By any other name, old under new over these layered spasms could be a lover’s ancestor in throes of it. The lover did not inherit that passion. It could be learned. Or unlearned. No. I cannot go back. I can repurpose desire into energy to stay awake overnight for this city’s sake. But shadow limbs [...]
Archive for November, 2009
Palimpsest
Posted: November 25, 2009 by Arambler in Overnight PoemsTags: palimpsest, passion, Poetry
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After Hours
Posted: November 24, 2009 by Arambler in Night PoemsTags: Poetry, shelter, tent, Third Avenue Bridge
It’s tension. This talk of the temporary. No shelter— but a stretch to represent. I would not live in a tent. To go to parties means meeting a man who says: “Let’s light up the Third Avenue Bridge.” Not burn it down. That’s a different party on a different night. Because the darkness can be [...]
Lapsing into flaps to close a cardboard box, she slips a note in afterward the way she forgets she can dance without strings. The tension for the right arm varies from that of the knee. Thighs weigh more than you might imagine. Pulled out, she emerges naked and cut free of nerves before the flaps [...]
Gigantic Perspective
Posted: November 22, 2009 by Arambler in Civil Twilight or Dawn PoemsTags: pedestrian, Poetry, skyways
Skyways run between second floors in an irregular pattern she forgets to decode. But she believes she must duck when approaching beneath— her pedestrian movements can be so erratic, better not to risk it.
Then I Will (Day 2,518: Take 2)
Posted: November 21, 2009 by Arambler in Morning PoemsTags: artificial heat, definite articles, Poetry
Take away all definite articles overworn and shaped to fold as tightly as a cliché in a cheap plastic frame. Throw leftover scraps into a tipped over metal ash can before flames burn another year’s calendar beyond recognition. Steal another man’s thought after an October snow leaves a bouquet of unlabeled white traces and artificial [...]
Sobriety Haiku
Posted: November 19, 2009 by Arambler in Morning PoemsTags: haiku, sobriety birthday
by Tom Altenhoff Seven years, so soon? A veil, a lifetime ago And now clarity.
Threshold
Posted: November 18, 2009 by Arambler in Overnight PoemsTags: fear, Poetry, spider, up the wall
I let the spider go. If the cat gets it, that’s his business. I’m employed by other fears—larger, invisible, transportable up the bedroom wall by other means.
Talking to the Streets
Posted: November 17, 2009 by Arambler in Civil Twilight or Dawn PoemsTags: crack in sidewalk, gutter, Poetry, street, superstition
To avoid loose structure, she steps around the porous stretches of your concrete skin. Call it superstition—don’t step on the crack in any sidewalk. She calls it the wise way to construct a commitment from you in a faithless world. If she believes you can hold her up, will she believe you will? Strike out [...]
How To Get Here
Posted: November 16, 2009 by Arambler in Morning PoemsTags: nostalgia, Poetry, seascape
If this moment respects its elders, if I honor the memory of a lover’s laugh, silence, topography of an old acrylic seascape painting gently against my fingertips— if I could be so expansive with what’s left inside—broken, scarred, intact—I might begin to understand how to drop this word nostalgia on its head and see it [...]
