A bus on water
Nothing classy
Bare, wide, plastic seats
The grim colors dulled
By rain on leather
And snow on nylon
Grimaces and odd
Downcast eyes
Not a vessel but vein
A slow steady artery
Depositing gray, working class stares
On Whitehall
And slides between shores
A yoked burden
December 16, 2000
you oil the joints of my legs with your strong hands
you rotate my hips into alignment roughly
the creaking of my pelvis under you commands
your constant pressure, your voice caresses gruffly
unused untried this chassis was long neglected
a show piece rarely driven, me parked and rusting
my engine showing no wear, my tires treaded
I wanted a man who would be ever lusting
you keyed me a kiss that started to filtrate
sputtering and gasping and ardently purring
I’m full with you, and ache for you to navigate
Your voice in my ear enough to start the stirring
You take stern control only so I can lose it
Your hands kneading your mouth wet the cause to prove it
November 14, 2000
you on the phone take direct routes
you in the ether mail wordings
gilded feathers, quilled umlauts
changes my singular endings
no plans for what I am feeling
written in your hand impatient
truths like breaths you have been stealing
we fear the joy, the contentment
here I let go first, admitted
in voice, in deed, in hearty need
with you, with you, this submitted
joy with the WORD we both still bleed
have we avoided this enough
to say we are falling in love?
November 14, 2000
You’re the person
Whom I’ve had
A million semi-silent
Discussions with
At 4 am, early afternoons
And in prosaic bars as
Other eyes hands mouths
Try to entice a part of me
That you only you have reached
In such a small part of time
Attached to the years of talking
Your half of the conversation
showed up now
Fully ready for more for me
And I entirely for you
October 19, 2000
Homily to Mr. Jackson…
It’s Tuesday night, 11:30 pm and we are in line at Loews. “Frodo”, “Shire”, “Nazgul”, “Gandalf” and veritable litany is heard in the air. Unruly pilgrims at the gates, the theater uncomfortably warm, suspicion and envy snake around the double-backed line. People snap at each other like reptiles fighting for position on a seaside rock. Disbelief that tonight is actually here.
Tap, click, snap of my boots on the sidewalk
Did it rain or is that dew reflecting lights
pools of neon on the street
mist and spray hangs low along the gutter
lazy steam puffs from manholes and grates
The moon dances in and out of purple clouds
Such a clever dancer, with her purple fans
on the stage of inky velvet and black-lit sky
Night makes a gown of blackness out of rags
Bag ladies become glamorous in shadows and darkness
Queens of the night, digging in the trash
The alleys are caves, hiding the lumps of rock
and shapeless ogres that in day are the homeless
All is motionless, except for peering eyes
4/22/1996
Sitting in a pink slip on a windowsill, a widow, with flowing dark hair and slim grins,
looks at sashaying fishtails and blush lips of local party girls.
Night winds bring aromas of body and bloom. (more…)
Dickens strikes again:
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times
A man on a raft, adrift on a sea of grass
The loneliness, waiting, hungry for anthacus and arches
The ancient Roman circus in his mind blooms like lips
Red, full, wet and opening to spew violence and lust
Teeth a textured amphitheater, cobblestones in rough circles
The tongue leads like a hole in the wall of trees
Breathing furious vengeance and small truths
A sword, ever ready for war of sorts, and angry
The evil squirrel heckles the con is on
And beckons scum and scoundrel from behind sacrosanct hydrants
The hour glass trash silhouette the breasts of earth
Now the man holds sway in concentration
The chessboard is tiled across the infinite monoliths
Crowding the small scenes of Paris in New York
Against a pale sky with an artificial sun
They make mad patterns of Escher intricacy puzzling the mind
An escape artist lifts trash from a fountain
While a couple mumbles old shoes are the best shoes
And there is fog on the far horizon, threatening this daydream
In my head, the fog lowers and the horizon is blurred into nothing.
September 30, 1998
Ricci Albenda Opening at the MOMA
Projects 74
November 16, 2001 - January 22, 2002
Opening Night - November 15, 2001
Ricci Albenda’s installation at the MOMA for Projects 74 struck me as inclusive, minimalist and disorienting, with the basic aspects of childhood wonder in spatial discovery. Descending to the mezzanine, I unknowingly stared directly at his trompe d’oelil, a skilled distortion of space, and proceeded to walk towards it. The light glared slightly off the wall as to warn me that the hallway before me was an illusion, and so began my trip into Ricci Albenda’s world.
The steam feels good
A hot wet kiss from
The city
It smells of dirty socks,
Rotting grass and cabbage soup
Overboiled
Mush in your mouth
Poor comfort food
A blown kiss as cold as
Dead lips
Wriggles between folds and seams
Down to the skin
And penetrates
Like dead fingers
Into bone
And my back aches
As it cramps and curls
Upon itself
A skeletal worm
Poked by cold hands
My eyes, tearing,
Watch the trains
On the EL
And see glimmers of stars
Between the tracks.
December 16, 2000