weird poetry

everyone I’ve known

all lips that touched mine

fingers secret smell

eyes witnessed my tears

at the rips of ex-childhood

stolen teddy bear

trust encrusted

stop playing that song

devices to remember the leaves

or forget sullen swords

patterns we would walk or patterns of speech

absent no matter what

lost in a gutter

perhaps alphabet city

i see you're tilted wrong. so my head spins down the battered dust road and rolls like tumbleweeds in a black&white old west. or old sadness loitering in the doorway because it doesn’t know where to go. i still remember though, wisps of joy like your hair and hard-handed grip. grits on my teeth far too sweet like cupcake frosting.

today, tonight, tomorrow, 65 years ago?

i like watching the snow against the brick

in my little corner of new york city

silent and slow 

it is a watery diversion, everything ersatz

i should ration my thoughts

because today i am gobbling up the world with my eyes

then seeing you and getting scared

of jabs you're leaving, ash like red going gray

aftermath of a holocaust

permaglow of pain and love

tonight i'm so full and nostalgic

begging myself not to contact you 

wishing as i grip my sheets

that again you would rock me so

grabbing your hair dark brown going gray

premature endings and beginnings

and all the flavors akin to innocence lie still on my tongue

but tomorrow down avenues i will stomp resolute

resistance necessary to combat the slush of filth

soul stinging with my face

and the heat of the stars, the cold of pluto

did someone once lie with me in some eastern european field?

look in my eyes and marvel at the potatoes?

risk quick death for a purloined sausage?

in february

in february, my eyes are wide to 

vague apparitions on cold concrete

half frozen under the guise of stale season

old gray snow and salt of immaculate hue

hapless shroud over everything

something more than post traumatic

but my neck itches with stress at the end of the day

in the overcast hour of 4 o'clock

i am a sad shiva

trembling imperceptibly dragging the weight of so many

phantom limbs

bring me to the chapel and tell me everything

colored glass and stories will dance around our faces

waving like prayer flags in fervent wind of intentions

and i'll grip finally your hand 

and you'll feel my fingers grasp with the concern of love

and in my smile will be the tremble

not relief

thanking my silent rosary