Some poetry I wrote for a recent class

Rendezvous

Let’s swerve to-

gether; sip the

sherry dry;

Drink dreams to-

day; slip schemes

tomorrow;

Quip of lemon-

ade; drip dry

our lovely eyes.

Stick to my-

self and I’ll

stick to yours.

Spife?

Pierced by the spatula

I lay stiff

listening

as you cack-

led coldly

at my doughy remains.

Marbles found

I remember my baby brother

I remember winning

I remember me, grandma, and Bob Barker

I remember Kool-Aid

I remember OH YEEEAH

I remember losing

I remember eating healthy

I remember not eating “healthy”

I remember where I’m from

I forget that sometimes.

Pricks and phonies

We wash our words with lavender.

We eat our pies with salt.

Our souls are filled with pathos.

Mugging mills our falsehood.

Biggie, biggie, stinky-feet.

Missing friends we’d hoped we’d meet.

My love, my life, my stupid shit.

My ample, memory-laden, swiss cheese heart.

I was pooping on my grandma’s toilet

in the tiny bathroom down the hall with the ugly furnishings.

That skinny shower, the porcelain cherubs,

my general discomfort at their

toothpick painted, lopsided eyes ogling my

movements.

After generous usage of general store tissue I

pretend to wash my hands,

appreciating the soaps sandy exterior. While

watching the water’s elliptical flow over the turquoise basin

I felt suddenly watched.

While the clay babes with wings were doing their part

to creep 8 year old me the hell out,

it wasn’t them I sensed. My

senses were considering

the books I pretended to read, the characters I wanted to be.

I stood still running the water

bill up hoping that I wasn’t

fiction. Could someone snuff me with disinterest

as I had been snuffing so many others? Do I have

a predestined course to travel complete

with choreography and (final?) bows?

The evidence of my existence exists in the still

unflushed beside me. But could even they be

the dirty scribblings of a lonely unshaven grad student

with no money and alcoholism?

I am real

as are my parents

as is my home

as is my derelict sense of self worth.

I consider the water.

I consider the poo.

I consider the angels watching over me and decide that they’ve earned a show.

I flush.

I wash my hands of the flushing.

Harlem Girl

The husky gruff of the buses.

The red brick scratching the blue sky. Each its own hue, each its own texture.

They cast a feeling of nostalgia over the family-hewn street.

Her screeches purposeful, her hair-ties purple, the little girl

unknowingly paints the scenery of her childhood on the canvas of her memory.

Red street lights, blue bodegas. Abuelas in lavish lavender.

Lovely lemons lazily lingering. Soon they’re turn grey and groan

as they become fodder for the street.

She takes it all in, tracing

Her hand along the cool mortar.

Brick by brick, building a castle worth reading about

Once read.

Her work is never through, but her lips are blue from the night

And cheeks flush with red chill. Running

To her stoop, she thanks the stars

Because it’s what you do on

A day like this.

The colorless

cinderblocks

differing in

shades of grey,

They induce a dance

devoid of hue,

with placement, purpose,

and mortar.

Destructions:

Snick snack paddy whack,

Find that dog a home.

Weebles will wobble and discombobble,

But ne’er to lang t’roam.

The scent of a sniff, a whiff or a whiff,

Around and a room are to let.

Gripe will you grip and snip snip snip snip.

And smudge round the ground’s now all wet.

Keep keepers at bay in the ol’ fashioned way

With snicker and sneer an’ a lop.

Do distress the day o’ the alleycat’s May,

For she’ll stimp our your heart with a stomp.

Strum down the stairwell with nary a care

An’ frown ‘pon the backs of the Nile.

Eat kippers and kelp, do scrimp out a, “Skrelp!”

Should you find yourself out for a while.

You are?

I’ve forgotten how to c

Are about the way you treated

Me. I don’t remember wh

At it’s like to be mortar to your pestel. I

F I’d known then how to spell martyr, I could’ve used it as child’s dribble

About adult behavior. I wish I could recall the day that we ended. That

Grey-

Glum time in my life when everywhere was possible and nowhere was real. I w

On’t say I miss you though, because I can’t. How do you miss something that you never had, something

you never wanted? I will say I miss missing. I’ll say I’m glad you’re gone, and happy you’re here.

Thirteen is a hard age to find oneself.