PORTLAND BOY

 

 

Two small feet in scuffed tennis shoes descend

into the damp basement of a 2 story

colonial house immersed in a turgid roiling sea

of infinitely black weather. The boy drops

 

step-by-step onto sturdy wooden planks,

one beneath the other, until the cement

 

floor rises to meet him

where he stands alone.

 

Strange vague feelings in his smooth belly

begin to be deeply felt, quite soothing,

 

quietly.       It’s so quiet here.

 

Somehow                                    only

when by himself

 

does this misted rain fall unpredictably,

subtly onto his receptive lap, gently

 

entering the short ruddy virginal body to fill

an emptiness he had not named before.

 

How does he know to welcome this astonishing

surprise, like those flying seahorses in the dream

falling friendly, speechless and soundless

from a sky so faraway?

 

becoming aware of fruition truly, like the exact

uncertain moment

 

(wild stallion and chestnut mare

together asleep under a sprawling

mesquite in full flame….)

 

conception….

 

peaceful and unruly--

 

mysteriously happens,,

Portland Boy

 

 

 

In the damp basement strange

vague feelings in his belly

deeply felt

 

(especially comforting)

 

somehow                    only

when alone

 

would they fall

into his receptive lap.

 

misted rain fills him up

 

descends friendly from

a sky so faraway

 

like the exact uncertain

moment

 

conception….

 

mysteriously happens,,

ODE TO SATURDAY’S GRAPEFRUIT                                                       

Your happy tongue a fat
planet eternally orbiting
the yellow-orange sun

of sweet luscious fruit. In love

with its juicy plump flesh

 

and how its ode-orous radiance

enters eager mouth’s cool cave

 

where you speak a lusty grinning

silence, a born-again tongue
your first language,

 

loose and fresh, new

as a white dwarf star.

Breakfast astronaut, strip off your space-suit

burst into pleasure,

free-float naked in your capsule

of citrus where gravity’s absence

 

titillates these taste buds,

lightens all flesh and linguistic

pretensions as it hijacks 

your rocket ship towards

 

an untraveled atmosphere,

seduces quite tasty

like hot hasty sex in the shower

at home far down on earth.

 

Now, you’re a high wire tightrope walker

in thin air married to pulp quite piquant,

a kitchen chair your net underneath:

your face fiercely amorous, eyes

 

sparkle with inhibitions unraveling,

as flying soars further, juices

flow greedily across your chin

like a crowd of kids’ fingers

 

cotton candy sticky, their laughter

goofy and loud

at a clown’s artful hijinks.

 

This long hunger for new worlds to traverse

fulfilled by what flows in-between
taste buds and citrus and

by these small oval seeds that

 

harbor chlorophyll--growing neurons

to flower your blooming bright brain, flourish  

galaxies of mushrooming desires.

Oh astronaut! Oh tightrope walker!

Let yourself languish and linger,
be astonished inside grapefruit's
pink succulence, this stellar ripening

this thin steel wire clear liquid gleaming

 

that’s nourished and grabbed you

star-struck for good.

taste its foreign fecundity,

savor its puckering liminality,

explore its other-world corporeality,

hear its tingling full-flavored poetry.

 

Yes my dear breakfast devotees

You wild devourers

of fresh tangy  

grapefruit

 

simmer and sizzle

sing if inspired

 

in this obscene solar system

under the big mesh canvas tent

 

inside your private Sputnik

of requited cravings

 

beguiled, beguiling

 

crooning and raving,

 

a true lunatic’s mooning,

 

all Saturday long!

                             OCEAN

 

The ocean shimmers out beyond the orange buoys.

 

Daylight bends back towards tomorrow.

 

Maybe rain will fall again one day in this town

of shopping malls and desiccated desert ground.

 

And then you may return with a bracelet of green

jade on your right wrist and a basket woven of small

surprises, salty wet on your smooth tanned back.

 

A robust quiet ripening,  

your favorite calling card.

 

Then the ocean’s play with light and wave

might make sense once more.

 

Then hope shall erupt and rise from the nestled shore

like the slender dancer drunk and lusty wild in her

graced ascension at your first gypsy wedding.

 

And then, and only then, the New Orleans funeral marchers

shall swagger single file down Bourbon Street on a shining day

 

soaked all golden like dervish saints, their music spilling over,

entrancing us with such sweetness and god-damn, rag-tag

swelter.