Blind But Not Forgotten

It is all gone.

Lost.

My package.

My vision.

The way I used to feel

Before the marble

Fell.

Gone.

Christmas is coming

And I don’t want

A tree.

I don’t want packages or candy,

Or stockings,

Or anything at all,

But to be able to see again.

It’s funny how your wants

Can change in an instant.

What used to be fun,

Isn’t.

What used to be easy,

Isn’t.

Now, I squint in stores

And make my way down aisles

With a look on my face so contorted

It makes the clerks ask if I’m o.k.

“I’m not,” I tell them.

I have a concussion.

And being in your store

Is like surviving a war.

Only the bombs going off are screaming babies

And the bullets are silver shopping carts

Coming right at me.

And the rows and rows of merchandise 

are a colorful gibberish

I can not translate. 

I hate my debilitation.

And yet, here I am

With no end in sight.

When a man walks quickly behind me

On his way into the same store,

I shudder.

Does he know?

Does he know?

Does he know I am impaired?

Does he know how much his pace scares me?

I am frightened he will run over me. 

I am moving as fast as I can,

Trying to make sense of the

Unsensable.

Trying to see what

Is only a blur to me now.

Just like all those damn Christmas tree lights. 

Coming Down

I am here,

here in the house with the lopsided floors

and the crooked roof

listening

to the whistle of the train

and the hum of my hard drive.

It is raining outside,

coming down

in quiet drops,

somewhere between a mist

and something grander.

This morning I got out of bed

in a haze,

a Benzo haze,

dragged myself to the kitchen

and made oatmeal

with blueberries and molasses.

I nearly burned it.

I am out of practice,

used to letting my lover do all the cooking.

Now, I cook and clean

and wish I had never gone to New York,

as if wishing could change anything.

Day After Day

What are we doing here?

Here on this planet?

Marking time with our jobs

and our bills and our trivial pursuits.

Working out,

being more,

doing more,

and for what?

We stuff ourselves

with food, and language

and books,

and try to pretend that any of it matters.

I do not know what any of it means,

anymore.

What are we supposed to want?

A new car?

A new house?

Another pair of shoes we can put in our closet

or under our bed?

Recognition?

What are we doing here?

Does anybody know?

I asked the man on the corner,

the man with the bottle in his hand.

The man who drinks everyday

and has urine on his pants.

He didn’t know.

I asked the man in the office

on the thirty-ninth floor.

The one in the Armani suit

and the lizard briefcase

and black BMW.

The one who fucks his wife on Friday

and his mistress on Sunday.

He didn’t know either,

although he thought he did.

What are we doing here?

What are we doing here?

Getting old?

Getting fat?

Marking days off the calendar

with a red ink pen.

It’s all the same day

after day.

It makes no difference.

It makes no difference.

In Search of God

I am the night,

a virgin,

turning back the clock

hoping to find God

before it’s too late.

I have made a vocation of it.

Sitting at bus stops,

waiting in trains,

always searching

for what I once knew so easily.

Across the hall,

the music plays

a symphony to my bones.

But where is he?

Chasing kites?

Or dragging s stick along the shore,

leaving a trailed message in the sand

no one can decipher?

Perhaps he is in the trees,

changing leaves from green to gold

or bruising squirrels with acorns.

I do not know.

Tell me anything.

It is virtually guaranteed,

I will soon forget.

The Chickens Of San Martino Spino

It is still a mess

outside.

The jackhammers.

My files.

The digital roar

of words,

makes me

anxious.

I long for Italy.

Gelato on a cone,

and the chickens of San Martino Spino.

They sat in the grass

pecking and clawing,

immune to the world

around them.

Rusty-brown bodies,

producing perfectly tan colored eggs,

that when cracked,

revealed

a brilliant orange yolk inside,

and tasted like no other I have ever eaten.

Rich as cream,

as if the sun had settled in my mouth

and I had swallowed it whole.

How good it all was then,

before the gallbladders

and sores.

Running from town to town.

me and my guitar,

The taste of pesto on my lips.

Hiding beneath blankets in October,

and longing for November,

when the heat would come on.

I can hear their clucking now.

Endless Blue Sun

My tongue is rough and sore

as if I had taken it out

of my mouth and run it 

on a dusty road for miles.

I can see it

flopping along

like some headless worm

directionless

and blind,

panicked,

as to where to turn.

No water in sight.

Just the sun,

the endless blue

sun.

Somewhere,

there must be water.

My tongue keeps running

from road to road

and town to town

looking for shade,

looking.

But there is nothing

but dust

for my tongue to swallow

and still my tongue
keeps running.

A New Poem for 2014

A new poem

sits at my door

like my Christmas tree.

Naked.

It’s branches

drooping from being cooped up

in the heat of the house for the past three weeks.

Stripped of its ornaments and lights. 

Now, alone, 

out on my front porch

like a dog 

sentenced 

to it’s room

without ever knowing what offense

it has committed.

I sit

inside,

a greedy urchin,

watching the tree

that gave its life for my merriment,

still wanting more.  

What now 

little one?

Now that Christmas has passed

and the New Year has been ushered in?

What will you become?

Mulch beneath our feet

at Radnor Park.

Your perfume

wafting through our noses,

still giving 

of yourself

even

in 
death.

Who Loves The Sun

The lump on my neck is getting smaller.

The doctor shot it with cortisone

last week.

Well, he didn’t shoot it,

his nurse did.

Now, when I reach up

to touch it, it feels more like a pea,

than the dime it used to feel like.

I don’t know why I get these lumps,

or red dots, or scales.

Maybe it's because my mother had them.

I remember watching her sit in the dermatologist’s

office in Houston, getting things frozen

and burned off and thinking how weird 

all of those little things on her body were.

Now, they are mine.  

We have the same skin.

It’s pale and thin and doesn’t like the sun

and it wrinkles more than it should.

I have my mother's skin

and I don’t like it one bit.

See Ya Later, Alligator

Sitting at the table

with Bobby Charles

I could dream

a bit longer.

The bread pudding

thick in my veins,

the rum sauce,

a heroin

of sorts

making its way

straight for my brain.

Abbeville,

fried alligator

and catfish,

fighting in my stomach,

keeping time to a slow slow

drip of gravy

running down my legs

as I sopped up his every word.

This man,

broken and battered

as the fish on his plate.

A loner.

A fixture,

at table twenty three

day after

day.

Looking out on the restaurant,

holding court with the waitresses,

who pocketed his big wad of money

by the fistful

and brought him gin after gin.

Heart disease wouldn’t dare clog his veins,

not Bobby’s.

He sat,

fat

pouring over the sides

of his chair.

What life had taken from him

was long gone.

See ya later,

alligator.

Here Goes, Jack

O.k.

So here goes,

Jack.

I know you’ve heard it before

and I’m sorry.

Really I am.

But I have to,

you see.

I have to

just one more time.

Now,

don’t try and stop me

because it’s coming,

it’s squirting out of me like

a grapefruit,

all fleshy and sweet

and juicy.

And that spoon,

the one with the jagged edges

is digging it out of me.

There’s nothing I can do to stop it,

even if I wanted to.

But I don’t want to.

It’s gonna come.

Make no mistake.

It’s coming.

And when it does come,

it will be bigger than anything

that’s ever come before.

O.k.

Get ready.

AHHHH!

There.

You see.

There,

on the ground.

Writhing and wriggling,

and shaking

all perfectly jelly-like.

It’s out.

Out in the open now.

Right there.

Right in the middle of the room

ready for everyone to see.

There’s no mistaking it.

You can’t look away.

It’s right there.

And I’m not taking it back.

No way.

No how.

I’ve held it in long enough

and I’m not going to hold it in any longer.

It’s staying.

Right where it is.

It’s your turn now.

Or yours.

Or yours.

It doesn’t matter to me

because

I’m free of it.

I’m done.

I told you.

I told you it was coming.