Pool at the St. James

Whenever I play pool in a crowded bar,
I think of Donald in Mathmatics Land,
and its candy colored characters. I try to see

the dotted lines, the right angles.
They obviously come naturally
to you, a red striped ball tips

into a side pocket; the one
with a yellow stripe falls into a corner.
I have to laugh at the way you try

to encourage me. The green felt is dotted
with green, blue, solid spots. I’m drunk

and leaning against the table as I try to align
the blue tipped cue to the white dot.
The motion on the table blends ball

into ball, solid matter turning into sound
and color. Those right angles, Donald Duck’s

scratchy voice. You thought I could do it,
and I love to try when I know I will fail.

Perseid Sky

I.

Meet me beneath the meteor streaked sky
tonight. Years ago, you asked to stay here,

and now I want to change my answer. I went
to a bar the other day and ordered a vodka tonic,
it should have been a gin. At least it wasn’t the worst

mistake I ever made. Tonight, I’m alone. I want
to correct all of my bad choices. My worst

choice was made on a day so hot. Meet me
tonight beneath this perseid sky, meet me.

II.

I know. I know you will not come. I know it
the same way I know how the sky will glow tonight.
I know that thin sparkling ribbons will unravel themselves
against this black velvet curtain. I know from experience.

I will wait for you, though. I will sit in the park
at the end of my street. I will sit until 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, 3.

This waiting is an act of love, an act of nature like any other.

III.

Don’t think that this is an act of stupidity. I know
when I am not loved, but this is an act
of something else. Something more extraordinary than love. I will only call to you once more.

How love begets violence

She has never been accustomed
to weapons, to blood, but one day,

she gets the notion to sever your head
and crack open the thin bones of your skull.

She wants to scape your brains out with a dull
wooden spoon, to fry them, and feed them

to someone unsuspecting. Placed in a chili,
perhaps vegans would mistake them

for filler. She chooses a short, serrated
kitchen knife. She waits by the door.

Why I’m not sure if I write poetry anymore

I spend my days with people who cannot connect object to word,
word to feeling, feeling to person. Perhaps some if this seeps into me,
perhaps I’ll next be called to mime. What is the motion

for fear – is it crouching, arms braced in front of me, mouth agape?
Is it approaching a large girl with long, knotted hair and then running, silently
screaming? Is it waiting silently beside a silent phone?

My words no longer reach out to anyone. Once they were my outreached hand
that you held. Once, they were a cacoon I wintered in; once, they were my scream.

The mime pulls the rope, back leaning, legs straining, her actions
are convincing, but we are no longer fooled. Did I ever really fool
anyone – this is what I wonder now. This and how to try again,
to lift the rope I cannot see and at least fool myself again.

a specific lonliness

I am experiencing
a you specific
lonliness. It is a need

for things left
undone. You are
all hands and toungue
and voice in motion.

You are comfort, desire;
you are contentment
and passion.

You are my need.
Come home.

The necromancer

Look me in the eye, find some truth, find some fear
then use every word you can find to say nothing. I laid

in your bed once when you were not there. I had a nightmare
that your father found me. I let you run your hand down
my body, I let you, but you knew then, as is your habit

that there would be no more, that I would be hollow. I was another
tool, a way to discover another future. After I slid my hands

over you, and you whispered that it must mean something,
you peeled me, left me exposed. It was your nature to know,

but you left me no clues, no tea dried into elaborate patterns
in the bottoms of cups, no dried yarrow in a tangle on my lawn.

Your Son

Will she tell you now? This morning
when all the twigs and buds on trees
are shimmering, winkling against one another

and you are holding her son’s cold face
against your breast, and you are weeping.
Will she tell you now, now that the chance
not to love him is past? You stripped off

your jacket last night when you pushed her
up against the door, pressing your mouth
into hers. When you saw him this morning, lying

on his side as if his body was a letter folded.
You saw him, you ran to his side, you knelt
and lifted his head to breathe into him.

But she didn’t say a word, she let you
mourn, let you take over where her mind
was as white as the snow. Afte that, there
was no way to get the words past
her teeth. Forever, he will be yours.

Lament for a Modern Danae (DRAFT-A-LICIOUS)

I

There were nights of motion, of wetness,
of weeping and pleasure, of ghasping for air.

Once, she lived in desire. She woke in the night
to the feel of you between her legs. You were

her Zeus, your hand sliding into her was a shaft
of moonlight melding her life to yours, creating in her

a divine pregnancy. The love you left there
was her salvation, her down fall.

II

Looking at you, no one would know your divinity.
She could see it from the moment she first saw you

standing outside her house in the snow, slamming
the door of a rusty truck, it’s creaking was

the sound of the muses that proclaimed your presence.
Months later, you left Perseus in your wake, her love

without a body to hold it, faltered, failed
to live up to the demi-god as it was formed.

III

Your Danae, with seven bite marks on her back
moves thru the world, different. The damage

you left, the bites, purple marks that you lift her shirt
to show another lover; the strange pattern of welts,

the shape of a whip at her hip. Feathering moonlight
between the legs every week, calling her back.

Unable

Lately, I am unable. Unable to write, unable to think, unable to work, unable to keep up correspondence. Things that shouldn’t be are taking up all the space in my life. I’m not doing anything as well as I should.

I’m getting angry.

Sorry

Poetry Bomb No. 1

Monday, December 29 at Victorian’s Midnight Cafe at the corner of Fifth and Neil, 7.30 PM.

This poetry bomb will be themeless.

This note includes an assignment: Write a eulogy for that bar of all bars: Larrys.

Yesterday, I got calls, texts, and emails from several people. It took me a while to accept the truth. Larry’s Bar, home to all artistic misceants of Columbus, king of my world, has closed its doors. Larry’s is dead, long live the new King.

See you then and there.