Redemption

Redemption

The solemn chill of desert

morning awaits sunrise,

the promise; a new day of revival.

The shadow in the dim is

yesterday’s disappointments

and sunrise will reveal the new start page.

There is a weight that sits

on the heart of the night, possibility

having yet to blink from the east.

The Demiurge, the force; stretches like an athlete

preparing to do battle on the field of what can be

with the coming sun.

SMG

Notes on Poetry Composition

Notes on Poetry Composition

When I need to make sense of it all, I go back to the beginning.

I throw out the poetry textbooks and all my lecture notes.
I ignore the voice in my head that keeps repeating “imagery,
cadence, structure and rhyme”.

I go back to Bluebird and Roll the Dice. I go back to that place
where my passion was born, where the muse first gave me a wink
and the gods showed me words that could kick like a mule
and kiss me like no woman I had ever known.

I forget about submission guidelines and contributors’ copies.
I pour myself a tall glass of cheap scotch cut with ice
and drink until I don’t give a shit, until I’m ready to wipe my ass
with rejection letters and can vomit up years of advice.

It’s then that I remember the women I’ve fucked
and the ones that have fucked me. I think about the pain
and failure that's refined me, then I take another sip and say
“but I’m still here”, and I smile at the gentle tinkle of ice and glass.

SMG

Sad Girl on an Uptown Train

Sad Girl on an Uptown Train

It was just

another subway

Monday morning

as the city and I

shook off

the weekend.

The rustle

of newspaper

hide and seek

was muted

by my headphones

and the steady click

of staccato thumbs.

She wedged in

from the 28^th Street

platform, wrapped

in wool and leather,

her hair tousled

by an unfair wind.

The sorrow she wore

did not go well

with her Louis Vuitton

so I painted a smile

on her face with my eyes,

and loved her all the way

to 77^th Street.

SMG

Cutting

Cutting

A razor’s edge glides
through dermis
with a surgeon’s
disconnected precision.

Crimson tattooed
parallel lines
concealed for now
on the inner thigh.

Ejaculated blood spatters;
a decorative memento
for the bathroom floor.

Endorphins engage
serotonin orgasms,
and the impulse wanes
while platelets seek
companionship.

Tonight she will sleep;
tomorrow’s hungry voice
but a whisper that will grow
in the darkness.

SMG

Drinking

Drinking

At one point
I thought
I could drink myself into oblivion,
kill myself
one shot at a time.
Whiskey
was the journey,
intoxication
the destination.
Alcohol
like blood
coursed through my pain,
fed it, nurtured it,
orphan child
held by a dispassionate nun.
I learned to live
with the knowledge that pain,
like death, was inevitable
well beyond my control
only to be quelled
never cured.
Drunkenness however
was completely in my control.
A roaring lion on a leash,
a raging fire safely
warming my house of straw.

SMG

From "Another Hotel Room"

The Long Nights

The Long Nights

The nights I wake up

like a drowning man

the moment he breaks

through the surface finally

able to draw a breath.

The weight of disappointment,

thoughts of passion traded

for safety, heavy enough

to stop my heart. I lie awake

and try to recall what it felt like

when I was hungry and naked;

living in the wild.

The nights I am alone,

tormented by ghosts in the dark;

by the women that loved me

until I turned and ravaged them

in the glow of full moonlight.

Nights when the whiskey

won’t whitewash my sins

and help me forget their faces.

Like the wail of a distant siren,

their cries echo and taunt me

in the emptiness before dawn.

SMG

Armistice

Armistice

A grey cigarette haze lingered

above the bed like gun smoke

over a battlefield and we,

the casualties of war,

lay beneath. When we kissed

I tasted Bataan on her lips

and she said she could see

Manzanar in my eyes.

At times love is a negotiation

between desire and history.

The clock on the bedside table

flashed in dim red numbers

as the battery was nearly spent.

After the passion runs low

there are not many choices;

a long march in the Philippine sun,

a desert cage of spiral concertina wire

or a one last bloody conflict that ends
with the squeeze of a trigger. 

SMG

Mechanical Perturbation

Mechanical Perturbation

From three thousand miles away
a heartbeat is difficult to detect.
The insulation of distance mutes
the sound of sinus rhythms as they fade.

My first car had a bad fuel pump,
the diaphragm membrane developed
a hole and the car began to lose power.
As the hole grew, the engine got weaker
until one day it just stopped.

The day you gave me my first “A”
I think my heart skipped a beat.
The wall of doubt had its first crack
and you’d handed me the hammer.

A new fuel pump for a 1963 VW Bus
is not a stock item so I had to wait
almost a week for the part to arrive.
I used the extra time to change
the oil and adjust the valves.

The first heart transplant took place
in 1964. For lack of a suitable donor
they used a chimpanzee heart;
the patient lived for a little over an hour.

If they can't find a donor, your heart
may stop before I hear it beat again.
Cedars-Sinai is apparently out of stock,
and chimp hearts are no longer used.
I’m not sure how to fill the wait time.

I got rid of the VW bus years ago,
replacement fuel pump and all.
The wall is mostly rubble now;
all I’m left with is your hammer,
and three thousand miles of silence.

(Re-posted from Notes & Grace Notes)

Pressure Cooker

Pressure Cooker

The boiling point for water,

at sea level, is two hundred

and twelve degrees Fahrenheit.

Under pressure the boiling point

will rise at a scale corresponding

with an increase in pounds

per square inch or kilopascal.

I’m not really sure what

the boiling point of faith is

but there would appear to be

an inverse relationship

with an increase in pressure.

Gods and their minions tend to boil

over easier and with more frequency

as the pressure of life’s uncertainty

rises.

Force equals mass times

acceleration. The force required

for flying metal to separate

human limbs from the body

varies based upon the size and age

of the human in question.

The break point for an eight year old

is less than that of an exchange student

or an adult woman but all will break

if sufficient force is applied.

Nails, ball bearings and gunpowder,

ignited in a pressurized environment,

will achieve the required velocity

and generate more than enough force

to break most humans along with
most of my faith in humankind.

SMG

Tallahassee

Tallahassee

When the hands of the clock

are flipping you off,

its face a twisted smile,

and escape to the bottle

has drowned the words

that once intoxicated you.

When lust is merely a metaphor,

love a long distance call

and your voice has turned

to autumn leaves

that crackle under foot.

That is when the night

becomes only darkness

and the call of that bottle

fills the spaces in between

the sunlight.

SMG