love poem

a warm call under a warm feather duvet worn like a lover a full half hour before the alarm sounds its ghastly racket. a portable phone flexing its 900MHz across the thousands of kilometers spanning the skin of my duvet, the space of air to the base, and the grand land of the New World, the Peaceful Sea, and a POTS, copper wire, fibre optics, satellite, spread spectrum, repeaters, switching, bandwidth, international subset, substrate, irradiating the rubbery leather of the Sperm hunting the giant giant prehensile squid. where the pipe is laid, where the optics chirp their handshake, their telephony, their protocol, their laser beam words. enough to convey softness the same way it was harsh before, the way it conveys sadness and apology the same way it was hurt before. complaining about the static. complaining about the clicks of the rushing pod of porpoise and the moaning of the migrating humpback as it tries to sing us back to sweet sleep.

saw woman in a red callico dress, thin sun dress and she had long slender legs pressed into nude-leather open-toes shoes with a pressed leather heel. Her toe nails were plum. The skin of her legs was translucent and pale and smooth. The dress covered her upper thigh but the hip was smooth under the thin fabric and her smooth tummy rose to a round bosom. Her arms were slender and her nails were short and natural. Her eyebrows were strong but her hair was dark and full and fell to her shoulder in one splash. Her skin was clear and her mouth was full and she sat there in the cafe nursing a coffee shake with a guy friend and I caught her eye and she looked at me and I couldn't read my Gravity's Rainbow -- then a friend of mine came in and we went outside for a cigarette and she left past us looked back and she and he took off in a civic... but her slim pale legs winked at me once more as she drew them into the car then she shut the door and as she passed I followed her and she smiled and left into the night in the white japanese import.

You sit at your desk,
Unable to look out
At the street--
The pane reflective.

Your father, a poet,
Is published.
You are certain
We haven't heard of him.

Your soft clear face,
Brushed with hair,
Crinkles in concentration,
Searches for trees.

Rumpled in boy's sheets,
Belly pressed towards sleep,
A hair wave trundles down
Neck and shoulders.

Flannel pajamas form
You and winter scenes
Of snowmen and skaters
Tickle your pale flanks.

The machine kicks in after four
Rings, pressing pleas of
Happiness onto erasable tape.
You screen every call.

You are pressured by the phone.
The vinyl bench in the Blue Metroline
Train presses your intense desire
For freedom into my back.

I sit and write a letter,
From my suburban room, forming words
that tell why I could miss
The last Metro home.

it is not a gentle
memory of you that
i bring home

it is a memory of
teeth and bruises
it is a memory of

fire and poison
words over bear
liters of scotch

portions of songs
huddled over tears
in the corner on the

floor all night
mugs of water drunk
poured; a desk, a floor

bruises to hide
coffee brewed and tea
over bread and cheese

grimaces, teeth
firm slaps anger
revulsion, raw bare

passion resonating
to the burning of
Sting all night

the fatigue held in
bones, in flesh,
the sting of hangover

i am not your friend
you are not my friend
not enough time has

passed and why doesn't
this lover just leave
in the morning you

ask me you ask and you
are so sad so tired so
strong. I watched the

muscled arms, the tense
torso, the sprung legs
round angry thighs

breasts pressing forward
held tight all day in
oppressive heavy work

still so sad so sick from
love running until the
lungs burn and cheeks red

panicked late at night
tears and music and then,
"do you know tosca, do you?

you must visit slovenia
you must understand you
must sense this kind of

love to understand why
i took the cigarette and
burned out my own face

why i am wild
why i am crazed
why i am so cruel

why you must hate me
to truly love me
to be my lover now"

i see your pretty body
and short hair with bangs
dark with lighter stripes

"this is me; this is me"
so beautiful all of it
but sad and dangerous

"most creatures under god
are harmless unless frightened,
cornered or sick," i thought.

so lovely so successful
so formidable so brilliant
yet nothing without love?

and a tender embrace
a tender kiss and a walk
to the tram station, 7b

The lust stings my thighs with
Fishing barbs -- it is impossible
Not to twist and revel in past
Sexual soups and my penis and
Head conspire against me
In their infection of delicious
Innuendoes.

The prude can excites me
With her steady repression --
The imagined red nipple
Held firm in underwire,
Nestled in starched sturdy fabric,
Runs electric.
The heart of the matter.

I see myself an obvious man
of illicit intent, my raunchy brow
Dotted sheen sweat,
an admittance
Of phallic degeneration.

Thighs interest me more than
The lips for they support,
Hug, press, sometimes undulate
Underneath while the lips
Only consume and then render
Useless pulp.

The green screen was hazy
from the grease upon my
brow when I sat there before
checking my awk file.

It kept on jamming up so
I tool a breather and sat down
to read some pages from a
fat book on UNIX.

her hair curls more during humid days. she leaves her hair down on these days. there is always a rope of curls in her eyes. down to her chin. sometimes she takes a blond end into her mouth. when she thinks. she begins to put her hair back with a silver metal barettes but she isn't because she loves the way her hair moves today. tomorrow it may be back in a ponytail, but not today.

not today as we wait for the blue line train to take us from capitol hill south to dupont. her hair stays down even after the transfer. the ceiling, honeycomb arches, painted nicely in only some stations. for the pleasure of the policy makers. for the concrete arches turn dark with age. grimy. the formed rock takes the soot from long days and rubs it deep. the pale grey paint is ghoulish. unnatural like whitewashed brick or brownstone. an afterthought. bad design. Impossible to sand blast or scrub.

i sit with her waiting for the train. after coffee. lattes.

(she sits with her leg folded under her. or a knee pulled tight into her chest. her limbs are slender, she takes up no room at all. but once, years ago, i thought she was quite tall. when she walks her back is straight, her back arched. she bounds in spite of heavy oxfords and rugged jeans. rough fabric like husk protecting tender flesh. her lips have natural color contrasting with her smooth pale skin. i noticed these things years before. old news except for the navel ring. that is new news. leather jacket. an easy of movement. wire rimmed glasses.)

the metro came after a short while. it passed us as we at, my legs sprawled, knees apart; she sitting with legs under her. we stood and watched as the short train, only several cars, pulled way past us and we needed to walk a long way.

it made my hung mind clearer to spend time with her. to spend time outside on a winter day of 65 degrees. warm in jeans and a button down. walking under balmy skies. through eastern market. my head is throbbing. my throat is tight and i want to vomit and never smoke, never drink again. purge the toxins from my soul. from my body.

a man sits together with a woman on the stone bench near the rails. his eyes stroke the curls she absolutely will not brush from her face. the dirty blond curls, more waves than curls. the tips of the curls are almost white, still bleached from the summer. this is winter, waiting together for the blue line in washington. the metro never takes very long. it hovers to rest with a spaceship electronic whine. the woman runs her finger through her hair and behind her ear, keeping all but one long strand from again falling into her eyes. the man is young, but older than the woman.

she wears a green cardigan over a cotton shirt, tucked into heavy jeans. she wears tan leather work shoes. chunky tomboy urban wear. she has always dressed like this, even when in the office. soft translucent skin, moist and white. hints of blush in the cheeks. rough denim and soft skin. golden hair and golden wires holding her glasses on. he is bigger than she. he is wider and much taller. bearded. ruddy. heavy. with curious eyes that look at her, then the train.

he moves slowly, carefully for his mass is dangerous to others if unchecked. unchecked movement, even friendly claps, may throw another against a wall. They sit so that their knees touch. not from love but from comfort. because they have known each other for so long and can speak or move with ease. because they are friends. he scratches his beard and runs a hand through his hair. its to his shoulders uncut and dark brown. black jeans. steel toed boot, scuffed and brown.

there is an urban state of mind. more in common with each others, these cities. chicago, new york, washington. no different these cities from paris or london; rome or berlin. san francisco and toronto, the same. even saint petersburg shares a metro with singapore. and in the metro we wait together for the train to come to rest, opening the stainless doors. like in any city, cleaner than most.

sitting before the screen later, i will smell the dank air, see the sprung third rail. wait until the lamps at my feet flash in unison.

i notice her glasses. gold wire rimmed spectacles with a medium prescription. at the end of her powerful nose. blue eyes hidden behind. and she is sad often these days. sad for days before. like me, never having gotten over college.

still sipping coffee from a big plastic mug from au bon pain. steamy java in the grad class. professor winston napier. african american literary theory. sitting, fingering the xerox baraka, the xerox bam, the thick copies of out of print afrotext and the buzz buzz buzz of the blues men, the jazz funk earthy cool, sitting with the big boys, the intelligencia, the ebony tower. sitting there sipping a 40 of french roast and watching the leaves fall outside.

you are my mirror: any mental quirk you find in me, you'll find in yourself too!"