The Wound in the Ground
It had recently rained, but it was dry then
Beneath my feet, and the bushes
Didn’t smell like rain
Anymore.
Wearily making my way home
To sleep, I cautiously and admiringly
Sized up the scene of the night.
My gut froze
When I looked to the right
To the rustic royal gates
With the “R” for Rutgers
On either side;
I found between that regal frame,
And hugged by adorning flowerbeds,
The broken asphalt road that leads
To College Avenue,
Looking like an open wound
In the Earth’s flesh, warm, black,
And slippery with a wet blood sheen;
I expected steam to rise from it
Like from an oozing gash in the cold.
This was not something for a man
To trod on, it was the waiting grave
Of an immortal dinosaur. This was a grim reflection
Of the puffy-eyed sky, of the stars
That died eons ago,
Taking everything near them with them,
Black holes that continue to sparkle
From where we’re standing
Today.
Although I do not often think of it
it strikes me that everything I do not taste
and I would not dream of tasting
undoubtedly has a flavor
and even if I forget it
the flavor waits patiently
to be tasted. It hides
over and inside of everything, fitting
anywhere cozily alongside smells
and particles of light.
And speaking of patience
there was a moth in the bathroom
stall that I chose yesterday at four,
and when I returned at six
to use it again, the moth was frozen
still to the linoleum wall like a Pompeiian dog
and I thought it was dead,
but I hoped,
and I gently sent a difibrillating finger toward it.
It was disturbed preemptively by the air
that I had disturbed near its back
and before my finger
reached the moth it groggily flew
into the screen of the bathroom window.
Immovable but so movable,
I think that moth could have lived forever
uninterrupted on that tile
if I hadn’t come back intent on breaking
its concentration.
I saw a girl today
who choked on a mouthful of gnats
when she carelessly laughed outside
of Demarest Hall near twilight, and I
fancied in that moment
gnats the unmelting snowflakes of the summer
always in front of me
and when one disappears I notice
ten others falling, in my hair
and in the back of my shirt
and at the mercy of the wind
but heedless of my wishes
but I bet if I wanted I could catch one
on my tongue. It seemed easy enough then.
And I wondered then about you
if I could taste your soul
with my lip to your hip
and what I could do to you with a kiss
plunging into your heart like a stake
and if your body would ripple
with mighty waves of electric love, weak
at the mercy of a kiss
if I could catch you on my tongue
and hold you inside and let you dissolve.
Or how fixedly would you wait or what stray wind
would claim you if I did not.
On writing modestly, to myself.
Spread your ink humbly like a bee pollinates.
Be too busy to brag.
Navigate slowly and act deliberately,
leaving no flowers unkissed.
A bee knows its duty and its worth,
and it does not forget
its hive.
Those many flowers that germinate in pleasant consequence,
the gift that the bee returns to its mother
a hundredfold.
These things are not as sweet as honey.
A spider loves its fragile web,
born from necessity,
quick and beautiful, but it does not impress you on purpose.
A spider does not admire its web, and it would still make a web
if it had no admirers.
A spider knows its web and does not get caught
in it, but welcomes others to do so.
And if the web doesn’t hold, it spins and respins,
as spectacular as a mother in a tenement, ceaselessly
washing the same few articles of clothing
in a daily cycle, and sewing,
for too many children, until all she knows is clothes,
and the bodies they belong to are weightless afterthoughts.
And she is too busy to brag.
It’s common that a flower bloom but once
It’s common that a flower bloom but once
Or twice within the year; entirety of
Its life. The sun’s gentle might in love
Entices flowers into such response.
Unknown to those from whom love has resigned,
It’s such that some do blossom with passion
Who daily greet, according to their fashion,
The sun, or moon, whose light of love remind,
-
With smiles unfurling, shining and alive
Again. I meet that flower with my scorn
That flushes for every light contrived,
But, Rose of mine, no prick of yours, nor thorn
Can veil the ardent shine that love revives
Nor check the kiss that gives you breath each morn.
My Music
I hear St. Thomas
When I see you
and something in me does the Lindy Hop
and inside I’m inside
of Sonny Rollins’ sax,
spilling down and bubbling
up and out, soulful;
a plastic bubble pipe.
-
And when I see you I’m riding
on a Wave of Mutilation inside
the back of Black Francis’ throat.
-
And I’m a Starsailor
straddling one of the waggling strings
of Tim Buckley’s guitar, clinging
like a dandelion;
Tim, make a wish.
-
I’m hearing pet sounds inside,
in my soul and my mind, which is divided
between the Wrecking Crew, thirty instruments
and 5 voices, and hiding
within Brian Wilson’s one
good, nay, perfect ear.
-
Now I know that you are my music;
It’s all there.
I instantly knew Heaven,
when I saw her,
lived inside of her.
-
How could I, anyone!
live without her?
I could take the plunge,
-
or lay under her
parked car tires, waiting
to be taken.
-
I hope an angel will hold
the door for me. Tell me there’s chivalry
in Heaven.
Dusk
The bark, brown, below
the green of the leaves,
is like the dirt beneath
a grave thatched with grass.
Faint, waifish clouds
grieve in procession above
and the blue sky wears
a veil of black
as the Sun sinks
into the Earth.
-
Elsewhere, the Sun sweats
under the weight of the unending
sky, and horizon glows hot
at the Sun’s effort.
-
Strange that the Sun’s range
of hues only ever bleeds
beautiful into the blues of the sky
as it sets, and falls,
when it’s at its lowest.
-
From my stance in the cold sand
I observe a young man,
and another
playfully pushing the head
of the first under
-
the chopped ocean surface
as his arms flail about,
and I wonder, if the Sun
had arms, would they be flailing, too?
And I am chilled by the thought
that the Sun may never come up
for air.
Lovely Assistant
When I was still young, I had
an understanding of the world
I knew how things were
supposed to be.
I slept like a baby.
-
At some point, my mind, while
I was out, had to have heard a ring at the door,
received an empty box and signed for it.
My understanding, like a magician’s lovely
assistant, has disappeared.
-
But I am not a magician,
I am an awestruck audience,
and I don’t know where she’s gone.
I have problems sleeping.
-
All day I am distracted,
I veil my eyes with
whatever I can find
in order to ignore the mystifying
riddle of the lovely assistant’s disappearance.
At night, when the sheet is pulled
from her hollowed form,
and nothing is revealed,
I am left wondering
where the fuck that lovely assistant has gone off to.
-
Day after day,
often in vain, I attempt to remain
blindfolded, until my eyes prove too
heavy, and I can no longer
keep them propped open,
so that I will not
have to glimpse
into that gape
and see
that my understanding
is gone without a trace.
If the veil drops too soon,
I spend the night with my mind
trying to cover the spot
the magician’s sheet covered so perfectly
as the audience did nervously swoon;
the spot burned into space,
the starved black hole left
at the center of the universe
by the absence of one lovely assistant.
In Appreciation of Language
Moving music and touching poems;
Do you need permission to do things like that?
Anyone who would wait for permission probably
couldn’t produce either one.
Still, you should at least wash your hands
before and after.
I Have Been Looking
I have been looking to the Moon.
Is she your sister, your child,
the Mother I need?
I may not have been
the child you wanted, constantly
staring into space. I have been looking
to the stars
because I cannot look
the Sun in his face. I have been looking
for help,
for a home.
The Earth is cruel,
the Earth cannot care less,
but I cannot live on the Moon.
Trembling Cup
A chest that swells with such
tension as the surface of a cup overfull.
Thirsty to kiss excess dripping
off of the sides of the glass,
soul married with sweat, and kiss
a puddled floor shuddering beneath,
I put my lips to the water,
the life teeming inside glass, rippled
by its own pulse, praying
the cup might give in
and quiver making drip and splash.
Missing
Alone it is cold.
-
Heaven’s warm glow,
-
you’re far away.
Like the night stars
-
to the day sun,
and the stray sun
-
to its lost stars;
like dead air.
Someone’s missing.
The Riddle of the Sphinx
On that trip to Egypt I took
I saw the Giza necropolis, and I was
in a real melancholy mood. The trip was
free, you should know; how could I
complain? but I remembered
a photograph I once saw.
Louis Armstrong
playing the trumpet for his wife, in Egypt,
right near where I was standing. I was suddenly
acutely aware of my lonely existence, and my inability
to play the trumpet, so I decided to climb
to the top of the tallest
building around,
and jump.
But, recall, I’m in a relatively
remote location. There are no skyscrapers
or hotels or anything in the Giza necropolis. And imagine me
walking for miles through an arid desert with no sense
of direction. No idea where to go. No way.
I was suddenly
acutely aware of my impatient
disposition, and of my uncomfortable shoes,
so instead I climbed to the top of the nearest large
construction I could find, the Great Pyramid, closest you could get
to the heavens in those days. And I jumped—
ass first into the side of that Pyramid.
Standing in the same spot
for 4,500 years,
and it still took my ass
by surprise. This is all true! No vacancy
in that necropolis, it seems. I slipped down the side
of that eternal landmark, that glorious tomb of a glorious dead
king who didn’t want any company, or to share his estate,
or who knows what. When I reached the bottom,
I realized how fine and warm
the sand was.
All in my shoes and briefs,
mind you. Good ride. It was no
day at the beach, but for
the price? I’m not
complaining.
