A world away,
kindred spot,
hurricanes known
by their real name:
Death.
cool blue morning
on decaying balconies-
plates of Trump
approving Barbecue,
fish that I
wish not to know
of what it approves-
there is no struggle
only satisfactionuntilfear
whipped again:
horsedriven
polling places.
I am
from here and there
of neither.
Count fifty
thousand miss-i-ssip-pis
am home
I do not belong.
(or cheap motel with Emily Dickinson, Mississippi Gulf Coast)
The brain
tired in its track
runs stops and starts,
though a splinter
through a tree
I persist.
Brain tired in groove
willing death
the body lives and struggles-
busted-knuckles-bad-coffee-
hotel-smokers-room-
black-feet carpet-
Grateful complaint
urging on turnpike scooped
lives never back in our groove
or not the same,
we go ‘round,
slowly pass the wobble
to stay intrack.
poets die,
rock stars began
to perish long ago
there are no parents
we are the grownups
no one listens to us.
We who have missed our mark wait only
and mark
the disappearances.
Like a counting film
played backwards:
Steely Dan and Ashberry
all at once
Ashberry gave me frank
Frank gave me Lady Day
Steely Dan just gave me Ricky
I guess I can lose that number….
It sat out on the grasslands
low and long, a wing to each side
doctors and staff at leisurely pace
Not the stinking butchers
we have here who chop off
pieces for a dollar or two
kind chunky matrons
and a couple of old doctors
younger than me now,
but old then,
with kind hands
that smelled of tobacco.
Each room opened onto a field
almost pastureland
only missing cows
I didn’t get well there
nor do I improve here
in the city with the butchers
but illness had
a peace about it.
Let me die in the city on the grasslands.
There was a Hospital, revised
On the grasslands
low long wing each side
doctors, staff, leisurely pace
stinking butchers
here, chop off
pieces for a dollar
kind chunky matrons
old doctors, younger now,
but old then, kind tobacco hands.
Rooms opened to fields
pastureland minus cows
I didn’t get well there
nor here with butchers
but illness had peace.
Let me die: city on grasslands.
I don’t know
what words mean
too tired to write poems.
You work!
Work is easy,
hardly matters.
Don’t remember words
noticing
length of lines.
Notice shapes in fire,
cannot smell smoke
genetic disposition
e-n-e in the ear.
Danish: slowgna,
maybe Swedish
“ta-shaka-de-seka.”
English: sandspurs
in my mouth.
Poem, home, cardboard box.
Miami, nights aren’t too cold
Though a few February nights
air nears freezing
as do I.
A dirty blanket
flecked with waste, vomit,
spilled food, dirt,
grease from the ground
sturdy box
mashed in places,
corrugation collapsed,
torn and blackened smears.
Words, roof, heavy paper,
not enough, as with all,
they are all.
Hershey kiss tattoos
up both arms,
eats cowboy bread,
hums a bar of
Red River Valley
before losing the tune,
then says “red lights
are just lights
that used to be yellow.”
He has no bars
around his mouth
only around his brain.
Green-cot-night
-fan-pulls-mugginess
in the room
on cricketback.
