Saturday, February 19, 2005

Well, Yes

Native speakers are not the light
that brings the room it's glow,

going somewhere in time other than yesterday
will not make the mailman go away,

all your lovers have found something to do
with the lives you left them with,

well, no, I don't fancy a boot on my throat,
but would mind if I blew up one of your tanks?

As hard as I squint, shower curtains remain shower curtains
and somewhere a few thousand city worker vests are missing,

All anyone wants to do is walk with pride at some point in their
life time, which we pray is long and filled only with the routine
bad luck,

Yes, she says to me, this is another day that you haven't screwed up, have a hot slice of pie.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Warped Cassette at a Garage Sale

There are hours of old music
that needs to be heard again
that only decays into static
as the wound reel warps and writhes
around the plastic reels,
the longer these tapes lay
in the sun, in Tupperware bins,
priced four for a buck
the longer the drum solos
get in time signatures that
would baffle the sensors of Alien invaders,
Russians in missile bunkers at the fair edge
of the Ukraine would stop dreaming
of snow and vodka and rise themselves
searching for a red telephone,
Washington would shut down
as anguished saxophone improvisations
hobbled over the three legged race
of "Giant Steps" poured over the
radios and each broadcasting outlet,
mothers handed children toys and
told them to go to sleep,
ugliness such as this horrible screech
meant something was coming for us all,
there were naked people on the corners
reaching their arms to the sky
as if to grab a line, a ladder,
hitch a ride on a beam of light
that would come from cloud
you could not look into,
deliver you from static and screech, scorns,
the evidence of bad breath when reed players
don't ge their teeth cleaned,
the planet shuts down as
ruinous scraping of stiff Afro Combs on asphalt
continues until there is only quiet
save for moaning
and the odd car horn blasting in the distance,
the skronk has halted,
everyone rises their head, takes a breath,
goes back to work
as they take their seat with a notice
that no missiles for mercenary angels
are anywhere to be seen,
the cassette machine snaps off,
warp music ceases,
"Man , that is some funky stuff" my neighbor says
and I take his quarter
for the ruined Santana tape,
he says he can't wait to
play again
real loud.

Friday, January 28, 2005

4th of July

My love knows no spending limits,
the matter was always academic,
the lots from which fireworks were seen
could be viewed as check marks against
a scorecard that is invisible, behind the clouds,
the wind blows toward the land
you'd never get for a birthday.

Even if we stood here all night
the wind would taste the same as
it did last year as we light our fuses
with old Zippo lights, there were sparks
in the dark and flinty remarks
as the sulfur caught fire and the
curvature of the caved-in moon
gave us white, chalky light
to search for our eyes in the dirt
under the leaves and the blanket
we brought from home, the
threshold we carry ourselves over
like weight that shifts in assignments
of motion , water displaced and rising
as the moon leans to the shoreline
for a kiss and a sip of what we're drinking.

She rose a leg as though to dance,
he played a song the same as always,
you sang those words with those strange notes
that rustle the highest limbs of California fronds,
I am writing a novel with every pause in the chatter,
in my mind I'm at my desk laughing again as
all the words fill the monitor and fall off the screen
and onto the floor.

It was clear, this dream
I had, we stood here with our
friends with our sparkler
and glasses of wine
cheering the American Night
as rockets screamed across the sky,
risking our homes or at least car keys
that might fall from our pockets,
but there is only empty night
in front of us, a moon shining light
that ripples over the water
that moves toward land in
serpentine movements,
as I was saying,
"…if we stood here all night,
if we made a big, tall wish,
if we're good with ourselves
and our words we put into the world
that goes to sleep trusting
the rime of light to creep over
the horizon come dawn,
we can see where we might
live in futures where we all have our keys
and we all get to drive home
from the fireworks at the beach…"

Monday, January 17, 2005

In favor of steady work

Icing on the cake
was all it takes
to get me to follow
a rule rather than bend it
to what my moment of need
might happen to have been
if I were with a friend
who chided me
on losing my gravitas
in this tight circle
of rules and cash value,

just make it sweet
and neat
as a treat and
as if it were were
a cocktail at the end of a shift
of shuffling orders
and rubber stamping
receipts in big red ink,
rules as they are
are fine if there's a kiss
or at least a nod
at the end of days
when the light darkens
through our office
and retail windows,

pals sans skills
on pills
and copious quantities
of smoke and coke
can stand their corners
and thumb their nose
while they leave
their trail of
running hard luck stories
about how it
was a bit of bad luck,
misunderstanding,
a bad break
they couldn't shake
nor bake as truth fully cooked up
like it were a scheme
that was their dream of becoming,
it's numbing to think all this,
what's remiss in the speech
and dress and the place
where they stand
in a pride that guards
cracks in the sidewalk
as heads nod in sleep,
a respect for weather
that forgives them not
at all
because weather knows them
not all This Fall,

I argue at times
not a wit
nor a flick of
the wrist that
twists every bad note
like it were some
malformed melody
someone else wrote and played,
how long have
I stayed
above water
like an an adult
oughta,
it's a voice, a cash register sense
of the world,
a sales floor
flooded with creme filled donuts
oozing underfoot,
zoo animals charge past
the register stands,
bosses and their assistants
asleep in the front seats
of company cars,

none of this makes
me star or delivers from the Devil
but I am above sea level
and have reveled in
the music of screams of joy
and been blinded by the
coin of the realm
as it it glittered and glinted
while all of us
squinted
and made plans to
go to movies
plays and
dinners our wives and husbands hinted
were the places
to let the evening's big hands
crawl steadily to
another calendar day
spent parsing
the history of
every rotating mystery
and solving this problem,
right now,
big or smaller fork,
fish or pasta,
Coltrane or Satriani,

benefits easier to take
than
nonconforming
myself to oblivion
on a corner where
i would be the boldest
among the coldest.


Thursday, November 4, 2004

Uncollected Grace

You see me large on the horizon
before the light dies behind me,
i look to be on fire on top of the dune,
clouds red with last bursts of sun
that turns my outline black, without
face or wrinkles, freeze flamed
on a the cold blue whispers of sky
that remain for mere moments
before my singing reaches your ears
and straightens your spine,
straight as a trapeze wire,
my arms are full of groceries
coming down the steps, my singing
flat like pennies after a train
has passed, there is no fire
this engine needs to be, I say,
handing you a bag, the television is
on the news and the sound is off,
the ocean before us goes black
and even the clouds are dark
with idioms and uncollected grace
as tongues of flame hang onto
their candle wicks just barely
as they bend to an upstart wind,
there is no food in the pantry
but there are cans in the bag,
actors making faces on the screen,
a plane droning over head,
oh those stars and the satellites,
you say
finally
as you turn a key, open a can,
i wonder how much they hear,
what all it is they see...

Monday, October 18, 2004

TED BURKE: writing and more writing

TED BURKE: writing and more writing

Hic Haec Hoc

There is no talk on the sides of book stores about when the pain stops and the living begins.

I breathe long enoughto have all the chess games I refuse toplay when fingers wave in someone's face in the check out line of the drug storeand cars come rare inches from each other when making hard turns at those corners gives new streets to get lost on, looking for something to do as sirens and school bells debate with their shrieks and trills about the stages of life in a city where each high risecomes to a point, a prod,a sharp stick or folded hands,what ever the songs on the corner seduce you with.

There are no songsabout where all the flowers went,we improvise a rosary of latter day insults and even as we speakof when a word meant its meaning,bullets fly faster than lettersin the mailand we leave ourcars at home.

It's the heat of a sun that I makes my brow a shiny and beaded furrow, worries that anticipates her needswith samples from the archive of good answers.

Generic cigarette smoke comesfrom around the corner.

We love our townand life that vanishes to keep the name pushing onbehind a hedge where people just explode as they contemplate buying more things for a house that has more roomsthan family available to live in any of them,a universe that feeds onits best designs, a crushing sameness to the days.

Scream for Heaven

We scream
for heaven

to allow through the gates
even though
we came
as we were,

in our underwear,
wearing funny hats.

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Browsing Poem

A phone rings without remorse
from inside a purse tucked
under her arm,

It's a muted hysteria as it drones on,
screams among the cough drops
and used Kleenex,

Ring, chime, digital quotes of
pop tunes and classical clich�s
punch through the air,

Necks strain, eyes blur under the
incandescent light, everything has a price
but no one can sell anything,

She looks at the candle holders,
inspects the diamonds, her fingers
leave prints on the glass,

The phone continues to scream
it's medley of taunts and tones,
mix with the discreet jazz that plays all day,

Her head bobs up and down,
rhythmic, exact, a twitch
for an off beat,

The wires from her headset
goes taut and then relaxes with
each swerve and turn of her head,

Better tunes than what the
store pays for,

Yet the phone screams on and on
as she browses and bops to her
private distractions,

The sales floor is empty,
her prints are on
all the glass she laid a finger on."

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Pass the salt as you would
a hat that passes for a dollar
that keeps the doors open and
the floor swept,

In dangerous years
the salt of our tears
pass through our eyes
while white caps on waves
hear yet another cry for help
just beyond the turn of the coastline
and TV ariels

Saturday, September 4, 2004

Several shy poets rent a room

Who are these scribeshiding under the bedwith their notebooksand pens, coughing up balls of dust each time a floor board creaks underfootor a cat on the porch meows and scratches doors,looking for a family to move in with? Handwriting is a a trail of tears and terror under the singing springs,there are bills to pay,stamps to lick,a metaphor to ponderas fingers stroke pens to remember an address while cramped under a mattress ,

What shall we write about, oh yes,half a bird on the sill,a lone cup on the far table,ankles defacing the knot holes with unforgiving heels,but now, is the coast clear,is there anyone watching?

We leave them their food on white plates with clean silverware,paper napkins at best,and then leave room where we can hear all their furious scribbling about the truncated view proceed as if it were a race,the tips of pens and assorted quills tearing across pages of journals and the lines of otherwise blank pages,riots of images of strange sights,a world espied through mail slots and around the corners of doors left ajar,

We leave them their food and then leave,closing the door,and suddenly there is laughter up and down the hall,cartoon soundtracks, sound effects of things bouncing and springing from wall to wall,pies in the face,Splat!We walk awayand mind our own business because the rent check cleared and that's all that matters on day full of sunshine