poem of poems

its a grey day
one big cloud in the sky
color is muted almost bland

the cd player just
stopped that's how this
day feels

i've been pushing books
back & forth on my shelves
looking for something
but not sure what

sometimes the act of
touching the books is enough
it calms me

i've needed
some calming lately
(did i mention my
head hurts a bit today)

i slept til nine am
my cats ganged up on me
demanding food
i surrendered to their
demands first i had a
rendevous with
the coffee pot

i stretched & rubbed
my back i felt like
ninety & rubbed my nose
& then fetched the paper

& the day continues to be grey

DWC

tonight tonight

The beer is gone and I think all that's left is
some triple sec in
the cabinet by the
stove. Christ.

But fate is fate. I have a thing to feed.

The World of Dreams

You wear everything and the music is full of
sounds in the room. Yes, I've been drinking.
This place was alone before you came here.
It was so loud I could not picture you or your
things. I was thinking of the Soviets and a
poem I composed to them. It did not work. The world ends.
I will go to the basement a
place in place.
Outside
the snow shines and you can see the far ends of
the yard now
but
will be invisible after it melts
in the evening.

Playing with Yarn

Moving is small, the
spin spins. Wave at the
places past your fingers then
they go.

Everyday repeats
new things. Grow
up to be four years older than
yesterday. We
are no young. Just
pups inching into forever.

And then forget. Who
remembers the
people we forget?
They go beside
outside, then we
go beside them. The
tea goes cool in the
saucer while the
cup boils: all
wrong things in
the wrong place. Eat
these words.

kinetic

the ER is a kinetic place
full of activity
loud &

bright

machines beep
sounds of gurney wheels
flipflipflip by the open
door that is covered by
a long curtain

in the waiting room
families wait
for loved ones
trying to keep children
entertained

strained smiles spread
across weary worn & tired
faces

keep the upper lip stiff
trying to be happy &
upbeat
hollowed dark circled
eyes belie
smiles

retreat back to
the ER itself
trying to find some
form of normalcy there

can't

another ambualance
a chopper, too
the gurneys are lined up
no place to put them

nurses call back & forth
trying to find someplace for
the sick & hurt

my father lay on his bed
with an oxygen tube attached to
his nose
doctor comes in examines
him tells us a prognosis
don't want to hear it
scares me a bit more

i don't know how to help
him i feel helpless
i'm scared & feel tired

i ask for a coke from someone
they bring it: coca-cola classic
i pure it over the small
round ice cubes provided in the
small plastic cup
i suck on the coke & ice
hoping for something not sure what

the kinetic controlled choas
continues

there are no rooms available
they'll be sending him to another
hospital they don't know when
sometime tonight, maybe tomorrow morning

there's nothing more we can do
we leave

& go into the cold night
i cough when i breath in the
frigid air my nose & ears
scream in protest of the
cold

we get in the car
& drive home
in

silence

DWC

haiku (through a plate glass)

ground: grey roads white snow
sky: fog choked, hazy blanket
pine trees: muted green

DWC

Techno Monk

This is not my poem
and this may not be acceptable behavior
but I found a techno friend
one day
in my blogosphere
fascinating and strange
wonderful and poetic
no one seems to comment on his posts
I thought you all miTechnomonkght go over and say hey or
something.

Land of no Wadi

The field touched the road and you could
see the air full of gnats and grasshoppers
and wind. The air was hot and very dry. Road
dust rested on nameless weeds and
trees at the edge of the woods. Everything
smelled green
and brown. This time of
year, when it is cold and summer
far away, it is very hard to remember this. This
time of year, the past is a
millstone necklace and everything
else is the river bottom. Without revealing
too much, everything else
is the river bottom.

this page unintentionally left blank

part i
when you are a writer
you never know when
you'll be called to act:

in your car...
at a busy restaurant...
alone on the train...

so you stuff notebooks
everywhere (in case of
emergency)

and scribble furiously
whenever the muses
so require

but then some days
there are no words;
only sights and sounds

and thoughts so
quick that by the time
you grab for paper

there is nothing to say

part ii
today, driving, the
universe came to me
at a red light

and disappeared with
a green. i turned,
despite myself,


overwhelmed
by blank pages

She Never

She don't like that and she wears tall
shoes. Her
arms cover
everything.
She'll comb your hair with
her voice. Her skin is lighter than
dawn. Her eyebrows never leave your
mind.

Her ankles could wash and wax a moving
car. She breathes
California when she stands in Michigan, and
man, forget it

you'll never even meet her.

more about the job and

Seriously, you're Medicaid and you can't answer my
questions about your policies and
have never heard of what I'm
talking about
even though it's what you
told me to do last
time we spoke? Can I
speak to your superv -
no, he's busy. Can you transfer me to
another department? No - you're all
equally trained experts on all
aspects of Medicaid. Do
you know things? I was on
hold 38 minutes for this? Well, can
you just make a note that
he's in the hospital and will
not be coming out in a good way?

But the weather has started to
break and
I walked smoking through the
park in the afternoon on
three inches of snow. The sun
was a white spot on the other side
of cloud cover
past the hills behind
Highland Park. I imagine this
place in the summer, full of
people and sound. I am not so
used to writing in
questions.

the moment of today

Maybe I'm not cut out
for work. Drink drink
drink. The nurse called tonight and
somebody else
has cancer. Drink drink drink.
In his guts and liver and lymphs -
maybe a few weeks left. Drink
drink drink. This is one of the
first guys I met at work. We
went fishing and talked about
girls and complained to
eachother. The worst kind of
cancer. Drink drink drink.
I know his family.
Drink drink drink.
Tomorrow it's my job to tell people
he's going.
Tell everyone he
lives with. Drink
drink drink.
He smiled and laughed today in
the hospital. I'm not sure I'm
up for
this. Drink drink.
Drink.

So I'm getting drunk. It's Thursday.
Long weekend ahead.

You know his family doesn't want
to tell him? They don't
want
him to know he's dying.

We went fishing and
talked about girls.

Drink.
Nobody died at my old job, no
matter how much I wanted
them to. Drink drink.

I'm going to sleep. In
the morning I'll do
my terrible work.

He's dying; I'm not.

it ain't rock-n-roll

jazz that's all there is
jazz jazz jazz

'trane, monk, miles...

i listen to jazz when i need
out

it helps the sharp corners
makes em smoove

what the mind is made up of

Everytime people start getting smart and
thinking they know shit I think
about when a kid told me he lived in
Salvador and saw his neighbors
dragged out into the street and shot then how
years later that same kid shot another
kid in a gang fight in LA. The kid was
crying when he told me, but now he's locked
up. That's what I think about when
everyone's smart and I start
to feel smart.

late night poem

late night
early morning
(2am)

a bottle of beer
the sounds of
'Trane & Monk
spill out of my
radio speakers

the light from
a fat white candle
flickers as a
soft subtle winter
breeze blows
through my opened
window

& my cat watches the
shadows dance
on the wall

DWC

waiting

part i

there is no wish like
the wish for people

no disappointment
like those who never come

like christmas, years ago,
waiting for a knock at the door

"he'll be there around 1"
they said to me

"make sure you're home"

and so i waited for the knock
and opened my door

not to a man, but a mattress,
a gift without presence

(the irony of all cruel
ironies)

part ii
and i think about that now,
the disappointment,

seeing you last night
in the middle of sleep:

coming home from home
to spend our holy day

(the new year)

together

i wake up on that same,
once new mattress

alone

(the irony of my
ironies)

still waiting for you

part iii

bleary-eyed
i reach for my glasses

and wait for the world

to focus

in

i have waited my life away

Ode to Science

Every time I count my coins
and roll them into fodder
some are too dirty to spill through the modern counter
I take them to the kitchen
and mix them in a jar
of vinegar and baking soda
and I am transcended
science class
fourth grade
spectacular and naive
homemade bombs in a jar

why the mustard just blew up all over my breakfast

I don't
know, something
about
science.

Fool Moon Solstice

On the shortest day of the year
and the longest night
under a luminous ball of quicksilver and secrets
two old lovers escape to the edges of the earth
Where dolphin pray and crustaceans gather to listen in the waves
She is feverish and mourn-full, the darkness always does this to her
He is taken by the sound of the dolphins, the crashing of the waves
He throws a line into the breakers and tries to hold on,
to the edge of the earth
She undresses under the veil of darkness
and like a slippery skate sails into the song of the dolphin
naked and numb
unseen

What the boy said

This is the song they taught us -

I honor the fast and my hair is
dark. When I am old enough my beard
Will sleep on my chest. Mother cooks bread
in the morning and stew in the evening.
Father does not drink or smoke.
All my brothers have done as they were told.
All my sisters will have many children.
I visit my uncles in the spring.

I lean numbers from school and
words from the book.

I honor the fast and my hair is
dark. Follow the road out
of town and past the wells. Go beyond the
date palms. On the left is the plot where they
dry dates. Turn there. Over the
hills is the place of the Godless men.
I will know the place when I
see it. Take the heavy car to the gate
and God will be with me.

I learn numbers from school and
words from the book.

I honor the fast and my hair is
dark. God will keep me.
There will be no pain. Do not
have fears. I do not do this for me;
it is for God and the world.
I will gaze upon the face of God
eternally. My people will sing verses
about me. The men will mourn me and the
women will lament me. I will sit on the
eternal side of God, the place without
numbers or words.

responding to the girl from the galaxy

I would say and you
would know that
away's the place to
go. fasten the
fastens on your coat. just think -
all the other places
you could sip warm water
and blow your breath across the surface.
we
blow across the surface.
we
are snow that
doesn't stick
to other snow.
the
most plentiful kind.


but without sticking,
never know.

then another season
with its weather. all
the growing things will
come back.
the giant things will
show their greens

while we
wait in
another hemisphere.

now we have forgotten them; then
they us. but
this place is so small
we can do nothing but follow,

and trail.

it's over coat

part i
listen, i remember the stories:
the kids scuttling up snow-spotted
hills,

barefoot,

slipping through the mud
where cold had turned to
slush.

silent,

he carried them to the hospital
where doctors trimmed
away

dead toes.

part ii
but i am cold now too
sheltered as i am in this
compress

of steel

bare legs and all
i feel sick some days
ashamed

others

shivering when behind
me hangs all that's required
to button up

and walk away

the truth from

hey
I haven't said anything
lately because
I got a dog and
his name
is Rummy.
Things
were rough
a little now it's
better. Not
because the
dog, just
because it's better.

And I
tried to rearrange my
life. You do
that every so
often or
you don't.
The computer is out of the cold
room and somewhere
accessible. So I will
reappear more here.
And maybe where you are when I
have time.

There was ice outside today and the light from the
lights spread and cracked. The
bricks were slick.

I never wrote more
poems about my trip to
see the girl we burned.
It's
still tied up in my
head.

I am very afraid that
Rummy will be the
best dog I have ever
had. Two previous dogs
saved my life. Once literally
and the other actually.
I am afraid to think
it, but it may be true.