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all man's grief in a drop of rain 
his hope a glistening leaf

First published in Lilliput Review (#186, Summer 2012)
 


The Man with the Glass Head


I. The Humdrum Blues

Someone is always painting
him--he ends up gray.
 
                        *
 
He brushes on five o'clock
shadow so people won't think
he can't grow hair.
 
                        *
 
A girl draws a heart on his face,
fills it with their initials.
He's seen tap dancing.
 
Later he holds a hammer lightly,
tests it on his head.  She walks away.
He throws it where she was standing.
 
                        *
 
Daydreaming,
the problem is peeping toms.
Curtains help.  Smoggy or rainy days help.
Or sitting high in a tree.



II. He Visits His Hometown
 
Old Mr. Williams still finds it funny
to spray him with tobacco juice,
wash it off with a hose.
The old man laughs and his teeth tumble
out and are lost in the weeds.
 
A former teacher says you look familiar,
but it's hard to tell
one glass head from another.
 
Streets have shrunk and sun
filling his head makes him shake violently.
He puts on a hat to avoid
starting fires.
 
In his motel room he goes blind,
frosted over by the air conditioner.
 
On the Greyhound home,
smoke litters seats and aisles.
Highways and tinted windows blot the past.
He flicks ashes from teeth,
pretends to read or sleep.
Thoughts settle
like soot.
 
First published in Asylum (1991)   
 

Challenge


rascal depths the life I lead
he winked and stripped a wallet
from a passing pedestrian
 
nonsense that life over there
he flicked his head toward
a distant brace of skyscrapers
 
inhaling and exhaling a stream
of three piece suits and
swaying mini-skirts
 
I might have been those you know
then laughed naw not me I need
the challenge of laws to slip
 
between around under and over
what is the point of order
without subversion
 
I slum among the gentry to do
what I was born to do but I live
in darkest alley and meanest club
 
this interview is over slip back where
you came from before I remove
all you value and hide from scrutiny
 
at last sight of him he was waving one hand
over his head while the other tipped
bourbon to his smirking lips
 
eyes in the walls directed me
out a gate into the world beyond
his rascal depths and I relaxed
 
in sunshine poured from a blue pitcher
and celebrated the order of daylight
dipped into a pocket my hand
 
discovered all notes all my documents
were gone gone gone vanished
in the chaos I had just left
 
midnight a phone call you can have them
all you need do is return and claim them
no safe conduct this time you must take
 
your chances you must meet me razor
to eye blade to throat you must be willing
to reinvent yourself and all you know... 

First published in First Class (2003)