Shots fired. Saturday night.
I heard them and thought
fireworks did not sound nearly
as innocuous.
I wondered briefly
where you were and if
you heard guns go off
on the weekends
in the odd hours I used to spend
avoiding seeing you and
cutting up with the friends
you were right about.
I heard them and thought
you would be happy to know
I'm not out there anymore.
I'm in here. Taking shots.
Trying to fall asleep
against the baying sirens
that tell me something is wrong
something is off, but never exactly what.
original works of parts
Ever Been to Torrenby?
I've been told the streets in Torrenby
were laid by the Romans
while the locals were still being suppressed
by torch and knife and currency.
They never paved them with asphalt
as a tribute to the thousand year history of
civilization and progress and
the oil pearl inspiration
that glows on the corners of fitted stone
in the fog hilt hours of questioning night.
The church bells in Torrenby
were made by 20th century monks
who took vows of silence, but really
sought a new way of free speech
when the King's English failed them.
A clever bunch. Like living lines of poetry
they pursued many things
before reality caught up and
bombed the towers flat.
They're restorations. Good ones.
The canals though, they are genuine, but
to be perfectly clear
in ways the evening air is
so often not in Torrenby
it would not matter whose note it was
touching your ear or the heart's sound chamber inside;
if you sat on the stone wall along King's Bridge and
looked down at the spilled necklaces of moonlight
along the cobble stones. The words of
every love letter, every war hymn, every prayer and
every sweetly damned man to ever
feel their god desert or their love return
arm in arm with another
to the smudge, to the way point of Torrenby,
would come to your eyes like
stars spat across the sky
from the mouth of a freshwater whale
old and full up with enough of history's drifting life
to live a thousand years more
without taking another breath
and that is the worth of knowing
the feel of the rounded stone streets
against the soul and soles of restless feet.
were laid by the Romans
while the locals were still being suppressed
by torch and knife and currency.
They never paved them with asphalt
as a tribute to the thousand year history of
civilization and progress and
the oil pearl inspiration
that glows on the corners of fitted stone
in the fog hilt hours of questioning night.
The church bells in Torrenby
were made by 20th century monks
who took vows of silence, but really
sought a new way of free speech
when the King's English failed them.
A clever bunch. Like living lines of poetry
they pursued many things
before reality caught up and
bombed the towers flat.
They're restorations. Good ones.
The canals though, they are genuine, but
to be perfectly clear
in ways the evening air is
so often not in Torrenby
it would not matter whose note it was
touching your ear or the heart's sound chamber inside;
if you sat on the stone wall along King's Bridge and
looked down at the spilled necklaces of moonlight
along the cobble stones. The words of
every love letter, every war hymn, every prayer and
every sweetly damned man to ever
feel their god desert or their love return
arm in arm with another
to the smudge, to the way point of Torrenby,
would come to your eyes like
stars spat across the sky
from the mouth of a freshwater whale
old and full up with enough of history's drifting life
to live a thousand years more
without taking another breath
and that is the worth of knowing
the feel of the rounded stone streets
against the soul and soles of restless feet.
Up Tick
Tonight is another story.
By morning I was
a thing of harmony
challenged by no one
short of Leonard Bernstein.
I was
so fucking agreeable and
music for days
longer than the longest monologue of
loathing and high spun fear.
Tonight is another story.
By morning I was
a thing of harmony
challenged by no one
short of Leonard Bernstein.
I was
so fucking agreeable and
music for days
longer than the longest monologue of
loathing and high spun fear.
Tonight is another story.
Feel Good
A woman is walking ahead of me
in the dust and gravel and popped
aluminum tabs that jingle like
the lost keys to happiness
when Friday sets and Saturday rises
and eyes blink in the dry air
behind a bus trundling away
one step too fast
into the vein I missed.
Her bags are thin
ambitions pointed setters
pushing hard toward home improvements
with tools she may use,
or may hold with the best intent.
The gray tagged handles
poking through the tan and stretching clear film
are like the grays in her pinned bun
coming unsprung,
but not for lack of care.
My bag is light,
closing the distance,
my feet taking on the bounce and turns of
her swinging plastic,
my head taking on little dreams of
the things she is planning to do,
the emptiness of my pockets and
purpose locked in the gap between
planning and my own lost keys
filling with her determination
to do and thrilled to be
on a way apart from
the things I've missed and
less aware.
I kick a stone
that smacks against a crushed can
pool of reflected Saturday sky and
cut back the opposite
as she looks to see
what it is that will overtake her next and
I match her steps
while she looks away and
feel the seconds of her filled hands sway and
springy grays and knob knuckled grip and
time compressed spine and child bored hip and
the home she intends to fix and care tender and
her face turns to right,
satisfied that nothing is come,
directly into the sun
of my chip toothed smile
and upturned shades.
She blinks and returns
with a sigh and a touch of her hand
to her breast and I
do the same
in returning to my own and
bid her the best of days
as I walk on toward nothing so beautiful,
nothing so concrete as a destination
in the heat of summer and
nothing but buses to catch and
repairs to make
to homes I dream
with empty pockets and bags and
graying hairs laced across my mind.
in the dust and gravel and popped
aluminum tabs that jingle like
the lost keys to happiness
when Friday sets and Saturday rises
and eyes blink in the dry air
behind a bus trundling away
one step too fast
into the vein I missed.
Her bags are thin
ambitions pointed setters
pushing hard toward home improvements
with tools she may use,
or may hold with the best intent.
The gray tagged handles
poking through the tan and stretching clear film
are like the grays in her pinned bun
coming unsprung,
but not for lack of care.
My bag is light,
closing the distance,
my feet taking on the bounce and turns of
her swinging plastic,
my head taking on little dreams of
the things she is planning to do,
the emptiness of my pockets and
purpose locked in the gap between
planning and my own lost keys
filling with her determination
to do and thrilled to be
on a way apart from
the things I've missed and
less aware.
I kick a stone
that smacks against a crushed can
pool of reflected Saturday sky and
cut back the opposite
as she looks to see
what it is that will overtake her next and
I match her steps
while she looks away and
feel the seconds of her filled hands sway and
springy grays and knob knuckled grip and
time compressed spine and child bored hip and
the home she intends to fix and care tender and
her face turns to right,
satisfied that nothing is come,
directly into the sun
of my chip toothed smile
and upturned shades.
She blinks and returns
with a sigh and a touch of her hand
to her breast and I
do the same
in returning to my own and
bid her the best of days
as I walk on toward nothing so beautiful,
nothing so concrete as a destination
in the heat of summer and
nothing but buses to catch and
repairs to make
to homes I dream
with empty pockets and bags and
graying hairs laced across my mind.
Kinda Wasted Time
It's kind of wasted time,
but I would otherwise be at a loss
for things to do and
feel like a real piece
so I'm poking red blotches
and waiting for them to turn forest and coal and
Atlantic water pea-ed blue
enough to stand rubbing elbows
with other people
without thinking of
the faded colors of maps
I left on the insides of you.
but I would otherwise be at a loss
for things to do and
feel like a real piece
so I'm poking red blotches
and waiting for them to turn forest and coal and
Atlantic water pea-ed blue
enough to stand rubbing elbows
with other people
without thinking of
the faded colors of maps
I left on the insides of you.
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