Oakwood Avenue West Hartford 1965

Enter a square kitchen
At the southwest corner
Due west
An enamel stove
At WNW
A doorway
A bathroom
Sink mirror clawfoot tub toilette bare lightbulb cracked buckled linoleum
North west
A low sink chipped porcelain
Above it
A glass front cupboard
Peeling pea soup green paint
Due North
Maybe a sash window
Northeast a glass front cupboard
Above
Cupboard below
Doors hang askew
Southeast a doorway
Leading left a basement stairway
Right a porch with open sash window
A clothesline on a pulley
Due south
A short stocky refrigerator
In the center of the room
A gray speckled formica and chrome
Table
Some ripped red naugahyde
Chairs
The table surface obscured
By dirty dishes piled high
Dried moldy milk glasses
Open the fridge
A glass bottle of
Milk
Hamburger meat
With maggots

In my mind's eye

I am standing
At the sink
In the darkened kitchen
The dishes are done
The full moon rises
Over the ridge
Washing the fields
In cold light
The trees
Make black shadows
You're sitting in the other room
With our son
Watching American actors
Chattering in German
Which only I didn't understand
Entschuldigung
Es tut mir sehr leid

Leave the dishes till morning

Curl up and read
The temperature's falling
How much sleep do you need
The covers are calling
Chocolate is warm
The wine glass is empty
This is called home

Autumn

Drenched earth
Evaporating in the autumnal morning sun
Releasing the pervasive pungent scent
Of decomposing pine needles

Dampness

suspended
at the tips of the pine needles
acrid tears

Shortcomings

Judging each other
by our own
mismeasurements

Reflection

Rain slick streets
Shimmering stillness

Darkness

Only the bells sound
through the fog padded silence
after four AM

Irrespective of circumstances

Sitting in the shuttered halflight of a hot
Afternoon

The fan whirring

Spelunking through issueless passages

Regardless of cloudless horizons

I can but wait
For this to pass

Mist

Spills down the hills
And shrouds the city
In diffused light

The black sky is sparkling clear
As Ursa awaits like a Tilt-a-whirl
To whisk me away from here

7 Words for a Modern Day Messiah

1. Forgive him, for he knows not what he does

2. Truly, this is not the way to paradise

3. Man, behold your woman

4. Why have you forsaken her

5. You obsess

6. It is not finished

7. Another commits her spirit into your hands for safekeeping and you will abandon her too

Sometimes

I want to cry

Sometimes

I want to spit

In somebody's eye

Most of the time

I just ask myself

Why

Forbidden fruit

I work sweating in the hot sun at the house pulling weeds from the gravel, either sitting, there are so many I can sit quietly and pull from the space all around me for quite some time, or crouched in that sitting on your heels asiatic position. It's meditative. Sometimes they yield gently and I feel compassion. Sometimes I have to pull with all of my strength. Those are cathartic.

It's been hay weather. We raked the the strimmed hay from the banks into piles for our neighbor, to pitch fork onto his tractor's trailer to feed to his horse. The other day he'd helped our son tie together your rangy fig tree tree so that the laden branches wouldn't break. Today we had to tear off two of those branches that had broken in the wind anyway. Your five varieties of fig are bearing a lot this year. They've just now matured. Your four pear trees are also laden with more fruit than they have ever produced. Your three cherry trees have borne, but the fruit was probably enjoyed by the birds, thankfully because I don't know what I would have done with it all. Your multitude of raspberry and blackberry bushes and strawberry plants have been overcome with weeds. Your walnut is now enormous. The ancient apple trees that you so lovingly saved, pruned and nurtured back to life are full, as is the newer. Fortunately the vineyard is being cared for by the neighbor. The quince and apricot are probably bearing too, I haven't had the heart to look at those, or your plum tree. It's overwhelming and heartbreaking and all I can do to assuage the pain is yank weeds in the hot sun.

Sex is a promissory note

To return in kind
Ness that which
Has been offered
In love
An I.O.U.
Respect
Reciprocity
Relevance

The cards are on the table

An orangeglow sunset
Behind black hills
Beyond ochre lightshowered houses
And citron lit streets
Darkness broken
Sorting
Shuffling
Dealing
Kings Queens Jacks
Joker's wild
Inside warmglow windows
Shattered

Distant echoes

The devastating sound
Of footsteps
Rapidly retreating

Ricochet

In the middle of the night
When my son was an infant
I'd get back into bed
Having gone to the bathroom
Or let the cat out
Half an hour later
I'd just be drifting off to sleep
And he would awaken
Something having echoed
In his mind

The night my mother died
I'd gotten up and wandered
Into the living room
I saw the light on
In her bedroom
I reached for the door handle
Thinking I'd turn off her light
Then I thought
Nah, I'll wake her up
And she'll be angry
So I went back to bed

I don't remember hearing the shot
But something
Must have echoed in my mind
As the bullet lodged in hers

Goal!

I hear the shouts
Out the window
GOAL!
I think of the afternoon
Pacing nervously in front of the television
With your infant son in your arms
When you yelled GOAL!
At the top of your lungs
And terrified him
Into a bout of inconsolable crying
And think of the things
That made you happy
That gave you joy
And the terror you felt
When you knew
You were dying
That you could not express
That we could not express
Then the joy that you had given us

It never leaves you

Fifty years ago today

our young lives changed 

forever 

I was twelve

That morning my older brother knocked on my bedroom door and said

c’mon Ker, we’ve gotta go over to the neighbor’s  

I didn’t ask why 

As I walked out of my bedroom 

a policeman walked out of my mother’s 

and closed the door 

I thought, what’s she done this time

My younger brother and I went to the neighbor’s 

The only people who had befriended my mother 

and seemed to enjoy her company 

she could be the life of the party

and tolerated her alcoholism 

Later that morning I spoke to a friend on the phone 

she said she’d seen them take my mother away on a stretcher 

and that there was blood on the pillow 

Eventually I was told 

she was dead 

Mirror horizons

The sea meets the shore
And stretches
From transparent
Blue green to deep blue green

The twilit sky meets
The mountain ridge
And stretches
From translucent
Blue green to deep
Blue green

Erotically grotesque or obscenely attractive

Tall full and supple
Strong dark ashen tinged features focus the
Penetrating gaze
Half closed dark eyes blink
Massive breasts heave
Nostrils flare
As smoke seeps slowly through full cracked lips

Intoxication

Crushing vast beds
Of Acacia petals
on hot wet asphalt

Too close to call

My body wants more
My heart is saying caution
My mind asks why me

Dream

Driving backwards fast
Both accelerating and
Braking hard can't stop

Nothing compares to this

No lost love
Or broken heart
Not forlorn
Or missing you
A sad lovesong
It is not

What do you say

When someone who is
Asks
Am I going to die
You lie
You smile softly
Shake your head
And say
No
With all your heart
Breaking
You make a point
Of saying
See you in the morning
Even though you know
You may not
You acquire
The patience of a saint
Because you know
This is it
You say
It will be okay
Knowing full well
It won't

Were my car watertight

I would ride awash
In tears
Into the hills
And back
These many years
Landslides
Windstorms
Earthquakes
Road closures
Illness
And death
Someday
There may be closure
But until then
Up and down
There and back
Pavlovian
Round the curves
Blind
With tears

Starting over

An open wound
A festering sore
Every jolt
A holiday
A memory
A garment
Brings an excruciating
Pang
An ache
That courses
To the fingertips
Grabs your throat
Brims eyes
Until you swallow it back
Or cry
And go on
And start over

Night in the city

On a clouded night
The stars are grounded
Constellations of streetlights
Illuminate the blank faces of buildings
Darkened windows
Inhabitants sleeping
Unless insomniacs wander
Window to window
Regarding silent streets
Puddles reflecting
Faceless buildings
A single window lit
From within
A reminder
That we are still alive

A Traveller

twenty one and one half
years
one husband
one
son
three homes
thousands of miles
countless memories
and
much love
travelling
again

Rain

I love rain at night
To see the lights glistening
To hear the cars whoosh

Looking up

Outside my window
Where he is looking inside
Orion awaits

I dreamt

that you just
woke up
after a bad day
but a good night's
sleep
as you had so many times
and Gianni prayed you would
and we smiled softly
I said good morning
with more conviction
than I felt
and stroked your
soft wisps of hair
and prepared for the
two person ritual
of sitting you up
changing your damp
pyjamas
washing you down with
a warm cloth
putting your feet
in the warm soapy water
Jesus had that right
having your feet washed
is a sublime pleasure
I hope
I dressed and
laid you down comfortably
again
like it was all
just a bad dream
then
I dreamt
that you came back
and I thought
but
they did an EKG
they knew you were dead
but here you were
and I thought
how did it feel to be trapped in there
how did you get out
and I helped you get into bed
one last time

It's the joy

you shared
hopes and dreams
fulfilled
you hope
he left
remembering those too
you hope he drifted off
watering his garden
pruning his vines
sorting his seeds
for planting
watching his son
grow
taller and wiser
he lives
in your dreams
you hope
he left
knowing
you will always
remember
how strong he was
how hard working
how tireless
all else
fades
but the shared hopes
and dreams
and joy
and love

It rains

As I open the windows wide
To clear the air
After removing feces in a gloved hand
I hear the band playing
A raucous tune
The horn wails
for us
His shin is a shard
A splinter of what it once was
Not much bigger than the
Catheter tube
He sleeps
I watch
And wait
It rains