The Allure of Umbrellas

Trapped behind shutters watching the rain,
he wants to feel the dampening spirits,
to be surrounded by waterfalls.
Oh! an umbrella:
The possibility of play, of observation,
the fearless pursuit of ambiguities.
Yet, there is only rain if he cannot dance.
There is only water without static shock.
Steamless, meaningless rain.
The allure of umbrellas never has tempted him so.

Yesterday's Fire

When we met, you had long hair and you weren't a lesbian.
I couldn't imagine sitting in a living room watching Golden Girls
in my underwear, drinking tequila and blackening my lungs.
You tempted me with secrets when I disappeared to
fuck men from Texas before I realized this city is burning,
everyone smoldering in ashes of yesterday's fires.
Last winter, I forgot how the trees looked with grass carpets
Because we only knew fire and dirt and midnight sirens painting everything blue.
I don't remember the taste of innocence or the first feelings after it was gone, but
I remember the smile you held between breathes of nicotine and Turkish blend.
We weren't the ones abandoning, but those abandoned. Forgotten?
We play with ashes waiting, the only things left: memory and remnants, and
I keep repeating those phrases, letters -- words.
I didn't smoke before Brooklyn.

Summertime Poetry.

Coney Island


I hear your voice on the television set
Reading letters sent back home.
There are whispers on the ocean,
Speaking promises of closeness.
They caught an eel with your name
Scrawled in cursive on its back.
Come back august sky.

---

Obsession.

Smile pretty, baby,
we have to look nice.
Show me your dimples.
Look at your rosy cheeks.
There. There you go.
Stand up straight.
When are your getting your hair cut?
Can we go to Coney Island?
Or maybe that one building. please?
There's this wax museum I read about
Or a garden in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn's so pretty, baby.
Just like you.



---

Replacement.

You hold me like porcelain in your palm,
delicately skimming the surfaces with your
Webbed hands, tickling my hair,
trailing tears down my spine.
I smell the sound of silence.
You left me on a shelf and
I watched you love from afar.
I am silent and unchanging
but not so easily broken as that.
You could not take me down again.
I played your little blow-up doll.
You laced me with pearls and soft kisses and
I never once broke for you.
But you put me on a shelf and
hid me from the world.
You loved again, but how could I know?
I climbed down and saw him
sitting on your bed, holding the lion
That flew 1000 miles to say he loves you.
His mouth is taped. I fall down.
But I am not that easily broken.

----

Coffee Shop

My days are empty but for these promises.
Closeness from 1000 miles away.
These plastic covers turn blue skies brown,
but there is no sun in Brooklyn.
We'll enjoy the picayune limelight
Wrapped in the warmth of our own light.

---

Point of Contact

You stopped breathing until we touched.
The point of connection where my fingers
met your back resuscitated your lung.
I felt your rise and fall,
saw the tundras melting,
leaving dew drops in your hair.
There is no winter in Texas,
but you come from the summerless land.
When we meet, it's autumn or spring,
the point where our summer meets solstice.
My breath shakes the dew from your hair.
Your heart beats in my palm.
The orchids are blooming,
Our leaves turn yellow and red.

Standard

You gave me little. I smiled. Accepted.
Bemusement. Hope. Enticement. Love?
Before we kissed, you told me you loved me.
Forbid me speak when we did.
I gave. You smiled. Accepted. Accepted again.
Time. Body. Sex. Devotion. But love?
When we lay in bed, I wanted to speak words.
Your fingers blocked my lips. The letters.

Standardized loving isn't loving.
But I need standards or I'll find you again.
I will love you again and hope.
Be still my gentle heart, I'm bleeding
For some other broken soul.
One more broken soul.

And we will love until you're through.
And I will love and move on.

My heart is full. Rooms with portraits,
Altars for the love of loss.
And so I love you still.

I fail your standards
So you leave me
Standing, kneeling, crying
on the altar
Where I exist alone
With a faceless god not present.

And I set standards so I
never need create a room.

March

We dreamed of chasing sunlight between
buildings on the streets of Brooklyn,
of laying under the stars outside the
valley of the flooded city.
There were bluebonnets in Texas when
I flew past the clouds to
land in stagnant puddles and
kiss you on the landing strip.
We explored cities I read about, and
we loved. we loved. we loved.
I dreamt about March in Texas
where I never thought about always or never.
I woke up somewhere between bluebonnets
and stagnant puddles in your arms.

Rings

Somewhere between our midnight and 6 am
I learned to never hang up first
I hear me office phone vibrate
5 seconds before it rings and
answer before you realize you called
We say goodbye 30 times before our bodies mean it
We whisper mutual love after sleep affects our thoughts
We're not ready yet for two Claddagh rings.
Soon, though, I won't realize you called before
your voice is in my ear.
Then, then we won't need rings anymore.

An Original Play

One: (Seated with Two)
We have sat.
Two:
We have watched.
One:
We have sat and watched. (Two nods)
For three weeks. (Two nods)
We have sat and watched as people walked by without saying a word.
We are deaf. They mouth what we call words but they say nothing.
We are deaf. (Two nods)
For three weeks we have sat and watched as people walk by speaking but
saying nothing and we wonder. (Two nods). We wonder if we are real or if they
are or if none of us are real at all. (Two nods).
We have sat and watched and seen.
Two:
I have seen a girl in pink track suit walking her dog and saying words to her dog
and conversing with the bearded man in a trench coat who heard only the wind.
One:
We have seen a girl in a pink track suit and a dog and a bearded man.
Two:
I saw the cracks in the pavement swallow words I was meant to hear but never
could because I am deaf.
One:
We are deaf.
Two:
I am deaf. The cracks told me. I am deaf.
One:
We leave. (stands)
Two:
I am deaf. The pavement told me. The girl and the dog told me. The bearded man
listened to the wind that told him I am deaf.
One:
What? (two nods) I leave. (exits)
Two:
(stands) The earth soothes me. (he sits on the ground) I listen to the words
from the cracks. They tell me I am deaf. We all speak but words. I am deaf.

Shutter

 I became you before college through photographs,

still frames of when you were smiling and meant it.

I want to meet that person again some day through

shutter clicks as we run through the burning streets of

Brooklyn, holding our torches to the amber skies and

singing love song to no one in particular but ourselves and

the people who have come to love us fully and honestly.

I see that person behind your smile and realize sometimes

you never really went away.

Bit your bottom lip, maybe.

Slept away some things, maybe.

Disappeared? Not entirely. No.

When Brooklyn burned at four,

I saw that smile for the first time and

I admit I fell in love with a girl from New York.

Smile sometime, darling, we're only frames away from happiness.

There.

When I close my eyes

I imagine my voice

vibrating through your chest.

I bring you orchids,

bandages so you might see

when you open your eyes.

There is always the vision

When I close my eyes.

I Am The Real Edith Piaf

I am the real Edith Piaf

Who sang the voice of Paris

On stages of satin,

Who started on streets,

Passersby threw change for chords.

I am the real diva

Begging rhetoric time and again

"What's the point? What is the point?

If I can't what's the point of being

Edith Piaf?"

Give me the porcelain doll in the window.

I am the real Edith Piaf

Who wanted nothing but the rain

in a circus of starless nights

Where she would sing to the angel

Mother Mary who offered sight again

When she opened her eyes to satin

In a garden where her only mother cried

"She can see! She can see!"

I am the real Edith Piaf.

If I can't, what's the point?

I want the poercelain doll,

Rain to block circus lights.

I want you and you

Who have ever scoffed to see.

I am the real Edith Piaf

I sing to the angel before he takes me

Before Paris falters and I

Fall on the stage of satin screaming

"I can sing! I can sing!

If I can't, what's the point?"

Mother (Edson Imitation)

My mother was a wise woman.

She explained the colors of Texas sunsets, where missing socks go, and the reason for accidents.

I asked her why she wore a ring when she wasn't married.

She said, ringers were invented to block the sunlight so people wouldn't worry about skin cancer on their smoking fingers.

She died last spring.

To Romanticism

You make me wait,
and in doing so,
make me miss the chances.
I should have grabbed his tie,
told him to stay a while longer,
just to confess to him,
both of us livid with cheap wine,
I want him, I want to be with him.
But I wait for you,
the moment that's best for you.
I leave myself behind,
just for you.
Every time.

We'll Sell Our Souls for Paris

We'll sell our souls for Paris,
feed off boxes, our shelter,
live off my trust fund
as long as we can,
buy cheap wine
just to forget our problems.
I love our dreams for their dreams,
our lives for their dreams,
our souls for the dreams
we buy with them.
I love you all,
my Paris.
Je t'aime.

What You Left

"You left something in my room."
"Fuck, did I leave my glasses again?"
"No."
"Movies?"
"No. It's more than that."
"Corkscrew. I'll get it tomorrow."
"This can't wait like that."
"I don't have anything to open though."
You could open your mouth.
"What is it?"
"My heart."
"It's not mine."
"No. It is."
"When?"
"Always."

I Have Your Copy of the Golden Girls

If I came to your door, would you answer?
Would I stand there, waiting for you to wake up,
to answer, just for me to walk away again
without you hearing anything I'm trying to encode
just to make you understand, in a romantic way,
all the things I could have said days ago when
I first felt them and you were completely oblivious?
Would you?
Would I?
Please...

Two Throats (Gilbert Imitation)

Remember the tilted television set
When we held hands,
Threw wine on the sheets
Watching life in black and white and
Listening to Bette's screams
As we poured glasses of ourselves
Down our throats?
We cupped palms;
I lay on your chest
We nearly kissed, fucked
Almost poured wine
Down our throats.
Remember?

To Anal Sex (Koch Imitation)

Best: (Manguso approved!)

When I moved to New York,
I only saw you
late nights
On the computer screen,
alone.
I wanted you;
Got you again when I went home,
Lost you again when I came back.
You avoid the city.


Original:
We met on the futon,
Parents through the wall,
He passed a bottle,
Said, “Take it easy, slow.”
You were a pressure
On my heads,
Latex would fill
Premature and I would
Leave him filled yet unsatisfied.
I maintained a rhythm though
Awkward as it was
We enjoyed the changing positions
Before I changed positions.
When I moved to New York,
I did not see you
Except late nights
On the computer screen when
I was alone.
I wanted you;
Got you again when I went home,
Lost you again when I came back.
You avoid the city.



Version 2:
We met on the futon
When I was eighteen.
I heard his parents
Through the wall.
He passed a bottle,
Said, “take it easy, slow.”
Your sounds were quieter than
His parents’ voices.
Your smell, more poignant.
His parents’ voices
Conjure strawberries
And feces.
You overwhelmed
My heads every time,
Filled me with doubt that
Latex would fill
Premature; I would
Leave him filled yet unsatisfied.
I was done before I started.
I held it off despite you,
Maintained rhythmic thrusts though
Awkward as they were
We enjoyed the changing positions
Before I changed positions.
When I moved to New York,
I did not see you
Except late nights
On the computer screen when
I was alone.
I wanted you;
Got you again when I went home,
Lost you again when I came back.
You avoid the city.

To My Stomach

You shrink.
Last year, I only saw my
Penis when sitting down.
Now, I see my pubes.
You shrink.

To The Finger Buried in My Anus

Roommate's out,
You're in.

Real

Abstract non-fictional characters surround you;
you want to hold onto them but your fear stops
every last ounce of strength to reach out
to grab, for one instant, tangibility in ghosts
skimming the soft recesses of your body.

You kiss to feel more alive but never live
more than the few seconds before everything
melts back into the floor and leaves you
curled inside yourself in the living room,
watching the others' stories unfold before you
just so you can feel like you do have a life.

Millisecond pauses are too long for me to
shut down a life built on avoidance,
perfectly sustainable before you came,
changed the way I felt the world;
I stare out the window at the snow falling,
millisecond shutter clicks capturing
single flakes I am too afraid to search for
before they melt back into the floor.

You need to harden, cool to solidify,
I need to freeze, cool to solidify;
Everything is real when we're together.