Category: Book o’ Verse

That tree at night is so beautiful.
I saw it. I saw the beauty.
I claim this vision with my
artist’s eye. My eye so
true you crave to see
the beauty I see. You pose
and claim you saw it too.
You didn’t see it.

Escobar couldn’t hear so good.
His cold — the same cold he was
complaining about last month —
had taken root now, deep inside
the curly spots that led from ears to brain.
You might think he would open his eyes
wider to compensate, to pull in
extra visual cues.
But he was going the other way instead.
Withdrawing like evening fish.
Letting things happen around him without much fuss.
For example: when that guy flipped him off,
Pablo Escobar (1949-1993) just nodded.

on the plane ride home
that I might be the one who dies young —
that flimsy-bodied office worker whose organs
gave out.
Then the smiling round
retired banker capturing me at the local tea shop
telling me only the rich are happy
that I don’t really know Orange County
that I’m due for a double-chinned heart attack
and what will happen to my wife and kids then?
Finally a voicemail from my doctor saying
hi
my total cholesterol is high
I’m at high risk for cardiac disease.
She hopes it’s OK to leave this in a message but she’s going on vacation.
And it came roaring out of his eyes, his ears, his nose, his throat
like some kind of pressure-cooked stew where you
can’t make out the specific vegetables involved
but it’s obvious something’s
been mashed.

He achieves a softer plush with his face
letting the gray grassy mass
accumulate.
Short enough he will not chew
a whiskey growth
a little moss.
Something to rub at during meetings.
that won’t come come off
on the fingers.

Would you like to dance?
A gazillion years later
would you still like to dance?
Put on high boots and a dangerous skirt?
Are you addicted to garbage
this weekend? Age inappropriate?
Will you shake that thing?
And are you all the rage
again?

"He's breaking all the time!"
our cabbie says.
He's what?

"The cab in front of me is breaking all the time!"
Oh my lord. Somebody stop him.
We need time!

And then of course I realize it's
just that it's late and I'm
skating along. 

"He's braking all the time"
is all that other car's doing.
His backlights flash and flash and flash.

Our taxi scoops around, passes on the right.
Bright white bolts of drizzle slam into the speeding road
streaming it back out behind us faster than we can parse.

All part of
that necklace I wear made of
night trips home from the airport.

Other boys stay out late and smoke.
They use bad words.
They worship false gods.
When they ask me to come along
I say I’m busy.
I’m keeping my hands clean.
It’s been hard work, really really hard work
keeping my hands clean all these years.
I do not live in a glass house.
I am not one of those people.
I’ve earned the right.
And now I’m throwing rocks at you.

Chicken and eggs lobbed
from twelve feet away keep him
fed. They comb his mane when
he’s sleeping. They clean his chin with a sponge.
Planted in someone’s garden next to
the tulips.
Cool dirt and pebbles
pack up tight against his belly down
below
below.
They let him roar when he wants to roar.
Why not?

Counting beans, one for every
word you said today.
A waterfall of frozen
lima bean conversation.
Bright bean rage.
Soft, velvety heirloom beans.
Bean opera. Beans buzzing
in a thick glass jar.
Where do all these beans come from? —
these beans, with no apologies.
And why is it that you find yourself
at this late stage
so full of frigging
beans?

He described his life as a series of tasks
filled with the description of those tasks
how he’d cut the boards
what he did in the cotton gin
how he’d made the metal bracings for the chair in the front of his house
that you saw him in most days.
It was like asking a chef for her life story
and she says
well,
I made my first cake when I was 12.
We started with 2 cups of flour, a cup of milk, and a pinch of salt.