I'M NEVER GOING BACK to TITTY MOUNTAIN

It was 963 miles from Tijuana

to Fort Stockton, and each mile

was hungrier than the last.   Amber

said to the passenger window 

(and out into the blurred liquid

desert) "We should slow down,"

she said languidly "maybe we

should stop." Oddly-elbowed

cacti shot by, and disappeared

into the Infinite Behind Us. 

The car grew hungrier, and so

did Amber, and so did I, but I

wouldn't admit it (of course.)

Texas was beckoning, and 

I was reckoning a short distance

to the fine fare of Fort Stockton. 

But the sun fell, and a polar moon 

rose over the High Plains, and

I couldn't tell if the shining in her eyes

was tears or twinkles, but

her face was a rich lady's bracelet

with the dark desert behind her. 

Neither of us was surprised

to find Fort Stockton's fine dines

closed to our midnight kind,

and I watched while Amber tried

to hide her hungry anger. 

But at (what seemed to us)

the Last Truck Stop on Earth,

Amber's eyes were shining again

when the waitress told her of 

the infamous titty mountain. 

Their laughter put my Pacific

Reckoning far behind me.

Amber's chirp of joy 

as she looked back West

on our way out of town

brought me home again;

she saw the low rise 

with its tiny craggy pike

bathed in the early light. 

And I agreed when she told me 

as we nosed our way home:

"I'm never going back

to Titty Mountain."

THE CHARLESES

we are a tremendous
and foggy people;
your black jacket,
my black eye,
our memories
like ferns: older
than dinosaurs

and into the asphalt
and mud went the things
we would've lost anyway:
a painting that claimed
to solve the mystery,
my keys, and we were

paleontologists exploring
what makes an evening:
the smudge of a streetlight
in my eyes, the hypnosis
of "please listen to me"

Broken Slinkies

Power lines riddle 

back and forth across

Midtown like broken

slinkies, and I am

working on a mystery

of my own: how

does the fog 

seem to rise 

from the field;

how does your

memory come along

with the dew?

Fireman's Lift

(for Anthony Gaudio)

everyone needs a lift;
sometimes a great lift
finds us free and easy
and it's a great lift to know
you're around; sometimes
we find we are miles away,
and a lift is all we have

big America lifted me up,
and you are big America too;
sometimes a lift is all
we can do; sometimes a lift
is all we needed; sometimes
lifting is magically achieved
miles and months away

THE BUTCH BRUSH

Wide as an oar
and black as asphalt,
it twines with hair 
on the backseat
of my car. 

Some of my best friends
are poems, and some
of my friends are poems too. 

My busted backyard grill
is a Connecticut winter
in the summer heat.  
I am a kid coming home
from a few months at school. 

The older I get, the fewer things
I keep in my car. 

IF THE COLONEL EVER CALLS

If late at night there is a ringing

and it's the Colonel, don't be frightened.

Remember that the funny twists 

of the heron's neck are posture too.

Perhaps the hair on your cheeks

is bristling?  But the Colonel was clean-shaven.

The Colonel's prayers were more communication 

than supplication; the old phone

is more of an appliance than a relic.

 If the Colonel asks for a report, tell him

everyone's fine; the rocky island in the bay

is white with birds.