Selected poems from
We Pass Each Other on the Stairs:
120 Real and Imagined Encounters
Dark Seeds |
Men are dark seeds
expelled by their desperate fathers at the edge of the Sodomean Desert. Tossed up in sandstorms, live in the curse of broken earth. Open dark seeds with swollen red tongues crushed by falling rocks. After long years of drought, they sprout angrily through the wounded earth, fissures, as black scorpions fencing each other with their deadly claws, stingers locked, drunk on each other’s poison. They dance, skip, dance on the ravines till they fall, exhausted and snoring, by Eden’s fences, exempt from making love to Eve or having to answer to anybody and the crows keep shrieking. |
Sweet Peas |
Oh, hi, Jack,
I know I am late. I am usually at the gym at twelve. My yard was full of magnolia flowers. I have already planted carrots, onions and tomatoes in my vegetable garden. You never had a garden? With me, it is a force of habit every Spring. No, I am single. My wife died in ’72, my girlfriend died in ’82. I have had several relationships since then. Life goes on. Next week, I will plant broccoli and sweet peas. |
