poemS of the day 07.30.08

girl in the blue dress

she is tan with long brown hair
she is walking through
the atlantic avenue station
in a blue dress that cuts
jagged and left
the top has only thin straps
and she is not wearing a bra
she has on these celebrity-style
sunglasses
so that you cannot see her eyes
you do not want to see her eyes
because it ruins the illusion.
and she is walking so slowly
men are stopping
men are turning 180s to get a look
some are screaming things at her
trying to peer into her soul
or at least look at her nipples
she does not pick up the pace
she is deadly and deliberate
other women hate her
one man declares his love
another asks her how much for it
she doesn’t answer
i watch her go down the steps
my steps
and on the train platform
it is the same thing
stares
cattle calls as she moves slowly
down the aisle
the world in her palm
the world ripping her apart
and when she gets on the next d train
two more guys slap each other’s chest
and speculate about her bedroom prowess
then they look at me and smile and wink
and i think that the world
will never be ready for anything
beauty, madness, or death
then i get on my train
to go the hell home.


chopin’s heart

chopin’s heart
is nestled in a column
in the holy cross church
in warsaw, poland,
bathed in alcohol.
and the scientists
want to pull it out
and cut into the flesh
and do dna testing
to find out if freddie
had cystic fibrosis
instead of the tuberculosis
everyone thought he had.

we seem to never stop
testing our technological
boundaries,
becoming less human in
the process.
and while i guess it is good
that there’s a public interest
in chopin again,
a want for insight,
perhaps those scientists
should simply listen
to the man’s music
instead of piercing
a piece of flesh
all of their talents
and combined knowledge
could never surmount.