a song in text

the thing about emptiness:
it’s insatiable.

no amount of e minor chords
or old fashions
will fill the void.

this famished parasite
gnawing itself inside-out
ends in oblivion.

nostalgia
promises and vows
making a difference
knowing more than the narrator
the first time you heard bright eyes
and neutral milk hotel
with mike on that pontoon
on that lake in that jungle in malaysia.

hope and fate
faith and choice
the shy girl
and her way with words

we wrote a song
in texts
we will never sing
never good enough
not enough time
always wanting
never being

the dead sun flower
from the upper east side
still a symbol
whose meaning
escapes us now

how long are we excepted
to keep missing
before we forget

i love you
is never
enough

all my idols are suicides
but don’t you worry
i’ve got these sad song
to feed the beast

old fashion

every night i vow
to feed myself an old fashion
and cobble together
a fire of words

to keep me warm
in the morning
when the chill
of the news
is unbearable,

only
to be
too exhausted
to execute.

at least tonight
there was
this tiny spark.

it doesn’t
offer much
warmth,

but the tiniest
light is a sun
when all there is,
is darkness.

bear witness

i forget
how
to do
this.

the weight of indignation
heavy like a [where do similes go?]
easy cliches
like the news
and other garbage they try
to sell us.

scrolling, sloth, sins
lost in thought
about what
must be inherited and not attained;
culture, power, justice
being born
here not there
white not black
male not female

inheritances are never taxed,
wealth weaponised
by drunken children
wielding privilege and victimhood

fires. volcanos. war.
protests. impeachment. elections.
winners. losers. snubs.

everyday the same.
everyday different.

whilst running in the park
I witnessed:

a pigeon flapping its wings
transporting a twig into a tree

a father and daughter
flying a kite
within reach,
but far away enough
to threaten space

a newly married couple
draped in an entourage
laughing
sand between their bare feet.

everyday the same.
everyday different.

the world will bury us
the only levity
found by bearing witness

the only thing we need to teach
the children is how to
catch a breath beneath another shovel load. 

the opposite empty

the moon doesn’t have to be full
to be loved

neither do you
was a tweet i saw

that reminded me of
an emptiness inside

you me us
of splintered pieces

gaps and spaces
of rambling stories without resolutions

enmeshed in mixed muddled metaphors
are our stories connected or knotted

nets or webs
designed to save or ensnare

like tightrope walkers
and the decaying housefly

where do you start
do i end

mounds of tangled threads
pregnant is the opposite of empty

i don’t know how to set you free
the more i struggle

the tighter the knots
let’s not mistake

this involuntary involution
for wisdom

when did they tell us
we’d have to work this hard

belongings and memories are worthless
compared to the soft sad songs

that make me feel ugly
when all you wanted was for me to be free

some kind of worthless victory

i ate three plums today,
each
an
hour
apart,
and this feels like
some kind of worthless victory,

not only because of their cold
sweet texture,
but because the act
reminded me
of that poem
by that guy
with the same first and last name.

you just mentioned
that the new candle you bought last week,
doesn’t have a hot throw.
“don’t you know about these things?”
you ask while giggling into the kitchen.
you’d be surprised by the things I don’t know,
but we both know that’s a lie. 

what is a marriage
if not an unraveling
of the things we don’t know.

chris brought the book into my life
a few days ago. he had sent me a message
about how whilst discussing the work in his classes
my former students had commented on how I looked
like the poet.  we periodically speak
in the lunch line about what we’re reading
or writing and this poets name came up.
two days later the book is in my life.

chris sometimes gives me gifts.
he once wrote me a hand written letter:
highlighting the things that made me and our friendship special.
i was moved and stupidly proud
that i know a guy who writes letters like that.
he might be embarrassed that I’ve shared this story
in this hastily written poem,
so thoughtless shared,
in all places,
a facebook post and a tweet.

i’m not sure what I’m supposed to be about.
but i know that
starting and ending a day with a poem
is a good way to appreciate

plums and wives and friends.

thoughts on Tuesday lunch duty, whilst bouncing a tennis ball in the humid tropical heat

I wonder how many tennis balls there are in the world.
On the planet. Right now.
How many swimming pools would they fill:
a pond, a lake, the Caspian Sea?

How many:
baby bottle nipples, used guitar picks, bowling shoes
and tractor tires.

Old projectors, rear seats,
restaurant grade refrigerators,
roulette wheels, golf clubs, and hand cuffs.

Leather desk sets, ascots, and hospital sheets,
persian carpets, beads, ice cube containers,
air conditioner filters and curtains.

Jet engine blades, classroom microscopes, pipelines,
unused candle wicks, zippers, door knobs
and Saxophones.

Disposable razors,
old radios, broken light bulbs
and dried up lighters

In what state of degradation and decay,
are the remains of our progress?

Where will all the shipping containers and tankers go when
we’re gone and the planet sighs a deep sense of relief?

Will they sink to the bottom of the ocean
like giant Tetris blocks, until there are so many
that they poke out like a rusted mountain range
or dilapidated sky scrapers?

swallowed

is it a blockage of words?

i can’t tell

or an absence of them.

for the last week,

i’ve felt like i’ve had some

things to say,

but the timing’s

never right-

even now, with

a piercing headache,

a sore shoulder,

a throbbing ankle,

a bitter mind- the news again

and this heart:

uncertain

directionless

and bored.

might have been: these words

better swallowed, reconsidered

and ignored.

but then again,

even when there’s nothing,

there’s always something.

anywhere

when we were younger

and in new york-

and dragging Christmas trees over our shoulders

through the snow covered west side,

and passing out in the park

barefoot after two bottles of afternoon merlot,

and building tables from doors

and dreaming of interactive poetic image based art shows,

and excited about hanging your photos in that cafe,

and hungover conversations over brown rice meals at Zuni cafe

and long shifts at that restaurant for old white people

on the upper east side:

who argued about nonsense and never tipped adequately,

and the hostess who invited me to her place

and locked herself in the bathroom,

sliding incoherent notes under the door,

until I lost patience and let

her notes pile up in silence,

and your apartment where those sunflowers

that were meant to symbolise our dreams

wilted and lingered for longer

that we expected- I wanted to be Jack Kerouac,

or was that you,

and I was meant to be Ginsberg.

They’re both dead

but we are here:

timezones apart-

bald and grey,

staying connected through text messages

about push ups

and this subdued yearning,

listening to Childish Gambino

on my daughter’s toy headphones,

because I can’t be bothered to buy

things that might bring joy-

painfully aware that no poem,

at least not one that I might write,

will make any difference

to anyone.

Anywhere.

The second craft beer

on (a school) Monday night

is making me nostalgic (again):

is this the best that friendships can do?

Years of emotional investments

only to return biweekly

animated .gif and inflatable hearts?

miss more than you

One day in the not so distant future,

on a day that feels normal to most people,

filled with getting the kids ready for school,

and performing their menial tasks

and/or more important jobs,

like saving lives, or doing someones taxes, or educating children-

one of your friends will open Facebook

and see that another friend of yours,

someone closer to you

with more vivid memories

and shared experiences,

with maybe even something that resembles love

will have alerted the world that you have passed.

This news will pass through timezones,

and be represented by a faded grainy photo of you-

perhaps from high school graduation,

or some other distant event when you were young

and happy and alive.

Different people on Facebook

will react in different ways.

Your friend’s post,

the one announcing your death,

will garner a batch of sad emojis,

as people scroll through their feed-

The announcement of your death

with accompanying photo will be

just another news bit they will process

for a few seconds,

before they change their sadness

to joy while watching a kitten video

or to rage as they contemplate

the death of democracy

or ponder the news about the EPA

choosing not to protect children from poison.

A few people on their feed,

might work hard to remember any times they spent with you,

conjuring memories from the shrinking spaces of their minds.

Others will leave comments about how great you were.

How you were so kind and loved.

People that barely knew you might jump on

and revel in the shared grief.

Some of your real friends might remember

that these emotional interlopers

were actually pretty big assholes toward you,

but they will like the comments

because this is the time to grieve

and not to hold grudges or

lingering vendettas.

By lunch time,

most people will have forgotten about you

and the announcement of your death.

They will have to get home and make dinner,

and go over their kid’s homework.

If you’re lucky they might think of you

one last time through the fog of fatigue

and feel obliged to honour your life,

or the absurdity of our modern age,

in the form of a poem,

before they get ready to go have a drink and some dinner

with a friend who will move away soon,

who they will most likely miss more than you.

bridges

I dreamt in chunks last night,
my exhausted body unable to move
each limb sawed off like a sad branch
laid in a pile of lifeless lumber.

My mind, however, was awake
and wild in dreams of wonder:
Does wood remember being a tree?
Paper of wood?
Books of memories before they were stories?

The dreams were intense and world blending:
Jason was there and we were in a fancy restaurant,
me agog over some nice wine and the cut
of an helium tomato, yellow in this case,
and he asking for his fifth glass of water.
It is known in our circles that he is seldom
impressed or aware of the subtilise of tomato flavours.
In my dream I wonder
if his disdain for fine dining
is still the case,
seeing that we haven’t eaten
in a restaurant together,
fancy or not,
in years.

In my other dream, my students are there.
We are in Italy and I have patched them together
as a quilt I hope will take.
I am hosting a parent event in a piazza.
The sun is bright and everyone is enjoying
tomatoes and wine.
The blanket of kids I have woven have found skateboards
and are doing alie-s and jumps on the ancient cobbled streets
wearing hats and sunglasses.
Looking cool and confident
as kids their age should be.
The parents are getting drunk and singing each other love songs.

I am a bridge that spans many worlds,
keeping it all together, unsure of the exact location of the center.
I am a web of spans held together by fragile wire.
The distances may vary,
but these connections are taut and made of steel.

I must confess I am awake now, at least I think I am.
Ready to face the conscious part of my consciousness.
I envision the day lived in chunks as well.
I am in my room at Daraja,
The pre-dawn sounds of howling dogs, chirping birds, and rooster crows
are a symphony unconducted music.

The room is dark, expect for the tunnel of
light cast from my laptop.
Outside the window,
the inky sky is fading into shades
of lavender like bruised human skin.

It is six am and I am sure I will not sleep more tonight.
My limbs have awoken and the pile of wood
has been reconstructed into a moving tree.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow are a jumbled mess.
Film scattered on the floor
waiting to be rewound and led through
a projector.

On the bus ride, Sarah and I talked about a persons
tolerance for discomfort
and the privilege of choice
that leads to freedom.

We watched as an old woman, perhaps fifty years old
back hunched over till her chin touched her knees,
carried a pile of soon to be fire wood, trudging
along the side of the highway.

This display of injustice and discomfort
is not new to me, but I wondered how many
of the kids behind me on the bus had ever
considered this woman and her place in the world.

How many of our kids and had wanted to
stop the bus and ask the woman if they could carry the wood
for a while, and help her stretch her back with the latest yoga moves
and perhaps offer her a glass of wine
and a yellow heirloom tomato covered in chunks of Himalayan sea salt
and maybe offer her a ride in an air conditioned car,
perhaps a Porsche SUV, to a warm safe bed with goose down pillows
and sheets with a thread count that screamed luxury.

How many of our kids considered
going back in time when this woman was twelve years old
and finding ways to get her into a classroom, with a book in her hand
and a teacher guiding her choices and removing her from a husband or even father
telling her what to do,
giving her sanitary pads and offering her a menu of choices
that are often only reserved for the educated and the privileged like us?

I wondered if any of our kids made the connection
between the girls they would meet in a few hours and the woman on the road.
Between their own privilege and the battle against poverty.
Between the world of dreams and reality.
Between the dark night and the dawn.
Between problems and solutions.

The day is about to begin.
I’m a first draft poem of mixed metaphors
unbound like an old film on the floor.
I was awoken in the night
by the urgency of this creation.

I wonder what I’ll do with it next.

That Poem,

It’s the ones that,
are difficult that,
demand to be
uncovered and found.

It’s not the writer that,
does this work that,
we call poetry.

but the observant viewer that,
is patient enough to wait for that,
big reveal.

And like that,
putrid flower in a jungle that,
blooms once a century

We hope that,
he chooses to share his experience(s).

For what its worth,
I chickened out on this one
and went with cute
instead of wrestling
with the weight
in my heart.

things to lose

Saturday night I found myself alone
in a bar,
on the coldest night in Singapore,
just as the sun was setting
and shoppers zig-zagged
across the slick wet streets
from shop to shop
enamoured by their obsession to commerce,
as the street lights painted
the concrete with smears of electric paint,
and the giant screens showed dancing women
biting their pouty lips and well-washed hair,
defying a hashtag movement
through the invisible strings
of the seduction machine.

Men using sex to sell things to women
to make them want sex with men.

Everyone wanting to be cool
and loved and wanted
as we strode the street
like spawning salmon
caught in dead end eddies.

The darkness of the bar
was alluring and comfortable.

It has been years since I sat alone in a bar.

I remember North Beach after Veronica’s house-
Sunday morning after a night of disappearing oblivion,
we were like ink released into midnight puddles.

The next day hungover and alone.
Football was played on the TV without sound
as The Revered Horton Heat blared loudly.
Of course her boyfriend was behind the bar.
Tattooed with a goatee
glaring at me as I sipped my drink.
Twice my size he could have
broken all my bones,
I never understood why he didn’t.

I remember the East Village-
Tuesday afternoon after a walk down
the endless avanues from Ari’s place
on the Upper East Side-
alone with a jukebox and an afternoon to kill.

Saturday was different,
a Martini and a bowl of fries.
Slow slips, flicking through my phone
reading the news.
We all took picture of our drinks,
to stamp that we were there
that we are here.
That we’re alive and in need of attention.
Yearning to be noticed even in solitude.

Next to me a group of four young men,
drank as young men do, “What’s up man?”
The one with well groomed hair
and a tucked in pink buttoned up shirt asked.

“Not much,” I answered sipping my drink.
Not much at all.

The Porsche

It occurred to me pre-dawn

after I had put on my running shoes

and shlepped outside pushing one aging knee past the next

that I had seen the guy in the Porsche twice this week.

Alone on the sidewalk,

desperate to quiet my thoughts

or ignoring the crackling of my joints-

I saw him shooting off the highway:

convertible roof down,

gunning his engine.

What a douchebag

was my first thought.

This guy gets up early every morning

to drive his fancy car

fast on empty roads.

It occurred to me that there must be

hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands

of men, around the world, who must do this.

After turning the corner and entering the tunnel-

the glaring neon lights buzzing

in the growing humid heat-

my judgment weighed me down.

Short of breath

and sweating into my beard-

I saw myself in a cockpit

of a cherry red Porsche:

The music cranked to deafening decibels,

probably early 2000s Strokes.

The smell of the leather seats

conflicting with my loosening vegan commitments.

The twinkling lights of the dash

crafted by exquisite German design

take me back to 1983…

I’m nine and my parents no longer live in the same house,

technically we are no longer a family

and to make up for this fact

my dad takes me to movies.

Last Saturday we saw one

about a young entrepreneur

who starts a small time brothel in his house

to pay off his debt to a prostitute.

Not sure how we are allowed to watch this film,

but there we were

the two of us bonding

awkwardly in the darkness

as I watched a sex scene on a train.

These days those images are only

brought to life in abstractions

and vagaries.

But I clearly remember the Porsche.

Thirty four years later,

I’ve never even sat in one.

we are all the noise

lost in the webs of our texts and tweets and updates

every event an emergency necessitating our opinions.

left, right, black, white

everyone mired in a perpetual state of indignation.

“everyone will have a voice,” we cheered at the onset,

unaware of the eternal din we would create.

the delirious debates clogging up every comment section,

hanging around our consciousness like a hall of mirrors:

until we no longer care about anything.

the ideas and opinions and speeches and films

and maybe even this poem

drop into the already violent waters,

not causing ripples or waves

or ever even noticed,

just quickly judged,

commented on and

ignored.

empty bottles and full ashtrays

when I was child in my house,
there was a book
of poems
written by Hafez,
and my parents didn’t have to tell me
that it was filled with magic.

like an ancient soothsayer-

it’s unadorned cover
was dressed in an olive canvas skin-
the spine barely bound
by course crumbling string,
the pages were delicate leaves
veined by a fluid Persian script-

it followed us
from house to house,
year to year,
across a childhood
and into the ether of memory
and vital forgotten momentos.

i explored its mysticism
early Sunday mornings
as my parents slept in their room.
the book laid open upon the table with
empty bottles and full ashtrays.

unable to read the text,
i held its fragile frame
in my lap,
gently running my fingers
across the pages
and the cover…

i made wish.
begged for a direction.
prayed,
they would stay together.

i’m not sure who ended up with the book of Hafez poems.
as far as I could see,
after the divorce,
it lost most of its magic.

hold my breath

It was just the three of us tonight
the family unit deconstructed by a sleep over,
the new dynamic, unleashing the spirit of littlest
which reminded us of her evolving personality

as if, one by one, the jokes she giggled to
fed the ball of energy inside her heart
like a fully formed gift
dreamed to life years ago.

She’s a sleep now, or at least in her bed on her way,
and I am keeping a promise to poetry.
I’ve forgotten how time consuming
it can be carrying these words close enough for you
to touch, and rub between your fingers like
old worn pages.

In preparation for writing, I’ve set the table with the following:

a chilled glass of Moscato-
the sweet orange fragrance rests on my tongue;
licking the sticky remnants from my moustache makes me feel
like an evolved primate with access to magic.

three books for inspiration randomly collected from my library-
“Somewhere inside me there’ll always be the person I am tonight.”
the line highlighted in fading green,
the pages dark and yellowed by time
and exposure and neglect.
In what moment of bliss or madness
did Fitzgerald uncover that gem?

“Hell is being scared of things.”
the Robbins novel is a window to the past,
long afternoons on the mattress on the cement floor,
as the termites ate the house down.
We were so eager to carve out a spirituality

“I used to hold my breath waiting for euphoria.”
an old Bukowski book with my scribbles in it
stares at me like a stow away on a time machine.

A lifetime is too long to be forced into one reflection.
We do not change enough to bare the boredom of selves.
I have forgotten all the things I’ve wanted to be. 

What have I accomplished tonight?
Another navel gazing poem that helped pass the hour.
Better than slowly disappearing, I suppose.
Better than following snarky tweets about dementia in power.

Any time spent poking at the center
has to mean something.

Be Better

I want things to be quiet and I want to be better.
I want to do things more deliberately and less habitually.
I want to stun a room into silence and take breaths away.
I want to create and carve and reconfigure.
I want to let the stirrings vibrate and hit the right notes.
I want my words to rumble, tumble and hit on impact.


I want to be more than your scroll and your feed.
I want to be more than liked.
I want to borrow into your thinking and force your heart to skip a beat.


I want the minutes to slow down and feel like hours, and these days like lifetimes.
I want to inspire you and share with you and shake you and wake you and remind you.


I want to please you.
I want to Leonard Cohen you.
I want to turn off the noise and ignore the mob and their voices.


I am tried of comment sections and blogs and social media and the accidental nonsense.
I am tired of options and pundits and comedians and experts and artists.


I want to stop ignoring every detail that demands my daily attention.
I want to breath in and out and be here now.
I want to disappear into the gentle silence of midnight.


The flickering lights
and consistent promises-
another decade is off and running.
A new year on the horizon.


With our eyes closed
I feel that chaotic night in the city
Gabe and I walking across the bridge at dawn
wondering if you would live.


Who could have guessed that a love so young
could have carried us so far.
Who knew how little, boys need, to be men.


All we ever wanted was to be better.

D-Day

The day was dripping with derelict diversions
dangling in front of our deceitful hour.
Dismal and dour
desirous for power-


What is this?


A different direction,
A drifting dictation,
A disdain for dejection.
Diminishing deprecation.
The determined disintegration
the definitive dead end
of this diet of desperation.


It begins with dutiful dreaming
A deceptive deviation
from this downtrodden despair.


Dominant in our devotion,
must be the decadent denial
of this disastrous deception.


Done with dread
put it to bed
down with your doom,
detained in a room,
walk away
walk away
from this dreary dead-end
tomb.


Define your own delicious delights,
delicate in their development
dropping diving deep
determined diversity
digging to discover its dimensions.


double
double
down.


dizzy
dizzy
deep


Dissing doubt.
the details dingy dim and dark.


Dance in your desire
Dance with your desire
and declare your day done

South

My days are measured from one meal to the next. 

Great food, friends and conversation. 

Love the feeling of touching down and checking on some roots. 

Making sure they are holding strong. 

Last night here and tomorrow

on the road again

south. 

Daze

Breakfast at Little Cheerful- Hash browns loaded with goodies. 

Then lake side. Kids played. We swam. Sat around. Enjoyed the sun. Snacked. 

Italian dinner with a Martini. 

Chatted writing checklists with Ari. 

Watched The Punk Singer again. 

Obama speech. 

Content sleep.