Poetry, Fiction, and More

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With my dark side now fully formed

I happily steal your hesperiidae.
In my basement wings dipped in chocolate
sweeten the madrigals antennae scream.

I leap down the clean pond’s gullet,
squeezing bags of toxic meteor dust
from sluiceways beyond the moon.
By the roadside lie turtles with shells soft as stars,
beaks solvent in green pools mantises ford
like stallions who hate the freedom of decay.

I sodomize fleas with cocktail umbrellas,
who on the dog’s back resist the onslaught.
Twirled in specks of dung, they tumble
to my cankered shoes fixed in
black pancake batter like barnacled barks.

I call down hails of pheromones
from jagged clouds impaling eagles,
pelting the earth to stale jelly.
Underground infant eyeballs flash opal
while I dance at them with picks drawn.


  Embers

No matter how distant the fire
you love the orange glow for warmth,
you love the wife and dog
beside you near the embers.

Then you are alone by the hearth,
fearing the love you felt
amounts to ashes just the same.


You’re Gettin’ There

After five summers of foot-jockey days
and countless 4 a. m. pots of joe over
hastily written studies of single lines,
after wandering drunk and American through
Bolivian, Portuguese, Indian shanty towns, dust
sopping my collagens, after millions of meetings
between my jogger’s knees and pot-holed asphalt roads,
after weeks of meetings in laminate conference rooms,
discussing plans that never get beyond the doodle stage,
after thousands of months aboard commuter trains
smelling of backed-up porta-john and rancid pizza,
after five servings of fennel sausage and fake crab meat
at each of ten annual holiday family fests,
after twenty-one walk-up flats, one co-op, one condo,
one private house and two upstate vacation plots,
after two gerbils, four guinea pigs, a goldfish,
a ferocious Persian cat, five thousand walks
of a fluffy dog with inch-long fangs and attitude,
after two squally marriages and four overcast live-in trysts,
after two years of hormone injections
and an adoption across three continents,
after the endless discovery of poopie diapers,
after the same three episodes of a pre-school puppet show
over and over again, after a majority of sex-less months
and resignation to limited success

my mother eyes my gray strands, creased creeks, blank eyes
and announces, “You’re getting’ there.”

 

from
the 2009 Pushcart Prize-nominated story
"Rome"
(J Journal 1.1 (2008))


Brooklyn. New York City. Everything and nothing. Here was this kid, probably some businessman’s or shop-owner’s son, crippled and on his way to jail, and for what? Was he freeing the blacks? Was he stopping the war? Alfie understood now what his father knew, why he spent so much time in bars, or out hunting, always changing jobs. Nobody was free. Whoever built these buildings would still run things. You could work for them or against them. You could stay in the city or you could leave. Where were you gonna find peace? Wiesniewski would have kids, and then he’d be right next to Alfie, maybe with a little bigger house, in a neighborhood or town with not so many skells. Maybe the only difference was how far you traveled to reach the woods.            

He grabbed Wiesniewski’s arms and twisted them around his back, snapped on the cuffs. The kids around them noticed, and turned on Alfie.            

“Fascists!”           

 “Police brutality!”           

 “Cop thugs, go home!”            

Where the fuck was Sweeney?            

Suddenly water was dripping on Alfie’s head. He pulled Wiesniewski a step away from the wall and looked up. He spotted Sanders and Lundstrem leaning out of a second-story window, mid-spit. Down the building a little ways, in the next window, he spotted Sweeney.            

“Can’t get at ‘em down there. Door’s blocked,” his partner yelled. “You all right?”            

He raised an open palm, to say everything was all right.            

In the meantime, Alfie saw Lundstrem climbing out on the ledge. The mob below cheered as he got to his feet.            

“Your baton” Sweeney called, pointing to a spot in front of where Alfie stood, “you’re gonna need it.”            

Carefully, carefully, Alfie moved forward again. One hand still on Wiesniewski, he bent over to pick the weapon up.            

“Yeeee-haaah!” someone yelled, the sound Dopplering.            

Then he felt the weight of a hundred trees fall on his back, his legs shoot out from under him, his face slam against the concrete. For a minute, black swirls and distant chords behind his eyelids, then red, then almost light, then a body next to his: Lundstrem, his limbs dancing in pain, hands grabbing at the bone protruding from his leg. Alfie tried reaching for him, but couldn’t move. Not an arm, not a muscle.