Poetry
A-B-C’s I learned my A-B-C’s at the ripe age of three Letters built words and words breathed life At ten I learned A’s got love from my mother — B’s lowered eyes, C’s a yelling …
Plum Tree I devour, You gnaw I stomp, You glide I howl, You whisper I fight You embrace I close, You open I dream, You exist I tear, You reconcile I war, You peace I …
In the Sea of Dolphins, I Am a Manta Ray Dive into the sun to find opened eyes An empty sky, full of ghosts Smile because trees become bare Carcasses on snowy streets A monkey …
Lil’ Blues For several days my heart has shared much in common with a barbershop, the shuttered drugstore, and empty parking lot. 5:30 p.m. Dirty plates, yellow napkins, cigarettes, mother-of-pearl ashtrays, a once-bitten fruit, the …
Water I The womb Is made up of equal parts Water and stars. There is no way to distill this brew Further down in its essence. You wait until you cannot stand anymore The pressure …
Dear Hipster, Do you agree with my belief that haiku ought to be the poem of choice in the hipster community? They are simple yet crafty, and the principle of kireji — a sort of …
i loathe your neighborhood see the ghosts of myself on its streets — there! under the U Heights sign collapsed on grafittied bus stop bench, weeping. lamppost-leaning, sobbing. we shared our first kiss in that …
I read a person misplaces up to nine objects a day — ashtrays made of painted clay cherry red hula hoops china dolls and diamond rings a father at six. By 60 we have lost …
Giraffe in Juarez There’s a giraffe in the central park of Ciudad Juárez. Simple as that: a towering, Upper-Case and lonely giraffe. I studied her as she gazed at the sun sinking behind the hill …
Methane Snow The scent of my father, the smoke from his cigarettes embedded in the leather band of his Timex watch, the smell of morphine and cancer as he died at the Soldiers and Sailors …
Emeline (For Buddy Collete) I want to go out through a poem Give a little whistle like Buddy Collete and Herbie Mann speaking Switch my woodwind from flute to sax Then back to swing of …
I Go to School in America At 5 AM I stir from sleep. go to school in America. Deep bruise sky lightens into cool streaks of purple, gray. Rooster calls the sun to the horizon; …
My Armenian Neighbor Argues about Mushrooms Eta ni lisitchka, my neighbor bellows, words through the threshold — the best place for argument, they say, and the timefield through which he will not pass. I hold …
My Golden Coast For Adrian Ernesto Cepeda Caught in my first traffic jam, just south of The Getty Center — I love this stretch of freeway — the congestion gave me stillness, time to memorize …
1967: “My World Fell Down” Imperial Beach remains remote and intolerable, Both in memory and all its stammering desire. My radio flourished with L.A.’s visionary decibels. I feared its LSD as friendly fire. The hippies …
August When my eyes are weeds, And my lips are petals, spinning Down the wind that has beginning Where the crumpled beeches start In a fringe of salty reeds; When my arms are elder-bushes, And …