Friday, March 29, 2013

lost painting, 1949




 

like small pieces of paper left in
the pouring rain, like words i love you
written on each one

the flood and then
the flood receding

destruction and the
thick stench of decay

the dull grey weight of hopelessness

all of your life dragged out to the curb
to be picked through by the
dirtbags, the looters, the men w/ their
heads of carrion birds
 
money in the pockets of
every politician
 
teenage sons and daughters
lining up to be fucked or
tied down to be raped

it’s a war, of course, and to pray for
one soldier’s survival is to
pray for the death of another

it’s a house on the eastern edge of
town where you live with your
ghosts and your fear of the future

no one meets you at the door after
work, no one kisses you goodnight,
no one offers to die for your sins

no one rushes into the room just as
you prepare to slash your wrists

no one calls you a coward when
you sit there doing nothing



Wednesday, March 27, 2013

too late, and w/out hope




later, then, in some other desperate
season, after i’d told you i loved you,
after it became a lie

clouds, probably,
or shades of grey
 
an absence of shadows

an abundance of light,
but all of it dimmed and all
memories shaped by fear and loss

i knew you were gone,
but didn’t care

waited five years to remember your
heat & your touch

had the same dream over & over,
a woman with someone else’s face,
someone else’s body,
but i knew it was you
and i burned all of those poems

i destroyed all of those paintings

saw the man sitting there,
going blind

saw the soldiers tearing out his tongue

cutting off his children’s hands

a million bright red birds
flying from their wrists and
back into the past





click to buy, or maybe just to gaze upon w/ reverence & awe





 
 
 
 

Monday, March 25, 2013

miro



 
 
 
 
 
 

december poem, in february




no shallow end,
no lifeline

this is not an explanation,
you see,
this is my grandfather’s suicide

this is a letter to the fucker who
tried to get me fired twenty
years ago because i was sleeping
                           with his girlfriend

we grow up
and then we grow old

the wars don’t matter as long as
we can still afford to get drunk

this is a truth i
never see printed in the papers

this is blood in the
bathroom sink at 2:00 a.m.

i think about who i might
call, then end up just
going back to bed

in the morning,
the basement has flooded



Sunday, March 24, 2013

a joan mitchell sunday afternoon




 
 
 
 

the pure light of lost afternoons




not black & white but
shades of grey,
smudges of dull green

amnesia

solitude

use the poems as bricks
and build yr own prison

stand in the empty field  out
past the railroad tracks
and wait to cast a shadow

wait for winter to end

refuse to die in yr
own small way




Saturday, March 23, 2013

holiday favorites

 
 
my lulu collection of traditional and electronic books,
all marked to move.......
 
 
false hope
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Saturday, March 02, 2013

always almost somewhere


click below


 
 
 

dorothea, max





 
 
 

dominion




sunlight like the fist of god
and then all of the days
i've wasted with my eyes closed

this quiet house on this
dead-end street in this
dying town

will you stand beside it
while it burns?

will you stand outside the
room of hanged men
and count backwards from twenty?

and what if it's here that i
finally tell you i love you?

i believe in words
no matter how often they fail me

i believe in july and in august
and that all of my promises
will be broken

look at my hands

both of them open and
both of them empty and
waiting for the moment to pass

waiting for their mistakes
to be forgiven

whatever you say in the silence
that surrounds us
never the poem that i
wanted to hear