November 2009
25 posts
5-Back on the road the outside whistles its way in as we go, wondering if my knuckles will ever be that hairy.
4-These afternoons collect into one I can remember from the black and white where bright sun fades us in the foreground
3-Rope rounds the tree branch hanging on a swing while he meals inside on the big table/it smells like water here/a washed breeze
2-Truck in the grass/the doors slam heavy and imperfect/ cinnamon from the house as he boots up wood steps behind me and calls me kid
1-And if I stare comes the window rattle with the road/a seat springs metal and his hand/his grip on the wheel like mine holding this photo
This week Monday through Friday, will be posting a serial called “Untitled summer.”
5-Mom came home with a gypsy girl to feed/Dad read and I kept quiet because through her thin white shirt was the round of my first nipple
4-Mom urged Dad to throw ball with me but he stayed heavy in his chair and she took to windy sighs in my direction whenever he was around
3-They said he built it all himself, a ground up guy/From nothing rose Dad/And when proud, his big block hands pat me awkward on the head
2-Dad raised me on the no son of mine diet of don’ts/No son of mine cries but I did and Dad flipped a loud newspaper while Mom snuck me coco
1-It was the year of peace and parking lot runaways, I rode in the backseat with Dad fisting get a job and Mom muttering shrill to stop
This week Monday through Friday, will be posting a serial called “Awakened by a thinly veiled sun.” Stay tuned…
Sleepaway camp summer so grown and alone shaken by a familiar timbre on the front lawn where his mom stood passing out cupcakes.
Domino afternoon playing parkside with boys clicking tiles, their swift hand know how and table talk, a smooth bunch that age that way.
He pink tongued a toothless gum and one hand hiked up his pants waist doing the bend over to finger pick a half lit stub in the gutter.
He was a tough trolling for schoolyard squabbles, not like his folks who lived the communal and made him one third all household decisions.
New kid with my lunch box I spied at the bus stop, okay for liking the same superhero but my friends called him fat so I used a paper bag
He said his real parents were pirates on a gold boat about to send for him at any time, not the couple of quiets that never said hello to us
We circus clowned and kicked around and I got sick of always getting tamed but he reminded me that it was his Dad that got the tickets
His Dad didn’t show so to make it up to her son, they coned on the general store porch of splinter wood, summer melting on their fingers.
He doorways away from full moon foolish night but before his disappear, a finger to the sky “I go because I want to not because I have to.”
I never slept so soundly as I did that summer, tucked away in the rented yellow, the walls vibrating with the buzz of my parents’ parties.
Man faced and stroller bound / looking out with round browns / as if to say / I’ve walked this mile once before
She got the glad I’m not you glare important life of a 15 year old dialog talk and pull on a seductive knee sock not knowing what she means
We paraded the block in loud plastic personalities, candy gang banging down doors with guts to grab a few from the bowl by the last house.
October 2009
31 posts
Station regular asking out front all day hear the jingle on the in and out door lean with dry hand for some spare a smoke will do you too
Cleaved in the back after school, trading job for character like Dad had done but meat turned me sensitive and we drifted apart not closer
Wispy towhead about the park stirs her benched mother with a finger in the snout of a dog who loses the scent as the toddler is breezed away
Live alone pale face under dyed black with mustache matching, comb in a glass by the sink he clinks and wears this ritual wherever he goes
Dad was a stiff I needled by saying I was gonna guitar in every city but only Mom heard and she birthdayed me one I had to pretend to enjoy
He stuck a gum under the seat of his pop’s powder blue he kept clean with a cloth in the glove box and the towels he had us sit on.
He thought his dad made it from scratch and was fat proud of the boat he showed and told until someone else pulled out the same model
Back office with a rented law man, star of the security tape he poached a pair of sunglasses and waits proud for the wrath of his old man
Dangling an underage beer bottle in her summer striped halter, beach bonfire baby acting all grown up with the local kids we once mocked
From here the halo behind him circles his head and we, the ritual keepers, thick wine into one from the cup he extends
little boy red danced for his kid brother, a lazy baby who lazy stared over the shoulder of his mother who ended the tap dance racket
We heeled warehouse cement with the others talking around the art on the walls until someone said he liked it and everyone agreed
On an oriental carpet eating caramel from a jar, she watches herself puff off her father’s ash tray stubs in her empty spoon.
We moved the couch to see street from a room shared three flights high and every time I pass that building I feel us peering out the window
His family took him suburban and from the backseat he palmed goodbye, building brother, cowboy to my indian, partner in a gloomy playground
baby pushed the peas to the ground and waved her pudgies for a pick from the high chair, rock of the round head, sleep on mother’s shoulder
Just once I’d like to be that guy hanging over the edge, loose wristing my glass, staring down the women on deck, too carefree to notice
she rolled them full of green and we kited the days together as I watched her watch the ceiling and wondered where I was
he’s a kentucky fried drunk with his elbows in a grease bucket, shiny lipped don’t care wont get up for nothin but a thigh bone
We played riverside boating invisible armies on twig sinking leaves, passing kids, forever brothers for one afternoon.
We got the grumble cause he got him a second hand easy down on Main in a parade around, cut can cracking with us all for a nice pair
Our treegazing neighbor shovel leans, crooked fingers the night ‘Been overrun by critters’ and a sagging branch sways under blinking eyes
We ice cream coned from the truck that whistled us out of our houses and down the block grasping coins we couldn’t wait to offer in trade
they shout the alley bald and fly up sounds like angry winds circulating the piles they sort, word huckers storming up my peaceful corner
He was the snake pacer, a city block back and forther who wore his reptile scarved in controlled dangle and made mouth at women he passed.