Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Crumbs

for three-quarters price, marked

down for clearance, making room
for something more relevant

this is my love, bought on a whim:

gifts, cheaply tendered
by the drug store, chocolates

offered sheepishly in the bag
with the coupons that bought them


and this room, when I open the door

first and take lead, dropping clothes
to their piles, takes stock of me;

crumbs buried in the carpet, small
plastic pieces of garbage, soda

tabs dropped, unpopped kernels, bits
flicked and brushed, long strands

settled invisible under foot

Monday, November 9, 2009

Spitwad


this is your revelry -- Christmas light lit,

all bodies in clothing unmoving and jostled,

cupping the sound like a hand on your ear,

a hand on your heart

but a hard slap, a hot Cuban hand on the head

of the drum will unstick like an arrow, stick like

a spitwad on a chalkboard, stick and peel off

all flat and impressed

Thursday, November 5, 2009

//Blackout, Out-black/Plea for a Palindrome Prayer//

//Blackout, Out-black/Plea for a Palindrome Prayer//

‘I’M NOT HERE.’
‘I was NEVER there.’

I wake up dreaming after one second of infinite rest,

My brain
is minced
behind my eyes.

My pale hands quiver to a pallor
-fingers like so many shakey spindles

The beer is flat
and smooth.

The things which I thought were forward are suddenly backward.
-----
.drawkcab ylneddus era drawrof erew thguoht hcihw sgniht ehT
I should have spoken some palindrome prayer
so that I didn’t wind up on the other side of some looking glass.

Now

light shines
in the places I least expect
it.


(-Last half should be printed in a mirror reflection so that a mirror has to be used to correct it to be read. Uncertain as to what the title ought to be. Yes, it's pretentious as hell, in fact I even half hate the thing.)