--IT’S TOUGH TO HOLD YOUR BREATH THIS LONG

…Okay, so I’m off to Reno and then Sin City.

…Before I go, here are some things I wrote recently…

 Abracadabra

The man on the bus

Keeps staring at me from his seat up front

Conspicuously turned around

No one else notices

It’s a vehicle filled with ghosts and stooges

All of us forgeries

This guy has problems

Let him have them

I stare out a dirty window at a city steaming in sunshine

After an earlier thunder storm

Diamonds in the asphalt glittering

Wisps of vapor snaking away like anorexic genies

That’s how my life is sometimes

A slow smolder

All the ancient stuff igniting while I

Try telling myself it was an aberration

Or I’m just exaggerating

It wasn’t that bad

Couldn’t have been

No way

Not in a million years

But I’m on my way to see you

And that’s what counts

You with your open arms

And ready ear

You who’s seen every scar

Even my hidden heart scars

As we round 82^nd street

I look up front

But the guy is gone

Maybe he was never there to begin with

Maybe I can finally let go of the baggage

Stare it down

Blink it away

Abracadabra

Sure enough

Look

There you are

On the corner waving

As if I’m home from some war

And I’m the only person you want to see at this moment

What a feeling that is

Like being lifted on shoulders and carried triumphantly

Through a cheering crowd

Pardoned from shame

As free as

Air

Taffy Hearts

After the fight,

we share the last Jolly Rancher,

grape-flavored or cherry,

who cares?

It’s the funniest thing in the world,

drooling purple saliva everywhere,

though anyone else would think us sick.

When you say, “We could make a jump rope out of our spit,”

we laugh like drunks

till our ribs ache

and the world evaporates.

Near dawn we’re onto taffy,

the kind of saltwater stuff you get down the shore

that’s like chewing through a picket fence.

You take a long string of it out of your mouth and spell something on my back.

“Guess what it is?”

“How the hell would I know?”

But I do know—

It’s a lopsided heart big enough for our initials and a plus sign

in between.

  

Winter Melon Soup

I have no fire escape

Or that winter melon soup

You used to make when we were young and poor

A bed without box springs our best friend

No time keeper

Or score keeper

Just the Ukrainian couple in 14 B

Stabbing broom handles against their floor

Whenever we’d hit fever pitch lovemaking

And afterward you’d cackled while I inhaled your sweat

Getting higher than Trump Tower

I’ve heard 99 Decision Street has a different name now

But otherwise it’s all the same without us

There are worse things

There are always worse things of course

And a boy grown into a man should know better

Than to second guess and wish

But where I am now

There are no cabs snagging the street below

No rusty water needing to be boiled pure

No annoyed Ukrainians

It’s not even cold in frigid winter

There are indoor outdoor pools

A closet as big as our entire apartment

Bedrooms for the dogs

The air is clear and clean

And I’m living like a lonely king

At the top of a stucco mountain

So I tell the servants

To bring me my things, all of them,

Line them up in rows

And go

No one needs to see this but me

The way it all smolders and burns when lit

Vanity and insanity

Riches turned to soot

Freedom listing with the ash

Leaving me with nothing

But sweet liberty

And a ticket back to

The man I once was

Okay All Right

Hey you

Chubby ballerina hanging from a bouncy seat

In my office doorway

Where did you go?

Because I’m not sure I know you as this woman

Kissing him

Snuggling him

Giggling so differently from my little girl

Oh I know I’m supposed to

Let go 

Murder my darlings as they say in the craft

But I wasn’t prepared for this

You with a man who doesn’t understand how lucky he is

Who has no passion for anything

Not even you

Okay all right

I’ll just take the advice your mother gave

Before she passed

She said

Every cloud is an elephant or mouse

Depending upon your angle in the grass

Doesn’t that sound just like her?

Are you there?

Oh you’re not

Okay all right

You’ve got my number

You know where I live

I’ve got all the time in the world for you

Always have

Just say when

 It Wasn’t Supposed To Be This Way

My mouse pad is torn again

And I’m running out of room

For all the ideas that were right on the tip of my tongue

Other people are geniuses

I’m just a crypt keeper

In a one room walk up

Trying to hold my breath

The last thing you said was

Love isn’t a spaghetti western

Just like that

Lips pursed

The last straw

And I wish now I’d never laughed

I still have your number

And the new one I convinced Courtney to give me

They burn a wide hole

The smoke makes it hard to see or breathe

I never meant to write one more poem about

Missing you

But even the pain of doing so

Is more pleasure than I’ve had in weeks

Who needs a mouse pad anyway

There are photos on my phone

Daggers I can stab myself with

A video of you drunk and giggling in Cabo

All those fish in the sea behind you

Hidden by a sky blue blanket

Around midnight my cell rings

Your face on the screen

My favorite pic

Me saying Hey there

The mirage

If it is a mirage at all

Laughing at me till dawn

Cackling like an unforgiving jackal