40th and Market; final draft. (formerly El Thoughts One)

Salt dissolved in water sticks to my shoes
crawls up my pant legs
fresh spit snow and crusty coat
chunks of ice slip and slide beneath the soles of my shoes,
black and gray speckled white mazes
in this record-breaking winter
I criss
cross the dwarf I am
against this skyline of man made sequoias
concrete rebar buildings of glass and glowing lights
testament of some kind of life in the spinning airs of the world:
a soft pillow to our concerns pitted far flung in space.
I am moving so fast I'll never slow down.

The scene on the corner of 40th and Market
men standing grease or anything-else smudged polyester jackets
worn soles propped on empty and upside down Pepsi crates
and the ambassador speaks, “Get a ride!” “Get a ride.”
A taxi ride but where's the taxi?

The El runs under these streets and you can hear it rumble
you can hear it scream
and you can have whatever you want
trinkets cheap bling incense body oils,
bootleg movies hot off the press,
Bo-Sing Chicken, nails or a new haircut,
H & R Block day care and a wine shoppe
tried to go into Flynn's but Flynn's be closed.

I slide my gloved hand on the rail and descend.
my feet graze steps and my eyes like a beeline
keep my pace in line
so I don't stumble here at this stairwell finish line,
too late to miss this one, too late to wait
six or less or ten or twelve minutes
depending on the time of day.

I cross the platform entrance
run the pass push through the turnstile.

The whine and screech of train songs congest the air
platform three-quarters full of scattered people and I,
step left step right fill gaps in efficiency
ever crowding is the rush hour El.

Doors slide open like Star Wars
I pass portal to a land of blank stares
and vacant aural landscapes
but for the tinny sound of a hip hop amplified iPod
and the cajole of a mother to her daughter,
"Sit down." "Sit down!"

Or the braggadocio of two seasoned brothers
slap-sticking black verbal dance on the urban landscape
scat about cards and women and hard luck,
two seats to a man.
And though I am just on my way to work
language also is written on the walls around me.

Cherries Wet in the Sun; final draft

As a youth I would climb high up in a thin-limbed tree,
bark scratching bare arms as I picked cherries,
dropped them into a bucket
and relished the wind on my face and the sunshine that warmed my skin.
These memories are now confined to a picture my mother gave me many years ago as part of a birthday gift: one photo in an album full.

But when summer downpours sucked my sister down a ditch
under and inside a thorn bush's craggy and cavernous insides
I learned not to expect worn out shoes
or tattered clothes to keep the rain out:
fungal feet swollen like monkey paws clutching pacifiers.

Parched throats need water
and arid eyeballs stare up periscopes with foggy lenses
only to see
mountain gorillas running on four legs
their knuckles skipping against stones
(instead of English they use sign language:
universal love signifies speech like bitches signify heat).

Volcano Thoughts; final.

I can't stop mixing feelings with volcano thoughts
and sometimes you need to vomit before you can get cuisine.

Night ride I
down tree vaulted asphalt of Martin Luther King Jr Drive.
Headlights of cars passing too close flash and blur in my mini rear-view,
but my aluminum tubes, carbon-reinforced fork, and steely resolve
carry me as I ride on.
And as I ride
before me rises an artificial sunrise
ambient glow of millions of street lights,
the LED sprinkled city skyline,
and my wheels spinning rpms some sixty.
The moon casts its reflection on the rain flecked street.

Outliers of tree branches hang overhead,
to my left the Schuylkill River's riparian zone,
and mixed among the foliage and sculpted meadow-lands
wild geese and goslings'
goose droppings brown black and white
heavy scattered among the grass and on and along the pathway.

But on this night
I who choose the road also avoid
headless geese carcasses deeply genuflecting on the bike route.

Fist a Flying; final.

I step into the ring fists a flying
blood stained ropes
splotch covered canvas
smashed mouth and I'm shaken all my body through
falling backward
bouncing off the ropes
g-forces whipping sweat off my face
like a dog shaking off water after a torrential downpour.
No time to ask myself what's the fighting for.

I turn and face a battle royal where everyone's against me.
Eyes lean forward my mind leans backward
and I remember a time when I saw the finish line
a mirage rising murky on the highway,
and I drink deep from a dream-works spigot
fade in and out
come round about
hot tub thermostat shoots to the moon
120 degrees
so hot it burns.

Opossum Belly; draft #3, finished poem more or less

Dead fur dries over and over peels skin
slowly lifting from muscle tissue:
somewhat of death an end to heartbeats love nerve twitch
severing iron from blood the life-giver oxygen reactor,
somewhat the passage of windy airs
somewhat also the rapidity of flies dropping egg bombs
their young pouring forth from fleshy orifices:
muscle becomes meal.

An opossum's belly turns and writhes under the hot summer sun
and it turns also my stomach
thankful I am empty of food late for dinner.
Gas expands turning animal into organic and bone toothed cavity,
byproduct of microorganism-evolutionary vagary:
the small rule the fate of the large
that feed and fuel and wait and crave
demanding more from passerby's lest they sit unsuspecting
and then too bare the rancid meat fruit of fly speck goners
puking red meal acidic entrails out onto the pathways of life.

Lightning Strikes the Tip of the Empire State Building (reflections on photo by Acme Photo Service July 9, 1945); finished poem

It was a time ago, when
I first opened a window to watch a storm rolling
past the city that never sleeps. Rolling
past the concrete monoliths and the over sized Tonka trucks.
The storm blew a hole, it cracked the sky;
a gaping fissure the size of a city.
The air shook, rattling closed windows and dark deserted alleyways.

It rained down heat and light in spite of the night
and despite the darkness, for a moment you could see men.
You could see men in their buildings,
men in the lights from their buildings,
you could see men in the street lights and the car lights and the black asphalt roadways.

When the sky split the crack ran the center of the sky
as if god was displeased with our ways
of building up instead of in,
of wasting instead of weaning.
But the men turned their backs from the light
and continued building with cold concrete,
continued lighting the world with dim, artificial lights
in spite of the night.

That's When She Swallows (finished poem)

I love her curves that lift and cut
through the still air,

and now I’m smiling because I know
what she’s hiding and she’s smiling because
she knows that no one can stop her.
And now,
no one can stop
her head cocked to the sky,
body pushed in and forward. Tight
limbs swaying, saying graceful swans,
long, thin and tan. She’s thinking;
only she knows.

And she’s rolling,
rolled up and relaxed,
walking her way down the street,
and when she walks
everyone wants to talk;
but her top is locked
and she has the key
held close between her lips,
waiting for the day
when someone spreads them wide
and kisses her long.
Waiting for the day
when someone searches with their red-tongue flesh
and finds the key she’s holding
tight between her lips;
and that’s when she swallows.

Baby I Scar; draft #5 (final draft more or less)

those hoodwinking evangelists
are not abuse burn victim enough
and I
am driven into thick mud under foot
days after rain
black tongues burned black talk

and who pays for this windmill whirling
piss trickling down drain pipes leaking from decades long decay
and how
do I daily wash my hands clean when it is my people
keep shitting in the shallow end
cannibals eating the hearts of others?

Maybe accident prone are we
mix of colors and chemicals in a meth lab
chipped pale red wood shavings sprinkle cast shadow off cabin's far corner
funneled by leaky weather rainvomit onto woods green turned to brown:
rinsed away like so many earthly crimes.

Needle can I lick taste the bitter drugs as they rush through your veins
as I fall backward in a passed out slumber backwater night walk?

this machine steals thoughts and body functions,
has an inside deal on 22nd century eyeglasses,
sees in 3-d,
and though my skin may not burn
I scar baby I scar.

A Mid-Spring Morning

Green blades,
sun-flecks
on display.

A wind
without resistance
rears
and rolls the field.

A sparrow
flutters in mid-air
and pauses;
as if in doing so
she would last in the moment
forever.

Ode to Reading; Notes from the Newspaper (original title: Reading, Pennsylvania)

Late last Tuesday evening
a fire burned on Rose Street.
Two died:
the black and charcoal gray remains
of a mother and her daughter
(the latter still clutching a melted pacifier
as they zipped shut the three foot long
black plastic bag).

The night before,
a man was beaten on Buttonwood
with the ivory butt of a pistol.
He then patiently waited for his killer
to walk two blocks home for bullets,
return
and shoot him.
Unconscious, he could not feel his heart stop beating.

language loves desire; draft #4 (near final?)

Language loves desire and demands communication
but in words, more than just with body.
Love without language
lusts for body as animals without language.

Language comes from life, a dream to tell
that which cannot wholly be seen.
To make known
to relate in metaphors without body.

Language also is light piercing molecules of air.
Connects without touch. Communicates without
body. Moves without move.

Shattered Glass; Draft #5 (near final?)

I piece together the shattered glass of this half empty cup
like Superman I fly fast as infinity
reverse the earth's rotation
change the course of history
breathe a cone of cold on any who stand in my way.

A slow motion shot of levitating glass fragments
up from the kitchen floor,
gasps of shock turn back to smiles or blank stares:
my slippery grip fades back to a firm handshake.

Sticky liquid slops up the side of my cupboard
like Einstein turning gravity upside down
settles back in the cup just prior to implosion.

At this moment I realize density, mass and time:
as Atlas holding up the earth, as Hercules sweeping shit from the stables.

Belmont and City; Final Draft (+/- some grammar revision)

Snow lingers long in shadow
cold clinging fingers of winter scrape
shape sidewalks and front yards:
crumbling concrete bricks beaten by shovel and plow turn to dust.

Ice packed mounds line streets,
aging plastic or fake wood chairs reserve streetside parking,
spaces carved out not for passersby
in the City of Brotherly Love.

Breath takes form in the frigid air
its heart beats mere moments
until it shivers and dissipates in the lower atmosphere.

I am layered against the cold on an otherwise clear day.
Navigating labyrinthine and icy paths
and passing three young men I quietly turn down Belmont Avenue.
Head down, I mark the steps in front of my toes.
Head down, I slow march toward the bus stop marked 40.

From behind comes a low grumbled yell.
Turning my head the three young men again appear in view
but who would want to talk to me?
Who would even know me 2 miles from home,
here in this city of strangers,
here where I spend only minutes walking between work and the Forty
at the corner of Belmont and City.
I continue walking but still wonder: had something slipped from my pack
were these boys
black teens all neat and clean
here to help me?

Packed ice skitters against the backs of my feet
followed by another gruff yell.
But if someone wants my attention they could address me more directly.
Still worrying that I'd left something behind,
swinging from shoulder my backpack gently unwinds.
I check its contents for peace of mind.
Packed ice skitters against the backs of my feet.

Now halfway down the block halfway to the bus stop,
I turn again to see these three boys now halfway again between me and the City.
“Can I help you guys with something?” I ask impatient.
Still huddled, their thin leader asks, “What are you getting out of your bag?”
He sounds angry, slightly afraid.
Does he think I mean to pull out a gun?

I pull out a bus token.
Fears extinguished thin leader demands, “Give us a bus token.”
Anger tinges my voice, “I don't have anymore.”
“Give us some money,” he commands.
“I don't have any.”

I am lying but yet unwilling to forsake the sixteen quarters
tucked deep in my bag
(emergency funds for emergency rides).

I sling pack back on back turn and quicken my pace
but they follow even faster.
And soon amidst craggy mounds of ice and snow,
three boys, their thin leader's teeth bound with braces,
surround me, and again thin leader demands money.
“I don't have any," is all my mind can muster:
chemicals explode inside my brain inside my body.

They close in around me, one on my right,
thin leader on the left, and a tag along somewhat behind.

My glance scans to the right,
a sudden jab smacks my neck where the left edge of my jaw juts out,
but adrenaline fueled, I feel nothing.
I scramble over a snow mound
step out into the streetside parking
create distance where none was before.

I pick up a chair in defense
to this thin leader insists,
“I'm gonna kick your ass if you hit me with that."
as if I was the one come for plunder
as if I was the one to trouble a stranger.
I step out into slow moving oncoming traffic
cars slow now that I'm out in the open.
Already the other two slink behind their brace faced leader,
as if avoiding blame.

My eyes turn to the left
and the 40 comes round the corner of Belmont and Ford.
Dropping the chair I sprint
hands waving in frantic motion,
chemicals compelling unthinking action.
But memory's minutes mere moments
as seconds of time,
and damn the feet fly by!

But then it slows down for an elderly woman half hidden behind a telephone pole.
I run the final thirty feet, pull the token from pocket, board the bus.
My heart beats a thousand times a minute.

And though my neck and jaw will be sore for a few days
I am otherwise unscathed
on this my birthday.

Taught to Throw; draft #4

It was you who threw the first stone
and encouraged me to follow your lead.
You taught me the best stones to find: smooth flat and round.
You taught me how to dangle my arm and lean over just so,
bent at the knees head cocked
stone spun and thrown near parallel
whipped fast flicked wrist.
My memory of you plays out against a backdrop of centuries old glaciers
feeding waterfalls in a montane paradise of steep cliffs glittering snow,
bursts of life deep green cling to walls of stone.

You taught me how a slim stone skipping through infinity sounds.
But though we did not share these cirques, mountains, or 11:00pm sunsets,
your memory to me is as azure and deep as these alpine lakes,
wind whipped adventure struck on the way to the gold rush.

Song of the Cicada (draft #4)

Cicadas sing the clack and click of timbals,
a cacophony for hot summer days
when sticky sweat runs down slippery backs.

Their timbals buckle out and bend back in,
disperse a shaking sound as of rattles
rising and falling like deep and repeated knife stabs,
unending even deep past dim light into the night
descending out from trees
off into humid and misty airs over fields
of sword grass grown fat off flood plain waters.

Thus the male hearkens to its mate,
and screaming at me through ossicle and cochlea
he becomes proof positive:
time plays out moment by moment,
burdens are rewards all their own,
and the cicada's empty rust-colored shells shed
symbolic carcasses remain an ironic but muted reminder of the cycle of life.

This Autumn Month; draft #2, finished poem

This autumn month
eyes gaze through a thin window pane
down leaf strewn street
scattered rags plastic bags butts discarded wrappers
black gum-tar stuck everlasting polka dot distraction
faded beer cans smashed flat like aluminum paper.

This autumn month
eyes gaze through a cracked window pane
unable to stop the loud sight and sound
of other people's matters late into the night
of drunken madness and irrational argument,
lost at sea must be seen to believe but invisible to most:
like the late night moan of the trolley
letting the whole house know the schedule of the number ten.

This autumn month
eyes gaze through the thin veil of a window pane
farsighted I bare witness to the long and slow groan
of earth's internal clock tearing a hole through space and time
seeping into living matter finding its way into
blood choked scream screened streets
that are rivers in our lives.

So it goes.

Introduction.
Seas flush with life and beingity crawling
through filth, through intestinal rot, through blood and brains,
kneecaps and legs of remembrance, filth scrubbed off
on to welcome mats in showers and on street corners everywhere.

Conscience rises carbon monoxide mountains carbon dioxide deserts,
millennia approach and vanish at a rate too zoom-zoom fast for our minds.
Consequence, the black twisted liver disease,
but no cause of concern (no domino fall beginning but intermediary or ending)
new species rise
after old species fall
and the ruby red visceral meat that really matters continues, unabated by human standards.

Empty hunger and severed limbs,
supposed awful question but about face awful truth no man no news at infinity
awful truth.
Conscience grows knowledge like trees of life
and the eyes of the masses (take a deep breathing plunge)
gambling spree
economic growth
murders at eleven
ethnocentrism,
feed unappealing the feeding frenzy where blood of
friend or feast or
either or
fills the water and is traced to its source,
soon joining the soft, salty innards of laissez faire consequences. Shark belly.

Rising Action.
Buildings rise, their very creation birthing verbs; to build, not
to forget lessons but instead to shackle them deep with wine
in deep tunnels,
brick of dank and wet
rock the humid hot; walled up behind under,
not forgotten,
but instead set aside
the “first world” becomes the “third world”
burned votes and a confetti media mockery,
confessions of serial death penalty rapist murderers,
supreme courts bought and paid for:
let’s not name names
do deeds or mark these recent tragedies;
let’s get on with our lives.
Questions brought up, swept under carpet
take a bow though curtain closed.

Trumpets blare, perpetual personal privatized loud and clear: losers
talking hundreds of thousands women and men flip flop,
under toe mandate rising morning sunbeam. Information not made up though truth
the arbiter becomes a point of view, the cultural equivalent of the spiritual insurrection of subjectivity, birthing socioeconomic relativity.

Enter the dragon.
Spires of plumes,
fire, smoke and sand dunes.
Remember: sudden.
Great roach motel toilet flushing,
swirling of shit; certainly no one with our naivety fathomed that day.
plumes of smoke rising.
.




.




.
Rest and relax over at last.
Blood baths roll on,
ambitions attempted,
dicks whipped out and measurements taken;
though I don’t disclose names, never,
brainwash brandy wine brainchild
I am.
Champions crowned, oral sex follows; the usual gig for a usual Saturday night.
Crown prince of Hades and a fairy godmother from Texas to match
versus all.
Pragmatism and turkey dinner traditionalism; dull the quiet dog, moans unheard though decisions be made.
Bomb; verb, noun and adjective.
(Constitutional amendments seen, appendices please).

Admitting fault impossible
plausible deniability without accountability
the gleaming sword heir apparent
of the socioeconomic-political machine tearing through nuts and bolts;
verb: rebuilding (foundations dug up and rendered mute),
disseminating Anglo English Americana, though language
the dynamic beast of burden it be,
changes of its own accord and to wit, languages spread, diseases spread,
empires tumble, yada yada yada; the condemnation of repetition.

Still, terror and its stepsons fallibility and retribution must not be
gainsaid,
opportunism the potted meat product,
who eats this stuff but some do.
Breadbasket wooden specters of phallus. Alphabetical timber.

Climax.
Think consequences and at least think;
opinion poll world looking outside from the inside
no tears though dead,
onto the rubbish pile of history we tread.
Petroleum pestilence. National security machinations robber baron ideology.
Come back think long term; we don’t do things because of what we have done before
but from the infested promise of tomorrow,
the unabated conquest of paradise, of twisting and cutting off tongues, we do.
Highway environmental degradation
the denial of
lust of
togetherness, that closer we might have been brought,
communal the breath of being;
togetherness and earth children.

Here on oil truck, the gas
tank of perpetual impossibility be damned,
personal privatized tran-sploit-ation.
Human in car and ignorance is bliss and oh, this contemporary era.
Highways bridge gaps and scars in single bounds; unfettered access becomes the minstrel of wretchedness the misery of concept, to bludgeon those around him,
sweeping down the mountain,
carrion for bait,
automobiles of death
headlights running down headlines for
oil;
thirst for, burst for,
blood vessels of the mongrel race,
any god be damned, flipping a burger part-time paradise. Never reversed
never revealed and never embraced
that knowledge like
trees of life
spring bud flower suckle bee and the cycle requited.
Have a breath.

Denouement.
Community and lessons learned. Damns rebuilt torn down
and iron shackles hacked, burned and melted into nuggets of veritable hatred
then lost; buried forever,
even though we fuel fear to fuel cars. Lesson infinity,
moral ambiguity and personal ambition. Power makes noise,
sniffles and garbage and last nights dinner,
the blood of our children, the ironic return of the communal shower and birth tradition.
Truth of a personal nature strikes a blow but for how long?
Ambivalence has led to disgust but at what cost?
Healthy forest initiative, clear-cut removal of fuel
(return trip camping unsustainability)
inevitable engines spinning,
black top death on top
pistons piston head down head toward
empty hearts replaced,
refilled and revolved.
And will this be heard,
this restatement of ethical demand?

What living is worth

Not one heard
the hammer click back.
Not one could see that
with the barrel pointed,
it ran the length of her hairline;
barrel rammed hard into the soft spot just behind her ear.

Maybe she closed her eyes
and prayed with imaginary hands
(hers were bound behind her back).
Maybe she prayed to her God.
Maybe she thought of home
and said, “Mother, I love you,”
eyes closed to the pull of the trigger.


A sack arrived two days earlier
as iron plumes rose from black rivers
and burned out buildings.
She was told, “This is the best we can do, please eat.”
Rancid meat. Maggots and worms.
This is the best we can do, please eat.
But without firewood a fire could not burn
and without food she could not eat.

The sack that arrived two days earlier
was stamped USDA approved
and delivered.
This is the best we can do, please eat.
Except in her country
deliveries come too late.

Almost Sunset

I don’t suppose
if I asked you would go;
wanted only to watch
the sun set.

The purple hue,
the parade of clouds
and you
so clear, crisp and clean;
an apple
and as delicious.

Dream Beetle (draft #4)

I sit and sink into the dry turf of a hillside's fair chalky meadow
clouds mixed crimson magenta
months of ash masked sunsets the world over.
My mind sees beetles burrowing through the dung of my dreams
metallic rose black its carapace,
mandibles grinding rock to dust
palpi feeling for food,
digesting stone-dust their waste back-filling tunnels
like analid these anthropods mix like no sex does.

I now know as no sense can tell:
the sun enriches my skin with vitamin D
my eyeballs turn back toward my brain
my eyelids flutter as a butterfly
and like Chuang-Tzu ages ago
beauty amazes confounds confuses amuses;
leaves ever after an awe of the unknown.