how i spent my day off

breakfast; then, a sweaty walk
to museum nipples rendered
vibrantly in colors like nihonga blue.
carded at the bibliotheque but
no bouncers keeping me from
Rumi and Talgrode, names I chased
and didn't know would lead to
Sufi mysticism at the oriental
pavilion in prospect park.
after mango nuts and salsa i
ascended rusty ladder
shaking sawdust flakes into my hair.
the sun, a diffuse spotlight
rained magenta solar grey; if i'd known
someone was watching i would not have
sunk beneath my headphones, dancing
like smoke out a sadhu's pipe
across the silver rooftop stretched
along 7th avenue.
you caught me naked in my clothes!
with eyes you eavesdropped on my
conversation with my
self, and now i'm sitting
in a whipping wind, gluing
words to paper
so i can remember.

concrete

I can never remember things
like argyle
until I see it.
sort of like poplars, thrushes, walpoles, and asphodels.
all usable words, meanings unknown.
i weave ideas, i stitch notions, images
of my life
of your beauty
i know nothing of nature
i can't identify the trees
clueless to the flora and the fauna
all their many names
elude me.
i'm a creator birthed of concrete
i buy what i own; i earn what i eat
Whitman has a mile on me (or more)

i sing bridge songs
landscape lullabies
beneath a sky scratched emerald, yellow, pink
before the sun, behind the smog.
i tunnel-crawl and plunge
beneath the river
but never am i wet.

Not before

Not before the other shoe drops
We'll wade among people
like saltwater
mouths closed, eyes wide open up above
the crests
Not because the sun is spinning us
But because the passion of our blood will always
out-
weigh the push
and pull
of infinity around us.
Gravity
has nothing
on you
and
me.
Time is a mosquito.
Space is beneath the thrust of our bodies.
For us, the sour can be sweet;
the intangible is malleable;
the straight and narrow dips and curves;
we are technicolor grayscale.