Box of Mornings

Here's your cigar box back that you gave to me with 12 nights inside, lined up 3x4, and I did my best with it. Sorry I wasn't ready until just before you were leaving town and I really couldn't find enough energy to change them all the way, but here it is: 12 mornings. I'm sure you'll still find some use with them. I can imagine you sitting on the bench at the train station with this box on your lap, checking the departure times and people walking by you pulling luggage, waiting with their paperbacks and magazines -- but you, all you wanted was that box and if you lift up the lid just a crack for one second, some morning will surely shine out. Scents probably too, mixing, as they were all 12 different mornings. You'll get bacon and hot coffee and steamy shampoo from the shower, toothpaste and, if it's a walking morning, maybe car exhaust and pollen, and you might just catch snippets and a mixture of these things if you open that box on your lap.

I know you'll want to give a few of those mornings away when you get home, a couple to the girls and maybe one to your grandfather. The one with the birds and the breeze, I think he'd like that one.

Hopefully you'll be able to save a few for yourself. If you are peeking at the train station or on the train, you might find the special one, well, I wouldn't call it the best or anything I mean of course I'd say all 12 are pretty damn good mornings especially with such pressed time.

But if you look in there and see it, remember that one's for you. Don't give it away. I recreated the one at the beach, that morning with white curtains breathing and muffled voices downstairs and just 2 inches of blue sky visible from bed, and I tried to add in the heartbeats even, but that's just standard, and the stillness, but you'll just have to hold that morning real still in your hands -- and if you do manage to hold that morning very still and you are very careful with it, that might be the only morning in the box you maybe could stretch out into the afternoon like taffy. I won't guarantee it but it's worth a try.

Enough of the preamble, you have the box. My love and regards to everyone and I again wish we could have had more time. On your next visit, I'll have that box of chocolates full of Mondays ready. If I start now, I should be able to get you at least a few 4th of Julys in there and maybe even a New Years, one from the 90's, I'll try.

Raining

Standing in the rain and getting soaked, sweater pulled over head and one hand puny, holding the sides together just beneath chin. No zipping, just cape-like hoping for a half centimeter of dry space between body and weather. Where is the bus?

She stands a few feet away, also waiting. Under a small umbrella. After a while, you ask (that was you getting soaked), Do you know when the bus will be here?

She says, I thought, well it left at ten-of and so any minute now, it's late... (trails off). The wind whips and you close your eyes for a moment. Water slaps your face and you try not to move at all.

Ah, you say. And now that she's had a moment of looking at you she says, Here, want to get under my umbrella? You hesitate a moment, because you are already so wet, why bother, right? But then, it's so nice to not feel the pelting, to hear it just above you and so you

SPLASH

     SPLASH

         SPLASH

               over to her in three big steps. The worst part is the water between your toes, the shoe-sock squash that happens with each movement. Part of why you were standing still.

The girl and you, you don't know each other but the space is very tiny. Your elbows brush and you are both tense for about ten seconds before giving up and letting your elbows brush. And one half of you is still sticking out in the rain and you realize the girl is leaning over to fit you underneath and there are drips running down her back and you hope they won't drop down her neck and make her shiver. (When they do, eventually, she shivers and the umbrella shakes and a drop falls down your neck and you shiver.) Both of you are getting wet now. But neither of you moves out of the umbrella.

You should, you think, let her at least stay dry, but there is the bus coming up the hill.

So you just look at her and say thanks, peeking out from beneath the cape. She says, no problem and has a closed-mouth smile and her shoulders are a little hunched, keeping those last drops away from neck. You sit near the front and put on your headphones right away, she walks to the back; you leave similar puddles on the seats.

The Renegade, in a window seat, is tapping out the rhythm of the wipers on his knee, his forehead is pressed to the pane. Something out there on the street has his attention. You think whatever it is, must be dancing, singing in the rain.

Arriving somewhere

Woke up on the train she had
Writing in black marker up her arm, she realized,
Pulling back her sleeve, head slumped
The sun was rising so she must be
Somewhere

There was someone else in the car
Or wasn’t there? That person was not
Looking at her
And she was looking at her arm
A time and a place

Memory like a basset hound
Sad and soft and
Utterly unhelpful
What a rager last night was, what
Great thirst

She got off at the next stop, onto a
Wooden platform, bleak
Not busy, it was Sunday and she picked a
Quarter up from the floor for
The payphone

Oh right, there was a number there on her arm
Next to the time and place
And, being somewhere and
Awake and not in too bad of shape,
She called it.

No answer. No more quarters.
She heads down the stairs,
Gets a street-level headache,
There the people are.
Here she is.

A hanging yellow banner reminds her
There was a man in a bird suit
Last night
There were
Punchbowls and piñatas

She finds a park somewhere
Inside the here, and a bench
She sits to let her stomach settle,
To let her head ache,
Naps for some time.

Light is lower and grayer when
She wakes and it is
Chillier
And she wonders if she is expected
To be

Somewhere- the place on her arm
Right.
She isn’t sure but thinks,
Has an inclination it is
That way

And off she goes, trot trot
Swinging her pony tail
Wading through noise and traffic
Coming to a large metal doorway behind which is
Thump thump thump

Not sure of the time,
If it is indeed the time on her arm
But anyway she has made it
Arrived at
The place

Where am I?
Where was I? and how
Did this get on my arm?
Are things she
Could ask

She thinks for a moment,
As she walks inside,
About searching for answers
Then remembers
She is Miss Thing

And whatever it is
Will likely not start until she gets there
So
She jumps into the crowd, says
Hello hello hello!

Any

I occasionally mistype my name, spelling Any, and oftentimes will pause before correction. Because for a moment, I am Anyone, someone who I always am and you always are too.  Whose voice is a mystery, like conversations blowing in on the wind. I want to know what the voices say, let my name be a vehicle for Any to hide beneath and speak out of, like a medium of sorts. Any is hiding in there all the time, anyway.

It feels like, until I hit backspace, there is so much possibility and then I erase and it’s just me (but it is just me, and you, and all Amy’s and Really,

It’s just a name and a word.
A rock splashing in the water, for thoughts to spiral off of just like
Anything else
One could say

Sounds

feel free to submit more to me for this list!

The crickets and the cicadas make those noises before a storm.

The sound of a symphony warming up.

The subwoofer on the best of songs, a sound you can feel in your toes and resonant in your memories.

When somebody involuntarily or unconsciously exhales around you, slow and deep, like hearing a smile. Nothing beats that sound.

Thunder in the distance
Thunder right above you

All your friends laughing at once

The clink of ice cubes in the bottom of your glass, then the filling up.

The stupid noise of a gchat message when you are tired and alone. Someone saying hello.

The drone of a needle during a tattooing. Like meditation, like eyes closed and feeling and not thinking about it.

The sound of a great party or show from the outside, just before you step in the door, waiting in line in anticipation (craning your neck so you couldn't even point out the bouncer's face later, as you hand him your ticket, ID, absently).

The sound of “you can go”, “you are dismissed”, and your own footsteps echoing down the hall as you walk away, leaving the others behind, gradually gaining speed until you skip out into the sunlight and the sounds of outside suddenly hit you and it's wind and traffic and voices and freedom!

The ocean. Enough said.

Playgrounds shrieking at children (it sounds like plastic slides slipping and creaking metal at the top of the swings and the splash of feet hitting mulch underneath it all).

“The sound of your ____ (sic) firing up and idling after working on it for a while.” - DC

When one ear is on the mattress and you can hear the muted thud-thud-thud of footsteps on the level below you, like they are crawling up the walls and the ceiling into your head and, simultaneously, your other ear can hear the voice the footsteps belong to and the clatter of plates and drawers and shelves and you know they go together but they are detached and distinct and you fall asleep listening to one thing in two ways.

The Progression

Poems circa 2008

Swamp

muddy waters
reach up a hand
pull me in
swim the dim

when I walked a million hazy bubbles
bursting a million flickers of
smuggy orange oil
lit the air like firefly demise
like falling tea lights
dusk filtered through a swamp

and following the river reedy
moss-laced
I came to the shallows
reached in a hand
and pulled you out of
muddy waters

Endless Paint

Let’s stay in our rigid rows

They are tighter and more constricting than you believe

Though I think you might can be

As free as you imagine

Restriction correlates to willingness to fight

Factoring in (to get all mathy, and it's not true anyway you know)

Ability to find peace (These are not truths)

Inner peace, (it's a) cop out:  is that all you get, that little world in your head, lost in your head as if the middle of your brain was a black hole, quicksand going on infinite or indefinite? Insolent or insatiable?

How can your mind breath?

How don’t you suffocate without that world slipping out ever

In little pieces from your eye sockets

Ears

Nose mouth pores

Sometimes you can get so hungry to throw it all up

The hunger of pacing

The hunger of hot sticky nights where the air hangs and sweat covers everything and there is nowhere to go because it is laaaaattttteeeeee and

Everyone is sleeping.

Why is everyone sleeping,

When you are hungry.

If only you were

(Dreams hanging like a cloud

Over your steady breathing in and out unconscious (to the rest of us) in the dark shadows)

Thought doing acrobatics and ballets

Constant motion-

There- that’s the peace:

A wide open field that is also a canvas large and lovely

And- spread out for you-

Endless paint.

BirdsAngelLion

Some Days

I won't stand for Frustration

What if instead of leaving this black trail there was a delete key chasing these words, an eraser running along and you had to keep UP with the pace or race it to say things before the eraser hit you and you were lost in blankness? Like some gross metaphor phor life you have to go go go and say things and do things and if you don’t you’ll get lost and lose your chance and you can’t backtrack- I guess you could cursor up and up and fuck this what if you just resented that eraser chasing you and why should you be pressured into saying anything and having this dumb drizzle come out just for the sake of saying something FUCK THIS I’m going to start erasing from the front from the end and CHASE YOU ERASER. What are you gonna do- run away? Run turn around? When am I going to start this reverse you ask, since I’m still clearly moving forward? Whenever I damn well want and soon and you better believe it eraser, the race is on it is going to start in a moment. When I catch myself on my feet. I’ll turn around and erase my own words, that’s right, I won’t stand for your destruction, I will erase myself all the way back to what if.

Key City Series

Patriotism

I is love will always
The Land that Isn't
Thought Place

No are isms any
or to preach follow to
No cash
No road blocks writers

everything tastes like cake

bleeds it out of heads are
all where mixing
making lands
new over over over

Pledge and we
with Mania

Something about a rose (?)

I remember figuring out how to draw bricks
And chain links
Following a diagram in a magazine for
“How-to-draw a rose”

Ah-ha,
I thought,
It’s all just simple patterns
All just where you put the lines
And where you leave spaces
        but looking at a rose next to some chain link,
        it looked nothing like that diagram.

My paintings look nothing like what was in my head when I started
But sometimes that might be because I start blank
What is it then? What is falling out?

I might wonder how you knew that my scratches
Were meant to be a rose
Words meant to be prose
And everything I say and don’t say
Contains: I love you
I’m glad to be here

and I want to know what you say
and draw, and do.

Sprout

    I’m eating my cereal and Nick is drinking his coffee and we are watching a show on the travel channel about the world’s first floating gated community, the 12 story Residensea. Neither of us has been on a cruise, but his friend Sprout- the quiet kid with the long dreads that I met last night who was working in the kitchen with Nick at Ethel and Ramone’s- got a free trip one time.

    He was shipwrecked, stranded at sea, and a cruise ship picked him up (the Explorer of the Seas). They even paid for him to reach the intended destination.

    That’s so cool- Wait, what? Stranded at sea?

    Yeah, he was sure he was gonna die. It was like a week or something (11 days). They were almost out of food and water. They were trying to go from Baltimore to the Bahamas (Key West).

    Who was he on this ship with?

    The captain and a homeless guy. You can watch the video on YouTube.

    I found it later: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AVk2pcNi9s

    And the interview on board: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ZFGr94kXk&feature=related

    It was gorgeous that day, walking to the bus stop, thinking about getting lost at sea. Lost on sidewalks.

Regina

The sun sets out the window and the skyline lights up, the flag on the rooftop across the way wiggles in the wind and the Washington monument is an enormous sentry, just to the left. Take a step back, and a black and white photo of it sits against the wall, portrait and subject looking at each other through a pane of glass.

    Calvert mews, Guilford hops around on his three legs.

    Regina is heating up the soup in the kitchen.

    She shows me pictures on her digital camera of things she’s seen looking down into the park, says she used to snap shots at one bench all day long- caught all different people and things in one tiny frame. It’ll be a book or a blog that Regina calls, “I just live here!”

    We watch a documentary:  The Battle of Chernobyl

    I met her at a mixer for Baltimore real estate agents and lenders.

    She sends me emails with subject lines like “New Nuclear Reactor in Our Backyard.”

My First Poetry Reading Review where I acted like a Journalist, sort of

I just came across this, something I turned in for a class, and think it is funny, and not to get all journal-y, but I think it is amusing to see where I used to be. Look how silly and grandiose I am! Invoking quantum physics! Look how much better (I think) my prose gets when I'm not consciously trying to be a reporter- did I lose something by thinking about careers? Am I now just trying to notice things that I'm supposed to notice, rather than the periodic table on the wall, and the voices wandering in from the hallway? Why can't poetry from my notes make it to the final draft?

Sometime in 2008

Here's a character: Old gray haired woman with the antique-looking brown leather fanny pack on her front, beneath a loose blue jean collared shirt. This is at the gourmet catered lunch on the third floor, Hillel, during the Lavy colloquium, where I was working, shmoozing, but mainly stealing food.

Anyways she says, “Needless to say, I received the first rejection letter... because I had a BS in BS- and I'm not shitting you!” By the way she was (is?) a civil engineer for Baltimore city, waste water stuff. Hardly a BS in BS if you ask me (but maybe in shit). From College Park. The rejection was about being on the space shuttle some time back and I admired her attempt at nailing fantasy because she dreamed hopeless astronaut dreams but wasn't hopeless, tried at least. She's a self-proclaimed science fiction enthusiast.

She talked about working for the city municipality, good hours 8:30 to 4:30, good for having kids. She talked about the division of the workplace- half white men and half women/minorities because one boss thought hiring women and minorities would ensure loyalty and the other guy took whoever applied (White men, presumably). This woman, reminiscing – old people do like to talk about the past, don't they? Or just to youngsters, did I awaken some part of her brain that was a little dusty?- there were “more characters in those days”. The German-Irishman who would paint his beard green for St. Patty's every year, and (was this the same guy?) the one who smoked cigars constantly at his desk (“you can't smoke in the office nowadays”) then threw them in the trash, lighting it on fire. “Of course the Jew at the desk next to him kept a fire extinguisher!”

Renegade Sightings

The Renegade, he’s been missing for a while. Well we haven’t heard from him, at least.

We first sight him in the distance, standing out in a soggy field where some kids are kicking a ball around. It’s reckless of him, we think, standing out in the middle of commotion, swirling dirt and spit and limbs. Nice hustle, we hear him shout. What is he, some kind of soccer coach?

Our sandals are squishing uncomfortably, getting muck between our toes and up our calves, as we try to find the path of least sink. And the Renegade, he looks so calm. It’s a wonder he left no prints, in those boots.

The second time we see the Renegade, he’s at Giant buying bananas and frozen pizza. We know because we get in line behind him and watch him check out. He smiles, and we don’t know what to say exactly, we are still trying to figure it out when he picks up his bags and turns to us, behind him, says, Here, and hands us the printout coupons off his receipt. $1 off Ziplock bags- in our cart. Hey thanks! (More enthusiastic than necessary). No problem. We can see Daisy through the glass, outside the store. She waves, surely at the Renegade. When we get outside, they are gone. We buy lemonade from girl scouts who are camped under the strip mall awning.

In the night, there is racing up and down the streets, and sirens and yelling outside our window. In the moment before we get up, we imagine the scene. The Renegade must already be there. He must be rolling up, sorting things out. Like Batman, a vigilante, we romanticize him in our half-sleep.

We walk to the window, look down into the sidewalk. Voices are raised, angry, somewhere, and tires screech. There is nothing to see but red and blue strobe way down at the bottom of the hill. A cat looks up at us and streetlight or starlight is reflecting in its eyes, but we see embers. We look up and down for the tell-tale trail of cigarette smoke, look for a long time until the police car pulls away, so certain he was there. We never thought of going outside ourselves, just fall asleep to the sounds of distant chaos.

Daisy pulls up in the alley, breathless, and the Renegade jumps in without waiting for her to come to a stop. Hi Beautiful, the tires smoke, they disappear, and the night rushes back to fill in the space.

Some Options, Here

Vomit Buddy
I'll be your vomit buddy
We can pick bushes side by side
or share an alley wall

Lover
I'll be your lover
We can pool our resources
or make something out of nothing

Roommate
I'll be your roommate
We can each pay half
or decide to be lovers

Autobiographer
I'll be your autobiographer
We can impersonate each other
or just trade lives

A Lie about Postmodern Cookies

(There was a plate of hybrid cookies- like Oreo chunks in the chocolate chip, etc- at lunch today and a guy said "Those cookies are so postmodern.")

Postmodern cookies.
a little joke I
laugh at and
then I want to
throw up want
these cookies
to be in a bar or
a field,
burned in a
bonfire, uneaten
destroyed
cooked-
made by throwing flour
and sugar in
fistfuls, baking in
hellfire
a vicious oven.
and this all needs
edit edit edit (ing)
that's all and I'm
so
so
(or/and maybe I'm just
delirious with hunger
for the hybrid cookies?
I'ts ambiguous.)
I'll stuff my face.
One day I'll claw
out of here.
One day oreos will
do it for me.

West Virginia

Library, Shades of Gray

It seemed like most everyone was stuck in the library while the rain pelted silently away in the courtyard.  The thick hushing of the ventilation system drowned out its patter.
A girl in a blue sweatshirt leaned over a table, curled into her physics book looking for equations that would explain what the hell was going on.  Who really knew? She wondered.  Newton only got so close.
Tap- taps of typing, occasional coughs, pencil scratches broke the air like little jolts of electricity running through the stillness.  With its constant yellow light, its perpetual, recirculating atmosphere, the library was suspended like a Jello mold (only wobbling once in a while when someone new came in and dropped their bags of priorities).
Now the girl was in a groove, calculating and after every problem sipping on a can of Arizona iced tea.  Outside, twilight arrived in stealth- the rain clouds concealing the change of light, dampening the ray's intrusions.  The girl looked up.  A boy with a bloated backpack was approaching but still miles away in the stacks.  She looked back down; she'd be able to solve this one equation before he arrived.
Attention... the intercom spoke.  The circulation desk will be...  No problem- thought the girl- I won't be checking out.  The boy sat down and pulled out a candy bar.  What chapter are you on?  23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
The world outside was a black patter-patter and inside was stale cramped necks and detachment.

The Hand- an early beginning I found, which is better?

Red fingertips and red blood- falling    drip    drip   onto the carpet, absorbing the splash with the silence of a snowfall. The pinky, striaght, suspended off the edge of the dresser where the rest of the hand lay. Elegance in the curl of the palm, the manicure, the mahogony and white carpet equaled beautiful disaster.
The sunrise slanted in, lit up empty space.

Months before, the hand belonged to a body, that of Elmira Ramirez. Heels echoing down the laboratory hallway, she carried a vial of serum to the incubation room.

the Letter a

aface
any face
ame
whatever me you please

your face disgrace
as my me
looks for
a

a is missing
a is mysterious
anonymity
a washout but

a is also a substrate
binding
to the others and
unwinding any
mean
ing

amean amy
ameanface
apocalyptic
anarchy

is what a is all about
amess
a
disaster
always comes first
aface always before
aword amouth

we all know
a

Renegade Bench Drag

Aren't you smarter than that? Said a passerby with a tote bag, to The Renegade relaxing on a bench and following slow drag with slow drag. He looks at her without malice and does not respond. Adjusts his arm on the back of the bench as she walks away.

A man comes up, he's in that ambiguous 30s age range, with a short sleeve button-up (plaid) mostly tucked into jeans, and New Balance's in an unassuming gray. He's like an amorphous clay ball that has already started baking a little on the windowsill. He sits down on the bench next to The Renegade. Says, “Smoking?” where his voice changes pitch two and half times in the word, like he started out scolding and realized that and changed his mind and wanted to be conversational and then just wasn't sure in the end. You know, “Smoking?”

The Renegade, he coughs phlemy, allergic, turns his head to face the man then says, “Well because I have this cold anyway, I may as well smoke.” Coughs, drags. Coughs. Glances unhurriedly across the grass. “You know it cancelled out the coffee breath, sort of. Ha-ha.” Ha degenerates to cough and he continues the thought, while ashing the cigarette, “There's a classic combination- coffee and cigarettes.”

The man is picking out a position while he listens, settles for hands on knees and a slight incline towards The Renegade. Is unaware of the tiny furrow in his brow.

The Renegade continues, “The inside of my mouth- maybe now it tastes like Such a poetry slam.”

The man responds. “That would be the pretty- romantic?- version.”

The Renegade had been taking a drag while the man spoke, exhaled with his face turned away but not his eyes, and then said, “Ok, or a truck stop then.”

Quick, is the man, with, “Hey I wasn't judging, wasn't judging” and his words trail while he nods. Both of them look out from the bench, together on the bench surveying the grass. The Renegade lights another cigarette.

“We all die anyway, right?” says the man, and at this, the smoker, The Renegade, he looks at the man who can't decide if he's old or feels old or what- and if he wasn't The Renegade he might have sighed- but he just looks a moment and gets up and hold out his hand with the cigarette.

“You want?”

He walks away when the man takes the cigarette (and the man is smushing it now, a little bit, between his fingers) and, in a couple of seconds when he looks back at the man on the bench he sees a smoky aura rising. And sees him put the cigarette out.

Bathroom Story

The day outside is so bright that the colors of the grass, trees, etc. fluoresce. Ah, springtime.

A girl who is inside sits in a toilet stall. She leans forward to adjust and the motion sensor sets off a flush. She is not done and still thinking about this annoyance when, a few seconds later, the whole thing repeats and she learns- a-ha!- this is the exact motion that does it. She rocks now back and forth and back and flush and flush and flush- if you saw her, heard her, you'd think something was wrong, but you're not in the bathroom- and she is holding the sides of the stall now and she stops rocking because nothing is wrong. It's just that she's angry, trapped in this bathroom and this stall made of synthetic materials. She does not want to leave and have to stay in this building all day when the outside exists.

She washes her hands and takes a controlled breath over the sink, makes eye contact with the reflection. She notes the splotchy affects of the sun on dim skin that fluctuates from more to less here in the bathroom's tube lights.

There are no windows in the bathroom, but there are in the hall and she thinks she could go look, she could go outside and disappear there, not here. But she only thinks this for two and a half seconds and stops. Picks up her bag, it is time to return to that room. Before she steps, in the moment when she is about to tell her muscles to step, the toilet flushes again.

No clouds filter the brilliance outside yet, but they are coming.

Truth

Schoolhouse

The 7th grade teacher (who also taught 1st grade reading),
Scrubbing off my grafitti tatoos,
I watched her go here herself, grow up, come back, but when she was older
She was different, she used to sit under my awning, in the shade
Out back in the heat and I knew
She was dreaming of ice skating, tracing
Figure 8's with the end of her cigarette.

I always liked the winter too, the sheen the
Wet mittens and how the ground
Creeped up my sides.

Cody picked noisy fights outside &
Silent ones within, when he showed up, which was mostly
At night in through the gym window that never shut right.
He'd sit on the bleachers and smoke pot and sometimes
Shoot hoops by himself in the shade-light
Moon-lite echoes were his words and he filled up the space so that
I don't think he even missed the basketball team (he was on it until he
Got cut for not showing up). But some folks just seem to be
More present at night, day-ghosts.

The children were gone long before
I became a killer.
A beam in that same gymnasium
Fell, crashing in on a man so loud that
The crows flew out of the old school bus beside me
On cinderblocks.
It's good the twister took me; they would have razed me anyway.

Gator

There is something inside me
Like a gator maybe
It wants out


Its snout and jaws are
Climbing up my brainstem and
Cramped in my skull
(lined up so one eye can only see
out of half my socket)
Its hard sharp teeth
Jaws clamped vice chomping on
My language center
My visual cortex
Wanting me to sense its scales
To cry gator tears
To bleed its reptile infection


Catching in my throat
Catching
The creature swallows inside
My swallow
Out of sync
Throat in a throat


it is probably a yellow monster


The scaly stomach is deflated
To fit in mine
It is so hungry
I can eat and eat
But the gator starves
It's yellow anger
Rumbles through my limbs
Makes me pace the creature's
dissatisfaction


The hulk limbs
and mine compete
to run, jump
peddle up a mountain
The tail must be
curled around my organs
or doubling up in my backside
There is no room for that tail
or place to swing and slap
curve through water
the part that is a snake,
No room to hiss


This monster yellow of a
healing bruise
of jaundice, fever


i'm relieved now that i'm aware
That I know about the gator
that
i must only be
looking for a swamp.

Lady Liberty

Saint Leila Remix!

Carlos

Old Carlos was waiting on a bench, with his walker right next to the bench that was accidently polka-dotted gray where the red paint was chipping off slowly. He was wrinkly, his shirt was not tucked in and his glasses were wide and gold, and it took him a moment to turn sideways when young Carlos plopped onto the bench next to him, scratched knees on short legs swinging, punctuating the air with his red sneakers.

“Now those are sneakers!” said old Carlos, and young Carlos scrunched up his whole face so his eyes were squinting to make a big toothy face. It was barred teeth really, but he kept swinging his feet and the other Carlos was old so maybe he didn't notice or care and he made an old-person snorting laugh sound. The kind you can't tell if it's through the nose or the mouth.

Geninne was watching this from across the street. She was wearing a velour sweatsuit and watering the plants on her front porch and being very nosy.

Young Carlos was smacking gum, said through the saliva, “Wanna piece?” Old Carlos made that sound again and just said “I used to blow bubblegum at school. Wasn't allowed it at home.” Young Carlos had turned his attention to the walker, was standing on the bench to look at it. The old man stood, shakily, and gestured with both hands like a waiter showing the dessert spread, “You like my ride?”

Carlos is going to hurt himself, Geninne said to her cat, if he's not careful.

“Yes!” said young Carlos, and he jumped off the bench into the walker, catching himself like a gymanst between the two bars, holding himself up and swinging those short legs.
Old Carlos laughed loudly.
The metal squeeked, unprepared to bounce.

On Geninne's side of the street, The Renegade was walking up the sidewalk. He stopped in front of her house to light a cigarette. “'Afternoon” he said, and Geninne was about to scold but he locked eyes with her and the words melted in her mouth like butter.

Now young Carlos was monkeying and making faces up at old Carlos, dancing in circles around him, hiding behind the bench and popping up, and old Carlos was hunched with his hands on his knees, bending more than he had in a while making faces back at him, moving as fast as he could to turn round and keep up. A bell rang from up the street a bit and at the same time a voice down the street the opposite way called out, Caarrrlos! They each looked in opposite directions.

“It's time to go,” said old Carlos, and then he sighed. “Got-to-go,” said the young one.
“I wish you could stay.”

Smoke lingered in front of Geninne's house, where she was just standing, done with watering plants. The cat yawwwned.
“Carlos, he's always late for dinner!” she chided. “Stays out so long...”
A bus stopped in front of the bench, and she looked up the sidewalk, watched The Renegade getting smaller for a moment. The bus pulled away and Geninne blinked, seeing the bench empty. In the fading rumble of the bus, the fading smoke, the street was quiet and vacant and she was alone; she looked up and down one more time and the cat got up, walked inside, dismissed her.

Fast on a bike

Speed Makes a Disconnect, and Makes me small.

I was so incredibly jealous

that you were so fast

you were yourself

so angry was my frustration

being at the stoplight on my bike next to you

thought i'd get a head start by breaking the law and going through the red

but there was no way anyway and I knew it

you looked at me through your helmet visor and jetted off

so fucking fast

like I had no idea you could go that fast.

Before I blinked

before I had time to make a word you were gone around the corner and I was left in the middle of the street

on my bike

pedeling is

the road is long

why can't I go that fast?

Why don't I have a motorcycle?

If I did it would just be me and the night

and i'd leave you behind.

Avocados

It was so terrible when I asked that nice guy with the Bluetooth who I always see heating up his lunch in the kitchenette, I asked him if there were any extra spoons around. I wanted to eat this avocado half I had in a baggie that I was kind of hiding behind the coffee maker while I asked b/c it was kinda gross, but you know, so delicious.

And, as I’m asking, this cute guy- cute like he’s young and fit and seeing him in a tie and collar doesn’t make my neck itch (wears it well) and of course he’s suave, all “I have a spoon. Let me get it”

“no no, you don’t have to… it’s not a big-“

“It’s right around the corner” and now he’s already backtracking and I’m stuck hiding the baggie and the other guy has some in-conclusion-stranger-sympathy “weird-cuz-in-a-kitchen-you’d-expect…” remark that is described with so many hyphens, obviously, and I’m over-thinking it, but then you know, that is also his Exit Remark and I’m left in the room alone and where is this other guy? I thought he said right around the corner- should I have followed him so I would know where to give the spoon back, and by not knowing his name or desk I’m not setting up talking to him again or for that matter returning THE SPOON, THE SPOON: it was about being decent that’s all and what the fuck now I’m alone in here, trying to be nonchalant but not really with anything to do. I could duck out. He comes back.

Thank you so much do you want this back?

“it’s disposable…” ok. Then. (of course he doesn’t want back a disposable fucking spoon!) (Why the fuck would you bring an avocado for lunch and no spoon! And then not know what to do about it? Ka-rist!) And he keeps on walking right out and I take that avocado out and destroy it and throw out the bag and the skin and the spoon, all in about 7 seconds, which I hear is a significant amount of time and I finally leave the copy room.

All that, all that nonsense for a fucking shitty half of an avocado that has been out of the fridge for like four hours now and is getting kind of brown and not even good-mushy since I cut it still a little under-ripe. All that and we didn’t even jump into a storage closet to have sex, or talk or anything.

And my boss’s boss stops me in the hall and we are pleasant for a moment and as I say ta-ta I look back and there is that guy like ten feet away and coming and what do I do? Turn around immediately and head back to my cubicle, not looking back.

And when I get there I throw my computer- monitor and all- out the window and yell and broken glass gets everywhere. Who knows whether the guy turns out to be a killer or not, or some kinda freak, who knows? Spoon-collecting freak.

I killed him with a fork.

Dead Spam

It's been perhaps a little over a year since --- died (She might have been named Esmerelda, Esme for short?). It was tragic, moreso than death is regularly, since she was young and all, and so unexpected.

Most of the people who knew her have come to some sort of terms, some kinda moving on, J included. He was (had been) friends with Esme. Really, she was his buddy's girlfriend, but she had immediately become a part of the group and a regular at their parties, their shenanigans (yeah I said shenanigans). When J was uncertain about getting a job, Esme had found the perfect thing for him- she knew someone with a workshop who needed a hand but was also into new design ideas, building concepts. J had some prototypes to show for it now.

They hadn't spent much time one-on-one but there was the afternoon they watched the Science channel and that long and side-tracked journey to the airport in Philly to pick his buddy up- where J was driving and Esme was navigating and it wasn't even until they got there that he realized the radio was off. Esme was like that.

So anyway, here we are now about a year later and J's stomach just turned over for a second to see Esme's name in his inbox, bold unopened. It's spam of course.

He can't help but click on it though. Esme, he's saying, in his temples.

If the computer screen wasn't so bright and stiff and mechanical

The next day it's three more. (Support my good friend with a small donation and get double back! I used this product and lost 30 lbs in 30 days! Pass this along to five people you know or the curse will be on you)

And so on, but he clicks. He clicks he clicks with some strange feeling, starts deleting them but never marking them spam and they keep coming, from Esme's account, more and more and more and it seems like he should do something about it, finally. Should he contact the service? Should he change his settings- J does not want to block Esme, Esme's name, her email. Her whatever it is.

It's stupid J.

He's talked to some other people and some are very upset, that are getting the messages too. It's only a few from the circle that really knew her, random choices- maybe more but not everyone mentioned it, probably, thinks J. But it still feels personal, seeing Esme and JBird335, two people he knows on that monitor.

Before his computer crashes

(J was not good with these things, only moderately average- the workshop was where it was at, for him. Computers were electrons jumping around, were an ether, were some undefined space

And keys and hardware...

But I was saying, before his computer crashes, J replies to one of the spams. Dear Esme,

Dear Esme,

I miss you (and he pauses here a long time, until the blinking cursor blurs and he looks away and there are spots in his eyes)

(and he really doesn't know what else to say. That he loves her? That he remembers her? That he will always? Or that hey, asshole, stop hacking my dead friends account! I know this is bullshit spam. I know I shouldn't open it, and you are toxic, and you are in no way Esme. Not even close.)

He deletes it all and starts over.

Dear Esme,

It has been a long time, and I have been really busy, but I'm excited to tell you about my new car and the new addition to the workshop, more importantly. We moved into that big space down on 25th street, over by where the theater used to be? There is great lighting and we are starting to get a lot of publicity now...

Later J gets a new email, but it was time anyway (business expanding, work requests). He never did see whether Esme responded to his response. Is glad that at least JBird will always buy her weight-loss products.

A question for the pillow and falling asleep: how infinite is cyberspace?

J thinks, he's halfway dreaming,

It's like the ocean recycling, always

Lapping at the beach

The Hand, a thriller

A freshly severed hand on a dark dresser top (an elegant dresser, carved and solid). Silent drip drip drip, red blood on the carpet, drip drip drip...

-------------------------------------------------------------

It's the near future, in a stem cell lab. Corporate, not the academic type.

Elmira Ramirez, Chief Scientist, marches down the long tile hall. Resounding click of high heels echoes

fluorescent lights.

Rats in cages, caged rooms.

(barbed wire at the guard station outside)

Progress.

ACCIDENT and she didn't make headlines because

it was taboo, a secret because

she was killing someone else in the struggle

a rival scientist? a jealous sister? pick one but the important part is that, in the struggle,

slice

ACCIDENT and

Chief Scientist implores,

Save that hand!

But it's gone (THAT HAND IS GONE)

Buried that hand with the body, but no hand is evidence too.

Where'd you lose that hand, Elmira?

Later, late night.

Awake in lab (glow) goggles.

frenzy

test tubes, petri dish, scalpel

and grafting with a scalpel

the latest unreleased secret- the "Re-Gens"- and

New hand takes seed.

----------------------------------

The new hand is not quite right.

something sinister

over time- evil

the new hand and the other hand begin to oppose one another until

the hands-off (hand vs. hand)

approaches mania.

A struggle!

The hand becomes destructive

Racing scene ensues:

In Elmira's house (urgency)

She staggers through the door (rocking on its hinge, left open)

snowy outside chill

night time air

to the bedroom

-low lights

dark mahogany and

cream plush carpets (white)

Battle Battle one hand has a

large knife!

(grabbed it in the kitchen, on the way in)

She is able to knock it away (Elmira, with the other hand)

it falls on the bed

Hours and Hours.... she fights

STANDING

arms apart, held with all

her strength

tension

persperation

the sunlight is starting to

creep over the snow horizon out the window.

it makes a tiny line on the wall and

Elmira stands as the sun rises

holding out

holding out

holding out

Final image:

A severed hand

at the wrist

bones and nerves stick out

laying on the hard

mahogony

camoflauge

next to the hairbrush

jewelery box

drip drip is silent, to the floor

enveloped by the plush carpet,

it's silent.

snow comes in the front door.

Elmira is gone.

The sun is up.

Hands and Keys

When you don't know what to sketch, draw what is in front of you.

The hands on the keyboard rest with poise, not unlike a pianist deciding what to play.The left hand more sprawled, arched, with fingertips brushing the numbers, the index finger lightly over r and the thumb on ever such a slight angle, hoovering above the space bar. The right hand is also relaxed, but in attack position, the fingers already running across jkl; and the palm making its own downward c.

The hands pause in this position and then pivot, digits lifting, seeking, testing the feel of many keys before making the push like beachcombers with metal dectectors, waiting for a signal, the right essence, to pull them in.

For a moment they leave, to press temples and scratch nose.

The sketch is coming along (knuckles crack), but pauses are becoming more frequent. The path has been veered off, somewhere, and the pull is now for delete delete... Yet, tap-tap-tap, the fingers hesitate, the hands reluctant to leave.

The right hand ring finger is preparing for the final stroke; the period. But suddenly it all seems so uncertain, so tenuous, the whole thing- was it just a warm-up, not the final dance?

And the hands realized the ending is not always a period

Walking Home

This alley

Is where the thief fled

After he robbed the boutique

Across the street

The owner didn’t see where he went

But noticed the

Troubled girl on the corner

Staring at her sneakers

She would grow up to be a lawyer

And a botanist

That Heineken truck almost hit her

Stepping off the curb

Stopping at the Royal Farms

(for a lighter)

This is where the lovers met

Reaching for the same scratch-off lottery ticket

They split the ten dollar winnings

On a coffee next door

And now climbing the hill

Past houses decorated for

Halloween

The old lady here

Once handed out

Nancy Drew’s until

Her whole collection was gone

And she sat back on her rocking chair

And smiled

The Catholic school on the corner

Smells like hot cider

Though no one is there

Except the ghost who

Keeps the basement dusty

Lights flash, sidewalk in strobe,

As the fire truck backs into the station

The newest fighter is

Just back from his first rescue

Still jumpy

Exhilaration

The Chief worries about

Pension plans

Plans that carry to the

Old folk’s home

At the top of the hill

Walker wars

They nod hello

Look out from benches, balconies

Across the crumbling cemetery

Punctuated by autumn leaves

And autumn dreams

The Chinese restaurant

A plot of money laundering?

Or is that at the

Launders on the next block?

A woman waits for the bus

With her newspaper

And a package fresh-wrapped

From the vintage store

Someone’s former bad date

Will be her

Winning 80’s party outfit

And it looks like the

Recycling has been picked up

Hopping the porch steps

Finally

Opening the door that has been

Opened thousands of times

At the quaint house

Nestled in

Where the girl rests on the

Couch and pulls out her

Notebook

Gets ready with her pen and

A fresh sheet

So the story can begin

Trying to Write a Novel

Farewell, my lovely

said Dahlia, holding a bouquet.

And every sentence was a fresh start

But all that was coming out was poetry

Some elusive vomit of communication

Michael replied

I won't forget you- not till

the Earth stops hurtling around the Sun

Sun-days after

Saturdays after

yesterday

Now he wasn't making sense anymore

A haystack of thoughts

There was no plot.

I just thought I'd start writing

Drinking coffee

Checking facebook

Listening to all these voices around me, a

chaotic storyline called dinner (because I'm sitting in a

diner) (trying to be a writer)

Really!

(I am)

Phone call.

And in the moments of distraction, I missed it.

Michael left.

Dahlia opened a Southwestern restaurant. On Christmas

she thought of him

and he smelled flowers as he stared at the fire.

a silly poem about puppies

Want a puppy or wanting to be a puppy

Warm laps;

lapped love

Licking and making my

soul wag

The park is less empty

Scented colors

(it must have been dogs that invented those markers, or

our desires to get in touch with puppies perhaps)

And never was there reluctance for the outing

or that which couldn't be cured by

a biscuit.

Murder Mystery, Part I

The charge was murder;

Death by Nine Iron in the

Ever-green yards of

Admiral's Terrace Club-

Tee for a light fee.

Elaine Helmherst lay

Half in the rose bush

Clumps of dirt on her

Off white- cream- pleated

skirt, recently pressed by

Patel and Sons for

Pickup at Eleven.

An eerie breeze brushed

The leafy maples in

Shades of Autumn, shading gray

The holes the carts the

Tar pathway

Golfers strolling back

In the setting oranges, light sweat,

Jogging as they reached

The Club and the

Autumn-yellow police tape.

Denise Valentine,

Drenched in consternation

Leaned over Elaine, frowned.

Her listen-to-me brown boot heels

Sank a bit in the moist ground

Left a double tooth mark circle

Around the body. The nine iron

(determined by the wound)-

Missing.

Chill air warned of a heavy implement

Out there, somewhere- contrived as a

Place not meant to be discovered-

Foreboding, disturbing.

The cool breeze brushed Denise

But Denise did not stir

Only squinted into the sun,

Turned her head, said,

“Gather everyone from the greens

And lockdown the Club. Tonight

Will be tedious and illuminating.”

“I'll make coffee” said Mrs. Porter,

White as an eighty-year-old woman

Wrinkly and wry

The Admiral's wife and a believer

In taking it all in stride.

The First and The Renegade Part I

There is a cowboy- not an actual bronco-wrangler but for some reason I'm thinking of him as the cowboy, it fits, though maybe The Renegade would be better. I like that better. It's like urban cowboy, it's the cowboy mystique without the wild west which is dissapointing with its strip malls and factory farms anyway. But the rocks are lovely.

So The Renegade, he is laying on his back across a couple of metal folding chairs in a row, looking lazy at the ceiling sometimes (there are big metal rafters up there, criss-crossing and peaking in the middle), sometimes eyes closed and you can't tell if he's awake. Basketball hoops are at either end of the row and people are hustling and bustling all around the perimeter, setting up for something. The Renegade blends into the very middle of it all, unnoticed but watching, or noticed but not bothered with, for just this moment. A door is open at the side of the gym (I guess it's a gym then, the rafter-building) and it is still daylight and it will be spring in three days but it is just close enough to pretend and to have a little pre-infatuation with the outdoors, which everyone is doing by leaving the door open. Plus, it's hot in there (all the people, lights).

The Renegade could be here or he could be miles away, dreaming about his previous lives, we still can't tell. He doesn't dress like a cowboy, but you could almost see the Stetson resting on his forehead so only a sliver is available to his eyes. Rolled up jeans and a cotton shirt, versatile looking sneakers that make him ready, all the time, for some kinda action, but they are kicked up just right, ankles crossed mid-chair and his body in a drawn out C shape slightly so he can fit on the row. Or maybe he is wearing boots, but nothing clunky. Athletic boots, that might be it, is that a thing?. He is like a lion on a rock in the middle of the savannah while creatures move about around about him and he is there but not, they know it, but not, and in five minutes this whole scene will be over and he will be animal again, not God.

There's a screech of feedback from the speakers, and a screeching chorus in response but The Renegade, he doesn't move, only closes his lids a little more and focuses on that one place where the beams are coming together up above. Everyone must leave the floor- he doesn't move- the lights are changing, someone is standing on a ladder with filters red-yellow-green-red-yellow, which The Renegade sees as dancing shadows and the announcement is made again- Okay, really this time, please go to your positions, we are going to start and now The Renegade stretches once and does a crunch up with his abs, turns to face front and notices there was someone sitting beside him, a chair away, for who knows how long now. She is adjusting her costume and smiles at him, says “Shall we?” and they both get up and walk to the side of the room with that door. The Renegade blinks, thinking where-did-she-come-from, (she is certainly not Savannah-brand) but no matter, it is all still flowing just fine, the people moving around this room, and it's time to start soon now so he asks her, “Are you ready?”

The show is over and the girl (who is Daisy) and The Renegade are packing up with everyone else, congratulating one another and laughing and taking photos. They are outside all loading up a van with lights and props and costumes. The soccer mom who owns it is efficient at packing everything in, used to mess but not to this drippy sticky makeup and it shows when she paws at her sweat with the back of her hand and catches herself, smearing (but she just laughs and someone takes a picture). After lifting and hauling for a while himself, The Renegade is waiting at the ready by the trunk but another man hands him a cigarrette and says simply, “hold this” and The Renegade complies while the man turns around and heads inside for a moment (through that same door that was letting the impending-spring in before, that is now letting out show-exhaust the other way). He stands and takes a drag, then Daisy comes up and takes a drag too, and the man comes back carrying a heavy trunk with another man and the cigarrette is kicked so The Renegade just puts it out with the heel of his boot (yeah, that was right, putting him in boots).

“R, come get a drink with us”, not “Will you get a drink with us?” but The Renegade wouldn't have said no anyway. He grabs his backpack, waves to the straglers left in the gym, and ambles up the sidewalk keeping three paces behind the rest of the group but a step ahead in their conversation. He is liked for obvious reasons and respected for ones less apparent. Daisy is hanging on to his arm and he lets her stay there, steers her away from parking meters and doesn't change a thing when she jumps ahead with her other friends before they arrive. He orders beer at the bar because he already had a whisky sour for lunch, but he does not refuse one of the tequila shots that appear after the first round.

The Renegade is sociable and good natured and when the crowd eventually splits, Daisy watches him walk away moving from pool of streetlamp to pool of streetlamp and she smiles to herself while she gets in the car. On the way home, The Renegade stops where the sidewalk is most quiet and looks up at the sky, the stars, the moonbeam rafters constructing the night and he feels a unique sort of bliss, a kindred-ness with the invisible people all around him, and a particular satisfaction.