I am a clicking sound in the tongue of the restaurant–
how would you like to be served how may I serve you
the bones are getting cold in this chicken breast this cutlet
of space I said I’d do anything for cash and it’s true there is
no limit to greed that’s the whole idea space expands
and my atoms stay quantum and still, relatively.
(originally published in Erothanatos, Spring 2020)
We cruised Penn Avenue as compliant
vagabonds to the parking garage train
station to deposit/withdraw rental cars
in other people’s names. For a long time
I believed if you drove the actor’s maroon
luxury vehicle, you’d become the moon
yourself, at long last a god you believed in.
Being one who has to drive it to where it
must go, I know by now you will guide
its hand back to beneath the famous blue
bridge in the strip. You will sit at your desk
in the grainy film of your dreams and sketch
the rumblings of this world until golden hour.
The sun, then, will gift upon you ultraviolets.
(originally published in Confluence, Spring 2020)
We walked to the Cultural District to be
at the jazz festival & basked in the sax of Nubya
Garcia beside men on mushrooms grooving
underneath eternal heat, sweat in the air
everywhere. It was a rare off being free
to roam in the spring-summer-autumn days
of Lone Wolf. This year, we seek public stairs
down the warehouse side of Liberty Avenue,
past the church turned brewery & power
plant we nearly lived across from. Above’s the plentiful
hill with blue water tower, where we pretend the mayor
lives inside its steel blue dome with all the rich hidden
in the hills with their crow vision. The community
pool is empty. The boring streets to drive through
are the interesting ones to hike with uneven brick &
ramshackle storefronts never noticed. Here’s a record
shop for anarchists. In this decrepit year we look to fill
my head with chaos to make sense of the field around us.
We have been walking & walking the sunset magenta
over Bloomfield Bridge yet summer seems a year away.
(originally published in Selcouth Station, Spring 2021)