Nostalgic relapse in 32-bit
pixel art and grainy soundtracks
dearly remembered.
Remap the keys for my fingers
filled with more shakes and age.
Run quickly through stages
but linger on screenshots
I didn’t understand back then.
Realize themes. Recall morals.
I was less patient back then
when pillows were booster seats
and I didn’t know my name.
(after Donald Justice)
avoid the damn mirror
it doesn’t mean a thing
there’s really no wrinkles in it
or blood shot eyes
or missing teeth
or sunken chest
or a million moles
or hairy ears that look like howling wolf
but really you can’t avoid it
for isn’t it suppose to be the essence
of the singular fact of your existence
and give you back exactly who you are
exactly
this one starts at the floor
and rises five and a half feet
curiously congruent
with the subject at hand
why is it here
and for how long,
and for how much longer
will it tell its lies
it claims that if you stay perfectly still
and stare at its surface
some inner truth will be revealed
maybe the size of the heart
or even a hint of the soul
or maybe a glimpse
of a seven year old boy
inside a seventy-seven year old body
but that quickly melts into
slouching shoulders in a baggy sweater
a frank unflattering look,
you cannot forgive the damn thing
or laugh at it, though you’ve tried,
or ignore its daily terror
your only hope is for a graceful truce
until you are no more
“why are you kissing me with your mouth open?”
you ask, bewildered, staring down at my slobbering
parted lips after it met yours.
well, my love, what if i just want to
eat you up and swallow you whole?
it’s not my fault there is so much love to kiss!
my closed lips are too small to feel all of yours!
why don’t you stop being so damn kissable, huh?
ever think about that?!
…just kidding, please don’t be less kissable.
(though i don’t think you could if you tried)
i just really like how soft and lovely your kisses feel.
(stop looking so cute with your affection)
oh well.
what can i say,
i am a maximizer.
mwah.
Babe? Are you manic?
That’s a lot of money, and
you don’t even play.
Hands smelling of Windex
I was using to clean caked plexiglass.
We only clean when company comes,
some bigwig with hawk’s eyes ready
to see what’s been left. My arm
going numb from the effort, reaching
above my head. They pay me really well
coming in on a Sunday, a pittance
next to what they’d pay a cleaning service.
The grease gets into everything
so they break out the industrial-strength
to combat it. Rubber gloves handed out
to keep the new stuff off your skin.
Spray and wipe, spray and wipe,
a little at a time, pulling up years
of filth, resulting in a streak-free shine
that will, despite my best efforts,
be gone by next week.
we skip alleys nearby stadiums;
(we don’t even go to baseball.)
we do not enter the arena;
(we are not here to watch fighting.)
we find a $5 parking lot,
drive past the real live human
attendant.
He yells,
doing his job.
(we don’t feel good.
it passes.)
Oftentimes
Poems arrive in a sketch form in my head
and act like little newly hatched birds with no feathers, half-blind
rolling in the nest..seeking and sensing
even though not fully formed
On arrival
a poetic sketch sometimes makes me run out into the yard
with a big shovel and start digging for something
deep in the dirt —better words—-the right words
maybe something I just sense is there —
but I must get at it while the idea is still breathing
—still sparking within —
though making me breathe a different way,
semi-gasping through the dirt clouds forming
After digging a while
When I look down I see myself
looking up clawing my way out
I meet myself there in the dark, nod,
and see that I have just gone far enough
having hit a vein of gold to buy myself some time
I stay behind to bury the words that perished along the way
Then run away with an armload of possibles
seeking a cave of solitude
where I throw spaghetti against the wall until some sticks
On this day in 1933
Lilian Harvey Lewis
was born, not early,
but tiny.
Doctor’s advice: have
her baptized right
away. She won’t live
out the week.
She outlived that
prediction by 78 years.
Left her childhood
in Scranton, became
a nurse, married
a Midwestern doctor,
raised six children
in upstate New York.
She was always fragile.
She was always strong.
Rheumatic fever, arthritis,
heart disease slowed
but did not stop her
from laughing, from
becoming a late in life
political activist.
And when her heart
finally did wear out, she
quietly let go, surrounded
by all the people she loved.
