we threw life all over the ledge.
it fell off and hit people in the hat
and then it was thrown at them.
it rained on them like sleet
in the irritating sun
first we gathered spilling fistfuls
then scooped it up from our feet
and eagarly set it to the air
to land with the fallen leaves
and mingle in the mud
we threw life on our strangers.
they refused to look up
and open their hands.
whatever was left we ate
and left the crumbs for the wind
August and everything afterwards
lets its presence be known
sharp as tacks
it attacks
When you're all alone
the sky grows darker inch by inch
evenings hold more weight
Time begins to separate
between now and what's to come
everything afterwards
everything as the words
Explain what already begun
for mom
The growing numbers hardly notice
the candle diminish:
Its flame burns as before,
an azure diamond
touched with copper
swept into a golden tear.
The numbers progress into
empty prepositions
and begin to
expand into memories
while the candle
recedes into small pools
of congealing wax
floating high atop
heavenly mounds.
Melts into solemn drops of
memory so sweet they cling
to palms, lips
and even numbers.
Melts because it has to,
because it waits for a breath
devoid of anything but warm air,
serene in the thick layers of
innocuous cake.
Melts when growing numbers
have provided all there is
to wish.
True Confessions of the Down and Out Hipster
My life's one long open mic night.
I came for coffee: two sugars, no cream,
one line of guitarists stroking their
Gibsons, Fenders, their cracked Yamahas.
Sugar settles at the bottom
music wraps around my feet.
I stay rooted in couch,
ankle deep in sound fury
an incomprehensible Dylan cover
we all fake the words to.
Heavily lined magnetic eyes
two week old calluses
stanzas of gibberish.
Suddenly the coffee's finished,
save the glazed over dregs
too intense to handle.
He rubs his guitar pick up each string
in his vocal chords.
I abandon the mug,
ease to the door.
It's open mic night
Everyone knows I don't play guitar.
It was 82 degrees.
Her lips felt like melting off
into pools of rouge and wax and lust
to congeal into a fat pancake of desire
to be wrapped in violet paper
and smoked like a joint.
The sun crept through the plumes
of smoke and into his eyes
like so much sunlight likes to do.
It fastened itself to his lids,
clung to his pupils
dripped off his lashes.
It rolled down his cheeks
hung from his mouth.
Now he tastes copper
and platinum and amber.
She closes her eyes quickly,
before she, too, is enveloped.
He tastes guilt so bitter
it makes him shiver in the heat,
head in his hands,
lies at his feet.
I miss my old friends
the boys and their chains dangling past
their knotty knees.
The closets. The significance of
one hand-holding
in the course of a walk on
one shared neighborhood
In their baggy pants and post-adolescent weariness.
Those nights caked in the dirt of rolling around in front yards,
in the tears of a failed romance.
Gone, gone like those shaggy haircuts
of self-reliance. Welcome to the world,
better wise up. Cut that hair, Steves;
lose those twinkling eyes.
Welcome to tomorrow.
Nostalgic for my novice November:
Nice nuances of ndecent noises
and ntolerable naps on necks.
Nine-- no, noon. Nderstanding.
Numbers, neurotic nanoseconds
naturally neglecting the notion
that everything eventually N's.
like fingers or hair clippings or soul searching
late night poetry that is read aloud and eaten
for breakfast with a pill and a cup of milk.
so the nails don't scratch, or the hair fall apart
and the smile stays smeared on the faces of
children who choose to remain passive in bed,
and lie through their teeth while their milk
falls from their cup, unraveling strands of hair
from their hands and folding their fingers
as a nearly impulsive afterthought.