german chocolate cake
the neighbor is psychopathic
but a friendly sort.
most of the time it’s steroids, body sculpture,
and plain ground sirloin for supper.
a character disordered brute,
that’s not educated on purpose.
an obsessed weightlifter that’s
spinning,
stuck in the mud of life.
but, every once in a while,
he brings german chocolate cake
wrapped loosely in wax paper
to my door.
his long dead mom’s recipe,
made exactly like the old woman’s.
taste the vastness of europe.
taste the precision of germany.
taste sweet kindness.
taste deep respect.
taste his unconditional love for her in the icing.
i eat more cake and begin to fill
with history of a life i never knew.
and reluctantly realize how connected
the past, present, and future of family can be.
flat coke
in the refrigerator
there is a red plastic bottle.
it has been two weeks
since she has gone
and the contents maintain position.
until one day,
you grab it
and open it.
no sound is heard,
just a silent turning cap.
no energy escaping.
no sign of life anywhere.
take it to your mouth
and drink
a cold sweet emptiness,
and swallow again.
recalling, how she would leave glasses
half filled all around the house, and
forget them.
you put the cap on,
and slide the bottle to the back.
remembering, as you lick your lips,
kisses tasting
of flat coke.
finally, i’m tired
the day i was born i was yellow and poisoned and anxious.
and they put me under a sunlamp and burned it out of me.
and i dealt with it by crying and crying.
as soon as i had teeth i bit my grandmother and it was righteous.
as soon as i could feel I blew a fuse through overreaction.
as soon as i knew i had a brain i had a headache.
as soon as i could walk i ran and ran because i was afraid.
and when i stopped i worried.
i worried about my parents at such an early age it was in black and white
my mom the mad czech, my dad the traveling salesman, my
bubbleheaded brothers, and my sister the cat set the cast.
i grew in my world of catholic school and poor white row homes.
icons and image, relics and release mattered. old women bent
in their small gardens wearing babushkas and bohemian smiles
marking their turf. i remember the ancient nuns meditating,
their veiny hands folded, fingers intertwined with a chain of
beads and a crucifix bound by a higher power.
it paid to be fat fisted and slow in emotion but i was slow
and let the good times roll.
immigrants and ignorants, gypsies and junkmen, wanderers and
witches, punks and pedophiles, bad actors and alcoholics,
and gangs of older boys with mean dogs preyed on the young.
i remember children everywhere, every age, doing everything
out in the streets, after supper, in a social harmony like
ants on a graham cracker, there was a continuity of community
in this land of milk and honey, and guilt and fear.
i remember friends yelling for friends, more playing,
more running, more falling down, more fighting, more laughing,
and more fun until the sun went down.
and the seasons would melt into each other and the rituals would
change but they would always be played and the sociologists
smiled and theories were made.
and i would lay in bed and pray to god and stare at the statue
of st. joseph on my dresser and bite my fingernails and i
would feel this dread inside me.
and i wished i would be tired. and i wished i could sleep.
and i would tell myself that i was loved but the starvation
stayed.
that emptiness would take thousands of attempts to fill and cause
thousands of mistakes, misconceptions, misconducts and miscues.
well, finally i’m tired . . .
it has taken four decades to lay my head down, and rest my soul.
finally, i’m tired and my bones keep still as i sleep.
finally, i’m tired and my angel guards me no payment required.
love chunk
come on
put some spit in that kiss
look
deep in my pupils
past my mind
see
my soul sauce
enhance it
put me in your vise
squeeze
with intent
past all the people I am
until you find the animal
the rogue
you got me now
breathe in and be burned
asshole soup
the ex-major was talking to the
ex-warden
who was talking to the
ex-superintendent
who was talking to the
ex-steel executive
these were old men
sitting in the whirlpool
at one hundred and ten degrees
yapping.
the water bubbled
with red heads bobbing
and skin wrinkled like a stewing chicken
i smelled the chlorine and their
flesh. and imagined a thousand boiling assholes
guess I’ll just hit the showers
today
a woman on a bucket isn’t enough
woman on a bucket
sitting and smoking a Kool
in fading blue jeans with long brown hair flowing down
hiding the profile of her face
she’s directing her dog with her arm in a sweeping motion
in a small green rectangle with clothes lines and telephone wire
allowing herself a break in the action.
it’s as if it’s practiced
these fleeting moments in her backyard space
and for me it’s instinct to see it.
It isn’t enough to want to know her thoughts
. . . to know her emotions
. . . to know her fantasies
. . . to know what’s on for supper.
some kids
some kid died
he drank twenty-one shots in a row
some kid never woke up
he put away a fifth of comfort and made it
through a third of j d
some kid broke his neck
chugged a bottle of vodka and fell off a roof
some kid lost his head on the railroad tracks
five quarts a beer and a fist full of beauties
it’s an amazing time
being young and choking
on your vomit and trying
to remember that all this
might have to do with a
girl and a broken heart
and it’s hard to recall
those times and what really
happened because there was so
many ways to die and they
were all so close almost
friendly but it could have been
something as simple as a lie
two brothers bury
they finally gave her a merciful death.
the old hound was blind, arthritic,
and had alzheimer’s.
the house smelled bad and she was
pathetic patches of fur and scabs.
it was a difficult decision
for they loved her.
and it was only the two brothers
left with this loss.
one drove, and the older brother
held her as they gave the death shot.
she lay on the grass
wrapped in a blanket, as they finished
digging the grave in the yard.
you approached the fence
to say a few words.
they were all wet-eyed and sullen.
most everyone is afraid
of the brothers.
they are big, abrasive, and loud.
and scramble about to barely eke out
a living in a poor canal town.
a smooth river stone
marks the spot
that is a reminder.
grandmother’s hands
grandmother’s hands are
thin and hard like peanut brittle
folded in an everlasting novena
as she lay in an ivory colored casket.
you could tell the undertaker did
the best he could.
she really was thin as a wisp and
sort of translucent in her last days.
but her hands stayed as I always
remembered.
hands, in youth, that held the reins
of her family’s horses raised
in lush czechoslovakian acres.
hands, that worked the dirt in the potato
fields after it was all lost to
the nazis.
hands, that knead the beads of religious
belief in hope of liberation.
hands, that tremble in fear as she sails
to america with a promise.
hands, that point out deficiencies in her
slavic peasant husband as he toils.
hands, that cringe as she suffers the loss
of homeland and indignation of broken
dreams.
hands, that expand and contract as she
bears two sons and resents the new ways.
hands, that held me as an infant and retracted
with bite marks as a toddler.
hands, that I caressed in last living days to
warm the always cold blood.
and laying to sleep
scanning the body aside
my eyes stop in angst
for it’s noted
my beloved has grandmother’s hands.
hands, that clutch in the darkness.
