Tag: poetry

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I’ve missed the comfort of my worlds, at home, 
Alone, 
even when the nighttime beckoned me towards the city. 

I’ve missed the cleansed stillness of silence, 
even on the afternoons I knew Dad was gonna bail on one of our Tuesdays. 

Warm baths and warmer tea, bodega treasures. 
When walking around the Village knew no things of the American Spirit, when, 
the mind would tire and I would retire back into the work; 
the makings of my worlds with words – 

the comfort of an embrace
like no other or the one I was denied; 
the absence of which as of late, I’ve tried to fill through hangover. 

Gotta try again, like trying for the first time; 
liberate the lungs and go Burke Williams on the liver – 
Till all of me billows with Sundays at the beach and petaled cyclones of cherry blossom,
Till the wind blows through and flies me to the comfort of my worlds, 
In my room, at home alone. 

Even when the nighttime beckons me to repeat yesterday.

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Went East from the West
looking for some respite from the true,
kissing North of Winslow 
with no relief of recess,

Save the buzzing void of Heat and 
Record scratch of gravel,
the stillness and the 
breathing wind; roughed lungs and mourning doves,
a sniffle. 

As alone as the locomotive loud,
that drained knowing the city’s made me tired as I wonder
why I ever go back. 

And I know the answer, I know it’s for love,
not the love I finally admit I have but a love
for that basin, its cigarettes and coyote hills,
loudest when it’s at its quietest,
yearning to be heard as it spits you out; 

A love something paternal for a place that’s been a proving ground
for someone still there; long gone. 

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I remember Heaven when you held me
at the middle of the bridge and
showed me where the river made its bend,
after the Pier K Dock and at the Wallabout Bay, 
some time in Autumn when the Sun went Crimson into Marigold before the Mauve when your stubble grazed my neck;
some single moment of some single place maybe you didn’t know I’d still keep tonight,
with the Vincent Thomas thirty miles away
and your embrace sometime a decade ago.

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                                    TREVOR

Years ago, I think I told you this, but two guys. ‘Men.’ You know, got me where they wanted me. I think the one guy had an aquarium in his bedroom, even though his bedroom was carpeted? Choices, I guess. And I wasn’t exactly as loose as they’d hoped I’d be according to the package details of whatever they bought off their guy for me to feed, and so, fed me a bit of crystal, got me loose as I tried to figure out where I was, and. They didn’t even wait until I was dressed to kick me out of the house. Got all sorts of things from them, a couple of them permanent. The kinda permanent you can get when they rip you loose. Guess it’s fine, these days, but. Imagine if it had happened in the 70s. 80s. You know? I do. Anyway. Weeks later, began having this dream. Of this – entity. Long and sinewy, made of static, human clay and aluminum as if the Dark had molded it itself. Egg-shaped head with sorta indents where the eyes ought to be and endless arms and endless fingers. Looming outside my window and just looking in. Looking in for eternity as I looked at it for eternity until the shadow static sifted and in the corner of my room the growing dark turned into It. And a corner closer to me metastasized of that same Memory, Grimace, and my marrow turned to boiling ice, paralyzing. As I drew my blanket closer to my eyes, I’m unable to look away, until it emerged from the closest corner of my mind and stood at the foot of my bed, just standing, staring still, blanket now over my eyes as I see the shadow of this Shadow now slowly, surely, looming, leaning over me, its endless legs firmly in place, just it’s endless torso tilted over 90 degrees right over me and I feel as though I have no choice but to see and so I lower, and there it is just – inches from my face, God, and – I try – to scream, God I try as hard as I can but nothing’s coming out and it’s just looking at me, not even mocking, not even curious, I don’t know what it wants but somehow I know I need to know what IT is, what it was, forever until morning ultimately came after all of its endlessness. For months, every night It would return to me and I would scream in silence, cry without tears, unable to make a single movement, unable to make a single sound, produce a single droplet of moisture. Until one night of its endlessness, I decided I wouldn’t scream. I would not try to wake up, I would not try to hide or shy away from its non-faced face, and it lingered over me in my safest space and I simply looked back at it. Endlessly I looked, and began to understand, as the scar of my heart began to break open once again and embraced all that leaned on top of me. And I looked through the non-eyes of a most singular, isolated, isolation. I had to understand that I was alone. At least just once, at least, just with – everything that came out of that room with the aquarium. How this was to be my Alone. How we all got it, but all got it differently which practically means, even in a collective, you know, it’s still just Us, with It. And then I never had the dream again. It never returned. I think maybe because I allowed it to come live inside. Better that, maybe, than the alternative. I never wanted to see that face again, outside of that dream. So I had to hold. I had to accept It.

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of holding you inside of you
and offering myself the glory of liberation –
the freedom of bliss, a physical love
the embrace over weeping
may be a thing paternal but also a latching belonging,
to squeeze and not to thrust
to clasp but not to choke;
Release,
the most glorious of omnipotent offerings,
beyond pain and anguish for in the shadows of all failure comes
the giving of pleasure,
a world fulfilled and pain gone extinguished –
no longer tears but the trembles of frailty
atop crisp sheets,
all of life so suddenly alive,
Life, the All of it suddenly so clear.

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We sit with sandwiches and talk about the cheese
or the way things used to be, old homes, the weather
and the city or how the trees give us oxygen
but not enough for us to breathe 
and try the re-try of ditching the yesteryear to
return to promise of whatever’s left
before the silence finally consumes 
and we become living relics
just nods and ‘Sure’s’ and Yeahs
and Yeah and
all there’s to say is that we tried and failed
Say-nothings into do-nothings 
Father-son’s into guys and dudes
Brother-bro’s into men
Mothers-Children into wanderers lone and 
longing; lost resigned.

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’bout God and
why I think of Him
and don’t believe out of want but out of need;
how He’s beauty and beauty’s
the thing I choose over the LA euthanasia, it’s –
the thing that reaches in,
embraces the thing most cold that tells us not to go
and nurtures into it like kneading
the willingness to carry on;
white jasmine tomorrow’s, cotton candy clouds
present the palm trees with their power lines,
the promise of fire, hot hot heat,
the longing champion of one’s eternity
despite the cold that tells us not to go.

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You ever feel that (?), like –
God’s coming at you from the insides and
his vigor’s shaking; like it’s…
the mighty nature of knowing you know clouds;
climbing mountains
‘That’s got you going?’

‘Magine, like San Gabriel’s
with that ‘peaking poking peeking piquing’ light and seeing how it’s
dancing(?),
Making air
outta light and rock
the Green of spring and they’re
flossing like they’re kissing this, His lover’s…
affair,
While,
He’s popping off and somehow making mauve and tangerine from 14,
no 13-B, and like
the stratus is in the sternum, the cumulus ridiculous, man –
just beginning to drown into something like glory,
in the place inside we know it’s needed, the some place coolest, bro (?) –

You ever feel that?
That momentary surrender that comes and forever builds into a blip;
knowing clouds,
knowin’ mountains,
knowin’ t’morrow’s coming?

Like white jasmine on Bronson,
sometime in a couple days.

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croon-swooning in my ear due to busted headphone and I’m
dreaming of the Quarter on the balcony; its cobble stones(,)
the swimming air so damp;
suffocated Solitude unlike boating through the mangroves with my father,
while it’s raining here; here L.A.