untitled
Fifteen words to sum up
The last several years:
I took on too much shit
i can see the future stretched out before me and its
foggy breadth and infinite depth
will not deter me now
i am not a fallen fig, syvlia
i am shoulder for the sake of wing, patti
i am not afraid, nana.
i am taking a slow drag of this cigarette, sons
i am in the night, walt, i am watching the stars and feeling the cold
i am a piecing together of what i have met
i am potential i will not waste
i am standing back up
i am walking forward
Poetry can take you over I say
One of life’s saving graces she replies
This immodest month wanes with the sun
coming back from his farthest fling
behind the neighbor’s barn doing god
knows what with the moon. It’s when
my writing tree, surrounded by black-eyed
susans, hears the strange twitch of pen
on paper and when June, in the deep heat
of lustful rut, raises her dress and drops
her drawers.
Words thick as new honey
gum the page with my futile effort to
gluttony life from a month’s tangled briars
where rabbits do what every playboy only
imagines. What a patch of vowels it takes
to make her happy…oh & ah & um & oo
Cease the keening for iris and crocus.
Say goodbye to flattened, fading, and fallen
lily petals that lit up pond with their startling white
as evening married night.
Keep your eye on the hibiscus that, seized by July,
will bring forth alabaster bloom after bloom
after bloom, opening them like umbrellas with red tongues,
then launching them like novas just before
they land and lay silent
strewn about like shreds of silk.
Crave the unfolding magenta of crepe myrtle
in August, those stately blossoms
upright and pointing to sun.
Beyond this, let your thoughts rest—now
you sit by pond in a pool of evening’s light
and watch bats seesaw and frolic
and ricochet between moon and branch
their morning just begun.
Middle Aged Couple
The middle aged couple
long-married
duck into the coffee shop
out of the rain
he guiding her in
with his tallness
his caring
she smiling back and up to him
physical closeness
echoing emotional.
And I think how blissful
is this trust,
this communion
how protected they are
under this umbrella of concern.
And I wonder
could I ever again
be this unguarded
this caught up in devotion.
Gee, I wonder who you’ll blame when the bill comes due
Probably me
I haven’t given enough of mine to you yet
To waste
It’s my fault, I know, that you don’t have enough
I oppress you by merely breathing
This job I stole could have been yours
If only I had paid for you to learn math and science
And bought you a new suit, a phone, and a bus pass
Then called to make sure you got up in time
But I didn’t
Because I’m selfish, bad and stupid
You know I hate you
You know what I think every minute
It’s obvious you know more about me than I do
That must just be awful
Hey, look right here – this is a prophecy:
Your children’s children will despise you
For cavalierly pitching their freedom
Into the dumpster
You set afire
With what you stole from them
They would have kicked over your headstone
But it’s been repossessed
There’s a restaurant in town
with petunias by the patio
and black veneer tables inside,
an orchid at every booth.
A photo of the late
King Bhumibol
presides over the two-stool bar
and a damsel fish aquarium.
We run into friends
before we settle into booth #3,
the minced chicken basil
just like the ka-prow-kai in Thailand.
I use chop sticks to savor the flavor
of fluffy rice and spicy sauce,
water to cool the palate.
Conversation comes to a stop.
I am wistful
For things that never happened —
At least, not to me.
I look back to dreams
That I borrow-stole’d
From others who made them real
For themselves.
What was my dream?
What did I want out of my life?
What did I work so hard at
To, maybe, attain some goal?
I am terrified
Of increasingly indistinct memories
That pull at me with haint-hands
I set things in motion,
But I turned my back;
Now Father faintly recognizes
His own progeny.
What is my dream?
What do I want out of the rest of my life?
What can I work so hard at
To, maybe, attain a new goal?
I am so sorry, my children!
Daddy let himself get lost.
While I still have power to move
My hands to hold yours,
May I?
May we dream, strive, achieve —
Together?
Jay is increasingly obsessed with time and its short supply. Want more proof? Here’s an old song he wrote about a certain malfunctioning clock. He should have fully completed it. —Ed.
Solstice passed, summer begins
in somber reflection
of these seasonal storms.
Where many celebrate,
I sit stewing
in the simplicity of insanity.
In the summer, my world crashes.
People die, people leave,
they tell me secrets that destroy
loved images starring in memories,
showing me
I never really knew them at all.
Summer started early this year
as it sometimes does.
Stripped me of someone
so ingrained in my being
it’s amazing
that I am still standing.
It might have been a mistake
on summer’s part,
to leave me time to resign
for a plan to survive;
whatever force works behind these days,
for once I am ahead.
Determined to succeed,
I forgive the preemptive strike.
Some things you just can’t control
From here, my suspicious eye
will spy on every new idea.
Summer won’t have anymore surprises.
