Regarding Gator Men

Jake The Alligator Man, Marsh's Free Museum, WA

I don't know if Gator Men actually exist. From a purely biological and ecological point of view, it's not outside the realm of possibility that alligators can live in the Ohio River. (See this report from the Portsmouth Daily Times about a gator found in the river.)

I've never seen a gator in the wild, and certainly nowhere around where I grew up. And I'm not entirely sure where the idea of Gator Men entered my subconscious. I was reading through a collection of old journals about the early wars between French trappers, British military, and Native American Tribes in the Ohio Valley and there was a short reference to them in an account by the journaler about a conversation with a flatboat operator.

Of course, it' significant to mention that I went looking for that reference to Gator Men.

I was sitting one day in the Part-Time Teacher's Dungeon in the Rhet and Comp Division at the University of Louisville. Office hours are mandatory and occasionally useful when you have a backup of student essays to read... and of course, we're supposed to be accessible to students in spite of the fact that 1) they will rarely stop by and 2) will more than likely shoot off a series of 10 separate emails with 20 different questions at 3 in the morning and then claim you never answered them when you don't respond by 7 when they pass out. In the absence of actual work or actual students, I read, I scribble, I day dream. On this particular day, after once again having to argue with cogs in la machina about whether or not I was really a real person and employee on the campus of That Other Kentucky University, I closed my eyes.

I allowed myself to drift -- not to sleep, but to relax. My colleagues, most of whom were doctoral students who eyed me with certain suspicion because I was not, ignored me (as was their custom) and when on complaining alternately about their students and their professors. And as I was drifting, the phrase echoed from the itchy back of  my brain, where all my better notions are born and where all my odd tendencies take root...

Gator Men live in the river....

I'm still looking for more evidence of them, the Gator Men. It's hard to tell because all accounts I've read thus far are historic and never first hand... always some British interloper writing about what he heard while on his way to murder Injuns.

I did get a poem out of it, though. I'll think of a title eventually.

Higher piles of learning and ennui stifle the city of Atlanta
and the snow is seventeen men deep in Carroll County, Illinois.
We do not mark time in that manner here.
Ohio Valley folk keep track, not by the high tide
or by the count of barges carrying coal westward
from gutted Appalachian hills.
Not anymore. Everyone exists elsewhere –
dreaming of a permanent summer sun,
imagining the right circumstances
under which we will leave this place,


our world view defined by a modern indifference
to locks and docks and the swelling of the tide.
In the absence of all-knowing and immortal river men,


we search the horizon for some fresh landscape, unspoiled by memory
where the Gator Men do not hunker down
in dank and murky dreams
waiting for us to slip beneath and sleep
so they can take us for a sweet death roll
and show us
where all our childhood treasures are buried
never to be rediscovered.


_________

By the way: if you think there's nothing living in the Ohio but 3-eyed muskies and catfish with an extra set of teeth (and there are..) check out this article about an octopus that was fished out of the Dirty, Sacred, River. Sweet Dreams.

Poem: The Learning Year

Grass needs cutting,

and the grease spot on the porch

needs cleaning.

I am losing the war of the fruit flies.

Waking from deep dreams not worth remembering

I shower, make coffee, ponder the raised garden beds:

comforting myself with the knowledge

that this is a learning year.

Wine fermenting in the basement –

months away from wanting lips.

Mead on the shelf,

aging into proper fullness.

The old cat is sunning on the back porch,

being taunted by birds he is too tired to catch.

Out of habit, I listen for the sound of the dog.

This poem needs writing.

There is cleaning to be done,

preparations for the coming celebration.

All my meditations are timed in head nods

and circuitous blinking of my left eye.

Western horizons expand in front of me.

In preparing to leave, I stuff dirt in my pockets

so I will have a piece of this place

so I will remember the way back

by the feeling of the dirt between my fingers

and its difference to sod beneath my boot heels.

Poem Draft: Flamenco Sketches, Part 6

6.
This winter has been good for the grave diggers.
Nostalgia begins from cinema-made memories.
When we are old, we will have the certainty of our age
and the absence of clarity
that will lend it all a divine finality.
Dig a hole and fill the hole.
Be a hole and see a hole.
Spring peeps sing on frozen branches.
Ice storms blow in from the West:
Kansas is buried. Iowa is bogged down.
Violence is percolating in the wealthy cul du sacs of Colorado Springs.
Messiahs wander the high plains of Utah
searching for heaven and easy women,
praying for spread eagle legs of fire and of smoke.
Here in the valley, we wait for Spring.
The city is gray and the lights burn bright
as the mountains in the east are leveled
one foot at a time in the name of neon gods
whose names we never bothered to learn.

Location:Cincinnati, OH

Crossing the Madison Street Bridge in Chicago at Midnight

I'm not so used to cities at night anymore.
The vast silence of steel and false night lights
gleaming in the darkness –

some apocalyptic dystopia
some photographic negative
of minutes spent scurrying
in the name of family, of god, of country
and credit rating.

Not so used to tall shadows created by dead things
that themselves are shadows – monolithic memento moris
leftover from forgotten dreams of some
Victorian Age notion of progress built
out of 20th Century materials
to become the icons of the new millennium.

Not so used to feeling crowded in on a deserted street,
These shadows, they have eyes

and they are always watching
and they are always waiting.

I don't know what it is they are waiting for
or why they insist on watching –

maybe they are waiting for my death,
watching for that opportune moment to pick my bones clean
like road kill on Old Route 66.

There are no questions here.
No one asks where it is I am going or
where it is I have come from.
My presence goes unnoticed.
There are no familiar faces in this city
upon which I might call on this chilly night
beg a couch and a few swallows of wine,
some warmth and conversation, trading tales
and the sweet lies that make of a man's daily life.

There are no doors open to me here.
Only a 24 hour chain donut shop –
and even then,
I must be careful not to offend
the impatient Middle Eastern man
who works the counter
blaring gangster rap.
Crossing the Madison Street bridge at midnight,
light reflecting in ripples on the waves
passing bus rumbles and shakes the bridge
creating ripples in the Earth
that cannot be erased
unto the last generation.

Street construction does not slow the steady rot underneath everything
man's hands have made.

I am not used to it. I find myself begging
for stars and for the breathing shadows
of more natural landscapes.

Nearing my 40th year I have begun to see
what it is I need. And it's not
any of the things I have been told.
Punch drunk clarity comes at almost two in the morning
sitting in a donut shop
as the city sinks into it's own arms
like a last call drunk.

Walk the streets, pedestrians disappearing into other shadows,
into older shadows. My own shadow, fractured as if
through a dark kaleidescope, four or five times –
A Schrödinger's puzzle.
I consider the possibility that they're following mw
intending to do me harm.

But I choose to dismiss this as paranoid delusion:
my shadows could never harm me
since it would hurt them in the long run.

I stop short of reminding myself that people do that very thing
all the time.

When I was young, I ran away to the city.
I craved the vibration, the cement, the anonymity.

Now I want to breathe big
and fill my eyes wide with green spaces,
acres of sky ascending and dissipating into nothing
into energy, into the cosmos, into stars, and into the ripple of planets
in Einstein's giant gravity blanket.

Now I want to walk in large strides
and I want to talk in large strides
and I want to traverse it all,
even the most inaccessible places.
Now I crave a western expanse.
Now I crave the Appalachian hills.
Now I crave rolling prairie
and nights re-splendid with a thousand million stars.

Now I crave a world in which
a man might breathe and live and love
and find solace in things that grow,
peace in warm fire,
among the songs and company of friends.

My soul speaks, sings out to this place.
It is waiting for the song to return.

I want to believe in all that is grand.
I want to believe in all that is beauty.
There is energy and beauty, where there are people scratching,
bumping into one another on the street, rubbing against the sidewalk,
opening and closing doors – in the same way atoms bounce,
and in the same way that neutrons bounce and bump.

There is a pulse where people are singing.
There is a pulse where a woman takes down her hair.

My soul speaks, sings out to the this place
because there is a rhythm under the cacophony
and some folks call it human.

My soul speaks, sings out to this place.
It is still waiting for an answer.

I want to believe in beauty
in spite of what my culture tells me –
and I am finally beginning to understand
that all that's beautiful
and all that's ugly
begins in me
like it begins in you.

The Least Poetic Ending I Have Ever Known: A Poem

Flocking blackbirds foretell nothing except an early and colorless fall.
Apples are rotting off the tree. This is not a year for walnuts.
Small town biddies congregate to complain and offer solutions
that end in their deaths. They compare themselves to us
and find us failing – but forget to leave a gratuity for the waitress
feeding young children on her tips.

I walked by our old house yesterday. The new tenants
have trampled the bright orange poppies
I preferred to let grow wild among the weeds
in front of the porch. I missed the blooming of the magnolia tree
(I always associated it with good luck) and the roses
will make no appearance this year. The curtains were the wrong color
and they are not making proper use of the summer room.
I felt foolish walking up Pumpkin Hill,a stranger
on a street that were familiar, once upon a time.

But to be fair, I have always been a stranger.
Geography where I am known no longer exists
and memories of me are slowly wearing away
like an old quilt exposed to the elements.
Only the neighborhood dogs remember me and do not bark.
We lock eyes and nod the way creatures of the Earth do –
they are jealous of my roaming, and I of their perpetually full water bowls.
The self-appointed town exemplars know not what to make of me.
They speak of politics and invisible conspiracies.
They go to church on Sunday, berate the poor and bully the meek,
then collect the weekly tithe for soulless electoral campaigns.

(It's true, I suppose that some things will never change.)

I no longer have to fear your reaction when I come home
smelling of bourbon and misplaced rancor. Yet
I still paused at the top of the hill before I turned the corner
to check my breathe, make sure I was walking straight.

Nothing is in it's place. Everything is where it belongs.

My feet tell me I ought to keep walking. Only 10 or so miles
to the river, the Great Baptismal Western Boundary,
past which  there is Iowa to contend with:
fields of corn burned before the harvest,
farmers who can't remember a season
that wasn't plagued with either fire or floods.
But at least, I will be redeemed when I meet them.

Impending Departure: Westward

(transcribed from travel journal)

Cool morning in Minnesota,

hot cup of coffee, cigar lit

the hum of the central air

like white noise, simultaneously

erasing and highlighting

the suburban buzz –

workday traffic in freshly washed

newish model cars,

lawn mowers brushing

manicured lawns, housewives

and daughters home from college

walking the dog
in ass-sculpting power shoes.

From the other side of the door

my traveling boots are calling;

whispering in a language

only we know: there are roads

to stretch out and miles to make,

mountains to see and people

to meet, telling me

what I already know:

whether among friends or even alone,

the road is it's own companion

stretches out endless

beyond the land of 10,000 lakes,

beyond techno-hipsters

in former middle class neighborhoods,

beyond Poor Richard's Common House

and the exhortations of old friends

whose kind words

cannot keep me away

from dreaming of the Black Hills.

City Lights Pilgrimage, Summer 2012

Forgive me Ferlinghetti, for not buying a book
But I enjoyed the upstairs rocker
and the collection by Auden I read from.
I nearly spent money I didn't really have
on a collection by some Cincinnati writer
I haven't heard of – until I saw
he teaches at Xavier to the entitled and the pitied.
And then I read the poetry. And I was not moved.

Though the chances of running into you were nil
I nonetheless hoped to find you skulking behind
Bukowski, or perusing Corso.

The bookstore is as much a museum
as it is a library where people buy books.
Reminders everywhere if a time
when poets spoke words to lightening
rather than hid behind them
like thin, tepid grandmother's skirts.
No worries now about losing the poet
to pop culture, since  poets are either
college professors or mechanics
and neither of those is interesting enough
for a reality tv show.

(Wallace Stevens was the last lawyer  worth trusting.)
(William Carlos Williams was the last doctor worth listening to.)

I wanted to buy a book. Really I did.
But San Fran on the cheap
really isn't, though it's a great city to wander in;
and if you can't get by, there are shady places on the sidewalk
to sleep where passersby do not gawk
because they do not pay attention.
Market Street is for the suits,
the neighborhood bars around Little Saigon
and up and down Mission Street
are for those
who do not have the right attire to be seen
at the Embarcadero. There are no contenders there, anymore.

But I digress, Ferlinghetti.
I simply wanted to apologize
and to thank you for the chair,
and the nice cozy corner to read Auden in.
And to ask a simple question –
but I have forgotten what it was.

Pictogram (Sunset Over Ames, Iowa): A Poem

The land is still flat, brown,

not scorched but overturned, overused,

a little too loved and a little to abused

until finally it is pummeled down into dust

even Adam's God wouldn't recognize.

Clouds float atop the stratosphere

like algae atop of a pond

where the water is too polluted to drink.

The sun bleeds out like a christ on the horizon,

puddles of orange and red and blue and purple

oozing an oil spill across the sky.

From this distance, no one hears the sobbing,

and the tears are mistaken for spring dew.

In this America, some sacrifices are necessary

even at the expense of heat and light.

Next to the interstate, three baby doe nibble on our remains.

Accustomed as they are to headlights,

they fail to notice the spotlight and the pooling of blood

that looks like water in the liquid darkness.

Brief Introduction to The Atlas of Deep Time

Roads cut into mountain rock like long memories,

though the names and dates and reasons

have all been forgotten. One fresh grave

among the long lauded and appropriated dead

give us something to tell stories about,

each with a hint of mysticism and rebirth.

What is this place? Known and unknown,

traveled and unconquered, mapped and mysterious?

There are stories to be told, wood nymphs to chase,

crones filing ageless knowledge away in dusty bone husks.

Worries about the garden. Beware the killer mosquitoes

and the wrath of left turns.

If he is not careful, a man can come to this place

filled to his gills with the knowledge of good and evil

and leave feeling new born. Conspirators and coal barons

and tornadoes come and go, the sound of them

simply become rhythms to the songs

that have been sung for generations

and will be sung for generations more.

If he is not careful, a man can come to this place

broken and find his messiah

sitting beneath a tree in a lone cemetery

blessing the fresh grave of an infant

lucky enough to avoid the curse of naming

knowing love and turning back into dust.

Super Nova Cheese Cloth (A Poem)

No wonder we create gods to venerate,

only to eventually knock them down.

If I thought it would help,

I'd call for lamb's blood too.

Children leer and throw fruit loops like palm leaves

while their parents piss in the gas tanks

of unredeemed foreign cars;

addicts curled in the fetal position

on back patios offer prayers

and promises of penance to angels

dripping wet from the latest bloodbath,

and absent mothers shed martini tears

as their daughters lie in hospital beds

unable to walk and bawling.

They are all conspiring against us.

I have thrown the old gypsy woman's dice

and divined the lines in my face to discover

whether the planets are truly aligned against us.

Solar flares and tsunamis are false signs

of the end of things; which means

we will endure another 100 million cycles

around the sun without ever knowing

what it means when two pieces

of the same cosmic soul are joined

and go super nova.

This is the day we bury our expectations

wrapped in cheese cloth

swaddled in the guilt of our inequities:

proof positive that it's entirely too easy to kill god

when we make the mistake of giving him

a human face.

Porkopolis Revival: (Re)Return of the Native (a poem)

I have written this cityscape and it has written me –

chiseled into these bones, memories like the rings of trees

will tell the tale when I am cut open upon the slab.

It's not that I don't love you. It's not some need to escape,

like the one that first brought me to you

all those years ago before the road map started

etched itself into my face

so that my daughter tells me I am old and wrinkly.

(She is young, as young as me when I first wandered

your mysterious streets, and does not know

what age looks like yet, or what it is to be soul-tired.)

No. What brings me here is, as always, expediency.

The tape measure snaps back

I snap back, and the measurement remains. Some nights

I close my eyes and I see the city of my memory

– not the one that has risen to take its place –

and part of me longs to return. Yet when I do

it's not the same place. Even cement moves on without me

and I am left no choice, but to find my way

with an outdated map that indicates landmarks

which were moved in the name of corporate expediency.

Though the subway was never completed, Losantivlle,

you have roots winding all the way to the river

and just as deep and underneath you

so much moves that is not seen on the sidewalks.

The oligarchs have not stepped down

or turned over their power.

But this city is not theirs, anymore than it's mine.

And yet, when I leave, I know

I will sometime return and find some echo of the street names

that preoccupy my dreams and give depths to my nightmares.

Wayward Sacredness, Intermezzo 3: The Last Supper (A Poem)

You cooked dinner and I tried not to notice the small differences

since I'd been gone. Mexican Night: simple taquitos.

Corn. Black beans. Tomatoes. Over lean beef that will inevitably

over cook. We joke that food is never spicy enough since leaving Arizona.

The cat is acting needy, you tell me. We talk about our days,

the current and those that have past in between the last time

we sat down together and supped. There is no blood here,

and no body either, and no more salvation.

Keep the conversation light. Polite and pleasant.

Your voice echoes in my mind, back when you said

we were both rational... that we were both reasonable.

It didn't have to be difficult, you said.

I find myself faking chit chat and laughter

as I pile on the red pepper. The burn

always makes it better, keeps me present

in these moments I want to fall into my emotions

like one more failed baptism. It'll be okay, I tell myself

if I avoid your eyes – eyes that have been the only ones

that ever really saw me. I wish the water were bourbon

and then I could be a demon

and it would all be so much easier

and you could remember

and I could forget, just for a moment

that this is something we both need.

The disbursement of things has been easy, at least.

Packing at the end of a relationship (I'd forgotten)

always brings out my unsentimental side,

makes me want to burn all the memories out of my brain,

start fresh. But that only works in the mythology of crash and burn.

This is the one about 40 years of wandering the desert,

being led by columns of smoke and fire and praying for manna.

So there's no point in squabbling over DVD's and kitchenware.

Sitting on the porch after dinner smoking, you ask me

if I feel better. I confess I've stayed too long, that Out There

is calling me. My discomfort shows. We speak casually

of divorce, like butchers dismember carcasses for steak.

I can hide behind the pipe smoke

so long as I avoid looking in your eyes,

where I might be tempted to say

Save me. Take, eat, this is my heart. 

[I normally post poetry here. But since the poetry is tied to the traveling and experiences of the travel log, I'll be posting more of it here... especially as it relates.

Thanks for reading. Remember, if you like what you read:

1. Pass the link.
2. Hit the donate button on the right and contribute to the Travel Fund. 

Every little bit helps, especially as I gather steam to push westward.]

Listening to the Earth Groan In the Space Between Sips

The grass will grow for sure. 

Three days before the first day of Spring, 

the first real rain falls 

after two days of preternatural heat.

Drinking coffee, I can hear your voice,

the way you used to tell me

You know you'll have to mow soon.

You used to be so excited about it.

Then again, grass grows different in memory

than it does on a three-quarter acre corner lot.

Over on Pumpkin Hill, the roof doesn't leak anymore, either;

no more dance to set the mop bucket

and empty coffee cans just right.

Old house, old house problems

I would say.

Drinking the last of the morning coffee,

I wonder what it must be like

to feel the groan of the Earth under foot, 

the way an old crone groans

remembering her last moment of ecstasy,

that moment of thunder and cloud break.

Do all men mistake that moan for interest?

Spring planting is all cow shit 

and bad porn metaphors, anyway. 

Nostalgia and bad commercialism

designed to make urban shoppers feel better

about not knowing where the plastic wrapped food

comes from.

If the Earth is a woman, then we really are

beyond all redemption. 

Epitaph For A Warm Winter In The Corn Belt

It's warm this year for late March.

The mosquitoes have hatched

and the mysterious downtown gnats

have moved in. Local criers prematurely whimper

that the Tinkers might return early, too.

Town girls traipsing round in butt hugging short shorts

inciting judgment and fury from the new mothers out

pushing baby carriages in defense

against the onslaught of middle age

and distracted husbands.

Fathers of teenage daughters

drink heavily bewaring nightmares

of early grandchildren

and preternatural impotence.

No one has started mowing. Yet.

But that is simply a matter of time.

Elsewhere in the county,

the agribusiness barons fine tune

their seasonal plans for conquest.

The ground barely froze,

and is pliable to the plow

like some recently wed rape victim.

The small farms prepare for the open air markets,

make sure to guard against the strong winds

and genetically modified corn seeds

that sneak into their fields –

following the pattern established by nature

before the CEO of Monsanto was born.

Carnival barkers of unforeseen future events

talk casually of increasing ocean temperatures,

melting ice caps, the cost of gasoline.

Conservative church biddies blame the President.

From here in the coffee shop,

where I sometimes sit and dream,

I imagine meeting you on the sidewalk

after returning from another long journey.

We hug with less tension. You laugh at my beard.

We talk about having coffee and almost forget,

for a moment, the onslaught of weather

that drove me out in the first place.

Move Along

Walking back to the bar after dark
I passed our old street.
Looking down and up the hill,
I noticed the porch lights were on
and I almost turned towards it,
the way insects do,
flying headlong towards their destruction.
How many nights a beacon?
How many times my salvation?
The drizzling rain informs me
it's pointless to ask questions.
Standing there, I thought of
that Frost poem backwards.
Instinctually, I felt for the ring
on my left hand. It is gone,
like my reasons
to stumble down and up the hill
drunk towards a light
that is no longer lit
for my personal illumination.
The rain picks up.
The lingering winter early darkness
wraps around me and I feel the wind
starting to push me a long
up Benton Street in search of a light
that will welcome me,
another pair of warm arms
to guard me against the wind and the rain
and the onslaught of the coming storm.
There is no point in arguing.

Worth Waiting For

Hauling ass out of the Appalachian foothills,

I wasn't sure the car would make the trip.

Two rusted off back quarter panels, exhaust pipe

gone, primer orange and beaten ugly

from drug running through West Virginia,

from that summer driving across country

from Norfolk to Chapel Hill to Cincinnati,

(where the axle broke) all the way

to Northwest Illinois corn fields where

later, we thought we might grow dreams....

though that was for another life, nearly a decade

away. We had so much more desperation to go through

before life would find us there.

                                              Knoxville –

it wasn't a pretty place, but you were there

and that was enough to call it home... hauling ass

out of Eastern Kentucky, you and I

                                               escaping

though there was nothing to run from

and (we would find out years later)

nothing to run to.

We ran from there, too, you and I,

to Cincinnati, close to hearth and family,

away from the toxic waste in Tennessee water.

Cincinnati, where we watched a Christmas Eve

riot out on the street

while my daughter was asleep on the futon,

watched the cops take down children

with rubber bullets

while somewhere, in a richer, Caucasian part of town

dreams of sugar plums and gaming systems

did the trick...

                      … where you were robbed

and afraid to go downtown, and we ate

dumplings without chicken, potatoes and carrots,

dreaming of some other place, some destination

where it was safe, and the winter

was not so cold, and our dreams would unfold.

Arizona let us down, too -- though to be fair

it tried. But the state could not contain my anger

and you could not be contained with it

and with me simultaneously.

So the Midwestern cornfields called to us. Finally.

We went. The house was old and the roof leaked.

And the yard was too big. But the rent was cheap

and there were no drunken arguing neighbors

on the other side of thin walls. We could see the stars.

We traded sand drifts for snow,

palm trees for orange poppies

someone planted in front,

and a magnolia tree that reminded me

of New Orleans every Spring.

Yet my thoughts of late

are not about the poppies

or the magnolia tree. I do not

ruminate about the leaky roof

or the yard I didn't like cutting.

Home is not a house, because a house

is an easy thing to lose and to replace.

Even so –

                   my home is not my home anymore.

Snap Shot: Ash Wednesday, Lower Manahatta

He asked me if I could buy him a hot dog.

But I was already bumming off a friend

and had no money, and told him so.

His pants were rolled up, too long

from the bottom of the clothing barrel.

The soles were splitting from his shoes.

His flannel jacket worn thin. He smiled, his

charcoal skin dry with shade of gray

from exposure, and shook my hand. Then

he told me he had just come up from the South.

He told me he liked it so much he might stay.

Scant Minutes Til The End of a Long Distance Romance

Bus Station flowers

still cold from refrigeration

hands wrapped around

tightly. Red knuckled.

Eye out for a bottle of wine.

Bus will arrive any minute, he thinks.

Does she like white roses?

Are they even real?

Do roses come in white?

Lover Boy believes he was short-changed.

But what is a few dollars,

in the name of love? Besides,

he was in a rush. He forgot.

Meant to buy mums;

but he didn't know

what they look like. That

he thought that she never mentioned.

Sometimes, you just get stuck no matter what.

Remembered she mentioned

mums were her favorite flowers.

Once in passing. Pillow talk.

Early on. When the sex was still good,

and he didn't mind the way

she hogged the sheets

and farted in her sleep.

One eye on the clock.

The other on his surroundings.

Gets hit up by a bum,

shoos him off with the flowers.

Another approaches. He gives a dollar

to avoid the conversation. The flowers

look like they were starting to wilt

seeming more yellow

under a different light.

Do roses come in yellow?

Eyes a crusty old man

holding a plastic shopping bag

full of smelly clothes

and a key to a padlock.

The man holds these things

as if they are his most precious possessions.

Lover Boy despises and envies him;

but the stench made it impossible

to ponder further, as Lover Boy posited

that the smell is bad for the flowers.

Détente and Domestic Policy

There is no resolution, sometimes.

Arguments over things

less or more important

matter more or less

in an endless geography

that makes up a tiny home.

Toothpaste caps gain weight,

resonate with horror show sound.

When the world reduces, becomes

this compact, this confined –

down to paper thin walls,

remanded décor, plywood cabinets –

random couch cushions become

entirely new countries.

More or less.

On Rothko's Seagram Murals

Paint your way out.

Find sliding doors

and wide open windows

only to find the world is bound.

We give ourselves a little room

to move, call it progress

and watch as our feet shrink

out of atrophy and neglect.

There's no escape, Rothkowitz.

Not in this America.

Not in your America, either.

We lumber through this world

baboons with scared souls.

Feel the viscosity of the blood

in your veins, thick like paint,

thick like ink

on skin         on paper           on canvas.

Boundaries bleeding over.

Take this, you are saying. This is my blood.

Paint your own damn Holocaust,

your own cultural genocide. I am done.

A door limits movement, tells us

where to go.

A window limits vision, shows us

where we can look.

Bleed, you bastard. Bleed.

The edge of the canvas only pretends

to contain you, most

Promethean and cold

like street grids on a map.