When I was a child
We had an army in our backyard
They suited up in flower-print dresses
Their bodies billowed out in the wind
With new gush of air
And their shoulders were pinched by close pins
Holding them in a steady line formation.
My brother and I thought highly of our soldiers.
They guarded our house when they were outside
And inside they warmed our mother’s body
We returned the favor in different types of weather
When it was raining we could take them inside
And lay them flat and resting on out parent’s bed
And in sunshine we would let them bath in light
After a hard night’s watch.
We would sit on the porch and watch our troops
Hand in hand as children, whose world could
Afford to be guarded by clotheslines.
And we would know that the value of this memory
Would be vindicated by its longevity in our memories.

I used to go out for cigarettes before bed
with music and connection to the world,
I’ve learned to clam the
addiction to nosiness about
trump and
syria,
petitions about
dying dogs and
sensitivity,
and I just sit out there with a shovel
in my eyes digging the other way and
appreciating the sky and watching the
clothesline sway like elevator wire
and I feel more connected
by reading the stones that
shower a braille on my palms
as I tap the ground in withdrawal

This one time, my mom
and I said goodbye
to Juan's mom and we
walked from her apartment
to wait for the elevator.

Mom didn't like it
when I wouldn't stand still-
sometimes she'd smack me
upside my head just to
make sure I was there
(accompanied by her
motherly calls of malcriado)-
so I'd look in any direction
for a distraction or two.

Through the window a few feet
from my left, I could see two
older ladies in curler hairdresses
bochinchando like caffeinated hens
about the awfully friendly suelta
living next door to gallina #1
(they hung their hand-me-down
nightgowns and their husband's
boxers with such professional care;
if any article escaped the grasp
of family clotheslines, it was
roadkill forever).

I turned to the right
of the elevator doors,
counted the tar-black patches
of decade-old gum on the floor,
finished the half-written
sentences sprayed in *****
rainbows on the sweaty walls
by the zig-zag flight of stairs.

A boom and a click,
and the door creaked open
with the sideways grace
of a crab.
My toddler's impatience
boiled past the brim, I
exclaimed "FINALLY"
and began to walk forward.

Not a second later, I heard a
"NO" behind me, my mother
grabbing the back of my
cartoon mouse t-shirt,
letting out an ay cono, pendejo
that echoed eight stories down,
past the empty space substituting
for an absent elevator shaft,
soaring down that rusty freefall
at ten thousand times the
speed of a human boy's body.

Letting out a long exhale,
my mother did not allow
her emotions to brim over
the barrier-she recomposed
herself, all the while silently
chanting hymns of gratitude
in dedication to fate
and her reflexes.

We decided to take the stairs.
In my youthful oblivion,
I noticed a toy store
right outside the building
from the corner of my eye-
I plan to start begging when
we're at the bottom,
if we ever get there.

My mother took her sweet time
walking down those many steps,
reveled in the scratchy bristle
of the concrete against her sandals,
cultivated a newfound admiration
for my atonal imitation of a
Washington Heights car alarm-
it was a sign I was still there.

take a walk to air out my skull
the summer on a week long break
no sweat forming on the brow
the cemetery almost empty
on this Saturday Morning
graves, mausoleums, and monuments
as far as the horizon will carry them
all contained by the twisting limbs
of great ancient trees
I am worrying about things
like the rent and the electricity bill
and the milk and sugar
azucar y leche
and how many cigarettes I have been smoking
these men and women
will never be alive again
to worry about such silly things
victims of the civil war
brother against brother
victims of the passing of time
breath against breath
one and all
strolling down riverwalk ave
the old train tracks running along
the spine of the James
always flowing
streaming
as birds dip in and out of the banks
and the shin high grass sways
with the music of pleasant mornings
and see a family
small children running up the grass hills
only to sprint back down at double speed
not a moment spent out of breath
and I think back to that time
when we found a quiet corner
and let the lighter light up a bowl or two
for the dead homies
and how much we laughed when one of us fell
and how much we gasped
when we saw the small tent village
of homeless people living in the wooded outskirts
their clotheslines bare in the gentle breeze
How insane it is
that we should all
walk through this park
the scent of what life promised us
fresh in the air
as we lazily stroll
through a vast field of corpses
immortalized through monumental history

I’ve got these worn clotheslines
and street wires humming across my brain

in cold winters chill you told me I was eloquent
but I still cannot seem to remember your name

I stopped smoking to make room for you in my lungs
You didn't find that suitable enough so you left

We are the same person if your bed
has held more people in it than your heart

I see this warmth of a summer day
but I can never know the touch of it on my skin

I wonder what it feels like to be kissed by the sky
Probably kind of like kissing

**you

Sardonically ironic, moronically harmonic,
Are beats of emotions unspent.
Overly protective, and somewhat selective,
My shoes on the gravel-laden roads
Of winter are old.
Your silvery hair, neat and bare
Is unfinished. We’re not there yet, you and I.
My name becomes forgotten,
Yesteryears laundry on clotheslines
So hauntingly frigid, and cold they could dance.
The secret of warmth is lost
As the moth dies into the hold of my hands.
Bone-framed windows, with a cryptic message
Surround my palm-tree hair.
My front door is open, hopin’ for a
Short visit, of friends I had not there.
Winter’s approachin’, tree lines are lookin’ in
On the cuckolded dreamers.
Repent.

The last time I was in the room with a ******
flowers speckled my hair,
pink as privates, cloud-white. I considered our honeymoon
and thought about how we loathe
sunshine, but would create our first bed on roses
after I have spent five or more years removing her thorns.

I did not know about clotheslines being used
for more than our damp second skins.

She once described it as a construction zone, being the
property of some government
who does not care if it ruins someone's habitat
to build a brand new home. But I do not know if I can say
the same; a house is your mountain above
all hurt, only you
can jump from the top and make yourself bleed.

There I sat and swung on wooden benches,
my most disturbing thought a wonder of how it could hold
me. The sky was supposedly blue,
just now I cannot remember, colorblind of any
possible plane forming smiling men above our heads.

Sometimes, things are not on the tip of my tongue
but still making their way through my
brain-cells. I wanted to lay down on my stomach for love
be a carpet of hair, unshaven legs, sweat beads
until the clouds showed me handcuffs. My
safe lover, agoraphobic, now I can understand why.

I did not think about blankets being used as
shields, or mattress springs made of barbed wire.

If I had known, I would have eaten
my own hair and thrown up every petal on your doorstep,
their broken flower souls, now warm-blooded.

My neighbor and I still hang out our wash,
(I, each Thursday, taking my chances.
She, according to weather forecasts, I think,
or maybe by what she feels in her bones).
We laugh at StarTribune's report of some suburban bans
against clotheslines.
We wonder out loud whose tomatoes will first turn red,
and whether cucumbers will make it at all;
this year, it's been too cool and dry
for normal progress to the fall.

Tenacious dandelions, spread as stars across green-earth skies,
drive in spike-like roots, take hold of earth, and won't let go.
Kids squeeze bunches of stems in tight fists
that will open only to release the buttery bouquet to Mom
who hurries to put them in water, in a crystal vase,
wondering how soon she might mourn both flower and child.

While hanging bright, white unmentionables (some somewhat tattered)
on our clothesline, I, unembarrassed, remember my mother:
   with one clothespin held in her mouth
   and half a dozen more in her apron pocket,
   (thus needing not to walk over and over again
   the east-west path to the back door  
   where full supply of pins hangs on the ****)
   she does her woman's task with flair,
   spacing each garment so as not to block the sun or air.

You'd think she'd held some tool to calculate
where the sheet would best allow the breeze to circulate
or where to place each pillow case and sock,
so each would recognize and meet their mates!
And I know she theorized regarding how to hang those socks,
always with the toe pointed upward, so as not to show,
when dried and worn, a crease or ever-so-slight evidence
of the pin's pressure displayed for all to see
on the exposed ankle,
as if that might be a matter
worthy of shame.

It's my birthday, and I'm a disaster. I'm searching for things to say.

I woke up this morning, wanting to see the sunrise in the beautiful small-town Maine eighteen degree-darkness.

I breathed out fog and watched sleepy houses, my fingers screaming for mittens, as I laid on the salted tar. I thought about everything.

Cars drove by slowly, and I was reminded of life here, and how slow it is.  

In this world, time drips on like molasses. Time wanders through pine groves and iced-over rivers, through quiet streets and underneath clotheslines. It is never overwhelmed. It's able to bask in moonlight and live comfortably. It's dependable.

When you walk around these places, you can see the ghosts everywhere. It's like coming home.

We have lived our lives on clotheslines
and antiquities; I carry my home
in the soles of your shoes:

home is where you are,
and happiness is where my arms
always find yours in the dark.

I can see your skin in every pane, as a sheet of candied paper reciting poems from a sandy dream
The moon is out eating clouds,
and is writhing in blood-smelling peat,
gnawing at your sleepy feet,
I get to eat the earth and cry again
April, May, June, and the lantern moon
and one day, outside, the clotheslines and orchids will grow and tickle May awake,
I just feel it,
and break from want, from Hell

I sit surrounded by the carnage of the day’s efforts:
Words dismembered, metaphors bled dry.
I flap my wings in discomfiture at each glaring new
Example of mechanical fallowness;
Words hung out on clotheslines of manipulated
Speech patterns, wherever they could squeeze in-
Between the wet, moldy socks and twisted, bedraggled underwear.
I am a trained chicken at best, trying to force something out
At least partly digestible. As I peck out the sterile notes
One by one, on my red toy piano,
An automaton digs thru my internal filebanks, the flux of
Catapulted words continually bouncing over the chickenwire;
Escaping to flap heavily upward towards the trees:
And there to look down beady-eyed at the
Flopping, feathery decapitated blight.
For good reason, I hail from a long line of extinct dinosaurs.
Clucking with irritation, I see someone else has
Already laid all the good eggs, the golden eggs;
I can only scratch out some maggots and hope they hatch.

Rain and all its forms
Blurred Mountains seeping into the borders
surrounding
A little village
Grey on the horizen
Ocean way way below the village
Down the mule trails
Scraping in coils
Pebble linings
Down to the mediteranean sea
In this village
Cobble streets
Coloured roof tops
Crumbling houses
Empty clotheslines
Except a few wet clothes hanging
Forgotten faded red shirt
Hanging from one season
To the next
Water drips and dances bouncing from stone to stone
Wooden shoes clack quickly
As they rush over the street
A lady
Wearing hand woven clothes
warm fresh flat bread
Wrapped in cloth
And in a basket.
A young boy follows her
His sweater held over his head
Eyes obscurred
He walks as though in a maze
Then they are gone
Empty streets
A round woman, hair ******* with a faded white rag cloth
Empties out steaming hot water
From a copper ***
Soapy steam
In the rain
Alley way
Side door
Not much activity
A girl sits looking out observing
Watching the rain
Smelling the warmth
Rising from the bakery down below
She remebers the hustling market, the colors when in the sun
The shuffling people
In sunglasses
New people
Sun season
Different apearences than the ones she knows
The ones shes used to
The skin foreign to her.

She likes her room
With the elephants in the rug
Little marchers
Within the mandela sequince
She likes the bakers down below
Aunts and uncles
Unsure of who's family
By blood
And who's family
In spirit.
She likes the old man
Who sits with his cane
In the little sitting chair
In front of the bakery
He who treats her to a cookie every now and then
Or slips her a piece of sweet bread
He, who wears an old black cap
And puts on his coat
And hobbles down the little street
She waits for him sometimes
She sits perched outside and looks down the street
From right to left
Until she hears the familiar clatter
The sound of his wooden cane on cobblestones
Each who carry their own divine essence
Or sound to which they bring
A memory of her father comes to mind
How differently he sounds when he walks
Gentle and slow
Heavy and kind
Compared to her mother
soft and light
Swift like a feather
in the wind
Sweet like a berry.
The girl sometimes likes rainy season more
Although she misses the hustle and bustle of market day
In the sun
When the lively noises fill her ears
The wild smells
When the bakery arises before the crack of dawn
And the smell of fresh bread awakes her
Smells of new special treats
Made larger and larger
Just to apeal and to please
The large crowds.
The sounds of bakers
Yelling orders back and forth
Clanging pots
A madness of creation.
Grand cakes
Thousands of tarts
Each one delicatly made with care.

When the people make extravagant delicacies
When goats are roasted
And fresh tomatoes
Made into scrumptious sauces
With fresh basil.
Olives pickled and handed out on toothpicks
By yelling merchants
The best olives in the region shouts one
Across the street, the bestsest shouts another.
Most
spectacular
Imaginative
Freshest
Most this
Or that
Yummiest
Tastiest
Wildest
Amzingest
Greatest.
In her mind the images play
Like moving dolls

In full vibrancy.

For a second she forgets
Her placement
She has returnes back to the heat
And the memories
Of men in white undershirts
Smoking outside
Playing cards and waiting for the sun to dry
the rest of their clothes
The bantering ladies
From window to window.
She gets lost,
until the sound of a door loudly shutting in the streets awakes her
Jumping up
Looking out the window
Still silence
Nothing in sight.

Drizzles of rain
The sound it makes
When it slides down the roofs
She misses the heat
Of the bustling summer day
But in secret
she likes the rain
The silence and comfort it brings.
She likes the rain and the lonliness.
The solitude.
the sounds of her parents sleeping
Yawning.
a distant kettle whistling,
A neighbors.
The desolatation.
Patters of rain.
She likes to have both seasons
One season to live
And the
other to dream.

I'll be the slumpy man
caught on the clotheslines in the wind
strung out on powerlines
graced by the company of crows
and the circling buzzards
all hungry for my eyeballs

I'll be the slumpy man
hung over the sofa
draped across recliners
trying to dry out
before my braincells die out
trying to stay awake and sober

On the street
by a crumbling grey tenement
of old white sneakers and coffee pots,
blue clotheslines and floral wallpaper
a young mother sits on her porch
folding her son's laundry
her eyes darting from button to fly
wondering what she could make him for supper

I stop
gather damp newspapers
and discarded plastic bottles that lined the curb
and stare long at the mother
whose hand gently flattens the creases that run
down the faded denim legs
of her beloved, ******* child

I light
a small fire in the rain.

sometimes there are these places in my head
I can see them so clearly just like the raindrops on my windowpane
they are faraway places
they remind me of a time that never existed
and I know that if I find these places
that is when I will be happy
that is when I will find home
I see flat, grey buildings overlooking empty roads
the sky is the brightest shade of blue and it makes your eyes hurt, your heart hurt
flapping clotheslines
I want to run to this place as fast as I can
I want to close my eyes and be small again
see nothing, know nothing except what is right here, right now
I see this place and almost
it feels like I am there right now
and I can hear the steel guitar and the faraway traffic sounds
my home, my childhood home
nobody understands

She walks through the noisy street
every day of the hot summer months.
She sees colorful kites flying overhead,
over the tops of roofs, coconut trees,
over the clotheslines, garbed in undergarments,
tattered shirts and poorly-sewn trousers.
She waits for playmates to come and
ask her to play tag, to waddle in the canals,
***** and smelly. The scent sticks even after
a week of being scrubbed and hosed down.

She climbs mango trees, steals the fruits and
with a mischievous smile, throws them
to her favorite playmate, waiting under the tree.
She loves long talks with her favorite playmate.
Sometimes, they would go to the park,
loiter around and walk hand in hand, just talking.
And sometimes, they like to play tag until dusk.
She adores this special playmate and considers him
her best friend in the whole, wide world.
She always looks forward to just sitting around
with him while he shows her cool card tricks,
holds her close, makes her feel like a princess--
his special, beloved and worshiped princess
Her world slows down; her mind falls silent;
her heart calms in his presence as he
shows her the universe, the simple things
city life denied her, the comforting silence
her buzzing soul is just coming to know.

She admires her beloved playmate, who, for her,
is the wisest, the cleverest spirit on the planet,
who shows her that it's possible to remain
a child forever, to keep the heart
of a young soul for all eternity, to see
the world in verses and poems, in stories and songs.
She weaves wonderful tales with her precious playmate,
stories full of fantasy and love, brimming with glory
and success, abound with heroism and dreams.

They will always be together, she and her playmate,
she vows. through summers and storms, through months
and years, through pain and pleasure, they will be together.
The summer later vanishes; the skyscrapers have become
too tall for kites to reach, the host of cars too noisy
to hear her playmates call. The world is just too fast
to remain a child forever. But there is one special
part of summer, one call she would always hear
above the din of cars and the loud ticking of clocks.
Her favorite playmate calls from the depths of her soul,
reminding her that she could always choose to be
a child forever, a child in her mind, in her spirit, in her heart.

When I was a child, Monday was ‘Wash Day’.  Not Laundry Day - that was fancy talk. In our house, it was wash day.
On the back porch of our tiny house in a little town in Washington State, was a wringer washing machine. That’s not a brand name, it describes the two rubber rollers that squeeze water out of clothes fed between them when turning.  In the back yard was a weathered wooden bench, turned gray with age and water.  Stored in the garage out beyond that were two big galvanized tubs, one round and one square, with handles on the sides.  This was the necessary equipment to do the washing.

On Mondays, the wash machine came in first.  It was positioned in the center of the little kitchen’s linoleum floor and filled with very hot water from the kitchen sink via a rubber hose that fitted over the hot water faucet.  

Next came the heavy wooden bench, placed between the wash machine and the sink.  Both of the wash tubs were brought in and placed on it and also filled with hot water from the sink.

Into the water in the square tub, Mom swirled Mrs Stewarts bluing, until the water was bluer than the sky.  This helped make the white things whiter and colors brighter.  
Into the round tub went Purex bleach, enough to scent the water and your hands.

Then came the first load of clothes.  With three kids who played outside all day, the pile was big. A measure of White King laundry soap let the clothes be agitated in hot soapy water for 15 minutes.  Then the wringer that topped the electric washing machine would be swiveled to the round tub and the clothes dipped out of the hot water with tongs and fed through it into the bleach water.  clothes with grass stains would get a session on the good old fashioned wash board; scrubbed up and down across those galvanized ridges with Fels Naptha bar soap.  The toughest stains soon gave way, and that item joined the others in the bleach water.

After all the clothes were in the bleach water, the next load went into the wash machine.  After another 15 minutes, the wringer would swivel and the clothes in the bleach would be fed through the wringer into the bluing.

Then with another swivel of the wringer, the clothes in the wash machine would be fed into the bleach, and another load of ***** clothes started their journey.

All the tubs were full now and it became an assembly line.
When the next 15 min were up, the line went in reverse and the wringer swiveled back and forth as needed.  The clothes in the bluing went through the wringer into a large oval wicker basket with handles on each end, ready to be hung with clothes pins on the lines out in the back yard.

The clothes in the bleach went into the bluing and the clothes in the wash machine went into the bleach. Then the washer was loaded again and the process began anew.
This process took most of the day, with the only breaks occurring while the washer did its thing and the two tubs soaked.

Mom used a metal dish pan to make a solution of Argo Starch and water. Things that needed body went into that for a quick dip before being hung up outside, where they became somewhat stiff as they dried.  They would need to be sprinkled with warm water and rolled up to dampen evenly before ironing. Most things washed in those days before Perm Press would need to be ironed.

The clotheslines were thin wire cable, strung up in the back yard.  One set of four lines were attached to the crossbars of 2 sturdy metal poles, sunk into the ground by the Rhubarb bushes and the hen house (we raised a few chickens) and the other two lines ran from the back porch to the garage wall. Before using them, Mom would wrap a damp rag around the wire and wipe each one from one end to the other to be sure they were clean.

Clothes would then be hung up with spring-type wooden clothes pins, taken from a home made cloth bag sewn over a wire coat hanger, so it could hang on the clothesline and slide along as the clothes were being hung up. There was a certain skill in knowing which clothes hung right-side-up and which went upside-down, as there was no fabric softener in those days and clothes tended to take the shape they hung in.

When all the clothes were hung up, the rubber hose was used in reverse to empty the two tubs and the wash machine into the sink. Then the tubs and bench were taken back to their spots in the garage and the wash machine rolled back onto the back porch.  When everything was put away, the wet kitchen floor was mopped dry with a rag mop.

All the neighbors said Mom hung out the cleanest, whitest wash on the block. She was proud of that, though she’d never admit it.

By dusk, it was time to bring all the clothes back in to the house. Sheets and towels were folded and put into dresser drawers. There was no such thing as a linen closet.  Pillow cases would later be ironed, but in my family sheets never were.  Since perm press didn’t exist yet, the cotton got a bit of a rough feel to it from the wind.  I loved crawling in between those rough sheets that smelled of the sun and wind.  Over them were 2 quilts.  One made by my Grandma and  the other by my Mom.  They weren’t showpiece designs, just  functional and warm with designs that used up bits of fabric left over from past sewing projects.

Towels were also a bit rough and got us dry and massaged at the same time

Living in Southwest Washington, legendary for it rainfall and drizzle, there was many a washday when it was all-hands-on-deck to race out and grab things off the lines as the rain began to fall.  On those days lines were attached to built-in hooks back and froth across the kitchen and things were re-hung there. There was also a folding wooden rack that went into the Front Room, which is what we called the Living Room  On those rainy days you threaded your way through rows of damp clothes to get to the sink to get a drink of water. No bottled water in those days, but our little town had very good tasting tap water.

Mom’s hands were always red and shiny by the end of the day from reaching into the various waters to fish things out to put through the wringer into the next tub.  Everything washed went through that wringer 3 different times.

There was a whole mystique about starched clothing. With no Permanent-Press in the 40’s, and the only way to make a cotton shirt or dress look smart was to starch it.  There was skill in knowing the ratio of starch powder to water so the clothes didn’t come out limp when dry or stiff as a board.

Starched clothing needed to be dampened first in order to iron properly.  It was called “sprinkling” the clothes.  A commonly used sprinkler was a tall soda bottle with a cork-stemmed metal cap with holes in it.  You could buy the sprinkler caps at the dime store. This is what Mom used.  

We kids were fascinated by the neighbor who took a mouthful of water, pursed her lips and created a misty spray onto the clothes.  We practiced it but we never figured out how she did  it. Another just dipped her hand into a bowl of water and shook it over the clothes. Pump spray bottles were years away back then. Sprinkled clothes were usually rolled up and left a while to dampen evenly. There was excitement when word got around that rolling up the sprinkled clothes and putting them in the refrigerator for an hour or two produced more even dampening, and you didn’t have to leave them overnight or risk forgetting and finding things dried into a hard ball the next day.

Even more exciting was the advent of the steam iron, which revolutionized the chore.  As a kid I used to earn dimes and nickels for ironing hankies (remember handkerchiefs?) and pillowcases for a neighbor. Kleenex didn’t totally replace cloth handkerchiefs until well into the 1950s. I still enjoy ironing today and hate the wrinkled look currently in fashion. I also have a stack of lace trimmed hankies that are now considered vintage.

I still have a soda bottle sprinkler, a clothespin bag on a hanger full of clothespins.  I also have an unopened bottle of Mrs. Wright’s Bluing, which hasn’t been on the market in years.   It reminds me of other times and other places and  how I would love to slip between those sweet smelling, wind-blown sheets one more time.
ljm

synagogue bells jar and outside is the
  color of green, mist enshrouds moss
  macadamized in young wall;

beating back to lips, a paler hue of scorched red,
     a moment twists, hurries back to
the shell of a modest hour,

  rearing in its tender arms, tantric ***
of rain and tendril. tenuous wind swiftly
purloins sound
      submerging the world in picker-patter,

the moon fronts and the sun
     behind — this is my world and within
its breast, the riverrun stride in between
   stone packs its smell of mud

clotheslines full with heavy fabric
weighed down to intent and inertia,
  dragged down to sleep and dream
as the hourly siren tolls somewhere that
    does not have a beacon, a name
  even, blaming only the shadow frittering
  back to its console, pinning us
    down to the calm weather we sing
about in the afternoon —  reaping
   in the twilight,
        a cold-mouthed Hefeweizen!

Memories and flashbacks
Childhood. . . Grandma
Spoiled
Peaceful, country meadows
Ponds
Spaghetti O's
Roast beef,  beans and cornbread
Homework
her third grade education
Finding me with n Strangers
When my mom decided to go on drug fending binges from city to city
The swingset I wanted
The mudpies she ate
The sacrifices she taught me of
The determination she instilled
The cold mornings she made fires
Warmth,  breakfast in bed
Kittens, clotheslines,  and the never ending biscuit bowl that I never understood how it remained full day after day.
The plaits I hated yet love now
The smell of her clothes
How she sashayed when she dressed up
Her anger
Sitting in the porch with our dog Spot
Princygal the cat
Late night peanut butter cookie baking
The sign in her wall that said
Life is one fool thing after another
Love is two fool things after each other
That I read over and over again until finally I understood.
Everything clean and cooked by noon

What happens tomorrow?

“…the war…often seems to have happened to someone else.”

-C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

A pickup truck beside a Navajo road
Tables of souvenirs, a Thermos of coffee
Clotheslines of dreamcatchers catching the sun
For now; the dreams must wait for sleepless hours

“You were in Viet-Nam,” the old man said
To another old man. No mystery;
He simply took a chance to make a sale
And did, for both had known the Vam Co Tay

Old men along the road, catchers of dreams
Who burned their chances in the long ago

you know?
sometimes you think
          i am the only one
          writing the whisperings of the world to eager pages
          they strain their lined ears.
but the lines fall flat
hang limp as clotheslines
wait for the next dull batch of words to droop on the line.
hanging the writer out to dry has a completely new side to it.
you are not the first to shiver during a goodbye kiss
taste nostalgia in an ice cream cone
marvel at a shattered beer bottle on the blue-black asphalt.
and you’re not the first to believe you might be the only one.
but you know?
you know?
you are the only one
          who makes me shiver
          i remember to eat between spoonfuls of you
          admired your aim and laughed when you missed the trash can.
i’ll pick up the words when wind blows them off the line.
i’ll pick you up
my ears are eager.

I Spy with my Little FBI

I spy with my little bright FBI
A government wet and hung out to dry
On clotheslines that might (or might not) be tapped
Through circuitry that the Soviets mapped

And passed the plans on to bad Vladimir
(Who wrestles tigers sans shirt and sans fear)
But, sure, that mighty hyperborean
Had better watch for the North Korean

And keep him closer than a dodgy brother

because

All we Yanks do is snoop on each other

it seems to me that the child is beheaded –
there is not much to look at in this paling weather.
moderate climates douse their bleak, blank face-ovals,

their frigidity has no relation to stone,
their silence, loveless as a fabric is torn wild
by a rabid dog, dragging it senselessly against the furniture.

outside, the whiteness bears no reputation of laundry
impaled to clotheslines: frilling at the collarbones,
fringing at the high afternoon, distinct flutings
of iridescent night-gowns,

they want the life of some lovelorn progeny.
the scald of water is his trademark – it seems innately natural,
those who, someone else lauds the **** verdigris
  of trees, able to tell how immense the stasis
  of the darkness is, outside when all homes bellow
a concatenation of absences:

  it seems to me the child is guillotined at this
moment, verily, in moderate climates.

tonight I'm going to
sleep with the curtains open

and if in the morning
I don't wake

let these sheets become flags

hang them so they  appear
as swans on top of
telegraph poles

hang them where the grass is blown across
the midriff of the girl I saw on the platform today

hang them above the fields
where potatoes grow into
the shapes of sympathetic ears

hang them where they may
unravel as bandages from dancing limbs

let my scent cling to them and let the ones
who loved me bury their heads in the wind

hang them on the hero's shoulders
let them be the cloak that transforms him

hang them out to sing in the pines full of woodsmoke

hang them where the sun warms the seagulls belly
where babies commit clotheslines to memory

hang them alongside the underwear you decided not to
wear today

let them hang like actors performing
daring rituals in tropical hotels

hang them on the cucumber held by the checkout girl

hang them on the chins of strutting statues
riding concrete horses

hang them over the endless heads of anxious eyes so
children may play with driftwood
their sea encrusted hair untamed
unwashed  

hang them over the conspiracy of clocks

but don't let them hang around too long
don't let them hang down sad and greasy
shrugging shoulders at the parties end.
muttering 'nothing left, time to go'

pull them down mid-dance
sporting a bulging
salt-breeze paunch

hanging just long enough

for them to know

I have eaten well.

I lose one sock every other washing.
The wisdom of the washer and dryer
says that God is stockpiling the lost one
to be reunited with the other in heaven.
Does that mean those with perfectly
mated, never separated pairs, are
doomed to the spin dry of eternal hell?
But then, it’s Smart of God, not letting me
hop around on one foot in my nakedness.

Socks are greater than love.  
They remind us that things
lost will eventually be found,
show the foolishness of looking
back to see what’s coming.
They are reminders that
rain is the reason clotheslines
have disappeared.

Where have you been?
Have you been there
Right in front of me,
In the thin of the blue unseen
Like a blonde hair
Floating on the sea?
Have you been around?
Like change in the back seat
Chips under the sofa
That rattling sound
Like a faraway sheep's bleat,
White curtains in the wind toga
Loose on the clotheslines
Flapping in the wind,
Have you been there all along?
My sadness and wonder
Walked hand in hand
Never did it rescind,
Even if bottle after bottle
The wines
Made me fonder
Of you and your memories a land
Only found song after song,
From the pain
And teary rain
My heart I could not coddle,
Were you there?
Did we share
All along the same breath,
So close will we be until our death?
Did I brush past you?
And the only clue
Was the tingle in the air
And never did I dare
Turn around
At the sound
Of a whisper
Familiar, was it her?
I'd asked many a time
And I failed to find the rhyme,
Like one does to purple,
Were you there in the shimmer
Of a whirlpool?
Like my thoughts a glimmer
To your lingering shadows homage
In the fading summer's mirage...
© okpoet

So the moonlight doesn’t hold its shine
Properly,
dazing in the withered bellows of tenements

Another drink…
Slips past the window and all is
Forgotten…
As the strays lap up what is slowly draining hope

The fire escape to be used only for the hangings...
Hangings of sins
Heh, several dangling from the clotheslines of neighbors
Never taken down one,
Since two take up new residence each day.

And the streets are littered with the glass…
Glass of broken saint’s sorrow,
But then maybe tomorrow the
‘godly sweepers’
Will come out a cleanse our minds of the heretics

Heralding…
Hark, I hear the ambulance sirens singing for
just one more soldier to achieve misguided salvation.

Just across the window, moaning with delight
A ****** Mary room occupant gripping wildly
At the cold, listless windows.

Her cage is her own life sentence smeared across the
Pane…
Whispering yells of silent content in the hollow of the room
Her air turns to blissful lust and seep through…
Through to my wishes of...
The pleasures, I only whisper back,

"We could be together on these empty streets."

© 2006