Cavalier

I didn’t see you
When you drove past this morning.

Did you see the kiss
I gave him on the sidewalk?

Whenever I see a car like yours,
I peer inside—
Though I don’t want to.

I have never seen your face
Through the windshield,
In the seat where I sat
When glass and airbag smokehaze
Hit me harder than your silences.

Oh, how fitting
That I crashed your car
A worn out metaphor for worn out
Words.

How fitting
That you fixed it.

Wreck

I didn't know the meaning of the word
until I was snapped into one,
or out of one and into another,
snapped into the jagged axle
out of the jumbled stupor
into my bruised shins against the dash
out of my loneliness
into my mortality
dashing out of the smoking car
into triage mode then, thank god,
out of the heart-grip of fear
into an insurance phone-tree
out of my wallet with my license
into the car of a stranger
out of my better judgment, in tears, but
into dumb luck and my borough and finally my own front door.
Out of the wreckage, safely
into the certainty of remaining a wreck for some time.

Three Ways to Fall Asleep

1.

Count backwards from

Tomorrow

Until you get to where you

Started.

2.

Write the list of

Everything.

Include: radish leaves, sublimely, and

Without.

3.

You

Are the world's

Mirror. So,

Mirror.

Atlanta in the Spring

The wind blows yellow.
We use up all our tissues
breathing in sperm cells.

Uneasy

There's a garlic knot

in my stomach.

And a sugar lump

in my throat.

So, yeah. I guess

you could call me

an emotional eater.

A Nature Poem

White birds
With softer wings than you
Have flown above these parts.
They say honeysuckle words are meant for beehive dreamers.
In farmer’s terms I’m trying
To say that nature isn’t for those who work it anymore.
Pastoral dreams belong to whitewashed cheeks
Not fences.

May Nonfiction?

Per Eric's amazing suggestion:

CAN MAY BE SHORT NON-FICTION MONTH?

Pretty please? I am so in love with this and don't want to let it go in two weeks.

Note from Tim: Respond in the comments with your thoughts on this. This is a different animal but could be pretty awesome.

I dare someone to use this for their poem rewrite!

Crickets chirp.
But it’s too late for me to care anymore.
My love-sponge is full of sugar
And my mind is on you.
Write a poem:
Fart-wind smoothes me.

You're gone now

Maybe it’s the loss of you
Or maybe it’s just the sky
But I’ve spent all day feeling blue.

In the new millenium

If only I could unfold myself
From this horror around me.
These 451s, these ‘84s. That’s right, I’m
Surrounded. I live like a
Rabbit. My eyes are
pink. My skin is fear.
Quick. Did you hear that?
Oozies on the rise. I’ve gotta get out of here
Or they might see my heart twitch.

Toppings

There's something I like about the toppings bar.
At a glance, one can see.
The kiwi wallow in the juices of their own envy
(strawberry is more popular, but only slightly).
Blueberries, the promise of summer.
The mochi's powdered face belies its simple taste.
Meanwhile, the cheesecake bites gradually melt
into one sticky cheesecake mess, the cranky child
of the bunch. The peaches are lonely.
It bothers me when the candied cherries impose on
the lesser fruits. The shy pineapple, of pale complexion,
finds itself drenched in flamboyant red.
Imagine the self-esteem issues of the pineapple.
I make it my job to ensure that each topping remains
in its place, weeding out any would-be crossovers.
I make sure that each bin is filled to the
golden rectangle amount, the one that looks just right
and makes someone who,
when they glance over, think, I appreciate this
sterile aesthetic, this beauty
that comes from categorizing a thing by its essence -
its color, its texture, its taste - I see the choices,
and I will make mine, scoop it up
with a spoon, and carry it with me.

Bastille Day

It started out well enough: the weather

wasn't cold or anything, and a wind blew

across the scene. You thought it was a holiday

in France. I thought about the first time

of everything. The next morning we will

forget what the well-timed word means.

A wind blew in France, and everything

the next morning wasn't the weather.

The holiday was cold and anything

you thought started out with the morning

and everything. We forgot the scene.

Safety

How funny that today, to network is
the opposite of working on a net.
The words that once meant staving off the threat
of falling or starvation now mean 'biz.

To network is in fact much more akin
to weaving, leaving knots in all your crop
so others can identify and swap
some unearned favors brought from where you've been.

The world of the word's first meaning seems unreal.
There was a time when humans ran in packs,
when loyalty meant life and home and grace.
Yet each day's disappointments do reveal
a wound still open, bloody from the pacts
I swear we swore, to keep each other safe.

REWRITES

Applause all around for the efforts thus far. But it's the middle of April, and that means people are hitting a bit of a slump usually, so why not A POETRY GAME. YES.

By Wednesday, the game/challenge/OLYMPIAN FEAT OF STRENGTH is to rewrite a poem someone else wrote this month. Drastic tone changes are encouraged. Post your new title as the title, and use the first two lines of the actual post to post the original title and author.

HUZZAH

Museum

I’m in a museum.
Alone.
Piece me together with your stucco walls.
Rococo villas could exist in some other world.

Exhausted

After a long week of work,

exhaustion hits you hard,

and even just after noon

you want to take a nap.

Sometimes, Sundays

are just there

to let you 

recharge.

HEY YOU

Yeah, you. I’m talking to you. The schmuck
staring at a screen right now, feeling all
fucking proud of yourself for taking time
out of your busy day to read a poetry blog.
I mean, who the fuck reads poems anymore?
You do, you pretentious asshole. You read
poems and you pat yourself on the back
or more likely wink at your unkempt self
in the mirror in the morning and go “good
for you, you intellectual, you keeper of
things that would otherwise be lost, you
are a good person.” Well listen, there’s
a reason those things would be lost without
self-aggrandizing shitheads like you. You’re
not saving the world, you’re reading a damn
poem. You’re not making one lick of difference
to the fate of the planet or the human race
or the state of your black soul that is full
of false humbleness. You are not brave, you
are not a living monument, you are not the
gates that say Arbeit Macht Frie or the
sequestered scrolls of the dead sea. You’re
an asshole. You are staring at your computer
and letting me insult you. Do you have no
self-respect whatsoever? Goddamn, you idiot,
you are still reading, I know you’re still
reading, what the hell is wrong with you?
Are you going to let me keep taking dirty
advantage of your openness, your willingness
to slog through mountains of shit to find
gems, when I have explicitly told you
there will be no gem here? You do realize,
don't you, that you can walk away from your
computer at any point. You can close this tab
or walk to the kitchen or pet the cat or
donate your pocket change to the United Way,
but you won't, you'll keep sitting here and
reading, because that's how devoted you are
to the folly of this vision of yourself as,
I don't know, a savior, a willing martyr,
a certified fucking saint. No. You are a captive
audience and I can do what I want with
your attention because I have it, and
you can’t have this minute back no matter
how much you want it, and now you are
realizing that you have had to fucking
scroll down the page to enable me to
continue to call you an egotistical sucker,
you’re not even a passive spectator in
your own humiliation, you are actively
helping me prove that you are the kind of
starry-eyed simpleton who won’t step
out of the way of a moving train because
you’d rather believe it will stop for you,
or someone will yank you off the tracks.
No one will. You came here in good faith
to read my poem and at this point I've called
you a moron like sixteen times and you're
still assuming there will be a payoff because
that's how poetry works, but I'm dead serious
in telling you that is not what's going on, there
is no brilliant reversal that will make all this
reading and assault on your character worthwhile.
I'm just dicking you around. Now it’s two minutes
you can’t have back, they are mine forever, and since
you can see the end of the poem now you may as well
ride the damn thing out. Just know that I have wasted
your time while looking you straight in the eye
and saying "I am here to steal your minutes, fool."
I will deposit them in an account where they are worth
absolutely nothing, and of course I realize that
I have wasted my time too in writing this exceedingly
long proof of your gullibility, but you know what,
you chump, at least I’m taking you down with me.

Clean Up Woman

Now with audio! (meaning, it's a spoken word piece, the audio isn't just the song)



When Betty Wright sings how if you love her

like you say you love her and if you need

her like you say you need her you wouldn't

hurt her and you wouldn't desert

her when you're through as if you

are the last man on the planet and she walked

thousands of miles to find you and pull

you from some wreckage of a building

that fell into itself from the weight of nothing

all that real just to watch you limp away

into some nearby burning forest

knowing in that moment that at the end

of the world the only justice is the rage and fury

of an existence that will watch itself flame out

just as the leaves of the trees become flame

and crisp into smoke and ash and barely a hint

of what they were once, I want to shake

the walls of this apartment and the foundations

of the world until they crumble and gasp

and collapse onto the blind prophets of eternity

that saw into the nature of human despair

and found it too brilliant to see anything else

and in a miscegenation of Samson and Tiresias

I will see the world and the world against

the world and I will hear through the rising

rubble a straining howl of our injustice

hobbling up until it is an orchestra where

every instrument is Betty Wright and the conductor

has lost his baton so the voices clamor over each other

like the waves of the void before the known world

existed singing if you love her if you really love her the way

you say you love her if your words are just the effects

of an entire being and if your love for her

is this being and if you are identical with love

and its object her then why is the world

spinning madly then why is the fire and why

is this the end.

Peanuts

The husk bends beneath

beneath my fingers,

but does not break.

I press harder,

straining the stringy

fibers, to no avail.

Adding rotation,

I twist the husk,

and fruitlessly

pull in opposite directions, 

as if manipulating 

a Chinese fingertrap.

But with a final

twist, and yank,

my fingers burst through,

and I feast 

on my tiny prize,

amidst clouds

of brown, 

pulverized,

tissue-paper

seed coating, floating 

like confetti 

about my head.

You cannot take from me anything I would more willingly part withal

not the words from my mouth
nor the leave of my presence;
not my hand in the darkness,
nor a leaf out of my book.

You cannot take from me, sir
anything I would more willingly
impart unto you as a blessing
except my life, except
my life. Except my life.

Rain, Check

There once was was a woman named Uddle,

who would lie down each day in a puddle.

She'd search out a slug,

and give it a hug,

because she just needed someone to cuddle.

race

vague pronoun
of the skin
why do we always
seem
to find your undulating
referent
slipping off beneath
those amber waves

On trying to be the calm center of my own universe

Some nights it is comfort enough
to shed my clothes on my way through the door
with no regard for where they land
and fall asleep in a bed strewn
with books and socks and glasses.

It is enough to sit on the roof writing
letters I will never send, watching the spark
of sunset receding westward on the skyscrapers,
and come inside when I have tired of the quiet
and not at anyone’s beckoning.

Some nights it is intimate enough
to let the cat fall asleep across my chest,
his belly exposed as he buzzes in rapture,
and to concentrate on being still for him.

I have no conclusion.
Tonight it is not enough.

Sestoum

This is an experiment of sorts where I've tried to use a sestina's scheme but instead of repeating end words, tried to repeat entire lines.

If you had leaned into me

and if we put words to every instrumental,

if I had spoken up over the wheeze of a car starting

and if the car had not started anyway,

if we counted the years by each winter

and if each spring we walked the coast,

then in the Spring we will walk the coast.

You leaned into me

and we counted the years go by. Last winter

we put words to the instrumental

of a car that had not started.

I sang over the wheeze of the car not starting

and as I sang, the wheeze of the car not starting

sprang and walked along the coast.

The car had not started, after all,

and so you leaned into me

whispering how words are instrumental

to counting. Each year the winter

counts itself. "The winter,"

I said over the wheeze of a car starting,

"will put words to an instrumental

about Spring and walking along the coast."

You leaned into me.

The car did not start,

and though the car did start

we still counted the year by its winter.

You leaned into me

as I spoke up over the wheeze of the car starting

and we thought about spring, and the coast.

The words to instrumentals

are in the end just words. Instrumental

to a car not starting

are its own dreams of spring. The coast

will count the years by their winters.

And I will remember the wheeze of a car starting,

and how you leaned into me.

Razor Sharp

Her lips are so thin,

that the men she kissed

had to spend the morning

scrubbing bloodstains 

from their pillowcases.

How To Start A Revolution

Turn

Around.

W4W 22F NYC

What is a blind date
but one big stumbling block
before the desperate?

Pop Rocks

Tear the package.

Spill them

slowly 

into your hand.

Sprinkle the fluorescent

pebbles

across your tongue. 

Press upward.

Feel a crackle 

along the roof of your mouth.

This is as close 

as you will ever come

to tasting lightning. 

van Gogh

paints by absinthe
and starlight
willed blindness his achievement

a signature, too
in the dark
that we all know
but not how to describe
a chair
beyond the farthest city lights
he sat
half his face
in the gaslimp yellow haze
his other half
deaf but attuned to oil

swirls, turpentine
and the bats, of course
if there were bats

A Benadryl Dose

I'll cut the clover with surgical precision.
I'll suck the sap, venom in your wound,
and make you sterile. You think everything is close
to weeds in the neighborhood subdivision Willow Tree,
this backyard hill of snake skins, crab apples gone
to worms and newts with half-tails.

The most terrifying thing is a wasp's nest
above the front door. You stare at the cones
and see them raising on your skin. We both jump,
hiking our feet to our knees, as we search
for our lost dogs who have wandered
in the unsold lots, wild places
where people take their dogs
to shit so they don't have to pick it up.

An owl hoots and the buffalo farm is long gone--now a tree nursery--
and I say we must end this mad world of mad worlds and make it clean.
You come home and find a snake trapped under the garage door.
After you brush your teeth, you lift your shirt and see
a line of bug bites around your waist. I trace the path
and wonder what is hiding beneath the couch cushions.
You grab your shirt from the back and pull it off in a fit.

In the morning, news of the high pollen count and the possibility
of tax incentives for people with mustaches make you feel dizzy.
We both like the idea of a nap on grass but we
must strike the snake heads with our shovels,
even after they are severed and dead. We must

chase the purple cabbages that run from us,
squeeze the goldfish of their marbles,
take the airplanes to the chipmunks,
chew the eggshells until they silken.

I'll take the muppet from your lips
in a week and let you sleep.
I'll pinprick your heart to know
the dander, the mold of the world,
and leave you stunned in the thunder of spring.

Where the Mail Trucks Sleep

I like to live where the mail trucks sleep,
to see them safely stowed
each night as I file to my bed
and they along the road.

Not snow nor rain nor heat or gloom
affects their nightly pose,
and I in turn am comforted
toward my own repose.

These stately beasts that fume by day,
that honk and puff and glower
stand magnificent at night
as proof of stately power.

Goodnight, sweet trucks, and fare thee well,
I wish you peaceful rest
and dreams of sweet deliveries
upon tomorrow's quest.

These Lips

I'm sorry Mother but I'll paint my lips
Plum Sky, Medieval Blush, Flirty Nude,
Spring Rose, BonBon Sands and even the shade
you hate the most--my NARS lip stain in Rage.
But I'm not wearing these lips to kiss the mouth
of some man and write my number on his hand.
You try to wipe my lips with a tissue but
no I’ll kiss my own hand first and look
at the imprint that settles into my skin.
I’ll read those fine lines like scoring the Bible pages,
I’ll flip through those onion thin verses
and show you the name Jezebel does not appear.

It Was So Far Off That We Thought It Was Too Far And Perhaps Imaginary, Or, We Woke Feeling Meteoric

We checked the time too often in the following

weeks, but not even the precision

of moments buried

the smoking ash of a fire we

never expected to see the end of. Like the dull wake

at the first line of movie credits.

We blinked, and rubbed our eyes.

I bought a notebook.

You helped rip the pages out.

Whisper

Your briefest words

make me shiver,

as though they were

your fingertips

reaching 

through calendar pages

to tickle

the back of my neck.

Lisbon

Ah - the seaborne European empire
of sunsets and of sighs, of narrow coast
and a sun that's soon to clamor and rise
on five thousand miles of salt and unlit
American coast that is no longer
Portugal.
                 Is that why you search the West
sky for signs that time is running backwards?

Do you still await an ocean to drown
the mountains of Spain and bring you rosy
dawns from some fresh sea and with it your lost
King Sebastian?
                              I think I met him once,
your ageless King: he ferried me across
a tide of legs engaged in marathon
to safety safely lost in thought on streets.
"I'm going that way" before he leaves me

to retrace the alleys tiled in silence -
a Sunday parade of two for two.
                                                            Wails
from an Evangel interrupt and King
is lost to preacher in a whitesoaked room
of grey dusk

                           where, the lone parishioner,
his backrow love dressed all in white, listens
for the hollow echo of a sermon lost
to darkness on the last dull tube of light.

Bildungsroman

Something was an open eye.

There were bright things cut like glass and spackled together. Some will tell

you that from far enough away you will see a woman kneeling and weeping

into her hands. Others say it is a great reef. Or the vascular system in an

ageless tree. Then

horrible things happened. Grief came on the heels of yesterday morning's

hike up a wet hill, dark and not yet dawn, shimmering like the thousand-

eye of a spider. And yet the dawn for all we knew really was a chariot drawn

across the horizon. Every night was a tragedy in a single act; every night

was the twinkle of a forgotten light atop a buoy no one else ever saw

except in the morning. But better notes too were written,

and we left them in patient cursive on our pillows

to remember us by.

8 PM

It's eight o'clock in the evening.

My uncle is downstairs,

brewing coffee 

and frying eggs.

I stand on the top step, 

confused, 

anticipating something 

that isn't coming.

I wish that, as my nose indicates,

I had the day ahead of me. 

But I peer out the window

and realize,

that I can only look forward

to sleep. 

Why can't the real morning

motivate me so?

A Reminder of You in a Reminder of Me

You bought this mug at a yard sale
Because the cartoon frog painted on its side
Had a smile that reminded you of mine.

The dishwasher has stripped the paint away
But I still drink tea from it and think of you.
Your memory has been good to me.

i have no idea what to call this

a font of blood, my neck the source wells up

red, and warmth runs through me, spreads on the cotton

by my clavicle and the car window

is broken. i do not bleed or i did

not see who shot. so i lie

still

for years i tried to sleep on my side

with my ear pressed close to my pillow's cheek.

the sound of a heartbeat in the feathers.

as foreign to down as a black boot crunching

snow underfoot. step after heartfelt step
i hear this intruder in my dreams - pacing - 

before biology arrives to explain comfort and

before the night surgeon tattoos visions

on the underside of eyelids in the dark.

these boots i am wearing are not mine.

Going out to drink, to dance

It’s a circular flow out into the uncertainty of night where visibility fades to black. It’s an exploration. It involves planning, preparation, dressing, departing, traveling, arriving, arriving, arriving, enjoying, playing, drinking, paying, remaining a while, moving, dancing, flirting, lingering, chatting, watching, approaching, blushing, changing locations; it may involve a smile, a glare, a scowl, it may involve reaching out, faltering, falling into an embrace, falling back, falling into a trance, falling in line, falling down, falling in love; it might end collecting oneself, collecting one's things, departing again, traveling again, and finally, ceasing with all of this to arrive back where it all began — home — feeling serene in the familiarity and silence not because it’s quiet but because prolonged exposure to such loud music causes partial and temporary deafness.

Spring for me is a mini death
But it's the French sort.
So I guess that's okay.

The Tables Have Turned

What a funny expression, as if we were sitting
down for a pleasant meal at the Excellent Dumpling House
and some nameless force spun the lazy
susan when we weren’t looking, and suddenly
the pheasant was out of your reach. As if we were throwing
dice down a long table in Vegas and luck finally found
or deserted us. No, the table must be between us,
I suppose. Or common to us, as if staring at the wall
of a third grade class one day, and the long chart of two
times two and three and four suddenly referred to some
other kind of math, with all the rules changed. But no,
that is not right either, because in that classroom
we would both be equally powerless and afraid.
Frankly, I think the whole conceit is hollow.
No table has turned. We have, sitting at it,
and now it seems it must be time to walk away.

60 Minutes

There's an old man on TV

complaining that I don't cherish time.

He tells me not to make plans,

because in their anticipation 

life will pass me by.

Yet, just two weeks ago, 

when I felt down, his advice

was that time heals all wounds.

So tonight I asked him, "Andy,

what would you have me do?

Should I just sit here,

slowly bleeding?"

He smirked and replied,

"take my advice, you brat.

It's gotten me this far,

and that makes me an expert."

But I don't hear the old man.

I'm hypnotized

by his wobbling jowls,

and by thinking of how to avoid 

becoming as smug as him.

Endnote

It is when the sun has split

the heavens like a brilliant can opener

and all of everything has burst

out of the wide, jagged gap

in a kaleidoscope of junked cars and windmills,

and apple cores, and bags

of mown grass that I remember how

revelation means uncovering.

Apocalypse, too.

What of the world which is the shadow

of the world?

Lift the corners and snap it

like straightening a blanket: underneath

is not the street you live on or the route

you take each morning to work but the rocky

coastline of Patmos creeping

into infinity.

Apartments by Owner

I hate birds
but will admit
the term “nesting
instinct” most accurately
describes my drive
to collect that
which in sum
makes a home.
I will tuck
down and cotton
into the walls
to plug drafts,
drag in wooden
flotsam to suit
our prairie aesthetic,
and feed everyone.
I want to
paint the walls
in warm yellows
and hang curtains
that flutter gently
in afternoon breezes.
Pier One will
be my hunting
ground, and may
God have mercy
on any man
who tries to
out-barter me
at the flea
market on Saturdays.
Exposed brick, lofted
ceilings, utilities included:
none of this
matters a whit.
I’d just like
not to move
for a while.
Fight or flight
must get old
for birds too.

Ransom Note

I'm writing this

just in case my baby calls,

so just in case

my baby calls, you can say

I was taken, all at once.

And just in case my baby

calls know that it was me

and not me, that both were taken,

that both

left.

I am reading a prophesy of what is to come.

And what is to come says Go.

So just in case I'm not around

when I won't be around and my baby calls,

tell her I've gone,

tell her I'm taken.

Tell her it's the same thing.

Packed

I pile the clothes into a bag,

which I will carry

across the city.

I have to be ready

for changes in weather,

lugging enough

to warm me into the night.

But with each article,

the bag gets bulkier.

So I have to weigh comfort 

against readiness.

After months of dragging 

boxes, from town to town.

I've come to realize,

that it's exhausting 

to try and prepare myself 

for anything.

Rubbed Raw

My heart is still raw, but you wouldn’t know it.
Every morning I groggily bundle it in soft layers
and a hood and usher it out the door, making sure
it has not forgotten its backpack. I zip angel food
cake and encouraging notes into its lunchbox.

I’ve gotten my heart the best headphones money can buy.
They fit perfectly over its ears, with a bass boost for the beat
so it does not forget its purpose. I pad the cells
of my calendar to keep it from rattling, so no emptiness
makes sonorous the gaping void that might echo
thoughts of her back upon themselves indefinitely.

Most days it stays pretty well cushioned. The bumps
and sharp turns of the day knock my heart against
its casing, but it is bottom-heavy and well grounded.
It almost always rights itself before anything spills out.

The trick is to make sure that, like a foot in a new
shoe, it is not rubbed too long in the same place.
I don’t think there’s a thing in this world I could talk about
for twenty minutes straight without weeping.
Polish a pocketed penny with your thumb for half a day,
and tell me its luster restored brings no tear to your eye.

A Word of Warning

There is a great chef 

named Tyranny Sue,

who is known to scream

till her face turns blue.

See there's only one dish

that she'll ever make.

And she strictly controls

the grade of her cake.

So when in her kitchen

you must keep your head.

Don't ask to make chicken,

pork chops, or bread.

For there is a story

about Tyranny Sue,

of the pain that she caused

to a misguided sous;

an unfortunate soul

who made the mistake,

of suggesting they try

and cook angel food cake.

Sue strung up the poor boy,

and once he was dead,

dried him out like salami

till he no longer bled.

You see, that's the secret

of how Tyranny Sue

makes such a finger-lickin'-

good tiramisu.

There's a secret ingredient 

in each slice of cake.

See if you can taste it

in the next bite you take.

It's that poor little sous chef

hanging up in her shed.

In the place of ladyfingers

Sue uses his instead.

Death of an Avid Reader

The words came out of his mouth already
Formed into perfect red apples which she
Ate too fast.