Waltzing Matilda

Tonight, the stars dance on tiny white tables
to the music of a singing waiter moon.

And there she sat, in all her glory, perched upon her chair,
legs angled.

Like an ant, I march from her toe to her skirt hem,
counting the tiny dots, tracing my future.
The fan blows her skirt higher and higher and higher

I am a man of substance.
I am a rock, a boulder, an unmoved landmark,
crumbling like an ant under a heel.

When her star eyes dance to the music of that white moon
I am ashamed.

I will go outside, I will greet her with the words of great men.

Alas,
The carpet seems to be eating my laced up shoe.

...July 2005

The Strawberry

The seam pulses over the rich sweet mesocarp
barely holding its seed buttons together. The strawberry
waits to be torn open. Beneath the splattered blanket of night
covered with white droplets, small hands exploring the fields for fruit
stain their small hands scarlet biting into the red jewels.
The same fruit's color slightly fades beneath the market's flourence,
its shape shrinking under each shopper's exploring hands.
But soon the strawberry, becoming just a prop in a love story,
will nourish hungry mouths starving for other lips. The berry's
own skin smeared with whipped cream and dipped in fine wine
is cut into with one bite, slowly dripping onto lips and chin.


...April 2003

The Proposal

His hand pushed my hair behind my ear
and I just stood
trembling when he came near.
His hand pushed my hair behind my ear,
the words thickened with fear,
If only I could.
His hand pushed my hair behind my ear
and I just stood.


...May 2003

Reason for Art

It seemed casual enough.
Just a small preference towards his side of the table,
A slight movement of elbows.

I hoped he hadn’t noticed.

A sane person would not act at all.
A stable person would stay staring at the salt shaker.
Instead, I, reached for the ketchup bottle
With a lump in my throat.

Tonight I will dream of boats
Beaching me on shore
Without the hope of returning to sea.
My arms will pull the sail as hard as I can
Until they ache,
And I will awake with salt in my mouth,
Dry eyes.

I should pull back from the table.
I should go home.


...June 2005

The Races

My vocabulary
starch stiff as a board,
fluidly flat,
like a pancake without syrup,
ran out of words
here.

And then here too.

But then picked up with momentum
like a race horse at the very end of a race.
Jockey poking and proding and beating it to death
Ticket holders roaring with their five to ten odds
Move your bloody ass poem, move it for daddy

And then a pause of self reflection.

Withering down my will to keep things together,
or on the page,
or even the subject matter,
which I haven't come to yet
but will soon.

Like now -

Another blank -

I have an idea,
twirling inside me
like a ballerina in Swan Lake
or a bee inside of a soda bottle licking the sweet sugar
watching the people he could be stinging from inside the glass,
but I'm afraid.

I falter, I fail.

I lie awake at night beating the race horse.


...February 2003

Strangers in the Night, Glances

When my breath collides between my lips
a small sound comes forth, a whimper
that when heard by a person standing
with his head beside my neck
it alerts an inner system of wires and hooks
that changes his skin to a thick leather,
tough and unnerved.

Our brains switch, and I receive the jello mold inside his head,
cold and wiggly.

The floating peices of fruit block me
from seeing what comes next
and the world becomes a blur
of firsts and lasts.


...June 2005