Once her hand hits

A glow appears                                 

behind her neighbors’ peepholes.     

Once she sits at the table,

she won’t be seen.

The beautiful fairy behind closed doors won’t care

that someone snatched her cart

to get ahold of the dime.

 

 

***

It was my grandma

Nobody ever embraced me like she did

Breathtaking bear hugs

Sure, now I know it too

She drank a lot

And would hit my mom

And there was no one to hug at home

But then, I didn’t mind her limp hair

And her absent gaze, half-crazy

that of an animal hunted to death

I didn’t even notice how much her breath smelled,

honest,

when we danced together

to old crackling waltz records

and she would tell me,

“You’re a real lady.”

 

 

Chicken

He stood over his wife

explaining gruffly

how she’d broken her leg.

 

Someone went to call the ambulance.

Nothing more was to be done.

He could carry on

with his musings.

There was rusty water leaking

out of the faucet at the time

and it was really getting to him.

 

Even then

they no longer looked at each other.

 

She limped long after that

and with weather changes

her leg would hurt.

He was forced to go about the house

on snooping missions alone.

 

It’s important to know

whether retail chicken

is frozen.

 

 

***

The discovery that the Earth is round

and orbits the Sun

didn’t make the world any easier.

The reassurance that one day

I might understand everything

Is not an answer.

The powerlessness and longing for something

I don’t know.

And the feeling

that if I travel the world

and stare myself into the darkness

I’ll feel

it passing me by...

 

 

 

***

Perhaps there are times when you feel

like before you were born.

Darkness,

continuous silence,

you,

and someone more.

You will search for him for the rest of your life.

 

 

***

Into the white void

the head tilted just a tiny bit

a moment’s hesitation

Fog is a feeling

but whose

And in the soul’s darkest nook

a flash of hope.

That burden.

Fog is our state of mind.

 

 

***

someday, that feeling of yours

of coexistence with entirety will return.

I don’t get why you’re so afraid

that it won’t.

So stop worrying, alright? And get a move on.
The sink’s full of dirty dishes. Someone has got to wash them.     

 

 

Alone in Arles

Your room is empty all that yellowness

is mocking my pain

You’re predictable exact beautiful and

most of all somewhere else From now on always somewhere else than me

It’s a hard life with reed shaken in the wind

by misgivings and I am

I creep you out you think that I’ve gone crazy no

not yet Paul not yet

I can’t stand, no, I can’t stand any more loneliness 

I fear myself and everything I could do

what won’t be I’ve got so little time

so little time and so much passion in me No it’s not

anger Why can’t you just

see How come you didn’t know as soon as

we’re apart we’re lost and

say what you will Death is lurking behind my eyes

Yours is clawing out too And there’s no way you can escape her All

those exotic islands you vanish off to

they’re too close too close Paul

Together we could do everything Apart we won’t survive

And your feigned calm Your patronizing arrogance

Won’t change a thing Off you go then

 

 

The Old Widow

I don’t write you letters anymore.

You used to have your mail

stuck on our fridge anyhow.

Why cry over spilt milk...                  

You are with me                                                                                                          

even when I’m straightening

a crooked

painting.

I’ve long since stopped being naive.

I no longer look up to the sky,

I no longer decode allegories,

I no longer comfort myself.

 

I don’t send you messages.

Why, anyway...

The chair facing me

at our rickety table

is not empty.

There are still brown stains  

of spilt coffee

on your side.