Grey Evening (twenty minutes of twilight)

We don’t deserve a decaying summer wind
Stroking our respective backsides as we crunch
Across the pockmarked pavement.

We embrace enormous grey sweaters, hoodies
To encase our delicate shells.  We require
Woolen hats and nourishing thoughts or we’ll wither.

And even as we’re sure to find satisfaction of soul,
We remember to look up; we see
     the pale cobwebs of the upper reaches of Sever Hall.
The class is closed but our questions remain.

s.d.

My Patience for Otis Expires Tonight

My Patience for Otis Expires Tonight:

Tomorrow I surrender. Take my sword
and my badge and my cross. Pelt my
withered skin with oblong pebbles
you find scattered all along the
cracked blacktop. Forget all of
the hard times I lent you cash
(but never kept track), heard
you complain about the women
who trampled on your dreams
and showed compassion when
your family dumped you on
the street corner. Since
your rebirth and coming
of age, I see that you
have no need for this
decrepit imposter of
a friend. No longer
will I inhibit you
nor drag you down
in any way. This
is the last day
I will attempt
to care. Upon
the new dawn
breaking, a
silhouette
will veil
my once-
vibrant
flesh.

s.d.
--/
--

(Note: This piece requires Courier or similar font to display properly; it may look strange in some readers.)

A Cereal Sepulchre

This title and image grace the cover of my first poetry collection. All pieces were written and revised during 2009 September - December. I will post the complete work over the next ten days.
s.d.

Dover Thrift Editions

Sometimes my mind is a Rube Goldberg machine. This past weekend I set foot in the bookstore of a reputable university with the honorable intent of purchasing souvenirs. Before I obtained an obligatory rolled t-shirt, my eye caught sight of a table lined with hundreds of plain, thin Dover Thrifts. I gobbled up poetry collections from Eliot, Carroll, Dickinson, Yeats, and Browning, as well as a sliver of African-American poetry and a “Top 101” of American works. This nifty little seven-pack cost me fourteen dollars--before taxes. This taught me two lessons: getting sidetracked can have positive results, but giving up a career to write poetry probably will not.

s.d.

seven fish

A Christmas Eve spread:
Seven fish augmented by
Alsatian Riesling

12.09
s.d.

A Thanksgiving Consideration

Most years, our family embraces an unoriginal tradition of going around the table over Thanksgiving dinner and allowing each person to publicly announce what he or she is grateful for. I don’t like this tradition very much. Fortunately, we had an atypically small crew this year and focused on various conversations (can Paris be done for two people under $300/day?) and sundry episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm instead.

While looking forward to December and ultimately 2010, I had a moment of crisis over this long weekend. I found myself stuck on what my goals ought to be. I remain unconvinced that the lone pursuit of any particular career path, romantic path, or personal trajectory will lead to satisfaction.

Then I felt better as I considered that the path to fulfillment is all about setting and achieving mini-goals. In the past few months, I’ve amplified these mini-goals and set myself on a course that’s sure to take me upstream towards new and exciting moments. That’s what I’m grateful for.

s.d.

Mid-October

Leverett Circle:
Red light. Snowflakes lit pink, and
Ben Folds' Lullabye.

10.09
s.d.

Bathtime

Diggity's bathtime
He's finally in the tub
Now the fun begins

9.09
s.d.

Reorientation

Airplanes flying into Boston’s Logan Airport typically glide over the ocean and strike the runway so suddenly that I’m somewhat surprised when I’m sitting in one and it successfully averts a water landing. Today was atypical: my 747 re-oriented towards the northeast and deftly swooped in over land. I was sitting towards the front, by the window in 15A, where I saw Boston with a fresh, new perspective. This was the culmination of several experiences revealing longstanding yet subtle aspects of Boston life to me over the past month. In particular, I’ve realized how important it is to ignore hypothetical situations and focus on my existence in the present. I plan to dwell on those aspects I can influence at the expense of everything else. I’ll never presuppose a water landing.

s.d.

At some God-awful late hour

At some God-awful late hour of evening (or maybe an early
     hour of morning)
I’m glancing down
an ooey gooey mess containing: cheese, milk (why the skim
     crap? it tastes like water) also I Can’t Believe It’s Not
     Butter spread
not solid liquid in-between it seeps rapidly approaching
     boundaries of the linoleum floor
the brand new brown carpet in the parlor finally replaced that
     God-awful shag rug
besides brown is a much more natural color for a tiny 1
     bedroom house than hippie green
shag rug and the parlor was a damn jungle does skim milk
     stain a brown carpet? well
Money is hard to come by so
I ain’t paying the carpet-man to replace a stained brown carpet

What does it matter...

Ascending the stair ascending
I am a mortal I can’t withstand overpowering fatigue languor
     sleep sleep
the bedroom on the left no that’s the bathroom keep going
Moments become millenia but the end is in sight
and a warm bed marks end of the trek
ah
it is so warm and soft
a nice bed is the best medicine
Does medicine actually make your body all better? or is it all
     in the mind
maybe the doctors are lying all conspiring against us ignorant
     folk perhaps
that God-awful Benadryl cherry-flavored cough syrup just
     makes us forget that our minds tell our bodies to get better
or
maybe the doctors are right and medicine makes us healthy is
     it healthy to go on a diet? what’s with
herbal stuff ya know Ginseng Belloa or Balboa or whatever it
     is/St John’s Wort/and all those teas they have (why don’t
     they make coffees?)
and fat or carbohydrates protein Adkins’ Diet—all protein
     how can that be good for you? nothing wrong with fat fat
and skim milk yuk skim milk is yukky tastes like water I’m
     gonna buy whole milk next time with the cream and the
     chunks the worst for your “health” hell it’s the best there is
     anyhow
I need to buy milk after all I hear
skim milk on the linoleum floor creeping
creeping slithering groping its way toward my new 1 bedroom
     house short brown carpet that
I just paid for

That feeling when you are lying in the sun next to the pool
and you are so content to just lie there until that huge
     annoying twerp
jumps in and gets you all wet well
that terrible feeling is toppled sixfold as I roll out of the bed
literally

ouch

I stand get my bearings
why do I stand? I dunno I walk walk out the door and trudge
across the floor to the room on my right no
that’s the bathroom the kitchen is in sight
Descending the stair descending
my feet wallow in the vast ooey gooey mess of fats and butter
     it
probably tastes yummy (so very hungry I am—how can
     anyone stay on a diet?)
but now my feet are cold so I look
no socks in the refrigerator

I am really tired
on the brink of collapse
into this yummy pile of products from the udder of a Holstein
why are speckled cows called Holsteins? I’ll add it to the list
     after all my mom is a librarian
ah
It must be some God-awful late hour of evening (or maybe an
     early hour of morning)
I’m glancing down

9.01
This work was inspired by June Jordan’s “Free Flight.”
s.d.

Ahead in time and elsewhere

Who unearthed primal gratitude for my indifference
But entombed my warmth in dreadful silence?
Each occurrence infected a larger part of me
Until I became a gangrenous husk. Only
The remnants of youth and middle years, and emptiness
Remained. I dispelled the notion of “present”
And embraced worldly redemption--
Ahead in time and elsewhere.

7.09
s.d.

don't cry

don’t cry harshly,
but a soft tear or two. discover,
wiping salt on the back of your hand
and swallowing, how
your mind undulates
as moments coalesce. listen:
another cries with you
(in silence).

6.09
s.d.

solstice

Summer solstice marks
the brightest week of the year,
but here it just rains.

6.09
s.d.

invaluable friends

invaluable friends:
each day becomes
bearable

6.09
Each day begins and I have no clue how it will play out. Today was horrendous and I was dreading every minute of it. But then I heard from TW, KE, JD, BZ, KP, LM, SY, and VY, across several media, all unsolicited, and in the span of a few hours. You turned my day around; thanks for being there for me.
s.d.

Kayli (A Poem)

Melding into waves of contentment and unsurpassable pleasure,
          love creeps upon one when least expected
As if the Gods personally crafted her with their own hands,
          and took extra care to insure radiant beauty and infinite grace
The kit comes complete with the enviable qualities that one usually finds
          in the other man’s wife!
But for now the burden is his,
          indefinite gratitude until the time when love ceases to exist
That’s too far in the future to think about now,
          instead he shall enjoy the fresh smell of spring omnipresent about him
Never forget the staleness of loneliness on hot summer nights,
          and never again forget to appreciate the many affable splendors of life!

10.99
I wrote this poem ten years ago. I had a short-lived crush; not only has she never read this poem, I didn’t even spell her name correctly. Frankly, someone challenged me to write a happy poem after a string of darker poems. I’m happy most of the time, but in times of sadness or frustration, I find words more easily. This poem is loose in form (note the one oddly-placed rhyme) and the sentiment is exaggerated, yet I’m still a sucker for the last two lines.
s.d.