Inspired by Neruda

Inspired by Neruda

I have caught foreign waters in my net

Seeped into the fibers

Is a place I’ve never been

You ask me what burns when there is nothing left

And all I know

Is that the flames are waiting

The boy will never know that hundreds and hundreds

Of pounds of particles

Float between him and the boy he loves

Our bones are really made of icy steel

Bending us this way and that

Like dolls for a girl with bows in her hair

This world is only a universe

In a grain of sand

Yet we stick, we stick like mud

The lighthouse can only see

What it already knows is there

Yet it turns, it keeps on turning

You ask me what burns when there is nothing left

And all I can say

Is that the embers are still red.

Misplaced Modifiers

MISPLACED MODIFIERS!

Reading the classified ads:

FOR SALE:  Used motorcycle by an honest man with two pistons.

BABYSITTER NEEDED: Young woman who has access to a car with a college degree.

            [Hm, must be a smart car…]

TRUCK DRIVER JOB OPEN: Looking for a hard worker who can apply to drive to California

by tomorrow.

[He’s gonna need that smart car.]

NEW LITTER BORN: Kittens for sale for a loving owner with orange fur.

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ferris wheel lights

Ferris Wheel Lights (A Sestina)

Working at the amusement park is a grand old time.

There’s nothing like having to hide

In the ticket booth when you wanna smoke a joint

So your boss doesn’t find out and fire you.

Every ride has bright, multicolored lights

And this is how I waste my time away.

The closest bathroom is half a mile away,

Those Porta-Johns are full all the time

And always smell like Marlboro Lights

It’s where those teen brats like to hide.

A kid always asks for another toy gun from you

And immediately bends it all out of joint.

Jocks, barbies and snotty kids mill around this joint,

Throwing all their money away

Buying more and more tickets from you

Screaming, complaining, cheating all the time

And there’s no good place to hide

With all these obnoxious lights.

They’re poor substitute for big city lights,

They only illuminate this cheesy joint,

Don’t even let dirty gutters hide—

I’m surprised they don’t want to look away.

Cotton candy disappears in your mouth every time,

But you think it’s worth it, don’t you?

The only boy who ever liked you

Works across the park, beyond the lights,

But you miss him waving at you every time

Because some skeez is yelling, “Let’s blow this joint!”

And a mom drags her eight kids away

Screaming, “One more word and I’ll tan your hide!”

Why do the five-year-olds always play hide

And seek in the Fun House? “Hey, you!”

Where the hell are your parents? Go away!”

Finally Anna, who manages mini golf, lights

A gloriously white, papered little joint

And we smoke until closing time.

This is where I hide, and yet these lights

Are poor substitutes you know, for home, the joint

You tried to get away from, before you wasted your time.

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how i failed calculus

"How I failed calculus"

The glint

in Miss Jessel’s hair

was so simple, so quick,

that I almost missed it,

like an answer to a riddle.

Suddenly, I cared about derivatives

even less.

So casual, how she tossed her strands,

and yet how cleverly she caught me.

                   

It wrapped me up tight

in a cotton memory

of home, when I was nine,

beneath a fort of pillows

and hiding from the night.

Her glint of blonde hair now

 was the light from my hall then

that peeked through my door

to tuck me in.

My parents’ shadows

walked across my bedroom wall

and I saw them in her hair

now, as if my past were a part of her body.

My father’s silhouette from twelve years ago

snuck in to Miss Jessel’s hair

as if he were going to bed

down the hall

in the nape of my teacher’s neck.

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communion

Communion

I live in a box

Full of yellowed papers

And a kitchen half-painted

Viridian green.

My little house

Always smells of your coffee

Because tea for one

Is lonely in the morning.

I draw the curtains sometimes

And crawl in that queen-sized bed,

Confessing all my secrets

Beneath our tent of sheets.

If they could bottle you

I would add a slice of lime

And drink you dry,

My Communion.

I come home each night

Carrying you across the threshold,

And we play hide and seek

From the world outside.

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the last cowboy

"The Last Cowboy" 

There's never been a man like Grandpa Hayes

'Cause all the tales about him must be true:

Broke sixteen horses less’n seven days

And stole the Rancher’s girl in only two.

He lived for eighty years ‘cause he was skilled

A wicked shot who never came out worse

His .32 was from a man he killed

The only one who’d ever shot him first.

A family curse what made him ride so fast

‘Cause lightnin struck his daddy graveyard dead--

They say it turned his uncle into ash

And then it got his cousin in the head.

So Grandpa spent his life outrunnin clouds

Just lookin for a truth he never found.

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ballet shoes

"Ballet Shoes"

I slip my tender toes into your familiar bind,

your pink laces twist up my legs

and animate me.

En pointe, my toes are perched upon their boxes,

and your silken arms embrace my ankles

as if I walk on nothing.

Fuetes swing you around and I am a circus ride,

turned into painted porcelain,

a spinning doll.

I spend months with you, scuffing your soles, tearing your cloth,

burning your laces, stretching your lips.

We become old.

One day they will put us both in a tiny fabric box,

only to spin when it opens, only to dance

at the soft tinkling of a bell.

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