Runaway Odysseus: Collected Poems 2008-2012

  your earrings glinted

  in constellations which should

  have a universe of patience.

  Yet you cannot dredge any

  strength to wait

  for this checkout line

  simply to die.

  May 31, 2010

  Goodbye to the Goodbyes

  Goodbye goodbye…may I never

  see you again even when the day

  grows thick like cold water,

  sinking through the soil while

  night sticks oily at our shirts.

  Goodbye goodbye…may I never

  see you again even when the

  droughts soak up the lawns

  like a sponge gone so thin

  its bones bulge through the

  skin as I imagine muscles would.

  Goodbye goodbye…may I never

  see you again even when our

  hug grows weak like weeds

  at the knees before you cross seas

  so deep even the currents

  get lost like my voice does at times.

  At times like these.

  Granite Rain

  Rain’s slipping on the shingles – sounds

  like shoes crunching broken glass.

  I’m hoping for the storm to outlive

  the afternoon, because this June sun

  soaks through me and pulses against my

  egg-raw nerves. I stir my sugar and jet

  tea, seeing the heavy drops of water

  dig up the sundried garden, curving

  the debris of rigor mortis leaves

  into soup to soothe the grass.

  The rain’s drowning everything into

  life and it’s wonderful, yet I’m

  waiting for the sun to knife the

  granite clouds that somehow

  crumble as slick as bread.

  Sometimes I wish it wouldn’t.

  June 18, 2010

  Gypsy Mistress

  My Gypsy mistress stands

  between me and sunset,

  as if I would be able to

  see it if she wasn’t there.

  Which is often – she’s

  always on the walk like prowl,

  raveny hair bouncing off her

  shoulder like rainwater

  diving from storm drains.

  She’s old Parisian – a tangle in the

  threadfolds cold

  with hickory November.

  Nothing more than rags

  patched together, the

  quiltwork world enough to

  keep all her sides warm –

  the Monday side tired,

  the Friday side warmed.

  She’s the modern day

  from a century back,

  squeezed huglove between two

  wars that crack sprout like

  roots, all liquid in the sticky soil.

  She barters for her shoes,

  the only expensive in her life –

  besides the notepads that

  she jots her writes in until

  the pages weigh her down like sin.

  Sometimes she confuses walk

  with talk. It’s then she draws

  footprints like ellipsis dipped

  in paper snow.

  Her glow shadows

  her steps – so when

  I think I’ve caught her,

  I’m left instead

  with this nightlight silhouette.

  And you know

  what? Sometimes such

  things are just enough.

  May 2, 2010

  Harvest Down the Branches

  I bit the apple in –

  collapsing its crackled

  green skin already blotched

  by the fall. It bruises black

  and blue as easily as I do.

  Some say the apple withers

  with the bite. They never

  stop to think how the apple

  stretches, the long spit

  of apple juice making its

  way down to the grasses.

  The appled ocean is enough

  to drown worms if it wants.

  If I could bottle up the

  city-bright sounds that come

  with biting down to the core,

  I’d sell it by the gallon – to

  myself. I would recycle

  the apple crunch until

  it was a tired grunt. Then

  I would pour it in the weeds,

  let the autumn sun greed it up.

  This is a simple, apple-picker’s

  dream – it’s good that this

  basket is just Act I, Scene I.

 

  March 26, 2010

  Here’s to Sleep

  Please, carry me in on a westward wind –

  rock me to sleep on your whims

  that tock with a pendulum’s tongue,

  humming like the rain splatter on drums.

  Please, my sleepy muse,

  hug me like a blanket,

  loving me with the past’s ashes

  gift-wrapped, all to breed

  new flowers from the ground –

  all so I could put a new blue

  rose in your hair when the

  next hour sounds.

  Please, put a smile on my face

  as I fall asleep so if

  I die, people would believe

  I died happy. Hug me and

  keep me warm – the night feels cold

  against this bold fool’s soul.

  Please, close the blinds –

  don’t let the sunshine in

  and the night unwind

  and curl backwards

  along time’s own spine.

  Just give me five more minutes

  in your arms and then, and only

  then, can I face the world

  ready and alone.

  Hold Your Breath

  Even cemeteries see need

  to breathe at times - although

  it's hard, the way the vines

  around the tombstones

  pulse and wither and squeeze

  stones free from the

  ground.  

  So it seems our departed

  die twice - even someone's 

  old sweetheart's heart has

  to lie asleep through two wakes

  too.  It's hard to think

  this world has billed them

  twice - the bureaucratic

  charm of the tree's roots

  stretching arms throughout

  the soil, 

  not seeing nor caring

  that their late morning

  rising is scratching the

  bed where someone's

  Uncle Ted or Aunt Kelly lies.   

  Honeysuckles in March

  I’d love to love a Norah,

  a florist whose floral arrangements

  floor you as soon as you walk

  through the door to her little

  flower shop, her little flower shop

  with the mallow plants rotting

  through the bottoms of the wooden flower pots.

  I’d talk with her, her with that white

  lilac – distracted in the tangles

  of her hair – purpling with blush

  as we’d speak with hushed voices

  so as not to wake up the poppies

  floppyed over with sleep. I would

  dream my dreams then and keep

  on talking. I would drawl slow, I would stall.

  I’d keep the moment living as long

  as I could…stand tall, I would be thinking,

  no one likes a slouch.

  She would say she wouldn’t have loved

  me a year ago, back when she’d

  passed her time with

  singing, drinking, charades, and other

  games with her friends who lived

  just around the
bend, friends pretending

  to be her stilts, but simply being

  her crutches instead. I would be surprised

  that she could breathe and see back

  then, when one thinks of her friends’

  ivy quietly wrapping around her head.

  “I’m glad you became a florist,” I would say.

  “I’m glad you aren’t allergic to flowers,” she would say.

  I would take a rose that bled to death with red

  and tuck it into a nook hidden in her

  hair. Somewhere, a clock would chime noon –

  back to work, it says – but I would forget to care.

  how a speed bump destroyed the world

  the globe bounced

  as our station-wagon conquered a speed bump –

  I looked in the backseat

  to see the little plastic, little fragile world

  spin nauseous, crying over losing gravity.

  I watched the world downfall

  into a floor splotched with

  stains of coffee and oil.

  now the USSR is hugging the spare tire

  we keep in the back like comrades at the bar

  (it’s an old globe, mind you).

  the US is on top of the

  world at this angle, yet it’s

  lying on its back,

  looking up at the roof

  and making me wonder

  if the real world

  is as much of a puppet

  to whim and chance

  as this outdated globe is,

  sitting in the back of

  my station-wagon.

  How an Elephant Forgets

  You always had an elephant’s memory,

  freely recalling the raindrops falling

  on every picnic to which you’ve gone –

  all those songs you sang with the church

  choir, how your voices still ring to

  this day in the bell in the highest

  tower – you remember that too,

  or so you say.

  The walks in the wheat fields,

  you remember those too – how the

  scarecrow was starving until you stuffed

  him with straw. You still remember the

  shivers spinning webs and crawling

  down your back as he

  waved goodbyes with

  his scratchy claws. You don’t

  remember the wind blowing that day,

  and I believe you.

  You remember old walks along

  the beach, daydreaming your arms

  into fins so you can swim and live

  in the seas.

  Which makes it all the more painful

  that you forgot about me.

  I am my muse’s own right hand

  I am my muse’s own right hand,

  dizzied up in a Ferris

  freewheel spin as I

  scorch words into paper,

  my heart rubbed raw enough

  to warm the chill in the

  December all the fallen

  will remember.

  I’ll sing a

  winter call, though, that rustles

  the leaves from the mud like

  cattle from the plains – speaking

  of which, don’t these fields stumble

  rich with frosty brandy?

  The world gets drunk on this

  last drought and gets caught

  up in the moment in which

  jack-frosted funerals and lovers’

  lost kisses all gather to march.

  I Am the British Empire, You Are the Sun

  Once, I forgot a bucket

  outside for the month

  of July – when I found

  it hidden in the thicket

  behind my house,

  sunlight was scurrying around

  inside, its rays its legs

  while blinding me with

  a heart that it

  offered up with its hands.

  So I’ve been walking around

  with this little tin bucket even since,

  the sunshine splashing around inside

  and washing the sidewalk

  behind me – and though

  I’ve been walking for miles,

  the sunshine is still in there -

  I don’t think it minds

  the bucket, but I think

  it might be riled up by

  my wanting the day

  to be by my side – see,

  I’ve always had this

  slight fear of the nighttime,

  so no wonder when – for those

  rare times when I forget

  and leave that bucket behind –

  I like you being by my side.

  I Am the Smiles You Haven’t Smiled Yet

  I am the smiles you haven’t smiled yet.

  I am the unseen cove in your favorite bay,

  which, if you saw, you could never forget

  as you plunge deeper into the vignette

  waters to hide from the dying chill of May.

  I am the smiles you haven’t smiled yet.

  I am your favorite brand of cigarette

  laying forgotten by your clay ashtray,

  which, if you saw, you could never forget

  of the time we’ll speak through smoke, hair wet

  with the rain that weighed down that day –

  I am the smiles you haven’t smiled yet.

  And even though we’ve only met

  and you may not believe the things I say –

  if you don’t believe me, you will now just forget

  of the good times we will have – with that regret

  singing in your ear like a widowed blue jay.

  I am the smiles you haven’t smiled yet,

  which, if you saw, you would never forget.

  I am Who You Say I am

  To the bell-tower's top

  I rise, riding on these

  ghostly rumors, pushing

  bony schooners across

  these seven social

  seas. I am whoever I say

  I am, although my definition

  used to fit the notes

  you passed around our

  high school classes.

  And even when I got older, every

  shoulder that I bumped into

  knew something about me,

  but who am I to judge?

  Because a liar who calls

  a lie is a fire who calls

  a candle shades

  too bright. I've been

  told it's frowned upon in

  many circles not to be at the top

  of the bell's curve, but my hours

  atop this bell-tower have taught

  me this: a bell's top is not what makes

  the tolling sounds.

  I Stand Three Inches Taller When I’m Sitting

  I stand three inches taller

  when I’m sitting down. When

  I’m walking, I shake like circus

  flamingoes on their walking sticks.

  When I’m at a chair, I sit with

  a swan glare, ruffled as the

  pages I turn in my book.

  To many, to stand is the turn,

  when you could cower the shorter

  down even further. I haven’t

  learned to be that kind of man,

  and I doubt I’ll ever learn that

  curve in my spine.

  The pen isn’t a sword – it’s

  a scythe. And I know how to

  harvest the fight with what

  I write – sitting down,

  drawing a line.

  February 6, 2011

  If Medusa Could Talk

  This professor’s talking is the brooches I

  squeeze in my hands

  until I draw a painter’s red,

  ready to slam the sharp against


  the mud in my eyes.

  With a smile stretched into a

  nothingness that, in turn, dresses up

  with a clown’s lipstick (which

  itself was once a warpaint), her voice

  rises and falls –

  a balloon in the wind –

  yellow snowballs rolling downhill –

  city water mountain-climbing a used napkin.

  In An Unchecked Anger

  In an unchecked anger,

  we waltz like dancers

  to the beat of feat

  stomped into the earthy

  cadence of the soil

  and although this

  page from the history

  books boils, I

  can feel this thin-lipped

  moment grow colder,

  measuring its height

  on the kitchen wall

  as it stunts shorter and shorter

  until it vanishes, leaving

  us to imagine a love

  between us was as

  real as the tear in the

  eye of the ghost that

  walks a dryrot floor

  and sweeps like a broom

  through the blushing

  doors of our summer cottage

  spotted with nail scratches

  of hail that reigned during

  the first age of

  the hurricanes,

  hail that still remembers

  that beginning, just enough

  to see that this is an ending.

  In the Trade Winds

  You’re the papers

  for my writing.

  Me, I am your exception –

  because your rule

  is you can only love poets

  from a distance.

  Yet we comb our hair

  to meet the wind

  lingering in between

  our palms, filling out

  the space our fingers strum.

  You’re my lady in red,

  the lady from which I read

  my words. Your dusky

  scarlet hair is pulled back

  like low tide, your cheeks’

  glow froze in place from

  stuttered, december days.

  These trade winds raise and

  gaze this love between ourselves,

  the current sweeping us up

  as the time piece runs.