About waiting

I'm waiting in the airport for you.

I went and ate oysters and listened to people read poetry behind a bar and I sat next to the train tracks in the gentle rain and almost said nothing.

I laid down on the chaise lounges in the departures area.

There's jazzy Christmas music playing still.

I feel really excited to see you but I feel empty.

The emptiness I feel is so unrelated to you.

All of the bathrooms have been closed for cleaning for 45 minutes.

I don't know if we will have enough quarters to pay for parking

I liked a lot of heard words today.

I liked the rain near the tracks.

I don't like driving in the rain.

I don't think I will talk to you for at least two more years, if ever.

I don't care if it's a few years or if it's never.

There are only cops here, and me.

I think sometimes we rehearse things and they evaporate when we're faced with the opportunity to go there.

 I guess
  Don't feel sorry for us anymore 

a song for love in the new year

songs with women's names
the number 14
the light of the moon, near full
I avoid it!
 I don't avoid it
I avoid the urge to
my ring slipping round my finger,
  maria        laura        marlene

a train   choos

   10:53 pm, tomorrow
(this time of year, the nights fall longer)
so let your beard grow round your neck
and your torso
and past your new boots
and down my throat

make me toast

        read your fortune!
        little new-year son

I always have liked
the german pronunciation
for marlene

the soft lilt,
the forgiving!
                         (do you remember proclaiming
                           that you'd never love someone
                           that you'd never love someone explaining
                           that you'd never truly love someone
                              who's never caught exclaiming)

  oh, me!


       hello, little new-year babe
        hellow, last smoke of smokes
       hello, pretty whistle
     of pretty, nearby train
        hello, sleeping city-that-won't
                                        the oh-she-won't-quit place

                               dreamy babe,
                              I've never said this to anything
                            I've never been that guy
                              But I wanna die in You

      and, therefore
    thereby

    tinkle
         tinkle
               tinkle
                      little bell, ring
                                           ring
                                               ring in me
whistle past our bedscapes

I don't know you, let's hold hands
jump on a train
bergman, tarkovsky
popmusic
I'm young
victorian window display
person of the people
pidjin tongue
crescent moon
crescent city
dance to your neighbor's motown
sweeping glass off your bed
barracade your door
forget your keys
pockmarked
greasehair
mosquito bites
drowning cicadas
saving a cicada from drowning in the fountain with a discarded sandal
cicada makes a dive at my face
spilling a cocktail on my face
carry your groceries
climb through your window
fix a wound
sour shirt
fickle
ice cream
kissing
driving
sob
wash your pants
wash your cellphone in your pants
foodstamps
cheesestamps
grungey
asthma
little roach
singing
bulbous
hacking
husky
river bend
orange porchlights
magazine street
kitten
blue eyes
shower
sit on my face
beignets
dogfood
bruises
hydrogen peroxide
late for work
call me

why not

I'm going to write a story called, "I forgot where you said you were from"
it'll be a sort of relationship, subtle-drama
the kind where nothing happens
I came outside without any pants on
to think about it
and to hear the thunder
and my glasses fogged up immediately
but the storm was over, of course


I can hear an argument across the street
a guy is saying to another, You don't have any friends. Doesn't it bother you that you don't have any friends?
he's saying, No one likes you! You're a fucking asshole!
I can hear a train whistle somewhere close by.
when I lived in Portland, I had one friend
his name is George
he thought writing poetry and writing fiction was a waste of time.
reading it, too.
he told me that he'd had a friend,
back when he had friends
who had promised herself that she'd never
live in a place
that didn't have a clawfoot tub
and she'd never live in a place
where she couldn't hear trains running by.
I thought then, as I do now
that these are good rules
but I haven't been able to live by them
until now.
now I live there.

I'm going to get up early and I'm going to write a story
because I can't think of a reason
why I shouldn't

hello, beetle (hello, hello)

how are you today? are you walking on my sleepingbag? Well! And is that man outside chopping away the palm to rid of it a wasp's nest? How many angry wasps, now? At least he felt badly about it. I had to put on some shoes for his benefit. Wishing I wasn't the only one, now. Where are you? How is that voice of yours? Mine is low and cathartic. Which isn't a problem. Imagining summer squashes cooked in butter. Imagining you & I, in butter. My bruised arm, permission to leave the desert. How is summer anywhere? Is it turned to fall, yet? Where are my cousins & friends? Should I go ahead and look for them? Where's my sweet dog? Is she wondering after me? What about the rush of a train just going by? The fear of the rails beneath, the seismic moans into me? The wet earth? The hard, brown clay? My own moon away? And the pools, the soft rocks and the blisters caused only by shoes. Shoeless, maybe a wasp underfoot could be, or a snake, or a tarantula ant. The little bloods of fire ant. My body wants me to fill it. I feel the same. I suppose rescue is the only word. But I need nothing, just a cloud to float me away. The night is warm but the day is here, & earthly pungent.