True Love

we're eating soup,
no talk
no music,
one candle
suddenly I notice, again,
how beautiful she is

my spoonful halfway
beween the bowl and my mouth
I stop, just look at her
eating the soup I made
suddenly she notices me looking

what? she says
oh, I say, you're just so beautiful
no, really, she says
really, I say
I don't believe you, what were you really thinking?
dammit why can't you believe me, you never do
because you're such a liar
liar? what about you?
whaddya mean, me?
oh, fuck you
same to you asshole

Disclaimer: This is not about any two people I know.
I just made the whole thing up. Really.

 

where am i but here

There comes a time in life when everybody
must take a piss in the sink
-Peter Orlovsky


hotel rooms night and day
scratch & noise from hallways strange
never know who or what they are

brown tobacco'd light through
the crack'd shade
looks like dawn or dusk - the clock a.m.
or p.m. - the shuffle outside coming
or going

i stand in the corner & run yellow tapwater into my room
everything i know in a green sack
on the bed

everything i own goes down the drain
as i take a leak
the chipped enamel basin stuck again
in the corner of the room

who the hell knows where
the bathroom is, if any

 

Two Nectarines

For Barbara

all she did was put
a couple of nectarines
into my pack

I was there when she bought a bag of nectarines
from the fruitstand
she gave me one and it was so delicious
I made myself take a long time to eat it
careful bites, the juice ran down my chin and hands anyway

sometimes I have to bite upwards with my lower teeth
they're not my original, real teeth
and tend to move around my mouth
luckily I can joke about my body's slow decline
it's the price of all the years and worth it
though now I know I could have taken better care
of myself

worth it because whatever happpened
brought me here
to the marketplace in the sun
four or five different kinds of music
mixing it up in the air
hundreds of little kids
every one of them beautiful
no matter my sarcastic remarks
so much to see, so much to eat

and all that love
I can only think I must deserve it
but it isn't really what I think about
I think about nothing

I am embraced by such good fortune
and best of all, love
so that when my back is turned
and I can't even see her radiant face
she opens my pack
and puts in
two nectarines