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Posts Tagged ‘Poetry’

Binge Watch

Posted in Poetry, tagged , 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?

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Shadows, Formalities

Posted in Poetry, tagged , , , 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.

 

 

 

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Not Bored

Posted in Poetry, tagged , , on October 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

“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.

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Faith

Posted in Poetry, tagged , 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.

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Pride

Posted in Poetry, tagged , 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.

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Eat Like You Pray

Posted in Poetry, tagged , , 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.

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Trust

Posted in Poetry, tagged , , , on September 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

I had to sell her a book

I had to sell it to her or I wouldn’t eat

The books were forty-six dollars and I got a 15 percent commission

That was my only food

I wrote out my successes in a blue sales ledger

And the ledger boxes were so empty they yawned

I knocked on the door and showed her my profile

So she could size me up,

That’s the sales posture

And then I turned to her and asked her questions

She couldn’t say yes or no to:

Questions begat questions

What is your favorite this? Who is your favorite that?

What do you care about?

And of course she cared about things

You can’t say you don’t care

You sound like a child

And when she had given bits of herself away

She fed me. Salespeople get fed a lot

We established trust for the wrong reasons.

And I ate a chicken sandwich.

 

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Beetle

Posted in Poetry, tagged , on October 27, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I stepped on a beetle

Put it on the table to look at its broken and golden back

I waited, feeling somehow it was not dead

And when it started to crawl, I knew my faith

Had fragile legs

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Still Good

Posted in Poetry, tagged on September 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I ran home

To see if the poem I had written was still good

Last night’s meat was all over the kitchen

There were things to unpack and stuff to toss out

You forget and you are hungry again

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The Last Kingdom of Richard III

Posted in Poetry, tagged , on October 29, 2017| 2 Comments »

You can get where you’re going by a couple of crowns

I watch them walk by, the sum of young life

Aching and honey haired, their crack voices loud

As cheap trumpets, brazen bells, oiled valves

Not knowing my medallions and orbs trod upon by Spiders

 

I was imperviously covered,

And imperiously stained

Cannot release my scepter

Or catch the humble rain

That dashed the trees in this fell lot

And called me a dispatcher and marplot

 

But I am the brother of a king and a king

The last Plantagenet, crowned by

Sharp Partisans

I conquered Henry. I lay with Anne.

 

This is my lot

To bear kingly burden.

My reputation and me, tarred.

Death, I pronounce it stupid

No sum, like the boy princes’ hair,

Show a life well lived

Though my dominions are rich with purposeful cars

I am forever bent

to de-clutch

My kingdom for a wooden horse

I am old, and I have been here a long time;

My kind seek no validation.

Laugh at my obliqueness as you like.

I still win

Not knowing, as blade touched skull,

That I was ever beaten

 

Park here, I will be a token

Aspire if you can aspire still

Say goodbye to your crown and feed

My metier

Bring your wheels to bear at the path that I have made

And learn to yield

The way I had to yield

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