Joel Dias-Porter's Weblog

RIP Etta

2012-01-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

'Tell Mama'

'All I Could Do was Cry'

'At Last'

April in Paris (with Nicole)

2011-12-21T21:37:00.000-08:00

Had this poem in different versions for a while now. I think this might be what I was looking for.

ON A CLEAR DAY

Let's stop pretending we understand jazz"
Nicole Blackman

Let's start charting, (We understand Pi.)
let's taste, budding cognizance of tongues
let's sign, waving we comprehend tangents,
Let's strip, opening we complicate clothes.

Let's steam, reddening we understand Blues,
let's hope humming, we harmonize Bird,
let's scale, mapping we understudy Miles,
let's train, loving we sublimate supremes.

Let's tongue, kissing, we understand heat.
Let's sweat, dripping we duplicate drums,
Let's loop, proving we apprehend knot,
Let's stop. Being we now understand Bop.

Another day, another powdered doughnut.

2011-12-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

Poem off Three Rails
(For the Cat in the corner pocket with the cool hat)

The favorite stick long, unpolished
The balls in their triangular pen
waiting to be broken like horses,
Verses wish their stolid stanzas
were dominated like headlines by breaking news
Such exquisite milk in her mother's bowls
Ivory as piano keys, or a cued ball
It was the curve of the strike that almost eluded him
Not a match, but her eyelids flickering
The music began to swell like a muscle
Her other mouth immediately moist
The last stanza written in different states,
Because of neutered styles, not united.

2011-12-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

Cesaria gone-

Now even Morna itself

knows Sodade

Cesaria Evora singing 'Sodade'

2011-11-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

GAMBLERS ANONYMOUS

This is not about a man
standing in front
of a certain slot machine
for hours, staring.
This is not about
the expressions of people
seated or standing about.
This is not about
the balance of a woman,
dipping at the knees
to serve a drink.
This is about
a dark chocolate.
This is not about music
made by spinning reels
or tinkling bells or
a message that could
be encoded in the flashing
of the lights.
This not about
the all night party streamers
of a waitresses' hair or
how much grace inflates
the life rafts of her lips
or what tempts
in the tone
of her skin.
No, this is simply
about a dark chocolate.
About what
makes it liquid
in the mouth.
About what
taunts the eye
on the frantic cab ride
from the airport of possibility
to the center of the city of sighs.
This not about a woman
walking past and checking
her side view mirror
to see if he's watching.
This isn't even about
which candy he
may or may not desire
as he swipes his card
in the register of longing.
This is not
about a bar.
This is about
a dark chocolate.
About how it
melts and shimmers.
This isn't about
how the arrows of some eyes
narrow if he doesn't speak or
the mariachi band of
laughter from a certain
set of lips when he does.
This is not about a man
standing in front of a bank
of thieving machines
dreaming of symbols
lining up on a reel,
not about
a progressive jackpot.
This is about
a dark chocolate.
This is not
about smiling through
reclining eyelids
or softly licking
the lips
afterwards.
This is about
dark chocolate
wagered on
the tip of a tongue,
about being
lost in a bet.

Bartender, rim shot please

2011-11-04T00:12:00.000-07:00

ATLANTIC CITY

You have the most beautiful and sincere
fake smile I've ever seen

Several times you've almost sold me a ticket
to whirl on its white Ferris wheel

Whether you know it or not, you deserve to be loved
like Salt water taffy on the tongue of a two year old

You are the most scintillating thing on Absecon Island
so sexy that I almost forgive you for not having a bookstore

at night, the sight of you snatches the air from my lungs
like Funnel cake from the hand of a foreign tourist

I've been enchanted by you at least as long
as the last roulette wheel has been spinning

the dunes on your beaches are impressive
even though I know all the sand is silicone

every morning I wonder if ordering free drinks until I pass out
isn't the same as betting it all on black

Still, I imagine your hand curled in mine
like a lifeguard dozing in a shaded chair

your history haunts, relentless
as the voice of a beggar on the Boardwalk

I'd bet my top hat that I could never be bored
with your monopoly on the streets of my heart

during hurricane Irene, while we were apart
I missed you like the last bus to Brigantine

I've ignored prettier cities than you
but none that so stupidly stops my needle on North

every night I pray to be the last chip you cash in
before the moon comes on like an empty fuel light.

More revisions

2011-10-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

So lately I've just been revisiting stuff that I felt wasn't quite finished. And for me the White Whale of my work has been the poem "Infinitude of Kisses". The concept was to take a very elegant mathematical proof and use its language as a poem. I really felt like the idea (if pulled off) could be brilliant, maybe even career defining stuff. I got lucky because my first draft got published in Ploughshares, but I didn't like that draft very much and felt it was ultimately unsuccessful at achieving my goal of having the poem parallel the proof's logic. I worked on it and thought I was getting closer and then a few days ago made some more small changes that helped incrementally. I wasn't certain that I grasped the proof well enough to mirror it conceptually. And of course there's the question of how much 'poetic license' I should allow myself. But then I found myself sitting in a 2/5 NL poker game with another player Wayne Lewis who I know has a Ph.D in math and so I decided to ask him a question about a simile in the Al Khwarizmi poem that had been bothering me in terms of its conceptual fidelity. And he confirmed that the line should be changed, so that was good, and then I decided to mention the "Infinitude" poem. Now, I almost never talk about poetry at the poker table if for no other reason than there's almost never anyone to talk about it with. There's a few folk I talk about books or literature with and I very much dig those conversations, but they're usually about fiction. But it's not everyday that you get to talk to someone whose an expert in the field you're referring to. So, I brought it up and ended up actually showing him the poem, since the problem I was having couldn't really be conceptualized without reading the piece. Anyway, he dug what I was trying to do, but wasn't sure I was there. I suggested changing the title and he agreed and said my new title would help because "it would define what the poem was about." It's amazing how such a simple phrase could make such a huge difference. After changing the title several times I came to realize that the problem wasn't with the title, but rather with the fact that the poem itself, which is allegedly a proof, doesn't contain that act of definition. And of course all proofs do. So I changed one line, and BAM! there it was, the whole enchilada; salsa, sour cream, guacamole and all. I revised line 9 to read "where L(f, s)=Love of a Father and Son" which I think sets up everything the poem is trying to do, including demonstrating in a clear manner the way I'm trying to use the variables in the equations. I was worried about all this grand complicated conceptual stuff and the whole problem was actually so simple all along.

ON THE INFINITUDE OF KISSES
(for Little Joel)

Let us define a topology
on the emotion L
by imagining a sub-love L1
to be an open love
if and only if
it either contains
open kisses or it contains

a union of physical sequences
L(f, s),
where L(f, s)=Love of a Father and Son.
In other words,
L1 is open if and only if
every hesitant male heart
that is a member of L1
admits some non-hero condition F or S.
The axioms for a topology
are easily verified:
by definition,
an open mouth kiss is open;
L is just the sequence L(U, I),
and (if true) is open as well.
For any collection of open mouths
the intersection of two
(and hence finitely many)
open mouths is an open kiss:
Let the lips U and I
form open mouths,
then, let the mouths meet.
The topology is quite different
from the usual Cupidean one,
and has two notable properties:
Since any open mouth
can receive infinite kisses,
no finite mouth can be open;
put another way,
the complement of an open kiss
cannot be a closed mouth.
The basic mouths {father, son}
are closed by nature,
but we can imagine L(f, s)
as the complement
of an open mouth as follows:
"There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a word . . .
. . . Love is a word, another kind of open."
Among the sounds
that are emotional multiples
of open kisses
is rain falling on a field,
i.e. [a topology of touch]
By the first property,
the mouth (raining sky)
cannot be closed.
On the other hand,
by the second property,
the mouth (fallow field) is closed.
So, if there were only
finitely many drops of rain
then the mouths (field, sky)
would be in a finite union
of closed mouths,
and hence closed.
This would be
a contradiction,
thus L(f, s) must contain
infinitely many
kisses falling
on an open mouth.

Revisions, revisions.

2011-10-20T12:51:00.001-07:00

Made some changes and it feels much closer to finished.

THE AL KHWARIZMI IN YOU

Wonders if

there's an algebra

for all of it:

for the moon's curvature

as a midnight calculus,

for how the windmills

behind the casino

turn their giant Xs

into late night whys,

for how the tide

rises with an

asymptotic longing.

Even for the arc

of a brand new

table tennis paddle

that your sweaty hand

now grips

or the velocity of the balls

(larger than they've

ever been)

spinning across the net

between your namesake

and your imagination.

Where he,

still a baby

burps and sighs

asleep in a crib.

The trajectory

seeming derivative,

almost always

of the desire.

Two Greek letters

on different sides

of an equation,

each ciphering

the other,

each signifying

an absence

by their italicised presence.

Daddy, Daddy,

don't you know

I miss you,

his sigh says.

He rests his head

on the hollow

of your chest.

Asks when

are you coming back?

A gulf

with no echoes.

As he whispered

to you once,

his lips are

an empty set now.

Two brackets

attempting an embrace

because kisses,

however long ago,

count and multiply

in the abacus of memory.

Is there an algebra

for all of it?

What you've

done with the days

since you left,

what you tried to do,

or might have tried,

had you correctly

solved for all the variables,

if you had

a slope to graph,

a slide to rule them.

If the days didn't

dance to their

own algorithm.

Is there an algebra

for all of it,

the floating

function of the seagulls,

the breaking

but unbroken waves,

the ghostly geometry

of the foam's fathering?

For how two pairs

of footprints,

now non-linear,

could solve

all the sand

drifting

between them?

October Haiku/Senryu

2011-10-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

Black walnuts knock

then roll off the roof-

Autumn

Mid song
the violinist bows out-
All Blues

Snowstorm

ass frozen in place

Ears flicking flakes.

For John on his birthday

2011-09-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

In 1961 John Coltrane and his band played the Newport Jazz Festival and premiered 'My Favorite Things' a tune from a then popular Broadway musical. Most people nowadays know the song from the movie 'The Sound of Music' but that was still years in the future. Trane was only the second group to cover the tune and his version was a smash hit. So I'm posting this poem as a tribute. I have a couple or three Trane poems, but this is my favorite. When you finish the poem, read the first word of each line going down.

THE IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AT NEWPORT (1961)

Bangles on bronzed arms and daisies on dresses,
Lipstick that lingers and long sassy tresses,
Phone calls on Fridays and jingles that sing,
Lightning that hints at what evening might bring.

Raindrops like fingers drum
On the windshield of the car,
Roses lovely up an empty seat
And await your smile, white as
Whiskers curling
On an elderly chin. Curious as
Kittens, they anticipate your
Bright eyes, mint
Copper pennies, two
Kettles of complexity
And what could be
Warm as your hands? Not knitted
Woolen scarves, or those red
Mittens you lost last winter. Long
Brown legs, where are you?
Paper bag brown, twin slender
Packages of satin. Are you
Tied up on the phone or caught
Up in a meeting
With a client like
String knotted into fishnet?
These questions vex,
Are six white roses sufficient?
A light drizzle, a
Few wayward splashes
Of memory caress my hand,
My fingers think of your
Favorite spot to be touched, imagine
Things they'll soon coax you to say.

Cranberry candles and cognac in crystal,
Flannel pajamas and tongue tips that tickle,
Sweet tea from tumblers in long soothing swigs,
Feed me dark chocolate with raisins and figs.

2011-09-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

Slice by slice, truth bleeds:
but an open heart
is not a fatal wound.
To be kissed goodnight,
or dismissed outright,
not because they sound the same,
but because they both smack.
Your lips somehow no
less full when they lie
as when they curl to smile.
The diets supposedly strict there.
Everywhere a weighing,
no meals but imagined ones.
Look how Pity deceives-
somehow a thing that seeks to soothe
and a type of strangling.

September Haiku / Senryu 30 / 30

2011-08-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

Her lip prints
fill the rim of this
empty glass

AC Air Show-
these seagulls startled by
Birds of Thunder

Moonlight nibbles
the dark chocolate bar
of her body

Entangled in
the curling strands of her hair-
My eyes

Breakthrough?

2011-08-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

I have wanted for many years to write poems in Kriolu, but felt like my Kriolu wasn't good enough. It wasn't (TBH) because you really have to have a great grasp of a language to write poetry in it. I haven't spoken Kriolu on a daily basis in 20 years, so my grasp of it is slipping. But I decided that maybe if I just started to write some poems anyway, that will force me to learn the language better, maybe even well enough to eventually write some decent poems. My poem 'MORNA' was translated into Kriolu, but other than that all my Cape Verdean poems are in English, although many of them contain Kriolu words. This is my first attempt, it based on Dumas' 'Love Song', but isn't a translation, more like an adaptation. I'll put up an English translation at some point, but there's no real way to translate some the cultural impact of some of the imagery. Lines like "Jan sabe pa mode ca ta txuba / o ceu ja txora tud lagrimas hora ki bu bai," (I know why it doesn't rain, the sky cried all its tears when you left) means a great deal more in a country that averages 2 inches of rain a year and has more citizens that live out of the country, than in it. Not to mention the implication that the sky has Sodade, a term that means a kind of longing / nostalgia/ unrequited desire that has no real English equivalent. The title is from a famous Cape Verdean song by Tito Paris.

DANÇA MA MI KRIOLA
(After Henry Dumas)

Cretxeu,
N ten ki gráma kes dés ilhas,
o bentu leste debe ki obi bu vós
el ta canta e sibia sima bo,
a terra debe ki odja bu cara
el ten kor sima bo peli,
txintxorote ta canta bu nome
hora ki bo ta passa,
Jan sabe pa mode ca ta txuba
o ceu ja txora tud lagrimas hora ki bu bai,
Jan sabe pa mode o vulcao ten fogo tud noite
Si kurason ta kema sin bo,
na mom e pés
Ondas ta gatinha riba praia e beju bu pé,
N ten ki gosta kel spedju di kes dés ilhas,
ja bo inxina’l bem
mode ki ten sodade.

John Legend / Sade Concert (updated)

2011-07-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

John Legend is in Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles type territory. Didn't miss a note, voice has mad colors and timbres and the piano is an extension of his body. I knew he was talented, but not like that. His pitch control was perfect as was his breath control, his singing technique is flawless even though he uses every Gospel/Blues/R+B lick ever known. He hits notes that sound like they are razorblading his throat, but there is no hoarseness whatsoever afterwards. The musicianship of his band (which included a three piece horn section) was very impressive. And SADE? What? The show is so elegantly designed that even a sartorial retard like me noticed. The idea is to replicate a Film Noir look and feel for the show. This is done by a careful choice of colors that are seen on stage. Noir is generally fimed in black and white and the clothes worn by all the performers in Sade's band reflect this with everyone wearing black, white or some shade of gray. The only exceptions to this are Sade's red lipstick, a red bra she wears under a white gown (3rd costume change) and the red dress she wears for the Encore. Upon reflection I'm impressed at the lengths Sade went to get that austere look. All of the equipment on the stage is either black, white or chrome. Everything looked to be new and shiny and there were no wires, cables or cords visible, no amps, monitors or equipment trunks onstage, no sheet music, charts or music stands, no additional instruments, no food or even water bottles on stage. The stage was completely uncluttered, if musicians weren't playing during a song then they weren't on the stage. When Stuart Matthewman wanted to change guitars for a song, he would go to the side of the stage and get the new axe from a stagehand and hand him the other one. This level of detail could have only happened with a deep commitment by the star, so it's clear that Sade wanted to imprint her personal sense of style on the way everything about the show looked. And is it me or is Lauren Bacall a role model for Sade's sense of style? During every song video and still images were projected on a giant back screen, most of the videos appeared to have been made just for this tour and several of them showed her wearing her hair down with no makeup and in these her freckles were very visible, something she rarely allows. There were 4 costume changes and in every case the stage design and decorations coordinated perfectly with the clothing worn by the band. The band (two guitar players and an electric bass, with a trap set drummer and a percussionist, a piano/keyboard player and two male backup singers) was tighter than Aretha Franklin's skinny jeans, reminding everyone that Sade is a band, not just a person. The show opened with Soldier of Love, a tune that was greatly helped by the fact that the drummer played the groove live (as opposed to the sample used in the recording), make no mistake though, this show uses samples too, for example on tracks where the original recording uses Sade's voice for background vocals and for the orchestral intros that several songs opened with. The concert closed with No Ordinary Love, and Cherish the Day was the encore. The encore also featured a costume change for the entire band with her coming out in a stunning red dress. After the first song, the set list alternated older material with songs from the Soldier of Love album and her latest releases from The Ultimate Collection. Your Love is King was the second song and Sade had some minor pitch problems at the end of a few extended notes which sounded like they were due to improper breath control. She may have been out of breath still from all the dancing she did during Soldier of Love. After the newer songs were done, they did three or four older tunes in a row beginning with Smooth Operator. Any lingering questions I might have had about her musicianship as a singer were answered by her performance of Jezebel. She sat on the side of the stage and with minimal accompaniment (stand up bass, piano, guitar and sax) absolutely crushed the song. Later in the show Pearls was done solo over a track to allow the band a break and a costume change, the stage was empty except for Helen and a mic, a giant white circle was projected against the back screen. It was an excellent visual metaphor for the title of the song and as the song progressed and the lyrics reached the line "The sun gives her no mercy" the color of the circle had changed to a bright yellow, as the song moved into the 2rd verse the color gradually moved through orange as the lyrics hit the phrase "Long as afternoon shadows" into a red sunset color by the start of the 3rd verse and as the song ended the circle sank down into the stage leaving her holding the last notes in total darkness. Paradise and Nothing Can Come Between Us were done as a medley with her singing the vocals for the first part and her backup singers doing the 2nd half while she changed clothes. The band grooved so hard that it wasn't until the end of the song that you realized she was gone. Morning Bird was also a showcase tune for her voice as it was done as a duo with John Hale on piano. This was the most innovative in terms of its staging as the entire song was performed while the stage was covered by a sheer scrim onto which black and white video images of branches were projected. The feeling was as if the performers were in a dark forest, which added to the song's intense loneliness. After those minor pitch issues the first few songs she was in superb voice and effortlessly hit the high note at the end of Is it a Crime. That song was set apart from the others by the use of gorgeous red velvet curtains (or bunting) that hung high on the stage, this was the only use of a color other than black, white or grey in the stage decorations all night. At the Mark Etess Arena in the Taj Mahal Casino where I caught her show, almost the entire audience stood up at the beginning of the song and stood throughout. At various points between songs Sade would address the crowd, for someone who is famously shy and reserved, she was surprisingly at ease and almost gregarious. She very clearly loves performing and appears to genuinely appreciate the love and attention she and the band receive from live audiences. When she told the audience during the banter at the end of the 2nd song that "Your love is King" I completely and totally believed her. Most of the songs were arranged and performed just like they appeared on the albums although there was some improv on a few cuts and a few solos were taken on guitar as opposed to trumpet like the recordings. If you're a fan of her work, do whatever you gotta do to see this show. It was an amazing three hour experience, Sade's performance was very creatively staged by Sophie Muller and one that I'd put in my Top Three concerts ever.

WHY YOU NEVER ORDER A HURRICANE FROM A WAITRESS IN THE POKER ROOM

2011-06-10T00:29:00.000-07:00

What stings the most about
the rain that falls tonight
isn't the angle at which it
strikes the eye
or how bitterly it burns,
but rather the way
it soaks a sodden reality
down the back
and through the clothes,
how it washes the dust
off the shoes to reveal
the hard truth shining beneath.

You know how to be dogged
as well as you know
how to shadow your eyes,
know how to be cheated on
as well as you know how to serve
a cold Corona or hot coffee,
you know how to be stood up
as well as you know how to coordinate
a stunning outfit,
you know how to be lied to
as well as you know how to
angle a bun atop your head.
But just as you don't know how
to walk out onto Arctic Ave. and
determine which lane
points to Miami
and which to New York City,
you haven't learned
so simple a thing
as how to be loved by a man.

Perhaps that class was never scheduled
in Atlantic City elementary schools.
And who knows how many battles
a heart must bear before
it clenches into a fist
and begins to respect
only bare knuckles.
I cannot claim to know,
and so I wear no black robe,
carry no gavel,
call no courtroom to order.

This however,
makes the rain
no less raw.
I understand how some come
to take the tenderness of a man's hands
the same way they interpret a tear
in the bottom of a paper bag,
to hear the softness of his hello
the same as a leak in the roof,
see any sensitivity as a sign
he can't be dominant.
But I had almost convinced myself
that you were too wise to be
numbered among them.

Any fool knows that Yen
don't spend in Paraguay,
that Yuan are worthless
in Wichita,
and thus I accept
that whatever currency
of kindness I wave
might be worthless
in the hardware store
of your heart.
But it's no less devastating
a downpour that streaks the cheeks
of the streets tonight.
I had hoped to purchase
some hurricane matches,
to kindle a small flame
in a fireplace,
but this storm has dampened
all the cordwood.

The question is if
you even wish
to be taught to unstack it,
to set it out in tomorrow's sun,
to rotate it until all sides
are dry as an eye
which has never learned
to cry.

THE COLTRANE IN YOU

2011-06-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Knows the notes
you know to play
and the notes
you need to play
shimmer to shape
what you cannot say,
even if every note
could be explored.
Fears even if
every note is known,
meaning might
remain unreachable.
Knows what
you could’ve meant
is a melody
forever moistening
your mouthpiece,
filling the fifths
in the next bar.
What you could’ve played
and couldn’t play
rooted in the same chord,
which is always extending.
That Desire stretches
across a bed
in a suite
you seem to enter
next to a rope
of incense smoke
you remember,
in a hotel
you may not
check out of.
Every tongue
wants to probe
the mouth
of Imagination.
But what notes
the cursive smoke
is writing
blue the I.
A naked triad
tempts the rhythm.
Are you pure?
The key motif is modulation,
says the piano,
mercy, mercy.
In the acknowledgement,
during the opening riff,
there are
the mysteries of
the quarter moon.
It’s the first set.
The audience rocks forward,
well dressed, observant,
bopping with resolution
above their half-full glasses.
Like an august thunderstorm,
your sax threatens
to sanctify
the fingered strings
of the bass
as the unholy sticks cross,
but the cymbals
have the sound of cymbals
that are unheard.
So the audience,
witnesses and testifies.
You seek,
and they follow,
in a chorus-like fashion,
along the back wall,
and by the bar,
grooving in unison.
Filling the four chambers,
exposed brick walls,
color of brittle earth,
a room hurting
with dissonant exaltation.
And the smoke rises,
pursuance, pursuance,
The melody in the spirit
of shadows
flashes in the mirrors.
Then a door opens,
and the crowd's eyes widen.
Psalm, says the sax,
because the chairs
are full of ears,
opened religiously,
craving serenity.
Nimbus, nimbus
says the sax:
but your fingers
can’t find
a complex enough chord.
Notes played and
notes to be played,
what was almost whispered
and what couldn't be said:
no redemption,
but these digressions
on the downbeat
raining, raining . . .

NIGHT TRAIN

2011-05-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

for Phyllis Hyman

What distant cry is this,
what drifting moan,
whose tasseled scarf
of turquoise colored notes
caresses the dark arms
of dusk?
Then floats and trails,
rippling silver as scales
or stones awash and
polished in a sonic stream
that bobs the head
and taps a tempted toe.
Wends sibilant seduction
in its flow,
vanishing
towards the morning
like a dream.
Phyllis,
your whistling lips
pouted with flair,
and slowly brushed
the naked neck
of night
with a sound,
hi-hatted in harmony,
that soared.
Your short solo
of hard earned air
dipped and bewitched
as it fluttered;
a kite
tugging on its cord
that too soon,
broke free.

PSALMS 98.5 FM

2011-05-19T00:42:00.000-07:00

5 Send shoutouts to the DJ upon the mic
upon the mic and in the voice of an Emcee.
6 With turntables and the sounds of scratching
give mad props to the DJ, the GrandMaster.
7 Let the crowd roar, and the fulness thereof;
the club, and they that dance therein.
8 Let the dancers clap their hands:
let the strobe lights flash together
9 before the Almighty DJ;
for surely he cometh
to rock the house:
with a righteous rhythm
shall he rock the house,
and boost the bass with EQ.

THE BOOK OF RHYMES

2011-05-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

From Jump street was the Rhyme,
and the Rhyme was with the Creator,
and the Rhyme was the Creator.
It was with the Creator off the break.
Through it all lines were spit;
without it nothing was spit that has been spit.
In it was Flow,
and that Flow was the rhythm of all peoples.
The rhythm echoed in the silence,
and the silence could not subdue it.
There was an MC sent from the Creator
whose name was Rakim Allah.
He became an Emcee to manifest that Flow,
so that through him all might hear.
He himself was not the Flow;
he came only to manifest the Flow.
The illest Flow that gives pulse to all parties,
that rocks the place to be.
He blessed the mic, and though the mic was blessed by him,
the mic did not recognize him.
He came to those who were his peoples,
but all his people didn't feel him.
Yet to all who did feel him,
to those who recognized the Flow,
he gave the ability to bob to the beat—
beats born not of a live instrument,
nor of a wax record or a crossfader,
but born of the Creator.
The Rhyme became flesh and kicked it among us.
We therefore check the technique,
the technique of the one and only Emcee,
who came from the Father,
no joke, to make the mic smoke.

THE AUDUBON IN YOU

2011-05-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

Your egrets land after the sun goes down,
whirling on the evening wind
wide as the smile of a winking woman,
whose lipstick is a deadly sin,
yet shines like an Archangel's conscience.
Your egrets are long-beaked,
fish the cloudy marsh of your conscience,
they do not eat like Herons,
their hunger will not be sated
by any multicaloric act of contrition.
Your egrets are sacred, but will not sit
pretty on the head like
your grandmother's Sunday hats.
Your egrets caw as they claw the water's skin,
caws sharp as the teeth of a tiger shark.
Your egrets are not an endangered species,
they rise plumed like geysers in moonlight
and multiply like mathematicians from MIT.
You recall the words that hatched
many of your smaller egrets
as they surround your squeaky bed at night
with their rapid knee-high cries
Your biggest egret tosses its head
like a woman you never asked to marry you.
You sometimes wonder as they
strut about in their long-legged gait;
how they fly so far on those thin white wings,
how they maintain such perfect memories,
why you feed them so religiously every night?

THE DANTE IN YOU

2011-05-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

invokes a rose
blooming from
open throats,
moving through tongues
pink and purple,
meaning
rising in yourself,
but beyond you:
shrouded forms
spiritual as mist
floating across a river,
variables in
an equation of flame.
A psalm
swirling sideways,
notes taken or not,
silence taken
advantage of.
Because prayer is
a tongue trying
to trust lips and teeth,
cowed,
yet called
by rising or open vowels
to Amen,
you hear the hymn
of her tattooed ankle,
arched eyebrow
and scarred lip.
You believe
exquisitely as a long kiss
in all the ways
Tongues can twist
and wonder if
the molten music
of your mouths
can be held
as Communion.

THE O’HARA IN YOU

2011-05-11T01:26:00.000-07:00

You want No Limit,

which of course means
you are standing in front

of the Borgata’s poker room
waiting for an open seat,
as G.S. passes by;
and it’s a Thursday
(which is her Monday),
and she is walking as though
carrying something heavy
(albeit not in her hands),
and you think you hear her sigh,
and recall Lonnie
(whom she might not know)
not Lonnie who was always
pawning his wedding band
so he could feed the penny slots
or Lonnie from The Hill
who always seemed to be
half a slice short
of a sandwich,
but Lonnie from
'Lonnie's Lament'
(and here she
cocks her head and
wrinkles her nose
saying "Who?")
mostly because whatever blew
his rain so sideways
inspired John William to put
a saxophone between his lips
and blaze a lamentation
which matches
her Monday motion,
a wistful grace
with piano lines almost
lengthy as her legs
and a bassline that
plunges like her hair
when she combs it
into a black Niagra,
which she can't know
makes you wish
you could spend
the rest of your days
naked and trembling
in a wooden barrel,
falling forever through
its obsidian mist.

THE BASHō IN YOU

2011-05-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

light drizzle-
beads on the Boxwood leaves
gloss on her lips

Her hair
swirling as she turns away-
April breeze.

this iron span
rising across the river-
her bare spine

her smile-
splash of blackberry brandy
in my evening tea

April night
this meteor shower-
her laughter

rainy darkness-
lingering on her tongue
Licorice

this cowrie shell
shining in her dreadlocks-
new moon

THE BUKOWSKI IN YOU

2011-05-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

When the last pile of chips
gets shipped the other way,
when your wallet yawns
like a two-coated man prone
on a park bench;
what else is there to do
but stagger out of

the Taj Mahal's poker room

and return to the shadows
of an empty womb,
then curl up like
the last macaroni
stuck to a paper plate?
You sense even the women
cleaning under the tables
and dumping the trash's last odors
wouldn't sweep you
into their dusty pans.
The red deck, the blue deck,
the shuffle machine,
have conspired to
make you feel like
the darkness under
the dealer's manicured nails,
his Rolex stopped to watch.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Everything you touch stutters.
You can't remember
what singing sounded like
before the Ace of Hearts
punctured your last lung,
can't feel your buddy
tapping your shoulder
asking "How much you down"?
You remember the elevator
ride to your room,
39 floors of sunk stomach
before the white scowl
of a towel spread across
the bathroom floor.
Suppose you were nothing
but a hand towel
in a $49 motel?
Suppose you lived
to lick beads of brightness
from a working girl's back,
but all you had
was parched lips
and a swollen tongue?
That's why whiskey
clings to the bottle,
slight burn in the beginning,
then oak smooth and
polished as an expensive casket,
that's why when
the last card turns,
whatever you hear
sounds like a bullet.
More so if you dig
digging in moist earth.
Even more so, if
you're a not a gardener
or a man in a straw hat
wanding the beach for beeps.
You're addicted to
the dance of the Blue deck,
but also to the way
the Red deck parts like
a pair of painted lips.
You're addicted to
to knowing that even
a gypsy psychic
can't find your card first,
no matter how far she
follows a palm's
rugged grooves
like wood grain.
You're addicted to
knowing the cards love
no one
but the last hands
to hold them.
Is there anything
sexier than
putting it all-in and
having the moment
Morse code thru your veins?
Anything sexier
than the way
desperation's dress
hugs her hips ?
That's why you return,
why you tease your chair
to the table's edge
and post a blind bet,
why you peel the corner
of your hole cards
like they're prosperity's
last pair
of good panties.

May Haiku/Senryu and 7 Word Poems.

2011-05-06T03:03:00.000-07:00

Gonna try to keep the momentum I started in April by writing at least 15 haiku or Senryu during May. 30 is too much pressure, but 15 is doable without me having to churn out crap just to meet a quota.

meteor shower
across this May midnight-
her laughter

New moon-
the calendar on my wall
unturned

crow

powerline

Nikes

brick wall-

"Taeshaun" dripping onto

fresh snow

Two planes, Twin Towers. Fire, raining.

only rain
pings in her
change cup

A blue buoy
Bobbing in the surf,
my son's size.

Time to
learn a language.
Her tongue.

Inmate's feet.
Just above the
overturned chair.

Under her
nails. Enough skin
to hex.

trembling needle
of my desire-
spill ink

THE AL-KHWARIZMI IN YOU

2011-05-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

There's an algebra
for all of it:
the windmills

behind the casino

turning their giant Xs
into late night whys,
the moon's curvature

like a midnight calculus,

the tide rising

into the asymptotic

longing of a line.
Even for the arc

of a brand new

table tennis paddle
that your sweaty hand
now grips
or the velocity of the balls

(larger than they've

ever been)
spinning across the net
between your namesake
and your imagination.
Where he,

still a baby

burps and sighs
asleep in a crib.
The trajectory
seeming derivative,
almost always
of the desire.
Two Greek letters

on different sides
of an equation,

each ciphering
the other,

each signifying

an absence

by their italicised presence.
Daddy, Daddy,
don't you know
I miss you,

his sigh says.
He rests his head

on the hollow

of your chest.
Asks when

are you coming back?
There's an algebra
for all of it.
What you've
done with the days
since you left,
what you tried to do,
or might have tried,
had you correctly
solved for all the variables,
though you had
no slope to graph,

no slide to rule them.

A gulf

with no echoes

for answers.

As he whispered

to you once,

his lips are

an empty set now.

Two brackets
attempting an embrace
because kisses,

however long ago,

count and multiply

in the abacus of memory.
Moments that

can only approximate

an algorithm.
There's an algebra
for all of it,

the floating

function of the seagulls,

the breaking

but unbroken waves,

the ghostly geometry

of the foam.

Perhaps even

for how two pairs

of footprints,

non-linear as any equation

whose notation

haunts the horizon,

might solve

all this sand

between them.

THE MOST POETIC MAN IN THE WORLD

2011-04-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

I love the Dos Equis commercials and was messing around with some of my own lines and this came out of it:

THE MOST POETIC MAN IN THE WORLD
(for Jeffrey McDaniel)

Before he was even born, Shakespeare plagiarized him,
He was conceived in a French villanelle
and born with a silver spondee in his mouth.
The only prescription he's ever filled was written by Dr. Seuss.
Entire orchestras of conductors weep when he plays his Sestina.
He once thought an E wasn't short enough, it's been silent ever since.
His haiku are so concise, they need only 1.7 syllables,
On his reading tours, Closed Interpretations open for him,
He struts the streets of New York clad only in a purple Pantoum.
His mother wears his Easter sonnet- every Sunday.
His feet are so exquisitely iambic, his pedicurist pays him.
He once rocked a party by beatboxing the Song of Solomon.
He doesn’t always recite his work, but when he does;
he prefers to replace the vowels with Xs. “Stay quirky, my friend.”

Lost the hand but got a poem.

2011-04-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

FLUSH

At the table's

padded edge,
I study her face
as the cards,
fifty-two,
wait to reveal
our future fate,
oblivious to
the weight,
of placed wagers.
Their rhythmic chorus-
riffling, cutting,
entering and exiting
a dovetailing desire,
an unsettling sound,
one that cannot hint or
predict the
deck's secret details,
no tableside sign
of awaited outcomes.
I close my eyes
and imagine,
listen for the whisper
and swoosh
of a river
beyond the Turn.
This is chaos,
the run
of randomness.
Will a large Spade
bury what remains
of my hand ?
Only one gets
what they want.
The last card
appears.
And here,
where hearts
pump their deepest,
her skin that once
seemed silent
now bursts
into radiant bloom.

National Poetry Month 30/30- A Haiku/Senryu a Day

2011-03-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

April mist-
beads on the leaves
gloss on her lips

dawn sky
among the brown branches
only cherry blossoms

This waitress' smile-
splash of Blackberry brandy
in my evening tea

Trying to ignore
the waitress ignoring me-
Dealer splits the pot.

Her sidelong glance-
white foam atop a wave
roiling clouds

Back from Break,
a smile in her eyes-
Sambuca on her breath.

Fresh slice of Pizza-
a seagull takes
a sideways glance.

summer darkness
lingering on her tongue-
Licorice.

April drizzle-
a Pit Bull soaks the door of
a Porta-John.

ordering
water from the waitress-
my voice cracks

tall grass
Tiger crouches, staring-
Where's my ball?

April afternoon-
ten deer nibble in the
Driving Range

On the green
at the lip of the cup-
Sunset

April dusk-
this flag loudly snapping
my back tightens

A ghost
whose shadow is memory-
the river turns

April 15th-
counting what is left of
my fingernails

Jazz and cocktails-
your siren song to tempt me?
Again I was wrong

Essay on Etheridge-
Gang Starr from a speaker
Guru rest in peace.

Rain beads on glass-
An armful of white blossoms
on black branches.

Starry night-
Beside this ATM
a bank of Lilies.

Her hair
swirls as she turns away-
April breeze.

Sunset, a song
falls across her shoulders-
"Love is Found"

steady rain-
a goose broken in the road
its mate calling

low fog-
a mourning dove's
high coo.

Milky fog, starless
ocean stretches to pour-
I wait

the rain
slashes through-
leaves

after the gunshots
up and down the front steps-
splash of red lights

Easter morning-
biscuits in the oven
rising

In this soldier's scope
the wide eye of a Nikon-
unblinking

Falling softly-
fingers on guitar strings
Phoebe Snow

crossing the bridge
steel riveted truss-
holding hands

iron span
arching the river-
her bare back

What may be

2011-03-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

On Poker and Peppers

. . . things that grew loud when the street grew empty,
and breaths that let themselves be breathed
to freight a human argument,
and sidelong glances in the midst of things . . .
Jorie Graham

Never had much interest
in being smooth
like the skin of a pepper
or slick as the seeds inside,
(not because I didn't want to be hot)
but because like
a cayenne red lipstick,
slick wears off too quick.
Never minded looking naive,
it causes the slicksters
to show their hands.
We all make different choices,
but my friends are the ones
who tell me the truth
about the strength of my hand.

Perhaps there was a naive boy
with a dream.
And when I ask you
on the phone
if we will ever pick
cayenne peppers together,
you say "Maybe."
All gardeners know that maybes
can be like cayennes on the vine,
this one green as a Yes,
that one yellow as Perhaps,
the other bright red as No.

Gardeners choose
which peppers get picked

and by whom.

You could have said
that you don't pick peppers
with poker players,
but you said "Maybe."
And maybe I'm just a boy
with a naive dream,
maybe only slicksters get
to pick those peppers,
maybe somebody bluffed
(which is part of the game),
maybe they forgot
they would have to
turn over their hand,
maybe one day they'll realize
how much it costs

to get called . . .

Old poem, New Version.

2011-02-09T11:32:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure that this is the final version. Took me forever to find the right ending.

THE MAN WITH THE BLUES GUITAR
(For Robert Johnson, after Wallace Stevens)

Three

The man [hat cocked] picked at his guitar,
A traveling-man of sorts. The day was yellow.

They said, "You got a [beat up] blues guitar,
Can you play things colored as they are?"

The man replied [cigarette dangling], "Thangs
as they are, Is colored different on a blues guitar."

And they said to him [Bible-eyed], "But play, you must,
A tune outside of you, but of yourself,

The [Gospel] truth on your blues guitar,
Of things colored as they are."

Six

I can’t paint a picture quite square,
Although I stroke it with much care.

I don’t sing a man's shined shoes, gold tooth
or new suit, but his eternal soul,

I eye him as well I can and conjure
Him up with my mojo hand.

When I pluck him up, moody as the moon
Not sunlit like things as some say they are,

It’s a serrated howl traveling through
these fingers what pick a blues guitar.

Nine

A tune colored (as we are),
Yet somehow blued by the [moaning] guitar;

Ourselves [softly] humming as if in tune,
Yet nothing changed, except the place

Of things as they are and the notes
As he bent them on the blues guitar,

Played just so, the chords of change,
Heard in a damned juke-joint;

For an eternity damned, the way
The howl of hellhounds sound where

Even the hand of god is haze.
The tune stops time. The blues [thusly plucked]

Become the crux of things as they are,
The crossroads at midnight on a guitar.

Twelve

Are the [Hellhound] blues his?
His devil of a delta guitar

Fills the [smoky] juke-joint with dancing women
In thrall with the moon. The yellow-eyed men

Of the women are now [dark] blue, and coming
For his [middle-parted] head that never lies

Alone at night. He picks a string of dilemmas.
Can he change the tune as it is? And how,

As he fingers his frets, can he
Escape that note which echoes

unlike an [eternal] resolution and yet,
Must be. Could the Blues be anything else?

2010-12-24T21:40:00.000-08:00

It's her hands
(of all things)
that I twitch for most,
because on each
of her fingertips
a maze whorls
with pleasure.
What I may miss
in tracing a line
on her palm
I might divine
in the next.
Even her pinky can probe
like a searchlight,
find what
I fear revealed.
Her slender thumbs
can oppose with grace
(Will they oppose me?)
Her index rises,
a tender wand,
a tenth of what
nightly troubles my blood:
a touch more subtle
than can be surmised.
All night,
each nail
a pale croissant
to be craved.

THE VAN GOGH IN YOU

2010-12-09T13:48:00.001-08:00

The VAN GOGH IN YOU

It steeps in starlight.
You feel it fall like freed water.
It bathes you in dopamine before dawn.
You take your breath from its whispers,
sitting like a sunflower in the corner.
Invisible by day and radiant by night,
it has a flame
that dances in all seasons.
It scurries from the rough
of young men's hands,
from the smoke of opinion,
a cloud of ash floating
from a jagged cone.
When you press your ear to its heart,
there is no note of any night.
And yet you call it nightly,
the possible oracle of an impossible song.
But song is not the limit of its genius.
The ear gorges itself on many frequencies.
The fingers may caress
whatever key depresses.
The lungs fill themselves
with various verses.
The brain debates with no Coda.
It ripples the sea
like a new breeze,
curls and peaks to many points.
You wait, unbated
to tangle in its tangents,
to scale the sails of silence
and read the ripples,
not as number,
but as Sine.

2010-09-26T01:04:00.000-07:00

DUET

Under a duvet of darkness,
ears softening
in the silence,
you peek over.
Who could predict this?
An unfurling,
each touch
with the power
to part lips.
Making of their shading
and highlighting
a school of tactile undertow
that can pull or draw by
softest sixteenths
arterial eddies and ripples,
candlelit flickers
glancing the outer cheek,
shimmerings that shape
the banks of a river.
This isn't parenthesis.
This is the trouble clef.
Everybody hears
what they desire.
Always it is the same.
The purity
in the longing.
What we hear
is almost a tonic,
yes and yes with
each shivering breath,
climbing the scales
of the dark.
You are free to sigh.
I cannot of course read music.
Only these scars
curled like lashes
around your eyes.
Listen.
A whisper’s siblings
vibrate into
quick muscled twitches
and tightenings,
condensing
in saline beads,
swirling sibilance
of an unbounded bed,
The stream
spills its banks,
pooling itself,
pulling gleaming abdomens
and tangled legs
beneath disbelief's blanket,
where a tender tremoring
involuntary dances.

2010-09-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

Invisible by day and silent by night,
her wisdom curls like a cloud of ash
from a jagged cone.

Poem inspired by the Art Exhibit Weaving In and Out

2010-08-10T14:33:00.000-07:00

A Cumulus Loom

I used to float
in a sea of sheets
and listen as you whistled
an aqua tune in the shower.
Mornings tinted by
a stream of air
made to modulate,
unwind and become silken thread.
Then a furious storm
split the oak that
shaded our house.
Now, rain splashes my gutters
on a morning so gray
its girders rust,
so starved for rhythm
it strums me
with liquid fingers.
If only I could summon
that rippled air, woven breeze.
swab my ears in the flow
as it rinses away the pull
of tension from muscles,
towels a terry melody
over my hungry body.
How like the clouds
to resemble
pursed lips,
how like the Dawn
to moisten them
as its first blue deed.

Kind of Blue

2010-07-26T19:45:00.000-07:00

TRUMPET LESSONS

It eyed me at adolescence,
hot air trembling
along the curves of its bell,
hovering like held notes.
From the hallway,
the classroom beckoning
as if blue lit.
All it wanted was
to be carried home
in a case with handles,
a velvet lining,
a conical mute.
It promised to teach me
how to moan
in private.
My own mouth,
moistened so few times,
became a double bed
for it to dream in.
I recall a soft cloth,
stroking sheen,
the bright curving smile it left.
Found its body
a balm for stiff fingers,
even when I couldn't
handle its bursts of brassiness,
even when anything but
the Blues would do and
the deepest Blues
were all I knew.
And Miles
above us both—
hoarse whispers
haunting a muted mouth,
heresy set adrift on air.
There was a scented oil
glistening its valves.
Inside its coiled body,
my wet, rhythmic breath:
a note waiting
on a naked ear.

On Glossolalia

2010-07-18T10:58:00.001-07:00

The Way Faith Works

invokes notes
threading from
a flooded throat,
moving through tongues
pink and purple,
something
rising in ourselves,
but beyond us:
shrouded forms
spiritual as mist
floating across a river,
variables in
an equation of flame.
The way psalms work
is swirling sideways,
notes taken or not,
silence taken
advantage of.
Prayer is
a tongue trying
to trust lips and teeth,
cowed, yet called by
rising or open vowels
to Amen.
I hear the hymn
of your tattooed ankle,
arched eyebrow
and scarred lip.
I believe
exquisitely as a long kiss
in all the ways
our Tongues can twist.
Can the melted music
of our mouths
be held
as communion?

Riddle Me This, Batgirl!

2010-05-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

Vuks ot znk Qke ul MM

What if someone
invented a language
out of clones of the 7th letter,
and "Baby juice, Baby juice?"
Then served it in short texts
or long conversations?
The words would look ordinary
but be filled with peanut butter,
they might sweeten in the sun,
but never darken with brown spots
or become mushy.
How would such a language
wear its hair?
Swept up into a knot
that resembles a rose
or falling over like a fountain?
The punctuation would be
formed with white chips
and black straws,
the conjunctions shopped for
at Barneys New York,
the interjections minty green
and only available
every March.
The letter "V" would be red
and visit small screens
every Tuesday night,
the letter "N"
would not mean "North",
nor "S" mean "South"
(who could find them anyway)
the other letters would all
be small walnut tiles
on mahogany racks
that you could switch around
in your head.
The pet phrases would be furry
and small enough to fit in a purse
(although they might rattle
with snores all night long).
This language would know
"Coffee Can Make You Black"
and contain a "Litany"
and beautiful "Puzzles"
with a secret "At Dawn"
that might escape the notice
of even the Queen of Google.
All liquid sentences would
be pressed from soy into Silk,
the vowels have
straight white teeth
and none of the consonants
would be composed
of custard.
Nor would any of its paragraphs
dig Lime Green Gators,
contain pig parts,
or tolerate runny eggs.
Who could comprehend
such a thing?
Surely it could make no sense?
If one fell asleep listening,
could you set it
to shut off after 15 minutes?
And what could one
create with
this new lingo?
Any poem written in it
would surely
be ticklish all over.
Perhaps something bold
as the toasted bagels of eternal joy
or mundane as "Get Well soon."
I do not know
how long it might take
to master it,
but I would retire every night
reciting its random sonnets,
then roll over each morning
to search again
for the warm secrets
of that esoteric tongue.

From Wiki

2010-05-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

Why Bertholletia Hums the Orchid Bee Blues
(Found Poem)

The Brazil nut tree's
yellow flowers
contain
very sweet nectar
but can only
be pollinated
by an insect
strong enough
to lift the
coiled hood . . .
and with tongues
long enough
to negotiate
the complex
coiled
flower.

WHAT I CRAVE

2010-04-14T01:04:00.003-07:00

The arch in your foot,
the tender architecture
of its bridge.
The curve of
your lashes
shading the quiet irises.
The slope of your nose
above the X-Y coordinates
of a possible kiss.
The angle
of your elbow bent
into "Greater than."
The tulip where
the tongue is supposed to be.
The moon
like a slice of honeydew
above your house.
The five part harmony
of each hand,
the sense your chin makes.
To be President

of the people
enchanted by
the tiny crescent
on the right side
of your upper lip
over the years.
To brush like a breeze
around your neck
light as an empty tray
with the desperation

of a spilled drink.
The view of your collarbone
from a cup of straws,
the packets of raw sugar
in the bowl of your lower back.
The beginning handshape
of your 'Hello'.
The chance to see
the body's ballet
in its entirety,
the arithmetic
of the spine unwinding
into the calculus
of liquid hips.
My tongue as
a runner rounding
the curve of your calf.
The whistled blues
of empty bottles
tuned to a skin tone
smooth as the sin
dissolved in vodka.
A chance to grace
the lace walkway
of those lips,
to be a melody
in the mouth
of a brown girl
as she leaves work.

2010-04-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

I wrote this poem years ago, but was never satisfied with the ending.

SOLO (IN THE KEY OF NICOLE)

She’s Miss Sweet Potato Brown
a steamy cocoa statuette
with caramel-colored eyes
and fine tuned fingers.
And with pepper tongue twirling
she sets whole rooms whirling
her black tresses swirling
so devilishly dervish
and needlessly nervous
though wordlessly
wordlessly weird.
After kissing her
I stumble into a drugstore
and desperately undress all the chocolate bars.
Though she refuses all my flowers
and will not hold my hand
she sleeps with me in a heavy sweater
almost frantically afraid of the cold.
And it’s not until morning light
over raspberry tea, that I read
in the lines around her smile
that she's parked in passion’s alley
searched through many cans
and shivered in the shadows
with moon-stained hands.

Seascape with Vessel

2010-04-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

Her voice
calls in currents,
the melody washing
like incoming waves.
Medleyed
with a moving sun,
her aria tracks
the heart's arc.
As all that would rise
fear what falling may follow,
she is careful,
sings of descent first,
is cautious with what
she allows to be heard
in the harmony.
She knows the sea
and the Song of Salt
are composed
in the same key,
but still chooses
to bathe in what
the tide utters
in the interim,
word
by rising
word.

Her voice
is more searchlight
than song, splashes the dunes
with waves of something
wilder than water.
Her lyrics are a people's sighs
medleyed with moonlight,
a geyser like whales exhaling.
Since tears also shine,
what saline circles
she's tasted, sparkle
like traces of grace
in the foam
swirling across
what beaches she walks.
And we wonder
what price of translation
she pays, as she sings
in a dress that is fraying
and slowly utters
every word
by barefoot
word.

Lonnie's Lament

2010-03-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

She floods the room,
a flash of moonlight,
the pressure of night rising.
I feel my taut strings plucked
by hands soft enough
to wreck religion.
I hear sharps and flats,
the subtle fingerings
that form her signature.
I feel indigo ventricles
improvise emotions
they can't contain.
See the saucy hips,
the twin legends
of her legs,
that cryptic tattoo,
the tresses braiding rumor
and myth. See
how she pimps mystique
into solo and chorus
inside a blouse.
Her skirt flashes through my past
like Billie's final sigh
teasing hopeful lungs
in a haunted torso.
I hear her halo
tilt to caress the curve
of the ear, chords born
from the marriage
of catfish and cornmeal,
from lacquered brass
and that last goodbye.
Check her thick thighs,
how they resolve into
an ankle's passion
for expensive bracelets
and the foot's five types of finesse;
the sweet tonic of each toe.
The daughter of possibilty
and pain, this onyx angel
skips like a rock across
my river, conjuring
the holiness of dragonflies.
I know the knickname
hidden like a curse word
under her scarlet tongue.
How can I forget those lips
whose low moan caressed
my neck all night,
when their prints linger
longer than the burn of Bourbon
on my mouth?

Ode to Two Lips

2010-03-14T00:40:00.000-08:00

Horizontal half-moons
soft as cinematic whispers,
last night heard my tongue
pray for the sacred space
between you.
I want you for
your red's exquisite sheen,
for how easy it is
to be transfixed
by the Two of Heart's glossy finish.
You know it isn't good sense
that makes me imagine
your fat bottom gleaming.
Months ago,
I dreamt you as sliced halves
of fruit beneath glass,
above teeth white
as an apple's exposed flesh.
But now I'm shoplifting Chapstick,
brushing gloss
across a canvas
stretched like skinny jeans
after a binge,
bewitched by what
surrounds your mouth's
satin machine.
You've been chapped
by wind, salt and sunlight.
But a single lick
from the scarlet felt
of a wandering tongue,
can make everything supple again.
And when are your
busses scheduled?
I want to caress
a fever into your fullness,
sighs from your corners.
You need no MAC,
Max Factor,
Revlon, Clinique, or Avon.
Peck.
Peck.
Peck.
Now that I've kissed
the blues for you,
come close and hum
your cinnamon song.

New day. New try.

2010-03-01T10:36:00.000-08:00

It's funny how the world works. I had started this poem a few months earlier as an experiment, trying to create a poetic analogue to a mathematical proof (Furstenberg's "Infinitude of Primes"). But although the resulting poem was somewhat interesting, the experiment was a failure on the conceptual level. So, after a while I decided to give up on the analogue idea and just edit the poem to get the best poem possible. And what do you know, just as soon as I stop trying the analogue concept and just do what's best for the poem, Bam! I stumble into a way to make the concept work.

ON THE INFINITUDE OF KISSES
(for Big Kenny and Little Kenny)

Let us define a topology
on the emotion L
by imagining a sub-love L₁,
to be an open love
if and only if
it either contains
open kisses
or it contains
a union of emotional sequences
L(f, s),
where L(f, s)=hearts open as wounds.
In other words,
a sub-love L₁,
can be open if and only if
every hesitant male heart
that is a member of L₁
admits some non-hero condition F or S.
The axioms for a topology
are easily verified:
by definition,
an open mouth kiss is open;
L is just the sequence L(U, I),
and (if true) is open as well.
For any collection of open mouths
the intersection of two
(and hence finitely many)
open mouths is an open kiss:
Let the lips U and I
form open mouths,
then, let the mouths meet.
The topology is quite different
from the usual Euclidean one,
and has two notable properties:
Since any open mouth
contains infinite kisses,
no finite mouth can be open;
put another way,
the complement of an open kiss
cannot be a closed mouth.
The basis mouths {father, son}
are closed by nature,
but we can imagine L(f, s)
as the complement
of an open mouth as follows:
"There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a word . . .
. . . Love is a word, another kind of open."
Among the sounds
that are emotional multiples
of open kisses
is rain falling on a field,
i.e. [a topology of tears]
By the first property,
the mouth (raining sky)
cannot be closed.
On the other hand,
by the second property,
the mouth (fallow field) is closed.
So, if there were only
finitely many drops of rain
then the mouths (field, sky)
would be in a finite union
of closed mouths,
and hence closed.
This would
be a contradiction,
thus L(f, s) must contain
infinitely many
drops of rain
falling
in an open field.

Litany For A February Day

2010-02-09T16:39:00.001-08:00

Before, I might have dreamt
of the swirling agates of your eyes,
or the coal-colored
corn silk of your hair,
or even the velvet cushions
of your lips.
But, as I become
a more religious man
I pray silently for the soft halo
of your hands.
I do not pray the way
a kneeling Nun recites a rosary
for orphans in a Favela
or the way a penitent priest
invokes "Our Father"
before his congregation,
but how in mid-July,
a pair of blue mittens
pray from the darkness of a box
for what can only fill them
from the inside.
I wait for your hands
the way gallons of Butter Pecan
frozen behind frosted glass
wait for the mouth
that will melt it,
I coil for them
the way Spaghetti on a plate
coils for the tines of the fork
that will lift it onto
the warm wonder of a tongue.
I hunger for your right hand
small in the hollow of my back,
your left hand blessing the blades
of my shoulders.
I crave each of your slender fingers
as a smoker's lips
crave ten naked Newports.
My chest prays for your hands
the way the front yard
under its heavy sweater of leaves
prays for the sweep of a rake
to lay it bare and raise small hills.
My face imagines your hands
as a second story window
imagines the brush
of airborne blossoms.
My arms tingle for your fingertips
the way a branch tingles
under a caterpillar's feet,
my legs pray for your palms
as silk curtains drawn at night
pray to be parted
in the rising heat of morning.
And what does it mean
if my entire body
dreams of nothing but
falling asleep dotted
by your fingerprints
like a leopard
with a thousand glowing spots,
awaiting your caress
as blank paper
awaits the kiss
of the calligrapher's pen,
as rainy windshields
await the swish
of wiper blades,
as every morning
those cups stacked high
behind the counter at Starbucks
become sinners at a Revival
waiting to be made holy
by simply being held
in your hands.

World AIDS Day

2009-12-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

FATHER, SON AND THE WHOLLY GHOST

We meet only

in the alleys of memory.

Our broken smiles

glitter on the ground.

Although we bear the same name,

identical scars,

you can't remember

what day I was born.

Anger spills

down the side of my face.

This is what you have taught me:

needles are as hollow as lies,

collapse more families

than veins.

Now a prisoner in death's camp,

you grow thinner every day

until I can count your T-cells

on one hand.

The phone rings,

Mama pleads

Please buy a dark suit to wear.

I tell her

I wear black

every day,

all day,

anyway.

Surfing USA

2009-11-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm now on Google Wave, if there are any other new adopters out there waving. Looking forward to exploring the possibilities, especially in terms of dealing with poetry and workshop/critique.

Page Meets Stage

2009-11-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

If you're in the NYC area, I'll be reading at the Bowery Poetry Club with Terrance Hayes on Wednesday, December 9th @9pm. It's part of their monthly Page Meets Stage reading series. If you can't get to NYC, there will be live streaming video at www.bowerypoetrylive.com.

NIGHT HAWK

2009-11-05T13:23:00.000-08:00

You know you can't
call for Love
in this city,
it stalks the streets
like a gypsy cab
over pavement
feigning hard

to preserve its solitary lines.
Your ears open themselves
to catch any cry.
Some are flocked together,
others have sought the solace

of a solo glide.
At the end of each avenue
you hear the lyrics
of Love's myriad migrations.
You imagine it
perched in a tall tree,
trapped in branches
until a storm stops.
You realize you
cannot decipher
even a single chirp.
You dim the lights
for the night

and kneel.
And maybe mid-dream,

a flapping
startles you,
alighting
on the sill
of a window
you forgot to close.

For G.S.

2009-10-31T00:21:00.000-07:00

. . . only because it was a Thursday

(which is her Monday),

and she was walking as though

carrying something heavy

(albeit not in her hands),

and I thought I heard her sigh,

and recalled Lonnie

(who you might not know)

not Lonnie who was always

pawning his wedding band

so he could feed the penny slots

or Lonnie from The Hill

who always seemed to be

half a slice short

of a sandwich,

but Lonnie from

'Lonnie's Lament'

(and here she

cocks her head and

wrinkles her nose

saying "Who?")

because whatever blew

his rain so sideways

inspired John William to put

a saxophone between his

lips and blaze

a lamentation

which matches

her Monday motion,

a wistful grace

with piano lines almost

lengthy as her legs

and a bassline that

plunges like her hair

when she combs it

into a black Niagra

which she doesn't know makes me wish

I could spend

the rest of my days

naked and trembling

in a wooden barrel,

falling forever through

its obsidian mist.

A Decent Day

2009-10-07T17:46:00.000-07:00

I was waiting for the bus outside the Borgata casino when I turned around and looked in the direction of Philly and this haiku presented itself to me;

Atop their stalks

these windmills slicing, slicing-

the quarter moon.

This is an older poem that I finally found the right ending to.

MAN CARRYING TUNE
(after Wallace Stevens)

A poem must seduce
the senses most successfully.

Illustration:
A noir figure (back-turned) on stage
entices an audience of eyes.

The muted blues he trumpets
entice even the least open ears.

Accept them then, as key
(notes almost perceived
as known melodies,

uncertain notation of certain chords,
the roots full of doubt,

notes floating like the last of Autumn Leaves
on a soft breeze that could swirl all night,
on a key breeze of cobalt notes),

A cascade of sensation
now fully falling.

We will bathe
In these sensations all song,
as a blue mysterious

beckons in the dark.

(For Miles Davis)

SIJO IN BLUE

2009-10-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

The Sijo (SHE-jo) is a Korean form, similar to its younger cousin haiku. They are written in 3 lines and contain no more than 46 syllables. Unlike haiku, metaphor, simile and other wordplay is permitted.

I pace the beach at dawn,
my footsteps, haiku in sand

I ask the whitecaps, why Derrion,
why only sixteen?

Lake Michigan falls on its shore,
the Hawk wheels and wails above.

A Few Haiku

2009-10-01T14:15:00.001-07:00

I have been writing (or trying to write) haiku for over 12 years. It's only in the last couple of days that I feel like I may finally have a firm grasp of the form. This is exciting for me, because I feel like I can now begin to write a few decent pieces. We'll see; anyway here are some older attempts that I've revised.

summer sunset-
a woman crying into
her cellphone

country road-
our brakes screech at
a squirrel

Spring shower-
a white cat under the
drycleaner’s awning

summer shimmer-
that woman talking to herself
wears two coats

March wind –
The white king topples on
the chess table

the white moon-
kissing my uncle's name
in black granite

Sunrise- only lipstick in my wineglass

after the snowstorm-
not one loaf of bread
on this store's shelves

a cowrie shell in her dreadlocks-

the North star

spring sunlight-
dust devils dancing
after the broom

summer lightning-
the edge of your teeth
on my nipple

August heat-
the man in front of the bank
begs for change

sunrise-
three men shiver outside
Kogod's Liquors

at the red light-
the rain on the windshield
stops

bright afternoon-
After that swooping hawk
this swirling feather

On the Rationality of Last Night

2009-09-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

Recall that:

the passion is the moan plus the tingle;

the passion is to the moan as the moan is to the tingle.

If we call the passion K and the moan B, then the second statement above becomes

K is to B as B is to K − B,

or, algebraically:

Kiss is to Bite, as Bite is to Kiss minus Bite.

To say that last night was rational

means that last night was

a fraction (Kiss divided by Bite) where K and B are intertwined.

We may take (Kiss divided by Bite) to be in roughest terms

and K and B to be still tender.

But if (Kiss divided by Bite) is in roughest terms,

then the identity labeled (rationality) above

says (Bite dreaming of Kiss divided by Bite) is in still rougher terms.

That is a contradiction

which follows from the assumption

that last night was rational.

Hillel Furstenberg Greets His Newborn Son

2009-09-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

(for Big Kenny, Little Kenny and Joel₃)

Let us define a topology
on the emotion L
by declaring a sub-love L₁
{Father, Son}
to be an open love
if and only if
it either contains
an open mouth kiss, ∅,
or it contains a union
of emotional sequences L(f, s),

where L(f, s) = hands open like wounds

= tears cascading across lips.

In other words,
a sub-love L₁ is open if and only if
every hesitant male heart
admits some non-zero condition f or s
such that L(f, s) ⊆ L₁.
The axioms for a topology
are easily verified:
By definition, an open mouth kiss, ∅, is open;
L is just the sequence L(U, I),
and so could be open as well.
Any union of open mouths is open:
for any collection of open mouths
the intersection of two
(and hence finitely many)
open mouths is open:

let U₁ and I₂ be our open mouths
and let hungry lips ∈ open mouths
(with lips s₁ and s₂

establishing membership).
Mouth f to be the

lowest common multiple of f₁ and f₂.
Then, let the mouths meet.
The topology is quite different
from the usual Euclidean one,
and has two notable properties:
Since any open mouth
contains an infinite language,
no finite mouth can be open;
put another way,
the complement of a finite mouth
cannot be a closed mouth.
The basis mouths {f, s}
can be both open and closed:
they are closed by nature,
but we can imagine L(f, s)
as the complement
of an open mouth as follows:
"There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a word . . .
. . . Love is a word, another kind of open."
Among the sounds
that are emotional multiples
of prime kisses are
thunder and rain flooding a field,
i.e. [a topology of tears]
By the first property,
the mouth (sky) on the left-hand side
cannot be closed.
On the other hand,
by the second property,
the mouth (field) is closed.
So, if there were only
finitely many prime kisses,
then the mouth (sky) on the
left-hand side would be
in a finite union of closed mouths,
and hence closed.
This would be a contradiction,
thus L(f, s) must contain
infinitely many
prime kisses.

Seven Things

2009-08-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

Seven Things I Should Have Said, Before You Left.

I preferred your sandwich with the crust untrimmed,
Your sighs were iridescent oil on asphalt,
Domination always twitching on the fringes.
The secret? The alphabet trick with my tongue.

Your voice steeped fragrant as loose leaf Darjeeling,
brown bits of cinnamon stick on my tympani,
most nights I dug its squall of sudden spice.
And any bag, even silk, was too much restraint.

Given time, the bend of The Butterfly Position
(insistence banging the bottom of the bundle)
gears shifting like a manic derailleur
probably could have cured your scoliosis.

I never liked your girlfriend with the organic perfume,
that protracted eyebrow, a geometric sneer,
knew she was orange juice on a sore throat,
afterbirth on ice, dripping all night.

I came home early that weekend from Chicago,
saw her feral hands clasp your jagged gasps.
The camcorder wasn't the only thing turned on.
I fapped to the tape at least once a week.

I never enjoyed the sound of slapping you.
But what else would we have done for rhythm?
After nights of Neapolitan, vanilla is a prison,
even if French, with flecks of exotic beans.

When you angled the just oiled pistol
and proclaimed "Either we say 'I do',
or I shall have to kill myself."
I thought, "Well, I'm going to miss you."

I do.

2009-03-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

How It Works
"let's stop pretending we understand jazz"
Nicole Blackman

Let's try charting, (We understand Pi)
let's touch, fingering we understand digits
let's sign, waving we understand tangents,
Let's strip, opening we understand clothes.

Let's steam, reddening we understand Blues,
let's hope humming, we understand Bird,
let's scale, mapping we understand Miles,
let's train, loving we understand supremes.

Let's tongue, kissing, we understand heat.
Let's sweat, dripping we understand drums,
Let's bop, as though we understand Being,
Let's loop, proving we understand knot . . .

2009-03-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

Hole (note)
"each hoisting forever upward his burden"

Each shriek, held
hoisting a heavy tome
somehow calligraphic,
upwards as dust rises
a new music, old
burden, breathed.

Each bar stumbled from
hoisting hymnals
forever shouting
upward, arpeggiatic
a soul, saxophonic
burden, burnished.

Each solo, nail sharp,
hoisting a hammer
forever falling,
towards
the ash-black
burden, airborne.

Each melody almost
hoisting down heaven.
forever. flaming
upwards. hell-bent.
your passion's single
burden. burning.

Old poem, New version.

2009-03-17T12:43:00.001-07:00

THE FIRST GOSPEL
B-Bop Solo #1

Some days,
the rain burns.
At the center
of the burn,
there is a cry
without end,
the why of whatever
is suffered.
Isn’t the ‘I’
a pupil
of affliction,
dilating
in darkness?
Is the 'I' lashed?
Is something like skin broken,
the opening jagged,
groaning like a mouth?

At the center
of all cries,
an eye.
In the core
of the eye,
an Iris.
At the end
of its stem,
a serrated slash.
In the mouth
of the slash,
beads of blood.
In these tears
of blood,
a saltiness.
The salt

crystallizes
into a song.
This hymn

is a hinge,
and in its arc
something like
a door
opens.

21 days til Spring

2009-03-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

March,

with your brass band of winds,
swirling overture of air,
clamor of grey clouds.
Must you
cacophonate my heart?
I would settle for being
a single petal
on the gardenia
in your hair.

Karaoke for V-Day

2009-02-14T20:14:00.000-08:00

Playing around with the James taylor song "Don't Let Me Be lonely Tonight"
I substituted some new images into the lyrics.

Pour me peroxide,
pour me fresh squeezed,
Tell me flash fiction
but scan stanzas to tease,
Save streaked mascara
for the rising peach light,
And let me
be your crescent tonight.

Pay me plugged nickles, pay me with pearls,
Relax like my hands are soft as a girl's,
Save the lower lip for the brightening light,
Just let me reflect on you tonight.

Let me shadow your shoulders, pool the small of your back,
Unshutter your stories, part the blinds a crack.
Start your getaway car in the horizoning light,
But let me fill you
like moonlight tonight.

Meh, whatever. Good exercise, and maybe I'll keep a line or two. Or three.

25 Random reasons I refuse to do a "25 Random things about me" list on Facebook

2009-02-10T19:05:00.000-08:00

1. Because 25 isn't a prime number

2. Because the Holy Spirit is quoted 25 times in the Gospels, and I'm a not a Christian.

3. Because there were only Three Wise Men. (and I'm still not X-tian)

4. Because I would have to include the fact that I am hyper-ticklish, which I obviously don't want anyone to know.

5. Because the square root of 25 is 5 and the Pentagon gets too much love as it is.

6. Because I once lost a huge pot at an underground poker club on 25th St. to a guy holding the 2 and the 5 of Spades.

7. Because Abraham waited 25 years for the birth of his son Isaac and I'm not Jewish.

8. Because there are 8 notes and 12 tones in an octave and neither number divides evenly into . . .

9. Because my son was born on the 27th, not . . .

10. Because in Nascar Brad Keselowski drives the #25 car and who ever heard of Brad Keselowski?

11. Because 25 is the length of a Sacred Cubit in inches, and Solomon built his Temple 25 cubits high. (and I'm still not Jewish)

12. Because 25 is the atomic number of Manganese and who mines for manganese?.

13. Because there are only 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

14. Because I got married when I was 25 years old.

15. Because "Y" is the 25th letter, so why should I? .

16. Because I only need 16 bars to rock the Mic.

17. Because 17 days is one of my favorite Prince songs.

18. Because contrary to what you may have heard, I'm not hyper-contrary.

19. Because 19 is the number of Allah, (although I'm not Muslim.)

20. Because I was 37 when my son was born.

21. Because Roberto Clemente wore number 21, not . . .

22. Because Barry Bonds does wear #25 and he's a liar and a cheat.

23. Because my birthday is on the 23rd, not the 25th.

24. Because the Prophet Muhammad was 25 when he married Khadijah. (Though I still aint Muslim)

25. Because there is nothing random about me.

Good Morning

2009-02-08T21:53:00.000-08:00

If you were Frosted Flakes
I would spoon you slowly
until the bowl
contained only
your milky sweetness,
then tip the rim
and sip
one small swallow
at a time.
Then dart my tongue
into the curved
hollow of your bowl.

Turning the key that tightens the drum

2009-02-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

RUMBLE (deep)

Nosing it
like a fragrant neck,
I run my thumb
along the hips
of a snifter of scotch.
My tongue glistens
in anticipation
of a half sip,
careful as
a first kiss,
then a pause
to let it pool
in the mouth
before a swallow
slow as wings
drifting on
the warmth
of an updraft.
I know how a finger
of moonlight
through the window
can taunt.
How a CD
can repeat
until it loops
into the DNA
of loneliness.
How a single malt
tries to build
its case
in the back
of the mouth.
I know too,
that what swirls
in this glass
is a whirlpool
with no bottom.
So give me
the moon's finger
on your ankle,
time
to silently
memorize the map
of your tongue
or huddle
in the hollow
of your heat,
listening
to the splash
of your laughter.
I dream of a path
that winds
down the coastline
of your spine,
But wake
to a wandering hunger:
awaiting the day
my tongue
curls like a wave
across the
soft beach
just above
your collarbone.

Parsing the 'Praise Song'

2009-01-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take a minute to re-view Elizabeth Alexander's Inaugural poem "Praise Song for the Day" and share a few thoughts about what I thought was going on. Already there are several other critiques on the web, mostly negative, such as this one, (which includes video of her reading), or this humorous poetic take . There were a few positive reviews like this one by E. Ethelbert Miller (scroll down a bit). The correct text of the poem can be found here.

Many of the reviews focused on her reading of the poem and found her performance lacking. I too, would have preferred a more conversational cadence and pace, especially given that the poem's diction was prosy in places. Overall I thought she did a decent job reading the poem, she spoke loudly and clearly and made no obvious mistakes, despite reading before the single largest live audience for the reading of a poem in the history of the world. Something that might make a few folk nervous. It was also very cold, about 25 degrees and not an audience that came to hear a poem, two factors which work against a slower paced reading style.

As far as the poem itself, my initial reactions were that the prosy diction helped the non-literary crowd to get into the poem, that the poem was a little too long, and that it fizzled about 3/4s of the way through. Given how difficult it is to write a great or even very good occasional poem, and given the gravity and historic nature of the occasion in question, I thought the poem was pretty good, but contained more than could be taken in at first hearing. The Malcolm X allusion "Say it Plain" I recognized right away and loved, as well as the allusions to the Bible "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and the aphorism taught to medical students "First do no harm", I knew that "Take no more than you need" was an allusion, but was unfamiliar with the source.

Having actually had the opportunity to peruse the text, my opinion of the piece has grown. Being familiar with her work, I know that Alexander is a poet of both great skill and care, thus it was not surprising to note that the poem is comprised of forty-three lines, loosely in iambic pentameter (mostly 9, 10, and 11 syllables) and arranged into 14 tercets, plus one final orphan line. That the body of the poem is 43 lines is no coincidence, since Alexander is smart enough to know that while Obama is the 44th President of these United States, he is the 43rd person to serve as such. This is due to Grover Cleveland serving two non-consecutive terms as the 22nd and 24th Presidents.
The poem's form, a praise song, is common throughout Africa and especially West Africa, although they are usually written in praise of people, living or dead. Thus a praise song for the occasion mimics the Sankofa bird, a way to look both backwards and forward simultaneously. A way to honor her heritage as 'griot' while also honoring a momentous event. The poem opens quietly amid the bustle of everday events and everyday speech moving on to notice quotidian noise and the heritage of even daily speech. The third stanza specifically denotes some daily tasks

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning /
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire /

From here it moves to bucket drummers and other forms of music. Next, we encounter three instances of people waiting on the cusp of some event. The poem then establishes the primacy of language in human encounters. At this point, the beginning of the seventh stanza, the poem shifts it focus from contemporary everyday events to a collective 'We" that is in motion or transition. The poem recognizes the contribution of those who:

said / I need to see what's on the other side./

I know there's something better down the road./

The speaker notes the need for a "place where we are safe", but then cautions "

We walk into that which we cannot yet see."

It is here finally that the poem begins to acknowledge the occasion before it, the tone shifting from the conversational to the oratorical. Line 25 opens with an allusion to both Malcolm X (whose favorite phrases included "Make it Plain") and the African-American Oratorical tradition, by way of reference to the documentary and book 'Say it Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches' which examines said tradition from Booker T. Washington to Barack Obama. Given that 'X' is the 24th letter of the alphabet, I doubt that the placement of this allusion is arbitrary. The next two stanzas, the ninth and tenth acknowledge the contributions of all who have made this day possible. Alexander's skill is obvious here in the way she denotes occupations that any American can relate to, but that have special resonance for blacks, particularly those of her parents generation. Lines such as

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

are especially apt in this regard. It is after these stanzas, in my opinion, that the poem makes its first misstep, in the opening of stanza eleven with "

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day."

This line commits a common error which sinks many poems, that of stating the Theme of the poem in prose. There are few things which will unravel the effect of the careful embroidery of verse than stating the meaning of the poem, in the poem, in prose. The negative impact of this line is compounded by the fact that its specific language steals the thunder of the poem's last line. This is made more unfortunate by the particularly evocative image of the "hand lettered sign' in the next line, and the quiet, but duly noted feminism of the stanza's last line. In the following stanza the poem examines three aphoristic creeds; "Love thy neighbor as thyself" from the Bible, "First do no harm" from the medical profession and "Take no more than you need" from the environmental sustainability movement. The last (and probably least familiar to most folk) of those is from a quote by Paul Hawken "Leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm the environment, make amends if you do." The stanza closes out with a supposition

What if the mightiest word is love?

The penultimate stanza elaborates exactly what type of love the speaker has in mind and again a slight technical glitch appears. Given the eventual import of the poem's last line, this stanza could have magnified the closing impact by having the order of its last two lines reversed, thus reading

love with no need to pre-empt grievance,
love that casts a widening pool of light.

Placing the "widening light" last in the stanza helps to foreshadow its importance and make it more resonant and easier to recall. There has been some grumbling by critics that the 'light' image is cliched, but I think handled differently it functions well enough. The last stanza is in my mind particularly well written, especially the image of "today's sharp sparkle, this winter air" then the three images of transition. The last line "

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Seems to me to just miss the mark, with the inclusion of the word "forward" a bit much. Perhaps something like

a praise song for walking into that light.

like a praise song for walking in that light.

may have worked better. Last lines are oft times so crucial to the success or failure of a poem, often disproportionally so.

In interviews prior to Inauguration Day, the poet had stated her intention to write not just a poem for the occasion, but a poem that would resonate past the day. It is the opinion of this critic that she succeeded in that endeavor. The poem, in my mind rewards multiple and close readings, growing more powerful with each one. It is not ostentatious in its learning and is subtle with its allusions. Sometimes a poet who writes in this manner pays the price of readers overlooking or missing the work's less obvious qualities. Is it a home run? Probably not, more like a line drive double into the gap, albeit off a very difficult pitcher to hit. Given the pressure she was under and the enormity of the situation, I think the poet has acquitted herself quite well.

Pining like an evergreen

2009-01-21T17:31:00.000-08:00

Went to the Inauguration. Had a blast. 1.5 million people and not a single arrest. Later I'll post a review and analysis of E. Alexander's Inaugural poem. But for now, this is the last thing I wrote.

How I Split My Tongue

I have always loved
to say 'acetaminophen.'
A wizened woman
once told me
that some words
are magic in the mouth.
Almighty, maybe.
Can be held
on the tongue
like a nib of licorice.
Some words,
like licorice
are roots
that can be chewed
for medicinal value.
They can also stain
the tongue.
Some may raise
the blood pressure
or fatigue the heart.
Like 'acetaminophen,'
some can cause bleeding.
Your name is a word
in a language
that I cannot yet speak.
I say it now
as a wish.
A yearning
in my tongue.
Some say Hope
is almighty.
Your name is known
to be habit forming.
I lick its aftertaste
from my stained lips.
A rare sweet root,
it can be added
to certain sentences
to mask any bitterness.
The pharmacist says
boiled into an extract,
it can alleviate
even the barking cough
of lonliness.
Your name rhymes
with acetaminophen,
can relax
the hard muscle
of a heart.
Or spur
hemorrhage.
Bright syllables
spill from my mouth,
robe me
in crimson.
Tonight,
I am a monk,
in the dark cave
of the heart,
chanting a
name until
it is wholly

light.

Like a crisp twenty on a Park bench

2009-01-09T10:54:00.000-08:00

I found the following poem in a note that Francine Harris posted on Facebook. I made some (hopefully) judicious edits.

Getting Lost in Detroit

Wrong turn down a street
that feels like an alley,
alley that feels like
someone's back yard.

There is always
someone alone walking
through the falling snow.
You wonder where to.
Sometimes you want
to stop and ask.

I wonder.
I might be disappointed
if I asked.

That if they are headed
to their girl's house after
I've concocted a tale
about them getting off
the Greyhound
cause they overslept
through Cleveland

and figured since
they were here
they'd go to the Casino,

somehow that speaks
poorly of their character.

in case you're wondering,
if I imagined he was headed
to his girlfriend's
after a long day at work,
and walked all the way
from downtown,

I'd be intensely disappointed
if he told me
he was just off a Greyhound
in the wrong town.

I took the wrong train
to Bloomington
a few months ago.

Thought I could visit
Indiana University
in Bloomington, IL.

The cute redhead
next to me
let me know
I was on the wrong train
before it took off.

Unfortunately,
she did not invite me
to stay on the train
and keep going
wherever she was going,

I have wound up
staying in the wrong train stop,
the last bus stop,
or the only stop
at that time of night
outta' somewhere else.

That's how
I moved to Chicago.

It was a bad layover
that lasted. and lasted.

Anyway,
got lost in Detroit tonight,
looking for my boss' house.
Turned around
in bank parking lots,
and empty storefront byways.

Watched the snow swirl
and pile up
like little white blowflies.

Rolled down the window
just in time to
catch a few flakes
on my tongue.

Still water runs deep

2009-01-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

There's a poem I need to write, that I haven't written and somehow keep resisting writing. This isn't that poem, this is the poem I wrote to keep from writing that poem.

[Untitled]

Today too, I will sip
my cup of Earl Grey,
eyes closed
and half-smiling

and study the face
of the woman narrating
the highlights of a game
whose ending I already suspect.

I'll examine the back
of this elderly gentleman's hand
and that guy's tattoos,
looking for a woman's name.

Expound on
LeBron's lack
of a mid-range game
or Kobe's unwillingness
to give up the rock

wonder aloud about
the waitress' marital staus
or hum a few bars
of the latest hit tune

as though my heart isn't
the last leaf on a branch
fluttering in the brisk breeze
of your passing.

Silly of Me

2008-12-05T09:35:00.000-08:00

Here's another Bop. I'm coming to really dig this form for certain purposes. This poem isn't as good as I envisioned it conceptually, but there's still time.

The wind kisses the ocean's back,
waves rise like goosebumps,
fall soft as footsteps on damp sand.
The brown skin of the beach glistens
with the lines sung by
the surf's rolling tongue.

I imagine you curling your hair
or changing the Band-Aid on your finger.
Choosing between black heeled boots
or suede, wool lined slippers.
An expression descends your face
swift as Vietnamese swallows winging
through a name, startling as
the backwards knees of a Flamingo.

Tonight, you might follow
a string of numbers to this table.
Then wrinkle your nose above a smile
that curves like a bowling ball
down a shiny lane, before striking
all ten of my heart's wobbly pins.

2008-11-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

THE EMPRESS OF HIGH DESIRE

(For Yen)

Call her an electric currency.

Imagine a banknote
high as her cheekbones.

Yearn to say grace in Cantonese.

Not before an ordinary meal,

but before lips full as ripe fruit.

Say the tongue dreams
of tasting her oranges,
freshly peeled. Dreams
they say pluck me in Mandarin,
of softly circling a Navel.

The flesh pulses with Blood
anticipating a touch.

What does she deal
if not a high card narcotic ?
Call her addiction (opiate):

watch her smile blossom

wide as the petals of Poppies.

I cannot box, but will rebel

if denied these endorphins.

Intervene S'il vous Plait.

I'll relapse into a dream

of her slender fingers.

I bend like a card

marked by a yearning:

Wash me face down,
shuffle me by hand, I beg.

In Other News

2008-11-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

OK, here's a version of a crazy poem I was playing around with. The actual poem has a slightly different layout, but I don't think this blog format will display it properly. Lots of punning and tangential leaps, a few jokes and lines I thought might be clever. I guess it's a love poem of some sort.

OF HER MAPLE SERIF

A sign of

Love's liquid change

molecular letters

stated symbolically

buy a drunken tattoo

a tavern cryptograph ≠ a bar code

scanned lines numbered

Sin, Neck, Dough, Key

of lips radiating red

of hot fingers on a cool palm

excited now as though

she wasn't a complete tease

the hand covering her mouth

a stone bluff ?

Overhanging. A sticky desire.

To be called ?

Let us sing a new song

2008-11-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

LANDSCAPE WITH MELODY

(B-Bop Solo # 3)

Her voice

rides a breeze,
her song washes
like eternal waves,
(although sea water
and the salt of sorrow
may be too married.)
Medleyed with a morning sun,
her tone tracks the heart's arc.
Since all that would elevate
fear what falling might follow,
she is careful,
sings of descent first,
is cautious with what
she allows to be heard
in the harmony.
And we wonder
what price of translation
she pays, as she sings
in a voice that is naked
and slowly utters
every word
by barefoot
word.

Her voice is more searchlight
than song, splashes dunes
with waves of something
wilder than water.
Her lyrics are a people's sighs
medleyed with moonlight,
a sound like whales exhaling.
Since tears shine,
what saline struggle
she's tasted illuminates her,
reflecting what
traces of grace
she may have seen
in the foam swirling
across what beach she walks.
She knows the sea and sorrow
sing in the same key,
but chooses to listen
to what the tide
utters in the interim,
word by rising word.

(For Cesaria Evora)

Morning in America

2008-11-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

"This victory alone is not the change we seek, it is only the chance to make that change."

Past all the symbolism and the emotional import of last night remains the fact that this man is the real deal. Like the Tiger Woods of politics, not just I think in his appeal, but in his sheer ability to perform under pressure and get the job done. I am not often impressed, but last night watching that speech I was about as impressed as I have ever been by a politician. I loved the way he used the quote above to switch the tenor of his speech and deal with the reality of the situation we face. May god bless Barack Obama and god bless the United States of America. (Yeah, I'm a non-theist, but so what)

Stop me before I hurt myself

2008-10-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

Jesus, I don't know where this is coming from, but it's soothing as new rain.

GAIN
for X-tina

The best part is when I think
she hears my voice…

an earth-brown sound—pure rumbling
grainy as groundnut shells.

Last night I dreamt up volumes
with velvet ridges—

spinning, metal knobs for
when she is alone

and it seems, almost—
She wishes I were a knee-high boot,

so she can feel my tongue
along her legs.

Eavesdropping

2008-10-23T01:23:00.000-07:00

A SIMPLE QUESTION

Is there a ticket into the reserved seats,
The roped off balcony in your head above
The quirky movements of the orchestra?
What can be read in the sheet music
Of your half-smile with its curling clefs;
An ancient oboe brooding in shadows
Or an internal organ piping its blues
Into your blood's oceanic motion?
Doesn't a subliminal sonata
ripple through this moment's facial flicker,
Coding your face's random freckles
Like a bowl of bruised bananas
Sporting spotted notes below attached stems:
Secret notation of the unsung soul?

Dreaming

2008-10-22T16:58:00.001-07:00

LUCKY LADY

I think of your watching eyes when the moon
Shows its shiny new coinage in the sky –
When the black chips of midnight and its boon
Of bright stars have been flung like dice so high,
The sleeping sun reclines in Jackpot dreams—
All the slotted machines flashing red lights
As their trays are heavied with coins in streams
And the eyes watching now, like yours, excite.
For those eyes are cool circles of silver
Gambled on the green tables of a dream,
Your smile pressing the next bet. In the room
Where we would embrace: above, a flicker
Of fluorescent lights the way. Your eyes gleam
With subtext; like a sly wink from the moon.

Status Update

2008-10-15T11:37:00.001-07:00

Every once in a while as a poet you produce a poem that you feel like you didn't really write, but instead just happened to be holding the pen while it came through you. Below is one of the those kinds of poems for me, like all the technical aspects were internalized and I was just spouting pure poetry. It may be the fastest I've ever written any poem. I'm sure it can use some polishing, but there's plenty of time for that. Anyway . . .

[Untitled]

Once I was homeless
staggering down dark hallways
to snore in a sterile stairwell
where I dreamt your lips
kissing along my collarbone.
In the dream
your voice is cashmere
brushing my earlobe,
girlish and high
as Barbies on a shelf.
The curve of your spine
makes the small of your back
a jewelry box.
Like a snake, my tongue
can taste what will moisten
when I release its secret latch
and finger the velvet lining.
I have fallen down
enough bushy hillsides
to know how water
shimmers into a pool below.
I trace my name
in the sheen
on your inner thigh
Doesn't the forecast
of the first gasp
call for a firestorm in the brain
followed by a heavy downpour,
then the slow rhythm
of bright beads dripping
from eucalyptus leaves?

I have heard
that after the Autumn Equinox
you become Persephone
white knuckling the rail
of a long escalator
into a dark depression.
If, as we lay tangled as strands
of just washed hair
I held up a sliver of mirror
to reflect your laughter,
would it be sunlight enough
to seed the ceasing
of your smallest sorrows?

Or would it suffice
if you knew now
that last night
I slept again in a stairwell,
wrapped tight in the ragged
overcoat of my imagination
and felt the soft feet
of a nude descending
the staircase of my spine,
that her lips wore only a light gloss,
that this creaking morning
I'll stagger and stumble still,
but wearing her lip prints
like a necklace of light
whose gauzy glow hallows
whatever ground I cross?

Nude descending the staircase of a spine

2008-10-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

Once again, the view from the curb. The whizzing and splashing and passing of tires adorned with shiny rims and women's feet, in knee high boots, bopping past you into forever. (The refrain is from 'True' by Spandau Ballet)

SWAN SONG

The logic of your neck is fuzzy
The fuzziest peaches tender scented
the tender flesh, most willing
willingness wells like ocean waves
the wave and beach involved in a bite
the softest bite somehow best

I know this much is true

It would be Monday with a muted trumpet
there would be a piano flickering
your fingers across ticklish keys
the mood almost aquamarine
a Flamenco is scantily sketched
a solo dance, then a sigh
the trumpet blows air kisses:
the last kiss is pianissimo

I know this much is true

The kisses now miss your neck
The neck of logic isn't long enough
I long for a tongue, fuzzy as the sun
the sun sinks into the ocean's mouth
the mouth says goodbye with a thousand waves
waves won't cleanse the memory of your scent

I know this much is true

Caramel cameos

2008-10-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Found a new muse, gonna follow her where ever she leads. Messing around with some haiku, senryu, pseudo-haiku and micro-poems. Need to get back to reading poetry everyday, whether I write that day or not. Anyway . . .

My thumb
parsing the soft parts-
of her peach

Lost, I feel
the trunk of her leg-
this moistness, moss?

The ocean's salty
tongue laps the brown lips
of the beach

fondling her ear
she licks her lips-
starshine

As I decide-
the waves race up the beach
and back down

On Love and Anger

2008-10-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

Consider a clenched fist,
a flared nostril.
An expletive salting
the afternoon air.

Or a cashmere caress,
lips wet on a neck.
A whisper's velvet whirl
into an ear.

Two streams cascading
down different sides
of the same mountain.
Same fluid clarity.
Same foam
surging over
whatever lies
in the creek bed,
stirring turbulent reflections.
Who among us can bathe
and remain unswayed?

MELANCHOLY IS THE NEW ROMANCE

2008-09-19T01:14:00.000-07:00

OK so here's a new sonnet, unrhymed, on an old topic. Still not sure about the title, but I'm just gonna let it marinate for now. I've got some interesting ideas for the next one, let's see if I can pull them off.

Sonnet #4

Are some things we resolve to sip simply
insoluble in sunlight or shadow,
solid as the oft denied dynamic
of sparkling hope fizzing in a fine glass?
The liquor of her laughter at my feat;
a jazz riff of ancient vintage on the
variable nature of our values
or a spinning record of our discord?
After she left, I arose, reeking of
the expensive perfume of high regret,
hearing hardy queries, old equations
in the new guise of Mile's muted trumpet.
Haunted by the inch of apricot wine
in the champagne flute of her parting smile.

Looking back, looking forward.

2008-09-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following poem years ago, it was in my book '4,000 Shades of Blue' as well as on my CD 'LibationSong,' but I was never quite happy with the ending. I'm not one of those poets who won't revise a poem after they publish it, for me poems are often living, breathing things that grow over time. I've been known to continually revise and re-publish poems. Here is what I think is this poem's true ending, the one I lacked the skill to find almost 12 years ago.

SOLO (IN THE KEY OF NICOLE)

She’s Miss Sweet Potato Brown
a steamy statuette
with caramel-colored eyes.
And with pepper tongue twirling
she sets whole rooms whirling
her black tresses swirling
so devilishly dervish
and needlessly nervous
though wordlessly
wordlessly weird.
After kissing her
I stumble into drugstores
and desperately undress all the chocolate bars.
Though she refuses all flowers
and will not hold my hand
she sleeps with me in a heavy sweater
as though almost afraid of the cold.
But it’s not until morning
over raspberry tea, that I read
in the lines around her half-smile
that she’s haunted passion’s alley
and searched through all the cans
but finds herself still hunting
with heavily soiled hands.

Mixing mortar, baking bricks

2008-09-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

Here's another try at the sonnet. This one is kind of special for me, been trying to write a poem for/about Phyllis Hyman for almost 12 years. I grew up with her younger brothers and sisters (she was eleven years older than me) and met her once in Union Station in DC. She was in line in the Food Court and I happened to be behind her and recognized her, she was dressed down and had just got off the train from NYC. We talked for about 15 minutes after we got our food, she was so fine and sweet and super quick and very real. Then she was gone.

NIGHT TRAIN
for Phyllis Hyman

What distant cry is this, whose rising moan,
whose flurry fleet of turquoise colored notes
caress the dark arms of the air? Then floats
and trails, rippling like scales or silver stones
awash and polished in a sonic stream
that cocks the head and taps the tempted toe.
Wends sibilant seduction in its flow,
vanishing towards the dawn like a dream.
Your bluesy whistle, hi-hatted with flair,
once also kissed the naked neck of night.
Improvised in the heat of harmony
it rose, a soft solo of hard blown air
dipping, fluttering, almost like a kite
held fast by cords, that somehow floated free.

I'm pretty happy with this version (Many thanks to Kevin Simmonds for his clear eye and sage advice), This poem probably needs to be recited from memory, rather than read off the page. I used to perform almost all of my poems from memory, but then again I used to dunk too. My dunking days are definitely over, but I can still memorize poems, it just takes work now, whereas before I would just remember them with no effort. I wish there was an open reading here in AC where I could go to try out some new stuff, maybe I'll trek into Philly to hit at one of the spots there.

Oh Happy Day

2008-09-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

For a long time I've wanted to write a good sonnet. Lately some conversations on the Cave Canem Listserv got me to make some more attempts. I'm going to try to write five and see if any are worth keeping. Here is my first offering.

SONNET #6

The incense twists smoke into holy swirls,
cursive words written by a rising heat.
My fingers read the scripture of your curls,
looping in rhythm to a ballad's beat.
The night air darkens into a breeze, deep
and fragrant as a half-sipped glass of wine.
The ocean rocks our neighborhood to sleep,
though a shrouded moon seems too shy to shine.
Your shoulder is soft as a ripened plum,
warm as water in which we soon will bathe.
With quickening rhythm, our torsos drum
a hymn that crests like the peak of a wave.
Was any gospel writ on sheets so wet?
We pant in silence, drenched in sacred sweat.

Homage to my Old Town

2008-09-02T20:41:00.000-07:00

IF ANYONE ASKS

I'm from houses on hillsides,
rivets in bridges and a tunnel's
dark mouth. From tiny rivulets
spilling into rivers trey or
the spray behind the Good Ship Lollipop.
From fragrant trees lining
a double-wide Shadyside boulevard,
a group of students earning
the steep grade of Mountain Ave.
or a back alley's cobblestone truth.
I'm from snow caps on city steps,
ice floes from bank to bank,
and rock salt crunching underfoot.
From behind Isaly's deli counter,
under the Kaufmann's clock,
pinned by a green pickle.
I'm from Falling Water and
Rolling Rock. From hoagies,
pierogies and chipped chopped ham.
From charred on the outside,
but ruddy on the inside.
I'm from a fountain that billows
at the confluence of dirty work,
clean sweat and hard desire.
From inclined rails slanting above
an abandoned warehouse and
the creaking descent of a cabled car.
From a furnace's 20 ft. flames
and a cauldron's white hot hiss.
I'm from triangular towers
and plate glass cathedrals,
from soot staining
forty-two Neo-Gothic stories,
and still stinging eyes downwind.
From Penn's woods and
Mr. Roger's neighborhood.
I'm from an arm that rifles
balls from the right field wall,
from the spittle jarred
by a hard tackle and the crust
of blood on a busted lip.
From a rusted trolley car
and a tugboat bullying a barge.
I'm from below the skull's hard hat
and above a skeleton of girders.
From the bluff over the river,
the gorge beneath the span,
the mist off the lock and dam.
I'm carried by a current

that courses hard
through the valley
of the shadow of steel.

Final Answer?

2008-09-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

Looks like we might have a winner. After sleeping on it I settled on this version.

LASH DANCE

Your eyelids frame your
eyes and punctuate a question.
Are they bemused or amused? Damn those
almonds set against dark chocolate,
whose taut pupils decline to instruct, like
shells revealing, then concealing.
My ears are pierced by a wind chime's
sharp jangles, quick as covert
glances, or eyelids flashing. One
cannot ignore this rhythm, I almost
seem to surmise a pattern.
To a curious lover, aren't blinks a
crack in the body's remorseful code?

But then recanted and switched to this;

LASH DANCE

Your lashes fly above your
eyes and punctuate a query.
Are they spilling secrets? Damn those
almonds set in dark chocolate,
whose taut pupils almost instruct, like
shells revealing, then concealing.
My ears are pierced by a wind chime's
sharp jangles, quick as covert
glances, or eyelids flashing. I
cannot ignore the rhythm and almost
seem to surmise a pattern.
To an anxious lover, any blink is a
crack in the body's unremorseful code.

After Pablo

2008-09-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

This is my own translation of one of my favorite Neruda poems "Tu Risa"

YOUR LAUGHTER

Withhold bread from me
if you wish,
withhold even the air, but
do not hold back your laughter.

Do not withhold that rose,
the flower you pluck,
your joy bursting forth like water,
a sudden wave of silver
born of you.

My struggle is hard
and I return at times
with tired eyes,
having seen an earth
that will not change,
but on its entry,
your laughter
rises to the sky
in search of me,
opening all the doors of Life.

My love, in the darkest hour
your laughter blossoms
and if you suddenly see
my blood staining
the street's stones,
laugh, because for my hands
your laughter
is like a new sword.

Near the sea in Autumn
your laughter must lift
its cascade of foam,
and in the Spring, love,
I wish for your laughter
like a flower on which
I was waiting,
the blue flower, the rose
of my land echoing.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
at the crooked streets
of this island,
laugh at this clumsy boy
who loves you,
but when I open my eyes
and close them,
when my steps leave,
when they return,
withhold from me bread,
air, light, or even Spring,
but never your laughter,
for I would expire.

Revising What's Wrong

2008-09-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

The problem with the previous poem "What's Wrong" is that both poems are saying the same thing, in pretty much the same way. I have to figure out what would make for good/interesting relationships between the two. Not sure yet. But the above isn't working, that much is clear. Maybe one is an open question, addressed by the other. I have to think more about the Tension/Resolution aspect of this.
Below find a second attempt. The poem is a quotilla where the seed phrase can be read down the left-hand margin.

Your almost grin teases the
eyes like a full-lipped optical illusion.
Are you bemused or amused? Damn those
almonds set in dark chocolate,
whose steep angle tantalizes.
Shells and a tiny ball moving.
My questions pierce like a wind chime's
sharpest notes. Quick
glances rich as sips of Merlot,
cannot help provoking the palate. You
seem almost indecipherable. But,
to a cryptographer, isn't any expression a
crack in the body's code?

This isn't so much a revision as an almost total re-write. I like the second one much better,but still don't know that the two poems do different work.

Here the next version, with revisions:

Your almost grin frames your
eyes like a full-lipped optical illusion.
Are they bemused or amused? Damn those
almonds set in dark chocolate,
whose steep angles tantalize.
Shells and a tiny ball moving.
My questions pierce like a wind chime's
sharpest notes. Quick
glances rich as sips of Merlot,
cannot help provoking the palate. They
seem almost indecipherable. But,
to a cryptographer, isn't every blink a
crack in the body's code?

Better, but now the central metaphor is mixed. So, let's fix that.

Your eyelids frame those
eyes like a full-lipped optical illusion.
Are they bemused or amused? Damn those
almonds set in dark chocolate,
whose steep angles tantalize.
Shells concealing a tiny ball.
My ears are pierced by a wind chime's
sharp notes, rapid as my
glances, melodious as sips of Merlot.
Cannot any code be undone? You
seem almost indecipherable. But,
to a cryptographer, isn't any blink a
crack in the body's code?

Progress, but still not home. let's try this:

WHEN YOU GRIN

Your eyelids frame your
eyes like a full-lipped optical illusion.
Are they bemused or amused? Damn those
almonds set in dark chocolate,
whose steep angles tantalize.
Shells concealing a tiny ball.
My ears are pierced by a wind chime's
sharp notes, rapid as these
glances, rich as sips of Merlot.
Cannot any code be undone? You
seem to almost have a secret. But,
to a cryptographer, isn't any blink a
crack in the body's code?

Closer, but let's set up the last two lines a little better by introducing the idea of blinking eyes earlier in the poem.

WHEN YOU GRIN

Your eyelids frame your
eyes like a full-lipped optical illusion.
Are they bemused or amused? Damn those
almonds set in dark chocolate,
whose steep angles tantalize.
Shells concealing, then revealing a tiny ball.
My ears are pierced by a wind chime's
sharp notes, rapid as these
glances, rich as sips of Merlot.
Cannot any code be undone? You
seem to almost hide a secret. But,
to a cryptographer, isn't any blink a
crack in the body's code?

I'm still unhappy with the fact that both poem's themes are the same. I 'm going to try to re-work the ending.

WHEN YOU LAUGH

Your eyelids frame your
eyes like a full-lipped optical illusion.
Are they bemused or amused? Damn those
almonds set in dark chocolate,
whose taut pupils tantalize.
Shells concealing, then revealing a tiny ball.
My ears are pierced by a wind chime's
sharp notes, rapid as these
glances, rich as sips of Merlot. I
cannot ignore the rhythm. I
seem to almost hear a secret.
To a cryptographer, aren't blinks a
crack in the body's Morse code?

Maybe there's something here, let's tweak it a bit.

WHEN YOU BLINK

Your eyelids frame your
eyes, punctuating a question.
Are they bemused or amused? Damn those
almonds set in dark chocolate,
whose taut pupils refuse to instruct.
Shells conceal, then reveal tiny balls.
My ears are pierced by a wind chime's
sharp notes, rapid as covert
glances, rich as sips of Merlot. I
cannot ignore the rhythm. I
seem to almost surmise an answer.
To a lover, aren't blinks a
crack in the body's remorseful code?

This almost looks like a keeper. Maybe a slight adjustment here or there.

ON BLINKING

Your eyelids frame your
eyes, punctuating a question.
Are they bemused or amused? Damn those
almonds set in dark chocolate,
whose taut pupils refuse to instruct, like
shells concealing, then revealing tiny balls.
My ears are pierced by a wind chime's
sharp jangles, quick as covert
glances, or eyelashes dancing. One
cannot ignore the rhythm. I
seem to almost surmise a pattern.
To a curious lover, aren't blinks a
crack in the body's remorseful code?

ANOTHER POEM ABOUT HER

2008-08-29T02:50:00.001-07:00

The following poem is my first attempt at an idea that I think has great promise. The poem is a quotilla where the seed phrase is also an original poem of mine. It's a haiku like micropoem that reads "Your eyes are almonds whose shells my sharpest glances cannot seem to crack." What I'm going to try to do here is to leave all the drafts posted, so there will be a paper trail of the revisions. The initial version is below.

WHAT'S WRONG

Your eyebrows arch. But those
eyes brown as groundnut shells
are what stun, like almost
almonds set in dark chocolate.
Whose polar stare have you stolen?
Shells of Brazil nuts aren't tough as
my questions seem for you. The
sharpest barb I could shoot
glances off. Its point
cannot pierce your porcelain mask, you
seem so sullen, I struggle
to discover what could
crack the code of your mood.

A NEW TUNE

2008-08-29T02:17:00.000-07:00

I'm really feeling this new form, the B-Bop Solo. Here is my second effort. Hopefully I'll have another one started soon. The first two were failed Quotillas, but soon I'll start culling lines just for this form.

AT DAWN
(B-Bop Solo #2)

We could interlock,
in need of only ourselves.
A magic morning
once birdsung,
now caressed by whispers.
We could breathe in sync
if in need of a rhythm.
The anagram of silence
spells license.
What wild letters
would our embrace be?
B is the first letter
of beginning,
an initial sound almost
sacred as any word
we might whisper.

We might hum
like bees in need
of a honey song.
A magic buzzing
softer now as we nestle.
We could search
each others mouths,
in need of the tongue
that spells the final prayer.
What syllables

would be sanctified,
what sound sacred,
what word
as worship?

We could gasp
"Oh, God"
in need of air
in magic mouths.
Now kissing,
we could coil,
in need of more heat.
Our sweat beads,
spells exertion.
What place touched
would tingle most,
be the trigger of
that first moan,
more sacred
than any word
we might imagine?

Here is a Spanish version, some parts of the poem (like the anagram) don't translate well since they are based on intrinsic elements of the English language. Many thanks to Leo Lobos of Chile for this fine translation.

Al amanecer
(B-Bop Solo # 2)

Podríamos entrelazarnos,
sólo necesitamos
de nosotros mismos.
Una magia al amanecer,
cantada por los pájaros,
acariciada por susurros.
Podemos respirar
en la sincronización
en la necesidad
de un ritmo.
El anagrama del silencio
nos deletrea
¿De qué cartas salvajes
está hecho nuestro abrazo?
una explosiva carta,
el sonido inicial casi
sagrado de cualquier palabra
acariciada por susurros.

Podríamos zumbar como abejas
en la necesidad
de una canción de miel.
un sonido de caricia,
ahora situado más cerca.
Podríamos buscar
otras bocas,
que necesitan de la lengua
para la oración final.
¿Qué sílabas serán santificadas?
¿Qué sonido sagrado pronunciarán?
¿Qué palabra será adorada como un culto?

Se podría susurrar
"¡OH, Dios"
en necesidad de aire
en gritos de mágico asombro.
Besarnos ahora,
entrelazarnos podríamos,
en necesidad de más calor.
Nuestro sudor se une,
en enérgicos hechizos.
¿Qué lugar
dispara
ese primer gemido,
más sagrado
que cualquier palabra?

Translated by Leo Lobos

Leo Lobos (Santiago of Chile, 1966) poet, essayist, translator and Chilean visual artist. Unesco-Aschberg Laureate for literature 2002. He has done residences in major creative artistic cultural centers in France and Brazil.

A poem about a woman I really need to stop writing poems about.

2008-08-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

AFTER WORDS

I was in a nightclub
chatting with the drummer
while the band took a break,
when someone pushed
a jukebox button.
A sax riff swirled,
exquisite and haunting
as fog in an open field.
The piano rumbled ominous
as mallets bounced
like acorns off a tightened tom
into a bassline deep
and dark as an open well.
When the tune ended,
I walked over
to learn its name.
"Alabama" by John Coltrane
read the label.
I stood stunned
in a corner of the club,
knowing this song
was the most sad
and beautiful thing
I'd ever know.

Last night you paused
in a doorway,
hair furiously spilling
over an exposed shoulder,
lips freshly glossed
and fraught into a frown.
You asked if I had
any last thing to say
before you turned . . .
forever.
I thought of our first kiss,
your tongue frantic
as the outstretched hand
of a drowning woman.
Recalled you whispering
"You can take me, however you wish,
but never have me."
I looked silently into those eyes,
sadder than the surface of a dammed river,
beauty frozen like a willow in winter.
I come here now
thinking of "Alabama,"
to speak three words
I thought I’d never say:

I was wrong.

More fun from the felt

2008-08-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

Ace on the river,
Damn, did it help him?
The dealer looks bored.

The board pairs-
on the TV above us,
a shiny new boat.

Scary river card-
I stare at his sunglasses,
staring at mine.

After betting,
he looks up at the ceiling-
I'm down.

Dealer daydreams,
everything is so quiet,
Oh, it's on me?

The perky blonde,
who won that massive pot-
has a full rack.

On the button
I raise five limpers-
without looking.

Flushed, but still drawing

2008-08-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

Been wondering when the two great loves of my life (Poetry and Poker) would meet. The dam appears to have cracked, here is the first trickle through.

After bluffing-
I watch a cute asian chick
stack my chips.

On the river,
a flash of red-
my heart?

All-in with a flush,
another spade turns-
I dig for more cash.

After betting big-
his chest rises, falls,
rises.

Betting AK
on a nine high flop-
lint on the felt.

HAIKU

2008-07-30T09:49:00.001-07:00

On the beach-
this book of nature poems
opens me.

Above the red lips
below the black brows-
the green of her eyes.

On this brick wall,
a dead kid's name-
still dripping.

Where I've been

2008-07-19T11:43:00.001-07:00

It turns out I've visited 35 of the 50 states, although some states I was just passing through on the way to somewhere else. I can't remember if I've been to South Dakota or not. I'm pretty sure I went to Kentucky to eat at a restaurant with Jeff McDaniel and Joe Ray Sandoval on an AWP trip. I think the least amount of time I spent in any state was 45 minutes in Nevada, when me and Kenny Carroll changed planes in Vegas coming back from a poetry convention in Cali. I've spent most of my life (19 years) in DC, which isn't on this map because it isn't a state. The state I've lived the most amount of time in is PA (17 years), next is MD with one year in Baltimore in '68, then 4 years in PG County during the '80s, then NJ since I've basically spent the last 4 years in Atlantic City. I lived in TX, MS, WA, and MD during my three years in the US Air Force. No matter where I go or where I live, if someone asks me where I'm from, the answer will always be "Pittsburgh, PA."

visited 35 states (70%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Aint no Third Verse

2008-07-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

Years ago I read in an interview by Bill Withers (one of my favorite songwriters) that the infamous "I know, I Know, I know . . ." section of 'Aint No Sunshine' came about because he hadn't writen a third verse yet and used that phrase as a mere placeholder (intending to replace it) but after hearing it, felt it brought something special to the song and kept it. I've always wanted to write my own 3rd verse, but it's much more difficult than it looks. You're only writing 2 new lines of 7 syllables each, since the song is a 12 bar blues and most of the lyrics are a repeating form, but still. So far I've got

"AInt no sunshine when she's gone,
[every face I've found is gray],
Aint no sunshine when she's gone,
[and I crave her all day long]
anytime she goes away.

Instead of Procrastinating

2008-07-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

I was playing around with an extended riff on a list of words I got from Evie Schockley's Intro to the issue of Mi Poesia she edited, just trying to write some pure poetry, I came up with this. A kind of ecstatic exhortation, something different than what I usually write.

ON A LAZY DAY

Question the callalily,
Query its silent symbolism,
Dispute the divinity of its hue.
In question- The sturdiness of rhetorical stems,
Out of question-The plural of floral pleasures,
Beyond question-The dazzle of their dew.
Sequester all cellular insecurity,
Confiscate the plastic plants of certainty and
Seize the cool assurance of shadows.
Bequest a quick climbing vine,
Inheritance of the curious,
Legacy of the lost,
Heritage of the hopeful.
Quest incessant like a foaming wave,
Search scattered beaches on an
Expedition of dangerous desire,
Voyage of raging joy,
Odyssey of the seldom sane. An
Inquest of the native unknown,
Inquiry into thickets of thorniness.
Request random rhododendrons,
Plea bargain for the boldness of marigolds,
Call for kisses the color of cornflowers.
Wish for a dahlia's dense geometry and
Desire the daisy’s scalar
Conquest of the meadow’s melody.
Vanquish the stinging insects of doubt and
Defeat fear’s spiking spree by
Climbing a single sunbeam. Then,
Scale the sky's face with your
Acquisition of luminal levity and
Prize blindly what blossoms below.

A New Hymn

2008-07-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

OK, so my old idea for the B-Bop Solo had actually already been invented, and had a name (the Quotilla) thus I have created a new form that I'm really excited about, this form will freely allow me to utilize Jazz ideas of improvisation in poetry. The idea is simple; to start by writing multi-stanzaic Quotillas, and then redo the line breaks and revise the poem in whatever way best helps the poem. Each stanza will still be tied together by the ghost of the original phrase, but the poems should flow better and lose all of the awkwardness that comes from being forced to use certain words in certain places. Here is the old B-Bop Solo #4, based on the Louise Gluck line "At the end of my suffering there was a door."

THE FIRST GOSPEL
B-Bop Solo #1

At the darkest center
of the soul,
there is a cry
without end,
the song of whatever
one suffers.
The eye is the pupil
of its own affliction,
a darkness dilating
like a learning.
Is the 'I' lashed?
Is something like skin broken,
the opening jagged,
groaning like a door?

At the core
of the cry, an 'I'.
In the center
of the 'I', an Iris.
At the end of its stem,
a serrated slash.
In the mouth
of the slash,
a bead of blood.
In the blood
of the suffering,
a saltiness.
From the salt
a sound crystalizes.
The sound is a hinge,
and from a swinging
of the hinge,
something like that door
opens.
Beyond . . .
a new Hymn.