Coming home drunk

Coming home drunk


The keys are in my pocket,
I mumble to the elevator wall, holding nothing
But my head leant on a mirror.
Fingers freezing fish into the pocket of my life,
My rusty jack-knife and my rolled up dollar Bill.
There they are.


Sitting in the living room

It’s not easy being human; it sucks!
I say to my cat, trying to disregard the shame of her leaving the room
At the height of my grand oratOREOÔ
She flings up her tail and I know I’ve been kitschy again.
I can’t help it, puss, I call to the walls
As she busily scratches the couch.


Going to sleep

The room is a-swinging, matey
I laugh to myself, stumbling through papers and books off the shelves
I hit my head on the bathroom door: why won’t it open?
I access the pothole – the porthole, that is
The mirror inside is spattered with spit
And I aim at the sink and shove toothbrush into my nose
But wait a minute, that won’t work.


Getting into bed

I cover my body, shivering with Cuervo
absolut and absynthe abound
I recite the names of all of Shakespeare’s plays
(the five I remember)
To make the room stop spinning.
Warm colored yellow creeps slowly up my throat
I will not, I won’t, please someone, I don’t
My teeth are all edgy and papery white
And I close my eyes but there is even more light.

Affection

Affection
(for AP)


Come here Clementine, you freckle-breath
Your teeth are white and I can see myself devoured but not quite
You’ll be the death of me
Your capers leave me overcome with laughter
And the tickle-rush of fright
You nestle into me and every bone goes softer

There are certain times when unaware
I catch you sunning in the brilliance of a smile a curl of hair
You’re frozen in the air
You somersault into my adoration
Like the bark before the bite
You’ve captured my imagination

Night becomes our secret corner
Till I see you in a meadow
Painted with the sun gone dizzy
Run with me into the desert
Draw me an oasis with your fingertips

Magically burning through the air
You turn the darkness to a myriad of colors bold and fair
Whenever you are there
Your impishness is simply so endearing
And I am down without a fight
You have secured my fascination


And I love the way you stare at me so hard
And I love the way you never say a word that’s out of place
And I love the way you never block my view
And I wonder how you do the things you do with a straight face

Whenever you’ll come real to me is fine girl
You just name the place and time

On the Edge

On the Edge
Or
My personal view of Decadence (elicited by K. Alkalay Gut)


One looks in the glass and a tinful of space is scraped out of the edges
The rust can’t contain its decline into fester, but it shines
Faintly; with the breadth of a thousand dead stars.

To scoop out, as with sorbet, a willing yet spiteful resolve
Of a pregnant parabola churning in blackness
One rides the chrome spokes to every extreme.

To flatten the edges one rubs ash-stained fingers
On a countenance graying with ill-employed time
Sees a livid white face ‘tween the filth and the drops.

One fades into bottoms of ashtrays that shone once
But have since borne existence through squalid brown secrets
Their rasp has been quashed by an incessant dry cough.

One immerses oneself into liquid and silence
Plods a carotid burden into two-faced carousal
That thumps with the dullness of time.

The flashy decline into nothing ad infinitum
Is one’s burning desire and its twin in dismay
That blears in the glass as one stoops yet again.

I can be

I can be

I can be crystal
Wash over day-glo
Fingertips all of me and airbrushed nails
With the cigarette dangling – just so;
My Harley will have to go
For the harlotry of bedridden lips
Applied with the kind that just stays.

I can walk on tiptoe
Highly strung on stilettos
I can balance the book till the end of the room
Give my pinky a life of its own;
My hair’s gonna have to grow
For the bareness of legs newly waxed
Slip-sliding silk can betray.

I can be swish
Butterfly on the hover
I can push it up straight to the sky
Listen for a swing in my hips
I will have to take leave of my senses
For the welcome of sticky-lashed lids
But it seems such a small price to pay.

Behind Every Ass

Behind Every Ass


Behind every ass there is a meaning.
The workings of our mind are such
They never go on strike-
One wonders of the guild of love
And its relentless efforts.
Does it never tire? That gray-clad swarm
Feet gnawing pavement, street wearing thin
Tatters of newspapers keeping out the chill
The sports page warms one the most.

Admirable, their persistence
They never stop loving
loyal to the labor,
But of dubious commitment to the fruit of the toil
They engage with ideas; now betrothed, now betrayed
For a merry night at the local pub
Entertained by comparing how long they can hold
A tantric metaphor – don’t blow it yet.

An idea comes visiting, swinging on in
And they embrace its benevolent grease-monkey demeanor
It’s cool, they say, their caps rakishly tilted:
amor vincit omnia.
Mindlessly barreling down grizzled asphalt streets
The salt and pepper guild careens on to oblivion
Never to cease, their feet drumming a pockmarked tattoo
Until the scout yells shrill and the group halts at once
A woman’s derriere is walking in front
It all comes down to this
And ten thousand poets are gushing with words
Outdoing each other, outdoing the birds:
There is a meaning behind every ass.