Category: Poetry

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Have a Nice Day: Poem 21

When I came to California, a gruff New Yorker,
 
well nigh 38 years plus change ago,
 
the first time I heard, “Have a nice day!” from
 
a super market clerk after I had purchased
 
a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and milk,
 
I thought to myself, “What the actual fuck?!”
 
I had no idea what she was up to or what she meant.
 
And then I heard it everywhere, “Have a nice day,”
 
said the ice cream store clerk and the sandwich shop
 
cashier and even the gas station attendant.
 
I thought I had landed on some spooky, sticky planet
 
of gooey good cheer, totally fake and reflexive.
 
So now, much more accustomed to the saying,
 
as common as “Where should we go to eat? Or
 
“Did you finish your homework?”, I jokingly reply,
 
“Don’t tell me what to do! I have authority issues,” and
 
I wink, the closest I can come to a smiley faced emoticon.

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At the Diner (Hour 23)


At the diner at 4 a.m.,
cheesecake and coffee
the brew so dusty sweet
and the cake real ricotta.
At the diner, we’d talk
after the bars close
and the beer wore off,
and eat French fries
or eggs and put dimes
in the table top juke box,
hear our favorite songs
like Free bird and
Sympathy for the Devil.
And we’d splay our
legs on long, red, vinyl
seats sometimes cracked,
our backs against booth
walls of plastic sheen.
At the diner, we’d hum
the songs we heard at the
bar we just left, our favorite
local bands playing, while
we drank Heineken and
smoked Camel cigarettes,
out back for a J or two.
But under the bright lights
of the diner til quarter to 7 or
later, we’d laugh sometimes
spitting our coffee or Pepsi
at some stupid shit one of us
said, and everything’s funny
when you haven’t slept all night.
At the diner, off the expressway,
the waitresses know us, and
bring us our eggs and toast
the way we like them, sunny
side up and easy tan and grape
jelly in the little plastic peel off
boxes, three or four of them.
And every Friday and Saturday
it was the same for us three,
Deb, Jackie and me, at the diner.

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I believe in moons


“Martian moons are Phobos and Deimos,
 
the latter translated as Panic,” I told you then.
 
It was mid-way through our junior year–our glory days.
 
I would leave you that very next week for California.
 
The last time we drove around the lake in your jeep,
 
open air, breeze whipping the hair against our ears, you
 
replied: “I don’t believe in moons, stars or planets.”
 
I still don’t know what you mean.
 
 

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Room Mosaic–Ten for Today

Fan 

A fan blows rhythm into wood;

Across the room stirs fluttered paper;

Vibrations travel far into distant jungles.
 
Poster

Sylvia Plath said it; trapped inside the mind

Nothing you can say or do to get out of that fertile futility forest

Except to lose it.
 
Picasso

The politics of a line fascinates the artist,

Astonishes the viewer with simplicity, 

Of message, method and mood–peace face.
 
Photo

Three folded into one chair–Mamie, flanked by two little granddaughters–summer in France,

My two girls embraced in awkward submission, forced smiles,

Posing for another camera off center.


Air Plant

A floating glass bubble filled with silver and brown sand,

Hemp roped from the ceiling,

Inside crowd rocks, pebbles, earth, shells and one dead succulent.
 
Clay Pot

An art fair in Santa Monica, a day before many moons ago,

When time belonged to browse and easy chatter,

Not like now 20 years later when sparse, efficient words work us through the hours. 

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Cut

I cut myself last night, a slice not deep but well-placed

like a knotted finger string, center tip of the left index

or pointer, that guiding gun dog of the hand.

It happened as I chopped and spoke, diced and

listened, as she teasingly warned, “Careful. Don’t cut yourself.”

And then, not five minutes after smug riposte, “I don’t cut myself

any more. I’ve been chopping longer than you’re alive,” the eye first,

followed a hair-pin later by stinging prick alarm, ending with

stifled exhale and reflex footing to clear water.

Quick pouring like a scalp wound, I swiftly improvised a napkin

tourniquet, then resumed my chop in plump, papered digit,

slow labor, but serviceable, hidden, blunted, wrapped

crimson seeping like shame, pride and irreverence tucked

under the skin resting on disbelieving bones.

I slipped so quickly to the sink and back, returning

to my task unfazed and fluid, so they wouldn’t see, she

who pronounced my fate and the other who witnessed.

Brushing off the slight speed bump in the banter, I turned

the absorbing wrap growing redder toward me, out of sight.

And soon they left me for work and parties, wounded, hindered

and aching to know, the pain signal, what attention needed

paying, which moment or opportunity squandered.

Today, I press it, that slit in consciousness, right thumb to

left index, cataloguing input–sensory, intuitive and cognitive–

carefully20160807_202150.jpg caressing the seconds at my fingertips.

 

 

 

 

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Distance Dis-invited


Observing the world through the wrong end of the telescope 

again jitters me anxious. 

Everything appears near and far 

all at once, and yet, 

the horror bursts under my skin–like inverted leeches 

and the loud clown faces stretched wide 

like reflections in a round, polished door knob, 

gold, red, bleeding before my mind. 

Their insane grins rattle the dendrite bones .

 
The shouting matches pervasive from Twitter to the barroom 

to the soccer field to my inner universe, debating 

whether to sit or lie, kick or run, vote or march, rail or listen…

all at the same mad, ear-splitting volume, nerve-splintering. 

And yet, the glass distorts the all of everything–

the faces, voices, coughing, snarling and sweat–

keeps them remote though their breath cooks my calm, 

no matter whether in ear shot or scope range, 

targeting me and mine.

 
I witness the movie screen from miles away, 

despite the price of dislocation—death, 

a deadness like numb itchiness in sleeping limbs. 

It’s no good at all is all I’m trying to say. 

Nothing good can come from so far away, distance 

that does not create peace, 

does not create… 

Distance invited, procured and deliberate,

not fortresses defended.

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Ten for Today: No Time


A brewing there is; it’s in the air, 

Something unknown, something

Unwarranted, not guaranteed but

Certain all the same, something 

Like tomorrows, which never

Ever come, at least not the way

We experience them in the thick

Of time, inside of it, surrounded

By it, time, that is, the same time

That convinces us that the present

Moment is all there isn’t, not 

Like there’s a day or so, or more

Ahead like a y intersects an x, at 

The axis, an infinite line projection

To somewhere, really nowhere

Except in the collective imagination

Of something coming and something

Going, as if it-they-we could do it,

Make time and space move us, move

Us toward that something’s arrival.

For it’s certainly coming, definitely

Here————————->.

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The Silent Hills


Vespers:

Soft vespers

Semi circle

Wide open vowels

Floating deeply

vibratory chords

Sonorous chant

Breeze airless

Cushioned, sat

We hum

We sing

Intoning spun

Round, room

Robed in us

Monks, men

Wraps, knees

Lips, Oms

Sari-song.

 

Scripture:

A library full of late light

Colors of the fading day

Skins of the world, brown,

Ocher, chestnut, taupe,

White bearded sons and

Bright yellow daughters, sun

And moon all gathered

For scriptures’ secrets told

We sit atop a hill, distant

From them, but near–us

Eyes closed to the world

We listen, slide into others

Gentle greetings and wander

Strange tongues we know–

Without words, definition.

I make myself small to let

Others commune, pass by

In a library of love and light.

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Ten Minutes: An Affirmation

I am neither my title, 

surname, 

job 

or 

thick toes. 

I am a traveler 

into the sheaves of human margins, 

turning the book inside out 

and rewriting the musical notes 

to sing the paper strings. 

I am a digger 

in ancient French tongues,

salt and euphony, 

and a forgiver of rhymes, 

slight 

and fever. 

My daily question mark half circles 

to dot the when of things, 

bring them face to my own blind eyes, 

up close like cilia sensors: 

steam, 

pallor 

and frankincense. 

Our skin aflame 

scented musk and cream,

I mean, 

as if all of us 

walked to the holy house, 

succumbed to the chewy silence, 

perched on velvet crushed cushions 

with our mouths circled 

and vibrating 

in the register 

of C(osmos).

   
Image: cosmos via Flickr 

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Forced Remodeling

image
I don’t mind a fearless toilet every once in a while,
but there comes a point at which it’s all too much.
I mean, having your downstairs toilet just up and go,
slide out the back door into the yard and disappear
for Crissakes.  
What’s worse, however,
I mean the absolute worst,
clearly it took hostages.
Now the upstairs toilet has gone missing,
and I can only suspect coercion or bribery,
some sort of malfeasance.

Upon closer examination,
they–the runaway toilets–lifted a few items
from both bathrooms.
One medicine cabinet and linoleum flooring
left blatant voids,
a rectangular hollow
in the canary colored wall downstairs and
the 1960s avocado and brown squared linoleum vacancy
in the top.
A chalk dust trail of scuffle and drag into the yard
made my detective work easy. 

image

No motive to hang my ass cheeks over,
but I’ll gamble a guess that they got tired,
fed up with getting shat upon,
chided for being old, chipped and wasteful,
and so walked.
They’re definitely gone–
no trace but the chalk prints.
Rather an aggressive move,
but not much else to do now but find replacements.

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