Riding the L

11:56 PM.
Hunting vest and briefcase.
Red faced from the smack of the wind.

Gliding clear of the closing doors,
“United we stand” sticker screaming louder
Than Hungarian accent.

Arts section and weather report.
Nothing else of interest.


Even with ears larger than fists
Held tight
Knuckles white.
They bleed unto into onto
That glance.

Three times my age,
Please, look away.

There is nothing of interest here.

Itchy Dreams

Why did they drop us here?
Sop up the pastel drippings of the sky
In wonder of a shadow’s eternal reconstruction.
Stretch. Now shrink! Now fly away
To dance on the sun.

You shouldn’t have done that,
Thinking you were going to be fine with just
Skipping stones and reading love into everything that moves
Or stands stationary. I sent you a cue.
Sun is god with immense muscle, delicate and overcast.
Shadows quiver in its opulent stories.
They shrivel in the closed jar.
Drink it down slow and thick like orchestral moods,
It journeys to your unforgiving pit. Incessantly begging.
Beyond these walls their eyelids are sewn with superficial threads to their brows.
They do not look in your direction.

And you, too. Careful now.
Float down on the gliding thought of a willow.

My gums are bleeding through my rhythm
And I’m not sure how it drips so slowly
Since my heart flutters faster than a devoted mouth measures song.
Eyes wide. Take it all in, but don’t stare.
Cupped in your palm, smushed into the emotion of a morsel lost.
Forgotten spine - undulate on your furry trek towards the world.
You worry too much about the splinters in your heels.
But I think they are beautifully bruising.
I sprinkled it on the plate for you. Did you like it?

Of course you did. Each breath has an aroma of luscious threat.
The glassware is stocked and you are on your way,
Always belaboring your limbs.
Stop and embrace the delicious winds on your shoulders.

ThePlaceThatHasBeenForgotten

I once drifted to the moon

To tiptoe on the waves.

I buried your invitation under the desert palms,

But you refused to dig.

The sky dripped into the sea that night.

I once extended my hand

And a willow’s tears

Seeped into my skin.

You laughed when I told you

And continued your strides across my belly.

My shadow has stretched beyond the hills

And stands alone

On the purple horizon

Leaning against the sun.

It waits for you

To gallop on its back

To the place that has been forgotten.

wide-eyed hairball breathing

This post was recently written during a St. Marks Poetry Project workshop. "Wide-eyed hairball breathing" is a phrase inspired by a writer's block exercise, courtesy of my vivacious and inspirational instructor, Sharon Mesmer.

She was in labor for 26 and a half hours, all the while cursing the gods for answering her previous pleas of child bearing. "Fuuuck! You!" That was directed at her husband. They had become wildly attracted to one another over chilled shrimp cocktail and winecoolers, conceived, and three weeks later got hitched in Vegas. Now she wanted him castrated.

The room shook under her shrieks and roars and finally the child was yanked from her pulsating uterus, a soaring champagne cork fizzing by. Everyone stared with deep inhalations.

He said nothing at first. Can you believe that? He put that woman through nine months of nausea, gas, and bloating, and then when she brings him into a glorious and brand new world of stretching and breast feeding and coddling, he hasn't a single thing to say. Typical. He just lay there, bloody and helpless under layers of thick mucus, a wide-eyed hairball breathing. Only breathing.

Then the doctor, with his cotton vent strapped behind the ears, picked the child up by his dimpled ankles, head dangling, and whacked him good. But that doctor didn't know what he was doing. That doctor had unwittingly granted Thaddeus Emerson Yorke III eternal permission to never shut up.

On my Roof (Second Night in Bushwick)

It’s a rolling night here. Exhaust fans ablaze flowing streams of black cloth into the sea of the sky. The big dipper, unbelievably apparent for a city night despite its immensity, pours columns of molasses. Thick jet trails across its canvas. I can see the fingerprints of the gods, like they were molding pie crusts to flow breezes of fresh baked goodness into the world. Smiles that grow to lengths boundless, bound only by closed spirits. How could you not smile at this?! At the el’s rhythmic clattering across its spinal journey through the borough. I’m sure there are smiles peering behind its plexiglass into the creamy blue blanket above. Even the moon’s blinding half smile I feel on these shoulders. And the twinkling planes flying flowing breathing glorious fumes of filth and beauty miles and miles above within fingertip reach stretching limbs aglow with want of bird flight and flee. How easily they jump and sail even the gentlest of winds. Here to there without thought. Prickling wires rolled across these fences engulfing me- none in, none out. There goes the train, and here I sit. Physically. For those wires can’t trap what they can’t touch. Try as you must, never will your cages collide upon my beat.

Developing Michael Brillo

Seat in the corner. Lowering his head with his body, his eyes searching the room from under his brow, the cushion let out a sigh with his weight. His right ankle found its way, as it always does, to his left knee, dangling foot drawing circles in the stale air. Then it stopped. It was difficult to adjust his gaze with such a beautiful creature sitting across from him. Her honeycomb curls reminded him of Lacey’s, and the way they tickled his collarbone at night. She looked up. Clearing his throat, he hid his cuticles in his palms. Some were cracked with dried blood, others smudged black from last night’s concrete bed.

Ghost Puddles

As fast as you can, never will you splash.

Vanishing asphalt
and the road a blur,
I glide over the smooth black,
Looking for where we were.

Miles and miles of torn tracks, tragic death of dog, blown-out tires and

splattering tears from the heavens.

We are so far now,

But your presence

Has been permanently burned
Into my present.

Chest still warm with your nectar's wine.
Face still kissing mine.
Your remnants wafting from my hair.
I feel you, my love. Everywhere.

Hysterical Change

Did you hear that?
That rattling.
I hear it there.

Wind braiding feathers of flight

Over mountains and valley

Of crystal grain.

Screeching scouring beaks in search of scrap.

Ships asail riding currents of hugging breeze.

It’s just that beggar there,
Wanting only feast,
Nourishment of
Mind wandering dumes
With only life of sun

No one for miles it already

Feels.

Has felt.

Since that penny
All alone has stared
With words laughing,
pointing,
shrieking.
Rattling.

Meow

Says the cat
kitten black
frozen in feat of cat nap.

Nap?

To sleep to bed
I must
Rest this
Restless
Lust.


Goodnight.

Perennially Wilted

Fourth day in.
Drive down the same street,
see the same blank faces a blur.
The same puff clouds hang above
Shining rays dripping over the same blades.

Sea of green glistening above
Decrepit corpses below
No stones to mark,

Just

Blooming colors.
Bouquets of sorts
so that every blurry face unknown can
Celebrate
Breathe in
Walk amongst these lives
now wilted to crumbling ash piles in their eternal oak beds.

Driving too fast to stop and smell them
I want jump!
Roll out into that grass bed
Sniff all those lives
See what they saw
Hear what they heard
Believe in their dreams no longer tangible
Forever More
Just a dream.

Floating.

Hanging.

In the tickling breeze.

I want to dig into the dirt
Their matter creeping into my cuticles
Flowing through my veins with their lives’ worth of

Only wisdom

and

Fertilizer brains.

Mistakes are merely illusions as knowledge can be weakening,
Stiffening the muscles beyond routine’s ventures.

Fare Hike

Skipping Thunder Swerving Weaving.
Faces that drip into another,
Smeared reflections of empty god-like vessels.
Monotony has usurped:
Pan the car of sagging circles

the lineage

of green-black circles.

Click Click.

Feverish communication,

As seamless as emotionless.

Type Type Type.

Slaves to the future,
Bound free forever
Of the past,

They hope.

What about now?
What about now?!

The ones that don’t know bear no scars,
No scuffs,
No marks at all.

They are perfect.

Perfectly dead.

akimbo
gobbledygook
tizzy
footle
baile
scuttlebutt
undulate
skosh
brunette
walla-walla
scribble
trollop
smushy
pantaloon
oxter
plump
vadvada

some words i like

Walk With Me

It has been
a long period of silence.
Rusty looking, really.

I thought I hated you
I needed to flee
flee as far
as far
as I could.

Remember when you would lull me to sleep?
My mind won’t dream.
It refuses,
stubbornly,
as per the usual.

I realized my mistake.
How could I not? It burned.

A hole right through me.

How do I tell you? Life has
raised me, changed so much,
grew so fast.
I’m not actually tall.

Ah ha! This?
is it!
Personal, but
impersonal enough for all
persons
personism.

Hi. Take a walk with me?

Shifting Focus

I see my
reflection
in the window.

Eyes shift focus

to the building across the street.

Fourteenth floor,
middle window,
yellow light turns on.

A woman steps onto her terrace
despite the cold
of the air and
her metal seat

she sits,
lights a cigarette,
inhales.

The smoke rushes in,
tickling her throat,
clearing her mind,
disburdening her soul

for a second.

The wind howls
tossing her hair
diffusing the smoke.

She shivers with frustration
and the wind.
One last pull.
Tosses the cigarette-

Down it

g
l
i
d
e
s

for her pain.
Smashes into the sidewalk.

Stands up.
Walks in.
Lights out.

Just me again.