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Paris at Night	© 2000

Every Sleeping Thing

None of it matters
if you cannot make love
to the words on the page,
to the words from the mind,
to the heart of the words,
to the eyes of the mind,
to the soul of the thoughts,
to the flesh and blood,
and the opening heart.

You have awakened
every sleeping thing.

For Sean on a Valentine's Morning

Your poem floats me back to Paris,
to the damp,
to the street lamps,
to the dreamers in the dark
who roam the shiny, mottled cobblestones,
and stare deep into store windows
searching for the reflection of a hand
that will reach for their own across a bed,
across a life.

They wait and walk, these dreamers,
stamping against the cold,
huddled behind their black scarves,
and black coats,
for the sweet smell of croissants aumonde,
for the cafe au lait,
for the thé du rose from Mariage Freres,
and blood orange jus,
for the glassy, downward stares of travelers
who study their own feet rather than
learn from the eyes of strangers.

They pray on the piercing coos of a pigeon
huddled among the angels on Notre Dame,
and they pray on the changing tides,
the green mist of the Seine that rises around the Pont Neuf
and curls between their shoes.

They pray at the shrines of la Tour Eiffel,
L'arc de Triomphe,
and La Poissonniere among the heads of salmon
and yawning clams.

They pray at Pere Lachaise with dead presidents,
and composers and writers,
and the polite pervert,
with raincoat and umbrella,
who taps lone women on the shoulder
to offer an "exhibition" of his "sexe"
among the crypts.

They watch for the first signs
that Paris has turned over in the dark,
peeked out from under her night blanket
before her morning bath.

They wait for her to pull them inside her warm sheets,
run her finger down the small of their backs,
her hand down the space on their chests,
lick the croissant crumbs from the sides of their mouths,
laugh that tender, spicy laugh
and make the love to them
that only that special woman can
who is at home in her life.

And they pray to the gods of art and music,
the gods of cafes and air thick
with the molecules of passion,
that the red hot brand of Paris'
sweet morning lips lasts forever.

June 19th, 1996

She hasn't seen him,
but she knows what he's doing:
picking-up skinny, young women,
the ones with deep hollows, and deep cleavage,
who sit sideways on hotel bar stools smoking foreign cigarettes,
staring at their profiles and at him from the shadows,
fluffing their hair,
buying him drinks between sets,
hoping that if they sit close enough,
and tall enough,
and laugh loudly enough,
he won't notice their make-up
or their need.

Some think he's a celebrity,
a real find on a dark, rainy night in San Francisco,
but he knows what he is.

And when they become attached,
as he also knows they will,
they'll become the next burnt match sailing to the sewer on the runoff,

while a little on his mind,
another woman lies in bed in the five o'clock morning,
sipping cold Earl Gray from a big, red mug,
listening to Sting and pink roses drying upside down
on the bathroom wall.


Iris in the Waterlily Pond	© 2000

*****

Some people just leave a residue --
on your skin, in your car,
floating on the surface of your tea.

That's how it is with her and him
no matter how much it rains in San Francisco.

Blue Light II

I looked across the Bay
at the pulsing, blue light
and thought I saw a genie.

It was the reflection of time shooting back at me,
time in the dark,
in the daybreak,
in the morning's light
and the sweetness of a lover's hand
slowly passing over,
exploring my breast,
soft water over hot rock.

A city's hard edges melt in the dark
with his touch,
releasing me from the bedroom,
to the sidewalks,
to float over sleeping derelicts,
and dead pizza crusts,
and used condoms,
and blue plastic pails on an empty lot,
that through a wire link fence,
become a scrim of morning glories.

The hurrying slows a bit with the night, reflects,
seems more urgent to get there
than be there,
and makes no guarantee that alone in the mind,
and a tux and gown,
will not be alone - even in a crowd.

As I wander,
Wynton Marsalis returns me to 'Black Orchid,'
to another city,
alive in the dark,
to the night-blooming traffic,
and smell of garlic mixed with sewer,
baking rye and taxi fumes,
stale beer and chicken soup.

And I don't care if there is thunder,
or flooding,
or all the winds of heaven and hell descend upon my head.

I don't care
as long as I can walk by a doorway,
and there's a singer inside making love to a hot, smokey song,
and the piano and bass and drums
smoke their hot smoke and misty light,
and get lost in one another,
and I can walk the shiny streets at 4 AM
wishing on rainbows in oil slicks,
watching my breath seep into the bricks,
the underground elevators,
the flour sacks,
the cracked, old glass of my ancestors
in the sidewalks beneath my feet.

I don't care as long as I can be
at the borders of where life begins
and the city ends,
and I can be pulled inside the night
by the genie of the pulsing, blue light
again.

Europa

God, how Gato Barbieri's "Europa"
can bring back that first long look,
that shock,
when you said all you wanted to do was play with me for hours
and would I mind?

Would I mind if you sucked my nipples and licked my belly?

Would I mind if you got inside,
and pushed and prodded,
and pulled, and tortured,
and made me give up any shred of sanity and reason?

Would I mind if you pried open every one of my sealed doors?

Would I mind if I gave myself to your eyes,
and the sax that ripped me to shreds,
and pulled my heart into that far away
where the touch of your skin was all I ever needed to know?

Would I mind if it pulled every piece of me
away from my bones and into the stars?

Would I mind if the world were swept away
and all that remained was that night?

Would I mind?

Poetry Festival

The grass is crawling with poets.
Some, the pompous poor,
some, the raggedy rich,
hawking work,
discussing the last, great read
and stalking the next,
yakking over Diet Pepsi's and iced teas,
and trays strewn with half-eaten veggie pitas,
laughing about the time in '68 when Ginsburg actually fell on his ass,
pushing the next book,
over the amps,
over the barking of a lonely spaniel,
over the clank of cutlery,
over-speaking,
talking poetry politics,
the language of love,
and ignoring the sunstreams surfing
on their vapors.

But above it all, damn it,
above it all, a choir of poems,
like the flaky leaves of a pastry held together with honey,
sits on the damp autumn leaves,
and makes me think there is a goddess here
who wants us to believe in the purity of the words,
and the joy in their creation
anyway.

NYC Blues

Think of him
as stepping off the curb of a New York street wet with doo-wop,
and getting splashed with attitude
by a pink, big-ass Continental pimpmobile doing 50.
He's like better than God on a bad day,
and way past cool on a good one.

Check it out.

I mean, what is it with him and Newfucking York?
It's like after God made NYC,
She ate a pastrami on rye at the Second Avenue Deli,
and maybe forced down a piece of cheesecake
while She was resting,
and then what?
She farted out California
and the rest of the universe?

So, okay, so San Francisco doesn't have
the Lower East Side,
or cannolis,
or Spaldeens,
or decent pastrami, or pizza, or bagels.
So like what else is new?

So, it's got other foggier, yet endearing qualities
like loopy bike messengers,
and slippery cable car rails,
and forty cappuccino stores per block staffed by
spikey, pink and green-haired waitpersons with nose rings.

So, then you have to get ready for The Deep Sigh,
accompanied by a square-setting of feet,
and a 3-day List Of New York Bests And Why.

But the fact really is
that if he ever moved back to chase all that Best,
he'd freeze off his ass in Winter;
sweat A-bombs in Summer;
probably get into it with some cabbie and have to be rescued
from some godforsaken alley in Brooklyn;
have his rental car stripped;
move into a roach-infested building
and have to keep everything in the refrigerator
including his furniture;
go broke in a month from eating out;
be on the phone constantly to his California friends;
and miss the hell out of The Streets of San Francisco

on which he already lives,
thank you very much.

So, like, what's his fucking problem?

Blue Teapot

There are rivers
that will not be crossed today
by children's feet

animals will cross
cows
oxen

but the children
will have to wait

the air
and winds say
they are dying
and will not smell
the orange blossom and rose tea
I brewed in the blue teapot this morning

young ones
tall ones
skinny ones
babies
trudge instead
in endless brown lines
along mountains

feet stumble on stones
legs scrape
minds full
bellies empty
hands clenching
eyes blank
squinting
in confusion
and memories
half gone
cries drying in the sun
tears carve a pathway

they wear halos of dust
and grey blankets
riddled with small holes
the size of fingers
and bullets

their toys are grey
their bodies black
the air they breathe
filled with the stench
of a dying reality

old children
weary children
no longer children
who will never taste
the orange blossom and rose tea
from the blue teapot
that lies shattered
on the road

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