Vermont
The Landing
The river bears no reflection in a first winter frost
Following a midnight flash of magnificence.
Wandering along the surface ripple
Buying time, I am lost in the disconnect
Between water and cloud.
A soothing hush casts shadows
Of moonlight on the rage of my thoughts—
Hidden, private, mine.
Once, this ship cruised to new kingdoms
Balanced on a thread of reason
Fighting the tempest waves of memories.
Now, wedged among fantastic creatures,
A reality more obscene than anything imagined,
Carried in a delicious calm of discovery
I await the tide, here, in this place,
Where the ghosts haunt the landing, still.
Brussels.
Solstice Moon
—For Stuart Scheingold, departed June 24, 2010
Buzzing incandescent fireflies
Juxtaposed over powder blue iridescent skies
A quasi pointillist improvisation
Etched in a moment, fleeting
Undisturbed by the spectator, most pleased.
Billowing cotton cumuli
Sweep the sweet scent of tired leaves
Fragrantly exhaling sighs in synchronized pirouettes
Wisp suggestively a baited breath
Drawing out a smile from beneath the day.
A most philanderous dusk toys with the senses
Ardently injecting beauty into each inch of air
In balmy beams of Venetian blonde moonlight
The since forgotten season spreads infectiously
Boldly summoning high spirits and the audacity of bliss.
The night, for an instant, singularly beautiful and heavily disquieting.
On the A Train
Shaeffer Sentinel ballpoint click-top pen and spiral-bound index cards
In his left shirt pocket always
Sonny rides the subway
Poetry in motion looks like mad scribbling
Resistant to track litter and bustle
Rocking and jerking the poet
Who occasionally is lost for words
Even here, and draws instead
Carefully selecting sides, lined or blank
Much like our faces now
Venue to the occasional exercises in penmanship.
Palindromes in sequitur
Sonny’s stuck on the song of grammar and syntax
A linguistical trance from which he exits only briefly
—Little Honey, do you know this one?
Swept off my seat, my feet, and this train,
Witness myself pirouetting through fields of funny words
Gleefully guided by the poet turned illusionist
Maintaining the guise past the crack-turned-methadone heads
Swaying on the 14th street platform at night
I am nine, madly in love with Sonny The Magician
Stealing his notes like a kiss
Returning them ashamed but unremorseful.
Riding the bus, I am not nine now yet still
Rustle through pockets for a click-top ghost
I love the man, not Sonny, and
Plant kisses all over his face
Comb his silver loopy hair binding
Disappearing indexed memories beneath.
He too loves me, now especially for my thievery.
Now
Accessory to my rebellion
We devised special knocks and pass codes
KaMaNa and the answer to “Who?”
At the door: “C’est moi, le Poisson Rouge”
The finest French you’d ever spoken
Remnants from a past life of a family man
When you loved her, and sang the praises
Of her Crème Caramel – Best Flan in Town!
Reassuring, you said
Sometimes daughters fail, but
“I still love you”
On the street, the TV’s corpse lay shattered
Victim of gravity from the fifth floor window’s rage
Remnants from a hidden angry monster kept chained
When you loved me, and boasted with pride
Of surmised talents, I misused and abused.
Thinking I understood
But knew nothing about us, and
Found myself desperate to heal your wounds
To console my own, but
Found only the Poet’s Plague, chronivorous,
Verbivorous, and most egregiously
Thief of what was only briefly mine
You.
Grateful for so many names,
You call me Little Honey still
A warm embrace that glossies my eyes, and
Forces thoughts of “Justice” and “Fairness”
Into banishment as I bite my lip fiercely
To offset the ache swelling within
A great smoke and mirror show
Projecting strength I do not possess.
I may be sad remembering breakfastDiscussions of punctuation identitiesWith the ring of your laugh in my ear
Comforting like the crakle of the kitchen radio.
Spring Fever
There’s a magic dance
On this shuttle bullet
Through the bowels of the noise
All parts equally displaced
Exit stage right, well… occasionally left
Platforms of an urban safari
The wildness of which sits
Beside me, bopping rhythmically
Hypnotized by the beauty of my mane.
Marked Progress
It is possible, I suppose, that I was never so;
Though definite, that I am now.
Left here thusly, with uncried tears like shards in my hand,
Too broken to notice the crunch.
Singularly faulted lines, maimed, gorged, and steaming
—Stretch marks on my existence, torn past my tolerance.
Inside, the boiling emptiness leaks occasionally through a stare
caught still in a snapshot of happiness.
That look, so dark.
The world, noisy and stiff again,
Cracks deeper with every movement
Escalating the frigid dunes of my mind.
Frightened: a coward, still.
Suburbia
Maimón
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