Polaroid Smile

This frame is for the photograph
I took four years ago, standing
on my picnic table on a May evening

before Japan moved eight feet to the left,
moments before Katrina flooded New Orleans with demons,
I didn't know yet that tsunamis were real,
that children could receive radiation poisoning
from the bottles that their mothers anxiously fed them
while rocking on the curb and looking at the pile of wood
their lives had suddenly become,

at a time when the idea of the earth changing position,
the number of planets in the solar system become less and more,
or days permanently becoming slightly shorter--
at a time when all of these thoughts were pages in a book
I borrowed from the library,

when I used to be able to read books simply because
and simply because their titles gave me a thrill
before vices became addictions, before addictions were real
and not romantic stories from beat poets and idolized musicians

a time when all I had to do to make myself happy
was put on a sun dress, barefeet full of splinters
climb on top of the picnic table,
lift my camera as high as I could reach

and take one picture.
The picture of my world, through the branches of trees
the sunset on an evening of my life, moments before
I realized that every fucked up fantasy that's ever been constructed
comes from one very realistic fucked up moment
in this strangely surrealistic world.

Forsythia

The girl at the party with thick legs
and yellow cowboy boots, who never starts
the conversation but always shakes the room
with laughter before the joke is completely told.

In Bed With the Devil

She said,
and this is how he breathes
at night when no one else on earth
knows his heart beat but my hand

She said,
and this sound could be likened
to support beams cracking
under the city.

And we're all oblivious
and we're all dying young
and we're all fighting terrors,

but it's a dirty trick--
not to tell us the truth,
and most of us singing,
will be the first,
feet first
in your mass grave.

What devil are you?
She said.
His heart was the only sound
and the cracking of her brittle ribs.

This is how I know
we love our children;

after the disaster,
we wade in the flood waters
holding dim lanterns like warm supper plates
hesitantly singing lullabies,
calling the children to rise from their graves
and come home to the ones that love them.

So softly now,
the waves of the ocean that is your cradle,
your mother weeps because she remembers a time
when she heard you cry, and cursed you.

Opening Doors to Strangers

Passed out dead,
she said.
I think the saying goes,
Passed out cold.
Yeah, but I'm telling
the truth.

Look on to the dead body
in the apartment
not one of us pay for this place
don't know the owner

Wonder how did she get here.
We all put it up our nose,
in our arms,
we're the rickety frames
on their walls,
but she did not pass go here

Made me want to get clean
immediately
but by that time I was already flushed
from the heat of the junk
sifting through my veins
careening to my brain.

We all have a home
wonder if i could find another way
Have to find ANY way to call this home.

This just isn't home,
this is hell.

Just give me some space,
I'll be down in a while.

Call the cops, for her
after I leave, for her
I'm too fucked up, for her
too unearthed, for her
maybe I'll get clean, for her.

By the time I get home tonight,
you'll wonder who I am, what stranger
I've shared a life with,
I'm too fucked up tonight,
I'll sleep on the floor
next to you in your bed
with my veins and my grueling pull
toward the biggest cliff on this earth.

(Found, circa late Dec)

Surefooted Failures

Remember when the water line burst
in December and covered our street
with a thick sheet of ice, it happens
to be a hill we live on and each morning
was more treacherous than the one before
but mostly,

do you remember how hard we laughed,
laying rugs down across the sidewalk
holding onto ice branches hanging low
like hands from older brothers helping
us stay steady,

i guess the truth is that we are mistakes
bursting pipes, inconveniences just waiting
something like obscenities in steam rising
from our mouths as we hold hands and slide
downhill, our lives

are simply spirling out of control
but we were handpicked to be together
like making it day to day, barely but eyes locked
so we might as well fall and find our footing
come spring,
yeah
let's just wait
until the end of everything,

that's when we'll be steady.

Passing Thought

This morning, it was pouring down March's rain
and I woke up and slipped a memory of you
around my body like a warm blanket and stopped
to watch the color green grow across my yard,
I thought about how I had been dreaming
just moments before that you and I were drinking coffee,
I said, "If you want to look, then look."

So I looked deep into the seasons changing
squeezing you tighter around me,
I'd have to travel too far to find you now

it's been five years ago that you told me
you were in love with the woman you knew I'd be
with your canvases piled against the wall
and your Florida mug topped off with wine;

those were our nights, weren't they?
and this is my morning,
you are my moment,

What about the sand you brought to me
placed it above the fireplace and started to say,
"Each grain is for how much..."

(rd)