I’ve written a hundred poems underneath
The blue post office collection boxes, scribbled
On telephone booths these tribes of words.
Counted paint peels on weathered lampposts.
Till it came down to a coin toss in a dream.
~
I know I can be disjointed, and ramblingly
Quiet. Fragments of fragments.
And what is the point of these iterations?
If I haven’t said my ghosts outright, fair enough,
Yet I give them the haunt of these pages.
~
Where does it go? Is a rainy question.
Why does it tumble? Out of the pure summer air.
Your leaving is like the gospel of parting.
And cocoons are the opposite of mummies.
Meteorites
On the railroad trestles all over the city is all kinds of graffiti, which inspired me to write a poem: “On a railroad trestle, / Idle words, spray-painted, like falling leaves / Forgotten by guitar.”
Rain puddles make excellent calculators. Indeed, the square root of blue equals eleven triangles. This fact has weight, like the atmosphere. Which we hardly notice. And we should.
On my walks, I am glad to see someone I know. I ask, “How you doing? Everything well? I add, “Glad to see you.” And I mean it. But more often than not, when I am out walking, I’m alone. I like the mornings best. I like Walt Whitman and Federico Fellini. I also like to walk along the Niagara River and to stop and sit and pay attention to the birds. I like to nose around the old industrial sites and look up at the old factory panes or what’s left of them. They look like they haven’t brushed their teeth in four decades and have been chewing on bolts. I enjoy it when the orchestra brings out the percussionist.
A Certain Fancy
The mind loiters, the labor
Of which, like the dew on the
Spider’s web. Clandestinely we egg
Ourselves on. Or in outright
Ambush of all reservations.
And now that the rain has passed,
Brought to benediction
By a chicory crowded moon
Harboring an albatross neck tattoo.
A Trilogy of Moons
Ahab was a whale. Who became a bird. A singsong hatred that drained the oceans. And took flight over the leas. The moon was a pedestrian. Who became a rucksack. Logged all the throes: a genius of throes: and covered in tattoos of all the famous mountain ranges of America. Gregory Peck was an actor. Who became Ahab. A cinema of life and a trilogy of moons. Above our heads we heard the longing step across the sky, wooden leg and all. In a flight that resembles a parade. In which all the children sport mountain-colored mustaches and wingspans of verse.
By Song
My city travels by picket fence
And rain puddle,
In the branches of trees miles
Away,
Or catastrophically part of the sun’s eyebrows.
Even so, you ask, what is the fashion sense
Of these other dimensional citizens?
Conversation at the Diner
You drew a triangle on your napkin. How thoughtful. The rain will help. I can answer your questions. Though I am not sure of the answers myself. This triangle, for example, has three sides: but where are the doors? The clouds should be pretty and a mess and if you include them on your napkin, barometrically accurate. Here, look, I drew a picture of a bird on a branch. You said, the clouds are all messed up looking without being messed up at all. That’s perfect. That’s it! Let’s exchange middle names and bury our pocket change under the old telephone booth.
Attire
So much for the attire of ghosts:
A broken lantern
And words that cannot move the air.
Poetry places
What can’t be placed.
Especially if keen, then in the heart.
Furthermore, the singing crickets
Just outside these summer windows.
And for clarity’s sake: a motel
Pool in the moonlight.
Poetry practices
What can’t be practiced.
Without thought, into words.
Probably
In the grain between the stars,
Probability stripped down to the studs,
Yet probable enough.
In the anteroom before a dream,
Probability slips into the uncanny,
Yet palpable enough.
Over the eons probability evolved into choice.
In the busy air the summer bee says,
Yet all the more real.
Summer
Let’s hear it for Jupiter,
And for blades of grass.
Jupiter is the largest planet.
The blades of grass
Are almost numberless.
Jupiter is storm, the blades of grass
Are stepped on.
Petal by petal this cathedral
Passes into autumn.
Four Poems
Humming the Score
For sidewalk tramps baptized in the changing of the leaves,
Hurled to other dimensions by the rustle of the seasons.
What Poetry Could Be
Words adjacent to meaning squished together by music,
And the lemonade of time travel.
Scenic
A heap of mountains
And the collateral moon.
Upon Waking
The dream was drawn
By an esoteric cause and effect
And edited by a bumblebee
In July.
Of the birds that live on the sun
Masquerading as spring.
naïve haircuts 