2010
05.31
You don’t have to
be a private Dick
to know
that Jane Doe
is capable
of writing
a Dear John
letter
and
an average Joe
like you
won’t be
christened
Sir
by the Queen
so stop
acting like
Ripley
and realize
that believe
it or not
you may
not break
any Guinness
world records
and you
might just
barely
keep up
with the Joneses
and you
never stood
up to the man
and
nobody
ever called
you tall
dark
or handsome
and you
never had
much fun
with a blonde
and you may
not be
looking
ahead
to the best
years
of your life
but you still have
a head on
your shoulders
and food on
the table
and even
if you
can only
count your
blessings
on one hand
you must deal
with the
cards
you were dealt
even though
you know
the house always
wins
you still
have a chance
to go out
swinging
2010
05.30
the girl calls you
she’s an open nerve
her life is raw meat
left out in the sun
she’s terrified
she lives
on a ship of rats
and she’s not a girl
anymore
none of us are that
young any longer
I already feel like
a ghost in these streets
broken down
streets,
houses broken
in heaps
as the skull
inevitably aligns
with the ankles
in dust
these unholy houses
hold us
graveyards shoot up
like dandelions
at the shore
I am driving past sunny
graveyards
and there are people
milling about
doing the work
of death
milling about like
army ants
all over death
and they come
and they go
and it’s all so orderly
and well behaved
and grim
in the sun and the
bright hodgepodge
of spring flowers
death and the dead
coming and going
I like to listen to Mexican horns
where I live
and drive a slow car with the sun
splashing all over everything
like spilled paint, like a beautiful
fucking accident
and to stop in for some wine
with a girl who whispers
gentle lies to me in the day
on a sun-drenched pillow
I don’t think about the music
that will play when I’m dead
I’m certain I won’t like it
2010
05.29
I.
And my eyes burned out like quick-melting candles.
And my
And my eyes
II.
Her fingernails caught
on the hinge and were torn apart:
we peeled them off, peeling
and peeling and underneath
opened up tiny caverns, out
of which crawled thousands
of perfect blue lizards. One
was red and colossal and we
buried him in the garden.
There was nothing left
but his enormous mournful
gaze.
III.
I was impaled, vulva
to mouth, on the spire
that rose from the top
of the Empire State Building,
and I tried to call for help
but the antenna tickled
my tongue and the ground
was too far away. They
found me eventually and cut
down the spire but couldn’t
remove it. Later I walked
again, but the muscles
of my neck were always sore
and no one wanted to
make love to me.
IV.
They cooked a fine dinner
but she dropped the steak
on the floor, and in anger he thrust
the kabob skewers up his flaring
nostrils. “But we’ve nothing
to serve,” she whispered. Ashamed,
he removed the skewers from his nose
with steaming chunks of brain
on the tips. Everyone said they were sweet
and delicious, and thanked him
very kindly, although for the rest
of his life he was rather inclined
to forgetfulness.
V.
And weakly, I could see through crimson petals.
I could
I could see
2010
05.27
The old woman at the bus stop rocks and rustles the shoebox she
keeps on her lap and when I sit down and ask, “What’s that?” she grins a
gummy smile, opens the lid and shows me all the ochre teeth like cashews.
She plucks them out one at a time, holds them up to her eye like a jeweler,
squinting. “This one is Toby Schmidt,” she says, “the second boy who
cheated on me.”
2010
05.26
If the greatest of these
is charity
then tell me again
why it’s gauche
if this young man
in a booth at a bar
dives under the skirt
of the farmer’s widow
smiling across from him.
There he will find
what he’s after
and get that big kiss
before driving her home
through jackhammer rain
and flying with her
through the windshield
making a turn.
Now they’re a legend,
the talk of the town,
emblazoned forever
for pickups to see
as two appliqués
on a viaduct wall,
their Rorschachs
bright red,
whatever their ages.