no snowcap
love you like a blackmail
one of the girls at the bus stop sings to the other
twelve years old and they’re both
in the tight pink pants that say juicy on the ass
i don’t know if you can call them lycra or spandex
…spanx, is what i think i’ve heard them called
but the patriarchy is alive and well this morning
the two girls are in each other’s face
fists to their lips like microphones
love you like a blackmail, baby
love you like a blackmail
girls looking decades older than the boys
who will one day decide what their daughters will wear
boys chasing girls chasing boys
standing right beside them singing pink and juicy
love you like a blackmail
boys pounding on video screens
and trying to push each other in the street
crafting the continued history of violence
in this fashion parade
i wonder what these girls
will be wearing in four years
at the ripe, old, overly sexualized age of sixteen
just what the mass marketing machine
will come up with next
like the two girls i just passed
twenty-two degrees this morning
with another winter of our discontent
breathing down our necks
sixteen year olds in thin jackets unzipped
with high-school PE t-shirts cut to mid-drift
like glorified bras
bearing, red, chapped stomachs
the one girl telling the other
that brandon is so cute
she might rape him tonight
rape like love
love you like a blackmail, baby
on a friday night
in digital camera supervised america
without a pair of gloves
and no snowcap on their heads.
the mentor
a wise man once told me
that every step in this life is a step forward
and through the pleasure
and the pain of this existence
the failed jobs and failed relationships
the failed cities and broken cars
all this sickness and death
i’ve held on to that
in some form or another
today i’m thinking it’s my turn
to be the wise man
to be the mentor
to the nineteen year old girl
who wants to discuss her future
a lost kid in college
who may be in over her head
or who might just need to blow off some steam
so we sit there face to face
her talking about the confusion of classes
me squatted like buddha
like the gray and grizzled sage i think i am
remembering nineteen
just waiting on the point in the conversation
where she finally makes her decision
finally sees the enlightened path that her life must take
with my guidance, of course
so that i can say
every step in this life is a step forward, kid
pat her on the shoulder and walk away
feeling good about myself for a change
because as you get older
i’ve learned that it gets harder to feel good about yourself
as the mistakes mount and the failures collect
like debt or old baseball cards in the closet
but we never get to that glorious conclusion
instead of feeling good about anything
the girl starts crying a slow, soundless wretched burn
that turns her eyes red and milky
she makes no sound
as she wipes and tries to look away from me
her plastic guru
her dim leading light
twenty-one years older than her
and none the wiser than whatever burden she’s got
the things she can’t discuss anymore
with someone burning down the road
in the same jack kerouac flannels
that he was baptized in before she was born
just another sagging old man
waiting until she’s finished crying
so that he can lean in and ask her
ever-so-softly
if she’s all right.
shadows of brooklyn
--after richard hugo
it’s true here
that the shadows from clouds
don’t take the shape of boats
sailing in all of this concrete
and when the sky rolls away
white and blue in between the gray and mist
it’s most likely filled with soot and dirt
carcinogenics heading off toward the ocean
but there are shadows of buildings
that can kill the light for blocks on end
and in mornings, cold and warm
i walk them to escape the sun
my own moody blue-black oasis
where i can sink into the urban gloom
for as long as i want to
watching the shadows of cars
locked in morning gridlock duels
make the shadows of stalling snakes
their horns honking frustration
at all of this black
dodging dog-shit temples
cathedrals of up-ended garbage cans
the shadows of people like ants
trying to cross the street
waiting for buses in dull lines
checking cellphones and watches
a facsimile of the shadows
of the people who came before them.
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