New Poems

When the Check Clears

he’ll buy a package of corn-dogs
    a bottle of ketchup, seven boxes
        of macaroni and cheese 
            a newspaper. A spider weaves
        a hammock across the trophy,
    he won in a third grade spelling-bee.
A fly buzzing around the room
    crashes into the blinds over
            and over again; he chuckles,
                life melts like ice cubes
                    he chews
                        to forget
                                hunger.

He wants to be cremated:
no obituary notice, no flowers
no grave marker, just ashes tossed
indiscriminately into the wind.
    After the days’ second AA meeting,
        he assures himself that good times
            are waiting between the serenity
                prayer and the horizon, so he
        keeps walking past gas stations,
    laundry mats, parked patrol cars
            back and forth across
                the same bridge
                    six times
                        as the sky turns
                     dusty feet sore.

Back at home, he waits for the spider
    to notice the fly, twisted in the web.
For a brief second, he considers
    running his fingers through the web
        to sever the fly from its fate
            but he knows better than to prolong
                the struggle, instead he walks
            to the window, peeks out through
    the blinds to count the cars that pass by.
He considers the icicles clinging
    to steering wheels, hopeful fingers
            starved
                and searching
                    for direction.
(originally published by Zygote in My Coffee, August 2006)



***

Our Thunder
For John Dorsey

I want to understand
your spaces
so I run my fingernail
through your words
like a astronaut
stirring cream
into his coffee,
wondering why
they voted against
Pluto’s planet status.
All maps
become obsolete.
All words
lose muscle mass.
I regret
that someday
they will inform us
that we are not worthy
of words, but
you can keep
your spaces,
there is depth to them.
Even when
time has covered
all wounds
with leathery scars,
the universe
will still not be ours 
to define.
Someday over
drinks, we will
construct a theory
that will outlive us,
we will feel important
like Clyde Tombaugh  
until someone takes away
our thunder
leaving an awkward space
a pause in our approach
something we will not
be able to protest
from the places
we were sent to.

***

Cathedral

on again off again,
relationship with the sky
taunts the tear ducts
of scorned lovers.
Through the windows,
we watch clouds turn
the afternoon sky gray,
the color of dust balls
collecting in un-swept corners.

Again, you search
the length and width
of house and mind
for the missing umbrella,
hidden beneath the kitchen sink
beside empty vodka bottles
and rusty apologies.
If you leave now,
bacon and eggs
will never fry over the coils
of this stove again

and our regrets will sit
heavy like fat priests,
clouds in the sky, heartburn
and lightening. You turn
the faucet on and let
the tap water run through
cracks in your cupped hands,
this is how you pray.
Splash your face,
what’s hidden under our noses
could jackknife into the sky
like a shiny crucifix.

***

Centerpiece

Where daffodils push through the soil
there is promise
a petal for a petal
shot after shot.

This will be the first spring without him.
Over the winter, Stevie and I severed
our mother from twenty-two years of memories
one carload at a time.

Once the contracts were signed
another family moved into our old lives
like a new flower blossoming from an old bulb.

We try to push through the days;
there will always be setbacks:
late frosts, deaths, binge drinking and relocation anxiety.

We'll throw mulch over our mother's garden
but the weeds will still find their way through;
there are so many things we have no control over.

After a few shots of whiskey, we are tempted
to climb the oak tree beside our childhood house
to spy the new family moving through our memories
breathing, cooking, sleeping, laughing
where we once did.

Narcissus, it's futile to think you blossom
just to raise our spirits; the shards of grass
that reflect your shadow shift in the breeze.

The air that blows through your trumpet
disperses into the wind; eventually
your crown will grow too heavy; your petals
will perish like memories and ashes.

We dig our heels into the essence of this moment
pull gray hairs and flowers out at the root.
There will always be another family
another flower, another poison and another spring.

The centerpiece on the kitchen table
speaks of our challenges:
three white collared daffodils
standing in a fifth of whiskey.
(to be published in upcoming book by sunnyoutside Dream Big, Work Harder)

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Last updated on 1/03/07. By Mark Lanier.