my father said
that he enjoyed looking
at a full day’s work
from his truck
covered
in grit and sweat
smelling
of beer and cigarettes
when he died
his eyes were closed
surrounded
by the meager fruits
of his labor
I wonder
was it worth it
When you come home
From a long day
In the summer sun
Rosey cheeks, freckles aglow
Red curls falling from your hat
Welcoming you back home
Each evening with a kiss
Is like a gift I can’t wait
To open every single day
Reminded of a time
When I wished and prayed for
Everything we have right now
It beats any scratch-off
I ever won on!
I had a dream that I was metaphorically / made of glass and I shattered
fragile shards transparent / flaked apart in the dirt, pieces of soul reduced
to the caution signs that were not in place / yet would have made more sense to be
sometimes, not all revolving moments, I wonder / if there exists
a known or named sentiment for the phenomenon / in which what was feels too unpoetic
for the realism of occurrence / when what was not is too numinous to be unreal
the unchosen, broken chances may bite but the stories / too close to truth, may they thrive
in the minds of the unchosen / or the unchoosers who strode too confidently away
from the perception of the idea of what could have been / becoming more than speculation
did it hurt? / when the moon rose at the same time as the sun
and the music rang out from a corner away / yet you were separated by distance abundant
two feet on which to walk, two arms with which to write barely enough / to capture
this planet’s next near miss / never minding you wished to have been torn by the proposition?
Eve bit the apple and the juices
dripped from Her
lips.
and god told Her
to wipe the juice dry
and forget the taste of the sweet
flesh.
but Eve ached for it.
She begged and cried out for it,
lustfully,
hungrily.
and so, god, in all his misery,
damned Her daughters,
whoever dared to eat the fruit, to taste
nothing.
not sour, nor bitter,
for even that would give Her some understanding,
some distaste or disgust or
preference.
no, She is forbidden the knowledge of even
its opposite, as that grants her a guess
at the truth.
and, of course, god did not damn every daughter.
if none knew of its sweetness,
the Others would not know to want.
She could not struggle to understand,
She could not hunger, nor lust,
the way Her Mother did.
many will know its sweetness,
will lap the juices like a
dog in the hot sun,
greedily,
selfishly.
and they will call out to an Other,
“have you tasted this apple? my, has
there ever been anything so
sweet?”
damned, the Other will swallow
and taste nothing
and She will call back
“I’ve never tasted anything like it,”
for She cannot speak of her thirst
and She can never
quench it.
Floating on the dirty water
The sun beaming on my skin
His smile almost just as bright
Digging through rocks
Trying to find the perfect blue
To match his ocean eyes
My cheeks hurt from laughing so much
Cold beer takes my nerves away
He kisses me on the forehead
A painting of Italy hanging on the wall
The sun starting to fall
My walls along with it
Oh, how it feels to finally have
Someone look at me
The way I look at them
Billie is still there
slumped over
sitting on the sidewalk
under the Memorial Mural
honoring the street cat, “Killer”
The wall just barely
holds Billie upright
where he lingers sometimes
for long stretches of time
with his chin on his chest,
a man somewhere in his 60’s,
weathered skin, close cropped gray hair,
things strewn all around
marking his campsite
Now that the weather is fair again
for many random days and nights
Billie crumples down under Killer
He slept through a day-long
Street Festival last Saturday.
People walked by seeing and not seeing
some thought he was dead
Police and Homeless Services
never get anywhere with him
when they ask—-he just says he is resting
and has only stopped to fold his laundry,
like nothing is wrong
When he decides to stretch
he always leaves behind
his newspaper mattress
mixed with stray papers
and rolling around cups
His walk is a fast shuffle
with short quick steps
moving hurriedly at an angle leaning forward
as though he is escaping something
but he always ends up back here
maybe with a new bag,
wearing new clothes,
though ill fitting
from the church
They say he was born here
in this neighborhood
and that he will never leave
this is his home
This is where his first dreams began
now drug dreams
lull him to sleep
with “Killer”
his only
companion
For Tony
You came to America twenty-six years ago as a student who knew very little English. You did not choose to mix politics with remaining in your new homeland. In English, you asked a Kentucky lady how much she would take to marry you? Her answer was: five thousand, laddy, confusing Israel and Ireland. You take up her offer and marry her. You endure the sham for five years, before you can legally get your divorce, and remain in America. In the court, your worst fears came to pass. You get nothing, she gets everything but America, your dream.
Two lanes and lost in tunes
turned up to drown out whirring
tires, right along with all the time
in this world—give me those days
again, those miles of dreams,
those backroads curled as smoke
against the hills, fading lines
in rearview sunsets. Keep the pedal
locked in motion, speed racer,
crack the windows and trust the wheels
to read signs as they come—
Stop
Caution
Yield
we pass back & forth
the white leaves,
taking turns reading their etchings
until we set down the pages
& kiss, & then
we are still
there’s no time
to write a good poem.
I have ideas
but I don’t know how to say them
poetically.
it’s giving fraudulent behavior :-/
i’m sorry
