As you imagine yourself (part 2)

Upon my arrival
It had already begun–
The deux fois muets bridge
France had been dreaming of.

A delay for any reason
Pushed his rage
Into that of a driven beast,
And he quarreled violently.

Buried in his mind,
This objective
Was quite worked up,
But he did not urge it

When we sat
Alone in my kitchen
With a few books
(His sword unengaged).

The officer then
Lurched forward a little
And clutched his arm,
As we jumped from our chairs.

“And shall we do
Nothing?
Oh what shall I do, Monsieur Hester?”
“Come with me,” he pleaded

Here like brothers

His hat, it fell three stories down
into the river beneath the bridge
unreclaimed
the river rocks just offered sounds
of overwhelming noise
in recompense

he fought like you would give a fuck
he stomped his shoes into the mud
this guy, he owned one pair of pants
but twenty knives and fourteen guns

Under the rusty river bridge
we watched the water passing by
unconcerned
Into the green of forest scenes
we walked ankle deep through leaves
untroubled

And
much obliged
for the serenity

A long hard week

the grate in the center of the bathroom floor says “ZERN” in a sterile corporate font
the pigeons outside just crash into gates and rattle twisted traffic signs
my arm is burned from sitting exposed in a traffic jam on the 805
my words are hard and dull and grey my throat is sore my muse is gone

The rain and booze and sleeping in

i’d like to put my poems up
against your poet’s offerings
he mentions rain and horses much
and cites the sound of guillotines
he lives in literary lands
where weather correlates with mood
yet southern Californian skies
are always the same unblinking blue
when crying alone, they remain composed
when making love in the afternoon
outside the sky is yet unmoved
when lost in memory with years gone past,
a childhood overflowing with baseball gloves
and bikes and brothers and smiling dads,
the skies are still.
stoic.
detached.
write your poems, but just be honest.
don’t lie.
don’t fake it.
that’s all i ask.

Vegas

i’ll be your napkin
or your vacation
but never your man

he told her later
on the drive back home

while i was busy writing:

i’ll be your bath
i’ll be your jasmine

Lunch Break

as soon as i moved to go outside
my writer’s block began to fade
the gravel rattled underfoot
as i walked across the parking lot,
past potted plants, the interstate,
to a plastic chair where i ate lunch

halfway through my granola bar
a breeze picked up and softly shook
the sleeping leaves of nearby palms
(a noise which you don’t know you miss
until the hummm of air conditioning
won’t give you peace or leave your mind)

the wind held scents of ocean breeze
which I could readily unmask,
and very likely could have been
my unruly olfaction wishing for
a day at the beach spent soaked in sun,
my still-wet hair buried in sand

i closed my eyes,
put up my feet,
and gladly delayed the walk back

Up at Night

“I read it twice,
if that means anything”

“Reading it once means something”, he said,
grinning, i imagine, while propped up in bed
laptop in lap, one arm outstretched
a pretty girl dozing in the crook
where shoulder skin meets curve of neck

i, alone, in office chair,
grinned back across computer screens
for secrets we new brothers shared
while our women were busy sleeping