before the fest

The clown is enough
he doesn't have to state his name or purpose
he doesn't need shoes

and I don't need a sweater
I don't need your problems
and I sure as hell don't have to get up early

I don't look for trouble
it doesn't look for me
but people call me up
and offer coffee and animal pelts
if I will sing and dance for them

Are you kidding me?
You couldn't stop me
from dancing and singing

I would shake the floor
I would rattle windowshades
I cannot stop moving

I'm spotty
I'm dotty
I'm the Queen of Sweaters

You are not an Irishman
We are not lost
We are not doing time for penury

She didn't apologize
You don't even like her

On crutches, pedaling away. 

the wide sky is elastic like a trampoline, 

and that bottle's a fly in the water. 

to catwalk ragged
calling,
"beacon"?

no,

two white fores
can hold
the rude melting of a wax heart.

yes,
a newspaper
and pupil water.

Jay Bird

Have you ever seen a mob of blue jays

Wings sky blue / crest of

White

Song clear like the rain?

Squawk the scream / most vicious beaks

Chase away suburban / urban winged creatures

Feeders / to steal an easy meal
claw for scrap of territory

Fight off squirrels, owls and hawks

good fortune for the little birds

protected as they hide when they hear the

Jay bird shriek to ward off

Invaders

Sometimes kill birds / small and weak

Ever hear a jay bird

Speak?

Colonizers tongue / thief 

Impersonator of bird calls / rhapsody of

Raptors

Not the innocent litte blue bird

Of urban childhood songs

Blue

Bird blue bird through my window/ common

North American bird / true to its

Nature

At the movies

I spent a day at the movies.

Making new friends, hating new people.
I gasped!
And cried!

I wondered what each life was like outside the screen.

People walking, breathing, beyond my sight.

I learned new things, felt fresh emotions, sobbed for those I will never meet, and cared about them.

There is life in the movies.
People who are behind the screen,
touching us, making us angry, upset, even inspired.

To reach inside these movies
pull out a character and speak to them.
Would it be the same, or be an awkward cyber date with a 2 dimensional person?

At the movies those questions are not needed because there is a screen, a distance there.

I spent a day at the movies
and wondered
and wrote
and hoped.

That those awkward, silent human moments we have each day,
would go on
Between these movie people
and ourselves.

Holding Court

A sudden crowd, the countdown timer and the sweat,
the tangent line broken, signal meltdown at the junction house,
gobbets of information vectoring nowhere,
Venn, amused.
The court frowns, moves on in sympathy.

Henry of sound & blood

Henry is in a box.
The boys call his name from the boat.
The girls call his name from the castle -
stick their legs through a hole and call his name
for him to come touch.
The boys and girls tell him
He is the king of everything,
but he's just looking through.

bensonhurst

you didn't ask questions then

we were family

we are family

he was down the block

she was down the block

i loved my father

but he was the man i looked up to

and i didn't even know him

you just didn't ask questions

we just grew up

thready expectorant my body is like

so great also never has been what i meant exactly

success turns out to be trying the wrong way until it's no longer possible

other people are looking kinder and kinder

She lays herself across the heater
it's not warm enough
She climbs up next to me
curls into a ball near my feet
And now we snuggle on the couch
as she tries to keep her eyes open
For just a moment longer

YET

there’s a certain way

I want

to be loved

but who

am I

kidding 

– a large swath

in fact. borne

of some myth 

or another –

we don’t get

to dictate how

we get any goods.

I should be happy

I’m not confined

by imaginative limits

or even experience,

both are half-full

& yet – – – – –

a whole ocean

is lapping

at a shore

I can’t see.

i said i wasn't going to just complain 

on poemaday this year

the truth is

i'm still afraid of lots of things

but i feel

so much better

and that

is really really hard to talk about