The Lost Art Of The Mentor

"A boy comes to me with a spark of interest,
I feed that spark and it becomes a flame,
I feed the flame and it becomes a fire,
I feed the fire and it becomes a roaring blaze..."

-Cus D'Amato

The Haunting

Let me come to you tonight.

Let me come between the sirens,
between the clouds,
between the earth and the moon.

Let me come to you between
the bodies of
your lover and you.

Let me come to you
between your lonelininess
and your sleep.

Let me come to you between
your memory
and your forget.

Let me come to you between
your dreams of what was
and your regrets
(of white)
what should have been...

Between
your chains and your skin,
your desire and your sin,

don't be afraid
tonight.

Trust me one last time,
even if this is the
last breath
of your faith.

Let me come to you
tonight
wherever you are
in this endlessly
ending
infinity,

the only thing
we ever had
to call ours.

Let me come to you
one last time,

I promise
I'll be done with this
haunting

and gone
for forever

by dawn.

No trace.

8/4/07

Ode To Los Angeles

Driving L.A.
from the ocean
east into the city

and back again
at 4:19 a.m.

No cars on the road,
no copter blades in the sky,
high and peaceful -
the phone is finally off -

No one screwing you
and no one you're trying to screw
in broad daylight -

just don't let us,
the descendants of the
forked tongue fool you;
the real vampires sleep just fine
at night -

and as the
empty streets blow by,
the memories of you
fade out and in,
for that single moment,
I disappear,

and the only
thing that ever
really mattered,
matters now
like it never should
have stopped:

just
the street lights
dotted green
as far as the eye
can see

and the
sterey-
erey-

oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh!

Blazing the trail
to everywhere
I long ago forgot.

Los Angeles - 7/25/07

Girl

You look into the set of eyes across from you

and do not notice

the color,
the hue,
if they blink,

or whether they match the blouse
so carefully chosen,

Only that they do not look away,

Do
not
even
think
about
it.

Is it
the sheer bravado
of that gaze

that makes your mind spin,
your palms sweat,

that makes you look around
suspiciously
to see if anyone else has noticed?

Is it
the total fearlessness in
this girl's 1000 yard gaze
that makes you wonder?

Is it
because she doesn't know
how to smoke yet

no matter
how hard
she tries
to inhale?

Is it because her book is unmarked

though she clutches the pen in her hand
as if waiting
for someone to tell her
it's okay
to begin?

Is it because this is who she is

for

one
last
moment?

All you know is

right now

she
can
take
it.

Take everything,

Take
it
all,

or, at least,

she thinks
she can.

Los Angeles - 12/22/05

Never Sent To Spain

Every day they were there.

For weeks
I came home
in the afternoon
pretending to have

any sort of purpose
other then smoking
and working as
a telemarketer
in that dingy
23rd floor office
in Grammercy Park.

I was sending out
color-coded tickets
to free screenings
of new TV shows
to retired couples
in Pebble Beach.

When I came home
the two of them
were always sitting
on the top stair
whether it was
raining or sunny,
warm or cold.

They looked about
fourteen years old,
and though I rarely
saw them touch,

nor even hold hands,

the obvious feelings
they were trying so
hard to hide
from this city
and each other,

the fact that two kids could
find one another,

was only one more sign of my utter
incompetence and despair.

I hated them for this,
hated their guarded happiness,
hated his Jets
hat cocked perfectly
to the side,
his bleached white
turtleneck beneath his
Sprewell jersey,
and the gold link
chain he wore proudly
over top.

I hated her hair in tight braids,
hated her clear pale skin,
hated those expressive,
ancient, blue eyes,
and that
slightest trace of unbleached,
black down
above her lip that only
made her more mysterious
to him.

I hated the luxury
and patience
of the game
they played
with their youth.

I don't know what they talked about,
their language was neither
English nor Spanish
but something in between,
and even when I tried to do
my "private eye" thing

I was totally unable to penetrate
the secret of their fascination
with one another.

Sometimes, though, I caught him
getting up and mimicking
somebody, a friend
or mutual acquaintance,
a member of his family
or maybe hers
(I imagined all this.)

Sometimes, when she looked away,
wouldn't give him the time of day,
he'd break into a funny little dance
that was all elbows and knees.

I half recognized this dance
as if it was a dance I could have once
danced for someone a long time ago,
and I often wondered if he made it up on the spot,
or saw it somewhere on TV.

She would try
her best not to,
but she'd finally
laugh,
then act all pissed off
that she did,
whine three words,

"O.K. Enuffff. Stoppppppp!"

And he'd quickly sit back
down,

adjust his hat back to that
perfect angle, and
turn his face back to stone
as the silence of the
city returned.

Sometimes, though,
in the late afternoon,
when she thought
no one was looking,
she'd lean her head
on his shoulder and close
her eyes.

Always he'd let her.

I'd watch them from across
the street,
stand like that for minutes,
just watch them.

Then,
one day
three weeks ago,
right after my career
as a telemarketer
was unexpectedly
"terminated"
for sending
the wrong color tickets to
the wrong retired couples in
the wrong city,
the two were gone.

I haven't seen
either of them
on the stoop,
in the streets,
in the park, or
anywhere
since.

The stairwell is empty
when I return and
when I leave.

I no longer
have to wait for
them to endure my
existence
one more time
as they part
their two sets
of bony legs
for me to
step through.

They no longer
have to pretend
not to notice
me as I take
the garbage out
or run to the bodega
for my cigarettes...

Joanne,
I don't know
how much longer
I can take it here,

and I dream
it was there first
love.

Always,
L

New York - 1/99

DVD

The bandits attacked
in the woods.

They took nothing,
merely cut out
the eyes
of the children.

They did not touch
the adults
who lay
cowering
in fear

pretending not to see.

Now,
the only painters
left
work in time
with no apprentice.

The poets?

They draw secretly,
using the teeth
of the dead for pens,
pull them
out one by one
after composing.

The sounds of her
rage across paper,

a foreign language
can be spoken but
never felt.

Her secrets are greater than yours,

and her emptiness
more than you
could ever be.

In black and white
I watch
her flicker
as
she weeps
perfectly.

The cries
of our neighbors'
love echo
between windows

tonight.

Los Angeles - 10/27/06

Spoiled Rotten

Never had to fight a war

(bought your way out
just like you born your way in),

but lucky little rich boys
still get to declare one
anyway.

3/27/03

China Moon

summer moon yellow night restlessly dreaming movement in her forever chair watching the screen flicker what is never there summer moon coward night coming for us i wish wouldn't let go money that slips through fingers turning into bills piled on the floor spiders fall from the ceiling instead of walking through the doors summer moon fearless night she breathes you in and memories out only to be drank in again, gargled and spit like my home like my home like everyone i've known like the house i was born in so far away from summer moon day becomes night i shake rise anoint thy self mythologize when you dare to sleep for me

7/7/07

Fingers

when I was a child
for reasons I still don't completely
understand (is it because I was sick
and alone came so easy, or
is because
there was nothing left to do)

i made a deal
with somebody
or something,
anything out there
i could not name
that might be listening...

(i never believed in God
or anything that could be
named

there was no
listening
to names
in me at all)

the deal i made
in fourth grade:

i'd trade everything
for the moment
of my fingers,

everything
for whatever form
that moment
took,

trade
everything,
all of it,
myself,
and promised
to live by this vow
no matter where
my fingers drove me,
what corner
lit or unlit,
to what people
cruel or shy,
criminal or priest,
to what street
in no matter
what part of town,
to what checking account,
to what family,
to what lover,
to what death,

what death
what is death

if not
the moment
of my fingers...

and i've alway lived
up to my
end of the deal.

(it was never feet,
it never could
be with me
for there is
no negotiating
with feet)

now this moment
of my fingers,

i don't
know if
i made the right
choice or not,

if I've won
or lost,

let alone
how many
real moments
of my fingers
there have been,

or

how many
there is
left to be...

it's just that
street lights are bleeding
azure
across the sky tonight

and I'm no
longer fearless
with death
anymore...

i can see
my fingers
are only the bones
of my ancestors
spread
across
the earth,
and only ever were...


end of poem.
end of youth.

6/4/07 - Frigillana, Esp

Whisper

"Time.

Time..."

she whispers.

"You must give yourself time,

for the body returns

home

long before the

mind."

Los Angeles - 6/20/07

Imperfect Gift

To the skinless ones,

To the defenseless ones,

To the flowers from birth

Who are shattered
Over and over again
By those we pity

Who will
Never know
What it means
To breathe
Rain.

Tonight,

I spit
In the face
Of history
And so-called
“Human nature”

To give this
To you.

This small thought
Of the infinite
Hills and skies
I can never truly know,
And will forever be
Imprisoned
By these incapable
Words;

This is my imperfect gift.

Tonight
You have
What little
There is
Of
My everything;
I give it all
Unequivocally
And wish
It were more.

But I promise
You have
Every cell,
Every lash,

And

I ask nothing
In return
But that
One day,

When you are ready,

You will
Bloom
And
Rise again;

Defiantly, vengefully,
forever dreaming

In spite of this world
We’ve made.

Los Angeles - 6/14/07

Home

Awake
At dawn
Finally
Still,

An
Alien
Lying
On these
Sheets,

An alien
On my
Own streets.

As it always
was,

As it will
Always be.

Los Angeles - 6/11/07

Blood

...and what falls away,
and what will remain...

the real never dies.

to those lost
to time,

this fiery, unyielding life
of our accidental
collisions,

to those i
left behind,

i saw you,
felt you,
dreamed you

out over
oceans
tonight.

you
breathed
again

fire,
water,
earth

and the eternal
silence
that gives
all things

and must
take them
too

tonight

tonight

tonight...

Nerjas - 6/3/07

First Night

Either the courtyard
of this hotel
wept all night
long,

or the elevator
is haunted.

-Madrid

Geryon's Master Of Always - For Stefan Zweig (1881-1942)

We only ever question what is good for us,
but never what is bad...

Have you noticed:
the luckiest people never once blame luck,

and the beautiful
call beauty
a curse,

again and again...

It's not the high that kills you,
it is the next morning...

Loneliness of mirrors
is the detail that kills...

Sometimes the longing for a body,
any body,

known,
unknown,

friend, enemy, lover,

is too much,

too much to bear,
beneath the frailty
of skin...

When the child is happy,
everything she does,
she wishes she could do twice...

Me?

I admit,
I never had the same
imagination
with others,
even as a child...

Once you’ve both decided,
spoken or unspoken,
you’ll never agree on the past,
you’ve already made your maps of
the future...

Always last to go to bed.
Always last to fall asleep,
Not until the house is quiet,
and the boys are tucked in.

First love, first lust:

Not until it's too late
do you finally realize
that the only way
to discover your body
is with
the hands
of another...

“And life loves on…”

Francis Bacon: "...realism needs to be reinvented..."

So you hope they don’t ask who you are today.

Thirty two year old searching for quarters to do his laundry...

How many times have you drowned in your sleep?

Is this why you’re the last to fall,
always,
even as that child
with no
imagination?

Truth skin disintegrates between my fingers
quite often…

And when the bull and the butterfly mated
the butterfly ate the bull
leaving nothing but bones
in the grass...

All of this future?

There’s no instrument
invented yet to measure
desire or memory...

Creaking tables excite me...

Sometimes the longing for another body,
someone’s you know
or
someone’s you don’t,
is too much to bear…

Flashes of her enjoyment
somewhere in time
often feel like a knife slash
to the throat...

Who is the one who told you
you could leave in joy?

I spend my time reading books
on strategy,
on war,
by men
with names
like Clausowitz.

I'm preparing
for some catastrophe
that already happened...

Uncork the bottle of our youth again?

And I seek an imagination
with no reason, point or morality.

A frivolous imagination
with no meaning
but the desires of the dreamer:

To see the lions in the streets again,
and not fear them…

Street washers at 3 a.m.

I watch them.
They watch the sidewalk,
miraculously deflecting
streams of water
with bent trashcan lids
as I walk by
after leaving
far too late...

Why must we wear uniforms?

My stillness is movement,
my movement is still.

Her stillness was movement,
her movement so still,

not even we could tell the difference...

And when I was between
child and man,
son and father,
brother and enemy…

God ran though my veins.

I never forgot this,
and
it never once
happened again...

(Between brushing my teeth
and
drowning in Concrete
I never once
flew in my sleep...)

Past inhales
not enough...

I licked my uncle’s head when his child died.
I licked my uncle’s wound when his child died.

He didn’t cringe.
He wouldn’t cry.

His child died.
My uncle I barely knew,
whose child died.

In my dream I cleaned
the gash on his head
with my tongue
when his child died.

I took the hate venom
in my teeth
when his child died.

It was only a dream,
and then he too died

without saying
goodbye.

Too many reasons,
we all stay too long

given
the
opportunity...

Once
she wore two watches,
one on either hand.

The left one was so big.
The right one was so small.

The left one told the past here.
The right one told the future there.

But where was there?

There was where here was not.

There was where she was going,

Away from all the books where she met me.

She was not taking the bus.
She never did once.

She was waiting for a car
driven by a man in uniform,
just as she always was
and would be.

A car,
A helicopter,
A plane.

No matter how she went,
or where,
there was a city
away from here
only she alone knew.

Only she knew,
and then
she slipped
her body
out of
both watches,

and handed them to me,

before she got in
closed
the door,
and escaped
again...

When still
now
I often find myself thinking
of the law of inertia,
Of hurtling through time
and space with no purpose,
but gaining momentum
against my will
with each passing second
to nowhere in particular.

One day you’re just okay with it.

One day you understand
that whether it is
sleep or dream
or
somewhere in between,

one day,
it’s suddenly okay
to be moving
in any way

you can...

All that you remember
The no measure of what’s been lost...

One day
There will be this: (...),

and this will be you.

It is okay...

I spend my time
arguing with
insurance companies
over definitions
for insanity
to cut costs.

The shame
of it
all is

a mind
can’t be
outsourced
to India...

Only time whispers

anything
worth
anything,

The trick is being around
to hear it...

And the skin
at my elbows
is wasting
away
no matter
what I rub
on them...

Playing with edges
like they aren’t sharp
until they cut
through the between
of your lover’s
toes...

The weight of memory is the burden of the details…

I love women in skirts
and beautiful shoes
with heels too;

so much so
sometimes
I think
I just made
them all
up...

It’s not that I had no fear,
It’s that I went the distance

with my fear...

They can take it all from me

Everything.

They can not hire me
They can not talk to me
They can not pay me.
They can not feed me
They can not love me
They can not hate me.
They can not hear me.
They can not listen to me.
They can not know me.
They can not breathe me.
They can not acknowledge me.
They can not me.
They can not take me on vacation...

Until time is no time,
until universe is no universe
and the dream of dreams dies,

Not until then.
Not until then.

My voice goes on
like
the glass bell ringing at dawn.

Let me breathe my transgression.


Los Angeles - 5/15/07

Gone To Espana...

...to wander aimlessly in search of the Duende that ran away from me when I was nine...

Last Of The Mohicans

More and more
I understand
That
In these times

Optimism
Despite

Is
The Last
Rebellion
Left...

Moments My Generations (Rilke)

The entire city
Saw him off,

If only
In his mind.

It was all
Hot air balloons,
Multi-colored
Ticker tape
Falling from the sky,

And golden gilded balconies
Filled to standing room only
With the elbowing elated.

The streets were lined with
Towering, blow up icons,
And money pinned by
Underweight pimps
To effigies of blown glass.

There were piles of books
And, of course,
Fire,

Always fire.
A hand turns this dial...

I wake
And she sleeps dying
Through her nose,

Hogging the bed
All the while.

Again and again
We find our ways
To hide
From everyone,

Camouflaged only
By wooden floorboards.

Rivers of our
Unborn children
Escape us
Each morning,

Trying so desperately
To reclaim lost time

And falling.

We are planted
Permanently here,
For now,

But will never admit
To this
Crime
Of
Roots and loam and water.

A raised cup for the

Dead,
Lost,
Forgotten,

If they remember to read
The sections of the map
That hold
The living
To nothing.

When I couldn’t sleep
My grandfather
Told me
Stories
With no point;

How, in the end,
The Mongols
Finally retreated

To die
With honor
Beside foreign wells
They would not
Drink from.

It was not the outline of her ear

But the words
She refused
To hear.

One day
Our father will call,
I promise.

He’ll tell us he is leaving,
So get dinner ready
For his empty chair.

I only handled a rifle once.

I was eleven, and
A prodigy of a thousand deaths

Already.

I pulled the trigger and
It blew up in my face;

I didn’t even get the chance
To destroy my perfect aim.

We as children laid
On mildewed mats
In firing position,

Waiting obediently
For the last signal
From God

Again and again.

No one ever
Had the courage
To sit
In the stool
We built from snow.

I can’t remember anymore

Who
Taught us
To uncork
The grenade

And then walk away.

No one talks about
The last century
Anymore,

We just buy the clothes,

And how many more
Innocent buildings
Must be lost
To satellite TV?

Eventually
They took him prisoner
For his own good
To protect the others
From the 8th
Again.

Without looking up
The guard told him
That union rules stipulated
He must change
His shit-stained
Clothes,

And that there were no
Shoes left

That could fit
Feet
So small.

We take pictures
To seal in boxes
And forget
Painlessly.

Through all of this:

All of these days,
All of these ages,
All of these channels,
All of these addictions:

We will still try to protect you

Because we couldn’t
Get it right
The first time.

If you haven't guessed yet

Tonight
I stared out at
The blinking,
Time echoed city
Of my birth,

And the sign
Above the skyline
Read:

You must change your life.

Bryn Mawr, PA – 10/6/06

Obedient Rebellion

...
footprints
disappear
almost
as
quickly
as
they
are
made
...

Los Angeles - 4/06

"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt," or Rest In Peace, Mr. Vonnegut

You gave so much,
made so much

of the

tragic opera
that was the
20th Century.

"Poo-Tee-Weet!"
Your little bird once sang.

"Poo-Tee-Weet?"
Your little bird once asked.

You

are

fine

a

lee

free

of

your

mem

or...


"Poo-Tee-Weet!"


Kurt Vonnegut
November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007