HOTEL ROOMS

In New Orleans

at the International House Hotel

I’m on the edge of the bed.

Your slim body
is plastic sheeting stretched
across the angles and corners

of stones –
your thin elegant legs
in fraying jeans.

The rectangle lenses
of your glasses frame
each autumn leaf shaped eye.

This was before you learned
what feminine clothes
will do for you.

This was when
I was one of the very few
that got to see and touch
everything underneath.

Sprawled out
arms stretched
toward the head board;
the bed still made
underneath us.

Your smile
black ink
painting Chinese glyphs
with a soaked horse hair brush
I just knew when it dried
it would disappear.

Then there was Chicago.
I came in on a long flight –
you came by train.

a 20th century mechanism
on a crash course
with a 19th century machine
that moves by devouring the landscape.

When you opened the door
you were revealed
and we pressed our lips
with the force of feathers –

a bird’s wing

settling against its body.

And there was also
that suite in Mammoth Lakes
without air conditioning

Where I found you in the bathroom
straightening your sheen hair
long, nearly metallic,

black as the belly of a plum.

These hotel rooms
anchored to earth
rotating with our memories

coming to rest on the bed spreads
the carpets, a corner

in an empty bathroom.

Now I travel alone,
see the interiors,

request a wake up call,

and slam the drapes shut.

Too many sheet rock walls,
too many laminated channel guides,
over bleached sheets,
tiny plastic signs
about saving our planet.

The purple sun

setting over mountains in Denver,

the hollow moon

rising behind the St. Louis Arch,

in Alabama

everyone stares at me

while hunched over waffles.

Sitting in these rooms
seeing so clearly
ever key I've ever held
in my palm

every lock I've clicked
or replaced after so many things stolen
or hammered a flat head screw driver into.

I seethe at clocks

airports

distance

depleted bank accounts

work schedules

reports due

the anchors

the call times

the tolls

taxes

taxis

Atlas has dropped the Earth,

stretched out his arms

and shoved us apart.

The hardest
is packing to leave.

It takes convincing

that getting on my feet

lacing my shoes

collecting my tooth brush

will eventually be worth it.

That eventually, if I just outlive

these check ins

the limited view of the peep holes,

the industrial air conditioning,

the twisted blankets

the bad ideas

the meaningless conversations –

I’ll some how

traverse home.

The zipper on my ragged red suitcase
its crooked teeth
barbs that don't fit but hook.

Shoving everything
I've brought with me inside,
flipping over damp towels
to make sure a sock or t-shirt
or novel isn't abandoned.

Shutting down my laptop,
jamming my work into a back pack
downing the rest of
a water downed cocktail
from last night

with the blond from Canada
who invited me into the hot tub
but not her bed.

Filling my pockets with keys
earbuds, a boarding pass
receipts, a tinge of anger, hope
regret and a wrinkled thought of you.

I'm dragging it all behind me
as I kick the door open
yank my suitcase
by the handle
adjust the camera bag
on my arm

take one last look
over my shoulder
into the past

where you sit
smiling on the sofa
eating mushroom pizza
translucent
content
all perfect

white teeth.

It's green outside.

Christmas trees everywhere
over sized rabbits
a sextet of birds
the buzzing of every insect
I've come to know

I scan the empty
mess
make sure nothing
escapes
so I can leave
with most of what
still belongs to me.

AIR TRAVEL

For over seven months

my eyes have seen
the coal-colored tarmacs
of several cities.

Long, hot runways of Los Angeles,
dusty, dry landing strips in Las Vegas
wet, frost laden jet ways in Denver
landing gear shrieking in New York.

All have these things in common:

They've all have seen me

drunk and stupid
lonely and frightened
angry and lost
worried and wishful

twisted and yearning
standing on steel stairs
leading to the door
in the skin puncturing rain
praying to the only deity I know:

the filthy gray-white floor
made by the tops of soft clouds.
This prop plane
glides over it all.

There's a planet down there
uncharted, frightening,

over-paved, uncivilized - 

I'm told I'm from there.

They've assigned me a social security number.
They say I've had a childhood.
They say I've been in love.
They say I have a job, debt, and a mortgage.

An ex-wife, bank accounts –

apparently I enjoy mountain biking.

But I can’t believe any of it

even though they offer undeniable evidence.

According to them

my mother did run over my child hood dog,

I did publish my complaints
on the pages of their bible,

there is a parking spot for my car marked 42,

I once got gut punched by the handle bars

of my banana seat bike from JC Penny.

I gasped for air;

feared for life.

My phone number to my child hood home

was 516 669 7587,

my first crush was

with a blonde named Kristin in the 6th grade.

But all of these memories
are fed to me by fraudulent printing presses.

Safety deposit boxes cannot be opened –

they contain their own keys

The fields have been delineated
by the geometry of
an all too specific
draftsman

Below is a patchwork of rich green disks
rows of wheat in postage stamp shaped fields
strip mall parking lots - 

abysses to the center of the world.

Everything shaped by an unforgiving trowel
invented by the occupants underneath me.

Its atmosphere can't possibly
be safe for breathing.

Of its billions of life forms
of all the happiness squeezed
from their guts

all the wishes
rung from their soaked dreams

the wind of their souls
swirl into the spinning and chewing
centrifuges.

They are all hovering.
Their organs are molded gas.

From up here
none can reach me

none can grasp
and yank the weeds from my gut.

None know
how to drain the acid from my lungs.

None except you
in Albuquerque.

I can't even pronounce it
without feeling my flight
drop through the turbulence –

me grasping the arm rest
knowing the clouds
are not dense enough
to stop my fall.

Landing
would be a fiery explosion
of wreckage

scattered across the surface - 

the embers
first formed on this rock
so many eons ago.

THE GREAT WALL

I think of you in a yellow floral summer dress

Wearing a woven cow girl hat

A gleaming white smile, brown dimples

And a Miller Light can in a blue foam koozie

In your right hand

And my memory in your left

Scales have tipped

And I’ve pulled the thread

Knowing all along it will end up

A pile of hopeless yarn in the corner

Of the bedroom I designed for us

Over and over in my sloshy imagination.

Unnecessary complications

On such a simple planet

We live in the same country

Exactly 1,841 miles squeezed between us

From my floor to your bed

From my heart to your smile

From the crushed chalk of my drawings

To the yellow cupcake mix

In a cardboard box

In your cabinet.

Militaries have marched right through tapestries

Like football players taking the field

Like medical scissors cutting through gauze

Like two lovers tearing through

The skin of spiky words scribed

On a black board.

It’s the vocabulary of the vicious

And the grammar of the heinous

They are to blame for the tectonic plates

Which have smashed against each other

Forming ice capped mountains

No elephant, man, or empire can cross.

It makes me wish

We had just built one home

So that when the earthquake struck

We either slid into the ocean

Or were swallowed by the gaping earth.

I don’t care which

As long as we are together.

TIGHTROPE

When we lived on that canal

and named the alligators

we were in love.

When we lived on that third story

and decorated the windows with white lights

we were in love.

When we floated above farmlands

in a hot air balloon the shape of a boxing glove

we were in love.

When we lived in that dump

and you spooned the dog and I spooned you

we were in love.

When you nearly squeezed my thumb into dust

while watching The Exorcist in an empty theater

we were in love.

When your uncontrollable laughter

embarrassed me

we were in love.

When I exploded from the house

and you wept over an analog phone

we were in love.

When you called me years later

in the dry month of April

and told me I left the gas on in our lives

I left the front and back door open

and the neighborhood vandals

graffitied our dreams

I forgot to engage the emergency break

and our time slowly rolled backward

crashing into an intersection

I left our credit cards

on the counter in a soup kitchen

and we went bankrupt

we were still in love.

But here's how it is now:

The dogs live in a bathroom

The towels smell like piss

I sleep on the floor

I eat from filthy bowls

I count quarters and index my skin

I stack grief like wedding photos

and oxygen is reeled from my lungs

like fishing line spooled into a tense

coil all hope depends on.

I'm time traveling with termites

I'm arguing with speech therapists

I'm fist fighting with your perfume

I'm prying a bear trap apart

asking it what time the alarm should be set

before sticking my head into it neck deep

for good measure.

I'm walking between the world trade center towers

just like that French guy

we both admired

because he was so brave.

SISYPHUS

In this dream,

I am holding my father’s hands.

I am not holding his hands

the way you imagine.

His body is not connected to his hands

and he is not taking me anywhere.

I am holding his severed right hand

in my right hand

and his severed left hand

in my left hand.

There is no blood

or dangling veins and tissue.

It’s not macabre or grotesque.

I’m holding his full

grown, dense, complete hands in mine

as if they’re props,

or the hands of a robust mannequin.

The skin is there.

It’s soft, textural, smooth.

I can see the creases

he formed

straight out of the womb

of his mother –

a woman I’ll never know.

I’ve seen her picture.

It’s in black and white, of course.

All clichés are.

She’s tidy, like a ball of clay.

Her hair is in a bun.

Her heart is vacuum sealed.

How is it

we’re all born with creased palms?

What have we all been doing inside

the guts of our mothers?

Grasping at muck?

Trying to crush the future?

But this isn’t about my grand mother

and it isn’t about my father.

It’s about my father’s hands.

East and west.

Left and right.

The poles of the universe

held together

in the palms of a man

larger than my wall-less dream.

Taller than the peak of misery.

In my hands, I hold

my father’s wrinkled fists.

When did

they become fists?

These matchstick bones?

These ivory splinters?

What could I have done

to prevent the balling of fingers?

The striking

of knuckles?

The veins are as thick as worms.

They undulate with the rhythm

of jelly fish.

Belly dancers

The guts of fat dictators.

The gelatin of boiled pig fat.

It’s a massacre –

this dream.

Grabbing clouds –

the mist of truth

evaporates between

the bony claws I call fingers.

In the dream

I am holding my father’s fists.

His body, however,

is not attached.

It’s elsewhere

along with his rotting mind.

I may as well

be holding stones.

HIKING

My right hand grabs a protruding rock

as my left foot wedges the thick, jagged sole

of my boot into a lighting bolt shaped crack.

My body is working automatically

gravity and fear driving all systems - 

my heart and lungs oscillate

with the rhythm of an organ grinder.

I shouldn't be here. I left the rocky path;

the color of doll skin.

Everyone hikes that trail because it’s easy.

My limbs and muscles want

to get to the top of this canyon alone.

My tendons have a personal vendetta.

My lymphatic system is driven by anger.

My synapses thirst for the settling of scores.

My fingers pull against the harsh angles

pulling the sack of my body toward the top

as earth crumbles under my feet.

Tiny boulders dislodge and plummet

rolling over the rocks below –

clickity-clack-clack-click-clunk.

My lips conserve water and dry up.

My chest and back try to hug the rock face

but they are cursed with ridged ribs.

My cartilage forces my bones

over each stony, taunting face –

my eyes refuse to look away.

My toes grapple to find footing

even in this loose sand –

all of it cascading under me

until it becomes too much.

My knees kick my shins and feet

as my boots tread sand.

My brain is a megaphone.

Keep digging! There's always a footing

underneath all of this.

When faced with it

My life does not flash.

It does not sparkle, or shine, or glint.

My hands clench

dehydrated reeds and pray

roots don’t slither from the earth

let go of the dense dirt

packed underneath –

the mass of blood soaked gauze.

There have been so many

they are all blending together.

Harsh memories.

My brain is no longer amplified.

It’s now silent as a catalogue.

Each page

boxes of images and text.

My mother holding me on her chest

as we lie on a course, plaid couch.

My father smoking

a Benson and Hedges 100

as he flips through a Romanian paper.

The beatings have all been worth it.

Every bruise, every belt,

Every night pissing in the corner of a bedroom.

Fear.

Forgiveness.

You can’t take them with you up this rocky surface.

Who cares how ridiculous all of you look?

Imagine what the world thinks of the man

you each live in.

It doesn’t really matter.

When all of you make it to the top

and my eyes stair out at the skyline

I don’t really see

how it all works together

or how it all slips away.

THE BAKERY

Late January –

tastelessly warm.

Parked in front.

Inside ovens breathe; heave fire.

The temperamental GPS
brought me here.

Today she decided
to work even though

she's let me down

so many times before.

Freezing up, no longer showing me
the tiny blue, computer generated

version of my car

like a small piece in a board game.

The color of a clear Chicago sky
after the sun has set on an icy evening –

Navy. Cobalt.  Almost black.
Thinking about burning all pictures

Frames, glass included.
Burn the ex-wife, the ex-girlfriend,

the ex-painting of me
acrylic flesh tones, a glaze of pink

some aggressive black
strokes depicting the thick hair

I no longer have.

Last night.

Too much talk, too much jazz.

A pile of raw fish –
enough whiskey to be cliché.

I stopped at our favorite neighborhood dive,
shook hands with the bartender,

told him I was leaving for Los Angeles.
He tore the check up in front of me

Smiling. How could he be so absurd?
A brief moment of acceptance.

I drank, eyeing the girl behind the bar

after meeting her for the first time

Eastern European, smeared Egyptian paint

on her eye lids – a thin black whisker

of eyeliner

curls from the corner of each eye.

A loose black cotton shirt,

an involved scarf,

a green corduroy mini skirt –

still can’t help me forget.

Drove home.

Stumbled over the walk way,

dragged my dangling limbs

with the cadence of a zombie.

My chest cavity closed

into the smile of a Venus fly trap.

Your brown hair clip - ribs,

spring loaded teeth,

bite into your hair

to show me the soft skin of your neck.

A freckle.

A necklace on a Sunday morning

The day was the color of lava.

The air was the density of a wish.

I'm reeling.

The repetitive, gurgling mantra

repeats without effort.

It's a fucking nightmare.

But in the bakery,

there are women in their fifties.

Here on a Tuesday.
They laugh,

wear consignment shop blouses,

one in a black fur. Chinese dog hair.

She is a crow

playing bridge with friends.

I order a bagel,

lox, sundried tomato cream cheese.

You used to make a similar sandwich.
Always an enormous plastic sack

of bagels in your freezer, the tofu spread.
You are a mother. Always prepared.

Kind, most of the time.

Guilty a lot.

The women laugh louder,

On the edge of cackling, squawking.

I’m infuriated. Jealous. Lonely. Sick.

The truth will make you flee.

Happiness is in the cards

But love comes straight out of the oven.

In your earthly decorated apartment

On a petite street.

All parking spots taken.

All doors locked.

All balconies swept clean.

All drapes drawn.

And all beds

are funeral pyres

drifting down a murky river.

The filthy shores

Where Hindu women

scrub clothes on washboards –

getting smaller and smaller

until water surrounds it all.

And the flames

lash and whip - defiantly

at the unimpressed sky.

Smoke ascends -

charcoal colored swirls

and tiny tornadoes of black ash.

And no god up there

to breathe in any of it.

THAI FOOD

I've sat down at a table
In a small Thai restaurant
Just off of Van Nuys.

Diana Summer is playing
Over the speaker system
Frosty air pours from a dusty vent.

I've ordered the Tom Kai Koong
And crab fried rice –

My face glazed with demure sadness.

We used to eat Thai food together
Your straight, sheer black hair
Leading down to the small bowls

Where your neck meets your collarbone.
In the shower together, water collected
As I gently circled a bar of mint colored soap

Over the pantheon of colored tattoos
Inked on your back in your younger,

Dumber, Teenage years.

In this restaurant now
In what I guess is Los Angeles
Or part of los Angeles

Or near Los Angeles
The chairs are all wrapped in

Coarse burgundy material with white grape leaves.

The waitress has brought my soup
And I think about how you’d never eat it.
It's made with chicken stock.

I swirl my spoon through the milky liquid.

A mushroom surfaces and sinks.

A Shrimp bobs and drifts to the side of the bowl –

It all clings before being spooned,

Dumped into my mouth,

And devoured.

This is how I imagine it:

You still sprawl under sheets.
You still flat iron and comb your hair.

You shower with someone new.

This is the truth about me:

After being honked at for being
In the middle lane trying to turn left
I slam on the gas

Chase down a mini van

Catch it at a red light.
I scream into the open window,

"Why the fuck would you honk
at someone trying to make a left turn?"

The Hispanic woman driver ignores me.

She pulls up.

I drive around to her other side
I yell,

"Not so noisy now, huh?”
Nothing.  I honk.  Nothing.  I drive on.
I couldn't get through to her.

And I couldn't get through to you.

I take my last gulp, swallow hard.

The bowl is empty except for a few

red dots among the white remnants

of coconut milk.

Most of it is gone.

I'm not about to lick the surface clean.

There isn't any more room

in my temperamental gut.

Yet, there's another course left to eat

And I find it really hard to move on.