Jane fell in love with the idea of New York
moved there in June
found an apartment with scorch marks on the rafters
and that rattled when the F train came through

On days she felt pleased with herself
she took walks through the city
stopped in shops
not to buy, but to
surround herself with small spaces of reality
The peoples’ voices were like music;
a lullaby
sending her into a dream world

She couldn’t explain the intense joy she felt when, for example,
a Jewish man with a Russian accent suggested wall paper patterns,
or an old Chinese woman explained incense’s spiritual significance.
It made her feel the way she did while imagining her apartment in the city
before she even moved there

She felt the same way while sitting on a park bench, observing tourists, and
realized travel could be considered an elitist pastime.
Afterward she bought a hot dog and a soda and ate under a warm April sun,
quite taken with herself.
Sitting there she remembered she’d been in the city almost a year.
The idea of living in New York for that long
made her feel even more smitten.

The feeling ended abruptly, however,
when a bit of ketchup dropped onto her new dress,
the one she’d bought from the gypsy downtown.
What she felt next was a great sense of disillusion,
though at the time she didn’t know why.

Zeus warned,
“Man is weak. Divine gifts will only make him arrogant and miserable.”
But Prometheus defied him,
stole fire from heaven and
delivered it to man, along with
mathematics, crafts, architecture,
medicine, farming, art,
complete enlightenment from the primitive state in which
Zeus would have kept them.
He was hailed for his compassion, for
bringing man out of the dark, yet its
not certain if Zeus wasn’t in fact
the more merciful.

The morning coffee is
a toast to the new day, a
ceremonial offering to the dawn.

Making the bed is
hope for a fresh start, setting things straight
for the next stage of dreams.

Whiskers in the sink are
a reminder of my animal nature that
each day I must repress if I am to get out,
make a man of myself.

A tie is the noose I wear
as a cross, a
token of my sacrifice, my
daily martyrdom.

My dress shoes are a
shiny black steed that
carry the hero through
the wasteland.

The dinging that indicates the train is approaching
is the bell tolling
for me.

The train ride is lustful, a
great phallus penetrating the damp
flesh of the city.
I daydream that time stops and all aboard
are frozen, except myself, and
I walk through the cars examining their
Disguises,
comparing them to my own.

Each laugh I hear is a battle cry, announcing,
“The world hasn’t broken me yet,”
but on some days laughter isn’t enough, so I
decide to howl instead.
I rear back, begin to bellow like a beast…
…and then they come for me, drag me away kicking
and screaming, a blow to the head and my world goes black…

I wake up in a hospital bed, the surgeons
wearing Halloween masks and telling me,
“Things will be fine, m’boy, now we’ve got
just the thing for what’s ailing you.”
They gouge a long shank through my eye socket, and
there is no pain,
only blood….
It spills out like a
river overflowing its banks. Soon,
the room fills, a drain opens on the floor, spinning us
around, then
down, down down…

I wake up to the headlines of the paper:
Lobotomies Making a Comeback as a Way to Ease Worker Discontent
The weather is mild and unemployment sits at 4.43679%.
The price of real estate is up, but should soon steady.
I laugh fully, deeply, hysterically,
until a pleasant looking woman comes in with
a steaming cup of coffee that I
slurp down with a gilded straw, then
with one leap vault from the table,
land perfectly in my shiny dress shoes, and
blast through the wall.

I wake up
hung-over from
late night television.

Last night,
talking heads proclaimed a
terrorist attack was imminent.
I stayed up, enraptured by the
prophecies of doom.

Now, groggy, I flip the T.V back on.
Terror Attack Foiled.
Crisis Averted.
Disappointed, I fall back asleep.

A little boy wakes up
lies in bed
wipes sleep from his eyes
stumbles into the living room
Mom prepares breakfast
he eats
lies on the couch
watches TV
plays inside
and outside
pulls the dog’s tail
Mom lays out his clothes
combs his hair
Ride in the car
mom makes lunch
cuts off the crust
wipes his face coarsely
with a wet sponge
he makes a face
pulls away
Dad comes come
watch him barbeque
dinner
sunset
bath
pajamas laid out
one piece with feet
playtime with Dad
snack
prayers with Mom
tucked in
kiss goodnight
I love you
Darkness
sleep comes quickly

A young man wakes up
alarm screeching
pours a bowl of cereal
half asleep
crunching echoes in his groggy head
shower
pick out an outfit hastily
competing with mom and dad for the bathroom
kiss on the cheek from mom
love you
have a good day
pack your own lunch
same every day
crust still on
Dad drives you to the bus stop
talk radio
awkward silence
running late
bus ride down back roads
picking up disappointed faces
last bit of freedom before the bell rings
rings
burned out teachers
waiting for summer vacation
kids alike
turning the pages of outdated textbooks
thinking of playing
of freedom
of pretty girls in the back of the class
of passing grades
should I get braces
walking between classes
seeing the same faces
in the cafeteria
seeing the same faces
miss being a kid
bell rings
almost freedom
but first practice
kicking a ball around
bald man blowing a whistle
reliving dreams of aborted stardom
whistle blows
freedom
bus ride home down back roads
Mom’s car waiting
how was your day
good
same
home
Dad comes home
looks tired
looks old
dinner
homework
TV
snack
bed
alarm

A man wakes up
alarm wailing
Headache
he lies for minutes
wants to sleep
weary
guilted into rising
coffee
cigarettes
newspaper
shower
clean, pressed suit
uniform
sleek sedan parked outside
so weary
good day for fishing
for sleeping
talk radio
traffic
cigarettes
should quit smoking
destruction of the self
to save the self
office
Johnson has a new car
jealous
fake smiles from coworkers
stale air
smells like paper and air freshener
staring at a screen
phone calls
bad jokes
weak coffee
meeting
good day for fishing
for sleeping
deadlines
smoking
greasy lunch
stomach ache
maybe an ulcer
no bell
miss schooldays
stay late
might get ahead
probably won’t
sun is down
good night for fishing
weary
sleek sedan still parked outside
deserve it
home
stiff drink
another
another
cigarettes
predictable sitcoms
leftover pasta
miss mom’s cooking
one more drink
destruction of the self
to save the self
so weary
late night news
tomorrow’s weather
good day for fishing
bed
sleep
alarm
headache

I met the man who sold the world.
He’s very poor,
has terrible posture.
I asked him why he did it.
Well, my fine sir, he replied,
wouldn’t you have done the same?

I’ve never spit on a pigeon, or
even tried to kick one, except as
a kid who didn’t know better, but as
an adult I’ve realized
knowing better doesn’t always mean
doing better.
I’ve gone so far as to bring the spit up,
gathered in the front of my mouth,
ready to launch it at what are often called
winged-rats, mangy, beady-eyed, foul
little creatures, seemingly useless, but as I’m about to
let fly, a feeling intercedes, a moral-tugging, which seems
to say, yes, you could spit on
this totally unnecessary little bird, and
nobody would care, but it would
demean the essence of whatever it is we call
life, which is wonderful enough to
produce things that could surely be
done without, but nonetheless aren’t.
This causes my spittle to sail wide of the mark, where
a handful of pigeons fight over the right
to peck at it

Oh, squandered joy!
I stepped out this evening to
channel my insomniac rapture
and found only comatose masses
staggering through the streets with
Opaque eyes
Fangs bared
I backed away from them into
putrid alleys
led by the glow of a cigarette
where stolen bits of conversation
fed my roving mind.
Selecting bits and pieces,
I composed a letter to God
as an example of my plight,
hoping he could see it in his divine wisdom
to give me the day off.
Just one
to let me clear my mind of this
bric-a-brac existence.
Please God,
give me one day.

Walking in November’s early dusk
I spot a wispy birch with only a few discolored leaves
clinging to its branches, the same tree that several weeks ago
wore the most vibrant orange and
prompted me to think:
Summer goes by faster every year.

Looking at it now
I wonder why this seems true, for
the passage of time does not hasten or lag but
is a ceaseless, steady march.

As a strong breeze grabs hold of the last brittle holdouts
of the birch
sends them swirling
to settle on the ground
I realize that,
tumbling into the unknown expanse of the future
a man always feels as though he’s falling
Down
into the abyss of time.
In his vertigo,
not even the steady passage of seasons
is fully comprehensible.
It’s why I look at the same tree,
naked and vulnerable,
and think:
Fall goes by faster every year.

What is joy but
the universe itself
coming into existence

What is sorrow but
a swollen star
at last imploding

What are memories but
the void created
by a missing body

What is love but
the coming together
of bits and pieces

What is a poem but
the world writing itself
a love note

She was chopping vegetables as
I lay in the next room reading
Abruptly, she stopped and came in
with a troubled look,
told me she couldn’t see the point,
it all seemed so meaningless, we’d
eat, then go to work, come home, do it all
again the next day, and for what?

I travel winding, country highways
past estates sheltered by trees
until at last I’ve gone far enough east and am met
by a view of the cold Atlantic.

I stand on a rocky beach with
thick, coarse, sand.
The sea appears as
shimmering blue stretching as far as the eye can see,
meeting the sky and becoming an indistinguishable
smudge of air and water.
The waves crash against the shoreline which
stretches on to points north and south.
The salty, fishy smell of low tide is in the air,
accompanied by shrieking gulls and
other swooping sea birds.

As darkness sets in the water becomes
harder to make out but
is still unmistakable.
A steady sea breeze
sweeps my hair to the side and balances out the
humid night air.

These are the kinds of nights
Puritan New Englanders dream about.
They work patiently towards this reward through
the cold, unpleasant months of November through May.
This is the reward for their sacrifice and
good practice for ticking away their time on earth
in wait of the promises of heaven.

It is dark now.
The tide moves in,
gains strength as the moon exerts its
gravitational pull and forces it
back toward the shore
as if each successive wave is an attempt
to swallow up the land
only to be turned way and
followed again by another
and another
and another.

The foamy, white crest of the waves
stands out in the darkness,
can be seen racing in from
both the left and the right,
steadily collapsing like a
stack of falling dominoes.
The sea is loud,
making it difficult to hear my companion’s words
so we decide not to talk at all.
We’re content to hear only the steady break of the waves that
have not stopped for all of mankind’s history,
are a symbol of something outside of our world,
something bigger.
The waves are a clue to forces we don’t fully understand
yet never cease to find solace in.
It is steadiness that makes the ocean so relaxing,
knowing that each wave that breaks will
be followed by another
and another
and another
If only the rhythm of our own lives were so simple and steady.

Staring out at the vast dark sea is proof that there are
things beyond human knowledge.
Here is something hopelessly
vast
like outer space
right here on earth.
These are depths not meant for man to enter, and yet,
all the things that make it so awesome
and us so insignificant in comparison
do not feel like a reason to despair, but,
to delight.

The ocean is terrifying at night.
It is a black, writhing body with no borders,
only icy depths full of nothing
and everything
as if my greatest fears are contained in every rising swell.

I strip naked and proceed,
through force of will, into the frigid blackness.
The whole ocean moves.
Swells rise up before me like dark phantoms
gaining shape and size as they close in.
I can only stare dumbly,
too frightened, or perhaps,
too proud
to flee.

Only in the darkness can I understand the size of the ocean.
In the darkness I sense its vastness for I’m
unable to see its limits,
as if it has none at all.
The light tricks one into thinking they can accurately imagine the size of things
while in the dark one truly understands
for darkness allows no safe illusions.

A swell is about to break over me. I
close my eyes and dive head first into it,
open my eyes underwater and see nothing, only
hear the deep, bass of the surf around me.
The world is a dull roar in my head.
I go limp and close my eyes, look up and see the pure,
white light of a crescent moon,
a single streak dancing on the writhing surface of the sea.
My naked body is carried by the motion of the waves,
a piece of driftwood in the tides of time,
carried along by forces much greater than myself.

Realizing it is a release.
I let go of all worldly cares, as if
a babe back in the womb
unaware of the trials of life I have yet to face.
I’m a child of nature floating peacefully in
the amniotic salinity of the ocean.
In that moment I make a firm decision
not to fight drowning, or
being swept out to sea .
I allow nature to have its way with me,
knowing sooner or later it will do so anyway.