Afternoon Poems

Lost & Found Summer

/ Arambler / 2 Comments

I look for you
everywhere—beneath grates
and cellar doors
that open onto city sidewalks.

On the Brooklyn Bridge
pedestrian ramp
next to a woman selling
sliced mango.

In the Fulton Street subway station.
Behind that window
covered by Banksy’s (or Mr. Brainwash’s)
“Love is the Answer” Einstein.

In the Hudson, over the underpass,
inside the fermented
raspberry smoothie bottle
before it explodes.

An instant murder scene
impersonation stains
a white room
in the Lexington Hotel.

We lose an old friend
to a heart attack in July,
find each other
at his funeral after 31 years.

Maybe you didn’t want
to be found. Maybe I should be losing

myself in Grand Central
sky constellations instead.

Going Direct

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I am a tale
of two cities

ping ponging east
to north midwest
and repeat

the net getting
tangled and slack

big to minnie
no I won’t say it

pomme
there I did

Atlantic Ocean
estuarial to Mississippi

River and falls and lots of lakes
the Spuyten Duyvil
and Minnehaha creeks

four seasons
some longer than others
much longer

so cold so hot so pretty
in October

First Avenue
to the Bowery Ballroom

no more CBGB
no more Uptown Bar

no more every night
with smokes and shots

Walker Whitney
MIA MoMA Met

Central Park
Cedar Lake Trail

High Line
skyway skyway skyway

best of worst of
in a continuous loop
blurs the distinction

Loring Park
Kingsbridge the Bronx
Uptown the Upper West Side

home home
I say it twice

in two different time zones
to mark my place

27 August 2015

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I fly to LaGuardia
not Newark
because

even after all these years
since you left New Jersey
when you could no longer speak
or navigate your way
to the correct exit

and three years
since you left
the world altogether

I could not bear to walk past that spot
just beyond security
where you used to wait
for me—tears in your eyes,
mine too.

LaGuardia
not Newark
because

I won’t choke
on memories
through Queens
to Manhattan
or the Bronx.

Proteus (Old Man of the Sea)

/ Arambler / 1 Comment

“I love my free spirit.
I trust my creative power.
I generate the wind beneath my wings
and enjoy the journey.”
—Michael Nash Mantra

Since you died three years ago,
whenever I fly
I find you
in the clouds.

On this date, you have come to me
as a wave breaking
against a jetty
in Oak Bluffs,

as a young fox
darting along a beach road
on the farthest tip
of Cape Cod at dawn.

As I board another plane
bound for New York,
I wonder what form
you’ll assume this year.

Gulls don’t
get so high.

You might wait till I land.
The wrong season
for a Sandy Hook harbor seal
haul out.

No, something will soar
overhead if I can be
patient, still
as the Palisades.

Anything with wings, Dad.
Show me anything with wings.

Why

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because
Minnesota boys

the first cool night in late August
and a blanket
pulled off the shelf

because
the Mississippi
any time of day or season

because
First Avenue
with its ceiling replaced

because
winter windchill
bragging rights

the first warm day
in April
maybe it’s May maybe June

because
Loring Park
Armajani’s Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge

John Ashbery
in both directions

because
sculptures by
Noguchi Shea Serra

Lake of the Isles
Cedar Lake Trail
Minnehaha Creek

because
the C.C.

because
Minnesota boys

The Last Time We See Each Other in the 20th Century

/ Arambler / 3 Comments

As we kiss good-bye
in the middle of a Brooklyn street,
you whisper:

“Sleep with whomever you want.
Just don’t hold hands.”

For 31 years,
virgin palms press
against swinging doors,

against each other
in desperate agnostic prayer.

I hug other mourners
inside a church basement
when one of us leaves too soon.

I hear my name
expertly delivered
in a voice no one can touch.

I turn around
to face you—
my hands free.

In Search of the Lost Art

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“A writer is essentially a spy. . . .
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.”
—Anne Sexton (from “The Black Art”)

When we were lovers,
I didn’t know how
to wear lipstick.

When we were lovers,
we built and broke
our own code.

The Def Leppard
drummer still
used both hands.

Orwell’s novel
did not come true.
Ronald Reagan was president.

When we were lovers,
I had all the licenses
I would ever get—none.

When we were lovers,
you were thick,
I was snug.

We had no world
wide web. MTV was born.
Mark Zuckerberg, not yet.

We didn’t need replacements. Heard music
beneath stars, discovered our bodies’ perfect cadence
in a station wagon way-back.

When we were lovers,
house alarms went off
spontaneously.

When we were lovers,
eating ice cream was erotic—
didn’t give me stomach aches yet.

One bath almost shared.
One shower together
after three years of waiting.

We got locked inside a courtyard
outside a Brooklyn brownstone
and didn’t care.

When we were lovers,
a waft of ghostly smoke
occasionally hovered over the river.

When we were lovers,
we fought as intensely.
Almost.

We could reignite
as soon as one of us got off a plane
at the airport gate.

Thornton Pool had a high dive.
I belly-flopped off it.
You watched a swan glide down.

When we were lovers,
you would drive me home
at daybreak.

When we were lovers,
time stood still
but not for long enough.

When we were lovers,
we couldn’t keep our hands
off each other.

One letter got lost
for months.
Our timing was off.

Before 1950, making love
to one another could happen
through the mail without touching.

When we were lovers, we didn’t know how
three decades later we might submerge ourselves
in deep water to resuscitate the lost art.

Lean into August

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A red rake
propped against a poplar
glows in the late afternoon sun.

The red door
remains shut.
She waits outside. Not ready

to consider
the fallen. One night
it will happen. The door

will open.
He will extend a hand
to offer her

a pair of love-worn
leather ballet slippers
in her size.

Last Word

/ Arambler / 2 Comments

“I was much too far out all my life.”
—Stevie Smith
(from “Not Waving but Drowning”)

She works the last
word, worrying it
with her tongue
against the roof
of her mouth.
One more suck, then spits

it out. Chops
it up with a cleaver. Sprinkles
the remains into a manila envelope. Seals
it. Licks

a billion stamps
to stick in a line
on the outside. Mails
it to the moon.

Let it be, please,
let it be
moon.

Let Us Go Then

/ Arambler / 2 Comments

Objects:
Our dead friend
moves our limbs, our mouths,
our lids, our hearts.
Marionettes and
so much more.
He releases our strings
simultaneously. Knows
it’s futile to fight the laws
of physics
even from his side.

Subjects:
Despite the forecast,
rain begins to slap
awake an etherized sky.
Our skin protects
those young spies
dressed in our eyes
testing our voices
as they prepare
to go.

You and I—
none of anyone else’s
goddamn business.
Never mind the mermaids,
we’ve gotten so far
beyond the bath.

Note: partially inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”