Tuesday, July 31, 2007

tuesday

god damn, these tomatoes are good
every time i bite into one
i want to kiss a smile onto mona lisa's lost lips

after eating one this morning,
the chair fell over.
man, you said it.

on asphalt

entrance to the highway blocked by three quarter ambulances and sheep dogs carrying notes from the pta meeting that can't let go of quiet complaints and skipped the praise ovation. i'd love to join you in the gridlock but i must be at the publishing house by three pm sharp. ill have to give you and your mistress a raincheck. did you hear about the time that the ocean overflowed and the little boys built their castles on stilts to survive the weather? or the time that the dogs and cats ate the flea circus and were told by the masters that the show must go on? just what would you do in their paws? talk to me when your younger.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

on baking

today is a very good day for skiing on the slopes of intelligence and waves of self doubt over melancholy time zones and pulsar ice caps. talk to me when you're older, sayonara jones.

p.p.s.
you're only as old as the last person you slept with

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

on trains

time again runs slowly left right earth on the riverbank sways as i roll past lions wolves brick shellac and schist. run river left right left right i can't help but wonder what time the mailman will come home and if he'll have enough milk for the sauce that won't be too big a problem for my blood type. hocus pocus train engineers ride sideways upside down in subterranean and suburban stations while we try to transfer without paper an without time and without earrings and with gold in our hands and with fifty cent increases and with eyes closed i speak to you that this really is it. won't you dance wont you sing wont you walk into the darkness hand in hand with the gleaming smiling light? it takes one two three tries to get lucky and at the end your left with effort and salt and pyrite ashes and skin ream for four ninety nine and aint it just like the night and ain't it enough and aint it too much and aint it three courses with a dessert tray why wont you pick up your perpetual motion machine at the institute what are you waiting for the time is short and the bills keep coming and you're into the mail and you're into the river and its up to your neck and the the world is on pace and their through the chunnel and your eighteen floors up and smiling and living and lying and eating and coffee and dreams and back to wake and alarm clock never gets set and even your job interview isnt till mid afternoon. sip slowly its hot she warns against the closing of the stock market (up) and the closing of the day (down) too much standing still too much standing up too much sitting straight aint it a shame to live like this. what more can one do but to walk straight and keep clean and hope for the best?

Monday, July 23, 2007

on a sesame bagel

all my pogo stick women want me to open up the velvet ropes to their hops (and hopes) and dreams and snores and cries and i cant open anything because i'm not the bouncer and i'm not even inside. tell me twice what you think of the new album before you hear it and before i make it. installed ideas float through raindrops on a green day (the greenest of the year) and i don't know what time it is and i don't know what year it was and i don't know what month you feel and i don't care what's for dinner as long as there's at least three courses of squab and two of seafood (braised). but please, whatever you do, don't take another phone call while i'm around.

on ritz crackers

why do i always do these before i go to sleep when i'm ready to count sheep and make love to robot women on beds of grass in extraterrestrial terrariums at west forty second street when i could just as easily be watching a movie or taking tylenol till my eyes bleed out and i need a change of linens. loose type on movable sets cast iron memories ancient talking dogs of west africa tell me that tomorrow is a good day (backspace) for wet kisses on ramps to admission gates losing time against elephantitis and ocean currents as a man in a speedboat makes a uturn at the waterfall and just begin to notice that the there are stairs inside that doghouse and underground is where all the action is. but she lies in uncomfortable rectangles convincing us that she's alright (i know she is) and tells us about days past and girls past and time past and we're here in the future waiting for tomorrow like there's no today. (mondays are a bit slow around here). goodbye sweet dreams i'll see you when i wake up and forget you by the time my coffee percolates (who still percolates) how much percolates what time is the movie open and do they have cheap films that aren't from thailand or Indonesia or any other disreputable systems. run run run run run i'm telling you they were happy, just failed happy. next time i'll get the point across- these are supposed to be learning experiences maybe its i that should take the criticisms better instead of turning it all around and i'm sorry that i was wrong about the prix fixe lunches but my dreams can't lie and i do have a new pair of black shoes that would be fine for the occasion. keep walking sideways with your cap on backwards because there's no time to waste in the hustle bustle world of midtown continental and black olives in milky white crustaceans. if i told you that this had gone on long enough already would you call me a murderer and ask for me to be sacked or burlaped or strung down or hung up or ate out by crusty (maggots? walking on will o the wisp floors in falling towers next to bayside breeze machines did you hear they're putting a ski slope in the meadowlands? i have seventeen bridges for sale!) time to clap our hands for the new mayor of downtown life with a stuffed tomato grin and he wears suspenders from five to nine and eats scallops with his left hand while his right hand holds the tax lady and she coos for more chips ahoy in the sun drenched morning. honeydew peanuts on foam waves with spume spume spume eat away at plastic shard dolphins and stuffed animal crackers while the shortest man in the world takes soup with the king of bejing/persia/united states of mexican't eat anymore tonight, thanks. i don't mean to be rude if you call me a doctor one more time i'm going straight back to law school and i'll show you what a raisin or a peppercorn (that's it) is worth. don't walk in my garden without proper footwear, my young hero or i'll turn you into a hoagie faster than you an call a four year old the m word.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

on crackers

and two three four time to walk in a line with your head in the air i can't tell you one thing from the other but if you want to dance with me tonight under red skies and blue moons with green cats chiming out tsaichovsky in clark park july 21 i'd happily oblige. until then we'll have to settle for three quarter racked collared greens and corned beef on rye with mustard (deli) on chalkboard answers with phototronic display and neon wallpaper from 1964 and the lady down the street with the beaver skin hat cant answer the door unless you knock three times and do the lindy hop for at least 43 seconds and a half oyster on the half shell is a fine cure for herpes but what if i've only got 15 cents and a broken button? i'll tape your schedule to the refrigerator in the morning with a ham sandwich on wheat but if you want lettuce you'll have to go to the baker before mass. this time i mean it when i tell you that i have no more sauce to put on your ketchup you'll just have to warm up the deep fryer like your brother. you know when i was your age we paid rent 5 times a day and if the landlord didn't like our boutique he'd just take our dog for a walk all over town while we were left to play baseball with the train conductor and a bat with no grip tape. open wounds/dreams/fishtanks spread out over the plains in a spaghetti western that only she can see because its playing 8x10 on her eyelids (thrice daily) and i hear the previews for pirates 14 are spectacular.

why oh why bobby- is this your lot? so many mulatto mouths to feed that you have to wear blue and appear at the garden state expo center signing autographs and fudgecicles for 13 cents an hour? how will you ever get your saxophone duet ready in time for the debutante ball?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

view

sure, it always falls
but from here
it also rips sheets
screams around corners
eats paper
heaves plastic
as it tears east
businessmen run for cover
under awning advertising
while the cats + dogs hid long ago
(but they don't have towels and heating lamps!)

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Seduction for One

Where to begin – the park? the bar down the road?
The bedroom: For how long, those hands,
all those fingerprints running down my body, my face fixed
in a look of contentment, eyes closing.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, eyes wide – looking up at the trees,
branches sway like dancers’ hands, my waist, my hips
take in their silhouettes… and the foam whiskers my pint
leaves on my lips, to be licked off, slowly, dried
with an index finger… and my stomach, my thighs
under cool sheets, whispering into the moist breath of rain.

Friday, July 6, 2007

A hole where it is heart (should be)

On a visit to Texas a year ago
the cab driver worried for me living on this rock,
as if it might sink under the weight
of toothpick umbrellas and passionfruit,
and I would drown. Or maybe I'll get lucky
and float on a raft of orchids, their pretty mouths
a silent siren chorus. Can you picture my delicate
seaweed lingerie, my endless feast of oysters
to make a coin purse of black pearls?
Certainly the soundtrack will be familiar,
an endless shhhh, a gentle admonishment to wait.
At some point I'll look back -- have to --
and see tentacles of lava rising
to build a new castle for a mermaid to covet.
Then I'll remember I'm not a mermaid
and step into the water.

Bodies, water

A family meeting every moment for the first time.
The stream, cold and anxious in its corridor,
hiccups, smoothes the black sand
into the ocean's open mouth. Stride right in.
Skate over the rocks, the wet-skinned moss,
green that stays under your fingernails
when the current bends your knees.
Eyes on the bleached-bone driftwood
on the green cliff rising.
Feet on the stones, on the stones, on the stones.

proud...

can't taco nachos without a nacho taco.
can't tackle nachos without a nacho tackle.
can't eat burritos without burrito cheetos.
can't be the beatles without 10 nacho tacos.