MANGO
Golden dangling fruit,
I pulled you from the tree,
not a harvest, but a seduction.
Your rind came away in my eager fingers,
and the amber juice
filled the creases of my palm,
like the sun’s own lotion.
One bite
and my mouth succumbed
to the mess of love,
down my chin,
on my lips,
in every pore of my defenseless tongue.
A wild too brief,
a sweetness compounded.
And just growing there.
Imagine that.
Like a lovely woman.
One not expected
but just standing there.
SMALL WORLD, EVEN SMALLER COUNTRY
So many people here.
I’m squeezed from all sides.
My lungs are in an uproar.
Breath can’t come soon enough.
The old are in residence.
The young are moving in
in droves.
The rich claim their space.
There’s not enough left over for the poor
but they jam in anyhow.
The middle class lock hands,
stand on each other’s feet.
The straight are so crushed
into one another
they’re almost gay.
Democrats crunch Republicans.
Republicans squash Democrats.
They emerge, where they can,
as undecided.
And then there’s the ethnic groups.
And the religions.
Irish Catholics, Iraqi Muslims,
Jewish Jews –
I’m oozed from one to the other.
I’m in a steam press,
an iron maiden.
Irresistible force
meets immovable object.
Look around me.
If only I could.
Go where I want to.
Someone else wants it more
It’s a Democracy at least.
The voice from above insists.
So I am a free man –
but with a prisoner’s reality.
IN SERVICE TO YOUR EXISTENCE
my days flicker not for anyone
in my bitter cold apartment
I see myself often
with metal reflected eyelids
they tap on my brow
always wanting something
maybe love
when it is all done pretending
oh well…
at least I found me a room
not far from yours
I wanted the flame but took the groove
this cracked path
where ghosts dwell
swiping left as if that meant leaving
I speak sometimes to everyone
but never I am still theirs
not because they remember
but because they don’t
I’ve learned to inhale with the lights
they pop and I am clean
but only in the flash
I forget my scent
I am small but again I arrive
as a favor to a poem never returned
and one day you’ll drop that coin into the well
and I’ll wave not because I stayed
but because I have always been here
IN HONOR OF YOUR DEPARTURE, I’M…
getting abstract like my slurry tongue,
another path to fake feeling,
conveniently absorbed in alcohol
dripping down my shirt –
fucked it all up
didn’t i –
while she did what needed to be done,
packed her bags, got on a plane,
leaving me to the weirdest dream
where i’m the only one alive on the planet,
just me and a fridge full of beer,
and a hollow body
that i can pour alcohol into
until i become just like my father –
fucked it all up
didn’t i –
how many times do I have to say it,
i’m stuck here, forced to be myself –
(ah, if only you could see me now) -
gently foaming at the mouth,
erasing all miracles from my life,
turning a would-be scream
into another empty bottle
on the kitchen floor –
you and your rachmaninoff,
your duplicity –
fucked it all up
didn’t i –
so much for the honest mouth,
for listening so quietly –
ridiculous!
i’m here scribbling empty lines,
whistling rugby songs,
sucking wind,
studying the spider web on the ceiling,
hearing no word from anyone,
and wanting to be
anybody but the person I am –
so what else?
what’s wrong with me?
why must shame have such an undying thirst?
fucked it all up
didn’t i
MY WILD SIDE WALK
A moment ago I felt so sick -
from the cloistered wealthy on the east side
to poor people on the streets of south Providence -
the drop off is amazing —no, depressing -
and so cold —
because there is nothing to be dreamed of,
there is no chance to be seized, all is lost,
time drifts backward -
I am walking. That's what I do.
I'm trying to convince my sadness to relax.
No one here's read Dostoyevsky.
I translate "The Idiot" for them -
I am Prince Myshkin in sweatshirt and jeans,
making resolutions I'm too sick to keep,
risks my frailty won't allow —
and you wonder why I can hardly move?
I stare in the windows of shuttered shops,
A pigeon plops down in the gutter beside me.
A car backfiring will be the sound of guns
come evening.
And I'm sick again -
my body puzzles me,
late afternoon shadows evoke a corresponding sadness,
and smells — and the thump of a basketball
on a nearby court — and the face at the
third floor window of a tenement —
it sets the old world in a frame -
by the time any of it reaches me,
the lives of others
have mutated into misunderstanding.
I feel as sick as the blade of an ax
slamming against a throat — or and old tune
I struggle to know the words of—
or the whir of a cop car siren,
coming for some sick kid,
coming for us all.
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