Today

Today was simple. I did not do much. Woke up slowly just before noon to hear my housemate flushing the toilet and humming some kind of foreign song. My head felt like a rubber mallet. I sat up and stared at my feet for a few seconds, wondering when the last time I clipped my toenails was. I stretched and pulled my face. I usually like to yawn as wide as I can, almost as if to unhinge my jaw so I can feel the blood warm my temples and spread down my neck and into my chest. I lifted the shades and stared out the window. It's apathy, that's what it is. Another beautiful day of indiscretion, of reluctance, of contemplation and no action. I heated up the leftover gyro over rice sitting in my fridge and sat with my legs elevated on my desk, watching the people walk and live outside. That lady made it so goddamn spicy. How do they eat it like that? Anyways, I've been on my computer since, typing up a response to Plato's Symposium, and trying to figure out what my own perception of love is anyway. It is in the proximity of beings. Love is the unseen details, the reassuring silence, the 4 a.m. pillow-gripping solitude, the endless wonderment.
Meanwhile, the smell of grilled onions plagues my room. Now there's a dog shitting on the sidewalk outside. I don't think I could ask for much more. Maybe I'll go to the Yankees game with Tavis. That sounds like fun.

Pool Daze

Hour One:
Tired and groggy we wake
to the shore of the shallow
end, another orange morning
with the sun fresh
and dripping.

Hour Two:
Arms and back sporting
a deep, healthy tan
draped in a violent red
shirt that spells,
"Don't fuck with me"
in GUARD letters
across the back.

You will listen to us
just by the way we sit.
But our ears are flooded
with the squealing,
the splashing,
the jumping,
and the smiling
of all these half-naked children.
Oh, how the young lives squirm
so freely.

Hour Three:
We leave the shade
to bake in the sun.
Sweat drips quick
into the trunks
salting the belly.
Get so high,
it seems like
we're all drowning.
Even out here.

We'll leave
all the thinking
for the future.
Now, only amazed
at all the hair,
piss, spit, and ridiculous
sorts of trash
clogging the gutters.

Hour Four:
Each day we relearn
how to numb the mind
with chlorine and hours
many,
many,
hours.

Again we learn,
not by device, nor by scolding
can you ever prevent
a mexican teenager
from canon-balling.

We know Diego,
We know Luis,
We know Marcia
and all 18 of her cousins,
how they love to scream
and look back
after each illegal dive.

We have let it slide so many times
our eyes begin to close.
The babies in diapers,
the mothers in slippers,
prepubescence
in it's most awkward form
is humping the metal handrail
ten feet away.

Hour Five:
Maybe a chuckle or two
will escape when we watch
the eleven-year-old boys
discovering the bubble jets
and pleasuring their genitals
with high-pitched yelps
of guilty delight.

Or the young family,
with their young baby
so kind, so innocent,
giving me hope
for the future,
but
it is all shattered
by another obnoxious
and watery explosion from
Luis' ass.

Hour Six:
Praying for rain
praying for a friend,
using the phone as the only
key to the world outside
and those epic moments
of surprise with the relief
of a companion's visit
and the treat of pizza,
conversation, music,
and the royal highness.
It all comes together
so incredibly
perfect.

Hour Seven:
Netting up the days'
debris, mesmerized
by the color of the water
the way the sun hits
the surface and how it shines,
lazily and bright
Makes me wonder
whether it is even real
at all.

Hour Eight:
Grueling by the edge,
kicking out the kids,
nodding to parents,
waving to their babies,
counting each second
on the stubborn clock,
who always refuses to move.

The day is done.
The sun leaves it's glow
on the deck, it's heat on
the skin.
Locking up, closing down,
walking away from a summer
that still melts in the trees
and into the pavement.

In Honor of:
A year that has been burnt
into the memories of the men
with the red shirts.

Sitting and Talking

She sighs a sigh the size of the night
Image churns image, teacup fills teacup
I hold my head, she twiddles her thumbs
Golden light on the wall sinks deeper, more golden
The corner shadows begin to grow
Her smile, in the wooden kitchen,
Starts to magnetize mine, pulls us closer

She makes me whole,
As though I am something real.
I begin to crave her and the way she feels.
The nape of her neck, my viscous kisses
The ivory that engulfs our touch
Her plum sugar lips infuse my being
I become weightless and secure

I am always unfinished in the way I unravel
She is always falling asleep too soon
The color of her dreams, she tells me
Fill her journal pages
But I want more than my eyes see
I need her oceans, her skies,
Her breath, her flavor

When she leaves, she leaves her traces
The chill on her fingers across my face
The mood of burgundy under my nails
Soft tastes of affection on my tongue
When she leaves I pray
I pray heaven hears my lazy prayer
And stitches us together
Once and for all

From Above

When the moon looks down at me
all she sees is another grain
of speckled sand sifting below.

she cannot hear me sweating
like the ocean, with my
hungry teeth, my itchy
nails.
My footprints become swallowed
by one of the mouths of wind
and we'll just keep it
a secret.

the clouds and i
we laugh together
as if we know
something more
than we should.