CIGARETTE BY A CITY BIN

A cigarette by a city bin at 4am

is a liberating experience due

entirely to my placeless wastage.

Six tiny spheres join the rising sun

concentric to Alexander’s Gordian Knot.

Or if there’s another interpretation

of the sculptured mass I can’t pick it.

I’ll look up the artist one day coming.

I just take a stab instead of untangling

names, dates, and hey, it worked for Al.

TO WALT WHITMAN

I cannot travel within your hours

Your seagulls don’t resemble the ones I see

But your large perception

That eccentric, strong, silent swagger

Your words could sustain an ox

Regrow a thick pine that had lost its vigour

Your glory was thinking aloud

Thoughts floating in your frisky bearded smile

Reducing or enhancing all angelic cherubs

To appear like cheap Christmas decorations

Blessed is your heart

Your iris spit infects your ink

Leaving no defacement upon our common air

Though I have never folded your Leaves

And need not

THANKS TO THE THIEF

The right man has been cornered.

His freedom quietly lost,

not five minutes hence

he enjoyed the smoky frost

against his cheek

as a devoted wanderer

of dime stores.

Pocketing the arbitrary trinket,

he strode crookedly towards the exit.

It was an item that no one cared to spare

a thought towards.

He did the proprietor a favour

by purloining such stock,

by offering space

where the customers did

but wince.

Now the browsers did not miss

the garish contrast

between the poorly-carved cherubs

and the opulent chandeliers,

as they noted the distance

between trash and pomp.

The foolish man gave a value

that superseded the stolen item

with its counterfeit charm.

CENTRAL THROB

not quite sure

what against

my head did crash

or what did shift

my equilibrium

to bitumen

or sand

from pickled wakefulness

to shifty drink dawning

absolving people

to become acquainted

with their knees

and to see their faults

as if another’s

to see their girl behind

in another’s dress

hair and rings

JEANNE

scared & skinny

scare-crowed undercut

mandraked to her horse

like an erect clot of mane

taut & terrifying to her officers

her country

her king

stinking freemen
in mirrored puddles

of dank mud

rippled face upon face

her sole beacon

but she is outside

her democratic horror

MY RIGHTS

You’re yawning up way too much

of this life

I’m just waiting for your death

so I can cherish your words

in another matter

I’m a reflection, rather than a thief

when it comes down

to syllables

What is needed is taken

What is taken isn’t yours

to begin with

What is ordained

remains the glowing ash

before the sweep

Stop your moon-trafficking

and dissolve

LET'S GET SORTED

She is neither woman nor child

but she makes my gut weep

for suspenseful solitude

An abridgement of our life

Sorted, signed, and agreed upon

Shackled to the heart but not to the arms

TUNE TO ME

tune your chord of silence

to my feverish song

not cold and coarse

but as if we were swinging

on those powerlines

in full-voltage silence

now dance to the chord

of my fever, not our fret

the one we knew best

if you recall the ways

turn away as a milky calf

pigheadedly mute, laugh

throw down your instrument

and kiss my unwashed cheek

WHITE SOLITUDE

I don’t know about strength

but the sweetness of solitude

is all in my weak

empty

sponge

of a heart

with the Book of Longing

floating nowhere

on two well-worn pillows