ZION

Gee, another Cleveland transit one right after another. An old one but one I like. At least I'm learning how less to use commas.





Hands-down,
the
most
beautiful
scene,
with soundtrack,
in Cleveland –
riding
the Red Line
over the Cuyahoga mouth,

graffiti
unfurls
down below,
buildings emblazoned
with words,
misspelled, meaningless,
non-existent non-sequiturs –

ZION
DIZER
GERL

not all of which I understand,
but they seem to belong,
along with
this river of suggestion,
the dirt and grime,
the hands of ghosts
worked to the bone,
the businesses,
restaurants and clubs,
trying to keep hold,
boats,
towing freight
out to the lake,

and me,
30 yards up, looking down,
humming, REM’s “S. Central Rain”,
to myself.

transit, TV and graffiti

an old one which I think I read once at a poetry reading then never shared with anyone else. self-inventory -- I put the boring ones in books, send the boring ones to contests, and generally keep the good ones to myself. must remedy that. may that this be a start --




houses appear behind hills;
snow lauds, litters brush-strewn narrow ways;
brush, brown and bright red,
usurps like a tangle of bodies in Purgatory,
longing, reaching for release.

warehouses graced by graffiti,
schoolhouses,
bored spouses behind hidden windows,
TV screens onto TV queens
watching machines that make them forget,
carrying a nonsense of history,
a litany of
the banal, the barren, the crude, the crud,
clogging memories down to the pixels.

and more graffiti, more,
“VERBS” and “DANK”
and things I can’t even make out or understand.
the sides of sitting trains and abandoned factories
where it is scribbled,
comprise a television for our time,
for two decades of RTA rides.

and in this space, these artful young hooligans
are the producers,
are the stars,
and the set designers
of shows for which
the commercials are the show itself.

but no money flows in
or out
of their hands;
barren of all but a glimmer of hope,
their hearts starve for the doing,
for the living, and the aching;
and no respect remains
for the walking of other peoples’ straight lines.

open and close

this one was such a delightful discovery. I don't know how I got in the mood I was in when I wrote it. but I'd like to find the stuff, bottle it and sell it.



open self,
see into
heart space,
close
and open,
flutter
like butterfly,
beautiful, beautiful
butterfly,
opening and closing,
like a shy little child
opens and closes
her hands
over her eyes