decant desperation

there are no words for
a mother in mourning
her cries are
swans’ calls
seeking swift shelter
no bonfire can warm her
she floats,
aimlessly
as wayward winds transpire
to annex all that is stainless,
and wide-eyed
and safe
we sully each strand of sureness
delegating those who wish
to wield walls
of lax laws
as paragons of purview
whilst those who hold tender
the prospects of purpose
the benign benefactors
vying for vicious venom
of the ravenous rabble
are swayed into
submission
as if one could
defeat despair
why must we wield wounds
as weapons?

The Boys of Kenneth Street

We played mumbletypeg with jackknives.
We stole Playboys from the first 7/11.
We played corkball and kickball
and football in the street. Cars
interrupting a game were given a
raspberry. We weren’t really hoodlums—
we were too timorous—but we liked
the new rock music and, given the chance,
we snarled like Mick Jagger. Kenneth
Street was base and our peregrinations
took us to the drugstore or the woods.
We strutted and talked about girls as if
we knew the secret thing. Our world
spun only one way. The 60s passed and
we moved around more. The connection
remained. I still count on these boys,
who taught me nascent masculinity,
and what the world was like beyond our
neighborhood. Those times we ran
together, so long ago now, took place in
an America that is gone. Gone too
our innocence. And the need, which burned in
us like holy fire, to be more than what we were.

EXCEPT YOU

What gets archived
a song in November
a psalm in the fields
chants around a fire?

Wearing their good shoes
huddled up the earth is heated
and scraped off the next morning.

Nobody will remember
except you
who swept the floor
and kept love.

shyness can stop you

this little silver instamatic camera shoots panoramas.
fits in your pocket, if there's no chewing gum or keys in there. it’s no
picturesque paul simon kodachrome.
more like a drugstore analog fix, but in-disposable.
she's reliable—she's well-traveled—she's seen the empire state, all
over the east coast.
she's had redondo to san pedro in her sights, too.
no, she's not fancy, she doesn't have flash, yet she lets me see the
world through 5 x 6 matte, avec sloppy borders.
she's visited thousands of unique daffodil faces.
some in-focus, others blurry, caught in a distorted blizzard dream.

one face i wish she got a better look at:
a nameless piano player near the sunnyside playground. he was
magnificent: his own skyscraper, his own ocean: an eighth wonder.
no frills, no tourist traps, pure & free.
a spotlight shone on him and him only, casting every pair of
untrained eyes and ears into blackness.
i hoped for some discreet profile of his sweaty, barechested,
maestro frame, jerry lee lewis-ing, leon russell-ing his way into my
celluloid memories.
so humble yet so good—fingers and sensibility unencumbered. i wanted to
go up and ask him if he could be my sierra nevada, if he could be my
superstar.
instead, i took a hazy, distant snapclick from the steadfast
streetcorner.

shy, introverted, bashful cole just didn't have it in him.
though, i know she did.
there was a sentry blocking those palace gates.
a detached receiver in that telephone booth.
then: the most intimate question.
now: my devastation, my missed shot.
he might’ve even been flattered, chuffed, pleased at the proposition.
instant regret filled my fluttering, i didn’t catch the 10:05 bus,
conflicted, crushed, anxious thundercloud torso, now squeezed tight in the
station between my toes and my socks.
a falling, stillborn feeling.
a stomach dropping out of its highwire act.
above all, the real misfortune was felt by my pintsized photographe. her blank,
idle 35mm film only gets old, languishes, and expires.

Unarbitrary Definition for The New Concise Modern Dictionary of Synchromysticism

because · /bɪˈkɒz/ · conjunction. 1. Because the limited, dual nature of the human mind necessitates the illusion of cause and effect. 2. Because all things connected must be understood conjoined, conjoined and ever changing. 3. Because the wings of butterflies cause hurricanes. 4. Because A must equal B, & B must equal C; A must also equal C; so you were wrong, Siddhartha: to eliminate desire is to eliminate all life. 5. Because I need you like the island needs the ocean, deluded in the isolated joys of boundary. 6. Because Time is Space & Space is Time, and both constructions of the bodies (see also: celestial, solar, heavenly, physical, and divine). 7. Because we conceive of Incarnations, conceived in concepts from the moment of conception. 8. Because we ask the question, “Why?” 9. Because the Postmodern has fallen upon us; and the Continental Philosophers all were French; and the French have always had it written in their language: the answer to pourquoi? is just pourquoi. 10. Because we always need a reason. 11. Because explanations make us feel profound. 12. Because I held you, I will someday lose you. 13. Because we love, we all will suffer. 14. Because we all do suffer, we must love.