Whitaker

Underneath flyover at the end of Southside Blvd

How am I supposed to unpack my brain

When there are new terrains of stubble

To stumble through?

Foreheads speck with glistening confetti,

A reward for work's unairconditioned quirks

Inside the bubbling of a can's Tecate.

How do you know the things you know?

How did tongs and flame find your tattooed frame?

How did you find yourself in a band

Of tank tops and gloved hands,

A member of the culinary punk brigand?

I imagine the same way the apron strings found me-

On the Fritz

A world in which my tongue falls silent,

a dead and heavy lifeless thing,

and in its place there is the sudden brilliance

of your animated carapace

shining through with light from God’s hands.

Glittering scarab beetles tumble

from your rough-hewn lips of jewel,

until the hues resaturate themselves

and the night gives its belongings back.

Woe and Lush

These stripes --

The French of Parisian cafes

Dotted with errant brushstrokes, littered

With old men, wrinkled, napkins

Lined with sketch and lyric mixed.

Indian in the cupboard, you

Swing your guitar at lovers.

Your chords--

The airy breeze of shanties

Propped up against my sabal palms.

Let roads go where they lead, and I’ll

Return again to trilling birds. The song

Is the goal – the lush is in the psalms.

The voices rise when tended to,

The whispers hush and fall to moan.

And sometimes the voices sit in silence,

Sitting close, together, electric; alone.

And by a breathless sea, dark,

Rough chopped and foamed,

The nymphs of quiet youth shed light

And hide the want. Bury it in sand.

Chomp Chomp

I’d choose to err on the grungy side of gourmet, thanks. 

One time I sat at this counter

sandwiched in between two shining vikings

of the night, spiced ginger beards

and beer, enjoying the company of fun guys. .

I sat, with an energy less reserved for twitching

chihuahuas and more the like of a sugared-up child.

Full of desire to ride the rides and see,

with pupils waxing, all the sights.

And at this counter I gazed into the eyes-

bewildered eyes - of the art show flyer

held with scotch tape to grease-splattered walls,

and at this counter I stared

into the shifting soul of the aged demon

tattoo staring me down from arms well-obscured

by a full parlor’s worth of ornament.

Ropes of hair

twisting gracefully

in defiance of gravity

or genetics.

One time I left the muggy May evening

to go in and take my place

among the normal people from the

ecstatic haze of an altered condition.

Torch

“Would you accept it like a torch?”

I would, and light my way
through caverns dark and deep.

I would, and know this tiny lighter’s flame
can’t keep me from bumbling
through paths, self-same,

that I have tried again and over
to refrain from striding down.

I would accept it like a torch,

holding still until the glow unstows no certainty

and charred bitter ends leave darkness

blackening my fingertips –

and then I’d, after wiping ashen fingers

on my apron’s hips,

reach a digit out to mark your bottom lip.

I would accept it if you told me to,

Pausing not for chivalry

Or wasting breath to ask –

Couch

Instead of fighting it –

my feet free and spread out

underneath expanses of cold comforter –

I embrace it. I crash on couch cushions

made from the fabric of the dead,

and my shoulder aches for it.

It aches for you.

You find no sleep in normalcy,

no sleep in the strike of midnight.

Sleep instead finds you and drags you

unwilling with mouth agape and limbs curled up –

and then beside you it finds me.

Sleep and I are friends like old lovers leisurely laced together

with knowing glances and plans to meet,

and Sleep understands why I am here tonight.

There is a love of mine flash frozen on the floor,

unnaturally positioned, at my feet,

from where Sleep snuck in to steal him

and I am here because there is no other place for me.

The contortion

of arms and legs all stiff

and unwieldy

from sleeping on our sofa

is a price I’ll pay to have our skin

kept safe in shared slumber.

The Faces: Electric Fence

I cannot take the warm and friendly faces

That I in turn will greet with smiling glow

And calculated social paces. I will dance this dance,

For what? There is a barrier to our closeness

That we will never breach.

I cannot take this happy toddler and her sticky chubby cheeks;

She tells me she loves me with reasons plentiful in garbled child speak.

Resignation stains the conversation; jokes are forced

And met with consternation. I can’t react the way I’d like.

I focus, instead, on the untucked hair that frizzes forth from your head

With no care to decorum, modesty; the little things we do to show

We know our worth:

Shirt tails out--

Jeans and sandals--

Forgotten details on display like internet handles clad in public privacy.

I hate that time is so little and wasted when I can’t cut straight

To the meat-- to the heart skipping along with this desire

to be your child

And kiss you sloppy sweet--

To hold your hand and listen, looking both ways

Down each street. I wish that we could meet.

I cannot take the chubby cheeks of little girls--

The grins I know will dim after lifetimes of knowledge

Begin to take and hurl these barriers anew.

I will get to watch and say how “finally she grew

Some sense” and feel the withdrawal of tiny hands

Careful not to touch this electric fence of distance we dispense.

Semantic Satiation

4-7

I want

to bring you here

to play chess

We’ve played so many games

the moves are all rehearsed

I can see your next three

projected on your chest

The jest is on both of us

determined not to let good day

blending into good day

blendingintogoodday

get
the best
of us

Bold Bean Coffee - April 7th

Verse Versus

 

Thank you, to whomever it is

that anonymous thanks belong,

for making the scratching of pen on paper

sound productive by default

so I can look like I am working when I am really

indulging last night’s thoughts and leftover bits of song;

of elbow patches on worn professor jackets

made of woolen tweed.

Lecherous, indeed.

Thanks to you for useless business meetings

that would be a waste of time except for

this sacred stolen opportunity

to withdraw, to leave my body here

and scratch my way back to lasers dancing

on layers of oak branches and their leaves.

Now back, I am relieved.

Thank you for the Mason-Dixon line that separates

the frosty numbness of my unprotected spine

from the golden-hazed warmth of the fire on my legs,

and thank you for the bodies sitting close

and leaning in,

for the words said under breath

to light my ears and incite sin.

Thanks for the ability to lay back

my head in solemn ecstasy,

my every breath a prayer wrapped in grins

and soaked in guitar necks next to me-

thanks for what this might begin.

I will not thank you, however,

for another entry into the annals of the bittersweet,

as if I needed more disdain for desks.

I already knew that elsewhere there are wooden decks

that lead to marshy water streets -

you didn’t need to rub it in.

You really didn’t need to remind me

of art farms and babies sleeping wrapped up in our poetry

with lumbering canines drinking sips of stolen wine

choosing my feet to slumber under – mine.

But thanks nonetheless for name-dropping peers

and multi-colored mason jars hued by Belgian beer.

Thank you for a row of twenty-somethings children

dangling drunken feet from docks

too skinny for things like mortality

or ticking hands on time bomb clocks.