I. amen to that

II. in Cambridge it rains in August

III. Gardenias & Porkpies
for Lady Day & Prez

IV. the body in the backyard

 

I. amen to that

There are nights that
tear the soul asunder & those
that float the wick of
everything that matters, those
spilled necessities. Tonight
is more latter than former
though the flame wanes. As
December of 2007 fails, the
madness & mundane continue
like routine for the retarded.

One headline claims that the I-35
is thought by some
(those I don’t want to know,
I find
now) to be the physical
manifestation
of the bible’s road to salvation.
People think this & continue
procreating like enunciation
without grammar. In Iraq
they found a torture chamber
& evidence of mass graves. The
middle ages is relative
to circumstance & available
money. Others are being built
& dug, others are being
waterboarded & dumped as this
is read.

The House today approved
more than $70 billion dollars for
the war effort, my son today
sung Christmas songs to an
audience while
his elementary school accepts
donations. I am sure they will
find that charity begs without
dignity, I am sure they will
find pieces of women
in barrels decomposing slowly
in lyme in some warehouse in
some city, & you & I will
wonder how this is possible.

It’s A Wonderful Life came on
cable with Jimmy Stewart infecting
the screen like the smile of a
child. The lady in California who
was arrested for providing her son
laughing gas gets a pardon
here. There must be some
diamond in the grisly multitude
of days, this heap
we collect.

The wailing sparrow of blue ruin
soars the sky tonight
among the poetry of
solitude & the gorgeous
plea in your eyes, retelling
the truth with lies. There
is more than sorrow, more
than what they
tell you.

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in Cambridge it rains in August

unlike California, where only the verbal
threat of it exists. Since I was a kid they
have warned about the mythical
spring showers & summer
downpours but combined I could number
them on one hand in my years
in Southern California. It does not rain
like Cambridge in August. The cobbled
stones shone like the crown of so many bald
heads grown slick from the patter of soles.
We did not arrive ready
for anything but sun & were soaked
like alley strays.
The waitress in the dive we ducked in
couldn’t have tried
the affect of not caring
any more. The dead are more
attentive. The play had long since
left town, the seats turned down, the
playboys lounged at the vineyard & she
had never relinquished
the role. I ordered a
Stella on tap
and a burger. The cloudburst
was steady outside &
loud enough to make mime the television
showing the repeat away game
the Sox had played the night
preivous
above the bar. Each of us looked
at the other. We had spent two weeks
in a van and had nothing more to say.
God wept as a slave to his
duties upon the making & unmaking
of us. Upon the silence & its
opposite.

North to the Harvard Book Store, where
I picked up
used editions of
the collected O’ Hara and Fitz’s poetry. Sat
on the floor & read the mysterious origins
of Clifford the big red dog
to my son
time&time&time
again.

Harvard was a ballet of the heart & its
buildings dripped the incantations
of the rain. The ivy clung & looked
like we imagine in our collective
minds the idea of Harvard. The knotted
wooden doors all locked down with their
colonial pull, we had no identity. We couldn’t
get in to use the pisser, the bookstore had none,
the gods were laughing
the closest Dunkin Donuts was 3 blocks
away. The Stella demanded a return &
thus a return to the dive original. The
run there was one of prey &
thoughts of pissing the already soaked
pants. Who would notice?

The bathroom
like Ithaca & there four low walls & one barred
window & the spilling of youth. The room
was tough enough to laugh at the accommodations
of hell, the reputation without
warrant. It closed in upon you
like the sole stain of
artwork in the room, a painting of
a window in a window until the windows
receded like memory. The mirror was
the size of your hand and I covered it
with the guerillaface. The room
needed company. The toilet had a chain pull
from the ceiling hanging
pendant like an instrument
of medieval torture. Leaving the room
was nearly the fortune of finding it.

The rain continued its onslaught outside
amid the unexpected revels
of summer. Tobias was manning
the angels & Eugene the imagination &
MJ the computer. I sat at a bus stop
in the rain
& looked into the beating heart of it all
before joining the others.
You know & I know what was said there.

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Gardenias & Porkpies
for Lady Day & Prez

Less than an hour from being plucked
& fingered the petals
wilt and yellow, thus
its reputation for one night stands,
the urgency of what memory reveals
in a song. Each of them leaned
towards their golden arm, their
lament
at the heart of things.

There are so many reasons
to tire of the mathematics of breathing,
the inevitable repetition and
lack of improvisation.
How form is but an ending.
And how the devil should tire for
the fun he is entitled. The only thing
not limiting enough,
the song in its entirety,
rages forth in gardenias &
porkpies in black & white
stills. Unable to say to one another
I have left you.
Unable to manage the humanity
of it all, leaving only
something more.

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the body in the backyard

Neither of us grew up
and thus ran the summers down
like blown embers across
the desert floor, always westward,
in spooled heat &
graveyard boots.

Apartments where you slept
on the floor, you don’t remember
them. I remember each.
Even some of the phone numbers.
I held you down the morning
you had your stomach pumped,
pried loose
the nail sunk to the bone.

I didn’t know that I knew
how to dig a grave. After the overdose
I bent you into the fetal, and
buried you, and here, again,
under diction & the ripe weight
of words you never cared to hear.

I think of you now when I am drinking
in a coffee shop, alone. And
in thunderstorms. Certain songs,
you know how that is. Then you are
forgotten, and I am a body of
sparrows again chasing down
the
rain.

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