Filed Under: Poetry
Passing East to West to East Side
We’re always East or West of Somewhere
Delineations, small bits and digits
to give us comfort.
I’m East.
I’m West.
I’m I. Comfort.
Here, I say, take this finger. It’s a digit, too.
No thanks, you say, it’s shriveled and smells funny.
That’s true, I say. But that means its precious. One day we’ll be shriveled and smell funny, too and they’ll put us in fancy boxes or jars. They’ll throw flowers on us and bury us like squirrels.
Arriving to my East - my beloved East Side.
Vertical Ghettos bleed into the horizon.
Whiskey. Willie. Your god damned hanging on.
You look at empty spaces just as you look at me.
Nothing. Then Someth … No. Nothing.
Go on. Go. Please.
For your loving wife.
For your daughter. On the edge of a cliff.
For you. Most of all. For you.
To death, Father. To death.
I love you. To death.
No affliction is so great
As the twisting tight
Of a bed without your lover.
Her slippers by the door
A strand of her hair resting on the empty pillow
The nest of blankets often put to the side
now wrap me in my solitude.
———
Lurching, suspended over chill depths,
I ponder my monolith.
Smooth and warm and heaven to touch, my monolith
Housed in […]
A girl in athletic gear bounded up the walkway to a derelict indisposed. I watched her bend over a vagrant, hover closely over him, speaking to him as if trying to rouse an intimate friend. Fruitless efforts to incite motivation. There were gimmicks, rolls, murmurs, coughs, cackling, bitching and moaning. There were people watching people […]