It's the time of year when all you have to do is look at a tree
To catch it blushing and
We're walking toward the movie theater
And she scolds me for
The beer so early, scolds me for
Speaking too loud, scolds me for
Swearing in front of families, scolds me for
The joke about the child and the shotgun and
Bang,
My heart is in my shoes plodding on
And not in my hand holding hers.
I want to explain how I once danced with a girl
Screaming down a busy sidewalk,
Bumping into passers-by and each other
And the laughing, how reckless
And immature. How senseless
And childish and how
I still want to be,
Holding a hand
Unfeeling,
One finger raised to her lips
And the cool air passing through them
To silence me, to still me.
Such pretty eyes reprimanding
And looking away,
Looking back
And her looking with barometers
Of expectation, eyes peeling layers
And my quiet prayers for rain. Oh, rain,
How dry the summer had been, only drizzles
And no wind. no damage and no insurance,
No danger. none of that
Violent spring weather.
The looking back
To see a girl
And the girl besides.
And then the movie's finished and we're back in the car
And the small talking becomes looking out the window
With the radio on and the moving so fast
And the cool, cool air rushing
Through my hair, my shirt.
The streetlights were the streetlights of
A late night in the early summer and we didn't know where to go
So she picked me up in her car and we drove aimlessly around the
Neighborhood, kissing at every stop sign and going
In circles, going nowhere,
Her hand in my hair,
Going in circles,
Her hand under my shirt,
Going nowhere.
And how badly I want us to run,
How badly I want us to fall and injure
And how badly I want us to
Be unleashed and loud and dangerous
As escaped elephants. To be to blame,
Completely without shame and crashing
Into everything around us without the fear
Of breaking off, the fear of eyes breaking
Away and melting in the snow yet to fall.
The cool air moving in circles yet somehow
Going everywhere.
September 17, 2009
September 9, 2009
waking up to a cento and scrambled eggs
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
and the clock that will not make me know
how to leave you
it is difficult to think
of you without me
in the sentence
the one warm beautiful thing in the world
breathing upon my right rib
like a tree
breathing through its spectacles
fatigue shifting like dunes
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand
the waves which have kept me
from reaching you
your hand pressing all that
riotous black sleep into
the quiet form of daylight.
the eyes roll asleep as if turned by the wind
and the lids flutter open slightly like a wing.
the wind blows towards us particularly. here
are your bones crossed
on my breast like a rusty flintlock.
you smile
and pull the trigger.
oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
naked as a table cloth.
you had to walk through the great gate of kiev
to get to the living room.
it was autumn
by the time i got around the corner.
melancholy breakfast.
just plain scrambled eggs.
muss es sein? es muss nicht sein
mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves.
but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky.
somewhere beyond this roof
a jet is making a sketch of the sky
i shall see my daydreams walking
down the muggy street beginning to sun.
the buses glow like clouds.
i don't glow at all
so subtly dragged away
by the silver flying machine.
you have left me to the sewers of
our most elegant
lascivious bile
where the filth is
pumped in and slanders and pollutes and determines.
a tongue given wholly to luxurious usages
while music scratches its scrofulous stomach
and the tattered cordage of my will.
my most tender feelings writhe and bear the fruit of screaming
wouldn't you like the eggs a little different today?
("it's a summer day
and i want to be wanted
more than anything else in the world.")
the toaster's electrical ear waits
without breath or distant rejoinder
as indifferent as an encyclopedia.
the silent egg thinks.
run your finger along your no-moss mind
that's not a run in your stocking
it's a hand on your leg.
i beg you
do not go.
(you don't want me to go
where you go
what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies
so i go where
you don't want me to.)
and i am sweating a lot by now;
if it won't happen to me what shall i do?
i think of it on grey mornings with death in my mouth
flailing about like vipers in a pail, writhing and hissing without panic
as i historically belong to the enormous bliss
of american death.
i want to be at least as alive
as the vulgar.
i have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
with a very real humor you'd be proud of.
i accept
so much
it's like
vomiting.
you will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.
and if somebody does
it’ll be sheer gravy
a final chapter
no one reads because the plot is over.
my poem is finished and i haven’t mentioned
frank o'hara.
and the clock that will not make me know
how to leave you
it is difficult to think
of you without me
in the sentence
the one warm beautiful thing in the world
breathing upon my right rib
like a tree
breathing through its spectacles
fatigue shifting like dunes
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand
the waves which have kept me
from reaching you
your hand pressing all that
riotous black sleep into
the quiet form of daylight.
the eyes roll asleep as if turned by the wind
and the lids flutter open slightly like a wing.
the wind blows towards us particularly. here
are your bones crossed
on my breast like a rusty flintlock.
you smile
and pull the trigger.
oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
naked as a table cloth.
you had to walk through the great gate of kiev
to get to the living room.
it was autumn
by the time i got around the corner.
melancholy breakfast.
just plain scrambled eggs.
muss es sein? es muss nicht sein
mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves.
but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky.
somewhere beyond this roof
a jet is making a sketch of the sky
i shall see my daydreams walking
down the muggy street beginning to sun.
the buses glow like clouds.
i don't glow at all
so subtly dragged away
by the silver flying machine.
you have left me to the sewers of
our most elegant
lascivious bile
where the filth is
pumped in and slanders and pollutes and determines.
a tongue given wholly to luxurious usages
while music scratches its scrofulous stomach
and the tattered cordage of my will.
my most tender feelings writhe and bear the fruit of screaming
wouldn't you like the eggs a little different today?
("it's a summer day
and i want to be wanted
more than anything else in the world.")
the toaster's electrical ear waits
without breath or distant rejoinder
as indifferent as an encyclopedia.
the silent egg thinks.
run your finger along your no-moss mind
that's not a run in your stocking
it's a hand on your leg.
i beg you
do not go.
(you don't want me to go
where you go
what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies
so i go where
you don't want me to.)
and i am sweating a lot by now;
if it won't happen to me what shall i do?
i think of it on grey mornings with death in my mouth
flailing about like vipers in a pail, writhing and hissing without panic
as i historically belong to the enormous bliss
of american death.
i want to be at least as alive
as the vulgar.
i have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
with a very real humor you'd be proud of.
i accept
so much
it's like
vomiting.
you will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.
and if somebody does
it’ll be sheer gravy
a final chapter
no one reads because the plot is over.
my poem is finished and i haven’t mentioned
frank o'hara.