New Note
New Note
Going through the notes
on my phone feels like reading
bad cut-up poems, half-formed
images interspersed with
directions, reminders, lists:
the moon lights the sky before
it’s risen, 300 Central Park West,
film unafraid to be still,
cancel Amazon Prime.
Here cross-streets and grocery lists
take on new proportions,
the mundane and the sublime
steep together and leave me to see
the elegance in the scaffolding.
I delete the things I now remember
without reminder. What remains?
Going through the notes
on my phone feels like reading
bad cut-up poems, half-formed
images interspersed with
directions, reminders, lists:
the moon lights the sky before
it’s risen, 300 Central Park West,
film unafraid to be still,
cancel Amazon Prime.
Here cross-streets and grocery lists
take on new proportions,
the mundane and the sublime
steep together and leave me to see
the elegance in the scaffolding.
I delete the things I now remember
without reminder. What remains?
Beautifully Broken
You shivered when I touched you
Although my hands were warm
You bundled yourself up in protective clothing
Though the bright skies show no sign of storm
A bitter heart is broken
A soul I see you've lost
All of the people in your past
They've hurt you..just see what it has cost
You cannot go on living
In a world where you are full of fear
How do I do it you ask
Listen closely, let me whisper in your ear
I have gone back to the trusting
Little girl I used to know
So convinced the world means well
Yes, it is delusional I know
I put on a happy front
Place a smile upon my face
Take myself somew
Eating our young
Eating our young
Yolk pools like yellow blood on white plates and napkins.
Bacon curled, little flayed bodies pantomiming television.
Talk centers on nine year-olds sexting, oh yeah, well your dick
is tiny. Nine. A dick the size of a sausage link at best. Coarse
talk for salted little girl lips, staining her fingers, gyrating
brain in its whirlygig of confused language, impossible urge.
Mimosas cloud the table in pale orange light, tongues fizz
in a champagne orchard. Imagine everything not little
Yolk pools like yellow blood on white plates and napkins.
Bacon curled, little flayed bodies pantomiming television.
Talk centers on nine year-olds sexting, oh yeah, well your dick
is tiny. Nine. A dick the size of a sausage link at best. Coarse
talk for salted little girl lips, staining her fingers, gyrating
brain in its whirlygig of confused language, impossible urge.
Mimosas cloud the table in pale orange light, tongues fizz
in a champagne orchard. Imagine everything not little
Robot Joe
Joe Cunningham, batsman from Britain
Had cricket fans totally smitten.
He's a robot, you see -
Living Room
Our evenings have withdrawn
into a closed living room,
where we don’t chat
but let a large TV cheat us.
Another Week
At the end of summer,
when Prince Keng was seven,
one week with his father.
One week of riding,
hunting, walking, climbing,
standing atop a limestone arch,
the grazing horses far below,
tiny as toys,
his father's hand
on his shoulder.
One week without school,
without people fussing
over his clothes,
without Ying or Chye
or his baby sister,
with his father
to himself--
except for his fathe
The Weight
One drunken night, he lay on the coach road
and she lay beside him. He pictured a truck
descending–wobbling around corners,
gaining momentum. They spoke about crushes,
first kisses. He told her of an older woman
who’d stolen a thing he couldn’t replace.
He tried to describe the weight of lost things.
She listened until he stopped,
until I stopped
hiding behind he.
Woodland Music
Woodland Music
Hiking along the limpid river
we listened to the larks and crows,
to the leaves of birch and willow quiver,
and a thousand and one piccolos
of hot and bothered vernal peepers
merged with the warbling of brown creepers.
A distant but persistent din
began to brashly muscle in,
breaking the woodland’s jocund chorus—
a mystifying hive-like hum.
We wondered where it issued from.
We thought the mountain would restore us,
reinvigorate our ears,
gift us aural souvenirs,
tokens for a tuneless city,
Hiking along the limpid river
we listened to the larks and crows,
to the leaves of birch and willow quiver,
and a thousand and one piccolos
of hot and bothered vernal peepers
merged with the warbling of brown creepers.
A distant but persistent din
began to brashly muscle in,
breaking the woodland’s jocund chorus—
a mystifying hive-like hum.
We wondered where it issued from.
We thought the mountain would restore us,
reinvigorate our ears,
gift us aural souvenirs,
tokens for a tuneless city,
Oil and cotton
There’s a fleck of sunset on his dun-brown coat,
the synthetic one he wants to wash on cotton.
She’s on the other side of the Pond – his wife,
that is. We had our fun, but I wasn’t wife
material – too hot-headed. I take the coat,