Escalator Down

The old man

Wandered the second floor

Of my work

Looking for the escalator.

“How do I get down?”

He asked.

“Try listening to some James Brown man!”

I replied.

Fiji Mermaid

I spooned you

Down on the damp sand

By the foamy waves.

I held both of your breasts

As your skin began to warm

In the sun

And turn thirsty.

My hardness 

Became tender inside you

While the balm moved your hair

Delicately

Like the Dune Grass.

You turned to face me.

I was a victim to your full black amphibious eyes.

Before it was too late

Before there was any suffering

I carried you back 

Into the ocean

When the tides were going out

And the swells were more kindly.

With the briny brink

At sway

We let go.

As before

While strolling the sand

Lost at sea

Treasuring shells

I would do so again

Calling your name

“Cordelia”

“Cordelia”

Jewel of the sea.

Ladder Demonstration

“Here, let me show you.”

 He said.

Before I could shut the door 

Or even had a chance to respond

He flicked the ladder effortlessly

Into a new position.

“Clackity clack!”

“This ladder has 25 different configurations SON...”

He slurred in a slight Appalachian drawl...

“It can meet any of your needs whatsoEVER...”

He said this as he clicked the ladder

Into four more different configurations.

“Click, clack, click, clack...CLACK!”

He did it all with one amazing thin arm

Skilled and with steadfast confidence.

One arm was all he had.

Whether he was born like that 

Or not

I don’t know.

I didn’t ask

As fast as he was

Pitching the device about.

It WAS entertaining to see though.

On a Saturday morning

Slightly hungover

After one cup of coffee

While I’m standing there 

In my pajama bottoms

Wanting to shut the door

Like I do

With any other Jehovah’s Witness.

But there he was

In a conservative dark suit and tie

One empty arm pinned to the side

While the other arm

Demonstrated a ladder

That had 25 different positions.

“It can be a step-stool...a step-ladder...a 3 story-scaffold...a 30’ extension ladder...a   

  footstool for your poodle or terrier to get up into bed with you...” 

He spoke the latter affectedly

Like he was gay and had a poodle.

He said all of this 

While continually breaking down

And reconstructing

This great ladder

In a fury

With a loud 

Reverberating

Aluminum metallic noise.

“Look. It can be a fire escape for your kids...God forbid there was EVER such a fire.”

“Clack, clack, clack!”

“You can bend it over into a sawhorse if you ever wanted to do work around the house.”

“And if you didn’t!”

He continued...

“Clack, clack, clackity, clack!”

“There’s a special attachment here for a fleshlight!”

He held onto the ladder

With his only hand 

And started 

Gyrating his hips 

Into the aluminum horse

Like he was 

Humping a Mexican whore.

“Alright!”

I said.

“That’s enough!  I don’t need your ladder!”

“You need to go.  You’re wasting your time here.”

I told him.

“You’re better off with the preacher up the street.  He’s doing a lot of housework these

  days.” 

“He could probably use a ladder like this.”

“Number 183.”

I closed the door

To protests.

Breast

Her right breast

Plenty-filled my left hand

Resting there

Fingers 

Open

Arm draped

Over her sternum.

Her flesh

Mounting and abating

With each drowsy bedtime breath

She took

Dreaming.

Certainly not necessarily of me.

The soft flesh

Inflating and deflating

In my palms and fingers

Like a vital organ

Drumming.

As if I was holding 

The anatomical meat

Of her living heart

Itself.

Bloody

Warm and beating.

The gorey flesh and muscle

Lifting away from my hand

To return full and heavy

While she sleeps

Tranquil

Perhaps

Not knowing my hand 

Is on her breast at all.

And I sleep for but a few hours.

The breast helps.

Bird Shit Palace

It is almost midnight

Almost a full moon.

We are sitting on the 

Pigeon shit spattered balcony

Of the Kingston

SUPERLODGE

Smoking cigarettes

And drinking our last beers

On bird shit

Covered

Mis-matched chairs

Rescued from curbside

Kingston evictions

I’m sure.

One chair is 

Fake brass with broken

Torquois vinyl

Strapping.

Several of the straps 

Are loose

And hanging.

And the other 

Is a cheap indoor

Dirty upholstered

Conference chair...

It is the last room available

In all of Kingston.

Tonight.

The Duchess County Fair 

Depleting all vacancies

Within a forty mile radius.

Our view is

Route 87

The New York Throughway

A mere football field away

Along with

Powerlines

Aromatic dumpsters

Abandoned homeless shopping carts

And permanently lost semi-trailers.

I checked in with some Meth-Heads right behind me.

They were sweating profusely

And yelling at each other

Violently and unintelligibly

From the car in the parking lot

Into the lobby.

We got the last room.

King-size bed

Smoking

For $69 +tax.

The bible was already stolen

Or never there

At all.

Which made me pull the bed away from the wall

Checking for condoms

And needles

Because housekeeping

In these fleabags is lax.

It was the last great white hope

For us.

Otherwise 

We would have been driving for hours.

We went to bed 

In a king size bed.

A first.

The ice machine didn’t work

And the stairwells smelled like

Swamp ass.

But the palace was ours for the night
Smoking

For $69 +tax.

Rattlesnake Joe King Of The Reptile World

He had a pit viper

In each hand

And several at his feet.

The sound of nervous shakers

Filled the blackness

Around the spitting campfire.

He danced with the snakes

While Bobo did a jig

On the fiddle.

The corn liquor was passed around

In circles

Peaches resting orange

In the bottom of the mason jar.

The moonshine did it’s job

Which isn’t to say

That those of us 

Less familiar with the

Disposition of wild rattlesnakes

Were not hesitant

With the shenanigans 

Of Rattlesnake Joe King.

The snakes 

Moved slowly in the sand 

At his feet

While he danced.

I wasn’t as concerned

About the snakes

That he grasped around

The throat

Murmuring

God’s prophetic ramblings.

If they bit him...

It wasn’t me...

I kept my eyes 

On those fuckers in the sand.

The ones that could 

Slither over 

Twenty feet

In just a few seconds

Fire or not

And strike out at you

Hitting several vital spots

Before you had time

To swing even one hand.

I’ve seen rattlesnake bites.

Your skin dies and falls off

All over your body

And the sores bleed 

For a week or more.

It ain’t pretty

And it’s painful.

Joe King 

Wrapped up his sermon

Putting the snakes

Back into black cloth sacks.

He passed around 

An old wicker basket

Asking for donations

As he was doing God’s work.

There wasn’t one

Un-sinner

Among us.

He was taking a chance 

With the snakes.

He was taking a bigger chance

With us.

We all put money 

In the basket.

Full Moon As Viewed Through Puddles And Shit And I Was Probably High

I knew you were full

And I apologize

For not gazing up at you

Incessantly.

Instead 

I watched your shimmer

As water ebbed around me

In great tidal waves

As my 

Just recently purchased

Cole Hahn

Sandals

Touched down

In the center 

Of muddy canal path water.

I was unprepared.

I bitched

And swore for a bit.

But 

I saw your 

Familiar presence

There

Flickering

In the puddle.

And I looked up.

Bruised Velvet

There

Where the book had sat open

On the settee

For some time

At a critical point in the story

The straight edges

Of it’s alkaline paper pages

Pressing into the

Soft cotton pile

Of the cushion

Turning the dijon dye

Darker

There

There

Where the organic peach

Rested

On the yellowed maple wood

Of the butcher block table

It’s weight 

Giving into gravity

Submissively

Softening the firm white flesh

And delicate fur

Ripening

There

There

Where she quietly turned

In the disheveled bed

The outline of a lost nickel

That fell from someone’s pocket

Pressed rosey into the tightly loomed hide

Of her perfect ass

There

We’re Some Kind Of Complicated Math Equation

Like the  

Callan–Symanzik equation.

The same equation differing

In the physics world

From the quantum electrodynamics world

And just as compelling...

Discovered independently

By Curtis Callan and Kurt Symanzik.

And while I don’t know shit

About 

Broken Scale Invariance

Quantum Field Theory

Or Small Distance Behavior

I do know a thing or two 

About Asymptotic Freedom

And Perturbation Theory.

As complex and paralyzing

As we are

Point-by-point

Months and years

Of chalk on miles of blackboards

Coffee

And fine wines 

And good cheese

Those mornings of cafe con leche in bed

Working the numbers over and over

Right there

Next to the New York Times Crossword Puzzle.

We most assuredly

Will not end up printed

In the Oxford University Press

Nor the Cambridge Journals.

We won’t be lectured about

At Princeton

Or Harvard

Or even whispered of

In their great sacred hallways.

An Ivy-League worthy

Mathematical

Equation

Wrought from broken pencil leads

And worn journals

Rich from the journey

Between

Parameters and unknowns.

Baptism

It was there 

In the salty grey water

At Gunnison Beach

On the sea shell laden ocean humus

Tumbling beneath my feet

As I held her naked body in my arms

Her arms wrapped around my neck

Her legs squeezing my torso.

I

Pushing up against each

Incoming wave

To keep our heads 

Above water and breathing.

She told me that she had to pee.

“So pee!”

I said.

“On you?”

She asked.

“Of course!”

I replied.

And she did.

She let it go

And I felt

My sins lifted.

Any stress

Regrets

Resentment

Hostility
Ill-doings

That I was burdened with

Any anger I felt towards the world

Was washed from me 

In cool Atlantic tides

And warm urine.

The old man inside

Set adrift.