Whatever Crutch Keeps You Walking

The old man goes further into night
down the same roads he always has
only slower.
The longer he walks
the less he knows why.
He forgot where he was going
a long time ago.
He has nowhere to go
and it's taken forever
to get there.

Life's been picking him over for 80 years
and he's left stranded
with no eyes,
no legs and no hair.
His body is dismantling itself
for shipment to the sky.
There's still some left though.
He isn't air yet
though his evaporated mind
is forgetting how to rain.
At first it's frightening
not recognizing the face
with the silver hair or
being able to remember the way
it looked before it crinkled up
like trash, but then life becomes
like a melody you've forgotten
the words to;
the shapes losing focus,
pink and green and blue,
are strangely pleasing.

He watches as a boy
he once knew
rises from all fours to retrieve
with the plant of his foot
every step
his own bones
are too brittle to take
and slowly
beneath the hum
of some 80 odd years
he hears his heart
beating
like a song
he used to sing
when he was a boy
before he had other
things to listen to.

Kitty Litter Beach

Her legs she's withheld
from the sun,
they're perfectly right
for his camera. Perfectly
white and cracked against the
white cracked seawall.
This shabby beach is just right
because it's placed on a river
and Manhattan is across the river
and a bunch of warehouses are here too.
We like placing beauty
in the context of decay.
Beauty is just too obvious by itself.
The decay is right because it's a gag
about how everything sucks and is being
destroyed and ha ha
and some things used to be honest
and beautiful and now they're rubble.
Those glass condos embarrass
they try so hard.
They're ruining the neighborhood.
We ruined it first.
The sea is embarrassed, it's face red
under the red ass of the sun.
A kid walks by with a smile
that hasn't been ruined yet.
He's wearing the same sweater
as the photographer
but his Mom picked it out for him.
The sea pukes up trash
on the kitty litter beach.
Ewww, perfect.
The six orange halos
of the six pack are actually
a perfect accessory.
Blow my way, you little piece of trash.
This place wears this day perfectly
and I wonder
How did you all wind up
in the same beards?
and I begin to see
there must be something
nice about that,
they are so soft
and identical.

Tonight I lie with loneliness

Tonight I lie with loneliness
And a kiss dreamt from the air.
The room is blue, my new acquaintance.
The sheets remember the shape of her.

To see the world as one big shrine,
Love is the device for this.
It burns your eyes until they’re blind.
Tonight I lie with loneliness.

God is everywhere she insists.
I’ve never seen though forever stared.
The only place where I’ve known bliss
is in a kiss dreamt from the air.

Maybe He is hiding there.
My eyes grope in the darkness.
They can’t shape Him anywhere.
Tonight, the lie of loneliness.

It’s all around me, I make my peace;
Let flowers be what they are.
Through empty rooms I send a wish
for a kiss dreamt from the air.

Of all the absent the one I miss
is a kiss become a dream of air.
The room is blue, my old acquaintance.
Tonight I lie with loneliness.

Ophelia

Ever since you were
in that play with flowers
growing from your hair
and one of them,
the white one, fell
from your coffin
to the blacktop
and the rain came over it like boots
and the boots came over it like rain...

What a death
they wrote for you! The human flower
crying yourself down the stream
You couldn't sing but boy could you cry!
I’ve never seen anybody
cry so much, not even
in real life
It cracked our hearts
for a while but got annoying
and soon we disowned our feelings
like old bread.

I loved the way your dresses fell
I still hear your song
and every flower you cast down
(
they’re just props but they mean to me
what he said they mean)
You untangled death and blew new breath
in her lungs,
joining the others
who've put bodies over that soul,
new flowers on the Bard’s old tree

By the end the stage was a churchyard
and we yawned and clapped
walking with the dead
as a tree is itself
upside down
roots in the air     
                          branches in the ground

I left the night into the opposite stars
thinking what a life death may be!

Song of the Narcisisst

Today I masturbated to a rose
To a bird
To a tree
They're all me
I am William Blake
I am William Wordsworth
I am Will.I.Am.
I am what I am
against my best efforts
to be something else

Do we even remember who they are?
They're birds
Writing is healing
My voice is the company I find
in a time when everyone else
is distracted by themselves
Am I learning? Am I growing
in this little garden of lines?

Don't leave little bird
You're a Mockingbird
I found you in my book
"Mockingbirds will attack their reflection
in a window, a hubcap, or mirror,
with such vigor that they
injure or kill themselves"
That doesn't sound like me
I prefer my reflection
It's the only thing I'm sure
will be there when I turn to it

A Letter Away

Poetry is just a letter away
from poverty

It is also a letter away
from pottery

The Fly

I think about the fly landing on my hand.
It’s steel-wool behind, it’s stained-glass wings.
The gang goes ranting around a trash can,
those beautiful names of hideous things.

The flies do
what they are named to
in Goodale Park.
Fish called “Swim”.
His name a command you call to him
he can’t help but obey.

I urge him to relax.
He’s going to have a heart attack
drinking his blood so fast.
Savor it, I urge, make it last.

Why so harried?
What’s your hurry?
Are you worried?
Go be merry.
Cool your fury,
you storm and flurry
or you’ll be sorry.
Focus what’s blurry.
Go and marry
the blood you ferry
to skies starry.
Wings have carried
you through a varied
life unstoried,
too soon buried.
Your ass is furry,
The earth is sturdy;
Have a seat.