unexciting, unceremonious 200th post

Of all of the grandiose,
monumental, or symbolic
statements that could
or should be made,

I'm left, today,
feeling that this world is alright,
at least through my eyes

because I've found a friend
whom I can sit in an empty
New England Dunkin Donuts
coffee shop* with,

blowing over cups
of scalding, tasteless joe,
sharing dreams,
hopes, and jokes.

This morning
I felt just like the dark,
empty middle-school auditorium
we broke into,
but after just a few hours
with you
I felt like anything was possible.

It would be nice
to have the perfect thing
to say, but

All I have is
Thank You
and
Don't Stop
and
My God, What Great
Fun To Be Alive!



*This is not a coffee shop

Fraudulent

Turns out that man who sold
me my home wasn't actually
certified.

Only after moving in
did I learn of the family
occupying the yellow,
two-story house on Maplethorpe
Avenue.

We sat down to brunch,
to sort everything out,
deduced that we'd been duped
by a fake real estate double agent.

Charges were pressed.
The family suggested we hire
a criminal lawyer. I found one in stripes,
digging around in a dumpster.
Said he had a large record
and strong convictions.

Personally, I found the trial
rather trying and the judgement
harsh. However, even though
they cut off the end
of the double agent's arms
he remained rather handsome.

London Fog

Though I've no real experience,
I dare say it starts with the tea.

The little tufts of steam
puff up into the brains
of the brits who sip earl
grey, then tumble out
their mouths when they mumble
accented soldiers' terms
or colonial colloquiums.

Out, out into the street,
settling into the cobblestone
cracks and misting around
loafers and knee-socks.

Soon the avenues and alleyways
are flooded with thick air.
All business must be cancelled
save those who work best
when lurking.

It rolls around until night,
when the moon sucks it all
up through her starry straw,
spits out the haze
into a penumbra halo.

Ah, My Heart!

My train is late,
but you've overslept.
I read Chabon on a 17th
Street stoop until half-past
twelve, then meet you
on the top floor of the Himalayan
art museum.

No one paints like this.
It must have been scratched
with the back of the brush
because even the royal red
milieu of certain tapestries
is embroidered with swirls
so minute they could be
amoeba eyelashes or the footprints
of wind-babies.

I bite my lip
like the wrathful dieties,
bug-eyed and blue,
balanced on one foot
crushing the idea of fear
while being fear itself.
Of course, that's the only
thing that art can do,
put the unknown, the unnameable,
into human terms.
Give a face to gluttony
and we can all avoid his jowls.

That's a risky road to go down:
representation.
Soon all my friends and enemies
are just stand-ins for the truth.

Andrea is the idea of fun,
Kolhede chaos or now,
Brendan is the buddha,
Erin is my fear of time.
Richard, ha, he's rapture
Ryan is success or dread,
Christian's distance
Kevin is false confidence
I'm just empty eyes.

None of this is quite on point.
The key is that
the mandalas were meant
to be hung above our heads,
making us look up
because from head-on
you can't perceive
the gold thread in the stitching
or the bodies in the leaves
of the lotus.

Year of the Rabbit

I.

My sneakers keep sticking to the floor,
dry puddles of gin.
I slept in my sneakers,
kissless but content.
Welcome, two-thousand and eleven.
Make yourself at home.

Remembering scenes from my dream
which took place all on this block.
First, with my family at the coffee shop
and the adjunct poetry professor
who made a pass at my mother
but wouldn’t own up to his transgression.
I got pissed. Stormed away flipping tables,
launching coffee cups across the counter,
tearing sugar packets. Professor chased me
down and pinned the blame on my chest,
I’m just acting on my instincts. Don’t hold
it against me. Depressing repression.

So I left. In the street I found Amy,
home from Sweden, with her host family.
They were all dressed in turtlenecks and tweed,
geniuses obviously, unpacking their van into the apartment
I was currently asleep in. Amy told me jokes
and stories, but her words were too accented, unintelligible.
It was raining again.

Beside me, this time awake, this time reality,
James rubs his cherub eyes, pulls at his goatee.
Six times today he’ll apologize for all of last night’s
yelling, even though that’s not the case. I suppose
he doesn’t remember confiding in myself
and Allison, his heartbreak. We tried to tell him
the bitterness means the love was real, but how
do you go back to dancing after losing four-years’
worth of friendship?

Slowly, Allison would say.

In a new city, James thinks.

Christian, on the couch, won’t stop shouting.
He rubs soap on his face, scrubbing off
the insults from last night. It’s all blurred,
but he remembers every line from late-nineties
tv shows, cancelled of course, in their prime.

I’m still sleepy. Kissless and content.
My sister and I vowed (resolved)
to breathe deeper like the turtles,
but I don’t want to live to be three-hundred.


I.

At brunch, Apt. 138, the biscuits come swimming
in sausage gravy, flakey and warm. Ryan
is too hung over to eat.

Pretending to listen and laughing occasionally,
I can’t seem to remember last New Years.
Babysitting, I think. Cutting up catalogues
for stock images, ideas with an author.

Memory is wasted on me. I might as well
have been born today, and perhaps I am,
for my head is shaved nearly bald
and by my own hand.

It wasn’t neat and
it wasn’t cathartic.
I just look serious. I am serious but
today I’ve got nothing to say,
so I sit, sternly quite, at brunch, completely,
self, absorbed.

If I go home, curl up in bed,
I could spend all of today reviewing
yesterday, from midnight to morning.
I bet I could get all the details, the big ones,
at least. Go on that way for the next twenty-one
years. Get my life back under my belt
before continuing on in this fashion.

But where’s the coffee? The waiter promised
unlimited refills on the house blend,
which I find crisp and oaky.


We should leave now. We’re been intolerable
guests in Jen’s house too long, and if we start reminiscing
there’s no going back.

Please, open the window. It still smells
like last year in here. I need a breeze.
I need to go home.

I.

The A train is running express. We just flew
by Franklin Ave, my sister’s place. Let’s ride
this to the end. Rockaway, I’ve never been
but remember from that Ramones song,
so much faster than the teenage anthem
in my ears today.

Another sip of coconut water with lime,
although it could very well be lime water
with coconut for all I know.

The man across the aisle
just talked the bootlegger
down to ten dollars for Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallows Part I.
A good deal, I should say,
and he seems proud of himself.
No guarantees.

The train slopes up
out the earth, onto elevated tracks
like a domesticated rollercoaster.
It’s exhilarating because the streets are empty
and houses begin to shrink, a bit,
like the beginning of a take-off.
We’re tied, balloon-stringed,
to the ground, to the cemetery,
stretching from here into the imminent
ocean, so that some bones just settle, sink,
calcify further into coral reefs.
There’s no way around that one.

For a minute, Richard’s in my mind.
God, I hope he wasn’t on a rooftop last night.
The romance of an apocalyptic dawn,
and such round numbers!
There’d be nothing left if he leapt.
Right now it’s just coffee and waiting
to hear him sing again.

I get off the train too early,
Broad Chanel, but the coast
is so close. I’m almost sprinting
now, through this tiny dreaming town,
turning left and left again. There it is!
Right across the street. The rocks
are cold, covered with ice, beneath me,
and swans are swimming circles
around the flotilla of icebergs.

I’ve given up on being concise
or aiming for poignancy.
Maybe shoot for purposelessness
but what’s the point?

This must be the bay
because out there, miles into the distance,
as far as I can see
there’s an outline of something
jutting into the sky, twisted
and longing.
Either a forest or a city
covered in snow and faint
on the horizon.

Soulless Solace

During yesterday's moment-of-silence
I wasn't being overly reflective
or appreciative of the moment.

Nor did I think back
on the past two weeks;
the unseasonable heat, the flood,
the collapse of the midtown bridge.

I didn't meditate on the loss of numerous
church members, your husband included,
who perished in the rush of water, venturing
from their homes against sound advice
to try and lift those drowning from the river
onto the midtown bridge.

I didn't have my usual talk with God,
the one where I acknowledge His vow
of silence and sarcastically scorn
His hands-off approach, while actually
fearing that He was listening and,
worse yet, playing along with the joke.

Instead, I looked around the circle
of people holding hands and watched
the candlelight play across your face
and wondered how soon I'd have to
wait to ask you to dinner

or just show up at your house, timing
my arrival perfectly with the intersection
of your vulnerability and hopelessness.
An eye of the storm doorbell ring.

well wishes

I'll forever say you're gorgeous.
You'll forever deny it.

So,
your face is like a putrid orange
your voice is a cat on the rack
your presence, a pestilence.

I hope you trip tomorrow,
stub all twenty toes.