"Is that what you want?"
My brother-in-law asks me
as we're looking at the
psychobilly guitar player
passed out on their couch
another genius who'd been
trying to get in my pants all day
yesterday at Buddy Blue's funeral
then afterwards at the dive bar wake,
feeling me up real quick
even putting his leather jacket
down on my bar stool
a little gentlemanly gesture,
and stealing a kiss like some sort of
Ricky Nelson Hello Mary Lou move,
then proceeding to get drunk
in honor and utter outrage
that our friend Buddy died at 48
of a heart attack,
another musician gone too young,
drunk again so fucking drunk
he had another blackout
and didn't even remember
asking me for a Saturday night date
at South Bay drive-in theatre,
last thing he said before he passed out
was "we'll go in your car".  LS

PUZZLE PIECES

People whispered my name
behind their hands.

The clock, meanwhile,
would momentarily grow large,

the blue flowers
on the yellow wallpaper

opening just a crack. 

 
*
 
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS

Wherever I go,
men are fighting

over women or loot.
The abandoned

write their names
on scraps of paper

and drop them
through the bars

on the windows.
I have the same

sudden feeling
of unease as I had

during previous visits.
The greeter nods

hello and then
resumes applying

her black lipstick.  LS

TO MY SISTER'S RETICENT LOVER

You must be insane.

What more can I say.

To stay silent in the face

of such ravishing looks,

golden locks groomed to perfection

for you, you tongue-tied fool.


***

ORANGES

I slipped, as Freud predicted,

straight into your bed,

stepped barefoot from

my forest of fears,

cold and clear

like beads of orange

and you silently wrapped me

into yourself completely.  LS

- after JBB

Was I ever that at ease
with girls? Able to sit
with hips and shoulders,
heat and jean and flannel?
Or, was I always
a bit sure I was other
with my last winter’s jeans
in spring, my home cut hair.
Or, is it not even about girls,
but more how I never
wanted to be boy
crazy; how I say, even now
as an adult, “He’s a hugger
so sit down.” When did it take
too much time out of my day
to engage in an embrace?
Maybe I’ve always
been an Alice, never able
to decide whether to eat
or drink the one that says
enjoy over the one that says
or not. LS

Love Hills

We scratched the skin of our pasts
and the hills of love erupted.
Pine trees grew on the hill slopes
and their needle leaves were like
the words we used to sew differences.
Our old tears met, inventing an ocean
of future stories and childhood joy.
I once tried to learn needlework
and you Hindi. I could only thread--
you could only swear.
Let’s scratch our hill skins into mountains.
I hope you teach me some needle
magic and how to make the guitar talk,
and we’ll learn a bit more
about the dangers of being loved again. LS

Don't tremble for me
When I'm soaring
Dipping my lark wing
So casually in this
Summer's hauty breath.

This stapled heart
Wants no gravity
Just the constant breeze
The dusty clouds, blue persuasion
Watch me dart, graze the air.

Don't tremble for me
When I'm falling
Stinging the perfumed
Balance of faith, pretence
Let me be drunk in Summer's grasp.

just a sigh of relief
without any unnecessary
marks of exclamation
foot or fingerprints

cherry tobacco fag
on a bench
in front of the national museum
pink girl on a pink bike
rides up and down a path
between two rows of oaks
pigalle square is just one block away
so deserted
at this time of day
the opening hours are all vague
and I'm dressed in black
just for the sake of being fake

I hope you're enjoying the sights
sighs of the big big city
homeless kids beggin' for change
and I'm beggin' for the change
although it may seem I'm just sitting there
on a park bench   LS

Whoever holds up the universe
is blowing bubbles again.

Rough waters, one silver body trying
to rise above another.

Wet with the wash of morning,
I hear you singing. Your voice

is breathless and blue. Surge forward
you say. Lean in blind, I reply.

 If I could touch my desire, I’d drown it. LS

Far down river in New Orleans,
The river rises, high, in the summer.

Her hands finger the dirty water,
it's the lifeblood in her veins.

The grass is trimmed low near the
muddy beds where the water rushes by.

Her hands, wet, dry in the sunlight
as she stares at a little girl. LS

A sad
voice
in her
stomach,
coming up
as acid
in her
throat.
Drugs
a kind
of
Pepto-Bismal
to soothe
the reflux
of
memories. LS