Original Poems

it sounded more like a compliment
than an inquiry

i felt uneasy

no gangs? he asked

and i’m thinking

no, not really – are you joking?

and then i’m imagining menacing groups of teenage boys in do-rags
galloping
through the streets of
the gracefield subdivision

i tell him
no, not really, but of course they’re kind of everywhere

i’m trying to say that we’re all the same
and that nobody is really secure
and that

well, also, gangsters are just people
i mean, if they were around here
i wouldn’t be
uh, terrified, or anything

i drive through some pretty
rough neighborhoods
every day

hey – it may look like we’re doing well
but i’m not like the rest of these people

it’s just good luck at the moment
and it could change

i wonder where he lives
and what it’s like there
but i don’t ask

why
am
i
ashamed?

god forbid
we should ever be
twenty minutes without some grey haired white guy
casting swine before pearls

the people
cannot be all, and always
well informed

am i right?

lethargy

misconceptions

you have the right to
remain silent

and pardon my pacifier

but the blood of tyrants
will not be shed
by your update on facebook

empty feeder sways
over the backyard terrace
birds have flown away

i look up to the heavens sunday night
if there’s a star up there to wish on
i don’t see it

if there’s a prayer
or an incantation
i don’t
know it

if there’s a reason
to believe

in anything

i suppose i believe
in leaving
well enough alone

i solemnly swear
or affirm

i swear

it’s not the tragedies that
kill us

it’s the paper
cuts

that awkward thing where
the woman who calls you her husband
reaches for your hand and tries to interlace fingers
she never does that – not in all these years
and it’s like somebody just tried to hand you a spider or
a bucket of something repulsive
and you pull your hand away and shudder

ew

was that out loud?

also, you’re in the same mall
where you strolled with your lover
just days ago
fingers interlaced

where you had your picture taken in one of those
coin-op photo booth things with the curtain

you still carry the pictures
of smiles and passionate kisses
in your wallet

and you’re coming upon the photo booth now

and the woman who calls you her husband
suddenly gets this great idea

he stands
blue
against a gray sky

memory

it’s loose gravel underfoot
you
remember one thing
you remember
another

and then the thing you wanted to forget

the bitter wind
chafes his cheeks

collar raised and
face set

he steps toward the abyss