these stairs are designed to murder a man
who’s had too much to drink
narrow, they wind like a medieval dungeon
to a bathroom that smells like death
upstairs where i left my wife alone
you can hear the six german men laughing
crowded around the tiny bar over their bottles of astra
and that black liquor the bartender keeps pouring out
i can still eat their cigarette smoke in the air down here
fourteen years off of those things
and i still think about cigarettes every day
think about them more than love or my own mortality
i wonder what i’m doing here clasping the sweating wall
in a german dive bar where i don’t belong
four thousand miles away from brooklyn problems
beers deep into an early hamburg afternoon
i’ve understood next to nothing that anyone has said to me today
i’ve done nothing to make myself heard
the light from the bottom of the stairs
looks like an oubliette
and i’m tired of trying to make this world my own
if i ever make it back up those steps
i think i’ll grab one of those german’s cigarettes
smoke it until i’m sweating and sick
like the first time i ever had one of those things
ask those laughing bastards
what their german word is for sadness or loss.…
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Because the wind is high, it blows my mind. — John Lennon
Some days the whole world reminds me of you. Of your wisps of dirty blonde hair hanging below your cheek bones. Of your emerald eyes, deep and intense. Of the fierce innocence of our adolescent passion, so full of hope and newness and everything wonderful. Except when it wasn’t. Because you and I sprouted from the junkyard of broken homes and broken dreams, born to parents who preferred the liquor bottle over their children.
You were pretty cute that day after drama class in your baggy jeans and sleeveless flannel shirt. Introduced by a friend and note with your phone number–The catalyst to a high school life of never having to be alone. Two souls began weaving together, ripe with firsts and fantasies of limitless futures.…
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Clinging to my mother’s arm
I watched the blood orange sky
blot out the twinkling stars.
Out house burned.
Ashes of our tall, proud crops perfumed the air
Rebel soldiers, creeping dogs in the night,
shot my brother.
His crimson blood stained the river.
We were never to drink from it again.
We left that homier shore.
I did not understand
my parents whispering and furtive eyes.…
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It was the weekend. My grandfather had died only days before, a Jewish death on Christmas, the irony still laughing in my head. It was also New Year’s Eve. I was sitting in the middle of the room, alone, the people spinning around me even though I had yet to take a sip from the vodka-cranberry someone had shoved into my hand. Boys eyed me up and down, sleazy and appreciative in turns. My not-black dress squeezed the breath out of me.
A serious miscalculation, but I was stuck – my driver James was already in the corner of the room with a girl on his lap, the intoxicated rebound from his newly failed relationship of three years. We had different priorities tonight, and it looked like he at least was accomplishing his.…
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Hand- me- overs from a learned brother,
they lay cracked and misshapen
in the bottom of the dark closet;
a symbol of some latent sadness.
It was there, but hidden from
the innocence of youth.
They spoke of a man in need of
something above and beyond the
benefits of comfortable footwear.
I can remember his facts.
He never drank milk.
He denied my sister a trip
to the shoe store in the snow.
He wouldn’t say why, couldn’t reveal
the fear, the compassion. He was
unable or unwilling to console his wife
when her anxiety surfaced late at night.
So, he would do deeds for the needy. …
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“I fucking loved you, you know?”
You hung up. You didn’t have to pick up you know. You could have just ignored the call. Maybe you deleted my number. Maybe it was the tense I used. But I called to—I think I called to apologize—not to tell you how I still loved you. I mean, I guess this entire situation proves I’m a little masochistic, but I’m not fucking suicidal.
Shit—no, don’t leave. I promise I have a point.
I was wrong. I hurt you. I can be man enough to admit that. I made promises I couldn’t keep; to you, to me, to our families. I was blinded by you and your smile and your ambition and how you would give your life for that stupid dog.…
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Winds cut through thick fleece,
the sky is dirty-cotton-ball gray,
but it’s two days past the vernal equinox.
You want to see the daffodil fields.
We heave the youngest dog into the back seat
but leave the older two behind,
ask the iPhone, “Where is Wye Mountain?”
Pointing the sedan toward the gold, we go.
Twelve years ago
the daffodils were blooming
in St. David’s, Wales,
for the saint’s day.
Anointed, we were honeymooning,
touring the ruins
of the Bishop’s Palace,
clambering up the split levels
of former sanctity,
wondering about the hearts of the holy
buried below.
Bickering now,
we forged out of town,
on a road we’d never traveled,
but you had cycled this way with a friend.
“There’s the turn to Houston,”
you pointed.…
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