“What do these stripes mean?
With two —- red, one green?
I couldn’t tell,” said WW.
Then, a house and a half
crumbled into the streets
causing the taxi drivers to
curse the very names of the
various minerals of which the
housebricks were composed.
WW put the underwear
on although her question
seemed to still be unanswered.
A radiator on the halved
house’s still standing side
growled these words: “Pants
are another matter.”
Measure stuff.
I rode a pretty packed 14 bus, standing in the way of the side door, holding on to the last vertical bar before the side entrance space and the upper level of the bus. A girl boarded and grabbed the same bar, standing mostly in the aisle to my left. We were two of three standing. I grabbed the bar higher and moved back and right as far as I could to be courteous and not crowd her or be near her. She moved into the entrance space, between me and the bar, and grabbed the bar higher, maybe two inches below my hand. We were close and it almost looked as if I was holding her. I was a little embarrassed — all of the seats were taken, but still there was room on the bus. She didn’t have to stand so near me. I thought it a good time to respond to a text my friend had sent. I thought I would seem uninvolved if I was on my phone. I could see her bottom and the back of her legs as I looked down to type. I sent the message. Suddenly, I felt something without knowing what. Suddenly, I knew my right hand felt it. I realized it was peach fuzz and the soft skin of the girl’s cheek and earlobe, which she’d rested on my hand, still grasping the bar. I could feel her hair on my wrist. I hesitated, then I pulled my hand away. She didn’t start or flinch. I leaned back onto the barrier before the upper level. She glanced back at me. She didn’t seem abashed. I’m certain she knew what she’d done. I don’t understand. Kind of strange.
What if Burger King Seagull was an action film star?
Same warnings and doubtful gum wrappingears
Why Do I Love You Still?(Harrimay(folksong))
There’s a timing error making feel insane. Pretty people, don’t think me so stooopid, n-n-n-noooooo, please. Anycoulda, you know?
Figure Out
The motherbirds, in four-layered coats, gnaw at and preen and love the young, with their hands around their thin throats.
Children hospitably threatened with pies and sweets. They soon resent their innocence, which they were made to eat.
I cry sugar.
How far the baton, dear dad and mom?
Me, young me, I rode to battle on a hobbyhorse, swearing meanly at the wounds I’d get on that red-yellow-blue course. The other side used more real swords and sheared me in neat ways too new to have been feared.
We clean up what we constantly bleed. Wounds - the needed results of defeats we need endure to be adult.
We call bones by no man’s name, but Death’s, and raise all the dried and broken life from holes to be praised. And we dance and turn until our legs, stiff with pain, remind us of ourselves and all the hours we can still sprain.
And we, in sweet wrath, say,
“I am!” as if it’s all we could figure out on life’s path,
and as if it’s all that can be figured out anyway.
This is my songlet about that Trayvon Martin happening.
America’s A Cowboy Town
Are you suspect?
Ask yourself, you must, when
you leave your yard, even if not to go far.
‘Cause all of America’s a cowboy town,
where you can trespass on public ground
and any jumpy John Wayne can gun you down.
Here, just darkness can warrant wolves’ stalking, so
you’d do well not to match the night you walk in.
‘Cause all of America’s a cowboy town,
where you can trespass on public ground
and any jumpy John Wayne can gun you down.
And this wolf who bit alone, we know he’s part of
a pack or a crowd.
