Nina Simone Sings The Blues

At the end of the day

When my ribald fantasies

Are put to bed

And I find us

Slowly swaying

In the dimly lit

Living room

To Nina Simone’s

‘In The Dark’

Three worlds colliding

Against timelines

Skin colors

Musical preferences

Personal narratives

Nina’s

Yours

And mine

Things get warm

And cozy

In the candlelight

Pausing

Only for a moment

As I turn the record over

And things continued

As they had

The soft beauty

That evolves naturally

Like smoke

Pluming out

At it’s own pace

In the end

Gifting us

With a religion

Not found in a holy book

In the infinite

It fails

Even the written word
But not
The Blues

Wordsmith

He makes a living
Building things with his hands
But his fervent passion
Is constructing things
With words.

He is always
Talking
To himself.

Within his head
Or without.

He can be overheard
Conversing
To the air
Tumbling words
Sitting at a table
In a coffee shop
Or standing
Smiling
Somewhat pervertedly
At the frumpy girl
In the check-out line
At the local supermarket.

He has the widest smile.

Big square perfect teeth
And squinty eyes.

Frumpy check-out girls
Can’t resist him
And the turned up corners
Of his mouth.

Roy
The man
With the carpenter’s tan.

A glass half-full kind of guy.

Once in awhile
He can be found
Soliciting words
On the canal path

Late at night.

He even talks in his sleep.

Words jumping fences
One by one
In Dreamland.

How do I know?

Oh, I get it.

No.

It isn’t like that.

We were just cuddling
On the sofa
One night.

My head upon
His hairy chest.

Roy stroking
My brow
Innocently
As he was borne
Off to sleep.

We were listening
To music
On the stereo.

Barry Manilow.

“Looks like we made it…”

I could hear his heart
And his breathing
And the verbs and constanants
Adjectives, alliterations
Pronouns, prepositions
Interjections, modifiers
All spinning around
In capital and lower case
Deep within his rib cage
Like a tumble-dry high-cycle
In the laundry
Before spilling out
Of his wide
Flat
Picket-fence
Grill.

I lifted my head
To look up
At his cherub face
And closed eyes.

I promised him
Pancakes
In the morning
With Amish butter
And real maple syrup.

He responded
Sleepily
With words
And still more
Poetry.

Blackout (3/28/16)

The winds are demons tonight

Screaming

Wrathful vengeance
On an unkempt world

Parisian Garden

  

On the sunny afternoons

In the Bonne-Nouvelle Quarter

I could hear her

Singing

To her flowers

Abounding 

And lavish

Within

The old stone walls

Of her modest

Garden

Though 

Overheard

She wasn’t singing

To myself

Or anyone else

The birds

Also listened

If in the breeze

She pricked 

Her finger

On the

Delbard

Folle Courtisane

Rose

Her voice 

Did not falter

She would sing

To the blood 

Dripping 

On chartreuse

And pale yellow

The Seed Of A Mango

In my heart 
There is a brown skinned
Child
Sucking 
At the leftover flesh
Attached to a mango pit
That his mother
Gave him
Juice
Running
In great dispatch 
Down both 
Sides of his chin

The heart's sun is warm

Mouth and fingers sticky
As he runs off
To play
With the other children

The heart 

A world
Where even a feather
Found upon the ground
Holds wonder

The colors 
In a pebble
Deem it treasure

Pocket-worthy

Apple Blossoms

The apple branches
In my room
That I bought
Several days ago
From a market stand
On my way home
From something

Are blooming
In full
Like powdery
White fireworks
Or a delicate
Lacey
Fungi
Advancing
In silent outbursts
On the
Slender branches
That I've
Arranged
In
A hand blown vase
That I brought home
From somewhere
On my way back
From
Something

Slaughter House

The animals are lined up
In the barricades 
Funneling them
Into a single file

They can sense
The end 
Coming nearer

They can smell
The metal 
And blood

A grey fear
Building

They can hear their
Brothers, sisters and cousins

They inhale the red death
Of familiar strangers

The cars are lined up
In the drive-thru
Pushing hard
On the brake lights
In front of them
Eagerly awaiting 
To purchase
Death
Packaged
As Happy Meals
For pennies on the dollar
Through a speaker
Transaction 
With someone
Anonymous 
Making minimum wage
While their greedy
Selfish 
Obese
Stomachs growl

Not giving 
One thought
To the animals
That waited
In line
Before them

Third Day Of Spring

The birds 

Jittery 

Dancing 

Upon the ground 

Warn each other 

About the approaching 

Man and his dog 

In nervous 

Shrill 

Tweets 

I wonder 

If the grubs 

And larvae 

They are digging for 

Have some form 

Of panic signal 

To alert 

The others

It is spring 

Winter 

Is over

The grubs
Have hit
The snooze button
One too many times

They are being pulled forcefully
From the ground
By winter-hardened
Beaks

Everything 

Is once again living 

And 

Fair game 

Headboard

She is on top 

For awhile 

Raining warm milk 

All over me

When she’s spent 

She asks 

What I would like 

And I immediately 

And specifically 

Tell her 

I wanna get behind you 

I want you to 

Put your hands 

On the headboard 

Where I can see them 

Don’t move them 

At all 

What gets me off 

Is different 

Every time 

I watched her hands 

Grabbing 

The wood 

Of the bed 

All I saw 

Was the tautness
And pale white

Of her fingers 

Wrists 

And palms 

For moments 

Upon 

Sweaty 

Moments 

And she took me 

There

Sweet woman

Fixing Things

I remember when 

I was growing up 

My friend Tic’s father 

Was a member of the Pagans.

An outlaw biker gang. 

The One-Percenters 

Meant a totally 

Different thing 

Back then. 

He was heavily tattooed 

Which 

At the time 

Was uncommon 

Except for the military 

Bikers
And ex-cons. 

He used to wear 

“I Love Jesus” 

T-shirts 

With the sleeves cut off 

As a big middle finger 

To surrounding society 

And to raise eyebrows. 

He had a dark sense of humor. 

One particular 

Early winter 

His bike broke down. 

They had no garage.

So he moved out 

The kitchen table 

As a solution 

And pushed in his 

Beast of a bike 

So that he could work on it 

In the comfort 

Of their heated home. 

The kitchen became 

His garage. 

Tools and parts 

Were quickly 

Strewn everywhere. 

The family forced 

To eat their meals 

In the living room 

Over a knotted pine 

Coffee table 

Purchased with 

H&H Green Stamps. 

A week of 

Sweat and cursing 

Tic’s dad got 

The bike put back together 

And fixed. 

I was there the day 

He got it started. 

He was damp and high 

From a several day 

Pagan manufactured 

Meth bender. 

The veins in his neck 

And on his forehead 

Were bulging. 

His eyes were wide open 

And wouldn’t shut. 

He fired 

The machine up 

Right there in the kitchen. 

Oil and exhaust 

Filled the small home. 

He cursed triumphantly. 

As he released the throttle 

He held onto the brake 

Doing a terrific burnout 

Right there on the kitchen floor. 

There was murderous noise 

And choking smoke 

Everywhere. 

The floor was black 

From rubber 

And burn. 

Tic’s mom started 

Screaming at him 

At the top of her lungs 

As he pushed the heaving beast 

Back outside 

Navigating 

The narrow frame of the doorway 

And covering the bike up 

With a dropcloth. 

He came back in 

To the hysterical woman. 

He looked her square in the eyes 

And told her to calm down. 

He stepped back outside 

And brought the kitchen table 

Back in 

Pushing it 

Directly over the burnout 

Followed by the chairs 

And told her that it was fixed. 

He then 

Went to the fridge 

Stuck his hand in 

And sat down on the sofa 

To watch tv 

With the rest of the family 

Popping a beer 

As if everything was normal. 

And his family 

Stared at the television 

As if 

Nothing had happened 

While Tic’s mom 

Sobbed in the kitchen.

Chinese Take Away

When heroin 
Was an easy buy 
On the Lower East Side 
We’d cop 
On a corner 
Or a bodega 
Or even a hole in the wall 
Of some 
Piss stained
Wasted torn building. 

There was an abundance of those. 

We called it Downtown Beirut. 

Ironically 
There was a bar 
Called just that 
In the East Village. 

After we scored 
We’d go back 
To your narrow railroad apartment 
And get high. 

Several hours later 
We’d head down 
To Chinatown 
To anonymous eateries. 

Some a few steps up. 
Some a few steps down. 

Small like living rooms. 

We’d order 
Take-out 
Randomly 
Off of a menu 
That we couldn’t understand 
And take it further 
Downtown 
To the foundation 
Of the Brooklyn Bridge 
And sit on top 
Of one of the burned out frames 
Of stolen cars 
Deposited there 
And watch the lights of neighboring Brooklyn 
And lonely passing boats 
On the East River
As heavy traffic passed overhead.

New York City 
As a whole 
Was chaos back then. 

Anything went 
And did 

As we pulled 
Unknown objects 
Out of cardboard containers 
And ate them 
Without hesitation. 

Only stopping to 
Hold something up 
For the other to see 
Commenting 

“What the fuck is this?” 

Before sticking the chopsticks 
In our mouths and chewing 
Something tender 
Or otherwise. 

Sometimes there were bones.

There were 
Many 
Skeletons 
Of dead cars 
Below 
The embankment 
From the street 
To the river. 

I always wondered 
How they got there. 

Some impossibly far 
From the concrete retaining wall. 

They couldn't have been driven there.

It appeared to me 
That no one 
Even cared that they were there. 

Unnoticed or forgotten. 

But they made 
A perfect picnic table 
At four in the morning. 

One time 
We saw people 
Partying 
High atop 
Of the Manhattan side 
Anchorage. 

Their figures 
Distant 
Defined shadows moving against the night. 

I could hear their radio
Playing hip hop.

I took another bite 
Chewing thoughtfully. 

I looked at you 
And said 
With certain clarity 

“Jesus. I could never do that.”

Ghosts From The Machine (Hypnosis)

A song of whispers 

Crawls 

Upon 

Timeworn railroad arteries 

From the paper speakers 

Of the shelf radio 

In the corner of the studio 

Effluvium 

In the early morning hours 

Not from waking up 

But instead 

From staying awake 

Painting

Multifarious stimuli 

A fresh eye 

Acoustic imaging 

The soulful chorus 

Of females 

Cooing doo wop 

Spells 

Behind a slow 

Deep register 

Male 

Crooning of lost love 

Dilaudid sultry 

Shifting into idle gear 

Voluble and articulate 

Hypnotic induction 

Such as a light 

In a revolving mirror 

Glinting 

Unlocking inner doors 

There is no transference 

Between my joints 

Pressure points immobile 

Gravity surfaced 

As I watch the oil paint 

Dry 

On canvas 

And hear the 

Phenomena 

Of ghosts 

Singing 

Arias 

Vestige 

Desiderata 

I did not even know