May | 2013 | Alphabet City

Archive for May, 2013

Nap

Filed under: Poetry — 4 Comments

May 11, 2013

My feet upon the mantle,
toasty about a foot
from the lacy steel
curtain drawn across
the face of the fire.

Orange flames dance wildly,
flailing hands and fingers
jitterbug, hallelujah.

I succumb,
exhaust the day,
hypnotic brick,
shadows, column heat , , ,

Running water,
harmonic crystals,
surf, persistent breath,
mouths huffing mists,
lenses wiped clean,
soft tissue.

Low-flying girls with kites
run on beaches,
hug endless horizon, pastels
flirt, smiles passed over,
soft kisses on shoulder freckles,
lost in the sweet center,
gardenia, coconut oil.

My toes dig in
deep, hot sand,
my eyes close tight,
the sun coaxed
protozoa to the saline,
behind the ray-bans,
a dance of shadows
there on the inside:

a pas d’une,
a pantomime,
jitterbug,
crazy hallelujah,
flailing violently
backward,
then awake,
but not now.

Tags: Nap, Sleep inertia, Soft tissue

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Glancing Blow

Filed under: Music Set To Poetry — 4 Comments

Sebastien Greco, vocals
Carlos Chagall, guitars

Music & Lyrics by Sebastien Greco and Carlos Chagall, 2013
Just this side of spoken word

Tags: Arts, Carlos Chagall, Music, Music & Lyrics, Ringolevio, Sebastien Greco, Spoken word

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Alternate Tao

Filed under: Poetry — 3 Comments

May 10, 2013

Blue workshirts
crusted in salt-rings,
sweat born out,
of foundry heat,
smelters blaze,
soups of molten copper,
where a trip sends lava
flowing down ramps
to melt men’s ankles,
makes castings of souls
who labor
for low wage,
no esteem.

Suiciders atop vats
swan dive into
ore pools,
vanish like vapors.
Here, then
simply gone.
All they were,
now steam.

On the subway home,
I doze to the sports page,
dream of powerful
drives to center,
propelled by torque,
strong hips, action,
sympathetic knees, breaking wrists,
the geometry of grace,
the boys of summer
kiss the cheeks of autumn ladies.

Sweet grass,
new, mown.
City sparrows
on ginkgo trees
in the high branches aside the el,
lilt fossil
melodies,
call to me
through open train doors
to wake me
at some station after mine.

I smell the heavy layer of my own sweat
there on my clothes,
the heat of the train
an oven
that bakes me proper.

I rise, exit,
to debut on this foreign platform,
sad to have missed my stop,
to have missed my time.

I search the faces of those around me,
for the one to help
point the way back,
the staircase to the other way.

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Pronoun Ambiguity

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No one
hue,
should dominate
you.

This is
as far as
I go.

Eye
what’s out there.

Wee small creatures.

At the I,
the heart
of stormy worlds,
timely mere buds:

Shall we dance?

Tags: Fred Astaire

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Float Me

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This afternoon,
I tied a balloon,
to the gold pierced ring,
to my navel.

I sense
the trade-winds
on high, tug
my soul
through the taut string.

Umbilical
to cirrus nimbi,
serious business
this nimble coercion
of word to nuance,
motion to notion,
failure to grasp.

Still, to feel jostled
in currents,
suddenly aloft in one giant yank!

I spin like a whirly,
pendulum broad sweeps
across the darkened sky inverted,
sacrificial innocent on a bungee,
just before the fall.

Tags: clouds, float, parade, trade-wind, weather balloon

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Here But Not

Filed under: Poetry — 2 Comments

I have special drops
I place in my eyes,
to over-dilate my pupils.

To let in light
from distant stars,
ancient pink,
blue and white.

I trace a line,
from here to there,
with the glow-tip
of a Marlboro red,

from Orion, to Andromeda,
along nebulae and pulsars,
long gone ago,
but still my sky.

Tags: andromeda, Astronomy, Marlboro, Orion, Ringolevio

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Drumbreak For Fly Sofia Cruz

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May 9, 2013

Poking in the pink, in an itty bitty shack,
measly isla, shock treatment,
seize her seizure, shutter stops,
caesura, palpitations,
shudders, slip it
up and down,
slit, flit around,
my back, your beat, this heat,
bric-a-brac, paddywack,
chewing on a – stroking on a – smoking on a
bone, bong, boing.

Listen while she
glistens in the mist,
whiles away
in moisture, in the gist,
slide a willow ‘neath the wisp,
such a sucker, simple syrups,
succulicious, psychopathic, sycophantic;

twinkling in the twilight tight outside atop the T-Top
in a T-Shirt, out your tank top, tease me, tickle till you
just
can’t
stand
no
more.

Stuttering, shuttering, splattering, tittering, withering, wuthering heights,
stammering, hammering, glimmering, plummeting, mumbling, plumbing deep
numbing thrusts
slippery, tres y cuatro
cinco-pation
ooh!

dilation, drives you sideways, odd
meters, on the up-
beat, against
the up-
beat
again then
no
. . .
beat.

Keep you guessing, catch your breath
in your throat,
scratch an itch, sandy paper,
stairstep Slinkies sidling at ya,
eyes burn, on the verge,
on the turn, delight tingles,
daylight cravings, forelocks tangle,
smoke rings, pillow soft
halos steam sweat flex
triceps calves cut hard
dancers pole long gold
spotlight fades
black bass no trace
at the top no mo’
bottom face out smack
dab beyond the fray
cotton swabbing gently dabbing
at the lattice small concussions;

sneeze while you come, maybe thrice, three’s a charm
pick up steam, at the bridge,
out the closet, to the edge,
feeling dizzy just for kicks,
fat in front, grab the spot,
settle in, back on cruise,
back on Cruz,
straddling, standing O.