she stood outside the apartment
finger halfway up her nose
scratching with her free hand
a **** loosely encased
in patchy, ***** blue jeans
ratty sneakers with holes where
her toes and dignity poked through

usually a whiner, a brayer
a donkey among gently purring cats
calling down thunder and racket
like a motorcycle tearing circles through a lamp shop

today, of all days, she swayed

silently
in loose waltz time
to soft piano of a long-dead Frenchman
curling down from speakers
mounted in windows
across the street

her misshapen hips and flexing calf muscles
lifting her up in a rude en pointe
somehow made elegant
by a quiet ballad, a soothing moment
on a hot August morning
in Main Street
of the hinterlands.

2/12/2015

one more click
a button pressed
an ocean of toner evaporates
line by line by line

the hand that presses the buttons
connected to the brain from the word go
twitches, trying to remember:
the muscle memory of
sliding knives into delicate ******* of chicken
uncorking expensive bottles of wine
to drink, to cook with
to bandage bleeding fingers
cut to the quick by misplaced motion of
chef knives
remembering the gossamer touch of the sous chef
who said, in her northeast Philadelphia sing-song
applying Bactine, gauze and several different types of pressure

"hey, at least we aren't dying in cube-farms, right?"

the blood pours in the past, but now the bills are paid
the stain, long wiped away, still remains

hit. print.

hunched back, towering shadow
12 feet tall and loping through snow
is this beast, wild, in my imagination?
or is it reality
as true as the frostbite
that threatens to
take my nose?

I never believed, I come from skeptics
but then as a fat man, I never had faith
that I'd lose enough weight
to carry myself through the Himalayas

THAT is more amazing to me
than a creature of legend
dragging its mid-day meal
back to its cozy cave
in frost-covered mountains

it stops, stands, regards me
one brute arm holding to its ****
white steam blowing, locomotive
from its nose
mouth opens as if to roar
and I...

wave

it tilts its head, closes its mouth
and with a shrug
leaps off through the snow
stiffening mountain sheep
flailing along behind
like a pull-toy

I say, more to myself than anyone:

Yeti, your secret is safe with me
No one back home
would ever believe.

2/17/15

There is no misery
Quite like black coffee
Raised on the sugared ****
Of North America
A lack of sucrose
Indicates a failure of your lifestyle

Never mind the diabetes
And wasting diseases
That come later

We are new, now, blank
A flat white lying prone
Waiting on the fat black footprint
Or haphazard dog defecation
To sully our facade
We'll pretend we earned it

Just as long as you pass that sugar.

A storm front moved maculately
West to east like weather
Delaying flights of fellow improvisatori
Sepia tones overlaid on eyes like heather

Dull gray weather, hardy like the heath
Ahead of horrid humidity
Far away, is there sunshine on Leith?
Only Scottish proclaimers know with certainty

Fake trees and grass
Sit before window glass
And internal highways beckon
But first I’ll wait
as this flight is late
By some 3600 seconds.

-071410-

She felt she'd said
all she needed to say
the torn paper and broken plates
had said the rest

in the settling dust that swirled
peripatetic
in the collapsing corridors
of the relationship
there was a tiny quaver
a voice saying,
"you should have seen this coming"

I didn't, and now half my possessions,
my frayed cotton shirts
and haphazardly creased pants
sit on the passenger seat
like sullen accomplices
as I drive toward a friend's basement
so I can get some sleep.