Category: Poem-A-Day 2013

long distance

I whisper something
into the tiny microphone
of the phone in my hand
which translates my words
into ones and zeros
sends them, via the antenna
to a tower I can just
make out
on a nearby mountain

from there my understanding
is fuzzy at best
I imagine my binary digits
shooting into the sky
breaking through the atmosphere
like invisible astronauts
on their way to the moon

they’re intercepted
by orbiting satellites
flipped like racing swimmers
against the wall of an Olympic pool
before being hurled back down
through several layers of clouds

the adventurous numbers zoom
straight toward another tower
then out to the antenna on the phone
you hold as you lie on your bed
waiting for my voice in your ear

7 November 2013
Oak Street

auto dealership soundscape

                  clang

he bangs the metal pole in the showroom
            with the school ring on his right hand

                  thwack

the storage room door is next
            a wooden slap like water against a boat

                  clack-clack

his shined shoes clomp out an uneven rhythm
            on the square tiles of the lobby floor

                  sigh

but no one is coming in today
            and there’s nothing to do but wait

6 November 2013
Oak Street

at north atherton and west aaron

she was crying into her phone
as she walked across the
nearly empty bank parking lot
“nothing is right” she sobbed
I caught her eye because
what else could I do
she looked away quickly
not embarrassed, just too
ensnared by heartache
to do anything but watch
half-heartedly for passing cars
trying to save her body
from what was clearly
happening to her soul

4 November 2013
Oak Street

writing after an unplanned nap

half awake like moving in Jello-O
(“J-E-LL-O means the Jell-O family”
floats into my head from before I was born)
eyes stinging, mouth dry, brain leaden and fuzzy
staring at the screen like the words
will write themselves if I wish hard enough
I cradle my jaw in my left hand
momentarily lost in a reverie
thinking that any second now I’m going to
delete this poem and start over again
like I always do

2 November 2013
Oak Street

you’re a pain in the ass

like the way you’re always
making me laugh so hard

or when I’m at work you
make me think of you

my cheeks get red and
my heart beats too fast

we barely know one another
but we know one another

better than either of our
partners ever could

there’s an open door now
we’re on either side of it

I guess the question is:
will either of us go through?

31 October 2013
Oak Street

request

late-October sunlight
through the blinds
I’m lying in bed
asking you to come here
so I can see
what you’ll look like
when the sun hits your hair
and highlights the freckles
all over your body

30 October 2013
Oak Street

519

the sunlight from
the unseen window

bright hair framing
the soft lines of your face

your necklace dropping
below the photo’s edge

(the suggestion as tantalizing
as the image itself)

the sharp, familiar vowels
of my childhood

as close as the phone
as far as another planet

29 October 2013
Oak Street

Jack

I remember him
as a cute little blond kid
up at the big house
north of everywhere

the next time we met
he was a real person
with likes and dislikes
and a favorite shirt

“Jack writes some
great sentences”
his dad told me
(Jack comes from writers)

later, he explained
a medical video game
in great detail, full of
cuts and sutures

I smiled, wondering
what had happened
in the middle years
to create this boy

for dinner we had
homemade Indian food
Jack complimented his mom
on the meal

27 October 2013
Oak Street