love poetry

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.

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.

You simmer before the page,
Ruminate about a tree,
In November, on a cold bench,
And ratchet a pen
Between your fingers.

Words crunch through
The gravel at your feet and dapple
Upon the page in cursive,
Evoking the spires of trees.

At your desk, pressed against
A clammy pane of glass, a mirror,
You strain to perceive differently
But words retreat; the page is still

Clean in your room at midnight;
But you need to write down
Your crashing thoughts,
And then comes day
And the Muse neither visits your pen
Nor your paper.

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.

The sky took the morning. Birds tore small holes in the quiet. The air remained cool, but not for long. It still kept us under the covers. Her breathing remained slow and rhythmic.

I, awake for nearly an hour, didn't know how to get out of bed without waking her. We had been awake together only three hours ago, here. We were new lovers. I did not dare to move as I didn't know her sleep as well as I knew others'. I knew I would doze again, but I hadn't the patience to wait.

The red block LED of the digital clock burned into my eyes. My stare slowed time. The morning failed to wax and I laid there for hours waiting for her to stir, not wanting myself to be the cause.

1. When you sit quietly next to me.
2. When you move closer to me.
3. When you move under me.

Reading from Norton's
That poem you've been
Saving for me under a
Yellow tab. It simmers
While the leaves are shut
And the energy mainlines
Through you until you
Have to ground it in me.
The chattering verse
Slips to the right then up
and catty-corner to where
We were before. Your
Eyes tick up to me to judge
My reaction -- but this song
Moves too rapidly to become
Distracted by others and,
Like a pianist on new music,
Some notes need to be replayed --
The rhythm reëstablished.

You and I walked arm in arm through
Yawning streets-- warm evening light
Reflected off sale signs and dowsed us both.

Light like the heater I kept turning off and
You kept switching on. I pulled at your arm
Interlocked with mine.

You moved in that loose limbed way
Like unformed bones.

What is this thing the English
Have for tea? The teapot steeping, the thimble
Cups staining like teeth. From all this tea,

From all this coffee, from all these cigarettes,
There's no wonder why teeth here remind me
Of little gold pips.