An Alcoholic Albatross

Me? What a waste of time I turned out
to be, lazy, I troll for drinks, you'll
buy me one won't you of course?

Yeah? For your troubles I'll tell ya a story
but don't worry this isn't a cautionary tale,
just anecdotes to whittle off the time.

There were many great, great parties
like at the Kevorkian, 17th-&-10th-ave,
we'd drink till sunrise seeking the last man
standing. One night after splitting a bottle
of Jack three ways, we knew the bartender,
if you're serious you gotta know the bartender,
but after the Jack, Damien, a queer hooligan,
was suggesting we quote famous lines of dead
poetry, if the two of us don't know who said it,
we drink, if we do, Damien drinks.
Stella is all for it but it's gotta be
tequila, and don't let the lady name
fool ya, she was a tough bitch,
twice the drinker I ever was,
mean too, I don't know how many times she got
her hands stained on another yahoo's blood.

Well, to be democratic, we rolled a die
to see who goes first, dice
are an inexpendable necessity to have on hand,
and Stella, who was first to go, gives us
something about a slanted ray of light,
Emily Dickinson it turns out.

What bullshit, that first shot burned like shitting
in a Mexican prison and then I'm up, and they kept shouting
at me to hurry up already or take another,
mocking mocking mocking, I gave 'em an old bird-cat routine,
but Damien right off yells Bukowski and I demanded
a lime to get the second one down, and as I'm gasping
for breath something Spanish or Italian or French came pouring
out of Damien's oversized maw. Stella guessed Baudelaire,
but I looked at him straight into his gut, trying to stand still,
Rilke! No, T.S. Eliot, you believe it, that bastard wrote
entire poems in French and here Damien trots
it out like a prize-winning show-pony,
but I accepted my shot without thinking, and decided
it was time
for a break

to piss and smoke.

Outside, I still remember this clearly,
the rain had gone from drizzle to mist,
and all the other drunkards were out
clumsily rolling down the streets,
like pinballs scarred to knock anything too hard,
when one smelly bastard, swooning, grabbed hold
of me like I was his life jacket on the high seas.
I pulled him up, and as we're swaying a bit
he looked at me, I looked at him, and he kissed me,
a buoy smacking itself with its rusted bell.
Fuck him, I wanted to fall down a hole
and drown in my own crap.

When I had gotten back it had surely turned
into a shitstorm, those two had a private round and
she's arguing that he's gotta know the sonnet number,
since Shakespeare wrote so many god damn words,
but he tells her she wouldn't know it even if he did tell her
which got her wet 'n angry, funny it took a fag to get her horny.

After much shouting and a little shoving, good foreplay in my book,
they agree to each write the number down and check the net real quick.

I never seen her sorer, like she's been through anal,
but her 53 wasn't his 73, and those birds don't keep singing,
although I tell ya, I hear songbirds in Winter all the time.

We reroll and Damien's back up, Stella tells him English only,
and he just smiles with his sinister snake-lips, and goes
on and on - till we shout him down - about how we're eating whale
and that, if you believe it, was some Chinaman, writing in English.
I still remember (and not much else) the yellow filth of that shot going
down, ugh.

Oh
I tell ya, I must of vomited out my heart that night.

An early Spring from a late Fall

Bread crumbs on moistened fingertip
she licks the salty earth (to taste).

The seasoned snow will continue to fall
and soften corners wishing for silence.


and since Dawn's arrival her warmth
is warm, as fashions thus are worn.

Forget in expurgated surfaces,
renew dead chicken-manured flowerbeds,
await the coming on of ovulums.

Despite the nipping cold, outside
our homes the moon hides then blazes
for those who chance a weirder game
of reading ampersands as lore.

I never made-believe the unreal world -
such stuffs were sprung from earliest concords
and still-standing writwords - you ever see
the same clear-water glades or modern turf,
but diff'rence speaks with thoughtless tones and heat.

Out of Habit

                 They tie down his arms
and legs and one, with knees pressing
on his chest, grips a handspan below
his elbow and steadies the pinion
a thumbs length from his wrist
and the other stands, eyes fixed,
and in one goodly strike
                              pierces the wood
as you would
                     a railroad tie.
 

I Sit in an Empty Orphanage

We used to laugh all together
and Betsy would feedst us
porridge, oatmeal, and vegetable stews,
but then people came and took away our fun;
mostly the girls were first
to go away,
then the boys best at tag and ball,
last Bobby left, quiet and smart,
and only Betsy stayed and kept my company,
but less often (she had other places to be).
She once said if it weren’t for my eyes
I could of left too,
but that’s okay: I like it here –
the rooms are big and mysterious
with their silences and everything goes
as slow as the sunlight.
With all the old laughter gone unheard
just me at the supper table
over an empty bowl, smyling.

I've been trying to imagine Penelope's tapestry for years

I've been trying to imagine Penelope's tapestry for years

wondering what she was weaving only to disassemble

if it was the same or different each time

if the threads became frayed and worn

after years on the loom.

I wonder if it will take me as many years to imagine

as it took her to finish.

What scene is depicted, always thinking in images,

a friend suggested it is geometric, a self-same pattern,

a fractal, to look the same at any size,

an elegant description that explains the suitors ignorance

coming from a mathematician

but, I think those men didn't notice because they didn't care

and that she worked with her form in mind,

using the chance to rub specks of thread together

until she wasn't forced to draw her image in lines

but was free, with only points to guide her hands, 

to create.

I doubt it ever was really meant

to be a burial shroud, it is much too large

and the material is thick and coarse,

made from canvas instead of silk,

that she knew exactly how she wanted it seen --

billowing above the deck, attached to a seasoned mast,

shimmering along with the seas and boundless skies.