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Category: My poems

POEM: St. Mary’s Street

St. Mary’s Street

I’ll meet you at St. Mary’s Street
you said on that September Saturday
when summer returned
from Brooklyn to Brookline

there were bluebells at Hall’s Pond
a single egret awaiting nirvana
surely you know by now that yes
they were beautiful and no
they couldn’t compare

we saw an improbable flower bed
planted in a pothole
we watched the moon over the Fens
spotted Venus above the Emerald Necklace
but that’s not what I mean

that’s not what I mean at all

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TWO POEMS: chainsaw, the whole 90 minutes

These both feel too tortured and overwrought. I spent a good portion of the afternoon and evening writing several poems just like these. Guess I’m feeling a bit date-deprived today. Ah well. Here’s the evidence of the afternoon. I’m posting them mostly to keep my recent streak going.

/ / /

chainsaw

I’ve been in this restaurant four times
twice with imaginary friends
twice by myself
I think the server is lovely
and in a million years wouldn’t say anything
I told a guy today he was charming
to me that’s like juggling chainsaws
except that given enough time
I could probably learn to keep the blades spinning
a friend said I need a lot of casual sex
she couldn’t know that’s the one thing
I can’t take casually
where does that leave me?
eating Buddha’s Noodle Soup
in a restaurant with a lovely server
waiting to catch the next whirling saw
before it tears me in two

/ / /

the whole 90 minutes

after a while all the beauty
all the noise, all the weird
become background radiation
afterimage of the big bang
that raised these buildings
so high above this island
when she brings my tea
I smile the way I think
I’m supposed to
but I’ve never known
how charm works
I’ve been spoiled
by too many movies
where it’s easy
the people who should meet
meet
even if takes
the whole 90 minutes

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POEM: a man without a bank card will do almost anything

I went to see guitarist Gilad Hekselman at Jazz Standard tonight and wrote this poem before he started playing. I feel like many of my poems are as much diary entries or small pieces of reportage as they are poems. Or maybe they are those things and also poems.

/ / /

a man without a bank card will do almost anything

when I went to pay the cafe bill
I realized I’d lost my bank card

now I’m at the Standard with 13 dollars
enough for an iced tea and a bucket of fries

it’s what I would’ve ordered anyway
but now I’ll be broke at the end
in that I’ve-got-plenty-of-nuthin way

meanwhile I’m mired in a conversation
I’d give anything to not be having
but my mom raised me to stick with it
so I’m stickin’

everyone around me is speaking Japanese
I eavesdrop when my tablemate takes a break

one table over is a sax player with a US Census bag
sitting by accident next to a fellow Census worker
they’re telling Census jokes, which are the best

I’m holding a seat for my English friend
a surprise gift from the rain god
to whom I did not even think to pray

there’s a Swiss philosopher eating steak tartare
I say I think I know him, he says he thinks he knows me
we’re both wrong

the seat across from me remains empty

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POEM: the river under Rockefeller Center

I wrote this after many hours of traveling.

the river under Rockefeller Center

the river under Rockefeller Center runs beside the third rail / garbage floats along it / rats bathe or swim or drown

on the D train a man with a voice like Miles Davis sings Stevie Wonder’s “Too High” / says, “Everything has got to work out right”

the woman next to me is reading the same book you were reading / which makes me suspect her instantly

I feel self-conscious when I write on the train / as if I’m doing it so people will see me writing

but when the words are ready to come out it’s lucky if I have a pen and paper to catch them before a song lyric drives them from my head /

to float down the river under Rockefeller Center

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POEM: danger

I wrote this poem tonight while listening to pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Ches Smith at Korzo.

From Matt Mitchell & Ches Smith at Korzo – 6 Sept 2011

danger

you were dangerous and angry
red wrists and flashes of light
in the Hungarian bar
with $5 goulash

After careful study, I’ve decided that my life
needs an extra day and a cloning device
or a world without rock stars
and foreign bars

the reds are oppressive
walls, neon Czechvar sign
you
the red star in the center of the universe

I know this sounds like a love poem
but it isn’t
I don’t write those anymore
I’ve lost the knack

instead I take black-and-white photos
try to preserve these red nights
with the ink from a cheap Bic
and the rush of blood in my veins

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POEM: Tucson

Tucson

we fade
we stop
we start anew

cresting the Tucson Mountains
the city like a field of diamonds
reflected in the October stars

call me with fuzzy guitars
and women of uncertain origin
tattoo my heart on your forearm
remember me in the honey-colored morning

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POEM: secret

secret

to hide my true identity
I travel from restaurant to club
with a series of beautiful women
of wildly varying heights

there was a time — not long ago —
when even this would have seemed impossible
even now I’m surprised by our reflection
in the windows along the street

sometimes, in a Christopher Street bar,
over an improbable cup of tea
you find exactly what you need
or who

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POEM: I could spend hours watching you laugh

I could spend hours watching you laugh

waiting for the bus while the pigeons
look for scraps on the blacktop

also in line for this bus is a woman
with red feathers braided into her black hair

— I swear it’s true —

and another young woman next to me
has spent the better part of an hour
carefully inspecting every inch of her right leg

these New York summers make everyone a little loopy

back home we’d be dancing to reels
played by old men with a little bit of red
left in their beards

but in this city we each carry our own melody
hoping that someone else knows the tune

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POEM: carbon copy

I wrote this tonight while listening to Amy Cervini at The 55 Bar in NYC. I wrote a poem the last time I saw Amy Cervini, too. This one is a combination of autobiography (although less so than in many of my poems) and things seen and overheard.

carbon copy

thunder rolls through the West Village
the bar patrons pull their glasses closer
basement captives of the summer rain

I learned recently that all I need to do
is find a carbon copy of you
somewhere on the streets of New York

the only time anyone calls is when I’m here
bartender hands me the phone
greasy with city dust and sweat

I put it to my ear but nothing’s there
not the ocean
or the harsh sound of your laughter

if Johnny were here he’d know what to do
black is the new black
he’s always in style

but it’s just me
this whistling guitar player
the rain on the street outside

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POEM: soy sauce

soy sauce

I would wait for you even if I had soy sauce
even with the perfectly crafted maki rolls
sitting right there in front of me, seductively

I would wait while you finished telling me
about that time with him, when you knew
the light in the tunnel was a train

I would wait until you said what needed saying
until you’d convinced yourself it was over
that some bridges can be crossed in only one direction

then I would fill your cup with hot green tea
pour the soy sauce into your little clay dish
leave just the right amount of silence to let you know

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POEM: barefoot on the N train

barefoot on the N train

barefoot man polishing a smartphone
talks incessantly on the N train
until the woman across the car
screams “shut up! stop talking!”
everyone who had been pretending to sleep
is looking now, eyes drawn toward the end of the car
where the argument erupts into life
like summer thunder and is gone as quickly
the storm contained in this hot box beneath Brooklyn

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POEM: talk to me

A poem inspired by the Talk To Me exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibit is now in members-only preview and opens to the public on 7/24.

/ / /

talk 2 me in 1s & 0s
peer @ me w/ your LED eyes
tell me you love me w/ a stream of ticker tape
reach out & touch me

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POEM: Exhale

Exhale

he’s wearing a white Oxford
when his jacket arms pull up
I can see his shirt cuffs are dirty

now I look closer — frayed ends of his pants
shoes with worn soles and scuffed sides
a small cigarette burn on one lapel
hand under his handle-less briefcase

is he going home after yet another interview?
does he have a wife somewhere in Brooklyn
who thinks he’s at work?
or was she washed away, too, in the flash flood
of changing fortunes?

I wait because I know it’s coming
and it does:
the long exhale
the one he can’t control
the air forced out of his body
as if his own lungs are trying to
mercifully asphyxiate him

for a second I wonder whether he’ll breathe in again
he does
the train passes Chambers Street

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POEM: soil

I went tonight to hear Petr Cancura‘s Lonesome Quartet with Petr on banjo and saxophone, Kirk Knuffke on cornet, Garth Stevenson on bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drums. I was very impressed by the music. Petr told a story about a trip he made that inspired this poem. I took a few bit of his story, changed the details and imagined the rest.

From Petr Cancura's Lonesome Quartet at Cornelia Street Cafe (7/7/11)

soil

there’s a farm outside Memphis where a hog is roasting / and the old brass-band leader’s kinfolk will welcome you to the party / even if your accent don’t quite fit

this is soil country / rooted / each one can trace from the branch all the way into the earth / you can’t play brass band music if your feet don’t touch the ground

in the old farmhouse is an even older hutch / in a cabinet in the hutch is an ancient Bible / full of blood and memory / the names are a hymn / a holy call into hallowed ground

out by the roasting pit / they’ve cleared a space for dancing / little girls standing on their fathers’ feet / young boys shoved into the arms of cousins / “come now, child, dance with her – it won’t kill you”

the old brass-band leader is right where he’s been all these years / waving his mail-order baton / cajoling music from a bunch of coots as old / as the dirt they’re standing on

later / when the kids are asleep and the band is done / the oldest of the men takes out a banjo / plucks the stars alight

there’s a farm outside Memphis / where all are welcome / this is soil country / rooted

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