Newton's Cradle

 In evening,

you spoke to me through the wall.

"I love you."

Don't.

It hurts when I laugh.

Tears, like sweat on a glass in summer.

Night, a smothering shadow.

In morning, diminished,

I love you as babies love,

desperate, red-faced, screaming.

_______

for Dverse Quadrille # 158 hosted by Linda Lyberg. Theme: "morning"

This is a Newton's Cradle: 

Music: George Michael "Tonight"

Angel For Alley Cats

 

"Never trust a man in a blue trench coat,

never drive a car when you're dead" --Tom Waits, "Telephone Call From Istanbul"

Don't drink that donkey piss, Angelo.

It'll make you dream of broken bells.

You'll wake up with a six-armed woman

who keeps her heart inside a sandy shell.

Come with me, Angelo,

say you'll pay them tomorrow with windfall money.

I know a place where saints serve spring water 

from blue painted pitchers, and it tastes like honey.

Angelo, don't you have a mother somewhere

waiting by the window where the spiders spin?

Pretend I'm a rolling bottle and follow me

down the Old Beach Road where she'll let us in.

What am I gonna do with you, Angelo?

Is there fare for fortune under your hat?

Leave it, but bring your bouzouki

to play like an angel for the alley cats.

_________

for The Sunday Muse #224.

Music: The Psychedelic Furs "Heaven"

 

Self-Portrait

 I carry black cherries and woodsmoke

in the upturned crescent where the memory of your face is kept.

Winter pales the world and I am prayer flags flying,

sherpas hauling,

I am peaks where the air becomes dear.

Under wicker fans, G&T's sweat on the mahogany bar.

An aesthete in a sedan chair snaps his fingers and starlings rise and wheel

carrying your voice 

feathered and black

above sea level, above all heads, beyond calling back.

I carry black cherries and woodsmoke

on a glass tray draped with night stars and the music of ouds.

A vendor in a Panama hat offers me your scent

in exchange for 

the season of his choice.

I turn my back and start ascending, to freeze and fall, 

guided by your indifferent ghost and my maps milled from ice and ache.

__________

for Dverse Open Link, hosted by Sanaa Rizvi

image: the Dyatlov Pass hikers

Music: "Qalanderi" by Cheb i Sabbah. 

Śūnyatā

 Sunya, reaching for your hand is like trying to recall a dream I haven't had yet,

but still you wait in the tattered chair

in the water-damaged bow-wooded house

where the bulldozers come to cry.

They shove up great golden cities out of bricks and candy wrappers

while you, Sunya, fanged monster, 

queen of the canopy, collector of 

sunflower sunshine in a woven shoe,

wait with that faintly mocking smile I sail inside of.

Sunya sister of Shiva, cigarette punk from down the block,

are you a tin can tied to the tail of the wheeling Heavens,

or Love itself

in a saffron sari,

taking my bones out with a kiss just to show your quick hand

to catch the  ball we both sway upon, under stars, in the ether, or nowhere at all?

Sunya, you are a man in the morning, a woman in the evening, 

a dolphin all afternoon

and I stand in the surf that doesn't exist

in my flesh that appears and disappears

dealing with a world that seems to be but isn't,

and wait for Sunya, summer plum winter branch marigold kat in an open window.

_________

for Dverse Poetics "the four elements." 

music: Mint Royale "From Rusholme With Love." Just try not to dance to it!

Hurt Bird

 

There it was, a hurt bird

panting and skittering in circles

on the grass by the berm.

Feeling badly for it, I reached out,

tried to pick it up and help it if I could,

to cradle it and quiet its thrashing about

but it buried its beak in my palm,

a short sharp angry stab

that brought blood spreading across my hand.

I threw it down, said god damn bird!

but immediately felt my heart shrink in horror

and I bent over it, sick over its hurt.

The bird, on its side gasping,

its upward eye a mix of panic and hate,

beheld my gaping face as the last thing

it would ever see, its every

agony saying damn your help and damn your pity,

wishing only to die there by the berm without this hovering intermediary.

_______

for Sunday Muse #223. 

Music: "Something" by Julien Baker

Gatwick

 

Gatwick's in league with the devil

'flight delayed", she'll see you grovel.

Things left in small rooms upstairs

she lets reanimate there

to suck your soul, sour your nerves

turn your heart as cold as hers.

Gatwick's in league with the devil

"flight delayed", she'll see you grovel.

_________

for Dverse Poetry Form: Octelle. 

artwork by Jacqueline Deleon

music: Nick Drake "Three Hours"

Phaleron

At Cassie's Diner,

the eggs are never over and rarely easy.

Your waitress may be falling in love with you,

or with your husband, or with the hard "R" when you say ,

"I must have left my bag in the car."

She may be in love with you, or

you only think she is.

She may be unavailable, or not even listening as you order. 

Every plate is a surprise

balanced on her arm like row of flat Earths,

the coffees steaming like new planets

And one of them has your name on it.

The napkins open to exactly the right passage,

the one you thought you'd never find,

Written by Athenian scribes in shimmering antiquity.

Aren't you glad you came?

(That was unexpected, yeah?)

Cassie's Diner is conveniently located

at the intersection of Eros and Morpheus,

open 24 hours, accessible by accident, vegan-friendly, 

unpredictable buffet, situated on a slight incline, nice view of the bay.

_______

For Dverse Poetics: "Poetics at the restaurant."

image at top is Charlotte Gainsbourg.