The boxer is the poet of the flesh.
Home is my mother’s voice.
Words marinate in this sweet air.
Tangle up with me like bramble. I leave marks.
Neighbors idling at property lines, smiling, bags of dogshit swinging like scrotums.
Laugh at the storm while preparing for it.
The poet is the boxer of the soul.
Leave nothing behind but a scent people want to keep.
in buen retiro park six schoolboys
chase a snow white dove tame & fat
like all park doves she flies
only enough to stay just out of reach
they had chosen the quickest path
to the other side where lunch waits
but now lured by bait set in a trap
of their own making they wander
off into the woods as they laugh out
don’t step on the holy spirit
that would be the great blasphemy
& they laugh laugh the laughter
of boys unsure if the game
they play is childish nonsense
or deadliest game they’ve yet divised
I watch the local news with the
sound turned down, the videos
sufficient to convey the latest misdeeds
of the ambient ne’er-do-wells.
It’s amazing what a little eyeliner can do.
I always enjoyed your church-girl smile
but seeing you this morning it’s as if
Sunday school suddenly got rated R.
I can’t take my eyes off yours.
aphorism i
the only decisions
you regret: the ones
you abandoned
yourself.
aphorism ii
never give your time
for anything, except
the fuck yes.
aphorism iii
solitude is golden
but dangerous; you are
like to meet
yourself.
aphorism iv
the wisdom of age:
you’re never alone
when you know
what you want.
I walked into the beauty supply store
Just tagging along
Not grumpy or impatient
An odd day
I stood looking
Behind the counter
Rows and rows
Long, straight, beautiful
Human hair
I knew immediately
But didn’t say
I went home
Asked Google
“The supply chain of human hair is poorly understood”
I understand
In too many awful, evil places
Hair slaves
this world is a chancy
dive where the odds are ever
shifting
yuh pays yuh
money and takes
yuh chances
beg for luck
to be a lady and shoot
your wad
let it all ride
on this
one
last
roll
Target
So many ghosts there.
All the years feathering out nests–
new towels, sheets, kitchen gadgets.
Forever drawn to the new and shiny,
all the years of burying presents,
ever hopeful, dutiful, trying to please.
And now more buying lists.
Will this Samsara never end?
What of lasting value have we kept?
We’re like birds constantly pecking.
What will fill us up?
I slice the navel orange
into halves, quarters, eighths.
My front teeth pull
the cold pulp from the peel.
Tart sweet juice spurts
onto my tongue. The overflow
is sticky on my fingers, drizzles
down my chin. My lips press
into every inch of the fruit,
and I try not to think
of some Chevy Silverado driving
through a Florida citrus grove;
masked migrant workers balanced
on the truck bed, spraying
pesticides on the leaves
and hanging fruit – to ensure
a profitable yield. I try not to imagine
how that residue might be charging
through my body’s chemistry,
changing it.
Flavor wins over fear, my friends.
A lifetime of eating poison-tainted
oranges isn’t so alarming. Maybe,
in the long run, it will have saved me
a few less days of over-ripeness
and rot when I dangle
in a nursing home, waiting
for the inevitable drop.
