Thursday, July 21, 2011

i take no responsibility for any of this

In the west I see clouds stacked up
pancake style,

except dark grey like the barrel of a gun
and just as ready to burst.

A high pressure no sunshine system
we got here,

but tacos I got and tacos I eat.
Abraham kills Isaac,

God stops him not. What of that
story and that time?

I avoid what I cannot understand,
but rather I read

the op-ed than the comic strip.
The flowers on my casket:

paint them grey and green,
a tiny bit of red.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

marriage poem #3

Sometimes there's not enough time
to talk about the things I want to talk

to you about. Sometimes the time fills up
like a bowl of green curry with jasmine rice,

basil leaves and sliced chicken.
The time with you gets spicy and I forget

to talk about the things I want to talk
to you about. Spices fill up my bowl

anyway, time doesn't. Time with you really
can't be bowled, drawn, quartered

or pressed with garlic paste, distilled
in candy sticks, and I forget to think

what it was to talk with you.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

marriage poem #2

Sometimes I am a dick to you without meaning to
those times you sit on the corduroy couch,
your eyes red-hued,
your sotto voce a quiet shout.
Then the balloon of my stubborn dickishness
filling the room with a sad silence,
so quiet the corduroy doesn't even ripple.
You ripple
down your face,
making a maze on your cheeks
clean from the shower.
I was a dick about it, I finally say.
I'm sorry, I say.
Me too, you say.
The whole sofa
applauds with delight.

Friday, July 1, 2011

marriage poem #1

When the purpleblack night grows soft,
blends its own sweet Billie Holliday tune
with the dark morning I shed my shirt,
my pants, slide in naked next to you
and feel the sweet soft ache
in my shoulders, in my legs, my chest.
I touch your tickling hand,
fingers sprawled open on the bed,
limp with sleep yet opening, closing,
the bitten nails tiny,
your breaths regular with a quiet cat-snore.
When I wake in the later morning
you will be on my chest there, there
in the place you love to set your head,
and perhaps, because we are married now,
the air will collapse or be in a state of collapse
under the weight of my many night-time farts,
and things won't get too terribly sappy.
But you will still love me, even then.
With morose laughter, at times, and moaning
at my morning murmurs and the awful
smell. Pulling the sheets up once more,
twice more, I may say, will say,
Welcome to marriage love. Welcome.