Fishing on the Moon: A Meditation

I tilt my head to square my helmet’s aperture;
and watch my line reeling through the dust,
the day’s black sky, and the near-felt sun

light; breathing on the sea-side of the moon,
I am the world, and the only sound
huddles within my inch of atmosphere.

Ah. . . . . . . . . . . .

fishing on the moon

is thrilling. The only cell -- moving
in an ocean, egotistical and esoteric,
incomprehensible and incomparable to
the (much biggest) mindless else
which is as measurably identical
without or with it -- has heavy breath.

I feel my gloves move and watch the line
skidding through dust, eons undisrupted,
now disrupted in new and equal still;
the hook locks at the top of my pole
untouchable; and I smile (hearing my cheeks fold).
Nothing’s ever caught on the moon anyhow.

I cast again (feeling the my back’s muscles,
my arms and pole out of vision, breathing
the only sound in my, only atmosphere)
into the sea of tranquility and the hook -- baitless,
unseen but indicated by the pole (now in vision,
bending) and the string, stretching….into the sky --

rises and falls….slowly

into dust that

rises and falls….slowly.

Wrong Index, Finger!

I am the many hands man
Fingers everywhere
Turning and turning
All screws up
I am the many hands man
All just as down

To the common violets

when we were young we were the kings of carrot flowers and all the dreamy dreamings we'd ever had came true because for all they needing for to being was believing and be they were and bes and been. now we were old we are the kings of paisley sofas and all our dreams have all been dreamt and were and ever been they stood or felled, but say we 'bout regretting: don't, with regard there is no chance to do again! speaking here I me, my pallet pills and carrot friends, might we killing kill our dreaming dreams: but to living make's much harder! Can dreams make goody I? Oh no, no, we besting aim for granted mights, letting bads off to bady martyrs! speaking then I you, your losing legs and paisley heart you may not be the one I love, but dared I just but less, and lesser loves as mine will fall like bones and ribs and skulls make hills. towards fuller loves, one step, two steps! unto you my flower friend, who grows through bones and starting over mayhap you are the groaning bones for others who'll be walking and up and up and up they'll over you and all the others who like as you they'll tire talking. unto you my flower friend, who fearing shrinks, but secret grows, I dreaming dream you up and mend, and trot up over after and off my toe you'll soonish find that flowered flower who'll be spun up you and up and higher laugher. when we were young; then we were old; carrots kinged; flower behinds speaking oft to flowered, flowering and flower friends about our dreams our hope our lowing tries and middling highs laughing up the could-have-beens.

To the familiar face at Ruby Tuesday's

So familiar. You're like the half of heart I lost. Familiar hair, and eyes. (Do they shine so when I'm gone?) Your shoulders slope adorably in familiar. And I've all familiar affections: empathy, hand towards hip. You are thinner. (Did you forget food away in unfamiliar? or do you not eat for anothers?) I cannot, so. We commiserate different familiar: new common pain and common uncommon experiences. Later, we sit over a chasm, looking down on rocks we've crossed, in a new yet so familiar woods. Smooth together between familiar questions. I smile, watching the face that jumped with you from crag to crag. Most familiar face whose imprint I crave upon my chest. Is familiar one to family? Or is familiar just to similar?

The Idiopathing Menagerie

Everyday I walk a circle
around the office building,
a computer rat in the health food age.
I skirt the trees wanting, but too abashed, to unskirt them.
Sometimes, between the cars,
sometimes, if I'm lucky, I get to see
the idiopathing menagerie.

Not idiots-passing, idiopathic or i-do-pathetically,
as sometimes gets confused,
but the marching stranges,
the walking weirds,
More unique than genes,
bizarrer ideations passing
In their own circles and beyond
Leaving me little and in jury.

They rocket from cube farms into pre-lunch,
maintaining pulse and pleased,
revolving with constant smiles,
orbiting in uniformity.
Not matching, just uniformed in oddity.

The tall thin ring man with his hiking pack
filled to the brim with who-knows?
From bottom to top: He's hiking boots, cargo shorts,
glasses, gaunt pale skin,
thin red hat and (back down to) wide skeleton smile,
motionless as a xeroxed garfield grin.

Behind him, two steps, a wrinkleless feminine asiatica
serene, chiaroscuroed up from white shoes,
to gray pants, to black blouse, until
a burst of color -- more variegated than the word -- fireworks
on her hat
which lays flat like an obese lily flower.

And two steps more is a darker man, squat whose
Arms waddle like tense sausages
Pivoting past basketball shorts, and framing
A rectangularity prouder than
A computer monitor box
That is just happy and surprised to be agent.

All three gait identically
muscularly
broadly
and look connected by string,
a group of puppets escaping
around the parking lot everyday
With equal enthusiasm.

This explosion of self
shadows the noon sun
as they step in unison to unheard new orleans
spaghetti jazz wonkey spliced with
wing barbra streisand and the beastie boys.

Better than any aristotelian music of the spheres I'll tell you.

To the MRSA Pee-er in my Ambulance

Guerney-lying padded patient,
ticker ticking,
tick tock tick.

86 beats per minutes;
endocardititis,
tick tock tick.

Tuck your thing into the bin
and begin to live in
uncomfortable;

IV'd bladders fill in 20;
your pisser pisses,
tick tock tick.

You're holding back!
karma's talking
(might be, may live);

off the heat, lift the blanket;
feel each moment;
tick tock tick

Nose hole scrunched, distasted
death won't touch the state
urine!

Piss pot? Dam it! Spread your fluid:
Sop your crevice!
tick tock tick

I’d like if you would keep your
MRSA inside your swollen
bladder,

but I'll gladly clean your karmic cleansing
ever disgusted
tick tock tick

untitled

violet

you know

they can bend you

you’ll bow

slits will drip

vapors that call

to insects that

lick at your wounds

then stay

you say strong

held to the evers

of genomes

, desperate to give out your own

Antichameleon

I am the antichameleon
Red in the leaves
Lidless eyeballs
Staring you down
I am the antichameleon
More color than seen

My Ex Inspired Greeting Cards

you never praise my poems because you loved them
you praise me because you loved me but
to praise because of something in you
is selfish as selfish
and rude as people who don’t listen
don’t tell me you like my poems when there is nothing in the center
don’t tell me anything about your love
tell me about my poems
or if you cant
tell me how my poems affect your love
tell why I am anything to you
tell me a poem
tell me one from your heart
that tells me what it is I am

Speaking

It is not difficult
to speak
with passion.

Let your chest inflate
and your features narrow
and bellow
words with gravitic gusto until the last trail out frail,
like the last lick
in a tube
of frosting….

But don’t
let passion fool you.
It survives stupid.
Don’t dismiss
because it triumphs
over idiots.

Much stronger is passion
than ideas if it can mire with foolish things
and foolish poets
and yet stay admirable.

I pray
let me be the fool
who speaks shameful stupid
in earnest and when
the wise passionates
come and knock me down
(and they will)
I will beg them in equal
earnest to
drown me in their truer
to pour their paints on me
drown me in their color
and the paint drains into the ground
revealing me, a perhaps
hypocrite, in a
fresh coat -- white
washed total

The Man on the Beach

One leg.
No clothes.
Why are you on the beach?

Pink umbrella,
Red hat,
Salmon skin,
Your range is pink sunset!
Easy, fresh as a peach,
an old, mushy peach.

Paleontology is
the study of old things:
bones
statues
fragments.
You seem them all,
reclining with your prosthetic as
pillow.

Theres so much and little to unearth
in you.

Little to dis-cover,
no hair, anywhere,
You are smooth.
You are smooth wrinkled fat
that fits
no shame.

so free…
so right…

Is this beauty that’s so repulsive?
That makes me wince and grin?

Carne Joven, Fumo Joven

I don't question when I smoke.
the cigarette always burns more
quickly than I want it to,
and I breathe, deeply, the chemicals
and I wreck, superficially now, the tissues
in my respiratory tract: my lips, my
tongue, alveolar sacs.

I am assured that one day I will die.
The smoke wafts airily through my bar code,
and I rein in my life, pretending to know
that I will go with my family, my writing,
years from now, painfully, stupidly, but
not as worst as could be.

I am the fool you can know better than,
who must have missed the tv ads, and
the warning labels on the box in my hand
that you'd never let close enough to read,
because you fear smoke, as death, more
than the will-less life of career and pleasant.

I must be lazy and stupid when
I take my breaks and make you restock the
milky ways, coke bottles, neon socks on shelves
and you curse me for not taking more pride
in what?

I write my poems on glass

I write
my poems
on glass
which is
stronger than
paper but
bigger than bits
and I can
clean them
with my
hand

Yukon and Shaggy

A tragedy of two donkeys

With laughter, with grain and with hay
The trucks rumble by in the morning
At them we hee-haw and bray
At us they glare at in warning,
But what can these,
these feeding girls say
to us short noises
louder than day
who smirk and belt out good morning?
We, my brother and I.

In here is all I could want,
our pen is all acres around.
Oh, luck is these donkeys' jaunts
O'er hay and grain and ground.
I plod and he plods,
He flaunts and I flaunt,
sleepers of morning
and chewing savants!
For us the life's been found,
we, my brother and I.

Our coats look like a rustle
but touch them, silk they be!
When wet they shake and shuffle,
gold self-braiding filigree
with flies as gems
caught in the tussle,
until the girls
come pluck with muscle
and comb us clean and free,
we, my brother and I.

--

Once, our kingdom we crossed
(escorted by the crowds),
We saw, while tramping the moss,
(my brother was sniffing the mounds)
dead sand,
a worm tail sauce,
a lip-smacking
temptation glossed:
the yummiest sand-cone we'd found,
we, my brother and I.

He licked and he slobbered, I too slow
at my leash to reach the meal,
Til both our servants bellowed
and pulled with strength unreal
"Yukon, no!"
"Shaggy, no!"
And before a moment
the sweetest dough
from he and me they peeled, 

we, my brother and I.

At first I yawed at my tie,
then, worried the sand was bewitched,
a curse for my brother and I,
gave up with a startling twitch.
"I ate next to
nothing" he sighed.
But watching him earnest
for days I tried
to prove us unbewitched,
we, my brother and I.

But late, while rain poured high,
My brother shook and dulled
Then fell with a quiet cry.
And I by nightmares was lulled.
Brown sand flew
teethed from his whine
Black mud lapped
fur at his thighs,
And we brayed as they away him pulled
we, my brother and I.

I wait for him now and since,
(with this stranger they've moved to my pen
whose fur is black and dense.)
I wait for him now til when.
With only time
I'm at the fence.
Unforgetting want,
I know but hence:
He's me and I am him.
We, my brother and I.

--

With laughter, with grain and with hay
The trucks rumble by in the morning
At them I hee-haw and bray
At me they glare at in warning,
But what can these,
these feeding girls say
to me short noise
louder than day
who wails and lows in the morning
for we, my brother and I?

To my practice patient, an Italian grandfather

Congratulations. Today is your day. Your life has been for this. I am the center of all, and today is our meeting today is your everything. When you were born you didn't know June 14th 2014 was your everything. You thought it was a day -- March 3rd 1076 or May 5th 2026. When 78 years ago you kicked your way out feet first into Sienna, I made sure a midwife got you safely from... No! You were the one from Florence. Yes, near the Arno, your mother, expecting, wasn't expecting you so soon. Apologies, I needed your first baby breaths to be outdoors. (I visited your birthplace last summer, and laughed to see a pretty bride smiling where once was your placenta.) I made your mother's stories teach you adventure. When you holidayed to Pisa, Rome, Tangiers, did you know you would return to Florence to know your streets but not to find home? I put that emptiness in your bones. That was me. I was on the road, those roads, far at the end a far off cul-de-sac, reclining on a bamboo chair and calling those bones, the heart collecting the blood of alone. I am the breath. I am the sound in your ear. Whispering "America." I made America your land because I whispered to Crevecoeur; I fondu-ed his lies. As the breeze playing the flute, I also whispered paternity through the Italians: I made your father love you; I made you care for you and yours. And I made your country seem worn, the home of tired stones, where the years had stretched the brick, the earth and the air so existence seeped from everything like water through an old skin. And I made it that way. I made your Italy thin. Else you wouldn't have taken that boat by the way, I arranged (through the captain, whose daughter I made marry a lousy welding man so he'd understand your need.) And I made you step into a new land smiling, what matter if it slipped as you became a bad Italian accent, And lost your voice? You gripped your Italian, but language is butter and leaked from your fist. Your tongue was scrapped by Uncle Sam's thigh, and I didn't let you more. I led you, I lost you, then I gave you despair. I made you sick with cancer of the bladder to irradiate you, poison you, make you feel for nothing. So you could lose no more. You had home, I took it.  You longed for home, there is none. You were here, you were mine. I took your hope.I dropped you low. Your masculinity prodded and examined until none remained, and in impotence, I let you stay. I made you stay because I needed you. In Jersey you would crouch and lay brick, building with the other tongued Italians, hundreds of walls each a prayer for a home (breath strips in the reek of despair). I made you find a family and drop a work ethic on them strong enough to drop to the next because I needed your children good. I needed your son's wife. I needed her schizophrenic. I needed your grandson shy, and to be overwhelmed by me: compassion. I didn't need him successful. I didn't need him smart, I needed him in there. In class, with me, doing because I needed you. I needed you to be my patient for a practice EMT exam. I needed you to lay down and be tied into positions, to have your throat checked, to auscultate your chest. I needed you to be a good patient so I could pass. Yes, today was your day. Your life was for this. I am the center of all, and today was our meeting today was your everything. I don't need you anymore. on your way out, you'll slam the door, and I won't know you again.

To a fiance

There’s few things lonelier than driving in the car alone at night.
Maybe it's hard on the soul.

I mean, look at what I'm doing:

press the accelerator and its
Bombs.

Bombs bursting morings to
Roll wheels
into a rabid friction.

nitty-bitty spiders gnawing air-tissue:
wild sound striating
from the maw of this beasty coop.
asynchronous and jaggy,
waves belch the air into
a tortuous froth of ricochet blatther:
A spider web of centerfugal glass
Roaring forward foamy frantic.
A noise damn near solid.

Cocoon, cocoon, cocooned
We are in it. The road inches under feet.
The curb feet and miles
Through thick and sickly sound.
Shrouded clear tanks zooming muck,
fragile.

I see the trucker two lengths away
Now an hour. But your picture what was it?
Family brother wife? And auburn girl
In rabbit with hipster glasses mouthing lyrics
what? Brittany? Gaga? mother night?
Aaagh...so close in this infinite far.

funny: in the car it's so quiet.
sit here for miles ignoring the choas outside,
like a creak in my neck that's been there too long.
I can phone a friend or sing the radio, penetrate myself with these electric waves that scuddle the din.

I'm afraid, my love, one day these distractions will run out - the radio statics; my phone dies


And I'll hear a sound from outside


I'll hear in my chaos crevice of an eddy of a seat,
I'll hear, I'll hear, a breathy hollow thought
That will scare me.
And will scare me of you.
"
You met her in the cocoon of loveless days.
you are a love lorn streaming to new york through an only way to an only romance.
she is the only passenger smile in your car.
can you say no? can she? Don't you know,
The voice will whisper-quake, don't
You know it's an awful haze, but
Don't you know you have
autopilot engaged?
"

Joe's Crematorium

 

Welcome to Joe’s cemetary
and crematorioum.
God hushed em; we dust em.
No registration required; you're pre-approved and
with your reciept
from the last purchase
discounted rates!
Two for the price of one!
And children under 6 ride for free.
We guarantee a service that lasts a life time.
Friend us in the good book;
linked in before they’re shut-up;
instagram on instagrave;
don't forget to check in when your
loved ones check out;
tweet condolences #joetears.
No fuss, no must,
Permenant interment.
Easiest decision of their life.
Step on into the cozy holes
and let our comforts warm your
brain to the better-than life

Time for Worms

yesterday it was 63
and the grass was green
I napped on it
and in the sun

today it is april 14th
before the dawn and
it is snowing.
downy snowning down

the green has white fluffing,
mashed potatoes mixed up
in a green bean salad

the grass proud, virile

the snow cold, passive

pause is all
we do. looking on
as the great opposites
battle.

we wait
for the sun to fade
for the snow to melt.
until either winter’s over
or summer’s failed

"No work today.
that is for days when
things don’t happen"

when green and white are separate


look on the ground though
at the worms who’ve stretched
their sticking sluggish bodies out into icicles

They've retreated to the sidewalk
to evade the dirt (which froze into glass)
and the snow (which is blanched white,
insensate maces)

for these worms,
flesh colored
frozen into mounds of cold sand,

the green and white

was not a battle
to ride out
but to escape

patience works when
things don’t need
to be done

they died
(chalky and curdled)
without time to waste waiting,
painting the sidewalk
curdled and chalky

Now the white begins
to drip under the sun and
i walk to work with my shoes squelching in
melted worm

Apricot Jams

I am the apricot jam
Fruit pulverized
Everyone wants a taste
And that's alright
I am the apricot jam
Now empty on the inside

Learning Arabic

We read left to right, of course
ضفدع
And my eyes know this
ضفدع
My head knows this
ضفدع
My tongue
ضفدع
My throat
ضفدع
All the euros know.
ضفدع
We know words are from the alphabet
ضفدع
26 characters, more or less
ضفدع
Mostly latin, Spanish, German, almost Russian, Greek.
ضفدع
All agree.
ضفدع
And it helps for learning
ضفدع
Words goose-step into our heads
ضفدع
Through the paved streets
ضفدع
Through Boulevards of even trees
ضفدع
Over streams carefully quarantined.
ضفدع
It helps to know
ضفدع
what we know is so
ضفدع
ordered.
ضفدع
Even if the ground upheaves
ضفدع
And the pavement pushes back
ضفدع
We pack right back
ضفدع
With our narrow word crowds.
ضفدع
It’s so easy to forget
ضفدع
These streets are made
ضفدع
by them, by you, by me
ضفدع
and sometimes words don’t move
ضفدع
from left to right and
ضفدع
that pavement knocks down goose-steppers
ضفدع
and their hats fall off
ضفدع
and the rivers push
ضفدع
back their quarters
ضفدع
and all overflow with
ضفدع
wet and grass and lively little
ضفدع
things that we can call ضفادع
frogs