poemS of the day 05.01.09 Ally's Birthday

Today is my sweet Ally's birthday, and instead of trading her in for a younger model (as she didn't do to me), i'm going to post a few ally-related poems here.

anniversary

you call
from the shit swell
of an art festival
two days before our anniversary
and tell me you are lost
between saleable junk
and some hippie selling
his dog,
and that you will be going
to a bar because you can’t
find your friends.
that’s all right
i think
as long as you are safe
because when you left me
an hour ago
the feeling hit me that we
would one day no longer
hear each other’s voices
that everything we know
about each other
would one day cease.

so i’d rather picture you
alone in a bar
than gone from me
for all eternity.

06.10.06


poem for ally
(who fell over last friday night)

people will always
be mad at you
or will judge you
because most people
have nothing better
to do
than sit and contemplate
another
while ignoring the mess
of their own lives.
the key is to not let
it get to you
or to temper your
madness.
once you become
what they want
you to be
you might as well
take that whole bottle
of pills
or grab the knife
or put your head
in the oven
because you’re done,
cooked,
and ultimately they’ll
be on toward trying
to change someone else
before you’re even
cold and pale
or missed.

9.11.06


making love

your soft nakedness
when i am tired
still hits me like bliss.
this life
with all its quick and mundane
bullshit and demands
let’s us only come
at each other
when we can.
but each time that we do
i’m always so surprised
at how sweet
your flesh
remains
to the taste of my
boozy mouth.

01.29.07


alright, for now

we are sitting in the dark
living room of the new apartment,
watching rain fall on bay ridge parkway.
and our shit is everywhere,
like it seems to be every two years.
and the cats have gone mad with wonder,
in a way that i can’t anymore
because i’ve just seen too many different walls.
i ache and am black and blue
from the hauling of couches and book boxes,
and everything else we could put
in that sixteen-foot truck.
you ache and won’t stop sneezing from
the dust.
and somewhere in this we are getting older
and weaker and more tired, and less resilient all around.
i want to apologize to you for the months
of heartbreak and sorrow that preceded this,
and the endless conversations about money
and time and place,
or if new york will eat us alive again.
i want to apologize.
but every time i do i always give myself something
else to be sorry for later.
so i say nothing.
and we sit in the darkness
with a sunday afternoon opera on the radio.
i refill your glass with more jug wine.
it is the best we can do today.
it seems alright, for now.

08.20.07