fighting irony

In a Past Life I was a Country Singer

I stand at the base of the stairs
you on the landing
doing the angry finger dance
winding up for the
hurling coffee cup

In a past life I was a country singer
could make sense of the sadness
with 3 simple chords
Before that, a painter
with Wyeth-esque palette
not without talent
Before that…  it gets blurry
something Renaissance maybe
humorless days in the field
meditating the Humanities
or back breaking labor
full moon manias
reluctant soldier
buried child
pure spirit

I stand at the top of the stairs
you at the foot
clutching a wrist
protecting your ribs

Passing bass, rattles the floor
a heartbeat on four wheels

Ice Dreams (with Recipe for Oblivion)

The past is a glacier
Insomnia: Global Warming
There we are
floating through the Gulf Stream
in the backseat of that car

The past is an ice cube
Remembrance: the sun
There you are
like an insect trapped in amber
waiting to be swallowed
on the playground after dark

The past is a blizzard
Secrets: black ice
Here we go
let go of the wheel, spin
through the hotel room
rented on allowance

Recipe for Oblivion:
Do not go back to sleep!
Walk down those stairs
Pour bourbon over ice–
no longer a metaphor
just something to make it
burn less.
Sit in chair.
Sip.
Stare with glassy Anime eyes
at a stain on the carpet.
Blood?

Forget.

“The Physical Impossibility of Wealth In The Mind Of Someone Poor.”
(for Damien Hirst)

I didn’t write this poem.*
But it was my idea!
*So what?
Architects don’t build their own houses.

Fiction is the Best Way of Telling Our Truth

Thinly veiled, I write of our hardships
each one a tiny model sailboat
hand-launched into the dyed blue
seas of park lakes and reservoirs,
urban engineering at its Disney best.
You don’t see it do you?
Even our water is fake.

I didn’t want this poem to be about you
or us
especially (sigh) not about Me
It’s my day off from scams and schemes
and your day off from,
What exactly do you do all day?
But here we are again
trapped in midnight’s moonlit silence
before noon.

Pointing out scars birth-marks blemishes
Punching away at already bruised arms
With the Incredulity of Saint Thomas
in Caravaggio’s masterpiece
Sticking our fingers deep into each other
’s open wounds.

Come on baby love honey darling
Make it hurt like you used to;
Only you know how to turn me on.

What’s Gotten Into You? (Cause it Ain’t Me)

You were so shy when we first met
asking only for anonymity
Made me want you so much more
your refreshing refusal of
the only worthy goals:
Fame, Fortune.

But you were too beautiful
too perfectly proportioned
Your body
the Golden Mean incarnate.
Sigh.
Now, like all the obedient rest,
you keep getting smaller
skewing your proven ratio
refusing all the feasts I borrow
(without collateral) to pay for.
Find you over a toilet, defaulting our
dinners, as I will my debts
Bulimia, Bankruptcy.

What were you thinking?
When? The other night
Motherly swirls across my back?
Like our old Chemistry teacher.
Yes, you do know the one.
(Stop pretending you don’t fucking
remember anything that happened
to Us, before 1998)
Yes. Yes! That One.
Later imprisoned for molestation
Asked us to stay after class
took us to the back room
Never went any further, knew it could
if you showed him a catalyst.
Still, he made us feel smart
made us feel Chosen, made us laugh
Yes, at the expense of others
but at that age, superiority our drug
Class, Caste.

Sorry, back to my intervention:
Half a bottle of Skyy your lunch?
You do remember
Your mother’s an alcoholic
loved her bottle of Bombay
more than yours of formula.
Your father, a serial entrepreneur
liked you better as an idea
than an inception.
Neither say I love you anymore
except when drunk
or as an apology.

And that guy you’re engaged to?
Wears Ed Hardy and drives a Hummer.
What’s gotten into you, old love?
Our midnight cyber-advances,
not enough to get me hard time,
still leave me feeling criminal.
Impotent, Indicted.