Filed under: poems | Tags: alleys, architecture, skyscrapers, trains, trees
Try between the trees.
Alleys eke out an existence
pressed between pillars
of architectural excess;
Leaves leaping off the boughs
of trees may move
in any direction.
Dumpsters may only
inhabit
the diminishing passages
between skyscrapers,
like boulders resting
in a rail tunnel;
Verdant hallways
with crooked sylvan latticework
break ground with flowers,
or at least a path to greater
greenery.
An alley is a death,
a dead-end ending in
dead iron doors
to backrooms of
seedy establishments;
Try between the trees.
Skyscrapers may lean;
Trees may only fall
like fawning servants
at our feet.
Filed under: poems | Tags: cheap wine, city streets, dogs, grass, restaurants, shade, smoke, space, stucco giants, suburbs, the moon, trains, water
I love normal days
absent of any significance;
mediocre meals in restaurants,
small amounts of sunshine,
what little shade there is, muggy,
the air a bit smoky outside,
the food, cold.
Children inside,
dogs inside,
no shadow, no sound,
streets rounding corners into one another
and slingshotting themselves
like a shuttle rolling across the surface
of the moon’s gravitational field
off into other neighborhoods
and through stucco walls
and off the edge
of fake balconies.
Divided by rusted railroad tracks
we trace parallel lines
through ranchos and roundabouts here
in these normal days,
down normal streets
cut off from thoroughfares
and tightened around
choked suburbs
of white folks not yet flown to the hills;
of hardworking immigrant families
tired of the crooked two-bedroom apartments
of past generations;
they all live here.
Still afternoon air
refusing to slide on past homes
not worth stopping to look at –
and the for sale signs sit for months in front of them –
pink and beige giants
adorned with wrought iron,
absent of backyard,
filled up with chilled,
airconditioned winds,
broken breezes
knocking against couch-ends and chair-legs,
hanging over kittens’ heads and babies’ cribs.
We ride these waves,
gulp them down
like cheap wine
and crash onto level streets.
We taste gravel for the first time,
let little pieces roll about our tongues,
imbed themselves in our gums,
let them grow like rows of shark’s teeth
and we’ll mow every lawn down
three whole streets
with them,
chew down every fresh
and well-irrigated lawn
within a square mile,
and run through the sprinklers
and let the water soak through to our bitter hearts
while the world dies of thirst.
