The Balustrade

The Widow’s Walk
Along the roof
So she could see
If her husband would
be coming home

Anchored to her son
She plowed ahead
While he trawled the depths
With broken nets

The soup of grey-blue fog
The stench of stagnant waves
A sickly breeze
Cold and damp
The lighthouse lost
What light it had

The Balustrade
Along the roof
Dressed in black
She wipes her nose
From behind her veil
She looks down
To wipe her nose

The Food Chain

This is how it works, Sir
Make your money
Then wait in line to
Spend your money
Be the seventh
Out of seventeen cars
Waiting in line
To pick up your food, Sir
Talk to the man
With the nametag
Who’s come outside in the rain
With an electronic pad
To take your order
To expedite the service
To get you your food faster, Sir
Tell him the number you want
The second out of eight
But bigger
And yes, you’ll pay more, Sir
Comfort is always worth more, Sir
Wait behind the minivan
With two adults
And three children
And four flags
One sticking out of each window
An American flag
And three more stitched
With football team logos, Sir
Be the third now
Out of twenty
You beat the rush
Thank God for that
Don’t look at the other cars
And they won’t look at you
This is how it works, Sir

Beautiful

Burgundy rivers made blue
under soft, white silk
Tributaries branch out
and disappear
lost forever beneath the matt finish
of warm porcelain
dotted by the
contractions of salmon colored
mountain peaks
A smooth valley
slightly dips
and raises itself to my lips

Poser

Sure, you’re a poet
Look at you
Just the right amount
Of fake self-hatred
Mixed with ample
Doses of vanity
Disguised as
Openness and sincerity

Good for you
Pretending to suffer
Not having the slightest clue
About shame
About loss and pain
Roll up your sleeves
So that everyone can see
Your ornamental,
Self-inflicted, little scars
While you throw back drinks
With Bandini and me

Black vs. Grey

Don’t do it. Don’t wish for it.
Don’t accept it.
Don’t be ok with it.
Between pain and indifference
I am that classified
Left-wing psycho
With the label on
My front pocket
Asking you
Not to dismiss this
Not to dismiss this
We are on the heavy end
Of a tipping scale
Between two polar thoughts
And the fact
That our interests
Will never coincide
Is the catalytic schism
Dipping this apple
In cyanide
Don’t just accept pain
Embrace pain
It may not feel great
But it’s a far cry from un-good
And it tastes
Just like hemlock

Left or Right

knife’s edge
yes and no
fine line
stay and go
simple switch
neurons hit
decisions make
ebb and flow

Grüß Gott

They will tell you

Secret cobblestone alleyways
They will tell you

Long-forgotten castles
Buried in the foothills of the Alps
They will tell you

Streams converging on rivers
Diverging back to streams
Running through endless fields
And carving through rock
They will tell you

A farmhouse sitting in a meadow
Quiet and happy with loneliness
Glowing on the inside
Whispering its warmth
Content with its agelessness
They will tell you

Meandering through a valley
Of pebbles, grass, and dirt
A meaty slug crawls on its ancient belly
Through an ancient wood
They will tell you

Barges passing each other in the night
Waiving their homage
To Bacharach and St. Goar
They will tell you

The shadows of bombed out churches
Slickened by ash and rain
They will tell you

A soldier and a civilian in love
They will tell you

They will tell you
That Germany is beautiful

Kilgore Trout was Here.

I want to cry ‘cause I never knew him
And maybe I read a few of his books
And thought myself clever for having done so
Maybe I spoke about him at parties
And in doing so
Looked smarter to the people I wanted to impress
But I still want to cry
Because maybe I did understand some of his books
Maybe I laughed out loud once or twice
And had wished that there were other people around me
So that they could ask me what was so funny
And I’d tell them that he just described the
Length and girth of the penis of his main character
And they’d look at me quizzically
And I’d be smug with the knowledge that I was better than them
Because I understood it perfectly
And I’m still crying
I’m sad and that’s not just poetry
I’m sad because maybe they’re still putting
Anna Nicole on the front cover
While they bury this milestone on page 9
Crying because his mother killed herself when he was young
And because he sat in a meat locker while
Dresden burned above
And because he saw the Depression with his own eyes
And he was still funny
And still in love with this planet
And that’s just sad
And I love him still
Because I can’t stop crying
I would liked to have shook his hand
He probably would’ve asked me why

Blurbs

The guy who shot him in the head said,
“We will silence you in a way that you
will never speak again.” And he was right,
otherwise Hrant might have continued to say,
“Of course I say it was genocide.”
The Turkish Prime Minister said,
“Bullets have been fired at free thought
and our democratic life.”
He has to say that. What else can he say?
Certainly not something against his own country’s

“Turkishness.”

But thank God the U.S. State Department
stepped in and said, “We certainly are
concerned any time someone who has
been very outspoken in their views is
made to pay a price simply for their
ability to speak their mind.” Thanks, Tom,
we really appreciate that. I’ve never heard
“Keep us out of it, please” put more delicately
and with such tact. We’d ask you to speak
at the eulogy, but I’m sure you’re busy.
And you, my fellow Armenian… what do you say?
Are there words left in you to speak?
Then why don’t you say something?
Don’t worry; I’m just as much a hypocrite
as you are. I didn’t know who he was until
after the gun went off – until he was dead.
You can quote me on that.

My Canticle for Leibowitz

within
from within
from inside
inside my mind
through my arm
through my hand
through this pen
glide over paper
tell from
within
from within
from inside
inside my mind
stand by the edge
of these precipitous thoughts
and put them down
forever
so that they will know you
you were not afraid
you wrote it down
and one day
when all the moisture
evaporates from my body
may my bones remain
as dry as the ink that
has stained this page
with words that will
have outlived my life.