Which One

Skirting the issue, sifting through tissues, tamping the coffee grounds before making cappucino.

Sucking the life out of the balloon, mangling the mud before the monsoon.

Crimping the hair before the big dance, stamping the letter and taking the chance.

Her odd choice of clothes echo and fold, she is wearing the mask on her head.

Why not put it on her face? Instead she lifted the sheath of papers, stuck between the pages of the books she was constantly rubbing the ink talking about how it smelled. I wonder if in her mind is a series of bells, hanging on strings, and she never knows which one to pull.

Cafe Lighting

At the cafe, all the corners of the napkin were upside down. A girl with orange hair placed a steaming cup of tea on the table while above me I heard a bird rustling, then taking flight. Later, in the dark, almost asleep, my mind was counting the shadows and the thieves.

When I read a book in private later, on the train, the musty smell of the bookstore rushed into my nostrils. The clerk laughed, which stirred his short beard, when I asked if the book was fiction or non-fiction. The letters on the side of it read "Titian."

I wrote my number on the napkin, in ballpoint pen, next to the incense. Love was a 10-sided dice. I hoped he would call, yet I didn't want to talk. I wanted to hear the radio frequency in the bookstore again, to undress my intellect and bathe in the static of a thousand minds humming on the shelves. With the pictures stored in my mind, even with my eyes closed, I could write an entire novel on a napkin, if the light was right.

No More Sirens

The tender time to test my fate has come

The pirate ship has sunk and I'm adrift

The jug of rum is unstuck from my thumb

the world still wiggles underneath my ship

The Earth in all her curves looks flat to me

Perhaps I've spent too much time on the sea

Looking at the far-off curved horizon

Each slip and swell taking me ever near...

yet I can't reach what I have my eyes on

The harbor of my home she will miss

She's in Hades with her cape of chaos

The monks in saphron robes are not so far

eyes glisten as I listen to the stars

my elbows perched on the crow's nest up high

I almost hear the Heavens start to sigh

So close am I when tunderstorms let go

torrential rains then chill us to the bone

we are safe just by the skin of our teeth

when skies clear and sunlight offer relief

yet the moment I feel like I'm alive

is when I listen and I hear the storm.

Her and I speak through some ancient channel

A conch shell to the ear the static calls

Mysteries of the sirens and stone gods

The blue-black ooze of her blood now runs cold

All I see, a constellation shattered

Romance in the stars that never matttered.

True North?

I wandered on the sea foam sprays.

Posiedon's trident driven in her heart.

Her madness echoes into the coral

My sadness comes out through the darkest cave

The lips she once kissed have become

her rage.

The Calendar for the Meek

The meek will inherit the Earth. 

The sleek and slender fashion model will inherit the stares, when she is tilted on the magazine rack as I am buying brass tacks. 

I speak like a fish out of water, bubbling to the surface I argue with the cashier about coupons.

Capitalism lives to see another day.

Keep me posted when the ruthless don't win.

Keep me posted when your postcards show flowers and not strange fruit.

Keep me up to date, I want to see the world that is behind the sunglasses

of the blind piano player.

Bird of Paradise

The bird of paradise stopped on a tree, hung out on a branch, then flew away from me.

I watched him as he flew, and disappeared into the sky.

I wonder if that is paradise, whatever is out there.

Wherever he is flying to.

College

They said to read Shakespeare, Milton and Freud, 

and for life I would be better prepared.

I could go into Accounting or Law,

and slay boredom with a sword made of glass.

My friends were dressed in black and sulked a lot,

they were hip to the culture of changes.

I was caught in a dream of Cubism,

on the edge of perspective, awaiting hue.

LIFE

 

Sometimes I grab an egg that I think is hard boiled, and it's not.

BENT METAL

Bent metal rusted scraped the blacktop with a fist

Busking for the coins I dropped inside the well

Did I blow my fortune just to trade it for a kiss?

Only time knows and only time will tell.

The rats in the alley are smashed under wheels of trucks

Their bones completely flat they end up like

bear skin rugs underneath my shoes

Am I roadkill on your alley boots?

Why Do Stars Fall?

(2) Stars are tiny shards of glass, thrown from the windows of a tall building in the sky. Many stars together make up a window, and there are many windows in this giant black skyscraper we know as space. The word skyscraper is ironic as it doesn't scrape the sky, it covers the sky, and bends with the arc of the universe to cover it entirely. 

What is more is that each window glows with an office light. There are many many beings who make up the workings of the Universe, and they work here. Each window of stars, or galaxy, has an office behind it. Beings works there, on their computer, drinking moon coffee, for Infinity Corp. 

We can't see them during the day becuase of the blue curtain with the clouds on it. This is where the beings work, making the meaning behind the curtain. During what we call night, they take a rest and sleep, yet the office lights are on. The cleaning crew is there, running the vaccuums, which sounds like thunder. Once in a while, the vaccuumers see the light bulbs are burning out. They change the bulb and have nowhere to put it, so they throw it out the window. It is just glass, but it catches the light, just for a moment, as it falls. We see the falling star, and we say "make a wish."

(1) Why do stars fall? They are tiny shards of glass, thrown from a tall building. The stars are actually windows, to a giant skyscraper which is black. It is so tall that it covers the sky, and bends too. Each window is an office light. Each light or sparkle has an office behind it. Someone works there, on their computer, drinking moon coffee, all during the day. We can't see them then becuase of the blue curtain with the clouds on it. This is where the people work, making the meaning for all of the universe behind the curtain. At night, they take a rest, and are sleeping, but we can see the office lights are on. The cleaning crew is there, running the vaccuums, which sounds like thunder. Once in a while, the vaccuumers see the light bulbs are burning out. They change the bulb and have nowhere to put it, so they throw it out the window. It is just glass, but it catches the light, just for a moment, as it falls. We see the falling star, and we say "make a wish."

When the Stranger

When the stranger looks at you strangely, for he is a stranger, as he passes, you catch a spark of light. The shield on his blue-eyed cornea, the concave lens, brimming at his eyeball's edge, glistening.

It was just a sideways glance but now your mind is choking like a bent garden hose, then a faucet runs clean, and there is an undercurrent of thought rivers, polluted by his sympathy.

You feel a pull as the ego magnet is multiplying, a sunrise above a lake, the sliver blossoms into the fat sun of fire then dips down like a roller coaster into an ember when he looks away.

When was that moment, when you thought he knew you?

HEROICS

There's no standard handbook for heroics.

You climb the building and sit on the ledge,

looking out over the land below. 

Simmering butterflies line your stomach.

Calm your nerves with nicotine, when they start to fray...

No one wants to clean up this crazy mess.

"Jumping is not an option!" the birds say, the clouds mutter, "put your heart back in your chest."

Sew up your sternum and just sit, for no war was ever won in one day.

Justice seems to move, but move just a little bit, like when the clouds move over the sun, 

the day is grey but who notices? Your vision is behind your closed eyelids. You see sun spots.

You stand on the ledge, stoic. Up here, your feet are as planted and firm

as if they were on the earth.