Friday, March 25, 2016

Rocky Neck


art plied honestly
in sweat and heat
hard wrought
beside the sun-kissed lobstermen
waving gracefully
to rough locals
and soft tourists

where joyous newlyweds
sketch their own future
panel by panel

muck deep
in tiny horseshoe crabs
scrambling in low tide pools
away from baby girls

where dogs swim
beside the private beaches
and the rich sands
are slick
with stubborn seaweed carpets

let’s be worthy of this place,
may we have the good sense
to live lives
as beautiful as this



Saturday, March 19, 2016

At Forest Hills


feel the ghost rain
on the early evening
carried
on the bleacher seat breeze

secret smokes
—a one-hitter pulled from a bra
private celebrations
thousands of times over
as each chord
strikes its own symphony

May we age gracefully
with fire and noise.
May we all breathe in
the blue sultry night
and feast on May twilight
until we die. 


Saturday, March 12, 2016

Breeze Damage


much more trouble
than tussled hair
or the dust void
on the floor
from what’s missing there

an uprooted mudline
is this purgatory’s border
a ruined life’s chaos
keeps its own
kind of order

there’s no engineer
to blame,
no liable claim
moneyed salvation
is the flip side of nature,
and a zero-sum game

those forces that
greened the grass
and churned the sea
gladly unglued it all
for you and me

we’ll watch it
powerlessly
and let it be


Saturday, March 5, 2016

Nightburst


a random burst
like a powder cloud
ignited mid air
flowers its fire
in the Queens night

people file out
onto the heated summer streets
among the blazing
night lights
and screaming sirens

silhouettes hum
in their beautiful New York Babel
among the firemen
laden with gear
and bored police
not happy to be here

under watch
of darkened windows
we soak in
the rain-touched
New York night