1/31/24

 Some say this the two-hundredth of January,

and are as weary of it as if it were 

cold leftover meatloaf again

or their boss's face.

I shall miss it, though.

When I was 25, I saw Jim off at the train station,

his rucksack slung over a bony shoulder,

and I cried on the empty platform

not realizing until he was gone

that I loved him. 

January brought heavy wet snow that made me sore with shoveling,

then it turned to ice for a while, and now slush.

My heart is forever surprised and jumps when touched,

then sags as it dies like the snow, a stuttering death that repeats itself. 

I was wrecked as the melt set in,

the old familiar malaise in its favorite straight back chair.

Some say this is the two-hundredth of January,

and feel numb with it as if medicated. 

I hate to see it go, as I always do, my favorite season except for Fall.

Its sharp, unsentimental freeze breaks my ease,

and I know, even as it goes,

that I love it for how it hurts me

letting me know I still can care. 

_______

for What's Going On? "It's Wednesday" 

Music: Mazzy Star Fade Into You

Inner Thoughts & Feelings

 I keep a skull inside my head

like a gravy boat for holidays

stuffed inside a china hutch,

a child sent to its room.

I talk to people at parties,

on the job, riding the bus,

as if I were immortal, the

Eternal Co-Worker, the Passenger Outside of Time.

I act as if there were no skull inside my head.

Is my affectation of skulllessness hideous?

What if I could remove the hidden skull,

would my hideousness become unbearable?

Would this poem float right out of my head?

I keep a skull inside my head

and smile as if I were on stage.

The hidden skull defines my shape,

but will shed me like an old jacket in the end.

Am I unbearable?

Was I unbearable before I said all of this, 

or only after?

So now you know, and I know about you as well.

Let's kiss now, don't be bashful

and don't retch. 

_________

Bridge Over Water Lilies

 My heart rides in the petals of a water lily--

my coat a pebbled shore.

Here is the bridge of turquoise stones,

magpie calls, and bamboo bones

with the blind sky waiting, waiting, evermore. 

My heart rides in the blind sky waiting--

my love a wounded bird.

Here is the bridge of mica memories.

the lost valise, and aromas of home

with the blue water singing, singing, a flowing word. 

My days are blue water singing--

in a ewer made of hours.

Here is the bridge of goldfish scales,

old china dishes, and copper nails

all riding in the petals of a lily, a lily, my water bower. 

______

for What's Going On? "Bridges"

"Water Lily Pond" by Claude Monet

Music: Aisha Badru "Bridges" 

Two New Poems

 THE MERMAID'S CALLING CARD

The winter blinks its eyes coquettish

then faints as all dreams do at last--

I've saved you flower, fin, and fetish--

all you had to do was ask.

_______

PHINEAS, BACK FROM THE WAR

Phineas comes back from the war

carrying a blood-rain cloud in a folded handkerchief. 

The only things he will eat anymore

are fresh-caught birds and escargot--

one slows his speech,

the other is anesthetic. 

Phineas wears glasses with smoked lenses

and declares it dusk at all times of day.

I bring him his infant child--

he shakes its hand and turns away.

Later, his medals appear

in the crib, like ribboned toys.

AP Stray Cat Yawp

 

Think of a time when you embarrassed yourself

and the cold wet sand of your heart 

dropped in clumps down 

through your stomach.

Start there.

Fetch up a memory of raw-throated sobbing,

when you beat the sofa arm or the floor

as if it were responsible for the

wasp's nest in your heart. 

Open up, little glass, fill with it.

Leave pretty sunsets for painters or postcard publishers.

What we're after here is waking inside a coffin,

falling from height, the whole empty belly

lonesome lack of it all.

Don't shake your head like you don't know. 

The thing you cannot even think is the thing you have to tell.

Will they consider you crazy, the only one

who ever did/felt/wanted/made love to

that?

Behold the mute tongueless many saying you spoke for them.

The poet is the person who threads out their own veins,

stews their every experience, fears nothing,

stands on one leg on a high wire,

all because they can't not.

Otherwise, they would just be cross-eyed babies

waving bright toy telephones to nobody,

and calling it art.

_______

for Desperate Voicings

Music: DJ Dero The Horn 

First Snow

 

November's first snow

is soft as warm Pandesal.

Such a sight makes the thorns sleep

as if they had died.

The neighbor's young dog

wears a pink coat and throws her toy

in the flake-filled air. She is a saint

sent to remind me of rivers.

I was in love once, many times.

Seasons arrive with suitcases

holding one beautiful thing and eleven goodbyes.

I am a vase, falling. The earth receives it all. 

Dear November

 

Dear November,

It's mad easy to become lost.

You are so cold and distant, part of me is begging,

the rest of me a raised fist, cocked.

 

Everything inside me is in rivulets down a window

and it's moving,

dear November,

like a scared hare in the stalky brown fields. 

Dear November,

I think I married you once, had your child,

or came to your funeral every year wearing heartbroken black.

I was your dove, dear November,

and your crow.

Dear November,

I need to know that you remember me beautiful,

even if I turned dry as a page,

stale as a bowl of potpourri in a haunted house.

I am crying now, dear November

and December's smile mocks us both,

Cher Novembre,

mon triste bien-aime.*

________

*Dear November, my sad beloved

for Dverse Poetics for the love of letters.