Category Archives: poetry

How to Escape a Choke Hold

The strangest
things about self
destruction
are the necessary
awareness
and resolve.


He Did it Without Being Asked, or Asking if I Wanted Him To

It’s the sound of water running
that makes me turn my head.
He’s standing at the sink
rinsing the dishes
and putting them in the washer.
His hands have purpose, move
in the steady,
deliberate gesture
of a man washing up
for the night.


Summer, 1986

The pages of the old Playboy magazines
we had in stacks
in my father’s cluttered garage
were flat, muted moth wings
with wholesome milk ad faces
smiling up at me from their covers
before the days of rampant plastic
surgery; pointy nippled titties
small and high or supple
breasts attached to women arching
their backs, ringless fingers draped
across the delicate curves of their
untucked stomachs.

At age twelve,
I made my living
by selling them to boys
out my parents’
bathroom window;
an underage Playboy drive-
through of sorts.

There were other magazines:
Hustler, Cherry, some nameless
without covers stashed
beneath the bottom drawer
of the bathroom; battered publications
found by accident
when I pulled the drawer
out too far, smashing my toe
as it landed on the floor.
I remember in particular,
one with a brown haired girl
who traded a Tootsie Pop
for the cock
of an old, bald man;
her mouth and eyes
as lifeless
as the blow-up doll
she resembled.

Even at twelve, I knew
better than to sell
those ones
out the window.
But I got five bucks
a copy
for the Playboys.


We Must Have Been Very Entertaining

Driving past my childhood home,
everything seemed smaller.
The ‘big hill’
was not much more
than a slope,
the houses, miniatures
built with legos,
lawns of dry, brown grass.
I wondered if the people
who bought the Wilson’s
house knew of the murder
inside. The bullet
caught my best friend’s mom
as she was almost
out the door.

Our house was the same,
air conditioner hanging
out the exact window
in which my mom put it,
so cold indoors some days
we joked that you
could hang sides
of meat. Some days
I would step outside
just to thaw
for a while.
There was the porch
where I rollerskated
to songs on the radio,
the window my mom smashed
with her bare hand
in a rage, and the front yard
that seemed so large
when I was little.

Looking at it I understood
how the neighbors heard
all the screaming.

We were right there
the whole time,
hanging it all out
for the world to see,
reality television
before reality television.


Lurve, Lurve, Lurve

sometimes
it snaps,
like a twig,
in half
and you’re left
staring down
at the jagged
ended pieces,
wondering how
to put them
back together
again.


Not Much Left to Lose

come out with me
he asks
again.  again
i say no,
thank you.

when i was a kid
i had bad skin.
once a boy on the bus
called me
zit factory.

i ran home
to my mom
crying.

she told me
i wear my heart
on my sleeve.

i told her
i didn’t know
what that means.

don’t let things
hurt you
so much
she said.

twenty five years later
it still hurts
just the same

and dinner
and a movie
and a man
to tell me
i’m smart
and pretty
would go a damned
long way.


Einstein Admitted His Mistake in 1929

The wind stirs the heat
like a pot
of rotten underpants boiling
and the tree
across the field
is a woman in silhouette.
Her hips are still
but she’s shaking
her hair, stretching her neck
in slow circles.
The universe
has no edge.
It expands as the stink
of garbage
in this heat except
nobody knows
when it might snap back.
If it ends,
it’s not so bad.
We’ll go one
by one or all
at once.
The houses on this block
look the same
and the neighborhood
would be desolate
if not for the children
and the American
flag raised 25 feet, waving
like a virgin
homecoming queen, chain
clanking dutifully
against
the silver pole
on which
it hangs.


Leave the Why to the Philsophers

it is not the job of the poet
to tell you why
when you place
a box of stuff
on the curb
marked free
in permanent black ink
nobody wants what’s inside.
But if you mark
the same box
five dollars
it will be gone
in fifteen minutes.

.


A Year and Some Change

you smell like sand
i think
as i lay my cheek
on your arm.

we grow farther apart
the more
we know
so that i miss you most
when i’m with you.


Looking For the Right Thing Among All the Other Things

The cheese grater, a stiff
slice of Parmesan.  The hand
rolled cigarette.  The knobs
on the stove all turned
to off.  The bottle of Budweiser,
its label corner
peeled.  Your dirty
fingernails.  Pistachios
in a cellophane bag, the shells
in the ashtray
overflowing.  The blackening
lung. The beginning
of your end.
The ruffled skirt, the wristwatch,
and the glass mustard jar
with a butter knife stuck
in it. The Bicycle playing
cards and the yet to be
sliced baguette.