March 2014

	March 2014 Sheets My Wurst Day In the Clutches Well Pruned Ashworth's Ash Your Smile in my Eyes Brownstone A Kiss in your Life Split Ends Ink	Sheets cover me with whispers from an endless dream. color me with the roses from a thousand setting suns. smother me with tongues that put my hungers to sleep. cover me we with painted skies soothe my poet’s heart. mend me with laughter in each crevice of my day. soothe me with a glistening that hums inside my skin.
My Wurst Day I am the age of my Grandfather, as I stood beside him at the sink… when I first watched him pee. It had to be a weekend. He was always at work. Grandma said he burned lead. I remember the dull silver splotches on his scuffed black bricks he called shoes. His penis seemed a gigantic floppy frank to the eyes of that child. A wurst of some kind, something like he made for breakfast, when out of bologna to fry, or pimento loaf that he ate with salted horns. He didn’t seem to mind my intrigue. Were my eyes double wides? Was my mouth agape of closed? Was I furtive or did I stare? He stood in his white tank top tee, stirring brush to mug to grizzled black beard, the Wilkinson blade, safetied’ down. I remember the rasp as he scraped his cheek, my beard never seemed to sound that way, like sand neath a chair tucked in. The floor was little hexagon tiles, black and white, endless as you sat there and counted, and we all counted… tiles, grey whiskers, inches, those timeless days.	In the Clutches How you doin? Been a good while. How’s Jaimie, Walt - the kids? ‘Holding my own Jim, you? The wife left you? Yikes that’s tough dude. You making out okay in the… you know? ‘Been dry, Benny, can’t lie. Holding my own.’ The pain okay? Ego? They lead the sermon without you since that Golgotha thing. ‘No worries Pete, holding my own.’ You need a boost man? I got some ‘Soul Cleanser’ from Smurf. The Hindu Kush is budding man. ‘I’m good Tommy. Holding my own.’	Well Pruned Late June. Chang-dong terriers whirling, whipping yips and piercing cries I opened the door to the furnace that is noon and Juan Carlos stands his straw hat in hand. ‘My name is Juan Carlos.’ the beats pass - nothing more in said. another beat… ‘Hola, my name is Scott, I said. “Hola Es-cott, I have come to trim your palm trees. You have not asked me, but they are in need. They are crying. May I help them?” I am intrigued. He is late 50s, deeply tanned, shy but certain smile. I can see his earnestness. I have to ask: ‘How long have they been crying Juan Carlos?’ He smiled softly, “From the moment I rang your bell Señor.“ My palms are not crying, and Juan Carlos is pleased, but he inferred as he left that my hedges seem very sad.
Ashworth's Ash Ashworth was a cyclone, a testes tempest in my life. He died last year… a stranger to me, a dear friend in my mind’s greatest hits. When I knew him he was bully, but only to us, his few friends. Somehow, in some way, I kept him mostly contained. Somehow in some way, I kept him sane, maybe alive in those days. Mike had forearms like Popeye and two chips on the shoulders of his heart. We Prommed once and we dated twins. I nearly threw him through a window when he pushed me that final, impossible nonce too far. He put on the blue and went off to fight flames, I got off on Higher Ed., tokes to parsecs and distant stars, to mitochondria, to Chi Squares and bodies Golgi, Closer to the Edge and the sirens of the Floyd. Ashworth was that rare raccoon, a machismo buffoon, a bluster of bravado yet generous to a fault. The china shops will miss him as will that me, myself, and that I.	Your Smile in my Eyes In the clench of southern sleep, hush puppies heavy on my eyes, o/~ Mine eyes have seen the glory, taking me dark… down. I found your hand in the void, your mischievous snark smirking at me. It seems that numbness could wait, you had an adventure in mind. I remember the scent of your sea, and short white pleated skirts breaking to shore. I remember satin and gulls crying as a girl with a mask sashayed hot - cold. I arose awake to dream us sitting at a stool high table, ravens in three pieced suits - strutting - plotting for you. I awoke with the kiss of your smile in my eyes.	Brownstone We took the 284 through Rome and Utica — did many prisoners wave? They sent us south at Schenectady. you could see the rides of their Christmas fête. YONKERS! Not long now.. to The City, not long to New York. Grand Central was both a hive of glass and granite, ceilings too high, a sudden rapid in the river, humanity raging on all sides.. There was an urge to fly, and a pressing to hunker down, we grinned wide - in anonymity. In the city… brownstones for blocks, buildings with eyes sandstone steps worn from years of hope, and ‘maybe next time’ leather, lids half mast on loop pull-shades behind the glass. Skip ropes and chalk, watchers and the watched, denizens, citizens, gropers, interlopers, grifters and dreamers, tough bundles, codgers, cellmates of the city, each with a story to tell. The brownstones watch and the there’s an urban harmony, a composition of mica and sweat, of anything is possible, of “What the &%**’$#… You looking at me?” Starter homes for the pioneers, like me.
A Kiss if your Life approaching me as a bright sweet promise a pressure of great stillness, moist savory anticipation, heat increasing cheeks flush cells enlightened - blinking in time to the pulse of your inner seas. eyes falling cobalt to dark roast pools lips pliant, tingling as they thicken, blush and brushing as satin beneath silk, clinging - a glistening, sliding in luxurious tension a delicious density, a moment in tears, lingering. pillows of sense collide gently, fully, explosions releasing each response perfect, insistence building… more pressure, eager - nibbling firm edges, darting tongues lapping hot salves of their mind loins reduced to stutters, the craving to be as this kiss - lost grinding in a cavern of stars, a delicious envelope of membranes paused, poised in disbelief, a kiss of your life stirred by collisions of cellular WOW.	Split Ends Who will count the rings in my tree when I forget how old I am? Who will polish my silver and brass when my mind is too tarnished to care? Who will watch my ancestry when no one survives me and no one is there? My genome is quiescent, a thud, a placid dead end. I’ve photos, lineage, and stories, alas no blood, no tongue to keep them alive Sorry Edna, Sarah and Hattie. Sorry Nate, Desolate Baker, My apology Steigers, this root it seems was a runt of the tree.	Ink Ink enchants me with its secrets the mystery it contains… the blood, the joy, the wist not yet spilled upon the page. What amazing color may come in black scrawls, great harvests of light may spill from a nib’s strokes of indigo onto Ivory rag #4, to onion skin, to parchment, from the malachite veins of engravers that make my currency. Ink speaks our freedoms, and explains our tyrannies, speaks every slant of political rant, and stirs us to laugh in satirical cartoons. Inks weave magic down rabbit holes, they verse our constitutions, pour love letters from our smitten. Countries rise from its manifestos, slaves are freed with its signed proclamations. Ink paints mural neath our skin, and tears truth from the myths of delusion. Ink enchants me with its secrets, and endless fount it contains. I dip my quill into the well never knowing what gifts will come out, nor the anticipation my instrument may hold.