a black kid
as I was carrying out stuff
“you moving?”
“yeah, to a farm.”
“oh . hey, is your sister moving too?”
yeah, to the city
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Copyright 2015
Tag: Money
AFTERNOON AT OUR THIRD-FLOOR APARTMENT WINDOW
white body
with black wingtips
on white sky
a gull flitted past
the third-floor apartment window
on an overcast day
the next afternoon
panes sliced sunlight
onto a bubbling aquarium
that opened as butterfly wings
on the opposite wall
still, she was a question mark
who made him a question mark
in return
my Indiana, so faraway then
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Copyright 2015
DOWNHILL FROM THE HEART
Beethoven’s chamber pot beside the piano
revealed a man truly engrossed in his work
when there was nothing else to touch.
Not even another Zelda Fitzgerald, seeking
a Daddy-Daddy-Daddy who
never was what she’s expected
nor was I.
It was all downhill
from the heart.
She rather melted away, like the music,
at the end of the page,
while I expected another.
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Copyright 2015
REGARDING THE GATE HOUSE AT BLODGETT’S CANAL AND LOCKS
Thoreau turned upstream on the Merrimack
rather than to the ocean
before heading back
~*~
needles and rotting leaves
the floor of the stream steep
water the color of tea
it’s a dangerous
river that was home
shores denuded
when tall pines older than the railroad
were felled to make way
for fiber optic cable
they say you log on
in its branching current
owls and herons take him away
above the hydroelectric turbines
~*~
landing adventurously
perhaps to shout
I remember where you are
the cuisine isn’t that much different
than our second city together
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Copyright 2015
WITH FINGERS AS THICK AS HOT DOGS
Resting on the park bench, she complained
she couldn’t keep pace with her children.
When the seven-year-old pest returned,
demanding, “Ma, give me money”
for a cola, she complied,
thinking it love.
~*~
She couldn’t touch her toes.
~*~
Her legs pushed away from each other, yet
in her cotton dress, unexpectedly
as she swatted a fly, she began to float
and meticulously shrank from sight,
bouncing along the horizon.
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Copyright 2015
ALWAYS WASH THOSE HANDS
and that’s the really frightening thing
the bomb-sniffing dog
on the way to the Laundromat, before
~*~
I’ve had enough this season
to satisfy my sensibilities
though it’s still unseasonably warm
and raining
lingering
over
food
this buzzing
finds pollen
wherever
our sun warms
~*~
yet to the Appropriate Authorities
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the United States Government
unrelated by family or livelihood
my next-door neighbor
together on numerous occasions
I further state
intelligent, industrious, socially responsible
capable of
very truly yours,
the prodigal son, without the dissipation
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Copyright 2015
WEDDING PARTY
“you said when you married
you’d still make love to other guys”
the guest at the house party argued
though now
I initially have difficulty telling whether
he’s talking to the bride or the groom
even as he added
“you’re too young to be getting married”
he spent the night anyway
among those of us encamped in sleeping bags
around that second-floor apartment
~*~
we’d had an intellectual tete-a-tete on the corner
and then, upstairs, stoned out and dancing
at the heart of the crowd, I collapsed
it was all ass and thigh from the floor
so she liked flirting with me . Ooooh!
she told me my eyes were a strange, beautiful color
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Copyright 2015
HANA
with empty matchbooks all about
the apartment stank, as it had
since the 17-year-old sister encamped
at the door, a 50-year-old tattooed
sallow visitor with a front tooth missing
inquired if she was home yet
said he’ll be back tomorrow
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Copyright 2015
REALMS OF DESIRE
Two cheerleaders wore white gym shoes
and thick white socks leading
to smooth adolescent legs
and who knew what else.
Freak girls bummed cigarettes like crazy
and you fed their neuroses.
A chubby chick fought and shrieked the hardest.
“God-damn fart-face!” she called a boy
she hit squarely, not to be left out.
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Copyright 2015
HEART TURNING
1
the next afternoon’s commute
some necessary grounding (even for a bird or sunlight
the worst New Hampshire and Massachusetts flooding
since the hurricane of ’38
(10 inches of rain, a record
mostly a funk – everybody in Meeting
“I’m alive but I’m not living”
a quote from Iran
LOOSE
ENDS
(will the clutter ever end?
2
the drive north, in desperation / desolation
my heart turning toward the green Old Ways
I’ve always been a night owl
maybe Laurie was the last stop or opportunity
for the glitzy road
Yuppie / Muppie
I seemed to desire
my life now more stripped down, practical, earthy
in Rachel’s manner
compost bins and raised beds
this old house / its endless repairs
let’s go for a swim
3
sharp light and air
high wispy golden and rose clouds
lots of pale blue
plus the mountains
fresh from the pasture
the herd you keep milking
silage to store for winter
to empty, come spring
in moonlight across my estate
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Jnana's Red Barn 