Wandering Hearts

O' the sorrows of Love
unrequited but true
cut deep
Yes, many
wandering hearts
will be wounded
or is it after the wounding
when the wandering starts

At the Jazz Club

There is music seeping through the room, saturating
It can be seen in every moving thing
Like smoky wisps curling blue through the air
The drip of perspiration down the cocktail glasses
Wiped from the Jazz Man’s glistening brow.
I have seen people who can play music
With each note falling in its right place
To a rhythm flawlessly repeated indefinitely
A hitting of notes in cold, mathematical perfection.
Not tonight, tonight music is being made.
Something wholly unrepeatable is happening
Like a sprawling sunset, the dance of flame
Seen many times but never the same.
The sound is soaking into the living
And bringing the lifeless alive.
The Jazz Man is playing us like the song
Making us into the music, beating our hearts
Moving our feet, compelling our breath
Twisting and turning us in between tables
Projecting visions to our minds in color
Opening our mouths in whispers
Playing our fingers across the table tops
While blowing through her hair as a soft breeze
Falling soft across silken cream shoulders.
Parting thin lips as red as the dress
Stretched taut across my mind to the knee.
A Girl I Used to Know...
The girl I used to know...
Just some girl I used to know.

These hard streets

The streets wash away the vomit of the city
the rejected refuse
spread in heavy rain and by heavy feet
in pieces to other parts
an illusion of cleanliness under a film
of bile and half digested, masticated garbage.

before you go

before you go, I'd just like to say
the sun is less bright while you are away
the wind has more bite
the nights are so long
it doesn't feel right whenever your gone

before you leave, i want you to know
no matter the day, wherever you go
I'm thinking and dreaming
of you out exploring
my mind will be teeming, the days will be boring

when you come back, if you ever do
I'll be holding inside a soft kiss for you
I wont give it away
to those who come asking
for I hope that one day, we'll be basking in love

April 9

One pidgeon in the plaza
Walks with a wounded wing.
Weakened by the weight
It wobbles from knee to knee.
It's feathers are dirty,
They dont plume like the others.
So boastful and beautiful and fit.
This one flitters from place to place
Feeding on the pity of people
Throwing seeds to the ground.
It can't fight the flock that flys
From hand to hand at the sound
Of the seeds falling down.
So the broken-winged one
Can often be found, dejectedly waiting
For the next observant and soft-hearted
Hand to single it out.

April 8

The look in your eye
speaks of fire and light
the unending burning
of a day without night
the careful steps
of a man without sight
the resourceful methods
of a bird without flight

That look in your eye
leaves me empty and dry
like the last belayed breath
of a full bellied sigh
and it has me pinned in
so i cant help but feeling so ragged and thin
I fear I'll not know
passion that will never die
for when I said that I did
you knew it a lie

April 7

I dont know where I'm headed
But I do know where I've been
And I know that I'm a being
That can't be what he was, again

For the things I've seen have changed me
And the places I know as well
Have been like drifting the ocean
At the whim of wind and swell

The horizon ahead is familiar
And I hear a familiar call
But the place I once knew as home
Really is not home at all

The road is home, and where I lay my head
Whether on a stone or a feather bed
I could stay in this place and stand alone
Or find company walking my feet to the bone

April 6

The bells of the Parroquia De Yanahuara do not sound any longer
but ring out over loudspeaker at the proper atomic times, everyday.
Growing in the white stone courtyard, the ancient ashen tree looks healthy and oddly comfortable blowing in the wind
next and over-top the solid angular building erected in 1780
in the name of God and of the people of Yanahuara.
Once smooth, now pockmarked walls, sharp corners and proudly
simple bell tower blend into an ornate entryway,
sculpted, protruding from the face of the structure.
Great black open doors hanging wide amidst stone gilded pillars
decoratively supporting saints and angels and Jesus himself,
ushering you through the gates of Heaven.
Today, the added wing, built año 1783 to house the loyal parishioners,
now holds the local artisans. Paintings and postcards, icons and key chains
can all be bought with Visa or MasterCard.

April 5

I was reading by the window
relaxing in comfort when i heard the squeal
and i looked down on two men
tying a hog to the back of a three-wheeled moto-taxi
hulking and speckled, the beast was large
black and pink with overly large ears
droping resignedly towards the street
full fleshed head hanging off the
back of the small trailerbed
in front of small brick house
with a small bricked in yard behind a wall
where this pig grew to its immense size.
The first squeal was all that drifted up to me
but from four stories the animals eyes
were as loud and destructive as bombs.
He did not struggle, and his ears bounced listlessly
as the moto-taxi drove down the street.

April 4

The stones in the river do not move for ages
but water never stops flowing over them like time
though never the same water, always the same river
the same turbulent eddies in a life ever flowing

are those boulders, that truly design the flow,
the problems in the river of my life?
Or am I the boulder and time the waters?

Is the boulder truth and the water that hides it
disguising lies masking it in churning filth and dirt
so that we call the water River
even though its lies are so ephemeral

April 3

This flame has burned
for a long long time.
The shades and colours
of old candles are many
which have fixed this candlestick in its place,
but now, it is time
to blow this old flame out
and scrape the many-coloured wax
from my heart.

April 2

The tourist
sees nothing but a collection of pictures
on a coffee table at home in the city
an experience removed from reality and culture
but shared alike with thousands of friends and cohorts
but to travel is more
than a collection of memories and stories,
it is an experience of difference
in reality and culture and shared alike
with those who listen

April 1

I am an old woman
broken down but patient
i've seen every sunrise
that this world has to show

I sit here waiting
watching the clouds pass
I've said my goodbyes, anyways
I'm the only one left

My fingers are knarled
my feet are twisted
my knees shake when i'm standing
I can't walk up the stairs

For a while I was happy
For a while I as sorry
Now I sit here watching
since impatience has passed

This world is indifferent
beautiful but blind
the last thing I´ll see
are my slow closing eyes

Humming

I am sitting
on the porch--waiting
for the humming
of wings faintly across the garden
she will drink
from every pastel flower
like every afternoon
a memory permanently ingrained
though the flowers
come and go
as she comes and goes
red and green
with the quickest wings you've ever seen

For Jon Schill

He was looking down at the freshly cleared Brunswick pool table. Practically alone in this little corner of the world, he and his beaten opponent filled the tiny lounge.
"Another game?" As the clack of balls on the table echoed down the concrete halls.
"I don't think so, I've already beaten you twice. Let's not make this embarrassing" He turned his head to glamorous faces splayed knee high across a table. Smiling. The clack of balls rolled down the hallway.

Three Untitled Short Pieces Written After Reading Yeats for an Evening

I heard the woman softly say
'I've watched each day
As my love was flown away
On the tip of this Bluebird's wing'

. The lonely song this songbird sings
. Rings in my ears;
. Like mine, its love is gone. Pity it
. Can't share my tears

.. The crystal crisp morning dew reminds my of the scent that you
.. Wore dancing in the garden that long distant night in June.

The Streets of San Jose

The streets of San Jose are paved with broken concrete
that juts out at your toes until you learn to watch where you step.
The cobbled stone turns from gray to dirty brick red and back
as different materials come down from historic buildings
falling in disrepair or replaced by modern international giants;
McDonalds, Taco Bells, Pizza Huts, even Kentucky Fried Chickens.

The streets of San Jose are covered in greasy fried chickens
with a side of salisbury steak and heavily MSGed barbecue sauce.
More cheap than the bounty of vegetables growing in the countryside,
on every corner the fatty factory protein is available
for only $2.50, some self respect and a lifetime of high cholesterol.
You can watch the grease slide from mouth to exposed flabby skin.

The streets of San Jose are drowning in obese, flabby skin
rolling from the sides of densely packed pedestrians.
Plunging over tight waistlines and bursting out of single stitched seams.
Enormous spongy buttocks swallow small stools and two toothed women
are orbited by tiny tables with confusing lottery tickets, "29 Chances!"
or hawking backdated Chinese crap fresh from the warehouse.

The streets of San Jose are pock-marked with cheap Chinese crap
that must arrive at the dock to a line of barkers, waiting
to fill their black plastic bags with the same shit they will sell
on every street, in every corner, at any price, to anyone with money.
Remote controls, power cords, textiled bags, plastic toys from dime store machines.
All laid out side to side on industrial garbage bags like well organized trash.

The streets of San Jose are littered with unorganized trash
that has already been picked through, shat on, slept with and discarded
by the numerous wandering vagrants that sleep in the most visible areas.
Preferably on sidewalks and under business awnings of major streets
where more tourists will disgustingly throw colones on the ground
to keep the clever hands from finding their way into clean pockets.

The streets of San Jose are filled with clever hands and bold thieves
who will kill you in broad daylight for just a few dollars.
Leaving you to bleed out on the gray concrete cobblestone,
staining it a dirty red just blocks from your hostel and the police
who will let your body lay uncovered in the sun while inspecting the scene
before bagging you and taking you off the unwashed streets of San Jose.

But...the streets, well, the streets of San Jose are full of first impressions,
scary stories, rumors, bad advice, worse directions and loud voices.
At night the corners are gathering places for prostitutes and monsters.
There is violence. There is poverty. There is greed. There is cocaine.
There are corners in which light has never shined.
Disappearances unexplained, creating and destroying a sea of life.

The streets of San Jose are flowing with life, washing over the cement,
lapping against the stucco and brick buildings, filling your ears
with language, your eyes with color, your nose with scent; tantalizing,
enticing, full of promise, energy, vibrance. All of it random, unexpected.
Here the blind lead the blind. The old man's hand on the young man's
shoulder, canes oscilatting, wading out into the waters unafraid.

Is this a Poem?

a piece is a poem because a poet prepares it as such

for me a poem is a present, a plaything,
a passion piquing picture parceled out in pieces
and each presence a person presents in a poem is important
but each placed in mind or mouthed isn't meaningful mind you
and matters the less for it
though it mustn't need muster meaning
and might mean mostly nothing...
yet a good one
a good one
without a lot of alliteration,
rhythm, rhyme, reason or realization
might move you to mourning
or until morning... to mourning until morning?
well...this morning i was mourning the maddening loss
of a good pair of shoes, scratching my hair, sipping booze
sitting sadly starring,
very badly drawing
faces in the fog on the glass
wondering when my headache would pass
so i could think without pain
and i was racking my brain
though the pain would not tame
through the thought that then came
... i'd be forever the same
now that would be lame
but then the whiskey kicked in
and my sorrows were smoothed out
as i thought to myself
a person cant possibly live without change
i am a new person each morning i wake
yesterday i was a young man who could drink any amount of whisky
today i am an old man drinking too much whisky
and someday i will be a boy again
who never touched whisky in his life
wait wait wait....
why do all my poems wind towards whisky sorrows?
fuck it

My Scarf

My words can say just some, and not the whole,

for though you'll listen closely, I still fear

my words will speak my mind and not my soul

and how then could you ever see things clearly?

I'll try to tell you my dear, my heart.

I'll let loose words of life, and love, and loss.

So when it's time for two like us to part,

these words will keep my heart from getting lost.

Please, when you go, remember what I say

and wrap this 'round your hair, near your ears.

I hope my words will bring you back someday.

This cloth can help to wipe away the tears.

Though it seems you wear it all the while--

Those words are lost; the scarf just fits your style.

15 Years at Cafe *****

Yellow school ship

passes the window

distant conversations

over modern pop

music... a Taste--

Earth... from Indonesia

burnt to just past its peak

firm seat on a tan stage

a Headache--

three chairs pushed

away from a small round table

yarn--

a pretty girl doing homework

wearing a lip ring!

shades of brown swirls

on my cup

More headache--

old people on new comp-

"...my dad was high..."

the air smells clean

--I don't feel clean

the table doesn't either

"I [something something] probation!"

that's a lot of stuff

for one person to carry

new art up
green and yellow walls

back "the Star motel"

it doesn't look like a nice place--

Clean rooms, HBO, Low prices

--off axis views

15 Years at *****

doesn't seem like I've been here that long

--Still have a headache