Monday, February 19, 2018

Sixteen spokes

Outline of a pome i won't be able to finish.
It runs about thus.

Sixteen spokes.

And the grey sheets of rain
the threateningly dark green
forests

and the shattered earth and
wagons rocking in the sleet
creaking wheels and

sixteen spokes

And the toddlers playing
hide and seek in the mud

tent canvas stiff and cold
in the predawn raising
them slick heavy poles

the wheel repairman mutter
under a frozen breath and over
them broken

Sixteen spokes.

The color of blood.

Ruby Soho streaming through the paper walls, my neighbor listening to the radio, having his habitual breakfast on vodka and cigarettes.

And I can finish it as much as I could start it.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Black eyes

Not brown
not blue and
certainly
not green

her eyes are black
mirrors

they mirror anything and everything
the deep dark green valleys
of her Kentucky childhood

banjos

clear frosty mornings and mountain blues
Florida alligator poaches and swamp hues
her eyes are black
mirrors

desolate trucker stop motels at midnight
Delancey street in NYC at first sunlight
over Williamsburg bridge

The one time somebody called her “nigger” and meant it.

Her first miscarriage. Her only daughter born.
To a man that went to Iraq.
Signed on the day after 9/11 and never came back.

She misses his smile and his hands trough her hair.
brown hands

Not brown
not blue and
certainly
not green
her eyes are black
mirrors

the rainbows in my heart as I walk up to her.
So I walk up to her.