A Man

A man grew
up, out of the April Michigan ice
in my brown grave of a garden.

This man was never a child.
He never bounced some goddamned ball
or climbed into my lap for a story.

What I'm saying is, this man wasn't natural,
though he grew there
among the astonished screaming jays.

How can I sleep, knowing this shapeless bastard
is leaning upright out there,
moaning like the last lover on earth?

For now, the hard earth is his vice,
he stays half-born, entire,
fucking with my head, expecting some sick future.

Slashing rain and warmth as sudden and wrong
as a stranger in one's kitchen
will free him, he will roar the mud from his throat and tarnish my name on the dead medicine of his lips.

He will call, I will come, terrified and scalded,
to be touched and opened by him,
to weep in his arms, hissing damn you, darling, damn you."
_______

for day 13.

Moon Rabbit

Moon Rabbit came back,
long after NASA had been sold for scrap.

"Bunny," I said, finding him there,
"you must be hungry,
coming from such a barren garden
so sparse of leaf and short of air."

I have a dusty hope chest
down a dusty stair
as dusty gray as the moonlit coat
of my silver-silent friend, the hare.

Moon Rabbit seemed
to like my hair
and made a red-spun warren there
where moon can light and moon can find
his loneliness and mine--entwined.
_______

for Sunday Muse #103 

From Ashes

From ashes, 
roses,
carnations,
mint.

My trunk of failures overturned
by your need,
and my humbling sorrow.

What is plenty, in a desert?
The bowl of your need I filled with double portions,
secreting my heart in the stitching of a new shoe.

From ashes,
roses,
carnations,
mint.
From distress, alchemy--
lead turned to gold.
______

for my son Joe--we have always been there for each other; light in dark skies.

and for Friday 55, hosted by the best poet I know, who I'm proud to call my BFF, Hedgewitch.
_______

Faux Foxes

You three.
Come to me.

Open this box.
Take out a fox.

They are color coded.
Don't tell me you didn't know this.

Now here's something you may not know:
Two are real, one is faux.

Ever wonder how this came to be?
What I'm saying, what I mean,

Is the thing that I most want to say:
ever wonder how a faux fox fffff-finds its way?

Okay, back in the box.
Come back next week--next week, ducks.
______

foolishness for Sunday Muse #102 and day 13 of my 39 poems in 39 days. 

Photography by Anatasiya Dobrovolskaya

Mrs. Sartre At The Beauty College

I said to the stylist at the salon,
"All is darkness." 
From the pocket of her smock, a candle
with which she beat me about the head and shoulders.

"Behold, I give you light," she said.
"Crazy motherfucker!" 
Who hired this bitch?
Wax in my hair.
Will an indifferent Stylist mold me at Her whim?
________

for my BFF Hedgewitch's Friday 55 bash, and also for Play It Again (existentialism) at Toads. Also for day 12 of my 39 poems in 39 days.

Make Me An Instrument Of Thy Paws

the dog

ignores

the sign

that says

not to trot

in wet cement.

now,

his print 

is perfect

though his 

feet 

are funky.

poet!

i shout

at the magnificent

mutt.

_____

for day 2 of Play It Again.

"street poetry"

for day 11 of my 39 poems in 39 days.

The Man With The Glass Eye

The man with the glass eye
possesses smooth clarity of vision.
He rolls his glass eye
to dispense balm for frail children who then recover.

Look into his glass eye.
You will see yourself split into fractals--
all the selves you are capable of being.
He greets each one
warmly, personally.

At night, he sets his eye on the nightstand
in a glass of solution.
It shimmers like a planet there, from which horoscopes might be drawn.
In the morning he replaces it and is filled with intelligent resolve.

If you meet the man with the glass eye,
do not ask what happened to his "real" eye.
It is in your head,
whispering sweetly.
_____

for Day 10 of my 39 poems in 39 days.

image: Tete d'homme barbu by Picasso.