She has a fairly large tattoo
Of an orange dragon
On her lower back.
When she’s bent over
In front of me
Moving
That dragon starts breathing fire
Digging his talons
Deeper into her skin
As he unfolds and spreads his wings.
In the morning
When it’s quiet again
And I wake up
She’s still sleeping.
I can pet him
And rub him under his chin.
He purrs
Like an idling
Custom chrome engine.
Some time passes
And he falls asleep as well
Curled up
Like a pit bull
Upon the back of his owner.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Slightly Out Of Tune Firewood
My daughter stands
And plays the beat up
Finger, knuckle and elbow worn
Slightly out of tune
Vagabond
Back of the Gypsy wagon
Upright player piano
That I chanced upon
Years ago
At the curb
In front of the hippie florist
Across the river
From where I live.
I asked the colourful, lively owner
About it
And he coyly told me to take it
That I could have it for free.
“Just take it sweetie.”
He said in an effeminate voice.
“Happy to see it
Get a home
And a new life.”
I had a van at the time
And retrieved some heavy wooden planks
And two good friends.
We had no idea how heavy
That son of a bitch was.
I kept telling them that it was free
Trying to console them
But it was a huge ordeal
Just getting it loaded
Into the van.
It was an old Lester out of Philadelphia.
A Steinway wouldn’t have been at the curb
Would it?
It’s made of solid heavy mahogany
A rough looking beauty.
It bruised my soft pine floors
As we pushed and pulled it into place
Where it now sits in my living room
Vermont white pine
Permanently scarred.
The player mechanism never worked.
A few of the keys don’t work either
Emitting a soft thud
As the action fails to respond.
Two or three of them sit there
Halfway down
Derelict and silent.
In all of these years
I’ve had far greater obligations
Than to have a tuner
Come by the house and fix it.
Surely the technician would arrive
Have a good laugh
And provide me with the recommendation
That it would make better firewood.
I would inform him that it was free
And that my fireplace
Doesn’t work either...
Can he do anything about that?
Firewood would be useless to me.
At least the piano works.
My daughter plays
The dark mahogany Lester piano
In the living room
Somehow missing the ‘dead’ keys.
She’s singing as well
Her voice
Sure and strong
Whirling
Like small helicopters
Above the melody
Coming from the instrument.
The piano sounds
Exactly as it should.
I am still.
I listen.
She plays
Giving it her all
Not knowing
That
Someday...
And it will happen...
The old piano will sit silent...
Then...
I know
I will be chopping the piano up
To pieces
Wires snapping
Wood splitting
Ivory chipping.
I will be too old to go through the trouble
Of moving a complete intact Lester piano
Across soft pine floors
And through narrow doorways.
I envision it now
While she is playing her song.
This dark mahogany instrument will sit at the curb
In pieces
With a handmade sign
That says
“Free firewood.”
And plays the beat up
Finger, knuckle and elbow worn
Slightly out of tune
Vagabond
Back of the Gypsy wagon
Upright player piano
That I chanced upon
Years ago
At the curb
In front of the hippie florist
Across the river
From where I live.
I asked the colourful, lively owner
About it
And he coyly told me to take it
That I could have it for free.
“Just take it sweetie.”
He said in an effeminate voice.
“Happy to see it
Get a home
And a new life.”
I had a van at the time
And retrieved some heavy wooden planks
And two good friends.
We had no idea how heavy
That son of a bitch was.
I kept telling them that it was free
Trying to console them
But it was a huge ordeal
Just getting it loaded
Into the van.
It was an old Lester out of Philadelphia.
A Steinway wouldn’t have been at the curb
Would it?
It’s made of solid heavy mahogany
A rough looking beauty.
It bruised my soft pine floors
As we pushed and pulled it into place
Where it now sits in my living room
Vermont white pine
Permanently scarred.
The player mechanism never worked.
A few of the keys don’t work either
Emitting a soft thud
As the action fails to respond.
Two or three of them sit there
Halfway down
Derelict and silent.
In all of these years
I’ve had far greater obligations
Than to have a tuner
Come by the house and fix it.
Surely the technician would arrive
Have a good laugh
And provide me with the recommendation
That it would make better firewood.
I would inform him that it was free
And that my fireplace
Doesn’t work either...
Can he do anything about that?
Firewood would be useless to me.
At least the piano works.
My daughter plays
The dark mahogany Lester piano
In the living room
Somehow missing the ‘dead’ keys.
She’s singing as well
Her voice
Sure and strong
Whirling
Like small helicopters
Above the melody
Coming from the instrument.
The piano sounds
Exactly as it should.
I am still.
I listen.
She plays
Giving it her all
Not knowing
That
Someday...
And it will happen...
The old piano will sit silent...
Then...
I know
I will be chopping the piano up
To pieces
Wires snapping
Wood splitting
Ivory chipping.
I will be too old to go through the trouble
Of moving a complete intact Lester piano
Across soft pine floors
And through narrow doorways.
I envision it now
While she is playing her song.
This dark mahogany instrument will sit at the curb
In pieces
With a handmade sign
That says
“Free firewood.”
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Grey Creature
There is a woman that visits
When I’m home alone.
She doesn’t knock.
She just let’s herself in without my permission.
She arrives uninvited.
It could be night or day.
She’s not a very pretty woman
And her conversations make me feel tired and sad.
She fills the room with a stale musty smell
And I don’t want to get up
But I do
To open the windows
Hoping to extinguish her.
The window frames are old
A struggle to open
But I do so
Cursing
The quirky dry wooden frames
With the rattling glass.
She is colorless
Like an old photo
But lacks the nostalgia.
There is no charm.
Just the heaviness
Of a scratch covered glass paperweight.
She helps herself
To my booze and cigarettes
Starting with a glass
All ladylike...
Then at some point
Drinking straight from the bottle.
The ashtray fills as my pack empties
And I’ve had but one of them.
I want her to leave.
But
As always
She overstays.
It must be her job.
I think that she visits me
Just to make sure that I get absolutely nothing done.
That
The plants don’t get watered
The bills don’t get paid
The dishes sit in the sink.
The house doesn’t get vacuumed
The bed doesn’t get made.
Words don’t even get written.
The ancient cat sits about licking her ass
Not a care in the world
While the dogs turn in circles
And wonder
When they are going to be fed
Next.
They do not even smell the grey creature
Sitting on the sofa
Next to me
That causes the hours to go by
Without a whimper
A growl
Or a bark.
When I’m home alone.
She doesn’t knock.
She just let’s herself in without my permission.
She arrives uninvited.
It could be night or day.
She’s not a very pretty woman
And her conversations make me feel tired and sad.
She fills the room with a stale musty smell
And I don’t want to get up
But I do
To open the windows
Hoping to extinguish her.
The window frames are old
A struggle to open
But I do so
Cursing
The quirky dry wooden frames
With the rattling glass.
She is colorless
Like an old photo
But lacks the nostalgia.
There is no charm.
Just the heaviness
Of a scratch covered glass paperweight.
She helps herself
To my booze and cigarettes
Starting with a glass
All ladylike...
Then at some point
Drinking straight from the bottle.
The ashtray fills as my pack empties
And I’ve had but one of them.
I want her to leave.
But
As always
She overstays.
It must be her job.
I think that she visits me
Just to make sure that I get absolutely nothing done.
That
The plants don’t get watered
The bills don’t get paid
The dishes sit in the sink.
The house doesn’t get vacuumed
The bed doesn’t get made.
Words don’t even get written.
The ancient cat sits about licking her ass
Not a care in the world
While the dogs turn in circles
And wonder
When they are going to be fed
Next.
They do not even smell the grey creature
Sitting on the sofa
Next to me
That causes the hours to go by
Without a whimper
A growl
Or a bark.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Dipshit
“Jesus!”
“You sunuvabitch motherfucker!”
I hadn’t seen him in a week...
Maybe
A week and a half.
I barely knew him.
But there he was.
He didn’t answer
As he was sprawled out unconcious
Spiked leather jacket still on
With his balls hanging out of the side of
Soiled boxers.
His boots were still on and tied.
This is what I was confronted with when
I arrived at my apartment
To find THIS guy...
“Dipshit”
Passed out on my couch.
I poked around.
He broke into my third floor apartment
On 25th street
Through the bathroom window.
Somehow he got up the fire escape.
Trashcans I’m guessing.
Then navigated his way
Across the hot tar roof
To my bathroom window.
He obviously knew the layout.
I met him a week or so earlier
At a hardcore show
And I let him crash at my place
Because he was on the lamb.
I think he was from Chicago
Or Detroit
And was travelling the East Coast.
That was a big mistake.
He found my gear
Not so carefully hidden
In the top drawer
Of my dresser.
You’d think it might be the first place to look
But he did a good job of tearing my place apart
Eventually finding it
And now he was loaded
On my tab.
I didn’t share my gear with anyone.
Aids was just becoming an epidemic
And as wreckless as I could be
I was very careful about that.
I had just gotten off of work
And climbed the clinical smelling stairway
Of my building.
I had no idea why it smelled like that.
I was used to it.
I had lived there for two years.
There was a CPA on the first floor
And a dude that I rarely ran into
That I think was afraid of me
On the second.
I never saw anyone swabbing the decks at 25th street
But that hallway was pristine spit shine clean
And smelled like a hospital.
Anyways
I entered my apartment
And there he was.
Dipshit.
That was his name.
I remembered that.
His ‘Punk Rawk’ name.
Lots of kids had names.
They either made them up themselves
Or were endowed them
By their circle of friends.
His name fit him like a latex condom.
I kicked his boot.
Nothing.
I started cleaning up.
The asshole trashed some of my favorite records.
I got his shit together and threw it out of
The front window
Onto
The sidewalk below.
I was pissed.
I went over to the sofa
Grabbed his boots by the ankles
And pulled him off hard.
He barely stirred.
Tired.
“Wha...tha...fuck...”
I dragged him across the floor
To the door that led to the stairs.
“What are you...doing...?”
“I’m dragging your sorry ass down to the street!”
I started pulling him down the stairs
Like a heavy bag of garbage.
Thump, thump, thump...
“I needed a place to stay!”
He said.
“You broke into my apartment, went through my shit, got high on my shit and you think
that’s okay?”
“You fucked up my favorite records asshole!”
Thump, thump, thump...
“Stop! Dude! I thought you were punk rock. I thought you were down. Turns out you’re
just like everyone else...”
I started beating the shit out of him
Right then and there.
“Here’s punk rock asshole!”
“I’ll give you punk rock!”
He was bleeding
All over the disinfected stairs.
“Either you walk down or I’m dragging your ass down the rest of the way.”
He was limp
But started to move
Slowly.
He felt his way
A step at a time.
It took a bit
But I watched him
Crawl
Down the stairs
And take his
Punk ass
Outside.
“You sunuvabitch motherfucker!”
I hadn’t seen him in a week...
Maybe
A week and a half.
I barely knew him.
But there he was.
He didn’t answer
As he was sprawled out unconcious
Spiked leather jacket still on
With his balls hanging out of the side of
Soiled boxers.
His boots were still on and tied.
This is what I was confronted with when
I arrived at my apartment
To find THIS guy...
“Dipshit”
Passed out on my couch.
I poked around.
He broke into my third floor apartment
On 25th street
Through the bathroom window.
Somehow he got up the fire escape.
Trashcans I’m guessing.
Then navigated his way
Across the hot tar roof
To my bathroom window.
He obviously knew the layout.
I met him a week or so earlier
At a hardcore show
And I let him crash at my place
Because he was on the lamb.
I think he was from Chicago
Or Detroit
And was travelling the East Coast.
That was a big mistake.
He found my gear
Not so carefully hidden
In the top drawer
Of my dresser.
You’d think it might be the first place to look
But he did a good job of tearing my place apart
Eventually finding it
And now he was loaded
On my tab.
I didn’t share my gear with anyone.
Aids was just becoming an epidemic
And as wreckless as I could be
I was very careful about that.
I had just gotten off of work
And climbed the clinical smelling stairway
Of my building.
I had no idea why it smelled like that.
I was used to it.
I had lived there for two years.
There was a CPA on the first floor
And a dude that I rarely ran into
That I think was afraid of me
On the second.
I never saw anyone swabbing the decks at 25th street
But that hallway was pristine spit shine clean
And smelled like a hospital.
Anyways
I entered my apartment
And there he was.
Dipshit.
That was his name.
I remembered that.
His ‘Punk Rawk’ name.
Lots of kids had names.
They either made them up themselves
Or were endowed them
By their circle of friends.
His name fit him like a latex condom.
I kicked his boot.
Nothing.
I started cleaning up.
The asshole trashed some of my favorite records.
I got his shit together and threw it out of
The front window
Onto
The sidewalk below.
I was pissed.
I went over to the sofa
Grabbed his boots by the ankles
And pulled him off hard.
He barely stirred.
Tired.
“Wha...tha...fuck...”
I dragged him across the floor
To the door that led to the stairs.
“What are you...doing...?”
“I’m dragging your sorry ass down to the street!”
I started pulling him down the stairs
Like a heavy bag of garbage.
Thump, thump, thump...
“I needed a place to stay!”
He said.
“You broke into my apartment, went through my shit, got high on my shit and you think
that’s okay?”
“You fucked up my favorite records asshole!”
Thump, thump, thump...
“Stop! Dude! I thought you were punk rock. I thought you were down. Turns out you’re
just like everyone else...”
I started beating the shit out of him
Right then and there.
“Here’s punk rock asshole!”
“I’ll give you punk rock!”
He was bleeding
All over the disinfected stairs.
“Either you walk down or I’m dragging your ass down the rest of the way.”
He was limp
But started to move
Slowly.
He felt his way
A step at a time.
It took a bit
But I watched him
Crawl
Down the stairs
And take his
Punk ass
Outside.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Witness To An Oracle
Cloud vapors
As thin as digits
Stretched
Pulling like melting elastic
Across
The lamplight
Of the moon
To lose their grasp
Disconnecting
To continue slowly
Across
The night’s sky
Reading the stars
Like braille.
As thin as digits
Stretched
Pulling like melting elastic
Across
The lamplight
Of the moon
To lose their grasp
Disconnecting
To continue slowly
Across
The night’s sky
Reading the stars
Like braille.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Judy Garland
My neighbor looks like a
Toothless Robert Dinero.
He’s an old union man.
He sits in his yard
And I in mine
Beers and ciggies in hand
Talking through the chain link
About jazz
And old west wars.
He collects books and cameras and weird shit.
He says he loves Judy Garland
But interjects
That he’s not queer or anything.
I took a long drag
And assured him that I never thought so.
Then I found a back issue of Vanity Fair
That had an article about Garland’s
Live At Carnegie Hall recording
And I showed it to him.
I thought he would weep
Right there in front of me
As the Philly sun
Baked the concrete
Around us.
Toothless Robert Dinero.
He’s an old union man.
He sits in his yard
And I in mine
Beers and ciggies in hand
Talking through the chain link
About jazz
And old west wars.
He collects books and cameras and weird shit.
He says he loves Judy Garland
But interjects
That he’s not queer or anything.
I took a long drag
And assured him that I never thought so.
Then I found a back issue of Vanity Fair
That had an article about Garland’s
Live At Carnegie Hall recording
And I showed it to him.
I thought he would weep
Right there in front of me
As the Philly sun
Baked the concrete
Around us.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Fishing
I just had a thought...
I remember that day
When we had a picnic at the end of the wharf
The perfect circle of the sun
Making our skin warm to touch
And our smiles bigger.
We sat on the hard concrete of the pier
With our legs dangling over the side
Bait for a high jumping fish.
And I loved the smell of you
As it mixed with the salty air
Your voice chorused the broken-glassed waves
And the hollow music of the factories around us.
We sat on the soft blanket
Drinking wine and laughing
And I don’t even think a fish
From a Hollywood movie
Could’ve reached us then.
I remember that day
When we had a picnic at the end of the wharf
The perfect circle of the sun
Making our skin warm to touch
And our smiles bigger.
We sat on the hard concrete of the pier
With our legs dangling over the side
Bait for a high jumping fish.
And I loved the smell of you
As it mixed with the salty air
Your voice chorused the broken-glassed waves
And the hollow music of the factories around us.
We sat on the soft blanket
Drinking wine and laughing
And I don’t even think a fish
From a Hollywood movie
Could’ve reached us then.
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