Simple Maneuver

I prize recent listings 
of what they dish out.
The upstart goodtimers, 
young whippersnappers; 
who lose in sorry nocturnes,
wearing an electric blue suit.
I have a formula 
for dizzy schemes 
when it’s raining.
I will spread eagle 
in a pile of branches.
I sponge my red scalp 
I am getting dressed,
like the grim sentries. 
I move with them 
in all due respect.​

Amaryllis

At 13, I wished to pluck music
from thin air,
to play my yearnings,
cool, heart-wrenching
themes from Love Story and Romeo and Juliet,
not pound stiff fingers
like pogo sticks
through staccato notes
my mom played on a triangle
in her childhood rhythm band.

Opening the keyboard
of our black upright,
the front panel puffed, lungs
filling with air. Struck keys
threw felt hammers
against strings,
hearts beating in secret.

I put on airs  
with my crashing chords, 
cross-handed tricks, 
wringing music from the monstrosity falling out of tune 
against the damp basement wall, 
notes competing with tennis shoes 
thumping through the dryer, 
my metronome.

I wore jeans to the recital,  
hulked above little girls 
in puffy party dresses who  
coaxed out elegant tones 
from a honey piano 
sheet music dense 
with tangles of notes 
requiring a page-turner.
Lunky, heavy-handed,  
unable to gain traction, 
bench slippery as ice, 
I jolted through 
my frenzied notes, 
wishing to race into my future,
dragged into my mother’s past.

Air composed by King Louis the XIII, 
said the line across the top 
as if a king had conjured this song
from thin air, or concocted 
its tune on an air guitar  
or while soaring 
in a hot air balloon.

My mother beamed 
as if the music and she and I
were points on a triangle 
connected by invisible lines,
but I was already far away, 
soaring above the treble clef, the metal chairs, 
my beaming mom, 
my heart hammering 
as I composed my life in secret, fingers launched
like springs  from broken lines of notes.
​

too much heaven for a fault line

​spiked a motrin & sat waiting for the next Naples refresh,
aimed a fleshlight towards the heavens for some kind of inverted sign
as the statued woman tied a little noose with her purse
to avoid devotion from the pyramid of men
climbing over sisyphus like stolen sex positions 
imbued within their feet a journey and guys
I swear it was like pussy power FR

the dirt under her feet was wet with wine
and frustration, loitering weasels grew hungry
though their stomach calls could just be another sound
in the discordant nightmare of time, treaties b/t
them ran sacred with spit and though they drooled over
the silent ligatures running traces across her teeth there
was no difference once their saliva ate the floor

the beggars never age and their pockets, well
you know. it’s always starvation and chase in those deep street
corners that bundle rocks like foundations to endless
mountains of beauty and wealth
and poor neophyte wonder. cross-eyed and alighted
by the switchblade I forgot in my coat, I climb numbered stairs
to the hungover wet bones of Bowery
and stare out into the black moor, waiting for rain.​

It was about two-thirds of the way down the pile when she spotted it. There were a couple of cracks – one faint and barely noticeable, the other quite a bit more pronounced – going horizontally all the way across the spine. But Clare could still make out the title and the author on the book: Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. The style of lettering in which the words appeared, however, she didn’t believe she’d seen elsewhere, and that gave her cause for optimism.

Could this have been the exact edition of Steppenwolf she’d been desperately trying to find?

It was temporarily imprisoned by the books stacked above it, but Clare was nonetheless determined to get the closer look she needed. Dogpiled on top of it were seven or eight other paperbacks about the same size – the small, portable kind that they used to call “mass markets” – also used copies, and in similarly harried condition. The titles included several recent bestselling novels (one of which was the second installment of a very popular fantasy series), a diet plan book, a tell-all by a famous rock star and collection of crossword puzzles.
She leaned in to try and dislodge the book from the pile. Despite her elation, she managed do it quite gingerly, so as not to knock the other books over, and ultimately leave everything else exactly as she’d found it.

This was one of Clare’s favorite tables among those operated by the street vendors on Sixth Avenue in New York City near the West 4th Street-Washington Square subway stop. She could even (for the most part) ignore the pile of hardcore pornographic magazines usually situated on the far left corner. There was also a stack of old 12-inch disco records propped up vertically, leaning against the front right leg. Everything else on this one table was books, which in turn were represented by a wide variety of bindings, sizes, subjects and conditions.
Rain and similarly disruptive weather were always the principle threat to these venders, but today not only the sun but also the temperature - a dry and comfortable sixty-two or so degrees – seemed to offer their full cooperation. Still, the Greek food truck which was usually parked on the corner chose to take the day off, so by default the aroma which dominated the immediate area was coming from the nearby pizza place which sold two slices plus a small soda for $2.50 (as they informed everyone through a sign handwritten on a paper plate).

Some of the neighboring vendor tables hawked everything from vintage comic books and baseball cards to used electronic devices and quasi-legal drug paraphernalia. Between them, the sidewalk peddlers on this relatively minute stretch of the America’s biggest city probably offered something for every taste.

However, Clare always knew exactly what she was looking for. And after successfully freeing Steppenwolf from the heap, she knew instantly that she’d found it when she spotted a name on the cover that wasn’t “Herman Hesse.”

That name was “Max von Sydow.”