Lotus Blossom of the World
Another day rumbling
down the road.
A sweaty transit bus
badly in need
of new exhaust,
sweeping up
tired-eyed stragglers,
leaving others of us
behind.
A child, sitting last
in the window,
waves in passing,
the thought flashing
across his features
that I am one
to be consoled.
Sadness lies not
in no longer shuffling
forward
but in
how much farther
the child must travel
to meet me again
in this selfsame spot
many years from now.
While here I sit,
opening and closing
my mind’s eye.
It Could Have Been Worse…
”I don’t like your kind.
You smell bad, and
You haven’t shaved in days.
So just move your candy ass
On down the line,
And find some other doorway
to sleep in tonight.
This is a decent business, boy.
No whorin, no drinkin, no fightin.
And I aint gonna have no smelly
candy-asses littering my door
Either
You get up and get movin’
Or
I’m gonna pop your ass so hard
you’ll sleep standing in a pool of mud
just to ease the pain.
Now move on, boy, get.
Don’t make me get mean.”
Why I Didn’t Write for Ten Years
“Poets? A dime a dozen.”
But their 98-page irregular editions aren’t,
so don’t blame me when I tell you,
I wanted none of that, and went
often
for ice cream and Baywatch
instead.
We Want Poets
We want poets.
We have politicos.
More than enough
in this parched land,
rasping incessantly
about justice,
about rage,
ever droning,
like cicadas.
We want poets,
like aphids,
to condense the milk of life
into one sweet can of cream,
to retrieve from freezers
December snowballs
against August heat,
fashioning them
into sweet liqueurs
cooling us from within.
I’m fermenting beer.
In my room by moonlight,
it foams beneath the lid
while I wash out old bottles.
Winter Is Long, Here
Winter is long, here,
not where I grew up bathed in the droning of cicadas
that sometimes buzzing would fly into your face,
but here, where only the very brittle days have sun
to brighten the gleaming hiss of the steam-jet
or cheer the sonic boom of misspent fuel
where the ambulance screams out less often
where we all live in tunnels like ants
suffering the formication of too-dry skins
But now
the grass in season lies on the lawn
that Kenelworth has mowed, now sipping tea.
Short is the season
Short is the time of childhood
Short is the memory of hide-and-seek
beneath the blackjack-oak
But shorter still,
the event itself—
Not a Love Poem.
She takes the drag
And smacks her lips
before she inhales.
All pink
on a towel in the shade
reading something sexy
barefoot
clogs nestled in the grass.
She dances
but never eats
except for pretzels
and diet soda
generic
from the generic market
up on Bloor Street
Love Poem
My life was a darkened screening room. Grey on black.
Too much talk of caves, and troglodytes.
You brought me lime popsicles and pop rocks.
And I said that you were
loud.
Your life was nosegays. Bright and famous but short-lived.
I showed you the miracle of trees, the beauty of bells.
And you said I was too —
What did you say? —
Hard.
Now you are the schoolmarm. Young and beautiful.
And I’m beaten daily by the Old Masters.
But I go skating in the afternoon,
And you’ve been known to sneak a Lucky Strike.
Sometimes, We Win
Somewhere in Dallas
is a guy who
still cruises
the kicker bars
every Saturday night,
looking for that
curly-headed
brunette with the
second-hand jeans
pilfered from her
ex-boyfriend’s
roommate’s
closet.
The one who swore
she’d never drink
like that again but
was pretty damned
handy with tequila,
salt, and lime.
The one whose
eyes said not yet
even as her hands
said right now.
The one whose
children would never
believe how a
smoldering cigarette
had nothing
on her.
Irreconcilables
Hard candies melting in the autumn rain
Remainders of parades departed
A fence post, leaning against charged wire
Calves gamboling in the meadow
A flea, nestling in for a good egg laying
My dog Sparky and my dog Loki
A cola tab in the bottom of Lake Grapevine
Feet looking for a good place to land
Seven second hands in syncopated half beats
The beginning of all beginnings
The way my wife sounds when she sobs
Words I’ve spoken harshly
Anglo-Saxons
Gauls
The blue house on Grand Street
The white roofs on Cemetery Road
Pine trees in a morning breeze
Red headed woodpeckers eating bugs
Fresh-hewn trees falling in my yard
Roaches that escape mockingbirds
The paper to make one Latin dictionary
And all the good that it does me
yeaverily: Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1969
