January Letters 2012. 2.0

(Update features an audio Po from the Terrible Now and recorded on Singing Mr. Cedric ,  few selections from the latest book Sometimes Grief-barks up the wrong tree & some new work  from 2012)

The Silence

Audio link directly below in purple/live-

The Silence

 The Silence is perfect

if only you will not

disturb it.

The Silence has all

of the answers for you

if you can serve

and endure it.

Silence allows time

to breathe in its own voice

not yours

for a change.

Silence transcends

all the symbols and conventions

of communication wordlessly.

Silence untangles busy signals

and snarled lines.

In short ?

Silence will straighten your twisted ass out.

There is strength, beauty and truth

contained in the Silence.

And yes

You may have some

if you are strong enough

to ride beside shotgun with silence

and keep your mouth shut.

                                                                                                                 From The Terrible Now 2009

 *

You on Ice

 

So I’m sitting out in the garage again

having another nervous breakdown

a January Corporate Gladiator Playoff Sunday afternoon.

and it’s all pretty boring

and there is sound of dripping icicles

from the roof that has these dagger like

razor teeth grinning at your emotional

illness and sweating drop after drop

of Crocodile tears that nobody is buying.

 

So I’m sitting out in the garage again

having that same nervous break down

again.….GD it

using the snow banks outside the side door

as beer refrigerators. Each tall neck bottle

loaded in a snow cone slot like a 12 ounce

ordinance on ice.

 

So I’m stilling out in the garage again

trying to outrun another nervous breakdown

by retrieving and detonating the barley grenade

while the snow clings like white wire filings

of cotton to the neck on the bottle.

 

That’s the good thing about

having another nervous breakdown

while sitting out in the garage on

a January Corporate Gladiator Playoff Sunday afternoon.

 

No need to buy ice to keep the beer frosty.

Everything thing is plenty cold as it turns out

 

And you too.

 

You on Ice.

From Sometime Grief- 2011

*

Heart Attack Snow

 Shovel by shovel

load after load

that heavy white

icy mush

adds up

and then one morning

you take another scoop

to drop at the curb

and the weight just

tips the scales

to unbalance

between what you thought you could still do

and just what that thought is going to cost you.

 

So like a switch with a short

or light bulb whose time

has come to black out.

 

You do.

Your current over-amps

that runs your engine

clogs, gags

and down you go into the snow

then somebody shovels you up

and drops you at the curb.

 

 

*

Strange Winter

 

These long dry days

when pavement yawns bare gray

grass sleeps brown

and light shivers lost

without the blanket

of snow to surround..

 

So very quickly January

settles into herself

without memory’s delay

the novelty of newness

wearing thinner

every day.

 

Not a second thought

escapes here to slip away

nowhere goes the tongue

explaining nothing further

other than the day to day.

 

In this strangest Winter

forecasters scramble to explain

the lack of punch in the season

the vacant numbness

in practiced silence

to justify and ordain.

 

So stillborn

time seems

when a lull

in the beginning

seems to betray

what you know is coming

now to you any day.

In this the Strangest of Winters.

Uncollected   1.2012

*

Mixed Signals

 Encased

Inside

the very center of a

January icicle night

with all the colors

running silent

screaming black and white

and the top of the tip

of the tongue’s pigment.

 

Encased

Inside

the very center of a

January icicle night

He ran from the room

like an errant fire engine

in his eyes was the lighthouse

on fire while a confused group

of hastily summoned volunteers

wondered what the next best course

of action might be

either make a run to connect hoses

or watch out for the jagged rocks

off the shore line shrouded in icy fog

or just shrug and leave quietly

by the clearly illuminated fire exits.

 

But instead

they sat arrested by him

in his wake

his warning

his smoke

while wondering

what could be next for all them

Encased

Inside

the very center

of a January Icicle Night.

 

From Sometime Grief-       12/11

*

 Get that Poem…

Written in the Coal Yard 102 1st Ave. between 6 & 7th St. East Village NYC Sunday Night 12/11/11

Listen there you

and better listen good

get the poem off your chest already

and then

take that crestfallen chin

with you.

 

You really want it

to continue to dig

a hole in you ?

Better face it at last.

Nothing you write really matters here

so it’s really time to try to forget it…

Write it down and then burn it.

 

If it was all just another

of your ill-advised creations

of the heart

then reconcile

file

and

at least try

to resist your insistence upon remembering

anything more about all this….

 

But you at least took your lumps

and I mean did your time

in payback zone all alone.

 

Some things I suppose

you could have said better

what rage you deferred

was perhaps at first what you should have thought better of…

or maybe your second guess was just the worst.

 

So now in this place past the end

you still feel that you would rather have had

it all done to you

than do the same hardness to another.

 

So they get the brake

They get another pass

But just how long

In their lives

Do you think that’s

Gonna last ?

 

But at least for tonight

and I mean right now

just for once

you can walk just right around the corner here

and get that poem off your chest

and take your skinny ass and crestfallen chin

with you.

Uncollected  12/2011

 

*

The Sure Thing in the Missing Link

 

There isn’t any guarantee seeded somewhere on Dawn

Being anywhere that would constitute your deposit

Being returned intact, in kind, or full payment

Not expressly assured.

Stop by the emotional Quikfill

And tank up

 

It’s an aggression in its most elegant form

After all

These systems exist in this place

Only on the back of eyelids

Where the color reflected in

A translucent swirl twists question marks

Inside the skin of a stray soap bubble.

 

There is just so much

A limited amount really

Of energy available

In dependable nervous breakdowns

To gauge the impression

One leaves

 

But there would appear

This very, very thin line

Were you leave yourself

too vulnerable in the end

Appearing as a human being

Where all your faults?

Are just great entertainment

 

It is merely perception after all.

You could always almost put your finger on it.

 

But they can’t.

Not anymore.

From Sometimes Grief-

*

January Letters 2012

 

So soon the light struggles to return

to fill the new year wolf ticket sky

in a lingering tentative twilight

towards some vague promise of Spring

merely a rumor of illumination

left in a hand written note

taped to a bus shelter on the corner

of 33^rd St.. and Lexington

asking you in rhyme by name

 

What did all the years mean…..   …… ?

 

I recall writing those January letters

imploring you to reconsider

that annual ritual of tossing

the poet out of your life.

 

Now as you have finally succeed

you still read in stubborn justification

safe in the distance from these words afar

telling you exactly

what you never had the heart

to tell me

to my face.

 

Mute the voice

Blind the eye

drain the last pool

of affection dry.

 

What is written here now

has a place beyond words

where language is the

shallowest of vehicles

for sequestered emotions

scattered to the four corners

of isolation, exile

estrangement and banishment.

 

Distance now is the key

after you have left another

in so very deep

that the hope of a journey back

to all the lost moments are everything

that you can no longer keep.

 Uncollected 1/2012

*