theirs is an unstoppable armada
of grandparents and retirees,
the gaze fixed and determined
as worker ants, oblivious to Sears,
Macy’s, Hickory Farms.

They are not there to shop,
but to outpace senility, to distance
themselves from debilitation.
To hell with elevators and escalators,
 for just around the corner, past
the Yankee Candle shop, lies
the parking lot, where the aroma  of
freshly baked Cinnabon muffins
follows them to their cars as they
rush to stay one step ahead
of a senior moment.

SCAPE

The sun coiled ‘round the Hancock Building
and flashed in Fat Tony’s eyes
as he gazed out the window of the observation deck
little did he realize

Some young kid ridin’ the elevator
his head wired on meth,
was wanting to stick it to somebody.
All he could think of was death

He walked up behind Fat Tony
with the silent feet of a cat.
The kid was getting’ real anxious
to fill the silence with a splat.

He pulled a knife from his winter jacket
sunlight flashin’ off the blade.
Paybacks are a bitch, he’s thinkin’
and someone’s about to get paid.

With moves as slick as graphite
he stuck Fat Tony’s side.
The fat man fell in a bloody heap
the same way his ole man died.

The kid ran to the elevator
on his face was a satisfied smile
his body and mind were tingling.
He’d be a hero on the streets awhile.

Then “L” took him back to the hood
and maybe a hit of crack.
It’s the reward for stickin’ somebody.
Don’t matter if you’re white, brown or black.

He never knew his father.
His mother was burned out on coke.
Life and death add up to nothin’
just a street kid’s dirty joke.

SUNNIER DAZE

SUNNIER DAZE

Was it always sunnier back then?

Days as long, sweet and lanquid
as a strawberry Twizzler

Coaster wagons as red and gleaming
as a crate of Macintosh apples

In the background, the barking
of unseen mutts

The staccato hammering of roof repairs,
distant and  intense, like the stuttering reports
from a firing range

Lawn sprinklers twirling like ballerinas,
inviting us to rush headlong
into their cooling waters

Streets churning with baseball games
and shiny Schwinns, their spokes
chattering from baseball cards
swatting their spokes

Sidewalk lemonade stands
in daily duels with roller skaters
who whirr past hop-scotchers,
like wheeled angels

The universal law of summer
declared the harder we played,
the less it rained

The more we perspired,
 the more intense the fun

and maybe the memories slowly fade,
like old photos in the family album

But one thing never fades:
the realization that it was always sunnier
back then

COSTUMES

Sometimes in the crevices of night,
when the only sound is my own breathing

I ponder the mystery of death
and what costume it will wear when it comes calling

Will it assume the identity of a tumor
coarsing through my organs like a wild stallion,

trampling everything in its path until
I lay dormant, like an ancient artifact?

Will it spring like a Halloween prank,
dressed like an embolism

racing toward my brain, only to burst
its arterial boundaries in a tsunami of blood?

Or maybe it will skim the streets, all metallic,
careless as a tropical wave,

oblivious to traffic signals as it flies unrestrained
until it T-bones me as I contemplate dinner

Whatever costume it wears,
I will refuse to recognize it.

Instead, I will turn my back, naked,
and deny its presence.

###

FROM THE OLD/TO THE YOUNG

We are not flowers
                wilted and faded

We are not engines
                our internal parts worn and ground smooth

We are not ships
                run aground, stuck in the mire

We are not river beds
                stagnant and evaporating

We are proud strands of energy
                bound together by our humanity
                beacons of wisdom
                sharpened by experience

We may be lined and weathered
                but we have persevered
                like the mountains, surviving
                the ravages that only time can administer

So give us our due
acknowledge our victories
forgive us our sins

For one day you, too, will be mountains
upon which future generations
will scale to new heights

ADVENTURES OF DOG KILLER

Dog killer crouches
at the window, grips
 the AK47 as if it were

a wild animal lunging
at its prey, incisors
flashing, machete-like claws

ready to eviscerate. He takes aim,
squeezes off a single round
that rebukes the afternoon miasma

with an abusive pop. The round
violates the dog
at the scruff of the neck

and exits with a plume of blood
and viscera, particles like fluorescent
insects spewing in all directions.

There is a yelp as the dog
collapses to the pavement
like a wilted flower.

Dog killer smiles admiringly
at his handiwork, while he waits
for another command

from the unknown radio station,
but it doesn’t matter, for
the voice broadcasts on all frequencies

RISE UP

They kneel in protest
as a show of unity and strength
against injustice

Yet they do not realize
that dropping to their knees
is a sign of capitulation

A manifestation of weakness
and surrender to a
higher power

Humankind’s momentous achievements,
justice and freedom,
prosperity and health

occurred only when we rose to our feet,
stood erect, back as straight as a giant oak,
head held high, eyes focused skyward

Then and only then did we defeat disease,
ease hunger pains,
build the towers of concrete and steel

that point to the stars,
monuments to courage and vision,
our gaze locked on the future

Drop to your knees
and you become a symbol
of sacrifice and suffering

But when we stand tall,
defiant and unwavering,
we become like mythical gods

FOR LILLIAN AND CAMILLE

They smile down at me
     from their framed pictures on the wall

Two beautiful fawns
     of elegant innocence, their hair

the color of fresh honey in the sunlight
     their eyes as effervescent
 as the sky after a spring downpour

SIPPING ALONE

Peculiar
          How the setting sun
          bisects the tabletop
          at the outdoor café
                         Part sun
                         Part shade
          coffee in my hefty cup
          rippling like low tide
          in the wake of passing pedestrians
         
          No one stopping to share a cup
          No one stopping to hear my stories

          So it is just me and the Jamaican blend,
          roasted to enrich its flavor

          And as the afternoon grows bored
          with my companionship,
          the shadow rolls across the table
          like death’s profile
                         while the Jamaican dawdles and cools
                         at the bottom of my cup,
                         as empty tables gather around me
                         like bewildered disciples

          Yet I stubbornly remain,
           waiting for my cup to be refilled,
           and the chair across from me to be occupied