Poetry

Difficult Listening Time

A flock of pink flamingos moved in across the street, and set up plastic people on the lawn.                     They’ve faced them out this way, hands molded to their chins, looking more like us as night comes on. Downtown, the waitresses are starving in their aprons; the watchmen get fainter by the hour.                    It’s…

The Pool, 1988

Altadena-summer mustard smog sun all yellow as I have become      this year I fear I am fat and wear a t-shirt when swimming    childish    the T-shirt clinging to me through summer the gut of August    summers before when I was born smack for air    this year the smack of water as I…

Ontology & Guinness

     Darling, my daddy’s razor strap is in my hands, & there’s a soapy cloud on my face. I’m a man of my word. Didn’t I say, If Obama’s elected, I’ll shave off this damn beard that goes back to ’68, to Chicago? I know, I also said I’d kiss the devil, but first let…

Eddie, The Immune

I was a fine altar boy, yes. They say I was also angelic, whatever it means this side of hell. My heroes have blood on their hands, & they all look exactly like me. A good suit. A tilt of the hat. A perfect, practiced smile. A white handkerchief in my breast pocket. Shoes polished…

Anniversary

at your marker (they call it a marker) a footstone hipper than headstones           earlier mapquest led to metro north           google to the most reliable cab service in peekskill I bring wheat      tall dry half-live stalks           bought the day before           (new york has everything)           no one questions the harvest shooting from…

The Leopard

She feels the shape of another animal three trees ahead, & raises her left front paw. Dew trembles on each blade of grass as a snake uncoils among the leaves. She’s a goddess in a world mastered by repetition & unearthly cadence, pacing off light hidden in darkness. She eases down her right paw, slow…

The Tip

That he left it behind when he left. That it has three teeth. That it might be the horny snout-end of a defunct dragon. That I remember him, early on, putting it in and turning it when it           broke off. That he looked at me and said, Uh-oh. She doesn’t want us to get…