Thursday
I ate my first meal in about 3 days today. I don't know what's wrong. I've accidentally lost 15 pounds in 3 weeks. I've gone on two dates with two different women. My apartment is clean. There are some scissors on my floor. I don't understand. My shirt is buttoned. My lips are ragged from nervous teeth. I don't know what that light is. I got a parking ticket. The spanish woman wanted me to date her daughter. I cut myself deeply across the neck while shaving and didn't remember to clean it up before my boss saw the blood running into my collar. I couldn't decide what I wanted to eat today. I took off the chutney. Eric told me I was on a roll. Christine told me I looked good. I drank 1/5 a bottle of whiskey last night. I don't like brandy. I'm so tired. I'm not tired. I have one dirty dish in the sink from 4 days ago with caked spaghetti sauce that I should soak. My floor needs to be vacuumed. I got my tax information today. I went to Spanish today. I drank 4 cups of coffee today. I lied about something yesterday; I don't remember what about. I smiled at a girl who kept staring at me and she pretended to be looking over my shoulder at what was only a brick wall. Katie wanted me to go somewhere with her but I said no before she told me where. I read a book today. Tuesday I didn't wear underwear and couldn't remember why. I got my paycheck today. I thought about my veins today. I didn't cry. I wanted to watch a movie but I didn't. I wanted to go to sleep so I laid on the floor until 7. I think my shirt shrank in the wash. I flipped off a sign and yelled fuck at a child today. Today I snarled at a man with billposts. I slit open my thumb with a razor blade today. My knees hurt. I don't know who these people are. I wrote horrible things today and threw them away before I could read them. I bought some espresso for 54 cents today. I can't sleep. I'm hungry for nothing I know of. None of this is your fault.
Sunrise
The morning sun trickled through the window and splattered noiselessly and unevenly across The man in the chair’s khakis and sweatshirt. It dribbled past the saw edged maples, evaded the entangling twines of bindweed, fell past the dust smeared window and finally, unable to avoid the end, crashed onto The man in the chair’s stubbled face and low murmuring lips. Oblivious to the acrobatically suicidal sunlight, the hospital room remained still, with the sole exception of The man in the chair’s thin lips, spreading and mashing back into themselves.
The myriad tubes and electric graphs, oblivious to the morning and the sun hurling itself against them, methodically repeated themselves. The pastel green curtain didn’t flutter. No nurse carrying coffee or patient stretching his legs ambled up to them with morning eyes. Nothing moved, save the forgotten graphs on the monitor, the respirator’s tired breathing, and The man in the chair, asking again and again, “Why won’t you die? Why won’t you die?”
The sunlight saw The man in the chair’s down creased eyes, overlarge hands, drooping mouth, but heard nothing. It saw the redundant graphs, saw The man in the bed, nearly invisible for the tubes covering his mouth and nose, and saw that The man in the bed looked a lot like The man in the chair, only The man in the bed was much older, and would die in 761 days.
With an indifference only the ever passing sun and the ever falling sun can possess as they sweep over Croatia or picnickers making love or graveyards or 49th Street, the sun saw The man in the chair’s tattered hair and disheveled clothes, saw the two day old Egg McMuffin wrapper beside The man in the chair, and saw that The man in the chair wanted nothing more than freedom.
So, in a moment of mercy rare for inanimate objects, the sunlight gathered and pressed like a quilt upon The man in the bed’s chest, pressing with heat and light, until, among alarms and suddenly rabid graphs, The man in the bed died.
Coffeeshop
writing two lines and
looking up at my vertical hair,
pulled straight under the agonies
of wrong words,
he harumphs
goes back to the beginning
of his near empty book
and wonders why
I’m so much younger than him.
God didn’t do that (I actually wrote this on the 20th, but had to edit it. I need to give more thought to the title, but I like it)
9:45 and Hunter is wandering slackjawed
among Arizona or Colorado maybe
while ponderosas and reptiles crack
around his bewildered head.
At first, only JD and Ruggles
noticed him missing among their
solitary ink black coffees in wideset cabins
and shook their heads, wondering who else was alone.
9:45 and Hunter is still alone,
except for rabid bats and dune buggies
a clattering typewriter with keys like braces,
an oversized press card ostensible and forgotten in his hat.
At first, he simply probed himself,
checking what flesh lay where, and if the
Cadillac could drive itself without his cigarettes
and wandered slackjawed beneath empty skies
or a shimmering wet volley of accidental night.
9:45 and Hunter has nothing left to do
with sandstone or quartz or sand filled rivers
or the clattering typewriter around his leg
Nothing to do with tequila and ranches or coffee and rye
and so stops
leaving JD and Ruggles to wonder if at least we’re alone.
Smoking break at the Grand America (I wrote this on a 1 X 2inch parking validation)
There is a beauty here
in the subterranean
smoker’s antechamber
where silent men
who don’t speak
eachother’s language
interrupt themselves only
by tapping their cigarettes
knowing full well
how ridiculous and impossible
communication is
they resign themselves unbitter
to their paper cup coffee.
Lisa in the early morning (Draft #2, to be added to CoW?)
I remember your nipples,
brazen and forthright,
pressed against the glass
cut sky, azure and empty
voided by your presence
While I, circumspect,
held myself fragile,
glistening like a grub,
pleased that your
silhouette left you faceless
The Question of Kathryn (Draft #2 to be added to CoW?)
Why you let your flesh yield before me,
and crack your mouth open like an egg
and hold your hands clenched and still
and kept your eyes half lidded and shuttered
and your lips tight and white beneath me,
has never been my concern.
For Isobel (Draft #2 to be added to CoW?)
The fog preserved a flowing outline
like dye in water
leaving a body shaped
stream behind
There weren’t any trees
or at least, there
was only truncated bark
soaring up and up
a river speckled brown and grey
flowing to an invisible heaven
And beyond, there was
a moon that night
sick and wan
beaten flat and heartless
unable to pierce the park below.
Somewhere, a dog barked
none the poorer and joyous
for the encapsulating blindness
he found so ineffectual.
Once,
I saw the flash of your thigh
between the waves
and I grinned
hoping the fog would
muffle our lie.
Hometown (Draft 2 - final line: 'in' or 'with'?)
As I am, I am no
more than a cardigan and a pipe
a red dawn glowing in a sea of smoke
a glint of yellowed teeth
at the end of a stick.
And all day,
I see the men in pinstripes
and the women in vinyl
ambling and striding and unaware
of my dead wife 5 miles away.
And all night
no one passes my broken stoop
except a hooker named Patsy
with a gyrating walk that looks
more drunk than anything.
Occasionally
I see tall men thumping
the concrete on padded heels
dragging a new dog or a new baby
gladly pulling against reluctance
Once in a while
the click clacking stops
and a woman’s eye peers
at my stoop, trying to
pierce the yellow halogen haze
And trying to see
they tentatively step toward
my knuckled hands and
my blue jean knees
until, explosive, I harangue them.
I never say much.
No more than half a story
“You think you can fix me?”
“I’m not your project,
I’m not your esteem.”
And they scuttle
like exposed crabs
or like the day to night
or like the empty cockles
the husks rattling in my chest.
And, now and then
I let my heavy brow remember
the jewelry on your hand
the surgical mask in my own house
and white lilies in winter.
Fuming in the day,
a ventilator of smoke
and rosy dawn in my pipe
I sink into halogen and cardigan
my broken hands, and wait in the past.
16 Steps to a Happier Marriage (Draft #2)
Drumming his fingers gently at first, then rapidly, the man with the flaccid moustache and tired eyes sat. Reaching for his tea (English Breakfast, no cream or milk, three cubes of sugar), he stopped his hand, and set it down irritably again upon the porcelain table. He peered out of the corner of his eye without moving, looking at his wife of thirty eight years. A dark curling hair sprouted from the underside of her chin, twisting about and catching the light, shooting sparkles. There was a mole protruding from her chin nearly half an inch, and looked like someone had flung a burnt marshmallow at her face. He could see her eyelashes, overdone and bent from that’s great globs of mascara she threw on her face every morning before he’d even allowed himself a shave.
He harrumphed. Settling himself even further into a wicker chair that no one could settle into, no matter how hard they tried, he looked out at the street before them, turtlenecks and sports coats, hip slit skirts and knee high boots. He watched one woman, wearing a royal blue dress and grey jacket open at the front, walking toward and then past and away from him, her large buttocks jouncing with each step. His wife did not miss his eyes bouncing with each clicking step, nor did she miss his scowl after she was gone. She, in turn, harrumphed and struck her cup (Coffee, milk on the side which she’d forgotten to pour, one cube of sugar) with her spoon. He raised one eyebrow, and watched irritably as she stirred her coffee, though the sugar was long dissolved and the milk sat miserably hidden behind the menu and the sugar pot. She, in turn watched the coffee swirling faster and faster, furiously twirling the spoon under her glower. Suddenly, satisfied, she released the spoon, sending it spinning hazardously. She drooped back in to her chair like she’d been dropped, and looked out over the Parisian streets.
Scarves were just beginning to show themselves, and she took it as a sign that winter was returning, like pear trees erupting in flame. Another woman appeared, one among a dozen, but this one was wearing a bright red skirt cut off two thirds way down her thigh. She watched the red skirted woman pass them, the bulges in the back of her skirt bouncing up and down with each stride. She also watched her husband, who, despite this morning’s red swatch across his face from her hand, smiled.
Glowering, she brought the coffee to her lips in an almost violent gesture, nearly sloshing herself, and slurped nosily, glaring at her husband the whole time. He winced, turning his sidelong eye away from the rhythmic red skirt back to her crooked nose and sweltering gaze. Her eyes narrowed at him, and he, wishing to avoid this particular vision, snapped shut his right eye, leaving only the wide street of Paris in his sight.
Aghast and offended, she snatched the sugar bowl, and took off the top, preparing to unleash a sweet fury against her husband. A single cube of sugar bounced off his closed eye and plopped into the sugar amongst his wife’s cackle. Refusing to flinch, the man kept his eye closed and reached for his spoon. Dipping it into tea, he tapped the cube until it was mush and took a sip, all the while avoiding the vision of ire to his right.
She, quivering, sat back down, defeated but with one lip still curled. Offended that her attack had no effect upon her close eyed husband, she pondered, lifting her reading glasses off her chest and twirling them by the gaudy chain that secured them around her neck. Looking around the table, searching for some inspiration, her eyes suddenly widened as she spied the nearly full pitcher of milk, recently uncovered by her removal of the sugar bowl. Delighted, she nearly flung the glasses from her hands, and they were only saved from an uncertain destruction upon the cobbles by the multicolored chain of baubles around her neck, and instead, bounced anti-climatically upon her hearty breasts.
Clutching the handle of the pitcher in her hand, she looked up at her husband, ensuring that his right eye was still closed to her actions. Then, cautiously, surreptitiously, she brought the pitcher over to his now four cubes of sugar tea, and emptied half of the milk into his cup. Triumphant, she slammed the pitcher down on the porcelain table, creating a magnificent clamor. Her husband, startled, bolted his eye open and saw his wife, sitting smug and satisfied, looking out over the Parisians.
The man looked at her suspiciously, trying to ascertain what heinous act had brought her so much satisfaction. While still scrutinizing her jowled face, he lifted his tea to his lips and took a deep sip, which he immediately sprayed all over himself. Gagging, he looked at his wet lap and his chortling wife. He refused to give her the satisfaction, however, and keeping his right eye trained on the woman, drained the entire cup into his mouth. Repressing the shudder that followed the milky drink, he slammed his eye shut again, disregarding the now annoyed woman to his right.
She snorted in disgust, and after a moment of thought, reached under her chair and brought out this morning’s newspaper. She thwacked it against the air, creasing it across the middle and padded her chest until her hand closed up her glasses, suspended by a gaudy chain from her neck. Turning the pages, she found today’s crossword puzzle, already half full of her husband’s strict and upright letters, fine slashes attacking little boxes. She smiled with an obvious glee, and dug into her purse for a pen. She clicked it, extending the point to the paper. Her husband, upon hearing the click, twitched. Turning his head to a nearly imperceptible degree, he creaked open his right eye. His wife, a broad smile cutting across her face, clicked the pen rapidly before setting it to paper, adding one letter to 36 down. The husband’s eyes widened.
The man, narrowing his eyes at his wife suddenly appeared to be caught in an extreme coughing fit, violently hacking and throwing his whole body into each explosion, flinging his head forward and nearly shouting his throat out. He enacted this performance for nearly one minute, with no response from his wife, who had continued clicking the pen, occasionally adjusting her glasses. Without so much of a glance at her mortally clogged husband, she pricked the pen against the paper, finishing off an ‘i’ on 24 across.
Eyes wide open throughout his spasmodic attack, the husband saw that no reaction was forthcoming from wide set wife. Apparently deciding one last course of action was needed, he finished off his coughing fit with an extraordinary sneeze which shot him bodily into the porcelain table. The shudders rippled through the table, knocking over his empty cup and jostling the sugar bowl, until it reached the saucer holding a cup of coffee with 1 cube of sugar, and sent it hurtling onto his wife. Yelping, she stood up and seized a wad of napkins off of a neighboring table and thrust them into the wet spot across her white blouse, the offended crossword thrown to the ground. Her lip curled, and even as she continued to grind the napkins into her breasts, she picked up the dregs of her coffee cup, and looking pointedly at her husband, upturned the cup over the crossword puzzle.
The man, his crossword puzzle destroyed, finally broke. Snarling, he reached deep into his pocket and flung a handful of Euros at his wife, one striking her smack on her plump cheek, leaving a red mark similar to the one he’d received this morning. She, offended not only by the attack but by the loss of money as well, shrieked and picked up the milk pitcher, aiming it at her husband. He, anticipating the assault of milk about to occur, flung himself from his chair, diving under the table. She, anticipating that he would anticipate the barrage, ducked and slung the remaining milk under the table. Irate, he bolted upright, narrowly missing the table on his way up and ran a hand over his mouth, trying to wipe off the milk dripping from his moustache in two streams. Putting one foot on the table, he prepared to launch himself at his girthy wife, who, seeing his wrinkles dissolved in milk and his moustache so sad and languid and sopping from the milk, began to giggle. And he, seeing his wife, suddenly looking so young, her blouse wet and nearly transparent, her eyes squinted in poorly repressed mirth, began to smile himself. The edges of his moustache rose as he grinned. Then, cackling, he hurled himself over the table on top of his shrieking wife. Tackling her, he seized her arms, and bent his milky moustache to her laughing face, and kissed her.
He stood up first, and chuckling, helped her to her feet. Using napkins appropriated from other tables, they cleaned up their little table and chairs as best they could. They sat, and looking at each other, hair out of place and everything wet, held hands, and ordered another round.
80th street (Draft #2 (Seriously, help me fix this))
The day is leaking
from the eastern horizon,
spilling west toward the sun,
dragging the dregs of streetsigns
simulacrums of lamposts
and etchings of trees.
And I, sucked along
the spilled light,
walk, scuttling shadows
and broken leaves between
my feet, turning over
and over my hands.
Windswept of traffic and heedless,
the blacktop hibernates,
frozen and without,
and I, elbows deep,
touch that band of silver
in my pocket.
And I,
knowing well you're
in a white room greying,
rubbing your red
and swollen finger,
I keep walking
okay, I hate the word pocket. I wanted to use 'slacks' or 'pants' or even 'trousers' but then it sounds like I'm wearing a cockring or something. Also, the last stanza's all awkward. I want six lines and an emphasis on 'I', but it any suggestions are helpful.
I'm also not sold to that title. I was thinking "Tempest," but it might be a little too loaded.
For Clara
If it wasn't for the red coat
hung like discarded hide
across the chair,
or the empty tube of mascara
lolling over the back seat
like wine bottles,
or the cigarette burns
across my chest
like craters,
I would have forgotten you.
Why it bothers me
Flicking wrists at middle aged
nymphos and darting eyes
and tounges at your neck,
the boys romp while you exasperate
and a lisper coats you like paint.
