STAN LAUREL AND OLIVER HARDY NONCHALANTLY 
           BREAK 75 TO 76 CARS THEN AFFIRM IT WAS 
THE GRIEVOUS FAULT OF ONE SLIPPERY BANANA PEEL

It surprises me the Prohibition has almost universally provided 
     police provision to apprehend drunks on the hour every hour
because I want to know who invented the pride that enters
     chocolate when it remembers the wheated white cream
And I am preoccupied much with silence and astronomy
and the velocities of a multiplicity of standing horses
and the unmoving express trains prefiguring future deaths
     in lost trams across the clouds
but more than this was you coming into the world wearing a hat
     looking preoccupied
yeeeeeeessss
I regularly remember my little maternal grandmother 
when a rasping raven razed the tower
and your breakfast, Ollie, 144 nails and brass tacks 
     numbering 18
and it is that they fired you as chauffeur for ignoring all the cities
     on the Left
I think I’m going to have to cry
I think I’m going to have to cry this sunrise because a streetlight
     killed my bicycle

                        WE ARE GOING TO CRY

and my soul, scientifically preoccupied, knows, that 
     the elaborative process of steaming cocoa goes
     slowly with tears
because I fall crying always, 12 to 13 times daily
and now resulting that I have no need of snacking
it appears we have no need of snacking
of crying
of snacking
of crying and snacking
or of snacking and crying

                   WE WILL NEVER CRY OR SNACK AGAIN

and it is that I would like to die because
     I am very much in love
and I am filled with tenderness when I see a 
     policeman dressed as a white bird
I am very much in love and you are filled
     with tenderness completely when 
     you see a policeman dressed as a white
     bird
and 
     suffering the grave error of confusing
     the police station for a fruit plate when 
          you know I want to die
     tell me seriously if I want to die.

Author: Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi

You know he only calls when his body 
wants–a deal you make. Believe him
when he gives so little of himself to you.
It’s all he has left in this modern age: a whiff
of smoke and the beast of him, horns gleaming
in halogen. It’s like the end of something,
in a way. So much mood and drama.
Maybe the candle wants to be winnowed

The clouds moved so slow today
I looked up–
for some answers
thought I knew where this sentence was going
watered the garden 
tall with bee balm firecrackers
white goose neck loose strife
hanging all over everything 
lillies on the verge–
           on-the-verge 
yes that’s it
what I’m feeling finally–
waiting for that cloudburst 
waiting for lightening
waiting for those damn lillies
to just open their little orange plant lungs
and sing and
bloom already!

bloom already!

I’m a brake bleeder

Barred owl calls before sunset,
who cooks for you, who?
Mockingbird sings into the night,
operatic medley of bird songs. 

Who cooks for you, who?
Dad taught me that,
and the operatic medley of bird songs.
Mom taught me how to feed a crowd. 

Dad taught me that
the world opens itself to open eyes.
Mom taught me how to feed a crowd,
how to improvise and make do. 

The world opens itself to open eyes.
Tonight I saw my first firefly.
I’ve learned how to improvise and make do,
even when summer starts cold and wet. 

Tonight I saw my first firefly.
Barred owl called before sunset.
Even when summer starts cold and wet,
Mockingbird sings into the dark. 

The first time I saw the ocean
It was such a marvel to me!
I had spent my life land-locked
Tucked deep in the foothills
Of my beloved Appalachians

I had never seen anything so 
Vast and sparkling, like tiny
Diamonds strewn out across
A blue blanket; ebbing and
Flowing as the tides rolled

The sand was hot to touch
The air briney with salt and
I, just standing there, taking
It 
    All
        In 

the whole ocean is disturbed based on the ripples I observe;
and I see you’ve never felt more alive being pulled within the tide 
the emotions the depths couldn’t hide
as the top layer won’t subside  

the tip of the Big Dipper drips down on us 
and we collide with the waters and the sky,
us and our surroundings unify and we feel slightly more spry as we ask if our existence is lie 

and if it was we just wouldn’t care because life is short and a present presence rare
so we choose to not be hesitant and aware 

and in the vastness of the universe, we found our place
but your departure left me lost and feeling erased

your love a trip to infinity, leaving me scattered
we looked at the stars, I felt small, but we mattered..

She is exhausted all the time,
and every minute of nursing and burping,
another minute of freedom she never knew
         — Gone.

Like smoke that rises from the coals
and fills every inch, every ion,
clothing every molecule of oxygen in its cloak
until breathing is impossible.

She was chosen, this mother-child,
She chose, this child-mother.
Breathing deep in the face of God,
she was free to decide
although it had already been decided.

That single moment loops in time
like yarn endlessly knit over and through. 
Time skips like a record,
popping and scratching
          — Say yes. Say yes.

She gives all of herself in gulping mouthfuls.
How the child suckles, her child,
born to be given up one day
without a place deep enough to grieve,
without a stone to lie flowers.

And that single moment skips like a record,
popping and scratching
          — Say yes. Say yes.

The ache,
Seeping through marrow cracks,
Like the cold from a blue norther.
The shadow of wholeness left behind, reflected in pictures of messages that sustain me without your sun.
Faith in the plan,
some days fragile, threatening to topple with moth-winged-winds but no more blind than the moon crescent winking at Venus.
Tonight, sleep will bring your face before me
And Gilead ghost-touches on my skin.
I am here.
Waiting.

bird song
before the sun
little fluff ball with dreams
aspiring to be a rooster
shut up