Hell or High Water...Melon (written 4-5-10)

Hell or High Water…Melon

“I have a sweet tooth,” I’d say. “It’s this one in front,” pointing to one of my two front chiclets. They though I’d kick the habit as soon as adulthood began pushing the baby traits out of their sockets, or when I flew over my streamed handles, breaking my fall with my mouth on a square of cracked cement, the gray, sparkly kind. But no. Someone built my brother and me a pirate ship in our backyard. By pirate ship, I mean a platform of plywood balanced on pine pegs supporting a square structure with a doorless doorway, an octagon window, and a roof surrounded by a railing, the cake’s cherry, a hand crafted wheel that resembled Captain Hook’s. I fell off of that platform, my fresh skin scraping the splinters that protruded from the beams they forgot to smoothen with sand paper on my way down to an inflatable pool. I clawed my way to the top of a half-domed fence covering home plate at a friend’s birthday party. Somewhere between cramming marshmallow after marshmallow into my mouth in an intense round of chubby bunny and hot dog scarfing, I’d convinced myself that my phobia concerning places of altitude could be cured by tackling the sharply woven wires of that damned fence. I fell on the way back down. At the very least, I can stand with my pride inflating my chest, instead of enlarging my head, when I reveal my inexplicable love affair with America’s favorite past time, regardless of the scraped knees, sore wrists, and bruised ego I sustained as a result of soaring downward from the fence once my shoe had slipped away and my fingers surrendered to searing, screaming under crimson abrasions. But I’ve never minded soaring, or floating, or flying much; quite the contrary! If I had been genetically engineered with the ability to fly, an orange and black cape whipping the wind behind me into cream, the tops of the redwoods finally revealing their beauty, the houses the size of the models my brother used to beat me in Monopoly last week, the cars the atoms making up a cell of… a cell of something, I am not sure, I cannot see that far and I have forgotten my glasses again! Damn! How could I have left my specs behind on my day of blast off!? I am moving to the moon, you see, where I can drift about the cheesy surface, host baseball games in the stadium sized craters, amen the baking temperatures on all of my favorite recipes to correspond to the increased sitance between my oven and sea-level, and not have to worry about the gravity grabbing at my feet ever again. it is probably pretty impossible to trip, stumble, falter, or find yourself face to face with the floor when the force that fucks with your equilibrium is nowhere to be found. Plus, I hear the Earth is breathtaking this time of year against the sugar sprinkled asphalt sky. I can’t stand it here anymore in California; I’m growing more claustrophobic with every cosmetic surgery executed, every actor who’s elected politically, with every penny that’s pinched from parents’ pockets to push us to the surface of a sea of debt, with the hipster’s elevator eyes stopping at each of my floors to criticize. I need space. Outer space. I can’t get off the ground down here.

The Sky Is Falling (written 10-26-09)

…And the heavens have split open,

the sun spilling out onto the soil

that reeks of stale urine,

homelessness,

the kind of odor that my olfactory system recognizes

after only one calendar’s worth

of city dwelling.

I was waiting for the bus

to bring me home,

home,

faking when I fumbled over

the words, “feeling festivious”

while on the phone with my mother.

Martha Ann moved the asphalt-stained clouds

and her warmth rained down

onto my black lobo sweatshirt,

my left shoulder peeking out,

an orange creamsicle

and a pink heart

painted on my skin,

my collar bones will never protrude.

I think she then kissed my skin

because she felt me beginning to brood.

and because she likes their illustrations,

decorations.

Get up, J.D. (Rewritten 2-15-10)

I pass the time by turning the pages,

of his works past,

and I wonder if the other early morning passengers,

dark circles shadowing their irises,

perceive my Salinger examination

as cliché simply because he has passed

not too long ago-

do they peg me as a fake, following, fan?

I found out on Facebook,

“R.I.P. J.D.” shown on my screen

as the most recent of status updates

and that was the extent of the goodbyes bid

and I cried for Holden

for he’ll never figure out where

the flock of ducks fly

once the lake freezes over

I would like to think that Holden has begun

a detective agency of sorts,

ya know,

to unveil all the phonies of the world

and I cried for Holden

for he’ll never figure out where

the flock of ducks fly

once the lake freezes over

Events of an Inconsequential Nature (written 2-1-10)

Humming birds hurrying across

My morning ceiling’s path;

Spring brings creatures twitter pat

The waddling wad of fur looks up from pissing

On a light poles feet,

And only the hope that the season seceding winter packs,

Coupled with a couple more delightful daylight hours

Pumps through my chest’s chambers.

I am a pedestrian and have the right of way,

But it’s a feel good Friday

So I wave a pilot behind the glass

To turn before I cross-

They wave back in gratitude.

They never wave back.

The sun is burning through

A meandering marine layer;

I feel the light in my soul.

I am pedestrian and have the right of way

To feel fulfilled after a first week.

A Couple of Lost Boys (1-written Aug. 2009, 2-written 4-19-10)

I. Lost Boys

I wander through the park,

trying to find myself amongst

my rose garden companions,

and why wouldn’t I?

Delicate petals invite me in,

to touch,

to feel,

to experience something else

that is just as fragile and breakable

as a palette of human emotions

I search for myself amongst

this smorgasbord of beauty

blessed to breathe their breezes

As hard as I look,

squinting my eyes to focus,

digging deeper and deeper into the dirt,

I am not here to be found,

I don’t think I want to be found

I will just search for Peter Pan

in visits to follow,

a little girl to my right claims

to have spotted him in the forest

behind my bench,

swears she saw him, dad

Is that not the wish we all bestow

upon the second start to the left?

To be taken away to a place

where growing up is forbidden?

II.

The little girl has grown

into adolescence, giving up

on the promise of a Never, Never Land

Bells from Santa’s sash have lost

their ring of seasonal song,

the only rustle of tree branches

stem from spring susurrous breezes

now that her Pan surrendered to Hook,

was that not too long ago?

No one will ever know,

the devices detecting time’s tally

were destroyed by Shmee

My sweet girl,

you were so sure you saw every young hearts’

desire, but you’ve forgotten the most

important part regarding your end of the deal,

you were told to hold on to your baby teeth

Did you lose them when you lost your marbles?

DUCK THE FODGERS (written 2-8-10)

One, two, three four

buses passed us before

I realized we were in the wrong place to be waiting

for any sort of bus to begin with,

the sun resigned hours before

and my bladder was bursting with a brewery’s finest.

My friends always rely on my technology,

my not so smart phone,

to navigate our way throughout this city,

catching connecting buses every weekend,

and my lack of directional sensibility

all too often brings barreling down a dead end.

I once took a cocky coworker to a Dodgers baseball game,

the peanut shells crunched beneath my toes,

watered-down margaritas cost me more than my paycheck,

a group of faternity brothers broke into a brawl

during the 7^th inning stretch in the bleachers section,

and I made the grave mistake of giving my guest

a few too many guzzles

of my vodka disguised in a voss glass water bottle.

As expected, I led us the wrong way,

made us await an arriving bus on the wrong side of the asphalt,

and against my will we hailed a hybrid taxicab

to transport us to a fast food joint and finally onto Fulton.

I wanted to prove myself right-I wanted to try and try again

since I had not first succeeded.

What a sweet man, that cab driver was;

Asian-American, a polite build, and tolerant smile;

I suppose we were waving wads of bills in his peripheral views

but still…not too many banana painted vehicles are

up to the demands of a Dodger fan and a drive thru.