he started to dream less
of landscapes
and found himself
a city that was tall
and bleak with
ordered rows of houses
and buildings to support
the orangish skies
of perpetual twilight,
one with distant violence
that would echo through
the straight streets,
cries of hope being lost
in a concrete strangulation.
Archive for June, 1993
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Foaming at the Mouth about Myself
Posted: June 25, 1993 in PoetryTags: Black, Memories, Song, White
I write poems
that nobody hears [yet]
silent songs
of ink and paper;
meaningful scrawls,
ideas I jot down.
they’re testimonials to me living.
I write these things down
because I don’t have a camera
or anything more high-tech.
I write because
my memory can fail me.
And when I get older,
I will look through these scrapbooks
and make my own pictures
from this black and white.
Dolphin Daughter
Posted: June 20, 1993 in PoetryTags: Daughter, Dolphin, Fly, Grey, Ocean, Sea, Water
A dolphin explodes from the water
because she is the daughter
of the foam that is flipped from her grey tail
flying skywards and seawards,
spraying dents into the surface of the sea.
she plunges back under the covers
of the ocean to meet the others,
dolphins which, not caught in tuna nets, are free.
I think people like rhyme and meter;
they like Dr. Seuss because he’s neater
than a long-winded poet of free verse
who sounds like he’s expounding on the universe.
there should be some poems that people would read
just for fun and think that could be me
that they’re framing with my own vocabulary,
not strings of obfusticated commentary.
A Frog can sit for hours
calling for a mate,
but I can sit for hours
waiting for you to call.
I can imagine the surf in my hair
and the chill of the air,
when I stand up from the water
so I don’t go into the ocean.
because I’m a lilly-livered chickenshit.
I’ll walk down the cool tarry sand
and pretend that I’m under a wave;
trying to feel the slick water bead
on my skin and drip from my chin
because I’m far too afraid to go in.
I had a beer with an Indian.
he said he was an Indian
so I bought him a beer
and he told me about a ghost horse
who could run faster than the wind
who he was sure he had seen
in the long grass behind his trailer.
he bought me a beer and
I smiled and told him
that I loved him and
we drank our beers.
we left and I walked home
slower than the wind
to a bed of empty dreams.
you’re going to scream at me
but I’m chanting I can take it
throwing words like
broken mirror pieces of me
beating the pinata of my disguises
but I’m chanting I can take it
breaking accusations over my head
scalding me with tears
that I never wanted to bring to you
on the silver platter
I thought would do you good.
the stars I plucked
to put on your brow
have rotted and turned into
pumpkin seeds;
it was my sleight of hand
that placed them there
and your desperate want to believe me.
now you’re a whirlwind
of shattered stained glass.
I’m chanting I can take it.
the stars swim down
through wicker-woven clouds
to say goodnight to your beauty.
I say goodnight to your beauty,
too, though I wish I was a star like you,
exploding over millions of miles
or quietly winking from farther away.
I sing and I sing and I sing
to you of dreams I’ve had
and notions that came to me
while I watched you sleeping
and I sang them softly
to you into the little cup of your ear
which never overflows;
it listens and holds all of my nonsense,
but only while you’re sleeping.
only while you’re sleeping.
Musings in the Night Aire
Posted: June 14, 1993 in PoetryTags: Black, Cloak, Clouds, Coean, Cry, Dark, Leaves, Light, Night, Salt, Seagull, Silver, Stars, Trees, Water, Wind, World, Yellow
perching like a poet –
I found a table and a bench
tucked away on a second story walkway
of the Arts building
just for me.
a yellow magnesium light
shines down on this paper
turning letters into dancing figures
that say something important to me
so I can pretend I am a poet.
a walk in the dark
took me silent and alone
wandering eccentric between buildings
past fire escapes instead of front doors,
tracing the short cuts college students create
and watching the eucalyptus trees
move in the streetlights that hilight half of their curves,
only the undersides of their leaves.
I smell wet grass and hear the rush of water
in automated sprinkler lines.
I sight along the patterns made
by erroneous pulses of silver
meant for grass or shrub.
they tease soap from the asphault instead.
the lagoon is one big black unmoving body of ink
lthe color of the folds of my cloak;
that’s whipping around my bare legs in the salty wind
from the ocean saying “shush, shush”
to the cry of a single seagull.
it passes near me; I look up,
through misty clouds low enough to
strain through treetops,
at a couple of dim stars
Escher drew for me.
what is left of the world is really not worth living for,
but it is a job, a challenge,
and I like trying to write it all down.
I observe like my predecessors:
civilization working itself into a frenzy
over nothing, there’s no advancement –
just continuing over and over to find new ways
to convince itself that it is working,
that we’re worth it, that we’ll make it.
convincing itself that we’re right.
convincing itself that we’ve done nothing
that we can’t undo
later.
I don’t have very many pictures of my life;
no cute heart frames around me and my brother,
no portraits capturing me with any of my friends
so I can reminisce about them.
nothing but my memory is left
of the times I’ve spent with some of them
whom I remember but have no proof
that I knew them at all
except for a story or two I’ll tell too tall
and sometimes that is enough
when I’m in good form mnemonically
and I can picture my pictures easily
on my eyelids when they’re closed,
when I’m quiet and smiling a little
about some shenanigans with a figure from the past
who’s bigger than Abe Lincoln to me
or George Washington and his cherry tree
because he or she hails from my history.
I’ll remember them all when I have the time
just to stay put and write,
whittling my own likenesses of them out of paper
and colored ink; phrases and expressions
that I stole from each one of them
in order for me to memorize them;
it’s something I’m looking forward to doing later.
he sat under a narrow bridge
and skulked, the fairy-tale Troll.
I was the one who sat under the bridge
and chose not to demand a toll.
I could have asked for the world on a plate
or rich trinkets, various and sundry.
but he was a reclusive faint-hearted Troll
who wished Man good will and went hungry.
oh I hope for a natural disaster, too
just like you, so I can make do
with my own resources
and tame wild horses
to ride past the memories of fossil fuels.
just an earthquake or two
gentle enough to shake apart
the concrete and steel,
to crack the awful ribcage
around the city’s broken heart
barely beating, it can’t support
the far-flung extremities that it can’t feel,
worn roads like nerve systems
that are so slow to report.
sunder it with waves in the earth
and blame it on a poet’s curse.
Black Jack
Posted: June 6, 1993 in PoetryTags: Beach, Birds, Black, Cat, Dead, Eye, Fire, Flowers, Heart, Red, Rock, Skull, Water, Wing
I
and when the madness comes
she creeps around the corridors,
pausing to stomp on cats’ tails
pausing to drive in rusty nails
and slam subconscious doors
behind my eyes.
II
it would be easy one day
to fall down and stay,
not moving, wherever I was
and not respond to my rescuers;
to get placed away for refusing to speak
or move or do anything for myself.
so easy and tempting, just for a week.
I’m sure they’d find something to do with me.
III
I GO ON THIS VICIOUS CYCLE:
I love her forever.
Can I trust her?
I can trust her.
Will I love her forever?
I love her forever.
Can I trust her?
I can trust her.
Will I love her forever?
I GO ON THIS VICIOUS CYCLE.
IV
the air was full of birds,
these pigeons and seagullls
that I had disturbed
walking along the beach by myself
wondering if she’s all by herself.
but putting that aside
would we have walked on by
all of this wild-winged fuss
if it wasn’t just me but if it had been us?
V
keep on going until the pen runs out
and finally I might figure it out.
I’m pulling apart flowers for answers
and neither type of petal reassures
me of this thing I’d like to realize
is right or wrong or right before my eyes.
this pile of broken flowers, growing higher
is colored like a cheerful winter fire
but dead without the red that makes it gay
is my heart, ashen cold and worn away.
VI
I’m frozen in the moment
that I’ve jumped from a high place
trying for the water;
it’s not enough to miss the rocks.
frozen
in the
moment.
it is stealing over my face.
look closely. there’s the rocks.
VII
I made it to 21. like blackjack.
VIII
that Catholic skull that I dreamed of
at least once a year since I was seven or eight
was me, laughing at least once a year
that I was still stupidly here.
IX
the idea of breaking
so many hearts,
of making the many upset,
of shaking alll of these folks;
it seems like the ultimate cannonball
in the jacuzzi of life.
I thought this building was so strong
but I don’t have enough furniture
to cozy up the rooms.
Soaring to the sky, perhaps;
a beautiful glass and steel structure
but these changes are not a home yet.
Now I’m desperately searching for
cheap end tables and green-glass bowls,
wrought iron chandeliers and wall sconces for candles,
oriental throw rugs and complete boardgames.
I found the violets
I want to weave in your hair
so that they knock it aside
to dangle in your eyes –
a halo of purple and ivy;
a halo to see for the halo I know
is over your brow.
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