Indian Gauze

New shirt: Indian gauze

--> sense memory:

Summers in Florida,

smell of Solarcaine on 

sun burnt skin, & mangos-

 a new fruit, 

make for sticky fingers & chin

My fingers walk her body; 

    this crease, 

    that scar, 

each a landmark 

on the map that leads me home.

Fans

Each fan has its own sound: a whir, and/or subtle pulse as its blades rotate against the air; the fan in our bedroom in the city is high pitched but the sound is still and constant.

The fan in our room in the country house, a huge wooden thing that wobbles threateningly above our bed makes almost no sound at all, but those ceramic knobs that hang at the ends of swirling brass ball chains clack together in its breeze.

The ceiling fan in the room where I grew up, is-- like the fan in our bedroom, white, metal, modern and efficient: meant to stir the sub tropical air so that it seems cooler than it is, and it makes a mighty roar that's hard to tune out.

In bed in the city, we lie parallel to one another, exhausted and chasing dutiful sleep; your foot seeks out mine to make sure I'm there to pull you out of bad dreams. Next to me, you breathe deeply, while I, awake, listen to the neighbors upstairs, the birds out front, and the fan's steady beat.

In the country, we curl around one another; the mattress' sag like a black hole pulls us together towards its center. Here, the mountain air is fresh and cooler at night; it almost feels like we can drink it, stirred and unstilled as it is by those wooden blades, and we sleep as if dead: deep and restful.

In the room of my youth, the thick sub-tropical air is heavy and wet; I stare at these familiar bookshelves, now all but emptied. A small white plastic TV is on in the corner, an unfamiliar channel just loud enough to be white noise to beat away the loneliness. I lie on this futon and reach out my own foot, but find only drywall where yours should be. The fan sings its incessant wail, reminding me of where I am.

Away

There you dance on the other side of an ocean,

a dance I can’t understand...

I gave you

these notes, (a choreography)

but your steps are all different now,

and with your back to me,

you spin away.

The Girl

The girl in the back of the bus had a secret dream: to stay in one place long enough to get bored.

Plum (for William Carlos Williams)

There’s a plum in the pocket of my black wool coat

and when my hand dives in for warmth

it tempts me with its promised sweetness.

I know that when I finally bite,

The juice will run red down my chin

and stain my t-shirt so I wait--

anticipate a little longer.

Friend

She's a friend, but not someone you feel passionate about, just someone you pass the time of day or kill time with, whatever, then one day without you realizing it, something changes and you can't wait to see her, and you buy her stupid little gifts like key chains from gum ball machines or bottles of hazel nut iced coffee because she likes it, or pins with funny sayings, you know, just to let her know you think of her sometimes, but nothing too dangerous or telling, but she notices, and suddenly she doesn't answer her phone when you call, and she doesn't ask if you want to get a beer after work, or go shopping with her on Saturday, and she begins to hang out with this guy she works with, no one special or anything, kind of a jerk you think, and it seems like every time you talk to her now she's telling you how the jerk told her this really funny joke, and it turns out to be something you used to tell people when you were in junior high, and it was funny back then, but you were in junior high and you think to yourself, what a jerk, and little by little you stop calling her because all she ever talks about now is this jerk, and you begin to realize how annoying she is and how predictable she's become and you realize how lucky you are that you decided never to tell her how you were beginning to feel.

Eulogy

Conceived by a father who was a dream, and a mother who was form, Story was alas, not to be; stillborn because Story’s mother was too cold to get out of bed where other lovers beckoned from beneath the sheets and behind the curtain, Story would never realize her dreams of Tibetan mountaintops or shy engineer suitors, nor would she parade herself garishly and proudly across snow white pages for all to admire. 

Story will be missed.  

Hair

You stand behind her as she sits at her desk, and in the overhead light, you see as if for the first time, her head, once all brown, now a halo of white, and you don’t feel revulsion that she’s gotten old, nor do you feel sadness at sensing yourself suddenly at the tipped end of the see-saw; you feel gratitude, that someone like she has shared this time, bestowed upon you this history, and those strands of white hair, (more than any ring) will tie you to her forever.

Grace

It’s the sweetest part of the night:

you squint through crusted eyes

at the red LED on the cable box

as you return from the bathroom;

it's 3:11.

Quietly, you slip back into bed, so you don't wake her,

but as you settle

with your back to her,

she turns and presses her warm naked body into you

and you smile,

thankful for four more hours.

Carrie

I’ve tatooed you,

I’ve tatooed you on my soul

in a palette bright and garish,

(blue, red, aqua, purple and gold)

and when I close my eyes

it’s always you I see

and I know for a fact, that 

from us, I'd never flee.

I’ve tatooed you, you see,

I’ve tatooed you on my soul

and when with age, I fade

and my days grow short and cold

in me you’ll yet remain

warm and constant, glowing and bold.

Pickpocket

admittedly,

I’m a verbal pickpocket

pilfering words from the mouths of babes

amongst whom apparently,

it is the currency

that anything for cool is the trade

so much spent

on this precarious commodity

that in those tender years,

even one's own mortality 

is nothing at all, but modest absurdity.

Waiting For You At 80th and 1st

rain dust on the windshield glows

green glows

gold retires

red but like the Moon without the Sun's light 

it’s really nothing on its own

shapeshifting people pass by with their dogs,  traffic 

sweeps up first 

diamond yellow silver spikes stab

the night, an illuminated ballet

anticipation grows

DCPS

“Kid,” they said, “you’ve got the gift of words”, but when no one could figure out who'd given it to me, they reached their hands down my throat to grab it away.

NEW MANIFESTO FOR CREATIVE EXPRESSIONISTS

We the creators, pledge to adopt and adapt the following:

-To imagine new outlets of expression

-To break former boundaries created both by ourselves and others; in other
words, to treat our past works as "straw dogs".

-To reset parameters so that other less brave or less creative individuals can express themselves within them, while they’re learning themselves and growing their own brave senses of self-expression

-Not to be ruled by preconceived notions of ourselves, our world, or our art-forms

-Not to be confined to only one venue of expression when we might find another medium or style to be more fitting at any given time

-Never to be confined by any external genre, culture, subculture, religion or platform

To add to this list as necessary or desired, and to copy and distribute it as widely as possible.

Together, we will create a non-centrist progressive movement in creative expression. We will recognize that only by being true to ourselves, can we be truly artistically free.

The Writer

On the page he pours his blood, his soul, and his cum, while in bed, his lover waits, patience ebbing.

Cord

I’m vacuuming over by the kitchen, and suddenly surprised by the length of the cord,  (I’d thought it was only 9 feet,) I look behind myself to see my wife holding the plug in her hand, and she shouts to me over the whir of the motor, “something strange happened to me today”.  

Gitty and Esther

“Mommy what does self-righjus mean?” 

Gitty took one last drag off her cigarette before stabbing it out in the styrofoam cup that held the sludge from Esther’s hot chocolate.  “It’s like your father, not letting us see each other more than twice a month, and not letting you live with me because I refuse to wear a wig and skirt, and keep Shabbes”, she wanted to say, but instead: “it’s self-righteous, and it means, you think your way is the only right way to do something.”

She watched as her daughter tried to select a color for Yogi’s picnic basket from the crayon fragments scattered around her on the floor, before settling on purple.  “So what do you think you’ll want for dinner mameleh?  I bet we can have pizza delivered to our room, you want pizza?”

As she passed the bay window on the way to the phone, she surreptitiously parted the vinyl curtains and scanned the motel's parking lot for the familiar white vans. 

While the two waited for their dinner to arrive, Gitty lit another cigarette, and studied the gas-station map,  while Esther continued to color Yogi.  

Advice

“What the hell do I need with advice from a goddamned tea bag” I thought.  I got that fortune cookie on Tuesday night, and it says to me  “Good clothes open many doors. Go shopping.” I figured I needed some new interview clothes, so I did.  I bought a new tie, a new shirt to go with it, and just for the hell of it, a new suit so I could make the best impression.

Now, my rents due, and I’ve got three dollars and seventy eight cents in my bank account until next month, so I go to the bank to see if I can get an overdraft, and while the bank managers in the back office, I see there’s this bowl of candy on his desk for anyone to take from, so I take one, and I take the little red square Dove chocolate, even though it’s the last one, and there on the inside of the red foil wrapper, it says “Success comes to those who have no fear; simply leap and the net will appear”, so before the manager even comes back, I get up and leave.  Just like that.  I go next door with my last three bucks, and I buy a cup of tea, the evening paper, and a lotto ticket.  I open the tea bag, and there, printed on the back of the little tag, it says “Don’t believe everything you read”.  

$5.00

Each story begins with a choice, one made either by or for its main character. Consider Yaya. Yaya is a 40 something year old man who works in a garage; though he isn't supposed to accept tips personally, (there's a lucite communal tip box for the benefit of the entire staff,) from one customer to whom he's been exceptionally helpful, he accepts the neatly folded five that's pressed into his hand. Later that night, he'll use it to buy himself one extra drink, which will effectively keep him at the bar an extra 17 minutes; during that extra time, he will meet his next girlfriend, or get in a fight. On the other hand, he may use the extra cash in his pocket to buy himself two lotto tickets, a cup of coffee, and a bag of Doritos.

If he chooses to save the bill, and use it that night at the bar, and he meets his next girlfriend, perhaps she'll become his wife and give him two children, one of whom will attend Princeton one day and earn a doctorate in physics, specializing in magnetics, the other of whom will die of leukemia two days before her 11th birthday, or maybe the woman will give him herpes.

If he gets into a fight, maybe he will accidentally kill the man who started with him, or before the first punch, perhaps the two will reconcile and become fast friends, and discover they are from the same obscure part of Kenya.

Maybe one of the lotto tickets will win 2.00, or 34,000,000.00.

If it wins 2.00, maybe he will count himself lucky, bless God, and buy himself a muffin to eat later for desert, or maybe he will buy himself two scratch-offs, win nothing more, and curse himself for having wasted 2.00 when he could have had a muffin. Or maybe he will win a million dollars a year for life.

Maybe guilt, or honor will get the better of Yaya, and before moving onto his next customer, he'll quietly slip the bill into the lucite box himself.

Each story begins with a choice, and with each choice there are a million stories.