circle (for dama)

reunion
waiting outside the door (your

mother's disturbing
strength) i don't know
where else
to say that to
be weak is to be strong is to
be weak
discovering footstep ghost trails in
tomorrow's gardens that you
will wander meditatively upon and
around you will be all around you and
there will be

darkness
humor
parity
compromises
promises

pretend
tension
rebirth

and though lost there is
a dark and beautiful bird at
the window and you'll see it
forever and it will be noticed
forever and it will be invisible
forever and it will be heard
and known at the window and
is
known
and

no one knows but they will
say many lovely and despicable and
considerately inarticulate things and you will
listen to them and place them very
carefully upon freshly presented
furniture surfaces and your
sister is lovely she is
in your metered breathing and
the tips of your hair and
your penmanship and the way you
playfully hunch over and grin and
in many years her steady embrace will
have been so steady that you
won't exactly feel it anymore quite
but
maybe still listen to it hum in concert
with your imagination

i don't know what encircles us
like this but we will
always
encircle
farther
around it

axis

far and not beyond the
symmetry
of voices behind glass and
hellish afterwards
towards and not
beyond underwards not
before
that
transforming
point
that
metallurgy of conscience
where
elemental differentials are
the scrawled handwriting
that
signal our unimportant
names beyond and
afterward and here might not
be the truly here the
fictional frictional fractional
malevolent here the now is

a small piece of paper on a teenage tongue
drunken calls daring phantom police in the night
the night of lost
adolescent chimeras painted in
every parental antibody
wielding the accident
after the fact
afterwards
after wards
after words
before words i was
a flailing precambrian
lost in my own hostage
evolution
distrusting each newly discovered edge and

now i am logged and
known
far and
not beyond the
symmetry
past
and future
namastes
like hands to a mirror
very
closely
and
afterwords is
a place i live in
afterwards
we
meet

a tunnel / autumnal

like a strange rain the
tint of your eyes
prompts new goals
movements and
compromise savage encounters
rendering logic some
tormented salivating plaything
in

a period of time that will remain
split-seconds and
weapons
and
reckonings maybe i can
recall what the tactile
elementary
details of skin communicate
almost
ignorant in their
simple hunger
and
i want to lose
consistency
and poison each minute with
longing and loathing in equal
measure

uncooperative as we
sit together
ignoring
underneath each other
at the
same
time

i got a gig

asian
overweight
she chews meaningfully on a ratty ziplog bag of animal crackers
i can't help thinking: what a rote treat to occupy lost subway time


5pm and the D is pockmarked with nightclubbers like
makeup on bad skin
manicured presentations
drowning in crafted dignity
haircuts: a fine overdose of it-factor
secure and insecure and secure
sinecures of the post-midnight landscape in
ambulatory preparation

these careful personas even wafting from
the rough'n'ready skaters who bumrush
eight orange seats and share the days philosophies
fistfights
neighborhood lore and the journalism
of the familiar bartered in animated
gossip around distant-eyed commuters
non-partying squares
myself

drifting out to a party in queens with
ragged strangers playing the part of
shadows of a former life i am
meditative
squashed against the windows a
manchild drifter

as the skaters exit some breathe easier grateful
away
from their dontgiveafuck

59th street is a disambiguation
grand human exchanges
the pack of chattering impeccable Guyana girls hustle
off to mysterious encumbrances in lovely
straightened hair and at
7th ave i hold the doors for five
strangers one of which
mentions it
and

in the camouflage of urban engagement i'm
a discreet unkempt itinerant
fraud
dancing between beeps and open doors

at the party i drink 7 beers and
sneak blow and
sing the lyrics to
one song

what i remember of a wake and a funeral (for billy woodz who had no black pants so he wore navy blue)

i'm wearing dark jeans at the wake with my ex-girlfriend at her
mafioso dad's friend's see-off
feeling weird and out of sorts

days later we take limos and towncars
eat at a preposterous italian buffet and
push food around plates with dozens of strangers
bust out for mostly silent smokes in the
significant and cold queens air and
return to plates no less
abstract and insecure

and a lot of it is lost in this weird shamespace
memory contradicting life shifts and
scattered homeostasis

tugged shirts
desperate teen lust and
lies and sadism and dreams and
contradicted elements

so, basically, lost time

but when i return i am at a chilly fall season
stage is a
grassy vista over dozens of embedded concrete
stones like choked pills dotting land i might never
re-tread or stumble by

and it's me
throwing dirt on an unknown casket
placing a flower down (they
said this was a nice
gesture)
staying silent
standing next to her
breathing
mixing in the gracious family i won't speak to for
over a decade
to this day

unknown in the cruel sun
i could be the interloper
walking with you
as far away from you as
now
walking with me
as far away from me

camera #3

streetcat food in a cracked martini glass next to a 29th street wholesale retailer storefront
tourist mom tugs tourist dad brings tourist daughter under wing
the middle-aged middle-roaded idle sunglassed hoards on line for first pickings at the sample sale at 8:20AM
hardfaced latina mom tugs a boston terrier roughly
we wait in line for cheap cigarettes at the clandestine bodega
outside children manhandle a too-small dog and are berated by a concerned neighbor
the mexican bodega serves some of the best food in the neighborhood from a tucked away speakeasy grill
i'm not following the young bottleblonde in tight jeans with the orange freddy krueger shirt from the 4 train i promise you it just appears that way
college student eats a morning cart tamale thoughtfully in a tucked away subway car corner with plastic fork
i read the sound and the fury pleasantly sleepy next to a man entirely too wide-legged testing tension in my left knee
share a cigarette with a coworker who doesn't smoke sweartogod
soft breeze collecting halal smells and fake bootlegged leather and sunlight down 5th
sometimes people on the train stand so close and at such intimate angles they could already be sarcastically distant lovers

critter

nervy
quick in the
woods like a
small deadly sleepy
lusty amoral peaceful desperate creature
scratching under a melange of old leaves and
nutrition everywhere i      am      either at rest in my own
defensive nest or killing something small and meaningful or
pacing softly under celestial looms getting paws nasty in morning
carpet looking for big lucky sustenance or hallucinations or
randy sublime encounters with my own kind or my
own shimmering
reflection in a pool of risky water
when i                                  drink
some and swallow
everything disappears