Here you are, all dressed up
To take me out to dinner, our very first date
Even more handsome than in your corporate office
So dapper, dignified, distinguished,
so impeccably dressed and groomed

In your Armani pinstriped business suit
Silk tie, starched white shirt, cufflinks
Polished black leather Italian shoes
Your BMW waits outside

Well, I have news for you....
I changed my mind
Yes - changed my mind
We will stay home tonight
You will cook dinner for me right here

You are stunned
"ME?
I have a reservation at the finest restaurant
I know everyone there
And I don't know how to cook!
I know you're joking..
You must be."

No. No joke.
Give me those keys to your BMW.
Yes – the car keys
Take off your Rolex wristwatch
No need to look at the time.
Time to get cooking.

No, don't complain
You’re not in your office now

And one more thing.....

Take off those expensive shoes and socks
I want to see the cuffs of your
hand tailored navy blue pinstripes
brushing your
naked toes....

You are irritated, annoyed, frustrated
As you obey, resisting all the way
You give up your keys with the BMW symbol,
Your heavy masculine watch,
gleaming polished shoes,
still warm from your feet
thin black dress socks

I know it is frightening for a man
like you to surrender his shoes
and by the way
I do LOVE the shoes...

They just don't belong on your
feet right now

You call the restaurant and cancel
Shoeless and carless
Suddenly a servant

I’ll read the recipe.
While you peel the potatoes.....

I want you barefoot in my kitchen

You,
there,
with your stripes so delicately traced.
Me
here
with a mess of ink scattered randomly
with patterns of unknown angles
and eloquence of unseen form.

My abundance is your emptiness,
my decisions are your mysteries,
but, as naked before me you stand,
little seems unsolved.
Your blankness stares me down
intimidating my activity,
preventing me from breaching the silence,
and so I stare back at you, thinking.

My thoughts will adorn your garment
and knowing this is menacing..
it roars back against my marks
and keeps your pinstripes perfect.

Oh yes, those stripes,
languishing in stupid blue,
amongst the white cascades
that aren’t quite white.
To me they dance
with shadows of brilliance
flowing against them.
They give way to great paths,
intricately traced,
intimately felt,
that take you and make you art.
But those are just shadows
my imagination cannot cast.

My eye is blank and blue.

But wait..
a siren shrieks from deep beneath
and steeps subconscious thoughts to breach
the border between ink and speech
and decorate your fair stripes.
My inspired eye sees these wild designs
that divide, and unite, and indeed multiply
into winding and time-binding styles inscribed
but how
in the hell
do I start?


****.

You still stare
blankly
boldly
as I still stall
fumbling
folding..
but slow to lose hold to my shadowy flashes
that fought against waterfalls
to reach peaks of genius
and fell short
but fell well above thoughts before.

So with pen of black,
I faintly refract
the light that has shown me the door.

Silver and grey the rain that falls
On Canary Wharf.
It pools in pavements of concrete and steel,
Ripples through dark water holding up the ships
That loom on my horizon.
Glass mountains open to black and blue pinstripes
As I weave between slow-moving bodies.
Was it always this way,
Or is the grey more grey
Now I’ve felt in full colour?

I forced my razor knife down
into an anniversary coffee cup
crammed with pens, pencils,
two pairs of scissors, and one
roll of color film I'm afraid
to develop. I jammed it in blade-
up so I'd have to deal
with the hard part first
like a blank page before
an accidental tongue slip
drips ink and makes the page
pretty. Some tree I've never met
and some pink dye died for me
to cover this pressed pulp
in illegible squiggles;

and I'll be
                  ****** if I let it down.
'cause I'm drawn to things
without opinions. Sketchbooks,
inkwells, rubber band bracelets,
a mixed-nut dragonfly rested
on my trampoline net. // Cut it
free // cut it loose.

Find a brick behind the shed
and smash it dead,—preteen me—
young Wordsworth me.
I pulled the sepia tape from Queen
cassettes and finished the glossy
plastic off with a vise grip in Dad's truck.
Old Brucey had mustard pinstripes
down the driver's side, all the way down
to the Germania General Store.

He was a blur to me before I could buy
my own Dreamsicles. Passing the chicken feed
and the resident, caged dachshund couple,
I saw his face for the first time. Seventeen-years-
old, staring at my grandpa through picture
and plate glass panes.

The angels he swore were real—the ones he payed,
praised, and prayed for every Sunday and everyday
the sun shined and everyday it didn't—

were now less deserving of heaven.

I day dreamed. And it went something like this.
I was standing in a forest on a little oath underneath a beautiful and elegant white arch. golden brown and red leaves surrounded me.
I was wearing a fantastic black suit, With a very very faded array of grey pinstripes. I looked down to my shoes, And they were a nice black leather pair. My hair was slicked back and I had a Barbour shave my face. I had never been so fancy in my life.
You appeared from what seemed like thin air. You were absolutely stunningly dressed in a white dress that hugged your body just ever so elegantly. With a beautiful train and tiara on your head, you were the most beautiful thing on the planet.
There were whispered remarks of how much more beautiful you were than anyone in the crowd behind us. You walked with such grace you didn't even disturb the leaves on the ground.
I teared up and got a pat on the back and was reminded by a voice that had no face to be strong.
We stood apart from each other under the arch.
There was only one tear on your face.
On your left side.
All of a sudden, Out of nowhere, You opened your mouth and in a hushed voice you said "I don't want to be married."
The next thing i saw was the tree canopy. I guess I fell. I got up and you were apologizing, But I ran for my life. I was in a bar all of a sudden, I had already had a few drinks judging by the empty bottles on the bar top. I walked outside, More like stumbled. But you were there, No longer in your elegant dress but a sweatshirt and slacks. You said you were sorry. In a rage a bellowed out that I was sorry for breathing. You pulled me close and said "I'll fix you".
And it was then I felt the pain in my chest. You had put some kind of blade through me. You told me to sleep well. The next thing I saw was the white washed walls of an operation room. You were above in a viewing room. I blacked out. You were standing in front of me and said you had ran off with a childhood friend and were having a shotgunwedding. I let out a small choke of a cry, And said don't worry, This time I'll fix myself. The room went black as I kicked a stool out from under my feet. I felt a quick pain and heard you say "good, You'll finally be right". Then I realized I was stuck reliving the last days of my life.

This gun feels heavier
Than it does in my dreams,
The dreams that were constantly interrupted
By ***** of paper with familiar names I am called
By these people I can't show my face around them,

Especially during lunch time
Where I mold into my hunch again,
Don't you dare you call it a crutch again,
As I limp into the familiar stalls
Of this ****** bathroom
Where the **** I scream out platters on the stalls.
I keep praying to those walls
Until the choir next door
Starts balling to the basketball stars in the classrooms
Where they are taught
That everything is going to be okay

This blood feels sadder on my skin,
Each door I lock behind me
Doesn’t seem the muffle the police sirens
That echo through my memories of better times.

I plead once more to the walls
Please oh please!
Until the wrinkles on my knees
Were just as red as my white t shirt,
I don't want paper ***** to be thrown
At the Pinstripes I am forced to wear
Written on the crumbled paper
Would be my failures
That my mother would write to me.
And feed it under my jail cell
To help grow the fact that she failed

So here I am
Praying one more time
To this wall of old stuffed animals
Before the police kick the door in.
I’m praying to find happiness
Regardless of how many happy meals
I by for myself,
No matter how many full metal jackets
I pump out of this Glock
It does not cure me of my hollow heart.
I prayed and prayed
And no matter how many times I crossed my fingers
I could never escape to a better time.

Paleo-Yuppies at Work and Play

Fading slowly from the existential struggle,
Waving their MePhones about in protest,
They swarm to Starbuck’s for adjective coffees,
Uniformed in knee-pants and bulbous sneaks
And Chinese soccer tops with little checkmarks,
Their graduate degrees at parade rest,
And in confusion, suddenly-stalled careers
Raging against the thirty-something machine.
Not trusting anyone under forty,
They rustle their foam cups and resumes’
Instead of suspicious Democrats,
And demand promotions and Perrier.
They mourn pinstripes and leather briefcases,
And the old floppy disc of yesteryear,
And fumble their PowerPoint Presentations
Tho’ once they illuminated the world
With colored markers on glossy whiteboard.
They no longer play games on a Commodore
Or rock to neo-Carib fusion jazz;
Their Rush is Right baseball caps are now filed
In trays of antique curiosities
Beside the moldering hippie stuff shelved
In an adjunct of the Smithsonian
Where curricula vitae go to be eaten
By a computer virus named Vlad.
Now, as the sun sets on Ferris Bueller’s day
They count and verify their MeBook friends -
They did not change the world, not at all, but
The world changed anyway, and without them,
And in the end they love neither Jesus
Nor The Force; like Eve, they bow to an Apple.

She waited for him. She always waited for him.
Quarter past eight. Tap tap tap.
Her gold embellished sneakers repeatedly hit the floor.
******* down her iced coffee, pretending to read the paper,
her anticipation palpable.
Tick tock tock tock.
The clock seemed vulgarly obtrusive. Where was he?
Tap tap tap. Tock tock tock.
Sliding her paint-stained fingers over the paper.
urgent      socialite.
rescued     earnest
words jumped off the page incoherently floating across her gaze.


The door opened and there he was. Pinstripes.
Perfect teeth. Too perfect.
Triple Americano to go. Fifty cent tip. Smile.
Today had to be different. She decided in that moment.
She would follow him this time. She had to know.
Her eyes traveled with him through the glass for a moment
and then she was out the door.
Around the corner she could see his trail of dense smoke--and
then she walked through it--inhaling it
as if it was his gift to her.


On tenth street he stopped for gum. On Robertson Ave he picked a single flower.
He rubbed his left shoulder as if he was in a great deal of pain.
She would have taken it all from him.
He had finished the coffee by now, setting it atop
the concrete ashtray, shifting it back and forth
in the sand.
The sun was setting. Purple grey pierced
by yellows and orange. She wanted to know more.
But she also knew she couldn't. It was too perfect--
his silhouette. The smell in the air, city smell.
The kind of smell that tells a putrid truth.
The biting contrast was--
art, she thought. And just like that she stopped
and watched. Watched him fade
further and further into the blackness.


Each step he took away
from her, she cringed.
She wondered if she would ever be set free.
What was his life like? Really like?
Did he think of her?
Did he attempt to conjure up what she
looked like now?
Did he want to know if she still
had his eyes? And
perfect teeth?

black and white pinstripes
are all I can see…
but that’s nothing.
roses.
candy.
raindrop tears.
bullets.
pretty gun sitting there,
hold you if I only dared.
blood stains on the sheets.
even more on the wall.
ring around the rosie…
One.
Two.
Three.
flower petals burning.
reflecting mirror.
hush little baby,
don’t say a word.
shards of glass beneath me.
broken heart.
well it shattered.
sweethearts or sweet tarts.

in c sharp minor you're pulling on your wrinkled shirt,
slight blue pinstripes clawing at your shoulders,
breath escaping your mouth
dolente dolcissimo,
hands slowly buttoning from the top down,
fingertips reading beatific notation
as if each callus could savor it but once.

I needed a touch of 240 put into this body and that's why the electric blanket is on.
Well,
it's different from the chair which is not allowed in the UK, but it just kills me anyway.

I'm trying to decide if the wine's a bit snide and I really can't make up my mind, which is slightly peculiar for this elderly fellow as I can make up most things quite easily.

I bought a cheap Chinese radio and can't get any Chinese stations at all,
I shall be sending a complaint that cheap Chinese radios ain't worth even that much.

You may have noticed when you walked in that the exit was conveniently placed
leave now or you'll have to read more later on.

Paleo-Yuppies at Work and Play

Fading slowly from the existential struggle,
Waving their MePhones about in protest,
They swarm to Starbuck’s for adjective coffees,
Uniformed in knee-pants and bulbous sneaks
And Chinese soccer tops with little checkmarks,
Their graduate degrees at parade rest,
And in confusion, suddenly-stalled careers
Raging against the thirty-something machine.
Not trusting anyone under forty,
They rustle their foam cups and resumes’
Instead of suspicious Democrats,
And demand promotions and Perrier.
They mourn pinstripes and leather briefcases,
And the old floppy disc of yesteryear,
And fumble their PowerPoint Presentations
Tho’ once they illuminated the world
With colored markers on glossy whiteboard.
They no longer play games on a Commodore
Or rock to neo-Carib fusion jazz;
Their Rush is Right baseball caps are now filed
In trays of antique curiosities
Beside the moldering hippie stuff shelved
In an adjunct of the Smithsonian
Where curricula vitae go to be eaten
By a computer virus named Vlad.
Now, as the sun sets on Ferris Bueller’s day
They count and verify their MeBook friends -
They did not change the world, not at all, but
The world changed anyway, and without them,
And in the end they love neither Jesus
Nor The Force; like Eve, they bow to an Apple.

She is so sure of it, one minute,
then the next is a flurry of tears,
curse words and disappointments.
I can never say the right words,
distrustful stance;
she raised me. She can ground me,
she thinks I would lie in a heartbeat.
She waits for
some lady in pinstripes
with money on her mind. "Can I
drain the mind of the poet for cash?"
She will ask, and sleep on her dollar pile
in diamonds and furs,
my mother a pea in the eighth mattress
down,
never noticed by thieves, the true princess.

The day was dry and hot,
with not a breath of air.
His uniform was loosely fit,
The pinstripes, number 4.
Lou Gehrig was the “Iron Horse”
but an iron horse no more.

ALS had robbed him of his strength,
and now moved in for the ****.
Most thought, at first, he would not speak.
That he didn’t have the skill.
But all there remembered what he said
And I think I always will.

He considered himself “the Luckiest man”
Despite the” bad break” he got.
An immigrant’s son who hit it big
and shined in the spotlight.

Lou passed away within two years.
The Stadium, too, is gone.
We’re not the Country we were then
America has moved on.

But on this Independence Day
I’ll stand where Gehrig stood.
There used to be a ballpark here
and a hero kind and good.

A slim smooth man
Every step being his command
His fashion statement being high in demand
But his distinction being pinstripe
Pinstripe always dressed fresh like a spring ripe
Assortments had to be just right being black and white or white and red pinstripes
Pinstripe had all the hype
He got his name from dancing at many clubs
A woman’s remembrance to think of
The minute Pinstripe entered any room it was always greetings of what’s up
His shoes were of quality brand
Every inch of Pinstripe and everyone knew he was the man
Pinstripe’s hair was combed with his hair being shown
The tie became a creation and conversation piece of don’t hate just appreciate
Every woman married or single wanted to dance with Pinstripe
Each moving dance step was a woman’s date being met
Pinstripe had that certain swagger
From that first sip of wine
A cigarette just before he would dine
Pinstripe knew how to pass the time
He was the dress code, but never ate alone
It was his personality in having the woman melt like butter
Pinstripe was definitely like no other
He was the mainstream being a name
He was persuasive and had game
But who was going to blame?
Getting attention was the precision at direct aim
The bull’s eye being any woman that had a fishing rod and a net, however, it was Pinstripe being the catch of the day, and being the best bet.

Slam my hip down
Hipbone a Warm teardrop
Ripples on impact
My body
Of water
The stage

Walls turn wonderland
As the pills kick drum
I am the bass drop
Hands dove letter
To my mouth
The room waves
As she stands staring
Knees locked in contrapassto
Pinstripes in my eyes
I have no need for the white eyes
Or white fabric
Purity was always
your delusion
Dreamt into syringes
Pricked into tiny faves
Fat with cake and promises from their daddy's
Or any man
With a poloroid camera

I am standing on the ceiling
Chandler trees raze
And solidify a shining icy stasis
Large and formal
Cold and towering
Tables glued upside down overhead
tiny tealights stuck too
Fire flickers down

You are a spotlight
Head
Chest
Skin
All Lighthouse

Peninsula
Ocean
Curvature of the earth
You beam clairvoyance
Shake your head.
Free of these lighthouses
You are under tealight s
A woman dances

Your hand touches your tie
Pen
Wrist muscles with fingers stimming
Champagne watch
Navy sleeve
Shoulder
Cheekbone

Soft hand on your cheek.

Paleo-Yuppies at Work and Place

Fading slowly from the existential struggle,
Waving their MePhones about in protest,
They swarm to Starbuck’s for adjective coffees,
Uniformed in knee-pants and bulbous sneaks
And Chinese soccer tops with little checkmarks,
Their graduate degrees at parade rest,
And in confusion, suddenly-stalled careers
Raging against the thirty-something machine.
Not trusting anyone under forty,
They rustle their foam cups and resumes’
Instead of suspicious Democrats,
And demand promotions and Perrier.
They mourn pinstripes and leather briefcases,
And the old floppy disc of yesteryear,
And fumble their PowerPoint Presentations
Tho’ once they illuminated the world
With colored markers on glossy whiteboard.
They no longer play games on a Commodore
Or rock to neo-Carib fusion jazz;
Their Rush is Right baseball caps are now filed
In trays of antique curiosities
Beside the moldering hippie stuff shelved
In an adjunct of the Smithsonian
Where curricula vitae go to be eaten
By a computer virus named Vlad.
Now, as the sun sets on Ferris Bueller’s day,
They count and verify their MeBook friends –

They did not change the world, not at all, but
The world changed anyway, and without them,
And in the end they love neither Jesus
Nor The Force; like Eve, they bow to an Apple.

are you
satisfied
with yourself?

are you happy now? now that this,
this has happened?

look what you've done. look.

you've massacred social norms, you've completely demolished every existing standard of how people should behave. you've strangled the life out of Mr. Smith, and everything he believed in, from the very tippity-top of his upper-class Anglo-Saxon Puritan upbringing to the very tippity-tip of his well-oiled
nose.

you've blown our minds.

and you call this, what, art? self-expression? Psh.
*******

why can't you go do something, y'know,
useful (for once)? helpful to society--

become a doctor and save lives,

or become a scientist and find cures, heck,

even become an architect and create ******* roofs to put over people's heads, because,

honey

everyone would love to say what they want, whenever they want, in some abstract, convoluted way and put it smack in a gold frame and hang it up at the MOMA. then get applauded by men in pinstripes and handlebars and dainty damsels in petticoats...

or, shunned...

but walk away from the carnage patting yourself on the back for the mortally unfathomable machinations of your mind.

and we're the ones that don't get it? please.

it's you who doesn't get it--

wake up, man. And live as a functioning part of society,
please.

At lunchtime pigeons and pinstripes dance with Rockette syncopation in front of Radio City
following the lead of thirty balloons encased
in vinyl tugged down the 50th Street station.

A chauffeured limousine pops out
a freshly groomed and leashed Pomeranian
seeking reunion with her dowager owner
getting purple locks and cuticles nearby.

At the columned entrance of Manhattan Bridge
two lovers kiss at the Canal Street stoplight
while a Vespa owner stops near the pedestrian
walk to hitch the love of his life in full stride.

Black children in bowlers and their Sunday finest
share a car in the Connie Island Cyclone
with Hasidic eyngls from Avenue J
carefully protecting their yarmulkes.

In the South Bronx the children of 136th Street
practice belly flops on an abandoned mattress
before chickening out on the adjacent kiddie pool
decorated with aqua waves, clown fish and mermaids.

The Monday field trip will transport ten
young Harlem poets to the Schomburg Library
to eulogize when Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka
danced a jig on the ashes of Langston Hughes.

One will write a Christmas story about the time
Richard the reindeer took the Roosevelt Island
tram to bring  presents to the orphans
after Santa’s sled had fallen apart.

Even if he was not recognizable in an instant
(As who is he was—no, is—and what he has done
Has only deepened in impact and import over time)
There is still the bearing, the certain set of the jaw,
Clearly marking him as someone
Who has achieved something, has been something,
His ease in this space, seemingly unperturbed
By the setting, the crowd, the donning of the pinstripes
(Though consciously wearing them a bit loose,
The modern fabrics not as becoming to one of a certain age)
Is betrayed, just slightly, by the manner in which
He scoops some dirt from the mound;
There is just the touch of a frantic archaeology in his movements,
As if he is seeking to unearth some relic,
Some talisman providing protection and preservation ,
Or perhaps it is simply the recognition
Of how inextricable the bond is
Between this small patch of ground and his very being,
Its utter annihilation unthinkable, unspeakable to him,
Though this bit of earth is, on its face,
No different from that found on the basepaths
At some ball field off the Fordham Road,
Or the small circles of dirt surrounding the trees
Hard by the new stadium (their existence a conditional thing,
Dependent on the  ongoing haggling
Between green space and parking spots),
Clinging to their green leaves for a few more days
Before their brief explosion of brilliance
Which are the harbingers of cold November.