At the all you can think buffet,
I asked for more,
They stared me,
Twice down,
“There”.
And the bar opened often,
People gathered around hoping,
Notebooks open five,
New pencils,
Erasers.
Walking home down
The city open for love-here and there,
And business hardly ,
Homeless dreams,
Off-key.
“Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And we walked off to look for America…”
What was her name? The last summer letter to vinyl me,
Unwrapped in all I hadn’t done, wrinkled, wet and old.
The water pitcher in the prayer room was scented with incense,
Copper cold dried metal divinity, it prayed back at you.
“When you're weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all;
I'm on your side. When times get rough
And friends just can't be found…”
K lived next door, a thousand years away, a brother, two mothers and,
Me, jungle friends that stayed together for one afternoon,
Lovers with brown arms and burnt faces,
All these years, and he still dreams with me, summer clean, a decade of man.
“What a dream I had
Pressed in organdy
Clothed in crinoline
Of smoky burgundy
Softer than the rain…”
Old men don’t die; they become the house, and dark green well water,
And broken children smile bottled, and table legs which abort memory,
And calf deep placental laughter, and shattered brick dust, pregnant with crimson,
And the brown jute bag you vomit in, to hide from love.
“Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Without no seams nor needle work,
Then she’ll be a true love of mine…”
I saw her , in shallow bottom tear holders, drowning,
Smoking, rubbing the edge of her chair,
The room of silver fish, rape and grilled windows,
I came by often, in soft blue clutches of alphabet murmurs, alone and marked.
“April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;
May, she will stay,
Resting in my arms again.”
In this last dance, all is gone, colored sari, white shame,
My shopping list : an old cousin, a curried prawn, five days with the natives,
Son, your teeth are blue, welcome to the vox populi,
Dark skin, servant language, deep fried ignorance for snack.
“Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settles like dust on the shoulders of the old friends…”
Panasonic, cliff Richards, evergreen tree, is this for sale ?
A well ridden rusted bicycle, and then again we had fish to inspect,
As the slave son, full of hope, made love to his trophy,
The cat ran away, that year – or maybe the year ran away with it.
“In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives”
Half over the drain, half in it, asked to enlist,
I don’t remember the number sir?
The last day to fly is now-then am I here to, stay,
Go, the birds left the banyan grove, I lost my legs there.
“Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why”
Rain, earnest is in the house, for the last act ,
In lieu of fear, he brings you tact,
My empty park bench near the school,
Flamed forest eyes, a double edged rule.
“And a song I was writing is left undone
I don't know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can't believe
With words that tear and strain to rhyme.”
That is when I walked out, plaid leaf covered,
Unwritten, unable and unsaid,
In new born darkness, and the music of,
Dry red earth.
