aging

then her bones were

all about escape

untied choked without

clever marrow

bloated and unseemly

drinking in

a thing or two 

the fiction that follows

each truthful denial

a misdirection

that craven fear of words

stoked by inflection

bigger than she

revealing the personal

angry in place

cross-eyed kittens she cries

it is time to get drowned

a moment before

she laughs out loud

when her teeth collapse

those mad fucking dancers

free with the questions

done as well with the answers

she takes stock of herself

fakes shedding a tear

it’s like fucking Gray Gardens in here

she is literally downed 

by the park of reminders

wanting isn’t always doing nothing

hanging never solved a problem

crosses come and go in tandem

when her bones are all

about escape

untied and without

clever marrow

she will climb the cross again

quietened no doubt

by discomfort from the razor’s edge

she will climb the cross again

she will no longer pledge.

She will climb the cross again

waving from the edge.

Bones

too often the late night
lonely sinner
reckons a life
in a brooding simmer
the wine recalls
what sorrow befalls
a plate piled with universal hurt
she don’t have to pick at
these sad bones alone
he pulls up a seat
scans the menu she’s been served
he looks for substance
in a present course
puts aside bittersweet
and says what’s for dessert?

 

BONES

 

too often the late night

lonely sinner

reckons a life

in a brooding simmer

the wine recalls 

what sorrow befalls

a plate piled with universal hurt 

she won’t have to pick at 

these sad bones alone

he pulls up a seat

scans the menu she’s been served 

he looks for substance

in a present course

puts aside bittersweet

and says what’s for dessert?

 

2.1.12 nyc

photo: UES 3.8.2025 1:26am

 

AGING

 

then her bones were

all about escape

untied choked without

clever marrow

bloated and unseemly

drinking in

a thing or two 

the fiction that follows

each truthful denial

a misdirection

that craven fear of words

stoked by inflection

bigger than she

revealing the personal

angry in place

cross-eyed kittens she cries

it is time to get drowned

a moment before

she laughs out loud

when her teeth collapse

those mad fucking dancers

free with the questions

done as well with the answers

she takes stock of herself

fakes shedding a tear

it’s like fucking Gray Gardens in here

she is literally downed 

by the park of reminders

wanting isn’t always doing nothing

hanging never solved a problem

crosses come and go in tandem

when her bones are all

about escape

untied and without

clever marrow

she will climb the cross again

quietened no doubt

by discomfort from the razor’s edge

she will climb the cross again

she will no longer pledge.

She will climb the cross again

waving from the edge.

 

6.18.19

nyc

MOOD

you see I know it’s near
I always know when it’s coming
conversations with my fearful heart
go on for days before it drones
seeking an arrival time
I draw my request in the sand
fix a message with my bones
words lift like fog from the brain
answers arrive on eyelids
turned down for the night
some call it dreaming

12.18.19 nyc

 

MARIO’S STUDY

 

Angry centuries on the bookshelves.

Electric sharpener filled to its grisly

death teeth with skin and bones.

 

He belonged to the second group; he

says he believes in the Silence of the Light.

It goes with the dust here, she says.

 

She flies erratically on the back of her

thoughts of waiting women to

the velvet tongue across turned wood,

 

to settle like wine on the evening

shadows, to relieve a bloodless

tension, to say why care?

 

When an aching distant throat jumped

into her goblet and cried, as tiny as

a stillborn diamond.

 

Listen, it said

silence is not yet a dead subject.

 

3.5.76 nyc

Painting: the author 

Extinct

oil on prepared linen 4'x5'

Culture of innocence
does not exist
moonlight’s eloquence
remains unfixed
until the poet
scrambles to sane
vulture recognizance
bird’s eye view
everything is old
nothing is new
bones pecked to elegance
the lions are converts
having eaten the Christians
they are ready to revert
it’s ugly this hatred
this senseless revenge
a baby torn
from its mother’s side
a culture dismissed
is covered by scribes
who lie with the grace
of practiced men
who manage the seas
with lying amends
shall they swim free
or murder
the keepers of order
still own the gun
the doe checks her path
and looks to her fawn

alligator

she rode an alligator

as a child
 its skin was tough

 its temper mild
 until a threat
loomed 
large and true 
forced aground then fell 
to the blue 
it swam for her safety 
toward what she knew 
the alligator saved her
 
from hobnailed hearts
 
took her far from the 
drunkards and thieves who bartered
childhood 
and
did as they pleased
in sunlight and recesses
darker than sad dances

she found strength
and managed those passes
she rode an alligator as a child
its skin was tough

its temper was mild

they’d sung a private
battle hymn 
for a child
she longed
for his strength
found that she missed him
the alligator
calmed her bones
and promised no harness
no strings
she was needed
and started to sing
did she miss him and kisses
she hardly knew
wearing alligator shoes?
when the author hisses
does anyone know
who is the wife?
who is the child?

she left the alligator

on her way to bold chances


halted her mad need for things

she struts unobserved

can a band save your life

who is the child?

what needs to be preserved?

start to sing unobserved

in the land of false manses

be poor and be rich

make them guess at your answers

I am here on the back

of a creature that hisses

I am here

that's a fact

get used to it bitches