Poem : Bloody Caesar

Bloody Caesar (The Theatre of Pompey)

Side streets mirror the edge of the theatre’s stage

Fragments of the old building jut out of basement walls

have become columns in buildings
old but half as old

On the spot where Caesar was killed
a cat sunbathes

Poem-A-Day #363 : 36

36

6 years pass
& you seem to remember the cake
from the party

There were faces then
instead of paper bags thinking themselves
into humanity

At the corner of bakery
& Waldorf School was the same feeling
you always have about relationships

What the fuck

& then what the fucking fuck

The impulse to speed away
is so strong that the blur lines come in packs of 100
for $.99 at Party City

They run the gamut from black
to neon anime hair
& even then they all seem too realistic

Looming near the Barclay's Center
the Nets seem to want to play water polo instead
of basketball

And the apartment you sat in
for 7 years melts
into a pool of metallic Studebaker gold

Here is a door frame
it goes to the roof
& manages to deposit you in Bed-Stuy

Don't look back
it wants you to feel fear it can blood let

Instead stare into the ocean & feel its boil

Poem-A-Day #356 : Stuffed

Stuffed

i
The bear has a birthday hat on
is sitting calmly - pink chair - is
staring at the ceiling

ii
The eyes are cataract - chipped
glass - they are windows in
a church bombed in a war

iii
Pray at the pew of it - hard - unfeeling
the sort of colors streaming on your face
that make everything seem alive

iv
And the hat came from a night concert
the man who I have obsessed over
placing it on my head - no reason given

v
Pink like grapefruit
faded to bubblegum on your shoe
Grandmother's chair

vi
Addiction to history - ashes on skin
bear that traveled in boxes and bags
- it's too much honestly

vii
Let's pretend that we had kissed
that the chair had been reupholstered
that the fruit had been bruised

Poem-A-Day #351 : Rorschach (after Jeanne Marie Beaumont)

Rorschach (after Jeanne Marie Beaumont)

I spill water on the old coffee table.
Too simple. Grains expose themselves like privates.

It feels like the kind of wood - HA -
one searches for when lost in the forest. Dry.

That one stain from the burrito - think
about culture spilling forth like foam. Go on.

The bones of a cripple
left to bleach in the winter sun - taking way too long.

Crutches left in a church hallway, no souls around,
desiring to grab one and hobble forth newly less.

Not my table. Whose? A woman's, dead and ringed
by the ivory of dogwood blossoms, spring's crown.

Her face, sounding. A flute? Sure.
I said privates because this shouldn't be seen this way.

Count the rings - Kim Novak in Vertigo -
the scent of pine will fill and fill and fill.

Next. It sat in her townhouse
filled with its early 90s neon and chrome and whiteness.

Oddly cool. Not particularly desired
but the face of those men she dated.

And if I say "tree"?
I'd say - life we cannot fathom.

Cabinet? Container.
Tell me again.

A map. A map of the universe
breaking and disintegrating.

Poem-A-Day #339 : Hope Chest

Hope Chest

The box full of things - unnamed as they are -
hold the history of place in the reflection imposed surface

The sun comes from behind eclipse - it
momentarily explodes - loses itself - becomes a break in the lack of air

This is opening - a seam of paper tape - a fold
sun echoing in pulp - in dust

What are these broken lines of thought
burning a hole in the universe of a closet - they flap like broken doves

Beak cracks - the rubble of it - a light bearing
fruit - rotting and burning and searing the faces of memory

Poem-A-Day #314 : The Voices Of The Dead Only Say The Things We Make Them Say

The Voices Of The Dead Only Say The Things We Make Them Say

A book flips open
a random page
painted over and over
with the faces of your dead

An alphabet of ghosts
the words of the novel
replaced with
their eyes

Just last night
the book had been
about a woman
solving a murder
in some small
Irish town

Who signifies 'A'
and who got the 'X'
is perhaps a sort of
shade thrown wildly
in several directions

Is this psychology
a clever trick
of the dire mind

You sit in the chair
and by oranging light
you attempt to see
a thing in these lines

Graves are closed mouths
books in theory are
the vessels of dead who
cannot help but speak

Yet
these faces only want
to recount how
this woman discovered
whodunnit

They only stand for letters
they sentence plot
metaphor fails them
but they have emotional climax
and denounment for you

An ending that in some sense
could satisfy all that came before

Poem-A-Day #310 : When Lilacs Last

This is an erasure of the last section of Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d" is my attempt at distillation. Whitman used 100 words where 1 would work. He was amazing and infuriating for this reason. I think this version gets the same point across. Quickly.

You can read the full poem at Poetry Foundation.

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

16
Passing the visions, passing the night,
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands,
Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,
Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.

I cease from my song for thee,
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

Poem-A-Day #309 : Nostalgia

Nostalgia

Nostalgia is
a broken idea

But when I
saw your
handwriting
on the clipping
about the fire
downtown

I tore myself

Poem-A-Day #302 : Fragments of An Organ

This is not a finished thought. I have no idea where it is going or what it wants to be.


Fragments of An Organ

Against the wall                    pieces of the doorway
begin to connect themselves in ways
foreign to passage
                                                                      There is a sound like paper burning
                                                             the joints are grasping          making out
tonging               They are making themselves a cathedral
                                              a soundway

                                              They will be an organ before they are done

Pieces of hands lay about the floor
fingers
                            like dynamite        
                                                             They are not real hands
they mannequin and pale themselves and become sand that could become glass
if only someone had fire

-

What a sound - the end of days - the reeds on the water will be the only thing to communicate with - the color of the moon before snow - a scent of lilac and sweat -

-

Impassive

&

Unrelenting

                                        Words tossed against a chest of drawers like laundry
                              - how did you begin to see into the crystal ball of this skull -
Motionless & -
                                At some point the doorway had to be reconciled - burned
                         or released - or -

                                                                           There was an inability to let it go

                                                                                                                     A sort of keylessness in the vetting
someone said that the man before us was a sociopath - others said he was just emotionless and distant - one called him a monster and pushed him into the burning effigy of Guy Fawkes

-

We are in a basement and there is the sound of music above us
It drifts through the sparse boards of the ceiling
It is a dirge
For others perhaps a wistful memory keeper
Here it plays out the burning of a church that is a memory

We are terrorists in this mind
Here to burn holes
The door frames attempt to re-
And we laugh at their feebleness
They manage to make noise

That is all before they collapse
We use them to construct a barrier

-

I was trying to find my way into the memory of sound in the giant room with the giant organ - to discover if the emotion rang there - if it hung from a light fixture - if it was kindling - it was not there to be found -

Poem-A-Day #293 : Reminder

Reminder

I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help

Poem-A-Day #290 : Nightscape

Nightscape

On your skin

A color like purple

It thighs and glides across surfaces

A woman is thrown into the pool of a taxi

There is night and then there is city

Each thing defines itself against the void of space

Your eyes are glares

The streetlight blinks yellow banishing color

Mono

A wish to be the reflection in your sweat

The smell of garbage

A rat across your foot

Uber and crash

Your teeth are violet

Poem-A-Day #288 : Breaking In To The Graveyard Where ___ Is Burried

Breaking In To The Graveyard Where ___ Is Burried

Fold your shoulders
until you fit
through the iron
of the fence

Around you - air origamis and collapses
the fractals of it shrink and expand - this is
a moment where physics cease

Light cannot escape your eyes

I want you to birth yourself
                    - now

The leaves are worried - they red and drop
immediately in response

You
are buttered

A scrape along the expanse
of your
torso

Dislocate your memory

Attach it to the string of a balloon

At the horizon of your vision - a sort of
whirl exists - it is a spot where boats can
manage - can decide -

In the interior
a sound of geese hissing

When you find the grave you are seeking
there will be a garbage truck
rattling in the streets

Did you bring a sandwich
wrapped in cellophane
or brown paper

It matters which

Poem-A-Day #279 : History

History

The world as gold object
spins in a heavy space
it flakes - gives off green
rubs itself against your leg

Poem-A-Day #277 : At The Illegal Bar in Spanish Harlem I Really Tried to Sleep with You

At The Illegal Bar in Spanish Harlem I Really Tried to Sleep with You

There was a lean-to against the building : Spanish Harlem : it was night dark there were shots of tequila rumors of the place being shut down : literally a dude serving liquor from his kitchen window into a shed : there were lights of all colors and I think I threw up on the Brooklyn Bridge :::

Did I sleep on the floor of the bathroom : did the night open and close : I am pretty sure I worked the next day : pretty sure I wanted in your bed : you had built yourself a loft it was warm looking and the lights on the ceiling were endlessly nebula-ing :::

Recalling the moment I stepped into the sun : how noisy New York could stop being sometimes : the street was blank with 7 AM light : the trash of the night before across the fronts of us : how did we get from lean-to to lean-to :::

At least I woke up alone : the clothes on my body : the keys to my things in my pocket wallet moneyed and unmoneyed : how longing of me to think that getting drunk above 120th would somehow make you love me :::

Memories stack like beads on a necklace : my mother had one that I would slide beads back and forth across and imagine I was counting myself into something : out of : think about the strings coming off of things marionetting every single one of us :::

What are you up to today : images flash across divides we live in such perilous times : how can we forget these things when Facebook reminds us every few months : here's a picture of your failures and of your wins : eat them :::

Poem-A-Day #271 : My Trouble With People

My Trouble With People

               There is
                    the sense that
                         we can only hold so much

The image of a sunset that one time in France when there were donkeys braying in the distance and the sunflowers caught the gold-ness and leaned themselves toward the nuclear power plant while the sound of dinner being cooked drifted up the stairs

That house had no windows just the thin aging wood of shutters and the cool plaster of the walls it was white with it it was beading cold sweat with it there was the smell of a wood pile everywhere and the hills around the place felt like lazy cast aside blankets

               What memory
                    was erased
                         by this

At the grocery store we are standing next to each other by the frozen bags of vegetables they are candy-colored and delicious the bags make ridiculous promises about life lived inside these bags there are giants here

I do not notice that I know you and you seem to be breathing in my inattention which clouds the space like a mountain top like snow storms like the exhale after a cigarette you turn and I turn and your eyes flash at me like headlights on a curve at night

               Perhaps erased is wrong
                    it implies accident
                         when a finger must press delete

Poem-A-Day #264 : Unrest

Unrest

Wake and the arm is cold again - outside the blankets
like it wants to escape the comfort

The arm wants to tell you something - you were sleeping and it has a message for you

There are marks along the skin - birth and otherwise
notice how uneven the color and the veins are so visible in the darkness

The sound of celery breaking

Knees collapsing on pavement and the glitter of light on everything

The arm wants you to remember fear and agency

The arm wants to sweat with you
there is the sound of a siren - it is the sound of all sirens - the room fills then empties of it

A moment before the most beautiful dream ever forgot - it lingers pinkly in the haze of the brain - calls in sing-song that it should be returned to

This arm has thoughts of going through the window - it cannot understand how one sleeps in troubled times like these - there should be blood on the steps of the capitol

Blood is hard to clean

If it is forced under the covers to warmth - the arm will form itself into a mouth and begin to whisper all the promises that have been broken

If it stays in the cold it will purple - possibly loose itself and never come back

Poem-A-Day #260 : Fellfield

Fellfield

We erode -

                    The computer was no longer working - it was big - it was out of date - we threw it into the dumpster after trying for a week to find somewhere to donate it to

          for parts - education - whatever

                              the sound of the screen breaking was the sound of ice cracking in  glass of scotch - sharp - you could picture the crack across the thick gray surface - could feel the crack with your fingernail

Eventually all mountains turn into scree -

                    The pile of weathered glass looks like marbles - it feels like marbles - like an oddly smooth skin

          colorful skin - breaking skin - the remnants of oceans

                              why do we come here - why do we roll around in these piles of glass what good does it do to stare into the compactor - the dump is not a place for us we are attempting to not be trash

The rubble will hold -

                    The broken computer still houses the memories of what it was - if there were a way to turn it on it would still window itself would probably even bring up the last file

          like a basement in flood - the molding folder would open with a resounding crack

                              inside a map of what once was - topographical and emotional - green and fading and barely legible - it would smell like moths - you could plant it in the ground and it would grow another mountain

Poem-A-Day #250 : Re-See

Re-See

Above - the moon - endlessly talked photographed landed upon - known to the point of boredom - even its rabbit has cleaned itself from the discussion

How does the change occur - the sudden shift in views - the magic of fire leading to space travel - how does the child mind say 'FUCK THAT'S AMAZING' in its current mood

It hovers - like a balloon - jaundiced and slow to blink - it mythologizes itself - collects the news clipping and will have to go to therapy to get its hoarding under control - the dark side of the moon is covered in cats and abandoned satellites

How does one re-see for the first time - the things in your hand - in a changing light they may become strangers - your own fingers are sausages in an overcast moment

One of the first photographs of the moon
Taken by John William Draper in 1840

Poem-A-Day #186 : Nostalgia

Nostalgia

In the dark fields of summer - the heat escapes us
it crawls into the sky in tendrils of smoke - it creeps

Our heat is a suck - the roads hoard it like money

This isn't some theft - the universe gives no fucks

The day collapses - it shatters - it is our job
to find the pieces and to stick them together with gold

To hold this moment in our minds - perfect it

The pressure of our remembering will diamond it
until it is something that cannot ever have existed

An inner-earth ocean full of monsters

The darkness will not stay dark here - it will recede
it will become the light on the surface of a lake - your eye

It will also degenerate with time - it will never be a photograph
like the heat held in pavement - the night will leech it off

Poem-A-Day #168 : Wood (Part 15 : To Pass)

I don't think this poem wants to go for 30 days. I will see where I stand on that tomorrow, but I think it might be over sooner than later.

You should start with Part One - HERE.


Wood (Part 15 : To Pass)

You're quiet : I don't want to give the impression that I'm all doom and gloom over here but that's what trees make me think of : I mean there's life too : so that house falls down and I can no longer stare at it from the foot of my grandmother's yard : but once it falls I mean really falls to pieces that's when things get interesting for real : that pile of house was holding space it was an ancient wanderer who managed to hold steady for who knows how long but there it was : and psychically it was holding focus : no one talked about it for sure I asked and people would sort of hmmm around it and no one would remember where it came from or how long it had been hurting out there : it was an injured deer on the side of the road it was a dead leg that gangrene had taken but it was being left to rot on the bone : and it was holding my thoughts and maybe that's why it lasted so long : I had nightmares about it I imagined being in its upper floors as it collapsed I thought about what it had seen in its time : I gave it life and it was my fault it didn't just go like it was meant to : I kept it alive when I should have also forgotten it : and that's not as sad as it sounds because I have obviously not forgotten it but I also have obviously allowed it to pass :

There's a meadow there now all filled with blooming flowers of all colors : and that's the point really : that sometimes you let go : you walk to the top of the mountain alone and you allow your body to fall silent and then to sleep : you allow yourself to become food for whatever is next because honestly you've taken space that wasn't yours for too long and maybe what comes next will be able to use what came before : this is beginning to sound silly : I'm just saying that things die and then there in that death will be the sprouting of something : not the same something never that : but close and wildly different and that new thing will path itself right through a new life and the old thing will eventually be forgotten by all but the memory of that spot will somehow collect those paths somehow : I mean that's why we go on right : because somehow we will be allowed to be forgotten but will also be allowed to be remembered :