Cummer

Cummer in the earliest Fall

The singer seamlessly stops mid-lyric and slings a breathy “hey” my way

as I wait for the waitress, shoulder to the wall.

Hey.

Plate glass reflecting shifting shades of surrealism (and painted sunglasses?)

refract a popular culture that aged out of power decades ago. 

I’m fidgety at a table by myself, trying to channel this energy properly but

my pen taps mad against the paper.

Brain, be still.

It’s actually still warm outside but

inside the Atrium the best kind of chill has descended,

driving my fists inside pockets.

“Stand by me,” on repeat, three words exhaled through gap teeth.

Listen: to electric guitar somehow quietly shredding,

to the soft back and forth pad of of the singer’s feet.

Listen to the shotgun scooch of cafe chair against carrara marble.

This music is more suited for fields

trodden down by gathered bohemians

than this current configuration of whispering art patrons

And when the singer drifts off key

doubtless no one notices ‘cept me and that’s fine-

I can keep my mouth shut.

Now Showing:

I don’t know you, but you said I do

and suddenly now I want to 

 

(there’s no harm in curiosity)

Stitches

1904 // Before Wackness Descended

In Jacksonville the riots are on TV

as a gaggle of child rappers take the stage.

The shrieking faces shrink down to LCD flatscreen height and width,

contained in the space of a pixel and as easily overlooked.

I can no more blame than explain my interest

in a 19 year old plastic pitbull of a human being,

a walking gimmick, a schtick-up if you will.

Stitches and the other youngbloods are glitches

in the pop culture matrix which makes this student

of the universe perversely curious.

Thankfully the pain of aging is quiet, mostly, though

sitting on the floor of 1904 with my head relaxed

against the rattling speaker cabinet I feel the clamor crescendo.

It’s midnight on Thursday and I have work in the morning.

Through a haze of – body heat? Fake cocaine? Wannabe endo?

Who knows what this thickness is that hangs over our heads

but the strobe lights pierce it effortlessly and through it I see

a groping and desperate thirst somehow crammed

and coerced into young white bodies.

I feel like a bully. Like I oughta get this superiority complex examined

because I can’t understand it, the clear rift dividing sincere from riff raff,

the blaring transparency of marketing turning its keen eyes on us.

You didn’t come to this stage by your talent, motherfucker. Who’s paying for these beats?

You disgust me, turning me even against weed, on stage looking like an eggplant

with a skullcap barely on your head, flashing a set of shiny golden teeth.

I feel like overturning every table in this tainted temple,

taunted by televisions mounted on historic brick.

Mmm I’m too old for this shit

Keep Walking

Mellow Mushroom Avondale // Keep Walking

Truth is I haven't felt comfortable in this space for a hot minute. Too many advances in life, too many detours to keep up with, etc. Too many half-written poems lounging in the draft box. Too many new faces that I haven't quite pinned (penned) down yet. 

Or maybe it's just that my new phone doesn't automatically upload my pictures to Google anymore. Even this picture here is from...what, June? I've lived a thousand lives since this neon sign hovered over head, a T.J. Eckleburg of my very own. "The only piece of art here!" I exclaimed, excited that the new Mellow Mushroom had at least one saving grace against the seven flatscreens anchored to concrete block, only to realize - duh. It's an advertisement for Johnny Walker. I haven't been back since.

Which, really, encapsulates the symbolism of this summer quite well. 

The creeping feeling that marketing is catching up to my tastes... it's insidious down to the core. 

But. All there is is to keep walking, keep bringing home suitcases of thoughts to unpack and mull over. I was born into this strange amorphous existence and it's my self-appointed duty to appreciate it as it is...

Wilcox

 

The Landing // Jacksonville Jazz Festival 2014

On stage is a lion with a fade and oiled slide.

Young lord of trembling roar, summoning the swelter

with tightly buzzing mouth and drawn cheeks,

in the shelter underneath the Coca Cola tent.

The sunken dais at The Landing cradles a diaspora

of Jacksonville polychromatics, a surprise

sector of jazz fanatics in sun hats.

I’m following threads of triplets and flecks of spittle flinging

off of polished brass, remembering returns to silence at the end of class.

Let me set the stage in a tray of formaldehyde so age can’t have its way:

I am still in the practice room next to yours with my face pressed against cool brick,

catching each of your vibrations like a stolen kiss.

Trying to gather the courage to ask

“do you mind if I sit in here and listen? I’ll be quiet…”

A little chunk of maple sugar dances ‘round his mother

in the center of a casual crowd. A woman in a Hoveround barks at blonde sisters

and I sit alone, entranced.

This conglomerate of culture is church reclined on concrete steps, sipping beer.

The elderly gentleman behind me stomps the ground and cheers. “Yes, baby! Yes.”

I understand. Say no more. Yes.

I am whole when the music stands in front of me,

whole when parts of my anatomy become melody

and my lipid layers liquidate to link with written staves

and arpeggiate: F A C E

I still have so many questions

for before the decades pack the horns away.

Are you haunted like me by intervals left unrecorded?

By lyrics long lapsed into the chasmic silence of forgotten?

Man, I dread the death of these refrains the most,

when dreadlocks hop off the A train with giant steps, fading

from the lead sheets like ghosts.

Glass

Dark Sprout by Brian Frus // Jacksonville University Glass Department

I was grateful

for the air conditioning

on the ride to the studio,

already alight with adrenaline

in anticipation of what fires might await.

Here is the professor’s desk,

holding class in cauldrons of molten glass.

Here is where sorcerers clothed in breathable cotton

wield glowing gazing balls at staff length. Jacks scrape

against hardening glass; my fumbling touch

is not hard enough or too much, ever adjusting

under the constant influx of instruction.

I listen, spidering my fingers

along a rolling rod, contemplating form. Aesthetic.

I grab at my glass arbitrarily in search of the organic

but this is not my medium.

I prefer the stool off to the side,

guzzling water, far enough away from alchemy

but not out of the heat. Sweat drips

yet masters never lose their grip, smoothing shapes

with hands of aged newspaper.

Any set of practiced hands

is sure to capture my glance

and from yours I can’t look away.

What is it that you are made of?

This is your every day,

a constant chosen crucible.

You stand fearlessly

before the murmuring bellies

of dragons. I never knew

you to be so in tune, I never knew

the ripples of gleaming forearms moving fluid

in the flowing waves of energy.

In between flashes of heat

the master gaffer gathers laughter

and swings the rod in circles

as preconceived perceptions

slowly soften in the fire.

Stacks on stacks

I could be the empress of a place like this,

queen atop a stack of pens uncocked.

 

so there’s a stigma here, obviously.

We’re drawn to a seductive essence,

what is it? What is her name?

We aren’t supposed to tell them

that we’ve met...

and she shouldn’t know who I am

but she does... I’ve come before

and I’ll darken her doorway again, I’m sure.

The bitch knows who I am.

So now we’re interacting like you haven’t been there either,

feeling the building swell up and sigh peacefully about you. 

The frame exists for us to pull beyond,

or ooze from, set in place by someone

yet we grow and crack up around sidewalk poured

by someone. it’s always someone,

the face that speaks of normalcy,

and we’re bored.

(it makes sense that audio bytes of our madness

make sense to me, stacking stacks

of clacking seconds back

on stacks of repeating

recursive stacks

of seconds)

Immobility

My car has been in the shop for three weeks. I’m back on the road again, but not unaffected.

In this absence from driving I have discovered a few things:

- driving fuels my creativity and my sense of self-worth.

- though, immobility can also be freeing.

- there is a pond out behind my office complex.

 
The pond has become a place of midday solace for me, with the added delight of unafraid ducks. These guys sat at my feet and slept while I sat on a bucket and wrote. The past few weeks have scrambled my brain - this temporary dose of surreality (and constant pondering of “normal” and if it is a thing one can actually ever “get back to”) has been very good for me in that regard - but I am left feeling disoriented and a little shell shocked. I have three or four poems that are all being written slowly and at once, in scattered pieces by accident, revealing themselves to me one important sentence at a time.

 

I need to do all of it justice, all of this life and all of the comprising faces... but when I am lifted up by the scruff of my neck, at the mercy of the universe, it is difficult to make the words come together. 

That being said. I am ecstatic to be reunited with my KIA. 

Dames Point Park

Dames Point Park // Jacksonville, FL

 

The sunset was somehow Egyptian, spreading

vertical rays of Ra’s golden blessings on the union

of the Dames Point bridge and the horizon.

“How far can the eyes see?” he asks of me.
I have to admit ignorance in all of this. 
  

Dames Point Park // Jacksonville, FL

I know what I can see, but only barely.
I can barely see and furthermore barely
believe what I see as the truth. 

It’s only the illusion of control that life is offering -

"You are who you pretend to be, so be
careful who you pretend to be."

Dames Point Park // Jacksonville, FL