This one’s too big for a poem, I think.

You left bit by bit

And then all at once.

Now, shall I have a drink?

Nose the door open, cat.

Don’t let a screen or window stop you.

You lived small and quick,

One paw raised against the world.

An elephantine world so clumsy

It was sometimes cruel.

 

The night you left

The wind blew, and the rain came,

And the doors tapped their latches.

Then in the morning, soft under-feathers

Stuck in the bush outside.

Are you a bird now, cat?

 

Beatrice wants to know,

Where did you go?

 

Dissipated into the steaming heat
Swollen fingers hung in swollen air
The hard lines of my city are soft as tallow.
Viewed through sagging atmosphere,
Weighted with the exhaled life of thousands

In the dawn’s light or under stormy sky
My grey, grey city is wavering blue.

You live in sepia on old walls

that define venerated spaces

You wipe sweat from your lip

with your tie and an earnest look.

A long memory’s unforgivable

but monuments last forever.

Did the sun shine hot on your hair

In the spring, and did you stay

To spite a chair that waited

In a close-crowded room

When your mind was earnest

And look, undecided?

 

 

1.

The earth beneath has swollen
To twice its springtime size and strength of gravity.

It pulls my sneakered pedals down
To the sweating asphalt.
Slow and sucking they rise again.
Heavier now; ill-inclined to move.

Knowing what lies ahead–

Endless watching the idling haze waver
Above a slowly-flowing stream of steel and glass.
From an unnaturally frigid perch.

When the hot wind presses
A sweet and heavy fragrance to my cheek
I cling to it with wings and feathered feet.

2.

The earth beneath has swollen
To twice its springtime size and strength of gravity.

The city pressed to it
Unwillingly, a red-faced child
clutched to sweating bosoms.

Pressed flat to asphalt.

I am become reptilian winter
The seed I thought I’d sown.
Or that perished, wanting rain.

Endlessly watching the haze waver
Above a stagnant stream of steel and glass.
From my unnaturally frigid perch

Wet asphalt under a clear sky
And a map of the seas
Laid out in puddles on the sidewalk.
I am moonlight shadows.
Standing at the bottom of a glass building
Looking up.

I crushed the crayon wax with my thumb,
Let the ink creep out my pen
And stain the page with spider tentacles
I chewed Mr. Wonka’s magical gum,
Ate a mystery-flavored dum-dum
And stuck out my tongue.
I stood in front of the white house on the corner
In the early morning light,
And waited for you to look out the window slats.

I am frigid fingers
And neon signs that say “Fresh Fish,”
And a beauty-queen sash.
I have lost my tail, again.
I am disappearing in mountains’ fog

But you are color-blind.

Give us a ring—
We’ll take your things.

Three moldy boxes of Heaven knows what,
Nails left on the porch to rust,
Car parts duct taped,
A rancid dog crate,
A cracked plastic bucket with three dinner plates.

You pick the day,
We’ll cart it away.

A crusted can of azure blue paint
A dusty stash of old books,
Notebooks and pen stubs,
A coffee-stained rug,
Four years and two weeks of unopened mail.

Marked “overdue.”

If your life has gone flat.
We’ll see to all that.

You Call.
We Haul.
202-555-8729

Ears twisted to the wind,
Mouth agape in a toothy grin,
I squint and press against the ties
That keep me from two blinking eyes
Wreathed in maple. Flicking tail
Has left a garbage-scented trail
Like a speedy, furry snail
Up chain-links, along a rail.

Oh to shake my shackles free,
To stretch my muscles up a tree
And feel some moss beneath my paw
And crunchy fuzzy in my maw
To pant the sunshine still, unbound
And cur a reputable hound
And dig nails deep in loamy peat,
‘Stead of grinding stained concrete.

What joy! to face the faceless foam
O’er craggy beaches sharp-eyed roam
And chase the wool still on the sheep
At night to know I’ve earned my keep–
Nipped the heels of wandering prey,
Surprised the pheasant where she lay.
And rest beneath the moon-bright skies
‘Stead of street-lit ceiling tiles.

Taking pause in a moment’s shade
I tilt my nose to the dream I made
And to a breeze that found its way
–Expelled by wild one’s distant bray,
Avoiding idling heated haze, and
Winding through a pavement maze–
To touch the yellowed city leaves,
The taste of freedom long bereaved.

Finding me and my master there
It raised the skin beneath our hair.

 

My first posts are a bunch of old poetry that I don’t want to lose track of.  I keep misplacing the thumb drive these are on and then finding it again fortuitously.   So here they are before I lose them again. —  J