Bubbles

It is inexplicable to me
we are so wet
even the air sags, laden
or is so heavy that,
when in bangs into something,
it knocks it down.
Our sounds are gurgles and burps,
bubbles in water, punctuated with pressure.

We are creatures of wet land,
We are the commonness of water and air,
In a world where water stands
and watches or, worse, chases
after you, moving at frightening speed,
then bites you with huge,
thirsty teeth
leaving you laying,
oozing.

A few sunny afternoons ago, Zhenya and I took this picture between classes. 

Recriminations

Did you say tomorrow?
I’ve been promises,
I’ve been darkness
dogging crevasses,
with little hope
of covering the distance.
I’ve spread too thin.

And the promises?
They tunnel blind darkness,
nibbling love like a termite.

The nights are edgy,
I don’t hold them well,
they slip from my fingers
and shatter like dark, greased diamonds.

The barn

The sky was dogback dark
Close but still somehow too distant
To scratch where it itched.

I was in the empty barn of my life,
in turns, collecting the belt
with the red, raised skin of my back,
saving it for happier days,
to remember how to smile
(and why),

in turns, I was hollering
in the emptiness, looking
for the corners and edges of my voice
in the squalling building
where life went on –
independent –
of punishment and loneliness.

In the barn you see
shovels in the stalls
waiting by the manure,
you can pick right up
where you left off.

Even if I castrate my days,
send them to the office
for coffee and politics,
when I collect them in the evening
they head for the barn
to figure it all out again
as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Couplets, dime rhymes, and cheap thrills

Why is the doctor crying?
Is he in love with you?

The pick pocket wanders the aisles
of the empty bazaar at night
dreaming of the day and fat pockets.

He sees himself out-running them all
Suddenly he’s safe in his limousine –
the pockets of his fine suit are full
and everybody wants to give him money
for no reason; girls only want his love.

Envy, everybody is dying of it.
He rides to his mansion and is safe
in its cocoon-like emptiness.

He lies down in the empty aisle,
beside the cold metal container
and smiles in his fast paced dreams.

The doctor is hanging a mirror in front of his eye;
the cheek behind it glistens and sparkles.

One dreamer dreams the other is also asleep.
The other dreamer dreams only he is awake.

Elena, your sparkling black eyes
are the only night in which there is light.

The fat man is starving
inside the lard bucket of his body.

Zhamilla’s smile infects the poor boy with incurable happiness;
after she leaves, he dies of unrealized emptiness.

The night is collected in a cup;
the day drinks it up.
Each night there is more darkness;
in winter the day will die of indigestion.

We completely cannot see through
the dark overtaking me, you.

Fish have it easy -
They cannot drown
no matter how we cry.

Fourteen lonely lines

The day trips like a clumsy child;
I hate it that you are so far away.
I am not calm, nor happy for no reason.
Others do not see me as myself –
none of us are happy to see coming
the me that lacks you.

We have to struggle with the darkness;
Your absence is a kind of darkness.
We hope to know what we can’t
and our fears fill spaces already unhappy.
I hate it that I am insecure and
jealous pain sees where pleasure walked.

Longing and memory have become
the important parts of fruitless days.

Fall change

Climb the ladder to the day;
climb out of the dark cloth of night.
There is a nakedness in the light
that has nothing to do with clothes.

Press the silk of ruined dreams;
smell the wet and hot of protection
sleeping bag tight in the cocoon –
metamorphosis or death.

That which is different
appears as broken glass
treaded to crumbled sameness
becoming yesterday.

Tomorrow springs to life
in words and dreams and falling leaves.

An evening program advanced class 

Shooting a cooking Show 

To my daughter

That my heart is like a spike stuck in my chest
is natural because you are you.
I would not want to change you
although we cannot cross the same bridges.
Promise and truth have never been friends for us although
I would still lay down my life for you (and that is not a promise).
My eyes dim while yours grow brighter.
Your son makes my smiling face absurd and, at last,
I have harmed everyone by wanting to be good.
I always kill myself first like a coward;
I could gouge my eyes out but am still afraid I'd see you suffer.
My vanity is my legend, large as a lake,
with me trapped on the shore like a small intention.
Every time I flail out too far from the shore and drown,
I see your smile and know it was worthwhile.
We will always be lost in this love which has found us.
Regrettably you will always be small like a bright and shinny seed
and life will always thwart the fast running feet of our dreams.
Still you and I will face the world, hand in hand,
clown-like, in our Halloween costumes.