I think of you

In the low moments

The space between torment.

I think of you

Like a list for the market.

I have that. Don’t need that

I must stock that soon.

I think of you

Eyeing that bloodline of

The red, red wine.

The glass like a broken marker

Of unsaid regret.

Coffee beans in Sambuca

Dark and perfect.

 

I think of you

I think of you

Fingers crippled into caves

Of unsure revenge

Covering the keyboard

Folded, dilated, saved.

Crossing the Rubicon.

Wearing the wrong shoes

For a miscalculation.

Does it count

When I am up late

Betraying those decisions

I made to choose.

 

I think of you in revisions.

I think of you

In stories once written.

The page like a nightmare

On its gentler way

Flying down slowly

To save a dark day.

Who makes the incisions

When friendship is torn

You think I’m wrong

I know

I know.

 

Does it matter

This blue unintentional

This sudden redeemable 

This this uneventual

Collision of disregard.

 

I think of you even now

Conniving inspiring rewiring

Despairing on cue.

Foolish me foolish you

I know

I know

It’s battle fatigue.

 

Embraced at the airport

Like long lost friends.

You left me no choice but

To choose in the end

The history of one over

Small angers of another.

I thought you were bigger.

I thought you were tougher.

 

I’ll miss you for now

Never forget your voice.

It’s stuck in our song.

You have no choice.

Make the most of your secrets

skulls piled under lampshades

Rugs pulled from the eaves

of regrettable he-said—she-said

Another conquest will come

In a while.

 

Be safe little monkey

Think longer and harder. 

Beware the pedestal

Reject the martyr.

Beware of the longing.

Remember the embrace.

Love yourself try harder or

You will lose the race.

 

I think of you often.

That will not be erased.

 

For Carmen, in space.

1.26.19

Can’t go to sleep

The bottle’s not empty

Yellow jackets

Sneak in

Through cracks in the window

Like drunks thrown to the curb

Begging forgiveness

In the dead of night

while the living write blurbs

for the apocalypse

10.25.18

Cons.Gardens.

 

EASTER

She traces her skull under the skin

This is the cage or the home

She was born to live in

Her instincts are buffering

In an aged moment

She’s just waves rolling over

A storm ravaged torment

Beach-side she’s planted

Before a horizon

You know who you are

Screams the gull overhead

She does and she doesn’t

While her feathered friend grins

Like a bird in the know

Like a strong undertow

This is gorgeous she says

This captured existence

Collecting clues in a literary manner

Hedging her bets

Getting ready the spanner

She picks up smooth stones

Slides them into a pocket

Saved for the day when

She needs to unlock it

This life this lesson

This something missing

Graves are an insult

For whatever that’s worth

The dead should never pollute the earth

Quick as she can

She skips over the sand

Quick as she can she

Reboots life now stalled

This ongoing lesson

Of who are the ones to

Tear down the walls

It is gorgeous she says

This wounded existence

Gate crashing it seems

Never ends with the wishing

I’m here now she cries

I don’t need permission

I’m here now she whispers

I have got a mission.

4.21.19

nyc

Photo: Tim Tapling

Promenaders : West Kirby : Wirral : 31:May:2024.

 

loving caregivers thrived

not in her lifetime no

they conspired against her

autonomous tribes

seeking redress in the here and now

she wanted revenge

that simpering weapon

the thing in her holster was wide-eyed

and then some

hovering underage gloves

gorm-free of his undertow

how the river defends her

blatant-filled rides

making her way through a field of cows

she wanted return

her heart fully open

rivers of lust bled the big sky

and then some

shout-worthy jokes undermined

requests for a bleaker unknown

are we ancient or grounded

surrounded by lies

stomping on things under perfect duress

there is no regress

herself well unspoken

trust although token exemplified

and then some

nyc ues 10.31.24

Man Ray

wrapped tonight in

autumnal luster

vulgar notions of

aging creep ever closer

soft urgent crossings

in the tide below

cars full of waves

wet the road with laughter

imagine the poet

that outruns danger

the glare of the laptop

a green-shaded lamp

books stacked with abandon

daring Sisyphus to climb

the cat’s cry distracts from

a weighty mantle

night bus below

dusts off an urge to travel

the cat pulls himself

into protective sleep

whatever his night fears

the mourning dove’s keep

on the back fire escape

will return him to gentle

whatever his night fears

he’ll reject sentimental

laughter below

is it mad or cruel

the mantle slips from my

shoulders as usual

I write like the tide

it knows no refusal

no excuse

no regret

no answers

no muscle

whatever my fears

I reject sentimental

unwrapped tonight from

autumnal luster

9.28.16

nyc

CLICK ON PHOTO FOR BETTER VIEWING

Photo: Tim Tapling Autumn [ in one shot ] : Egerton Dock : Birkenhead : Wirral : 26:Oct:2024.

 

 

KEROUAC

I am on that road again
the one that was sure
he was wrong
that he was fake crazy and
masculine magic
and everything that is
anathema to a woman
like me
So, I buy the book at Strand
in a worldy questioning way
it was on the pile
under the sign
classics it said
and I was ready to
throw down the gauntlet
narrow the writer
into the stuff that
is easily dismissed
until it is not
when the crucial insanity
is not male or female
when it gets all bogged
into a bisexual damn
that the beavers of life
keep building and destroying
when the childy sorrow
of a hundred past thieves
steal the memory
of yourself
and refuse to deceive
what and who you are
why you see that far
and never regret
what you have to forget
to write what you know
in patience and anger
in still and sparkling
in lightness that darkens
he roared through me
and splintered the rickety
he wrote what I hated
he wrote what I loved
the argument endures
the hand fits the glove

9.17.14

New Mexico early 70s

 

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

photo: Dan Brinzac ca '76

 

knock me down 

with a feather

I dare you

my heart wears 

boxing gloves

my feet dance 

like a woman 

who knows the score

knock me down 

with a feather

don’t spare me

all the love you bring me

will just bring me more 

nyc 8.2.13

monoprint nyc

 

 partial as she is to escape

here or there or in outer space

landscapes draw blanks on pages

she rages 

when lovers go fretful in

gardens wet full of

evil poetry

tears perfected butterfly wings

slander left her feet in the race

drunk and spare 

on the garden settee

partial as she is to escape

here or there or in outer space

she’ll sit on a bench

in a conservatory garden

noting seeds racing for glory

blooming like fuck in an uneasy climate

urban and starlike and owned

by those outside of her

she’s older now and wiser by none

keeps to herself

now that life has gone faster

than her

nothing more has to rhyme

partial as she is to relate

handshakes don’t remember when

she wasn’t in love

when she wasn’t disarming

in a garden so public and hidden as well

she’s thick as the hide on a sacred cow pelt

her limbs are like spiders on speed

she leans into the work counting out loud

the marvelous presence of seed

she’ll sit on a bench

in the conservatory garden

noting seeds racing for glory

 

bent over records she’s meant to keep

a gleaner of seeds like you and me

from well-armed consultants those fucking bastards

she bends with a dancer’s knee

full throttle ecstasy

leaving pain in the holding position

again

nyc 10.1.24