it's better...

it's better to have
a sore throat
than no throat at all

Camera

Imagining Ft. Greene

A room for sitting and tracing the leaves that drop
along the wrought iron gate that leads
to the garden of sand where I found a little Mary
pendant, despite whose presence no tomato
feels at home. The sidewalk past the church
is even and white. The hulks
of summer buses and ice cream trucks
shudder, the sweaty footprints
of boys dart like eels or mirages.
Marveling, I follow you,
capturing the slow alphabet of your walk.

on rye

alligator eyelashes flicker inside of
the 100-watt bulb did you see
the fantastic lightning over the
lake the night that the mermaid
lost her toothbrush and the
ancient mariner found a rhyme
for orange (hint: it rhymes with purple)
'touche' said the seamstress, 'but don't
you think a simple pattern would
be easier on the small children?'

my eyes lit up
when she mentioned coney island.
i save ideas,
but never make reservations
and i was all to happy to
invite greil marcus' awkward trajectory (a necessary evil?)
while she brought a 35mm camera
and soft hair
to an amusement park
with an expiration date

tomato sauce dreams

and butterfly tears couldn't soak the sponge of self hope and cry for the world as it gets caught under a fifty foot wave of indifference. oh, how the children laughed when they saw the spume! (and the cats and dogs had long ago fled for the hills) tonight the music box plays top forty from nineteen fifty seven; ten year old record breakers rounding the corner in wool 3/4 length pants. thanks for the inclement weather, the flowers will be that much more alive. yellow that even a blind man could understand.

Honey

today, rather than one topic or another, i've read the last entry from Hal or H.B. and will see if i can pull a topic from something there.

The words of sweetness for millennia
surround your head, my treasure,
their substance crystallized
among clay jars and amulets,
hawks' heads, dark eyes.
We have been here before, the tombs,
the streets, with bare feet, in linen,
in sandstone, in silk, in marble.

i really thought it would rain today

the greatest exporter of culture itself has none and wouldn't it come as a surprise to those japanese teenagers, ears full of our honey shifted voices clothed in designer denim and oversized cotton-poly blends. they'll never know the mire that we've become, (was it ever any better?) so they worship our satellite transmissions of red carpets and double filet-o-fish and cement handprints while we see them and think about how (fucking) green their synthetic grass is.

right about now
my mind feels like
a somalian child
and i haven't seen sally struthers
in years

leaning back
ready to leave, i feel like
an old baseball mitt;
only not so oily.

when you smile,
and push me into the water
it's like a thousand babies being born
without a single cry

Topic: potatoes

I wrote about peeling them years ago, a day when I needed help.
That day a bird hit the picture window in front of my nose, and
cars stopped on the road and I imagined a reunion.

I never cook potatoes, but I miss the way they feel, pearly
red skins in dusty boxes, slimy when you wash them, so much power,
sprouting eyes without water or light.

in reference to poop

isn't it weird that all we can perceive is change

they sat in a room
in columbia
drinking beaujolais
and recording masterpieces
that served as precursors
to 1/2 awkward car scenes and 4/5 tight jeans
on a sofa and four wheels