I went to the self-help section
To feel less alone
I was reminded by the cool book with the blue binding
It’s called self help because, in other words, you have to be alone.
So many of us stood together alone
Here in the self-help section.
Posts Tagged ‘poem’
Self Help
Posted in Poetry, tagged bookstore, poem, Poetry, Self Help on October 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »
A Car, Of Course
Posted in Poetry, tagged car, poem, Poetry, Relationships on October 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »
My car was white, hominy and dead in the sun
I had burned out the starter. I had not kept the tank full
She divorced me by dying
And sent me to move over land in a bus’s guts
“We are responsible for our own happiness,”
I said to her as they towed her away
“You were the wise one to leave me.”
So what a shit would I be to say a bad thing about her now
When she’d helped me see how relationships are?
I mean with a car, of course.
And You Will Be A Sparrow, My Son
Posted in Poetry, tagged alpha males, gender, machismo, poem, Poetry, sparrows on October 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The boy sparrows on the cigarette sidewalk
Came smiling dressed with their black beards
I told my son about the alpha males
How these tiny black chins
Meant those sparrows swung the biggest dicks.
But then I had to add the part about empathy and pity
And how to feel for and not dominate what is small
What is brittle, what is beauty—so he can be,
You know
a
better
human.
My burden and my fear, to teach him softness.
And meanwhile nature mocked me
While those tiny little birds hopped around
Pushing the girl birds out of the way
And swinging their tiny, little sparrow dicks
On the cigarette sidewalk.
Feeling, Trashed
Posted in Poetry, tagged ecology, environment, landfills, Pacific garbage patch, plastics, poem, Poetry, trash, waste on October 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The trash bag goes out.
My trash is the fossils of the feelings I had two days ago
And no longer remember
Hunger. Angry checks sent. Fear I’d starve the kid
And now my anxious beer bottles go porpoise-nosing in the green Pacific
Angry wrappers of chocolate. Cigarette butts that gave your lungs gas
And the thrill of paying for a small whiff of death
All these little skeletons, the spirit gone out of them.
Possessed and unpossessed.
While its despondent eyes turned toward new lusts
For breasts and thighs and legs and skin
And other things the soul makes into paper
Binge Watch
Posted in Poetry, tagged poem, Poetry on October 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »
She gave him a choice—
She’d sleep with him on the first date
Or he could wait and let the relationship develop.
All of her at once, one and done.
Or he could wait and maybe be her boyfriend
Share more days, perhaps more months, more years—50 years.
Funerals marriages miscarriages births rent checks bridesmaids
Wills estate planning
“But no do-overs,” she said.
“Fuck me tonight, and you’re gone after that.”
It was like haggling over a color TV
On Fulton Street
But he pawed at her. Yes, shit, of course he pawed at her.
He couldn’t help it
He had had had to have her and lose her forever
“I’ll call a car service.”
My advice, gents, is wait.
You will never go wrong with somebody
That specific
How good would it have been to be wanted
By somebody who knows exactly what she wants?
Shadows, Formalities
Posted in Poetry, tagged addiction, poem, Poetry, travertine on October 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »
“Hi. It’s your drug addict family member again
You know the drill. I’m asking for money.”
She didn’t even hide it anymore. The way the sun bleaches
The bank buildings in the morning. The way the
white stone and travertine hurt your tired eyes
on the expressway
And your stomach’s tight as the shadows are all splashed out
By a humorless sun.
“Can’t hide from me.”
It was kind of like that.
“I’m bored,” she said.
“You ride that boredom long enough,” I said,
“It turns into enlightenment.”
“Huh?”
We sat. Sat until the boredom turned to hunger
Or lust. Or sadness
Because you know, they’d just torn down
Part of St. Mark’s Place.
“Not the one building …”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Aw, shit.”
See. Her body found something sad
Her heart and stomach
Seized on it like a spider seizes her lover.
Not bored.
The body knew what to do
What it had to shed
Not bored anymore
Problem solved.
Faith
Posted in Poetry, tagged poem, Poetry on October 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I poured the sugar into the coffee
Direct from the Domino sugar package
The sugar spilled out the bottom
Onto the floor
As I was trying to pour it
I screamed and screamed
“God damn this thing! God damn this thing!”
I’d put my faith in a cardboard box
Made by people I don’t know.
Then I pulled out some blueberries.
Pride
Posted in Poetry, tagged poem, Poetry on October 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The two girls flashed the commuter train on Raritan Bay
Breasts slid out like cracked eggs
The bay was full of egrets. Some caught fish
The train was shad silver and the windows full of staring eyes
Rolling up and down the Amboys.
“Hey, look at them!” thought everybody.
All around the bay, everybody proud of what they stole.
Eat Like You Pray
Posted in Poetry, tagged Eat Like You Pray, poem, Poetry on September 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I asked for moral food. Something that caused
No being pain, asked slave labor of no child
That didn’t heat the planet
Something that didn’t know it was grown only
To add to my flame.
“We got no moral food here,”
He said, wrapping up the red package
Under my arm, the bloody meat.
Tonight I’d better eat like I pray.
Better I not even know the difference.
Beauty is Imperfection 