I wish I had a summer body.
A Beach Body.
One I didn’t want to shrink.
Cutting away at the fat.
Tuck this and Nip that.
Suck me dry.
I want to be swallowed by the body I was once in.
Smaller
Light
Compared to things like feathers and petals and tiny beautiful things
I am tired of being sturdy
Rock solid
I cry when someone says
“Wow you look amazing.”
Because how can something I despise be seen as anything that great.
Images of them splinter his dreams.
Thick smoke limps from the quick whip
In lightning. Face cards fall dead
Clubs or hearts bring the same.
This nightly dive into them splashes red
Into tall stacked chips. He folds a pair.
Can’t he tell they smell the gin in his hair.
The clock talks of thunder dropping on glass
Idiot end, one lady. He sips wine and dread.
Can he catch a crown in a game of breaks?
The hand shakes all in with two ginger faces.
Indelibly sweet fully vested they, both aces.
best he can hope for is to die before he wakes.
rival portraits
hang above the doorway
base orange
chromatics
blink
align to ressemblance,
teasing orderly
conduct
wind like every night
across the river
a fiesta
for the ages
accordions
miles long
a lone raven, hovers
in the rose sky
how much better
its view
“.. 8-year-old Vladimir brought a butterfly to his cell as a gift.”
New York Times, Jan. 25, 2011
Echoes dart off walls like lizards,
off snuff-colored floors—
It was a melody of sickening hues and a prison
guard’s pock-marked face. Mother brought larkspur
and chamomile. My gift was a white cabbage
butterfly, preserved. You praised
its proper labeling, the delicate pinning
of its water-white wings. Pale fire
of twig veins, those slender wonders! Your black
trousers droop. You are thinner since last
September’s visit. Belts and suspenders
forbidden, I thread my index fingers
through the loops, pulling your dark pants up
playfully. We recite Shakespeare in English,
Baudelaire in French. Our arrogance
is a hot delicious borsht! It enrages the squid-eyed
guard. He plods six-feet closer; his spittle
dripping on the long pine table. Father,
no time to talk about our Borzoi’s injured
paw. Nothing about her quiet whining, slow
licking. We are ousted from Kresly Prison. The sky
fills with industrial smoke, grey hardening of sleet.
after Rafael Alberti
Someone cries.
They are crying.
We are crying.
I am going to cry.
They climb my shores and cry.
Someone brooms.
Climbing they cry.
Waves crash, they boom.
Stop the sweeping of the tides.
BUT WE MUST CRY FOR THE FISH
The open air a wonder
lasso the moon with silvery ropes,
& throttle her past Mars to Jupiter
with all of my hopes.
The port beaches around the world die,
boats dig in on land as sculpture studies
sailing in place,
halibut flop on wet sand to end her petulant crying,
the distance to shore shocks the casual bicyclist,
& the cold sharpness of lobster’s claws cut today
though nothing fair as perdition should ever upset,
since I am a God Omnipotent,
& I can sling planets to far Neptune’s length.
The problem solved I want to cry for the fish.
The dame can stop crying, she got what she wished.
It’s rained for many days
Muggy and dismal at best
Stormy and windy at worst
The summer heat is there
But no sunshine alongside
No swimming or cookouts
Inside watching rain run
In rivets down the window
Wishing for a reprieve for
Just a little while, maybe
All we want is summer
But this is what we got
I sit on this balcony, my door wide open to the evening sounds.
Behind a lemon tree and palms and falling water to mask the party below.
Under glass skylights that reflect twinkling lights below
And it all seems so real
But the air gives it away
Stale from the day of people walking to and from, the plants hurry to catch up.
I wonder, where are the mosquitos?
