when industry is the answer
I sometimes struggle to cobble words
in order to maintain a disciplined line.
this may be due to the commonness of the "mind's eye".
the line seems to lose its momentum.
during the winter months, the atmosphere from the balcony
resembles the atmosphere of the "Ashcan School"
in that it was never intended to be pretty.
I should tend to my own affairs.
It wouldn’t hurt if I became a little more
at one with the atmosphere or it a little more at one with me.
to the guy who doesn’t like me
look at it this way:
I don’t live in your house.
I live in my house.
you live differently than I do.
I’m not saying that’s bad.
I’m not saying that’s good.
I’m not feeling sorry
for you or for me.
these are our own circumstances.
your walls hang different pictures.
your mantle is strange to me;
like another planet filled with
otherworldly beings.
you know these people.
you’ve loved them, too.
I struggle to maintain long sentences.
they seem to lose their momentum.
I question every comma.
If I was a comma I’d be homeless.
I like what you’ve done with the place.
the view from the window
resembles the “Ashcan School”.
remember those guys?
I should clean-up.
I should vacuum the rugs.
I should mind my own business.
you should be more like me.
posing positions
the nude model’s name was Mary.
heavy-set, mid-40s I’d say.
any younger and somebody
would call an ambulance.
she was more the flavor of Rubens than Modigliani.
a good poser, though, for the less angular
art students holding charcoal sticks
ready to mark their pages in her image.
a sea shanty to define her would be
“hill and gully rider”–– because
to catch the whale the harpooners
and their oarsmen closed-in riding whaleboats
over and down the waves of the sea.
“whaleboats”..that’s the proper name given to these boats.
but one might think because of what they did,
which would be,.. chasing down the great sperms
often in high seas, sometimes resulting in the deaths
of a boatload of whalers, a more romanticized name
for these boats would be in order.
a “hill & gully” would be a good one.
a “spear-header” would be nice, too.
or a “blubber-dubber ”.––
hey! wait a minute!
what the hell happened to Mary?
from one who long ago loved her
I recently met someone who said he knew her
although he’s probably lying.
maybe long ago from a distance he had a boner for her
as it seems many young men had.
to break the ice he might have told her he had a dream about her
but he would have been lying.
In order for him to dream of her he’d have to pass through my dream
which is indelible and impossible.
little poem
my MacBook is running late.
It’s old and stained.
I should track the stains down,––
down to from whence they came,
down to their origins, down to the errant
slips of the tongue caused by
the fork’s inadequacy to hold on to its goods.
the little plops upon the silvery platform are dark
stones dropped to a glistening snow.
this is a poem of stains because something of note
had to become of them.
how to experience a sudden downpour as happened in 1958.
hunch your shoulders.
keep your head down.
find an entryway––
preferably one leading
to the interior of a department store.
Cherry & Webb had a good one
spacious enough to set a table for two.
(she’ll follow your lead.
no need to go inside.
tuck yourselves in.
face the weather
bending forward holding hands)
this little love song is a remembrance to honor
a moment in time with Noreena Fareria.
