The Square Corner

2012-05-27T14:33:00.003-07:00

Clean
There was a woman who lit a fire. She took sticks, dried grass, old sheets of newsprint and made what looked like a small pyre in a wide open field. With two rocks she struck a spark against the dried grass and watched the flames grow larger then die down slowly until only a slight smoke rose into the evening air. She drew the smoke into her face with her cupped hands and held her mouth and eyes tightly closed. The woman didn't know this was the way to cleanse her soul. But she felt at peace and was happy when a cool rain washed away the ashes she left behind.

2012-05-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

Space
I wonder sometimes if the space between stars is really the space between darkness and first light. There is what Einstein said: 'God doesn't play dice with the universe.' The smartest man knows what's inside a Creator's head... So if God doesn't toss dice, He deals cards? I've known too many people who've been dealt a bad hand, and for certain a cold life isn't random. I guess that suffering space is in truth that space between dying stars. Like Einstein said, nothing travels faster than light.

2012-05-15T19:08:00.000-07:00

All
This is a story about a ghost
No, this is a poem about a spirit that slips through the night
It is about death and the dying, the smoke that burns our eyes
Really it is a story about ghosts that come and touch us. Or torture us.
It is a poem about me and you, and the fear we have of spirits
The fear of smoke that shrouds us, chokes us, burns our eyes
I wonder like you about the worthiness of time,
I wonder too about fool's gold and what slips through my hands
My life? Your life?
What slips through your hands? My life along with yours?
Like death and the dying, I'll know the burning smoke in human eyes
But will I know it comes for me? And what will you say in last prayer?
The answer, I say: What comes for one, comes for all.

Contrast
They say black isn't a colour
White, too
They are a contrast as any artist will know
One posed against the other they blend into grey
Like an old movie, there is a special beauty in a life without colour
There is a certain poise, a certain off balance, that can't be explained
The best, I think, is too awash your life in contrast
Feel, hold, see the greyness and let a special beauty take over your special soul

2012-05-11T16:22:00.001-07:00

Elvis
I finally understand Elvis,
Really I do
His music
His gyrating grace in shiny black shoes and shimmering hair
That Southern voice
His bright smile
I understand daughters who went wild
And their mother's too
The journey of pilgrims to Memphis and his birthplace
The land he and his soulsters graced
I understand how Vegas killed him
And how Vegas killed the music in some of us
There is that tackiness, cheapness, plastic trail of souvenirs and mementos
I understand the beauty in all these things
I understand the poetry in the lives of those who see him in the strangest places
Like in the dark spots of their lives
In the clouds that float above
It took me years to understand Elvis
After I derided him
Mocked and belittled his fans
Dismissed his music as trashy verse from an uneducated land
But now I understand Elvis, and someday soon, perhaps, I'll understand the rest of the music of Man

2012-04-30T19:36:00.001-07:00

Nothing
If there is a story, I don't know
Of a train that travelled into a small forgotten town
A man jumped out in fine clothes
He held a leather valise in one hand
A rolled newspaper was tightly held between his elbow and his side
The stranger to this town, walked past its buildings and dusty saloons
He walked into the woods and never returned
They found a leather valise. Nothing was inside

2012-04-30T15:20:00.003-07:00

Blind
She wore a pretty dress
Her eyes tell us nothing more:
They were covered in darkness, like fallen black doves
This blindness that keeps us from what is her
So I think of a beauty in long golden hair
There seemed this gentleness
I wanted to touch her
Speak to her in whispers
Tell her I loved her
But I saw her only that one time
A distance as strangers; crippled afoot on fallen ground
What did I say to a pretty dress?
In all these years as blind to her as she once was to me?
I know, but I can't say
A speechless deafness strikes me
I wonder, too, if she hears me, sees me in the passing of lonely dreams

2012-04-09T13:16:00.004-07:00

Distance
I was walking in a summer rain
I found a ticket for a bus trip far away
But the driving rain made the ink run, and washed it as a black stain
I took it to the bus driver, my last chance to escape far away
He laughed and said it was no good
I pleaded and asked what hope there was under broken clouds
The bus driver closed the door and turned round in a diesel sky
Two passengers looked at me: one fat, the other thin
Neither cared, I could feel a sinking distance from their driving eyes

2012-03-28T18:20:00.004-07:00

My House, The Day A Brick Fell Down
My house grew up on a dusty street. On summer nights men and women would walk by. Arm in arm they'd sway as lovers. I was young, too young to know what this love was. Sometimes I'd open a window and lean my elbows on the sill and rest my chin in my small hands. From the house I'd get a promise late at night not to say what I was doing. Watching under the moon when my parents thought I was asleep and dreaming. Me and the house were childhood friends. There was a boy across the street we would often see. A young man, really. I wanted to be like him when I was older, because he was free and had a girl who was pleasing to my eyes. Then one day he wore an army uniform, gleaming with polished shoes. My parents said he signed up to fight far away in some Asian war. I was sad to hear this, I thought the house was too. Then they said he died in that far away place. That night I opened a window and rested my chin in my small hands. I cried a tear. The next day my father found a brick, and said it must have fallen down during the night.

2012-03-27T18:34:00.002-07:00

Someday
I took what I liked best, and put it into a white cloth bag. I don't know what I'll do with the rest. But I took what I liked most, and drew tight the drawstring. With the bag slung loosely along my shoulder I walked and walked. Then I wrote a poem. I don't know what I'll do with the rest. But someday I'll write a poem about a man with a drawstring held tightly to his chest.

2012-03-25T19:07:00.003-07:00

Brain
I was crazy once. Barefooted inside my brain. Mad at all the madness inside of me. Angry at sin. Angry at the coursing, bubbling...boiling blood beneath my skin. I was crazy once. But I don't walk barefooted. Not inside my brain. My blood doesn't boil. It just simmers inside this sin.

2012-03-23T18:04:00.004-07:00

Name
I walked into the One Lucky and sat at the bar. I wasn't sure if 'Beer Mugs' Moran would recall my name or remember my face. He was busy serving drinks. I assumed he couldn't see me out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't changed much as far as I could tell. Although, he did seem older and his shoulder looked as if it caused more pain. He hobbled some on his right leg. I wondered if he would think I too was getting older while pretty much looking the same. That is if he remembered me at all.

'Beer Mugs' looked at me for a second, and brought a drink. He put down a ginger ale, and said: 'You're Tortelli. What brought you back?"

I didn't know what to say, so I asked if Manny was around. Before he could answer, a fight started. He threw two guys out. It took a couple of tries to get them through the door. He didn't talk to me for the rest of the night. I just sat and drank slowly, and thought no one knew my name.

2012-03-23T17:58:00.002-07:00

Years
Often times I prayed to a God I don't know. That was years ago. Now, I pray no more. I carried a poem in my vest pocket. I carried one in a wallet, too. It said nothing without rhyme, as a prayer does without a verse. Like a God I don't know, this happened years ago.

2012-03-18T17:37:00.003-07:00

Veins
I protected him. I wrapped his fists in tape and put boxing gloves over his hands. Then I tied them up tightly and secure. The look in his eyes told we were brothers. He went down in the third round. For years I trained him. Got him fights. Now he was old. He went down in the third round. He got up, slowly. First on one knee. Then he grabbed my arm and I lifted him steady. He was my brother. Now he's dead. They called from the coast. They said another punch drunk fighter went down without life in his veins. It'd been years since the third round. But only days since life left his veins.

2012-03-18T15:39:00.003-07:00

Time
It's been a long time since I last touched their lives: The One Lucky, Manny and the Ghost of Charles. It's been a long time since I touched the life of Zigman and those people he wishes he loved. It is true, it's been a long time since they touched my life. But the order of things is for me to decide. For them, perhaps, they wait in pain. Or is it as a concern they wait, as they think the pain is only mine.

2012-03-18T10:04:00.002-07:00

Cold
I
A fever was burning my mind. I filled a bathtub with cold water and poured in a bag of ice. I sat and shivered and thought this was a terrible way to die: cold and alone with that burning inside. I got up and dried myself. By morning my sickness was gone. I decided to call a friend.

II
I called my friend, but she wasn't home. I would have told her about icy water and aloneness and a terrible way to die. Instead I went to a bakery shop and sat outside. It was the first day of spring. Across the street I saw yoga silhouettes in the morning sky. Through round windows they looked young and beautiful as they touched their fingers tips. I sipped from my coffee and thought of my friend and wondered if she called, if I would be home.

2012-03-10T15:20:00.006-08:00

Survive
Ask the old man what's the matter. He'll tell you the people are broken. Their lives had shattered as thin ice does under a heavy night. Ask the old man if any of us survive. He'll tell you a coldness froze them long ago.

Feet
I saw a crazy woman scrub a street with rags beneath her feet. I asked her what she was doing. She said there was a lie written inside. I thought I understood. But now I wonder, is the lie written inside all of us, or is it in the shuffle of the rags beneath our feet.

2012-03-08T16:12:00.007-08:00

Ghosts
I sat in a bakery chair on a early morning. I held a cup of coffee tightly in my hand, as if I was waiting for a woman to walk by. Then she strode beautifully past a window and turned her head. She left her eyes behind.

Years have past, I haven't seen this morning since. But silently I dream of a woman's name. If I could, I'd tell her sadly she left these eyes behind. I'd tell her also of an old bakery as forgotten ghosts, and how we fall with each morning's sunrise.

2012-03-04T16:17:00.007-08:00

Years
On Friday nights these men played poker, and gambled their stories away. Unless it was too personal. Or was revealing of what they truly thought...or felt...or spoke to how much they lost. So for years they made up tales. For years they kept poker faces. And through all their Friday nights, they didn't know any true names. Nicknames like the badger...the horse...the rabbit...the wily fox...strong as an ox. Of the men who owed each other money, one kept score inside. He wondered often about the hand he was dealt and why he was called the Fox.

2012-03-04T16:01:00.003-08:00

Now
I wish I could swim
I wish I weren't drowning in two inches of water
My arms so strong on steady ground, I sink deeper into darkness
These lungs filling slowly, one drop at a time, this breath in gasping sorrow
Help me from these inches of water, like murky enemies I can't see
I am drowning, I know
Once I was strong, but now I am sinking breathless
If only I could swim
If only I hadn't stumbled into this murky shallow water

2012-03-01T18:31:00.008-08:00

Winds I
I walked alone in a forest of broken trees
A bitter coldness left me brittle and afraid
I thought a heavy wind would break me in two
As what happened to the tall pine. And what happened to a fallen God I knew as strong.
But in all this I mended in sorrow a disbelief: against a brittle cold and heavy wind

Winds II
I drifted into a dream, like a slow river in a summer scene
The calm was different than the cold winds above
The trees were maples, fragrant with leaves as sweet green
Will I awaken to broken pines, against coldness and heavy winds?
Best to live this dream, to take a swim in a soft summer stream
Belief and disbelief won't matter
What does is to wonder
And to sing to the maple tree under a brilliant sun

2012-02-22T15:10:00.000-08:00

Fallen
I went out with my lost friend Zigman Zibanski. He had been drinking and soon fell down drunk in a field of cold autumn grass. The night sky had also been drinking and fell upon him. The best I could, I freed my friend's back of stars and asteroids and cosmic dust. Bruised but merry Zigman got up, and grabbed the rocky edge of a laughing comet. They staggered together along a worn path and celebrated their good fortune as if they were old friends. My arms tired and hurting, I picked up what was left of the scattered sky and put all of its broken pieces back into place, certain the world would never know the difference...of what happens to lonely old drunks and those fallen comets.

2012-02-13T17:03:00.000-08:00

Glitter
I saw a woman in tattered clothes.
She wore a necklace made of gold.
I asked her where she got what glittered round her neck.
She said: "I stole it from a rich lady. Then she stole it back. So I stole it from her once more."
We didn't speak against an empty pause.
Then she said: "Life is golden."
Together we laughed with joy filling our poor and tattered souls.

2012-02-06T18:28:00.001-08:00

Content
I stood afraid in a tall field of grass, I could barely see
I sat down. The grass was higher still, as if its blades touched a sky
Never inside myself did I feel so low
But I had become content as my eyes touched soft white clouds
Thankful there was a guiding sun that kept me warm,
I rose and walked freely in a tall field of grass

2012-01-30T16:33:00.000-08:00

Noon
When I was a boy I found a stone as smooth as a small poem. I tossed it up and down, catching it in my hand. It slipped from my weary fingers and fell into a shallow pond. The perfect ripples became wider and wider as the stone rested on sand as bright as gold. Now that I am older I know what I would do. I would blend my hand in the water and pick up the stone as a haiku. Then it would lay upon a gleaming shore and dry in the noon sun.

2012-01-26T18:56:00.000-08:00

Wall
I'll frame a poem this way:
one verse, then another
a work of art I'll hang on a shaky wall, crumbling by the forsake of rhyme: one verse, then another
I'll react to each line, paint it the best I know
When you frame a poem a certain way: you see the remnants of a falling wall: one verse, then another