Touch

Touch

jets throttle windows, the metal
s-curves my teeth and bone
until aluminum

shows up in blue-white
veins and my face cream
rattles

Wait

Wait

Galaxies move away from us              

everywhere the line is long

wrapped like a dangly necklace

made of people dangling in it

who say they can’t wait to get to

the front. What that means is they do

just that and put up a small tent

outside the shop door with others

opting not to take a number

but rollerskate freely, nowhere

near interstellar space the wheels 

on their boots go faster, faster.

Scratch That

I'd thought I was writing poems about a particular set of verbs. But they are turning out to be more interested in parts of speech in general. So, no more of those for now. You'll just have to watch this space.

Fold

Fold

The rain dream again

nothing to hold overhead

except newspaper
its insides can be

folded like a boat
set at the pond edge
except the banks are

flooded. The ink runs
from its columns
society ladies

float from page one

report all formal wear

sold

the full page ad

shows their pixel

make up supposedly

translucent

they have not felt

like partying since

flash bulbs made them

crumple under

someone’s arm.

Now that we got that over with...

...something new. Pretty soon I will be taking down the Alphabet poems. But wait, there's more, albeit not necessarily in alphabetical order. What I am now working on is being called Near (and) Other Poems. I think. For now, anyway. 

Anyway, for now: 

Near

Outside we sense the natural law

in this town as it was first platted

houses by the river could snap

like a wish bone

on the hill the homes of the city’s

first families have stamped brass plaques and

protected designation: this far

and no further

expectation to move to the new

suburb that everyone else is in

built entirely out of boxes

weighing on us

photos and old clothes once lived in

when the pictures were still chemicals

on shelves, not even a negative

to resurface

with anyone’s fingerprints on it

you can never be too sure these days

by now you have probably touched it

oohed and ahhed and

given way without knowing what was

closer than your veins and skin almost

elegant the way it gets inside

like a virus.

...and Z

Z

Downtown there is an old building with its

own dock for a zeppelin from back then

when the future was raw, aluminum

everyone saw themselves flying there

like zinnias they would have no stalks

and even now I love cut flowers

for their willingness to drift even if

at bottom it means not holding on

like last week at a friend’s funeral

there were zebra orchids in a vase

next to the framed picture of my friend

and the vase was too short for

the stems cut at an angle in order

to have a bigger space for their thirst

his grown daughters at the podium

holding on until time to release

a white balloon that carried so much

and could drift as far as New Zealand

with schoolkids seizing it for a prize

disentangled from the power lines

what might have been the mylar zenith

of a life. It was an uncertain

symbol open at the end

like the last letter if you don’t say

zed, stopping the tongue on the teeth

but part lips partly smiling the long e

that moves away from whatever was said

sounding easy.

Y (I think)

Apologies to some of you who have seen many, many drafts of this! It's still a bit in progress, but for now...

Y

Unpronounced YHWH is

above the San Ysidro border unwinding

his network like a ball of yarn dropped

overhead, over your head  

that is, roughly

year round the younger ones come

to bear fruit. Lie in the shade of a yew tree

whose berries are red with yellow

flares from the sun affecting

the ylang-ylang also

moving from the hothouse

to the highly fragrant

labyrinth maybe

with you

asking why the yeomanry

are ready

to give both eyes

all their aye-ayes for this

not-yet-named appearing

in yarrow

scented clouds

lie under and watch

yes

so easy you say it is

yar the way a sailor might be

if his ship moves like a light year

and yielding waves are not

the universe yanking your chain.