Maybe I'll hum an old tune

THE SCARS OF POETRY

Empty shot glass left on the bar

whiskey gone

and now for the silence

that will walk me home,

maybe I’ll hum some old tune

or quote some poems,

perhaps it will be Edward Thomas

meeting his destiny at the “borders of sleep,”

or Stephen Spender will chat with me 

about "The very great,”

I’m sure I’ll pause to ask the night questions

about the clouds above me, or memories of Frank O’Hara

may come as well, his parties and a New York City poetry long asleep,

maybe I’ll hear the sound of a pretty voice

coming down from an apartment high above,

filled with the cadence of love and beginnings,

or maybe an old line I’d forgotten

might remind me to collect my yesterdays,

regardless of all that I’ll have company

but not the kind that leaves lipstick on my cheek

and shirt but just scars across the heart.

New Poem

 Untitled

Morning hour

deepens the communion

with silence,

no raindrop

no wind

here,

no face

no voice

to chat with,

just clouds

and winter dreams.

After Frank O'Hara

 FOR KIM

(After Frank O’Hara)

I would write you a letter, yes old school,

                                                            if

I knew your address

in the darkness of sadness,

                                                         but

You left only a date

in my journals, a wistful dismissive

                                                        ending

So, I’ll write that letter on this sidewalk,

among the dirt and grit of loneliness…

Poem on a rainy morning

 ABSTRACTION

I sit alone with the memory of love

and rain falling outside,

it could be an abstraction of something deeper

something that Camus might have written

reflections along the fences of memory

and suffering

on a page 

on a word

on a face,

But that too is nothing, there’s just this silence

with a long line still unwritten

but thoughts try to find their moorings

without tears,

seconds passing

to more rain

to hot coffee.

For Steve Carolan R.I.P.

 STEVE

“Hello young man”

you would begin our conversations

sitting inside Caffe Trieste or outside,

under bright stars or spring sunsets,

then you would weave a story into our evenings

adding quips, jokes, observations, remembrances, and 

reading “statements” kept in a small notepad, I believe

you had hundred of those filled with words describing

friends, talks, a meal, a book, walks, or thousands

of daily occurrences recorded in tiny, neat, precise handwriting.

A poet friend called our group the lost poets,

now you, Alan, and Perry have joined forces

in another dimension, one we all will cross in time

in time, this is where you would quote T.S. Eliot or

perhaps one of your heroes: James Joyce,

then I would counter with a thought or counter point,

maybe mention Spender, Auden, or MacNeice,

and the night would go back and forth

until we parted ways or Alan, Owen, Perry, Buford, and Mark came by

and poems were read round the table, laughing, listening,

and being lost poets again and again.

I know you would suggest I use another word than again

or, I imagine, you looking over this rushed poem, and asking

“Do you really want to use the word ‘dimension?’ is it necessary

for this poem to be so long?” I know you would hate this elegy

for you, my saying goodbye in the way we met and kept

a friendship over years…

maybe I will take out the word dimension.

”Good night young man, I will see you later.”

Good night Steve…

Rain Hours

 Rain Hours

Rain falls for hours

listen, stop, put down

your journal dates

and jots of memories,

slowly open your windows

that look out to your city

past fire-escapes, past 

loneliness, yes watch the rain

these hours are enough 

for quiet words between 

tears and morning.

New poem

 COFFEE

Silence sits and smokes

 across from this window,

her legs dangling from a rusty fire-escape

smoke and ash rising up to the clouds above,

she doesn't care, she’s a runt, a deceiver,

a philosopher, a debater, questioning all with a stare,

this city is her journal, her work of art  in red and blue

filled with codes, notes, poverty, dirt, noise, and strange doodles,

and my window remains open to her, to the breeze

scattered journals and papers say this life is mine!

the steaming coffee mug set on the table

also waits for company and the morning to move along.