Brick Apartment Building, 1935

His Hands

rough and red

tiny individual dark hairs

on thick knuckles gnawed nails

Hands that reached for her in the darkness.

They were both loving and cruel.

They stroked her hair and blackened her eyes.

When he died

in his sleep that August night

she took the cleaver

from the kitchen

and lopped those hands off.

She buried them in a shoe box

in the small fenced

in patch of grass

that was the backyard

under a red moon.

When Spring came

tulips bloomed

along with five roses

with thick thorny stems.

Recorded spoken-word version of the poem, with music by Luke Willis:

Final Days

We shall all become cleansed when

we find the car,

nestled amongst the rubble and the ashes,

down in the alley,

where the wild root grows.

I saw the search-lights

reflected on your sooty skin,

and smelled the kerosene

in your clothes,

and pictured you in flames

among the art-work,

a come-hither smile on your lips.

When they call our numbers

on the megaphones,

we fix our hair in the reflection

of a cracked store-front window,

put on our best faces,

march two by two.

At the last hour,

you will be made powerful and terrible,

you will find beauty within the bones.

At the last hour,

I will become something

extraordinary.

Recorded version of the poem; Words by me, music by Luke Willis

Inches of Skin

We both count the white lines

in the road as the old car carries us home.

I like the style of your clothes, the pea coat, the flat shoes,

the grey jeans.

The heater is broke and the radio plays static

low.

You hate the sound of your own voice,

and all I wish is to hear you sing.

Run red nails through your red hair

your red lips held tight.

When they break and you smile I catch

a glimmer in your eyes.

I don’t speak.

I realize that here, in the front seat,

we are nothing but inches of skin

separated by an armrest

and the past.

Here is a recorded version of the poem--spoken by me, with music by the great Luke Willis

Soldier's Wife

Who are you, calling to me from across these deafening waves.
I stand on the shores with fist-fulls of sand
at my sides
watching you wade out into the empty sea.

Your blue dress floats around your hips
like a jelly-fish.
Your head down, your hair in your eyes,
the terrible sun sinking into the horizon.

What am I,
if I am not the man
who has an unhealthy obsession
with the kind of creature you are.

I swear to the horrible, blood-thirsty gods
I meant every word I didn’t say.
You will never know what
madness goes in within my head.
It’s thick, and palpable,
overwhelming and hot to the touch.

If you never come back to land,
if you remain amongst the foaming waves,
I will burn every single scrap of paper
that identifies I ever walked
this cursed earth.

“What am I?” asked the voice.
“If I am not something distant?”

A Brief History of Current Events

We must never forget that we came from the sea.
Boy & girl stroll hand-n-hand down the pier,
a thief comes in the middle of the night and robs the rectory.
Matilda paints portraits for pennies, dreams of pirate ships,
her mother’s brain is being slowly stolen.
She claims that the phone keeps ringing, when she picks it up there’s no one there.
I am becoming increasingly paranoid.
A man in a long coat and dark hat followed me for twenty blocks yesterday.
I lost him in the cemetery where they buried
the poet who hung herself when her lover left her for a word processor.
Matilda calls me late at night, sobbing,
she has run out of watercolors.
I suggest she try oils or pastels,
she slams the phone down in disgust.
The children in the schoolyard on Coral Ave.
all swear they saw something moving in the woods across the street.
Their screams could be heard twenty blocks away.
Matilda and I go to the beach, lift shells to our ears, wait for an answer.
A bonfire burns behind us, someone strums a guitar badly,
we’re all out of Whisky and beer and money.
We must never forget that we came from the sea.

Elegy for John Wayne

He made a vehicle from bones
and bottles
in the desert
and drove it straight into the heart
of the city.
Made love to a barbed wire fence
and dripped blood from his teeth.
Killed a woman for breathing too loud
kissed a man for pulling
a thorn out of his throat.
He had never seen the ocean,
he was afraid something so big
would swallow him whole.
His pistols shot fireworks into the night
and children cheered
and the news made it their lead story
and someone lost an eye.
He died in the saddle,
was buried with his boots on,
and rose from the dead on New Years Eve.