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Salamanders
No good dreams to report this time
except that a friend described time as moving along
glacially
but life was passing her by at sleeps’ pace
We could be fucking in Ohio instead we do it through
email.
Think of all the time it would take to forget
ourselves and sleep like we mean it - unafraid
I've been having the best sleeps recently
sweetened by them
I've taken to dancing in front of the TV during the news
As to avoid listening to all the emptiness
You with you dresses, stories and slow dreams, of all people can appreciate that
I saw myself today
She teaches the class before mine
She’s the one who exits when I'm entering
and today for the first time
I think that she's the future
version of me if I just put "it" in neutral for the
next 12 years
If I die here, maybe.
She's a defensive dresser, sort of
becoming shapeless, round, soft
and nice and "interested in teaching," some chalk on her blouse or face, next time
it'll be deodorant or toothpaste, groan, 1988 hair, groaning eyes
Not the worst future for some
Tomorrow I'm going to talk about salamanders and lovers in class
I was hoping that I'd have SOME connection to what
we're working on or at least to relax everyone's sense of
loneliness.
Sausage
The reasons I
called yesterday
don’t exist
they started slipping when I recognized the words
in my head
their journey through my brain and to rest in your
ear
proved hard to accomplish
I mean to ask
if you needed or wanted anything
that you could possibly have that didn’t involve
me
or parts of me a limb a cheek
or all of me a soft skin sag filled with bones
I could send you
a thing or two
a token
a book
or cd or something generous
I could offer
I would add that you take advantage
call today
limited time offer from today to forever
But instead you sounded tired and
on the way to store
to buy carrot juice
for a bunch of old people eating sausage
Bar Hopping
I sit right there at the bar sipping my drink and wait
wait for you to meet me at the bar then to the movies
where we will lay out and stretch ourselves out in celluloid
and our waist will buckle under the corn and brown sugar water
walk home and talk about our days his filled with customers
who wouldn’t consume bruised frozen corn or the tomatoes you touched
the milk goes bad and chickens won’t egg and
my friend tells me dangling-participles are what old men do to girls in the park
my time
filled with dreams of students freebasing comma splices and mainlining fragments
the rest O.D. on run-ons
They smile but doesn’t help
Together
you want us together
driving
across the Williamsburg bridge
it keeps us close and away from grime
when we talk
and we do when crossing Canal
looking for cure root
applied twice a week to the affected areas
by the upper east shoulder
downtown passed Duane street by the shins
uncover the entrance
once there we work
and believe that today is different
because we shaved and showered
because your lover watched movies and
absent mindedly left this incorrect image
in my head as a souvenir
in other news
there’s no change at the corner of 70th and Madison
little in pleated skirts complain about the limitations of rainbows
I wonder out loud why you aren't here in 18 days
and why tonight is like the night I was at JFK for hours
because I knew I wouldn’t be home
until the alert changed from orange to go
here with the women white
on Monday the 15th
are built close to the ground
with their gams and gems
and the stories I try to hug and hold
every which way with frustration
I wasn’t told who to scream at or what
I listened for clues and the histories of
Flatbush and ocean avenue
my insides go upside
and i react like a phone
then didn't know
i get hold of my arms &
can see i didn't offend
or spill sorry all over your party like a
house guest who wasn’t invited and lingered too long
Open body
In collective memories
there is a vertical
discomfort
that moves up and down
to a silent stream as wide as the Caribbean
with no course
the boat brown
to nowhere
shaped like my spine
rides past
ears and golden hair
throughout the village
where things puddle
on unguarded street corners
and the smalls of backs
like a just appointment
sometimes rough and wasteful
the women draw out raw areas
measured time and for animal sounds
and it weighted
for hunting made them beaten and pliant
and within the sloped town
their legs met and spread wide
Dirty Life
Renee walks in late
She is quietly a cat smiling
like those burnt orange cats in children stories.
Their guilty wide lips look like satisfaction but
Christy keeps calling and she’s late, not here on the Bowery
where I am with my dirty life on ice.
Still and tight caught just right below the surface
something feminine, fair and flowery
something that will make them proud with parental love.
Their eyes will say Look! Behold our daughter! Her wide hips!
I will stand silently and smile with lowered eyes as my parts are sold separately.
My father will start the bidding at 4 cows and 2 chickens. “Do I hear
5 cows and 3 chickens?” he’ll call
My uncle Eddie is missing his big toe and I wonder how he stands at all.
But someone in the crowd will say, “I saw her reading books” and my value will
quickly decrease. The crowd will carefully disperse.
But until then I’m here on the Bowery where poems live in my body.
Next to my drink there’s a salad, but the guy next to me is cute
and I don’t want to offend him. I’ve seen him before
either at the Bowery Poetry Club or St Mark’s Poetry Project where the poems live in my head.
My hair makes a scary shadow on the man ahead of me, like electric tattoos on his head.
And in this moment all I want is Christy to be here not in a cab or the subway or on her way but here on the Bowery, in the club, at the bar, slipping on my dirty life.
Brooklyn Days
I loved you according to the laws of distance
Lewis' anything goes attitude and his soft severity
like
a father from the 50’s a summer peach
my career ruined by my
infatuation with you and you
you running off hanging out in a bathtub
a light bulb on a string swings overhead and
I think
that we were real life lovers in some old life
like the lives in movies
their tight faces just kiss in tents
they’d
just kiss surrounded by earth and wood but I'd
rather we
not just kiss but breathe, sleep and
be more like our old slipper selves everyday.
Its too bad you're not around today. I'd like to
go to Brooklyn Academy of Music with you and see a film
eat some Austrian food at that
place you like
wiener shinezl (and maybe impregnate you in the
bathroom
but that would cost extra)
New York in Spring is present right now in my mind
I've been sleeping with this girl named Jenny lately but
I'll stop that for the time that you visit
She is good and sexy and all those other things but you seem better
last night I went a party, a small gathering
the house was full of people but by morning it was filled with beer cans and cigarettes smushed
into bottle caps.
I was hoping to find my future lover but chickened out when the beautiful people arrived
my ex came with her new boyfriend and something about their happiness feels taken from me
i'm broke up with her so i'm not allowed to complain
Come back soon and don't forget, when you're here I like you too
bees
and when i saw you
i fell for your tall trees legs and blue sky eyes
your calm bike chain lays in the garden
pretend homemade dinners glow in the microwave
taut, I shrugged and sucked my thumb
dessert leaves keys, wallet in the grass satisfies my sweet tooth
look and you won’t see me
barely visible skim milk skin and silver moon
pied a terre behind the curtains
stroll by the small square
with stars and promises in pockets
our house in a postcard town like the kind you find in Mountain towns.
wander as I walk to
creole street corner and light beewax candles
by the Voodoo Museum selling gris gris , dolls and hope
We move to bebop rhythm
While our palms fucked along
Farm
coil oven sky
i cross the street
with a head full of ink
ahead and a pocket of beginnings
a garden plot with seedlings
and a woman in yellow smiling at me
i am trying to remember
if i know her from school or work
the sky is cloudy but no there won’t be rain yet i think
i buy tights at Capezio from a girl named Tina
her husband calls as i hand her my money
and i regret not buying the sailboat
when i was nine
the key to my socialization
was my dad’s taxicab and the Upper East Side
and climbing the hill that got there
Denise Mayira and her lunch by limo
they were delivered every day at half past 12
they were never late
her mother told me that voodoo came from Haiti
and not Africa
and this where babies come from said Natalie
she was older and had her period
and the orange mouth of a cave
in St Marc
i wear a tie on my first day of school
it makes me tough and butch
like Madame Stravinska
who explained that a jette was important in ballet
it was the beginning of a jump
Walter isn’t here yet
and i’m waiting
i’m drinking and i have his ring
the couple at the bar are making out
the old guy in the corner is watching them
i’m watching him watch them
Untitled
Your happiness leaves me growing slow and thick
these days arms are lonelier in a way
they make me dreams of dried apples
on the kitchen table and passing time
I'm lost in the neighbor and her rising grass
in gravel I hear spare voices
a mother who’s more than a crowd and too afraid
to see what her hand is missing
what her hand let go
two slipper wings hide beneath her feet
I cross the street to get a better look
in a grassy face I find beauty
the soft smell of growing skin
black stubble on the shoulders
a mole you didn't notice yesterday
in a ragged seam
but the boys try to concentrate
on painting the fence around their home
The sun bleeds onto your face
staining it red
We plan and sort and aren't the types to forget
the comfort of a welcome
or badly bruised fingers caught in the seam of the door
In coffee shops I sleep in my thoughts
and read my future in the strands of your loose hairs
short and blunt
cut straight across the eyes
here hidden in my pockets
you give me forever in a cup of coffee black
no cream no sugar
like your women
the live women who fill the rooms where you are
breast and hips flow to fill the holes in your every day
they are strong the way sixty isn't enough for jeans, thighs or a new kind of lover
you make promises under a warm moon
and I'm making jam from the berries in the backyard
there are no sharp edges in a letter written in haste
it's waves crash and dulls the grain of the page
round and kneeling it gives way to thumbs and crescents
now I'm happy for you and happiness
finds it's home in my round mouth like a lie
to call out a name not given to me
neither by purchase, barter or lottery
to get a phone is not having a conversation
a conversation with politeness is the nest of hair on your chest unshaved for me to see and it takes long to say what i want
The last time I came to visit i left the country. silly non,
one can't hide from her pillows or dresser drawers, they come with you
Visitations 12-11-2003
At first you asked about my life
About my parents and how there was
always winter
You mentioned that you father was in the hospital for test but that he was fine
that you were getting old and that you wanted to stay home more
but that you’d be traveling if you had the money
or faith as white as sky
We laughed because we couldn’t talk
I couldn’t breathe when you said my name or read your emails
We laughed because we couldn’t talk about the sharp pains in my chest
diving and remembering
I was in love
Then we hung up.
Called me back with a story about me taking a nap and not grading papers
You told me nothing was wrong but that you wanted me to visit. The wrong was that I wasn’t there with you.
You missed me and wanted my visit. You wanted.
Crossing
On this final day I crossed my street and watched
the sides of my mouth taste of
rice and beans cooked in pig fat
missing my salted and preserved home life.
I turn my head back and forth gazing at green trees
gray skies sullen-and-white
and chased the crows till their breath ran out
Thoughts of Brooklyn are constant as she swells
in my mind, and I can’t say I don’t remember
how she comforted me
with her wooden coasters
the hum of cars and brown foot traffic
in all her transformations
it was just the impossibility
of seeing her tired legs walking home at dusk
gum, glass and earth covered
Feet covered in earth from home
Taxi yellow behind fog
We‘ll wake up in the middle of tomorrow
For days I was without eyelids
Unable to stop seeing
it was time to go home
I thought about home away from the Bowery
Untitled
I saw what lies beneath hidden girls.
It’s a village with a population of old boys who leave mementos and pull coins out of your ears.
Without you I am out of touch with the drama I don't miss.
I do miss in the sense that it hasn't crossed my mind
since then but it was interesting to hear about.
i still haven't gotten over the women wearing mattresses on their backs
But today, I thought about us sitting together drinking wine and sharing squid.
Are you thick around the middle yet? Thick as thieves?
Then realized that I could be considered as something or someone harmful. That is the last thing I wanted was your self assured swagger capable of hurting me, coming to town. Because that would mean me liking you and why would I do that?
Damn, I just saw a girl get her heels caught in the grates of a vent. Damn, she was wearing some clothes I don't like. Some protestant, conservative, ann taylor, clean, boring clothes. Not gently worn like yours but what do I expect really?
No, I'm not going to give you a blow by blow account of what happens out this window. I'd only do that if I were a detective and your husband were ducking in and out of the apartment across the street.
Inspired and too tired to write more but already dreaming…
This new friend is more than I could ask for
I saw a waiter who reminded me of you
He was the waiter at Juniors. He wasn’t the one who
served me a grilled cheese and fries I pigged out but a long
sentiment walking above booths all split lipped and raw
from Easter Sunday dinners business lunches and
graduation toast.
It wasn’t his build or his features that made me see you in him but the way he walked by like he didn’t need me.
I didn’t know how to measure this
I think of giving you a call and telling you I’m happy
You’ll ask how can i be happy without you?
My mind leaves for Cuban sands in couple of hours,
a dense breeze reminds the old boy’ rum
rum clouds my Midwest settlement
It is everything for now
I built it for two and I’ve been craving it’s conversation
but you
won’t believe me predicting I’ll never last outside of NY
Don’t ask me why
I’m using the stationery from a company that fired me
maybe it’s my nesting instincts like twisting bed sheets
into a womb
the comfort of knowing exactly how someone feels about you
It’s the guessing that kills
Why haven’t I got this Warsaw story yet?
Why can’t I tell the stories of walking across
stone ice bridges for what felt like 20 winters
Dough faced women who sold me the Gazeta
Or bread or counted my coins at the market.
I was proud when my maternal instincts kicked in and I came home with pizza
How I would bee through my days and
barely found time to live within my nature or without you
I have many things on my hands
You ask that I stay cool and finish this story
At the time when we both wake up
I’ll try to call you one of these NY mornings
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