Cigars


Familiar hoarse smoke filtered laughs—
in formal dress I passed up red cups
in the hay filled bazaar, Christine
captured fire with a switch to night scene,
we all shared a blanket square
on the first of last nights, swearing eternity
to foggy sunrises,
and manmade waters
swallowed our fears,
then lessened by the year,
our tribute to the end of acquaintance
tip to tip—
we lit our cigars,
though our lungs would burn later,
hours of gruff smoke laced laughter.

 

All that is Present

        “God can only be present in creation
        in the form of absence”
                – Simone Weil

I suppose it is in the way my parents danced before bedtime
with closed eyes, as I watched through stairwell railing,
or perhaps it is the scorpion’s svelte tail and camel’s worn hump,
pale pocketed gardenia that returns
in the spring, with your hand buried in past,
mine sprinkling future, it is the bodies sold in Las Vegas
and those given for free in Eugene, rising sand dunes singing and
rain delighting with fumes,
it is the gray in between and the red of my dress that clung
to your eyes which see me in absence, it is the cold,
the pacific (my fear), the nonexistence of fall,
rock bottom, a blue knitted hat, and places I have never been
that remind me of you.
 

Days of Me


When people say they miss me,
I think how much I miss me too,
me, the old me, the great me,
lover of a woman’s face,
and three men’s minds all at once,
philosophizer and name-tag wearer,
hilarious me, ravisher me, over-spender me
owning six hearts and returning none, wearing
band t-shirts, vintage only in desire,
I stood helpless in mosh pit crowds, arduous and innocent,
unbearably unkept and craved, doer me
intertwining threads, friend to achievers
and drug addicts, knower of cocaine outbreaks,
witness to mushroom downfalls, observing unintentional
collisions of the two, dancer
more passionate than strong, more graceful than
precise, desperately bad liar me, hung up on
misfortune me, enemy of the elemental partiers,
whose notoriety I have ashamed,
blackout me, relater, adventurer,
middle of the roader, realist,
creator, risk taker, first timer me,
me returning from Vermont in a maple kissed plane, unabashedly
displaying my disastrous soul all the way home.
 

Self Adornment


For sleeplessness, head face down, a skull is
collapsing and No-Doz appears, when
Death is threatening, though lately I have gambled
with numbers and as for daydreams I have never been boring
and maybe twice have I fallen naked from bed
with his stunned eyes and I should be careful,
perhaps he will transform my dead-leg to words
written poetically or in a biography
didn’t I fall and aren’t we both
undone, though I warned him I spit
and sporadically sob and will without warning scream
into the dusk and I am sick of my adoration
and the words which unfold
and I don’t care about three inches or one bone,
he will skip into happen-chance himself
so fuck the exercises, we will both get smashed.
 

Cordoba Drowned


Mendoza will be your fingers, grabbing,
pulling me into foreign lands,
and fiestas will rain respect
wild with confetti covering costumes,
hiding my tears, yours
will flood the pacific between Chile and China,
there you will be-
touching the Andes, pumping snow
like tu Corazon pumps for mine
in tongues only my bilingual heart
can translate.

But now smog is still covering stars and allows
compressed bodies to stay—
breast to breast.
Sunlight is broken, for us, leaving infinite night,
my printer is broken, leaving tickets lost
in numeric space,
time is broken, lending us an unwavering hand, in fact,

I heard Cordoba sank in tidal wave, I heard
“no los aviones”, not today,
the landing space drowned.


The Vine


Swing on the tangle from coast to coast
in the company of ninety choruses singing
and singing like the hurricanes blasted on Wednesday
with touches of sand and thorn, which required that I bleed yesterday
so I may laugh Thursday, and please
oh please, don’t regret New York or Buenos Aires steaming with your name, your
hips the Andes and your limbs skyscrapers that lift me
to the Juniper tree, the waves, the storm, your bed, with little more than aesthetics
I melt into carbon dioxide and oxygen; I melt into less than vapor, which tickles, but take
heed in delight; touch none but that vine with blossoms and thorns, graze it,
erotically, until it blooms into hurricanes that devour
the wall and the earth and your breath and mine.

There is no language that isn’t the Dharma.
        -Bodhidharma


Somehow or another, something is missing. I should
be satisfied with the plastic Gods. I should learn my place
and understand that they are enough for any one man or woman.
We are undoubtedly at their fair mercy. They suffer us every small thing.
And, we thank you God of manufacturing, God of tables and of
profit. Thank you for your goodwill and generosity. And to
the goddesses of styrofoam, grace, and spoons whose splendor,
divine and endless will be prayed upon. But always are we starved,
prowling through your backyard trash bins, your tapestry of leaf,
grain, soap and sin is not complete and cannot be hung, it desires
only gratitude and receives only lust. I am talking about what you can and can’t
live without, which is a way to decipher prosperity.
Because somehow or another, something is missing in me.
Is there a rhythm that isn’t the Dharma?
To seek nothing is bliss.