poetry — The Aurora Borealis

Insomniac Variations

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 17:36:18 +0000

The deathly quiet of sleeping people gives way To the morning air And my uncoagulated brain Floods my skull and thrums and coats my lungs And I breathe the vapor of my faculties On every atom of daylight

Then it is almost noon and steaming oats And dousing my senses in Sencha green Almost breakfast on Avenue J But skip the milk and hold the schmear

Then I whir with thoughts I forget

And night creeps up to me real quiet and slow Dead hour softens my sparsest wit Halts the cabs and the meetings And the truth and men and tomorrow And before I know it I am a beginning

For a time there is time, Yes, For a time.

#poetry

The Destroyer of Worlds - 1

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 13:27:49 +0000

The car is running, Mary Beth, The soot is coming, Throw the beans in the trunk, And leave the furs out front, And windows shut; Iodine; cigarette; No time to press, Our good doctor says Now we are become death, Come along, Mary Beth.

#poetry

Lovers

Sat, 03 Jul 2021 14:01:19 +0000

Lovers are blithe, and weary with joy, and poised by ease. Wear on their soul marks the years, the untiring years, And when the tireless tire Their lies are honeyed and giving and true, “For I grow old and stale and bored,” And all about them thins with wear, And all inside them cools with wear, And the thousandth smile stings of the first, And they’re tireless in their forgetful warmth.

This poem is a few years old, I stumbled across it in my old “lunch poems” folder.

#poetry

Of Myself

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 20:39:30 +0000

Now I am not alone, Just less, More abstract in mind, Less you or I than people, Fewer springs than seasons, Knowing less and being infinitely wiser.

The quiet desperation of my youth Watches the children From the balcony, laughing, And wonders if tomorrow arrives.

Now I wait for the prophecy of my memories To dissolve the brutal physicality of today.

#poetry

A Stroke During Rush Hour

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 22:25:27 +0000

The air is pale and worn

And lacking the essence of anything

But very modern and often brown

And public

And I wonder what I think about that Or if I do

I think about my skull and flail

That it is there and it is bone

And still the air does not care

About my skull

And I

Less alive today.

#poetry

I Grow Old

Tue, 15 Jun 2021 17:46:18 +0000

I grow old with the turn of a page

Learning the youth of other men

Who strained the virgin years

Of life untold

Never owing hope a second's worth

Of intermission.

To the virtues of tomorrow

I give nothing today

But all thy hours unclaimed

And by the circle I fly

But wherefore am I

And is it yesterday already?

I grow old.

I grow old…

#poetry

To Measure a Man

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 17:30:03 +0000

You presume to measure a Man by his lack,

By the creak of his will,

Well-starched, well-pressed,

And the girdle that binds his loins;

The life he spares

Through passions scarce,

And valve upon his brow;

You strive to know his worth

By the size of his hunger

And perpetual discontent.

There is no use for the fruit of man -

But the Heavens sallow on a clement day,

When seasons falter and shadows dim

For evergreen renouncement.

#poetry

A Quarter to 7

Sat, 05 Jun 2021 17:29:25 +0000

It’s a quarter to 7 and the draught runs cold,

I store my day on legal sheets,

Bide my time and count the words,

And count them with no small measure of contempt,

For they are not life and I am not dead,

Though minutes pass me by without a hitch

When daylight slithers under doors and onto wicks,

I store away my legal sheets,

And walk out the café between corner streets,

To dirty my lungs with city air,

And in a short while sit with a cheap Port

In a seedy bar known as Last Resort.

#poetry