Month: March 2011

Animal Lover

Sit!
Ah, martinette:
For your whip–smart crack–of–the–heels:
Well done. Here’s a pet.
And, Black, you hussy:
 with your delinquent, rebellious, impertinent leer
  for a pet without praise:
Very well.

Avoiding Jumps and Being Scrunched

I’m in a parking garage. I’m renting three cars at the same time and use one key for all three of them… because they are the same make. It’s important I have three going at the same time in order to accomplish something.

I’m on a ramp facing traffic. There is a police officer checking the speed of the cars as they pass. I turn the key. My car battery is dead. The police officer starts to drive over to give me a jump. I start ignition again. The car starts. It’s important I keep going to avoid having to accept a jump.

Without checking traffic (and right in front of the policeman) I go onto the street. My seat is schwounced up and my face is almost pressed against the window shield. I can barely move to steer. This is embarrassing just in front of the cop and even worse if I get into an accident.

PG

Only when we are grown up
do we understand our innocence
is as beautiful as our savvy;
we leave that part out.

Rumpelstiltskin

Pa,
I know the stubble of your beard.
 You kissed me goodnight
  after you missed dinner, working late.
I take that stubble to my grave.
I tell God about your stubble.

Those nights you let me
 shine the light for you
  under the car
I have absorbed all of that light.
I am full of that light.

When you hinted
 I might be another Einstein
I am an Einstein
 so as to fulfill your pride of me.

Your insight that
 I need no other guidance
  but my own
I turn this straw
 into gold.

Pa,
perhaps this story
 is incomplete
It is enough.

Thank you,
 Dave

Torch Song

It's hard to carry a tune
Some, singing from their youth,
 seem naturally talented
We are such picky receivers
Yet, what a delight when some song
 pushes our buttons
 over and over again
 playing ourselves
 back to ourselves
Winds up in a mystical collection
Yet no way to share with another
 the depth of its echoes through us
 the hidden–spot tickle of its touch
Agony unshared
A dread to share
As like it falls on deaf ears
 the horror of triggers missing in another
 the tip–top registers of our soul
And this some polished piece of painstaken production
How much more terrifying
 when we play ourselves
I trip along as the band plays on
 I might look queer, but I'm certain
 no one holds a candle to my music

Magician’s Trick

First, the finding of the cloth:
 something to cling to
Then, the pulling, wondering:
 what will it lead to?
Then, an acceptance of its never–end
 and the assured fashioning
 clothes from its threads

Perceptiviteapot

Forgive my bluntness
 when I insist
I'm eternal and wise as the universe
In perceiving you
I see you in me

There is my heart, in you
You, flapping around,
 doing your own thing
When shall we tea in the kitchen?
 heart to heart

Artistry

Perhaps a mistake
                                       to forgo the ache
making of one’s self a human
With spiteful tenacity
 takes herself as lover
A joyful bed
 in loving herself, loves the world
Gobbling down gleams of inspiration
 indulging strange urges and combinations
 to satiate the little one
 secretly nursing, growing embarrassing
From a patchwork of snacking and digesting
 miraculously combining
 into a self–contained story
 its own life
Flesh and blood for others to see
 critique, abjure recklessly
Perhaps to glimpse fragility
 imbibe what magnificence might come
  if they too put out
 be awestruck and taken–in