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Mold

Strangers keep asking when I’m going to fit

the mold that they need.  I’m a hobo, a street musician.

I paint on corners, and read my poems

on the sidewalk. Fuck the coffee snob houses.

They’ll take me if I want them.

I write.   This is it. This is all you get.   

This is my hand. It will probably cramp soon.

I must write while pain is young

 

 

Let us not be folded into others’ cubicles,

not deranged and broken by their patterns.

 

Listen.  I am the greatest woman to ever live. 

Lick me.  When I walk into a room of dredges

they slide the muck towards me with eyes as lonely

as history. They want to pluck my string. Hear the symphony

of my fucked lost lines. Stand aside

poesy. I have a cunt of amber.  Men, women

I’ve changed the philosophy, I’ve brought back witchcraft.

 

 

 

 

umm hmm

you looked so good

when I touched you

I became old.

Dirty thoughts raced ahead

of the “how was your days” and the

“nice, glad you’re homes.”

 

 

 

I trembled out of human control

I drank the cheap ale down hard

smoked fast and frequent.

 

your body rolled

on the top of my mouth

 

If you are alone in dark

water, wait for me.

 

I’ll be the fist of plunder

the knife of excess

the city fountain lit with blue

a rope out, a hand job.

mumbles

I don’t how it began.  I think I was born this way. not that I’ve haven’t spent years workin’ on sound. i have. I’ve made sound into a friend.  I’ve made it into something that happens when I sit down and write.   I’ve made it automatic, and not that I can even call it sound.  its not sound. most of it is irregular, the meter is like a hobo’s hum.  the tone playful, simple, and humdrum.  its the hour after your grandmother died, and you don’t know it yet, but you expect the worse when the phone rings.  Its the process of mopping a floor that doesn’t need it.  You do it because you can’t sit still.  you can’t mourn uncertainty. you can’t pace into a hole. so you clean.  you put everything in a place.  you double check, under the bed, you hang up your robe that fell two months ago.  Then you mumble “give me thousands of lovers,” maybe rock or shake a leg, or crack your neck.  you ask what’s the point of this, sigh.  Then city lights shut off. the sun comes over the houses, into your window, and for some reason, light hits your hand, and you smile, and your eyes drop a little dumb tear, and little laugh begins to fold and open your chest, and a voice begins. its says, now there was a time, oh of course there was a time,a normal time, really just yesterday, a p and j was made on homemade bread, the bread was toasted, and the j got all over and p greased the counter. it wasn’t that good, but it was good enough. the p and j is rotten. it is not fit for a last meal.  it is not a beef stick.  you call it dinner with anger, but you eat it. and sleep the same.  in the late afternoon you say, I think I was born this way. you pick up the cheap guitar and sing for hours. you don’t remember how it began.  you’ve worked years at raising your voice into a responsible companion. Now every time you pick up a guitar, a voice comes.  its automatic.   there are problems.  nobody values a voice. its taken for granted.  no one wants to hire or buy your voice. people turn the volume down.  the people want dance music, not throat songs, not blues strums, there is no place for your sound. you go into the box and color on the walls.  put pictures up, settle in, reserved to die that way. somebody kicks the box, you look up, a girl is moppin up. she’s says, i heard your song, its good, you need practice.  she climbs in the box and hits her fist into you. she sets a beat.  you look at her, hard, long, it hurts.  your sound at first is a scream.  then a melody,  then your voice falls out in hobo meter, its a tone. a vibration. a seed. a bomb, a gene, you don’t know.  you can’t say if it is this or that you don’t know where it came from or how.  you stay in the box, and let your brain thump out.  

Bedside manners Aubade or a poem for U.S.A

 

I’d love to hold you to the end of time

I don’t know why, You’re heavy and suffer

from temper tantrums. Your gun has entered me

many times but you’ve never pulled the trigger.

Lovers quarrel, but that’s not us.  We’re more like

friends that kiss and help the other dress. 

In the end I’ll put you in a uniform.

Some days are just like that. I still don’t know why.

 

 

John Donne Help me write this poem.

I’ll play it on my guitar and sing off key.

If the message is easy the people will clap.

I’ll get paid. And in the night I’ll lay my head down

on a pillow that is used to being split in two. From me and you

in the coffin there will be skin cells and fingernails.

We’ll hide the pain by stoic love.

Say, “I loved you just because your human,

now your grass and beans, clay and a heart sack.”

 

Hands can hide the deepest pain.

Just by waving smiles come.

Tonight I’ll fake it for you. 

I’ll drink some ale and  steal the covers.

You’ll sigh, forget tomorrow you have to split

in two, break the bonds and get the sticky job done.

All pigs die. And it never made me cry

One of us will dress the other after death

The body won’t bend, the skill saw will come.

The gentle wet spots will dry.

 

I still don’t know why.

I’ll lie tonight, and tell you there’s nothing to worry about.

A glass of water is free and so are we.

Nothing can steal touches.

I hate memories.  They come to smack me.

I saw a man shot in the head on TV

His back shoes still stand out at me. 

Photographs used to be easy to take.

Now its hard to see the fear, anger, and frustration

in your cheek

 

I was never in Iraq, I like sand castles just the same.

The war will never end. But lets pretend

Tomorrow the boat doesn’t leave

Tomorrow the planes don’t fly

Tonight the solar system will save our bloody souls.

Wash away the guilt that one of us will lose.

I bet its you.  I’m much to bad of person

I’ll live forever in mourning. I’ve had fun in your mouth

Your tongue is velvet and lavender. Hold me

through tomorrow. I’ll sacrifice nothing after

Old age never comes to friends of the sea.

I wish we weren’t children of sailors.

At least in the rest,  we be at the place of our birth

Salt water wash over us and the last sea otter. 

 

I afraid to turn a page. That will mean we are

older, gray and more adapt to decay.

When we first met I was barely 20.

Now I’m happy in the morning

and restless at night.  If this big

world keeps spinning, I guess so will we.

Hold me in your words, lets pretend

the world has ears and the lessons are just slow

to come around. War is just antidote and hunger

an empty jar, a blown off arm, A piece of freedom

 

I was never in Afghanistan but I like cinnamon just the same

The war will never end but lets pretend

Tomorrow your boots won’t slip and go

Tomorrow you collar won’t be blue and starched

Tonight the windswept pines beat the anger out of our hearts.

Suppress the damage of the homemade bomb of our fear.

One of us will smell the others rotten flesh. The other

will gag and sway as the end moves a little farther.

If it’s me it will be ironic. I am the poet and never

do anything with danger on it.  You’re  the soldier.

I’ll be the crushed petal in your breast pocket.

Smell me while you die.  I’ll wash you while the apple pie bakes

in the oven.  And in every love song I’ll place your name

 

 

 

 

 2007