Thursday, January 26, 2012

For Emily on Her Birthday

Yesterday, a vague and distant
memory of a moment in
time when the possibilities
burgeoned beyond vivacious dreams,
resides in the past where it belongs.

Today, a day to smooch beloved
companions wetly as if spit
were for sharing, and squeeze breath
away with wide-armed hugs as if
tomorrow were some abstraction.

It may well be; we cannot know
until it comes, or it does not.
For now, focus on what exists:
a sharp mind, a promising smile.
Live again, older and more loved.

Live again, and again, and again.

Still Life

Above Crenshaw smog hangs heavy
while hectic buses putter by
wheezing out thick clouds, similar
to weed smoke from the swisher tip,
opposite the end where we press
lips to suck down serenity,
streets where colors make enemies,
where power is represented
by crack sales, shell toes, and cell phones,
by jail time, tattoos, spitting rhymes,
blocks where vatos sip Agave
tequilana, with heads shaved bald,
voices that roll R's and speak of
the grimy smog of poverty.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Ode to Physical Books and Digressions

I peel back the dog-eared outer layer.
A musty whiff drifts languidly up
off the dull pages, yellowed like cracking
paint, yellowed like the ghastly wall-
-paper of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's mind.

Spatters of ebon ink mottle jaundiced
skin, daubs through sheaves like black melanoma,
black as was the night in Robert Browning's
heart as spiteful winds brought elm tops tumbling
near to vexed lakes
when glided in Porphyria.

Imperfections limn the pages, rips and tears
which turn, spider, wind and disappear below
words as waters often rush underground,
like Coleridge's churning, sacred river
running
through caverns measureless to man.

They power on vibrant, illumined screens.
Thoughts appear in mutable forms, shifting
pixels boxed together with the brightness
and uniformity of a Warhol
which girls love, neither of which I understand.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

To A Nunnery

 “...Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds /
Or bends with the remover to remove: / O no! It is an ever-
fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken; /
It is the star to every wandering bark...”
~William Shakespeare, Sonnet #116

Get thee to a nunnery. Why, wouldst though be a breeder
of sinners?...I am proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more
offences at my beck...”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Je te déteste,” she said.
I rubbed at the wrinkles
marring my strained and
weary countenance and said,
Headache today. No French, 'kay?”

She roared with heat like some
balmy squall over the Indies,
kicking up waves of white
sheets, hailing down expensive
pens and pencils, tossing
eyeglasses violently like some
wandering bark in turbulent seas
until it crashed upon jagged land;
then down came the books, frail
walls toppling under duress.

I hunkered down, tried as a grizzled
sea captain; lowered the main sail
and battened down the hatches,
for I'd seen these devil winds
before. No brubru nor bull's eye
surprised and they would end
just as quickly as they'd blown in,
dissipating back into a warm
breeze, swift heading, and calm seas.

Soon enough she, with hair a wild mane
telling of wind and eyes dewy from rain,
spoke again, “We need a break. I
need a break, Anthony. I—”
I cut her off, “You should have one.
Go out. You should chill.” She
started to speak, her right
hand diddling with fingers on the left.
I cut in, rote, “I've got some work
to finish, some stuff to edit.
We will talk more later, honey.”

I turned back to the desk,
began to clean the mess and
pulled out spare glasses from
the drawer's recesses.
Rain and wind ceased to exist,
up went the rigging and sails—
But I could not have heard as

She wandered darkly down
the hall, halting pensive
at the door and choking
back tears as she tore
the ring from a slender
digit of the left hand
and breathily whispered
in the tongue I fondly loved,
Que sera sera, que sera sera.
Je ne t'aime plus, mon amour,”
as the ring fell to the floor—

And I puzzled at the helm,
for then down dropped the breeze.

And we did speak only to break
the silence of the sea.