my fingertips wept as i stole
the flowers from your front porch
and they began to stain
the petals, the stems, the organs.
i wrung my hands and clawed my hair
in unfeigned frustration
but the moisture only inspired limp curls
i walked home, dripping
leaving a trail of rouge with each shallow step
the tears, they had drenched everything
but stopped short short of my consciousness
it was only later when i realized
that the flowers on your front porch
were actually roses.
to me, they just looked like
common peonies.
you see, my vision
(on nights such as these)
is as bloodied as my mind

ballad of the stolen headboard

A gang of disenchanted
Sub-urban socialites
Drunk on whiskey
Have found your headboard

Grinning in the darkness
Outside your apartment
In the sick thickness
Of that alley, they scheme

Logic locked
Neurons spiral and collide
As violent and silent as
The stars above them.

Coveting fingers graze
Artificial, yet organic
Trees, iron, and
God only knows what

They envision:
A sculpture, a shrine,
A sanctuary, a ship,
God incarnate

Whiskey logged
Limbs have never known
Speeds such as this
Bending not Breaking

Black and white concrete
Stripes blur past red signs
That bring no pause
Drunks slur and soliloquize

Your headboard passes
Them too quickly
To be acknowledged
(It is something else now)

For Gary

You always told me to hold on to your ‘nub’
And it was embarrassing, to go around holding that
Maimed pinky finger of yours, while you just chuckled
I resented that you called me ‘mo’, until you no longer could
No one took up that nickname, after your death
It died with you, but wasn’t buried in the same mahogany casket
Do you know how much she spent on it?
If you did, why you’d have turned over by now
I tried searching for your pinky finger, in the days after you cut it off
I felt it was the least I could do
But you sent me on a wild goose chase for it
I was never even looking in the right vicinity
You know, I could have helped you, if you weren’t so dead-set
On turning everything into a joke
It doesn’t seem all that funny anymore
At your funeral, I tried to wake you up
I took your advice, willingly for once
I stood on my tip toes (I wore my ruby slippers)
And reached in and grabbed what was left of your little finger
I tugged it, over and over and over and over
Until your daughter realized that her daughter was making a scene
‘Honey, he’s not there’ but I kept tugging
‘Honey, don’t.’ but I kept tugging
‘STOP!’ and that was that.
It seems like not much has changed since your death
I’m still grasping for fingers that aren’t there.

Remorse

I broke your vase
Terribly sorry
I’ll replace it
Hope you understand

Terribly sorry
About the whole…
Hope you understand
It was my mistake

About the whole…
Well, she had it coming
It was my mistake
But seriously, goddamn

Again, I apologize
I’ll replace it
It’s inexcusable that
I broke your vase

this is the first draft of a sestina. it does not have a title

Shit son, I hadn’t yet seen da first full moon
'For I seen you fly through dem damn doors, boy.
And shit, look atcha. You ain’t tryin’
To please no one wit dat raggedy ass way
Dat you walkin’, like some preposterous fool
Dat don’t know a good thing when he see it.

I knew before you walked in dem doors dat it
Wouldn’t at all take much a dis here moon-
Shine ta fill you up and getchoo actin’ a fool.
Hell, I been drinkin’ it since the time I was a boy
And God almighty know it’s one a da only way
Ta keep a young boy like you from tryin’

His best not to own da world. I’m just tryin’
Ta tell you how it is out here. It ain’t pretty but it
Sho is real. I can tell you ain’t goin the right way.
That path you walkin’ ain’t one where the moon
-light shines. It’s a sick path. A broken path, boy.
A path dat’s marked wit all the trappings of a fool-

Hearty man. God don’t take kind to a man wit fool-
Ish ways. Da way ta his path ain’t found by tryin’
Ta pave ya own. It’s about followin’. Followin’, boy.
When you see da path of God, well, you know it.
It’s marked by da blood a da Righteous, and da moon
Shines down on it so all you see is red all up dat way.

It’s da red you gots t’follow. It ain’t easy, it’s a way-
Ward path. All red, same coluh as da fruit a dat fool
Woman who brought us down into dis mess. No moon
Ain’t ever guide her path since. No sense in tryin’
Ta make sense a her. Some is just born bad, it
Ain’t somethin’ you can explain away. Ya hear boy?

You know, there was a time when I was boy
And I did da same stupid shit as you, same way
Even. But ‘ventually I jus seen dat for what it
Was. Saw dat I treat God like some men treat a fool
They find drunk and beggin’ on da street. Just tryin’
Ta find some comfort aside from da stars and da moon

Dat just the way it is, boy.
Moon shines da light in da right direction but we gotta find da way.
And each one of us is a fool in da dark, tryin’. Always tryin’.

ninety-nine cent flowers

I wonder if she’s put flowers on his grave. I’m not so bold as to ask her. I’m not up to the heavy sighs, the tears, or the rhetoric on what a fine man my grandfather was. I don’t celebrate death. Not like she does.

She sits slouched in her chair, wearing three layers of mumus ranging in pattern from floral to plaid. Beside her on a tiny end table sits a stack of Kleenex, a Coke, a barrage of prescription bottles, and a pack of Capris Lights. This chair has been her bed for the past 8 years. Everything she requires sits comfortably beside her, except for a box of donuts and the occasional orange.

“How ya do?” she says to me glancing up only momentarily from the television screen that stands a few feet in front of her.

“Ehh , Fine. You?” I say sitting down on the untouched sofa across from her.

“I’m here…” She sighs, begging me to ask her to elaborate.

My entrance in the room has triggered her manic channel changing. Her arthritic thumb enters in number after number. I can’t tell if this is an attempt to entertain, antagonize, or just fill up the silence. She does hate silence.

I turn the page of my book as Bill O’Reilly screams “THAT’S UNAMERICAN, SIR!!!”

“He always gets ‘em,” she nods to me, pointing the remote to the TV.

“MMhmmm”

She flips back and forth between four different channels. I hear a barrage of information that I can’t contextualize with what I’m reading. ‘There’s a 85% chance of snow tomorrow”, “TYRAAAA MAIL!” and finally, Bruce Willis mumbling something irritably from within a ventilation shaft.

She decides to stop with Bruce Willis, for the moment, anyway. She tells me how she doesn’t trust one of the many thin blonde girls on America’s Next Top Model.

“The one with the crazy eyes,” she explains, “She’s REAL weird. Somethin’s wrong with her. She told Tyra that she loves blood. That she’s jealous of people with nosebleeds”

“Well that is kinda weird,” I admit.

“Whatcha readin’?’ she breaks her gaze from the television to examine the book resting in my hands.

“Nietzsche”

“Who?”

“Friedrich Nietzsche”

“Wait, who?”

“FREE-DRIK NEE-CHEEEE.”

“Oh.” She says finally.

She waits a moment before retorting, “Well, he wasn’t AROUND when I was young.”

“Actually, I think he was.”

“No, he wasn’t”

“I’m fairly sure that—“

“WELL THEY DIDN’T TEACH NEE-CHEE WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL!”

She turns back to Bill O’Reilly now, as if she’s looking for some kind of reinforcement from him on this matter. But she seems disappointed to find that’s he’s too busy for her, he’s talking to Dennis Miller. He can’t be bothered.

I suddenly hear Sara Mclachlan’s voice, and I know before I look up that’s it’s that goddamned commercial for the humane society. I glance up to see a one eyed cat, followed by a hairless dog, while Sara Mclachlan sings ‘Innn the aaarmms of an AaAAngeeel’

My grandmother is sniffing, grabbing for the Kleenex beside her.

“It’s so sad,” she says, dabbing gently under her thick glasses.

“I know it is,” I say, unsure of how to protect her from the horrors of eye-less cats.

Her crying increases. It goes past the hairless, legless dogs, and the cats that need a bath. She grabs more Kleenex, taking little gasps of breath. Her cheeks break out in large splotches of rouge.

“They’ll find homes,” I tell her.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “They’ll never be the same”

“Why don’t we watch that Bruce Willis movie?” I suggest

“What channel was it on?” she says sniffing, “Oh wait, I can press ‘recall.’”

We sit entranced as Bruce Willis walks on glass, shoots terrorists, and rattles off a slew of one-liners. We comment from time to time on the film. “He’s completely bald now, you know?” she tells me.

I’ve decided I’ll put the flowers on his grave. They will be cheap, fake, and from Wal-Mart. He would appreciate that; he was practical. Economical, even. I will drive her by the cemetery, so she can see them. She’ll weep again, at his death, and at the cheap flowers that I’ve chosen. We will both resent the fact that we are trapped in a silent car.

j'aime

sweater dresses
beards
a well crafted eyebrow
russians
terrible movies
lapsang
jazz
boys with long elegant fingers--long elegant fingers holding thick paperbacks
breaking ice, in a literal sense.