Swingers
I’m in a dream
Longing my 18 year old self only
remembers
The world outside visits
my half-dreams
but I never really sleep
next to you.
I wait for the hour when your body stirs
awake
Bodies pressed puzzle pieces
Hearts beating
swelling, yearning, arching
I see things that haven’t happened yet
I see the printed outline
of your olive shirt
hugging your torso
Envious Greeks.
Banksy Makes Fun of Everyone, Gets Rich While Doing So
If a famous artist, whose work is worth millions, showed up on a streetcorner unannounced, selling his work for $60 bucks couldn’t make more than a few sales what does that say about the commerce of art? What does that say about Banksy’s work? Does it mean it wasn’t good enough to sell or does it mean people would buy it if they thought it was authentic (valuable)? Banksy selling art like that, under a cloak of relative anonymity was in itself a work of art. He’s making fun of everyone who ever wanted to buy his pieces because they were worth a lot of money. And he’s taunting people who would like to own something of value, more importantly, to get that value for such a lost cost of $60. Sorry, palies, not this time. We all got to read about it the day after the sale ended. He certainly made his point. There is probably no chance that it could ever happen the same way again. Now that we’re onto the game you can bet those works would be snatched up within seconds now.
But it was not an act of kindness. It was a hostile act, meant to expose the worst traits in people. Or maybe it’s simply ironic. Why does it feel like such a slap in the face, though? Is it shame on us? Sure, someone could flip it and say no one cares about Banksy’s work, really, they only care about how much his work is worth. If they cared about the work wouldn’t they have bought those paintings even if they thought they were knock-offs? Wouldn’t you hang one in plain view to look at every day? Of course you wouldn’t. You want the original. Because it’s worth money.
A Frame
Bourbon Street clanged
like a Christmas tree on a train
He never blinked.
I’m going to build you an A-Frame, he said
I built an instant dream on
a stranger’s tweaker stare
wider than the sky
He’d taken enough of something
to wish away convention
I swam in it too.
Marry me tonight, he said.
I’m going to build you an A-Frame
We’ll have lots of babies
in Oklahoma
Be my wife.
His wife, for a few hours
In a cloud of meth, rum and coke, insomnia
Did he mean it?
Let’s get drunk on promises
As I laid him down on sweat-soaked asphalt
hundreds of years of delirium
A city that slouches with lust and magic
Widened eyes that didn’t close
Don’t ever leave me
Somewhere the smell of sweet fried dough
called the morning
Drink me. Cover me.
I can build you an A-Frame
Be my wife?
A cowboy’s girl
Never let me go, he said
Sparkling beads floating
on the Mississippi
until consumed by its timeless churn
Saying too Much, too Soon
The surrender
and the beauty
comes all at once
Hot gusts of air smother the Pacific.
Rhythmic motion,
an historical shrug.
You are silent infinity.
With nothing to say back.
You don’t lift your hands even
to catch my words
They fly over and through
then fall where they dry up
exposed seeds wait for the next season
They will grow again
Flowers will spring forth, opening
Sprayed with sunshine, they reach.
I say them anyway,
remembering the quiet of that morning last,
What could have been more splendid
than your hips buckled to mine
your sweet breath tickling my ear.
How could I not use my words
Even if they are my own echo I hear
And not the sound of completeness.
There is one side of this,
Fed by the sweet sugar
Of the man who says nothing.
A Postcard from the Volcano by Wallace Stevens
(A great poem by a great poet)
This was a day when nothing happened,
the children went off to school
without a murmur, remembering
their books, lunches, gloves.
All morning, the baby and I built block stacks
in the squares of light on the floor.
And lunch blended into naptime,
I cleaned out kitchen cupboards,
one of those jobs that never gets done,
then sat in a circle of sunlight
and drank ginger tea,
watched the birds at the feeder
jostle over lunch’s little scraps.
A pheasant strutted from the hedgerow,
preened and flashed his jeweled head.
Now a chicken roasts in the pan,
and the children return,
the murmur of their stories dappling the air.
I peel carrots and potatoes without paring my thumb.
We listen together for your wheels on the drive.
Grace before bread.
And at the table, actual conversation,
no bickering or pokes.
And then, the drift into homework.
The baby goes to his cars, drives them
along the sofa’s ridges and hills.
Leaning by the counter, we steal a long slow kiss,
tasting of coffee and cream.
The chicken’s diminished to skin & skeleton,
the moon to a comma, a sliver of white,
but this has been a day of grace
in the dead of winter,
the hard knuckle of the year,
a day that unwrapped itself
like an unexpected gift,
and the stars turn on,
order themselves
into the winter night.
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About Me
I spend way too much thinking about me.
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