they pressed you face
down
and pulled you in tight;
a marigold, between weighted pages.
tufts of hair lingered like
dandelion seeds
tufts of hair lingered like
dandelion seeds
your green corduroys were
flat and hollow,
a sucked-out stem -
all of the life had
swarmed to your irises.
tabby ones, grey ones, tiggy- striped-tiger ones.
tiny undernourished ones. squinty, sleepy,
glass-bottle-green eyes, electric-shock hairies
that
recoil at your breath. ones so black that you only
see
their eyes in the night time. and a pair of pink
milky ears.
nut-brown, bony man
strokes and swirls with them, tails twining,
cigarette smoke salsas on the breeze. a
wooden ballerina in jeans and check,
tangoing on the cobblestones with
the cats of castelnuovo.
Part of an ongoing documentation of the cat colony living in Castelnuovo di Porto, Italy.
One of a number of impressions of Palermo briefly made intelligible while leaving on a bus.
the smoke of charred carcass rises from the alley in plumes;
the roller-door restaurant is open for business.
he deftly guts the octopi –
thick, worn fingers push into the orifices, tentacles draping
over the hairy wrist like lover’s legs,
eyeballs disappearing into the bucket
of miscellaneous sea-creature pieces.
he plunges it into a bucket of water,
first cold to rinse then
boiling, then dismembered and curled about spaghetti or
straight onto the plate like a puppet,
steam rising from the suckers.
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sometimes arrows
sometimes, a paper plate.
sometimes a flag, beaten in the wind
sometimes the span of a pair of hands.
sometimes, a fly on its back. sometimes
the speckled exterior of an egg. some
times a barrel of wriggling minnow. sometimes
black protein spots, sliding
across the film of my eye
straining and reaching for the pallid sky.
the lilikoi
vines pull themselves
through the
windows, thieves feasting on the stench.
this house festers
in its own loneliness
and
releases itself back into the world -
there are
no children.
now, you
are doled out here and there
soup and
bread for the curious
in a box of
photographs, gathering dust and
dried up
millipedes.
you leap
from the aircraft,
shoulders
pulled over themselves, and
hurtle
toward the land, divided into
infinite
identical squares.
gravity
leaves you
scooping
wet sand in cupped palms,
it
trickles between fingers, treacle i
rub it
across my skin, white and
pink
and goosepimpled like
supermarket chicken breast. inspecting
the
particles, black cream
brown and
transparent
cubes, sticking to me like
so
many limpets; forearms, calves, the
small
of my back. the fleshy fields
on the
inside of my thigh.
sinking
back into the sea they
leave
me, a galaxy of microscopic meteors;
a
salty surrender.
do you have any pets? of course, he said.
every modern family has pets,
they keep the kids entertained.
we used to
have a budgerigar,
but he got away...
luckily, the cockatiel can’t escape –
its wings have atrophied from
being kept in a cage.
it can fly about as far
as a chicken, maybe less
[he said with an awkward chuckle]
my sister named it Nancy, but then we found out
it was a boy.
our youngest cat has bulimia –
it gorges itself on cat food, every night
then vomits it back onto the carpet
every night – that’s why
we don’t let that cat inside very often.
none if it really interests me, he said –
i’d rather play with my war figurines
and read comic books.
i turn to face the
skyline,
pumpkin seeds clenched
in my fist.
a pigeon nuzzles into
itself, one
red eye rolling, a tiny
marble.
church spires prick like
pins;
tent poles, holding the
clouds aloft for centuries.
patti didn’t pick up
the guitar until she was twenty-three
nor robert the camera
and henry didn’t write
anything decent until his hair was already
swooping from the
temples.
i put down the pen and
sink back into the sun.
This poem was found written on a paper bag by Richard Brautigan in a laundromat in San Francisco. The author is unknown.
By accident, you put
Your money in my
Machine (34)
By accident, I put
My money in another machine (36)
On purpose, I put
Your clothes in the
Empty machine full
Of water and no
Clothes.
It was lonely.
Taken from The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
