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Past The Point Of REM Sleep, I Dream Of Sex
we finish in the cloudy
haze of dream, sometimes
i’m both the witness
and the participant.
left alone afterward like
an orphan in a movie,
dirty and naked left to my
own devices,
never finding clothes,
always in a busy
intersection, collecting
bodies as I move forward
through traffic.
strolling down white-lit paths
thinking the hereafter
would not approve,
however long
suffering those saints seem,
they would not let me in
without a robe to cover
what is, undoubtedly, my finest
feature.
What It Means When We’re No Longer Lovers
I asked if you made it safely
but I knew you wouldn’t
care if I were drowning
in death’s blue sea
crashing against sharp rock
wave after wave going
down on me like you
used to
making you jealous
though you wouldn’t
ever admit that you
missed me
spring gave way
to summer
and we were held
in the arms of our own
trepidation tight
releasing everything
breath allows
Man In The Window
his shoulders hold him
fast to that broken sill
four stories high
his tomorrows shadow
the shapes of men passed
before, their hands
gnarled by heavy hammers
nails that bind and pull
hard wood together
climbing atop scaffolding
like we would rope swing
into the cool lake
our backs to the world
only directing our eyes
ahead
now the leaves fall in piles
and the man knows
he can count the years
he has left on both hands
and his shoulders remain
the heaviest part of him
his dreams still light
as air
Colonoscopy
overaged men sit in waiting rooms
swapping stories about what
youth felt like.
cars with big engines and girls
with big hair become hood
ornaments, eye candy,
the woman in the corner says
her son was in a bad place
the day, at sixteen, when he pulled
an empty weapon on his father
and how the other son is a drug
addict but is working on it.
when we were young,
30 was old and we laughed
at people with bad backs and
swollen prostates dribbling their
way to the next doctor's appointment,
only to be told that things will fail
inevitably. the scope of middle age
crawls up your ass to take pictures
of everything
and you wonder if it will spy where your youth has gone, as you sit
in a hospital gown, gaped open
at the front.
Appalachian Flowers
when industry blossomed
the smoke billowed
from every smokestack.
Workers with black hands
carried their hearts in steel
pails; a half eaten bologna
sandwich cut thick, banana
peel for the compost
and an empty moon pie
wrapper graced the inside.
they come home to their wives
who yell at them to wipe
their boots at the door, kiss
them on the cheek and warn
against touching anything.
warm smells and piping coffee
await their non-discerning
palates as they pray
to God above to bless the meal,
just to wash up, eat, go to bed
early to do it again
the next day, until words are read
about the good man with lungs
full of soot
laid to rest with the stacks
of rubble that used to prosper
on the backs of men,
like the Kentucky homestead
at dusk when the wind rakes the leaves
with such fervency you’d swear
someone used to live here.
Bob Ross Paints His Eden
happy little trees surround
nakedness, so Bob draws
knowledge with colors that spread through the garden
an orange fire of knowing, until the people start wearing
clothes. hats grace the heads of everyone, lined like store
mannequins in dress shop windows. purple veils, pink brims,
the garden turns into shopping
malls and sky scrapers, brush
strokes turn violet fields into a gravel road painted just so
which lends itself to country drives. skinny jeans painted blue-
black, hide tired saggy bodies
until no one looks like anyone else.
the summers are drenched with colors of broken
leaves, until chips of paint flecks the canvas and the imperfections are revealed,
the fruit taken, the body discovered, the truth
like flies buzz around the heads of the many, while Bob explains god the way he paints,
how anyone can do what he does,
maybe even better.
Given
she had red hair
red as the face
of fire, knife, glinting
in the dancing flames
my hood pulled down
tight so they couldn’t see
the terror reflected in my eyes
but I held up my hand
questions poised in my lips
her milky skin danced against
flames as high as the sun
as I bought time like lottery
tickets, sacrificing my own
sex rendered body
for that of the untouched
until there was no more time
for sale weeping as both
our bodies triumphed in
the patiently waiting flames
our throats smiling
from ear to ear
The Things I Taught You
when I read about the poet
who seemingly lost everything
including her use as a mother,
returned to poetry as solace
to repair what had been broken
like a vase ruined by a small child,
i could relate, being the father
in the Cat Steven’s song
Cat’s In The Cradle,
reflecting on what I had taught you that you seemingly already knew,
knowing everything about hope and love and the way not to conduct a meaningless life
where your children would
eventually try to leave, like birds that fly
south and never return, because home is a theory of where people think you should be
not where you are and flying there admits defeat, and no one wants that. no father wants that
for his own, still, when something
breaks, you can hear it for miles,
ringing in your ears like love.