Chinese Firecrackers

Dropped from

a cosmic coordinate plane

we smashed open

our selves

becoming dust and

the wind taking us,

they read our bones,

read they way 

we exploded

-Chinese firecrackers

in our raw forms.

We were puffs of

smoke and mirrors

as we went

out with a bang.

The Youth as Atlas

The wisdom flung high

on whitewashed walls

of old, we read

them in history textbooks.

High school

in the brick buildings

with fog-rimmed windows

in perpetuum they taught

us. The desks taught us

"fuck this place".

Equally true,

so acidic

in our basic bodies

they crumble 

under the weight of

the globe-

only Atlas had it in him

to hold up the universe

on his back- 

this geography of

ancient myth.

This decoding

of in-between lines.

Our papers

due on a cryptic far-flung

date in May. 

The slick lab tables

and unending bunsen burners

which ignited with the smell

of gas- or was it failure?

As those milleniums-old

flint pieces struck out

toxic harmonies

but couldn't strike,

could not conjure flame.

The hazy fumes

of adolescence burning bright;

Burning fast.

The long halls

with mottled floors.

Scuffed with crumpled tests

lying in wait in darkened

corners under stairs

with make-out parties.

Our dimly cast reflections

spoke in echoey quivers

across crusty PA speakers

irrevocable 

in the land of forsaken

and failing Atlases.

Midnight Pockets

I think we got lost

in sidewalk oil slicks,

the same metallic rainbow

in your eyes when you cry.

Heads bent to the grey pavement

we wandered nightly

through the narrow alleys,

watching the skyward fire escapes

as they bent to lift us

-the metal claws of god.

Heavenward

our lost bodies were thrust.

The cosmic bodegas

blazed their neon 

into our weary eyes;

their faded awnings

flapping in the changeling breezes.

We wanted to fly,

our arms in their lusty stretching

to become constellations.

But the hands of the 

metal railings rusted;

we were falling down the stairs,

head over heels with our

own starry-eyed visions 

of heavens, unopened.

Instead we crumpled 

in the puddles reflecting

the neons in their gaudy pink

hues and dirty blues.

We gathered our burning limbs

and painted our faces

with the bodega drainage.

Our blazing faces

with warrior stripes

of the wandering fallen.

Our eyes bent skyward,

hands shoved in our

lonesome midnight pockets.

The White Cliffs

For as the roads

dispense themselves

over the white

cliffs of mist in the hills,

as it tubmles down

in hazy waves.

Cascading and breaking 

along the freeway 

-hazy shades of winter

to envelop the toothpick trees

and fields lying

fallow in the cold. 

In this whiteout of

wintry, there is the

deaf blanket of silence

lying thick,

stifling, across the 

naked plains, across

the brown and dying hills.

The winding roads throwing 

themselves into the ends.

The oblivion beyond the guard rail

as we would plummet into these 

stewing clouds lying serendipitous 

in the road salt messes.

We so willingly let go

as the trees merge with 

the sky- grey shifting shapes

without wind. 

There is nothing beyond

the pale hands of winter,

she holds us in 

quiet repose-

throws us off the cliffs

into misted hills. 

Snow Storm Blues

In the night
the small ice
hit the window glass
and frosted the panes,


the slick snow 
gleaming under
the orange haze of 
streetlamps illuminating
the ghost walkers
in the single digit
temperatures.


The refrigerated winds
whipped up the wet fluff
into heavy drifts
which nestled deep into
the street corners.


We watched at the windows
as the world was torn
down by sleet and 
angelic snow to a new state
which was calmly cleaner
and as subtle as mourning dove 
singing. 


The wickedly silent 
violent rebirth
as it covered the ground
and slicked the boulevards-
we were dreaming window-shoppers
hoping to accumulate 
this new beauty
in our arms,


these pristine suburban lawns,
no blemish of foot-print
no indentations of bulky angels
four feet tall. No,
but night swept the streets
clear and tossed the 
prismatic shards
skyward to blaze
in orange incandescence in
the night. 


We were silent watchers,
ourselves as snowflakes
falling in graceful turns with the
winds who made 
beautiful silver pathways
to the heavens, renewed.

Spontaneous Poetry in B Minor

Oh the pine whispers

instill such wind-whipped

longing striking

the hot irons of our

souls-

it sizzles, charismatic,

like frying eggs.

The blackened skillet

our only contender

in its infintesimal wisdom;

the camp-out logic

of bonfires on the shore

the crackling embers 

making sounds

as our 

wise running souls

crack free of our ribcages

those so lacy protectors

of our canary-song dreaming,

our splashes of yellow

against some sombre 

grey ward walls

off the avenues

-oh the dying spirits flew!

But our freedom 

plunging into the sea

it goes, the future nipping

forever at our salt-drenched 

ankles, they are scuffed

and bleeding from the

briar patches we

stumble through

for this forever-dream.

This fire in our

scrambling bones 

wakes us in a jangly dancing

our spirits launch free

and are cosmic

burning things.

We touch the 

flaming stars

and weave them in 

our hair,

dashing through the

open nights across

the westernly fields

into the tall towns

and past them to the

water

from which all stems

and soon returns,

this capturing of our fleeting

souls illuminated in the 

swaying rhythmic trees

over the salt cliffs!

These breaking free

fluttering hands

which open the gilded

cage door

and our souls meet

the air with a crackling sweet

sound- opportunity

hits the iron

and sizzling off

we go 

in bursts of steam

these, we free

people running

to the sea

across the grey and dying landscape. 

[This is from yesterday.]

The Carp

The carp
lie heavy in the bathtub,
the green-gold scales
heaving steadily,
the warped gills 
breathing
-constancy.


Its great arched back 
nipping the waterline,
this fish, so powerful
in the tap water.
Encapsulated here,
as though for observation.


We stared
with bright wide eyes
into its own,
the jewels of the soul-
for each thing which breathes
carries something greater;
something was nestled in this
ancient beast, with mouth gaping
-the noiseless sucking sound 
its fish-lips made in the lukewarm
atmosphere of the apartment bathroom.


The dim incandescence played shadows
across the back of the creature as
we pressed our noses onto the tub ledge
to look closer, watch each scale ripple
as though painted on by meticulous hand.


But to touch this slick body
was to go to far,
as it sat in the silent water
under our laundry strung up
on the line, across from the window
as street noise poured in.
Did it fathom the life
outside its makeshift aquarium-
observation gallery? Could see the 
neon at night, did it breathe in
the smells which drifted from the kitchen.


Did the noble fish know,
in this yellowed bathtub,
this sign of wealth that 
lie languid in the stagnant water?


It lie still
with clear eyes and 
twitching whiskers,
ancient calm,
placed here before
us in the shallow pool.


(Also, this is actually a real thing people do, keeping carp in their tubs- it's apparently a Polish Christmas thing, so they can later eat the carp...)

Wise Oaks

Darling, the days pass
in cloudless ways
the drifting shadows
of the ancient trees
(they have loved
you for a thousand years)
-so that you may blend to sky
and give yourself
to her, in the breezes that
stir all hearts
to this bursting,
our humanity sings 
the same songs in the
sunny silence.


The blue heaven
alights to plant kisses
upon your forehead,
the cooing of butterflies
as they ascend from 
caterpillars- these
fair-winged ones
raise clouds of orange
and white into the 
skies, they know
you and this 
calm of being.


The sparkling
fibers of spidery
lines which connect 
each leaf to the next.
The silvery strands
which make caterpillar
and human one 
touch in a blaze of
nature and sleep in
whispering breaths
beneath the 
wise oaks.


(This sounds to idyllic, and too naive)

Human Condition

A misty-eyed

island drifting in the sea,

the displacement of us all,

from where we should be.

But as humans

there is no stationary

moment.

We are all blurred photographs,

closed eyes and goofy grins,

tripping over ourselves

as we move out the doors

and frames of polaroids.

We shake ourselves out

like laundry on the line,

snapping in the breeze,

antsy to get away

and fly off,

our wings flapping,

we are clumsy chickens

with a use for flight,

but it has passed us-

so our cars suffice

as we drift across the 

deserted highways

and through 

our own breaking

civilization

as we move on in 

a current driven by

the ever-impending

sun.

This movement

ever-constant our

flailing limbs 

and quick mouths

flutter

quick and 

disperse this 

lonliness of the 

human condition.

Mermaids and Carp

Meet as mermaids

caught upstream,

in the rivers

running wide,

bisecting America.

Meet as mermaids

with silverfin tails

and shimmering koi scales

in the Mississipi.

We will be the long-haired

swimmers with the carp

as they become reflections

of the clouds.

Meet as mermaids,

the softened silt banks

of middle country,

these two shores,

the yellow sea

flowing, as a great serpent

down, backward sister

of the Nile-

our bodies, soft and bending

with the earth.

Meet as mermaids

with a wicked siren song,

combing our hair on the rocks,

waving to ferries,

missing the tides

and the gulls.

Meet as mermaids

in the crossroads, 

lost from the sea,

silvery tails 

splashing the golden carp.

The Larks

We'll wake under the arbors
of weeping trees, vernal bright
in the new May sun,
new warmth in the earth
as it flows through us,
around us
in such zephyr-pure air.


In this nesting of moss
neath the netting
of leaves, making
stained-glass patterns
on our hands and faces,
we lie in vast repose
across the college lawns,
the gardens, the quiet
city square of grass, green
and pleasing,
new growth.


Larks to sing 
bright new songs
across the airwaves,
dripping sweet,
the golden sun's shine
across our faces
moving us with the 
boughs of these willows,
so old, in perpetuum
as it were,
the cyclical spinning of seasons.


But this is new,
somehow always new,
catching us in the doldrums,
exalting the simplicity
found reflecting us in nature,
some faint beauty, overpowering
in our bones, which draws us out
and lies us out to 
dream, lofty, by the duck ponds
of what now thaws and grows
and sparks.


It sings clear and high,
this soprano ringing 
out from winter's lows,
across the snow embankments.
Flying, flying
we forever are, coming
to this newness,


this growth we crave,
it is within us, internalized
as part our beings, just as
the flowers do bloom,
and as the rains come in April
to birth such verdant tranquil
in May as we 
lie, 
eyes closed,
faces skyward in the eternal unity
of blooming things.


This so-human dalliance 
with the natural world,
the gnarled bark which 
swishes whispers of 
ancient love,
forever the larks sing 
as the light plays green 
on their wings.