Spring is Fair and Furious (Black Book Poems)

Dance in a flutter

of light, flood of dirty sudsy

washer water down in

the basement of our new house

macabre clog in the works, plumber

was called right away.

I’m mixed around as to what

day it is. Living amongst

boxes and children.

Third story claw foot bathtub,

giant carpet scissors deadly

ridiculous on the kitchen

counter, car parked out

on 34th street , open

mouth dumpster, tangle of

steel steps in back of the

red brick apartment building

across the way. No stink

of garbage, just clear eyed

spring fresh white bloom on trees

spring fevered cool temperatures.

- - - - - - -

Night comes on slow.

Saturday evening traffic

increases, heard sirens

and crashing speed

earlier, trance music

on behind me as my son runs

consecutive laps in the tiny

backyard, baby boy on a

peach colored blanket

complains to daughters

Izzy and Zoey

on the lookout for

ants on the sidewalk.

Fresh breezed doors are wide open to hosts of

possibilities, all in usage

of particular spaces, our

spaces fill with music,

laughter, hot food, cleaning

laundry, emptying boxes one

final time before life is committed

to book shelves, old rickety

tables, dark avoided creep

of basement,

sunshine on the

final glimpse nearing twilight,

torn jet streams, distant

deep dog bark blocks miles

away, the other side of

streets and shops, churches

and vast groceries, tight

lipped too expensive gas stations.

Hot coffee, deep sacred blue

denim evening surrounded

by old crooked windows and

tangles of electrical wires

transmitting the

light and glook vision.

Mass of clouds of crawling teaming

ants and billions of toddling

bugs and beetles and slow stretch

of slime worms.

Heaps of foul smelling glurk

mud of Nebraska marshes.

Hard mosquito bite itch.

Patches and swathes of bathroom soap

old wives tale remedy.

Sing it

out like a sad saw,

shine out fair

sun casting tint

shadows at 72nd

street and Dodge.

Light of Spring everywhere, stretches

out the skin of my face like

a salt water ocean tide

flushing out eyes and breath

in blur-muscled undertow.

- - - - - - - -

(March 25th, 2012)