Poems May 2011

We wind our way
Aimlessly, and yet off target
Knowing where to go
Knowing the path, the route
Traced on a map in shaking handwriting
And taking all minutiae of deviations
All possible tourist traps
Burning lotsa gas in a
big-assed American way
And sneaking back to the same carport every night
Discussing our wasted time while wasting time
With a friend, with Doritos and a heating pad.

First up
Then into the hall
To the boy's room and bending low over to hear
The telltale wheeze

In the armchair downstairs
The bars of a venetian blind thrown across my chest
We can sit and ponder
The unwilling genetic will imposed on our kin

The allergies
The talkativeness
The tendency to wander around
Never feeling fit in and

Always at the start of something magical

There is a ghost party
Across the street
Echoing off the houses
Flitting around the children
As no-see-ums orbit bug lamps

A dead man yells
An ex-woman laughs
Drinks are served promptly
And we awaken and die with the sun drunk stumbling a stair of clouds on the morning

They're at it again
She's cursing again
A basso profundo voice unimpeded by a majority of teeth

I suppose later they'll divide the spoils, make love in the kitchen, top off the night with ice cream

Drive through town on beautiful nights
girls
firm as sugar snap peas

I'm unimaginable
with my imagined hump and screwed face

Five thousand nights from then
they'd never talk to me
Tree thousand nights hence
same thing

What can be done?
I've a step ladder for a heart
Up and down, never quite high enough
As I spot flaws in an old friend's make-up
The lover is me

The monster, me, too.

Silence is the sand in my eyes
The spasm in my back
The pain twice regretted

Floating zeppelins of it
Track across the ceiling
It is solely for them to decide

It is for you to decide.

The night is populated with tiny sounds
Ticks
Cars miles off
A jet somewhere
A boy turns over and exhales
And my ring
Like a parasite in my ears
My Siamese twin
Talking during the silence of the movie,
saying,
"I'm going to remind you of what you lost forever. You'll be one of those sad old men in the Arabian Nights, crying forever because you opened a door you shouldn't have."

Outside
is it a lone bird
heard calling?
Three notes:
One Two Three

And is there a note of
desperation there?
a chirp in the dark
or is it me
The ring in my ears
The deeper gloom
painted over

The bird in the dark:
Is it me?