Everyone is almost beautiful
and adorned with beads
in the room where a cat
you do not know
is a spirit animal
not yours but someone’s
and you love fiercely
both the cat and the people
while the beads
golden and blue
sparkle like incognito stars
and adorn the men and women
as the cat yawns
and purrs epic stories
you are too dull to grasp
and almost beautiful women
laugh at jokes
told by god at your expense
as the cat wanders off
leaving you shaken and alone
hideous
delighted
and driven to ground
amid this cyphered
and dying
glory
May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 at 11:15 AM UTC
My daughter stomps
on the bubble wrap
from the box my books came in
and it is loud, like gunshots
and my son doesn't like the noise
and neither do I
but I let her do it
because it makes her happy
and it's over so fast we can forget
and move on
we're running late anyway
and in a rush to get in the car
and when we are safely
inside and moving
I ask them if they know
why May 4 is important
and they do not
so I ask
if they have heard of
Kent State
and they have not,
so I tell them of the war in Vietnam
and the protests across America
and the one in Ohio
that drew the national guard
to a college campus
and the shots that rang out
and the four students shot dead
and my children don't say anything
so I say they need to remember
Kent State
so maybe it won't happen again
and my son says that it will happen
and he seems sure of it
but calm
and soon I'm dropping him off
at his high school
and then my daughter
at her elementary school
where active shooter drills
are common enough to be boring
and angry young men everywhere
keep guns at the ready
for their special purpose
on a day maybe determined
but not yet revealed
as the birds sing
and the sun shines
and the world goes around
and around and around
like it does
with nothing new to say
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 9:54 AM UTC
Enter Bonnie and Clyde
stage left
or Baby Face Nelson
maybe Pretty Boy Floyd
and stolen roadsters
racing **** cops
under crisp afternoon
October skies
every one of us ready
and riddled with bullets
everyone here for victory
and Tommy guns blasting
pretty outlaws
and point blank refusal
West Texas sounds better
than you might think
and we'll maybe
make Arkansas by dawn
if we keep our nerve
drive on, cowboy
sweat is all you need
and white knuckled grit
like diamonds
adorning the air
to stay alive tonight
May 1, 2018
May 1, 2018 at 1:17 PM UTC
Some words
in proper combination
and just-so order
contain light
but only light for certain eyes
and maybe only at certain times
light like no other
light for parents
whose children scream
or fall silent
light for sisters
who have lost sisters
light for the desperate and lonely
light for men drowning drink by drink
for the girl not taken to the dance
and the boy lacking courage
to ask her
light for the surgeon who failed
light for the bored housewife
contemplating escape
light for the third child
of a forgotten family
seeking shelter
in a dead city
Light for the wounded of the earth
and the lost
Some words are holy
though you are unlikely to find them in scripture
Some words staunch the bleeding
Sometimes these words
are lightning
sometimes thunder
sometimes a breeze across the ages
And I have lived my life for these words
in their pursuit and service
Come Hemingway
Come Faulkner
Come Hannah
Come Bukowski
Come Caldwell
Come Carver
Come Lee
Come the unknown genius who knows the mysteries of my heart
Come you thick Russians
Come Borges
Come Bradbury
Come Brautigan
Come Welty
Come Brown
Come light
Come, always, light
Some words
in proper combination
can save your soul
can teach you its pits and textures
And we are all ****** and bleeding and words are what hope is made from
And some words
are what remain of heaven
when angels give way
and sometimes
they are enough
Apr 29, 2018
Apr 29, 2018 at 10:52 AM UTC
She still asks and I usually say yes
just now it was egg nog
and yesterday
she wanted to bake a cake from scratch,
the frosting, too,
which we did from cobbled recipes
and conjured the best red velvet
that could happen
and the frosting, against all odds,
was delicious
but just now it was egg nog
and my young baker
required I pour her drink
because that is still, for now, my job
and too soon she will forget to ask
a slight so easy to miss —
the responsibility of egg nog
glittering small
is gold and quickly spent
Apr 26, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 at 2:57 PM UTC
Sometime later the sky opened
things fell upon us
upon the streets and houses
upon the cars and movie theaters
upon the old women with canes
and their idiot husbands
sometime later the sky opened
things fell upon the bicycle riders
and acrobats
upon the prostitutes and police officers
upon the destitute and dying
and the beautiful girls with auburn hair
and the brave young men with flowers
things fell
crushing those objects you might imagine
they would crush
even dogs and children
not cats, of course,
for cats are wise and adept
at vanishing
but it was unspeakable
this crushing
so I can’t comment on what they were
these things that fell upon us
that crushed us
but sometime later the sky opened
it did
and things fell upon us
and things fell
and fell
and fell
and I was not sad
because I knew it was coming
and I am, after all, a man
and I do not give in to sorrow
I will miss you, though
beautiful one
I will miss you most of all
I will miss you like my own blood
amid this wasted splendor
Apr 17, 2018
Apr 17, 2018 at 2:44 PM UTC
Beautiful girl has
no umbrella, she carries
her shoes in the rain.
She's a sonata
minor chords and broken glass
ashtrays, lies, spilled wine.
Apr 15, 2018
Apr 15, 2018 at 9:35 AM UTC
Obscure Bogart gestures
and Hemingway
in the good sun
wounded and stoic hours
take their toll
like this hard sidewalk
cracked beneath
worn shoe leather
and if you’re lucky
some woman
somewhere
might have a tattered soul
to patch your pummeled one
in the dance
between drinks
and betrayal
and you walk on
stealing looks at strangers
just so and dangerous
gliding in your sharp fedora
looking for her everywhere
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 9:35 AM UTC
I’ve realized too late
that life is too short to not
be Janis Joplin
Apr 11, 2018
Apr 11, 2018 at 3:18 PM UTC
she was in the corner
reading Gatsby
and we were all drowned
and stupid with youth
the play of beauty
on a page was everything
and she was in the dark corner
reading Gatsby
as the guests danced
and drank in the light
she was unaware, golden
sitting in the corner reading Gatsby
Apr 11, 2018
Apr 11, 2018 at 3:04 PM UTC