"windbreaker" poems
I saw your face in a paper sky,
Saw how good it looked in black-and-white.
The light in your eyes is
One of those pre-lit things-
That is, to say,
That when you wink,
The sky goes gray.
Heart Ripper, you're a decorative lover,
One red-hot summer.
Heart Ripper, what a gorgeous shame.
Love is love, under any given name,
But after a hit, it's forever lame.
You're the classic American case
Of mud inside a jar,
You air-brushed lonely-heart.
Perfect imperfection,
A photograph in a frame,
You're smiling, but dustless.
Dustless, and perfect.
Heart Ripper, you've gained a red list,
And another little lover wrapped up in your fist.
Heart Ripper, she's on my side,
If I can't give it back to you,
She will in good time.
Just like some music in the canal,
You remind me of a favorite song.
But this final number's old,
Over-played, over-sold.
Skipping in that broken-record fashion,
Really,
I mean to say,
That this is a tune from the past,
That's closing fast.
Heart Ripper, you're a powerhouse lover,
The blanket superior.
Like a windbreaker in December,
You're there, but not quite enough.
Heart Ripper, never fixing what you've torn;
The needle, the thread, the sewing hand--
Take this as a tune of pity,
As a brand new set of plans.
Hero, hero,
Get it while it lasts.
You're invincible now,
A regular rough horse from the city.
Go home,
And just for good measure,
Repent, before you receive
More than just a tune of pity.
Oct 18, 2012
Oct 18, 2012 at 5:07 PM UTC
The milk man died last week. I didn't
know him well, just enough to know his favorite
chew and how much he hated Fritos.
I knew his lover and her worn-out
windbreaker, her frizzled hair as gold
as her Marlboros. I sold her a pack of silvers
once and she nearly snapped my neck.
They take (took?) their tobacco dead
seriously. She hasn't come back
to work yet, though her five allotted
days of grief are over. The empty
milk crates just aren't empty anymore.
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 9:44 PM UTC
I want to start off by asking you to forgive me. I've never been good with apologies, only making lights in hospital flicker and leaving dead roses at your doorsteps as a reminder of all my withering mistakes. People spend a lot of time in hospitals when they feel guilty, people spend a lot of time with things that are dying - it makes them feel like they are paying for their sins. In the grand scheme of things, I get to watch you die for free when you inhale your burning, filtered death, and it is a beautiful thing. Admit me to the hospital, for I find that I used to have a heart but the love inside of it has turned malignant, it has eaten away my chest cavity and left nothing but a gaping wound that bleeds darkness, and your staple kisses can't even hold the wound together for long. Admit me to the hospital on the basis that love is blind and I had gouged my eyes out for you, willingly, for in my sight I saw the promised land and it looked a lot like you and I never knew paradise could be so cruel. Admit me to the hospital, and ask them to put me into an induced coma, and in my unconsciousness, tell me that you love me like you did when I was sleeping, because guilt makes people feel crazy things; guilt makes me angry that I am not a beautiful sunset, that you won't grab your camera and windbreaker and rush out to catch me before I disappear. I always loved you through the wrong vision, like staring out of stained glass windows in an empty chapel - you're supposed to be the one in the confession booths, yet here I am, etching my feelings for you like hieroglyphics into church walls and wherever else people will either abandon when they're happy or visit when they need a reason to not feel so guilty. Churches and hospitals are not so different , you and me are not so different - we have always been made for the guilty, and we are full of prayers from people who might not know that one man died for all to show his love indefinitely and I have been trying to hang from a tree ever since just so you would know for one moment. Again, forgive me, I have never been good with apologies.
Feb 6, 2014
Feb 6, 2014 at 12:12 PM UTC
She wore a windbreaker as red
as her parents voting habits,
and smoked American Spirits
as rough as the next-door
skateboarder's hands.
At 18, she was bored by
teen-aged touch,
and looked towards the
thirty-five year-old avant-garde
painter, who meandered in his
sun room, like a soul
pretending to be lost.
At 20, her parents told her
to go to college, to go to
'some place other than here'.
So, she went and had skinny,
Greek fingers with chipped nail-polish,
dip down and inside of her, without
judgement, without thought, and,
with this touch, she felt free.
At 24, she was an undergrad with
an apartment and a guy named 'Blake',
and Blake said Brown and she said State.
And when Blake left, she felt complete
despite losing something meaningful.
And when her story started to go on forever,
her body spread across the pavement like
seeded jam on burnt toast, scraped thin,
without image and without future, lost
inside crevices and cracks, a memory
or thought, wandering nothingness.
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 11:29 PM UTC
I found a statue of Christ amidst detritus
of a burned-out bar on High Street.
The Savior scorched to a cinder:
the state of faith in America.
I crossed myself and stowed
the King of Kings
in folds of my old windbreaker
(buried beneath the hardened exterior
I've projected to protect myself
from the tyranny of evil men)
to spare him the indignity
of further exposure to the elements on
our exodus through these city streets:
a trifling attempt at reciprocity.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 11:33 PM UTC
His eyes gleamed and played in his eye sockets, like marbles on a playground. When he spoke, he waved the arms of a worn windbreaker. Dried ***** pooled down the center zipper. This was a man who stopped to compliment my boots and not my face. Or skin. Or purty smile. The wind encircled us and almost pulled the cardboard with a toothy model on both sides out of his dried finger tips. His niece insisted he carry that thing around. If only she had given him an entire billboard instead.
When I saw the gaunt streetwalker, companion of the sunrise, keeper of the bottle--he had enough to live off the recycling from years--he reminded me of the naked frightening people we are when we peel off the fifteen layers of skin, disrobe, and dismantle our pride.
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 12:40 AM UTC
you scratched our initials
into the surface
of the polished wooden table
behind Redlight Redlight
with the key to my heart.
P + S.
a brief message
etched in time
for all to see.
you grinned up at me
when you'd finished,
ombré fluttering slightly
in the evening breeze,
and said, unabashedly,
"it was the first thing
that popped into to my head."
P.S.
sometimes, i still think
of how your hands clung insistently
to my windbreaker when we sat
on the pier, how our bodies
synced in quiet harmony.
Apr 24, 2017
Apr 24, 2017 at 7:43 AM UTC
He comes in around the same time
every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
eating alone save for the newspapers
constantly clutched beneath his arm
his spectacles worn to ice
his windbreaker and khakis
every time ordering the same
salad, soup, and pasta dish
He doesn’t talk much
and I like that
his words are rare occurrences
of honest observation
a reflection of the aged, sad look
which he wears on his face
every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
just before the dinner rush
I never see him arrive or leave
simply he appears
a ghost from an old photograph
walking among the swirling mess
of flesh, blood, and heartbeats
I bet he drives an Oldsmobile
or maybe a buick
stick shift with faded leather interior
I bet he had a wife once who loved him
and children who weren’t too grown up
to give him a call every now and then
just to check in
I think about this man
under the closing-time moon
as I pull myself into my car
and leave
away with my own life
my own story
and I aim not to forget him
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 4:23 PM UTC
*Your windbreaker holds back all of the rain that flows
Only seconds away from the curb where you stand,
Puddles distant near and far are the result from the
Violent storm at hand. I'll try to somehow understand.
Your hand stretches outward as if to beckon, but instead
You stick your finger up and let me know how you
"Really feel," but I'm always at your mercy, your dark
Brown eyes hold me in a somewhat helpless-make me reel.
If there was a way to go back to that time and find you there,
What I wouldn't give to tell you how you made me feel.
A lady knows when she's found her love, and there's no way
Without you I'll ever get bye when push comes to shove.*
Oct 26, 2015
Oct 26, 2015 at 6:07 AM UTC
My sister was my first ward.
When GOD saw fit to send
her to me he forgot to include any warnings.
She would drink all the juice,
and play with all the toys.
She was cuter then me, smaller than me,
and could not sin. At least that’s what my family thought.
I didn’t know it was possible to love and hate that hard until we grew up.
As a fledgling guardian I had to do well in school,
respect teachers, and keep out of trouble
because she followed in my wake.
I was her windbreaker that protected her from the storm.
My overprotectiveness of all Double X chromosome
carriers is pretty much her fault.
I made plans at night on how I would keep us both safe
if we ever had the misfortune of being alone in the world.
I blazed trails and fought demons
so she would never know darkness.
And I failed.
I made her hate me and the weird thing was I was content
with the hate because she was safe.
She’ll never see the horrors of the frontlines.
Never know my scars.
It’s taken two years to get my best friend back.
No matter what happens or the gap that may arise
she will always be my friend.
Now I’ll always mess with her, give her advice,
answer when she calls, remind her of her embarrassing moments,
and I will always be the first to defend her.
She’s my littlest one and I’ll have her back until the day I leave this world.
Love you lil sis sis.
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 11:02 PM UTC
Columns of water smoked over
The lake last evening,
Leaving a sun-soaked
Wet-dog pungency. But wagging.
Fatted newborns are
Claiming trees, digging holes.
The worms are doomed
Beneath the green.
Snouts are grovelling
Where they belong.
This was a blithe storm
Passing through.
My sun is eclipsed by you.
After a calming period.
Especially after seeing
You again, seeing you're happy.
That's a rising barometer
For you.
I see it in your hands,
On your ring finger.
Being congenial is different now.
But I am persistent
With my lieu time.
I will be resistant
In my windbreaker.
I have learned
To wait in queue.
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 11:57 AM UTC
Christmas lights dangle from the balconies
of skyscrapers off Highland and 50.
the wood of the dock is well-worn,
but firm beneath our feet.
our reflection is emblazoned
on the lake's dark surface over your shoulder,
a still-frame frozen momentarily
like a photographer's snap-shot.
stars wink hazily out beyond the city's smog, lazy
voyeurs surveying the crush of our forms.
those same nebulae must have conspired
to shape our bodies eons before,
back when the universe was first born.
what else could explain
the way you fit so perfectly,
furtively resting your head
in the nook between my neck and chest?
i place no faith in gods,
but distant suns, lightyears away,
deigned to reach
through parsecs of space-time
to smile down from above
as if they'd designed
this moment
just for us
and couldn't bear
to miss out.
the heady scent of Spirit Cigarettes clings
to your woolen sweater,
an incense of second-hand smoke,
shampoo, and Perfume.
i lose myself in an instant,
breathing in and out.
in and out.
i run my fingers through your hair,
lingering at your jawline,
circling infinitely beneath your earrings.
your hands cling insistently to my windbreaker.
wordlessly, we share an unspoken need
to simply be intwined
beneath a waxing moon,
staving off a chill
that has little to do
with this Florida winter.
wise enough to recognize
bliss like this interrupts our melancholy
only temporarily. ephemeral seconds
suspended like phone-lines between us.
but i yearn to share
moments like these,
however fleeting,
mutually wrapped in rapture.
Dec 12, 2016
Dec 12, 2016 at 1:54 AM UTC
As I entered the subway in the early morning spit and drizzle
My sleep rusted eyes saw bags, black plastic bags,
Bin bags, there were three, huddled at the far end,
Against the biting cold, the trinity of bags rustled,
Flipping, flapping, hugging, seeking warmth in the tunnel.
And yet…
When my shoes slipped across the wet subway floor
And I got nearer to the ******* heap at the far end,
My eyes suddenly froze and my steps slowed,
Those bin bags were acting as a windbreaker,
A windbreaker for a body upon the concrete floor.
A man without a home…
Wind, shrieking a heartless hymn of obscene guilt,
It punched through my carefully guarded sense of humanity,
A man slept there, discarded and forgotten, head near the gutter,
Shoes curled, body curled, a man searching for a mother’s warmth,
The light above harsh, dank, and as lifeless and as merciless as a tomb.
Do not forsake him…
This man, he was the son of the morning, dreaming in lands unknown,
Sleeping in lands known, attacked by politicians, kicked by society,
Demonized by the press and bitten by the rabid media machine,
Knifed by the blade of youth, and eulogized by the church and elders,
Yet, through it all, we all knew, and we silently walked on our way.
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 5:14 PM UTC
there is a boy who smells like crushed up pills
who licks his lips when he thinks hard
and holds his hands in the pockets of his
blue windbreaker.
he is the kind of person with the kind of mind
that you wish you could read; you want to
delicately crack open his skull and reveal the
contents written in its folds.
you want to know what is written on the crumpled up
slips of graph paper that he carries in his jacket pockets.
you want to know why he is and why you are and
what mess of universal ties somehow connect you.
May 8, 2016
May 8, 2016 at 12:17 AM UTC
I found him, my saint and savior,
Sitting at his leisure sipping tea,
Trimmed green in the background
With his own private backyard pool.
Cable, golf the whole thing on TV,
Chatting with friends about the
Trends in Hollywood, the PG rated
Movie that sold so well because
The mass public could "indulge,"
*Instead of looking outside at the
Grey tattered jacket and windbreaker,
Tethered against a rainy post in the cold.*
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 10:44 PM UTC
When I was little my father
Used to take me to the beach
With my tiny baby body wrapped up in his arms and
His coat that fit the 6 foot 8 inched
Man with room for an extra 4 foot girl
Who was too cold to walk by herself.
I loved the sea only beach it
Provided the beach
Which provided the walks
Which resulted in my dad with the
Extra large, forest green windbreaker.
I didn’t care for the ice cold water
Or the frigid air
Only for the effect that It had, that ended
With me inside that forest green windbreaker.
I didn’t even really like the walk because 2
Of my legs equaled one of his
But I loved how 2 of his arms equaled
One of my 4 foot bodies.
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 9:40 PM UTC
I'll hold you up and lift you
Like the wind blows the willow tree
My tears will fall and cover you
Like the rain washing the earth
I'll carry your burden on my shoulders
& wither under the pressure
Too tired to walk, too shameful to fall
Bury me, bury me
Like the dearly departed
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 3:18 PM UTC
There are paper plates
with your face on them.
Your green windbreaker
has made you a legend.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 11:16 PM UTC
The chaos of history
Where we try to find patterns that quickly crumble, where fear of *** is a constant
Fear of free thought is constant
Regret after war is constant
To find organizations of prejudice under the euphemism of protection is constant
Inequality has been constant. I cannot think of a time in history where hierarchy has not existed. This doesn't mean it couldn't ever exist
Perhaps if our empathy was increased by our tools for expression, there would be more equality, if feelings were so out in the open that they couldn't possibly be ignored
That politicians lie for support is a constant
Given these constants, why do we continue to lament? Because we dream of an ideal, somehow, because we are dis satisfied with what is put in front of us, because as scholars we criticize, why can't we accept? The individual makes a choice to live for change because he sees the possibility, but he finds that his honesty is misinterpreted and reinterpreted by the ***** to fit an ideal that never was, that the maytr becomes inhuman, a lie of pure soul that was far from the truth of, how perceptions change naturally and the idea of change may be an illusion
That Gandhi did not liberate India, but rather shifted the tides in the right direction as a performer, a martr, that the liberation of India happened on it's own. That a man cannot change the world, but live his life in his own ideal image of it, which influences but does not actually change,
I want to run away from my own thinking
It gets carried away from me, and suddenly I am a victim, or perhaps my self pales in comparison to my emotion, like a small child gazing at the golden gate bridge on a dark night a he huddled in his think windbreaker, it is a hopeless cause, that emotion is as real as any rational thought, that there is no real distinction, the idea that everything is about *** except for *** *** is about power, but emotion is not about power, it is from a scours that is beyond the animal, it is absolutely an completely human and alien to the natural world, I am pale to the comparison of this life, and my emotion drives my passion, and in my rational mind I am hungry for food and drink and for power, rationality, the animal instinct, that I fear death when I am rational, how pathetic and now time consuming and how completely undeserving of the following feeling of pervasiveness, that I am capable of anything and death is my fate no matter what my choosing, oh, I will choose the former every time, until my rationality dies, yes I will go gently into that good night
I weep and I beg, please take me away
I weep and I beg, please take me away
I weep and I beg, please take me away
I weep and I beg, please take me away
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
the wind wants to be visible, and even has a new color to show us...the wind knows how we are and knows that some will taunt it if they see the wind being blown by wind. The wind will not be pushed around by people who want to make things they see disappear. So i do bad stuff and they can't even see me. I'm gay, but i also carry farts right to these judgmental people's noses. In yo face! The funny thing is, these people actually think it's their **** Breaking wind huh? I just broke you dog! You can't break wind boy! You betta getcha a windbreaker! TBAG! Shut ya mouf! Tailwinds from now on *******
Oct 8, 2021
Oct 8, 2021 at 5:06 PM UTC
yours is the knife that
lies in bottles of pickled
berry fingers, the night
is is the way you move- groove:
how it stains them-
the sun that shines on the other side
of the
moon craze.
so shut up (and sit down)
with all the garden things crawling in your hair.
cut it short, babe.
end it
soon. but
gimme good-
eyes like stale jellybeans tumbling out
the bag, over-ripped-open.
he's still out there.
still coming for you.
don't tie your shoes.
don't love me well
don't find a way to
get away
we need these and more.
and when the toes break
from kicking at
everything,
history will show us that there is no good and evil.
only
cruelty
and different directions in which it falls at certain times.
and when you are brought to tears
by an upload of an old toonami ad-
that ******* takes you there,
you will know about it.
and living,
you will fall into
the spaces
that
sleep
ever just out ofgrasp
churning like a bellow of
me
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 3:35 PM UTC
She came back today
new hair swishing, talking, laughing
non-verbally different.
trendy, mismatched clothes
shapeless pants
a cheap embroidered windbreaker.
even with heels, she seems below me,
no longer restrained, outspoken, quiet, or fun.
I’m grasping for normality,
clinging onto her old expressions
that rolling of the eyes
flicking of the tongue
replaced by swishing
maneuvering, stoutly and gracefully
all at once.
once we were little planets
now transformed into a shooting star
and me, firmly grounded in familiar earth.
Nov 7, 2019
Nov 7, 2019 at 10:11 PM UTC