I alone contain
the exploratory nature of youth,
who was held in the cradle of transistion,
bound only by the arms of the North Star.
Telescopes and towers were in my defense,
They helped me look to Big World for the unexplained
hues of hornet clay in monsoon,
of wet glass lights over orange highway.
I looked to the Moon, sister time clock,
water mover, Goddess advisor of Grandfather Earth,
keeping watch from her blue oceans
over the doings of Man.
I looked over the battlements,
to the edge of Woods,
and found it teeming with life,
who could not see me atop my fortress,
nor did they care. For they were jumping
from branches and scurrying under rocks,
preparing for the approaching storm.

The bums have ditched their Monopoly pieces,
Top Hats, Race Cars, and Dogs- spilling
into the murky depths of frozen Great Lake.
Tiny cast iron stars sink to the bottom,
winking farewell to the Eternal Pier.
A busted toll spills its coins onto the highway.
A lone figure moves lathargically, framed in purple sky
one square at a time, careful not to crack
against the solidified earth.
A baby is born, at once shocked into consciousness
realizing it has missed it's window of warmth.
From a vista through a screen,
a woman looks out over her yard,
to the treetops; a mushroom cloud looms.
All the statues of demi gods crumble, too.
Their worshippers see the insides-
more and more rock, dug by former slaves.
They turn their backs to the pinata,
as it’s candy is gobbled up by kids,
who scramble, laughing, possesed by the Holy Spirit.

If my cat had not been digruntled
over a messy litter box,
if I had just remembered to clean it
on the weekend, when I usually take the time,
if I had realized that her meowing
had a reason, (she was not standing near her bowl,
she was not standing there at all.)
if I had seen her looking to the filth,
then to me, to the filth, then to me,
if I had smelled the funk, rising
like stagnation from a backed-up sewer,
choking the charm and coziness
from the kitchen, invading the home,
if I had realized that toilets flush,
but litter stays put and ferments,
if I had contemplated the complex emotions
that a feline is capable of,
not the simplest of which is resentment,
I would not be here, at the Laundromat,
sitting atop the whirring, stirring machine,
soaping and boiling my down comforter.

I miss the sidewalks covered in mounds
of slick, clear, frost-spotted ice.
When every spout on the horizon
leaks a steam that hizzles toward the sky,
one places himself from one cocoon to the next,
shielding his tender flesh from the elements.
If one is wrapped well enough, and can venture
into the darkness on the coldest of nights,
his thoughts will be broken only by the groaning
and crunching of hardened snow beneath his feet,
and his comfort invaded only by the overlooked
crevices in his outer protection. There are times
when one is reluctant to even inhale, for the bitter air
is unsuitable for lungs, and the pads
of one’s shoes will soon succumb to the soil
upon which he walks, which is frozen
to such a degree that it seeks out warmth
in the things that come into contact with it.

I miss the abrupt changes in season
from lifeless, gray Winter into Spring,
where the smells of abundance peek
their furry heads out from holes, are squeezed
from the thawing ends of buds, and one is elated
at the mild climate and seemingly limitless
potential of a day. Then Spring evolves into Summer,
where one can roll on the floor, indoors or out,
and feel completely liberated to allow that
which lives out of his home, in. Summer then sees
grayer, turbulent days, in which he lowers
his head when walking into the wind. The street
is blown over with leaves, first red and orange,
then brown. They collect in piles under curbed cars,
and one turns into himself and is given time to introspect
on the elements which make up his life.

I miss these changes, these checkpoints of one’s
place in the year. I miss them because they do not occur
here. One’s week slips by like a movie he has slept through,
and he is left with no conscious groupings of time
that can be looked to in memory, and reflected upon.
Here there is no arresting smells that one discovers
after they have been hiding frozen for nearly a year,
smells that remind him of people he once new,
and places that seemed as if they would be frequented
until the end of his life. This is the dilemma
of a neutral climate, one that is mild for the majority
of the year. Conceptually, a place which sees no extreme
change in weather seems more conducive to joy.
But one may find in time, that once the thrill of sunny skies
wears off, one is left feeling disconnected from nature,
which makes itself known even in an urban environment,
if it is in a constant change of form and intensity.
If we wish to be in always in a state of self invesitgation
and rebirth, which, if not a part of, one’s ambitions might
atrophy, causing him to forget the small joys and curiosities
in nature, then we must submit ourselves to be commanded-
to a degree- by the seemingly mundane effects of changing seasons.

I would call her rubber legs.

Her call an undistinguishable mix between No and More.

If only the world were so amused by scraps of paper.

The house is empty the house is full, she knows nothing.

She is in the closet, waiting for the toilet to flush,

to go for a dip, splash the filthy water at the door.

When she turns her head until is touches her back, that is clean, no other.

She is on mental leave, watching movement in the yard.

At five, she will circle big cat legs, zig zagging

out of the way, to escape being crushed.

I would take the buds
if I wasn’t fueled by the dregs of blood
trying for progenesis, I mean telekenesis.
Suspended by flower alone,
she blows death wind over the valley,
a train stops at no port, but in the center
of a great state.
Shock beneath the sewers,
strange how the water tastes grey,
since land mass came into style.
Mammals skid to a stop,
on a dime store novella.
The man on the street with the most people
screams lines from a romance paperback,
change his material, change your life.
Literature in.
My books all have holes.
Termites in the walls.
Antsy in tus pantalones.
Fuck you gringo, don’t print what I say.
I’m leaving until Novembre,
to come back as a stranger.

Snapshots: “Record my body
the way it is tonight, so when decades
pass, and it has surrendered to
gravity and time, I can remember
that it was once tenacious and supple.
Gather in close and let us
rejoice at the failing of flesh.
We meet in these vessels and share words,
nourishing ourselves at the buffet
near the water’s edge. And now we
know that our passing is inevitable,
and in many ways easier to comprehend,
leafing through albums in retrospect.”