Poetry

Brother Poet For Chris The boy on the bicycle with his head bent against the wind hair dripping and dingy-brown like yours glasses fogged over passes in slow motion I call out to him “Hey! You on the bike, Brother, Please come back drink coffee complain of its bitterness wax blasé about the State of affairs, argue in docile terms about one thing and another now and again slip in a German phase let the afternoon wear on till we switch to beer or whiskey then I’ll watch poetry fall off your tongue onto the sticky table Roll the words Into sentimental stories we can smoke You’ll pocket the ashes Throw your messenger bag over your left shoulder and nod the water spraying up behind The back tire of the bike as you ride across the ocean I will wish you back The very next moment And every day It rains

don’t lick the Frogs you may think that I am crazy to offer advice but I knew someone who knew a guy who tripped all the way to Mexico woke up 3 days later wearing nothing but a sombrero with fringe he never came back they say but he returned to Texas years later raised lizards and frogs of course to sell for pets when you walk into his strip mall shop aglow in black light and psycho colors he will be the first to tell you wild-eyed and tongue-in-cheek not to lick the ones with the red stripe unless you’ve already been to Mexico.

The Final Round slip a hand into the broken leather pull the worn laces tight with the teeth remember the feint and jab the cross and dodge sleek with sweat light and lithe pounding the bags and boards in a rhythm of righteous desperation took it in the teeth a thousand times blood dripping on into the next round i reach to dab the cut below your eye bend forward to dry your tears no act of courage just silent refusal to fall as the final bell echoes through the empty ring.

Fall leaves i tell you that i am invisible as we crunch through the crystal crisp autumn evening if i take off all my clothes you won’t be able to see me you laugh so hard the trees shake i slip my arms from my jacket unzip my jeans, peel them down i don’t wear underwear anymore what would be the point the paz de resistance throw my hat to the wind watch it fly into the branches your eyes search up and down the street i scream, jump up and down no longer laughing but how can you hear with the wind whipping you back away finally turn and run i reach up for a handful of leaves they slide so easily from the bough crunch delightfully in my fist; “told you so.”

The story of sisters do you remember the characters who lived under the sheets with us on those long summer nights the flashlights’ beams magnifying our sweat as it dripped onto enchanted pages you dreamed of horses of men mounted glistening questing you expecting inevitable rescue from your cotton grey single-story tower while i on the other side of our room grew secretly into the crone feared no one, nothing i danced across snow and burning coals barefooted dove to the bottom of the well through the water deep into the muck to bring forth earth you waited eyes closed for jewel-encrusted combs gifts to adorn golden curls sure to one day brush the polished floors of your entitlement i learned to use an axe swift as a sentence i hewed my life of stone breathing the musk and ash nourished by the roots and weeds you rejected you bathed in lilac lavender oil dressed in silk dreamed in that bed of feathers your back to my wakeful watchful stare as i passed the night walking the planks with babies and grown men crying out in cold hunger for their mothers in the last precious hours of a day