The History of Us

"I call ‘stranger'" as a seating assignment
tells a lot about the passenger on the bus

you had no idea that at that very moment
that you were a whisper caught and released into the wind

another degree of separation cut from a slice of social
strata grinding in tectonically skewed nonalignment

whatever God watches over the powerful brought
you into the conversation as an example of raw beauty

a cleansing November rain, a pure oboe phrase
a scaffold out of the underworld

of that one day among the bocage when strangers
dissolved into a discourse of porch dancing.

The Man In The Volvo Singing Opera Music

While the rest of us waited at the corner
for the traffic light to turn green

each in our own way
buffering sounds
of yelling hotdog vendors
layers of cab horns
reggae music blasting from the suit shop

a solitary man sits in his car
with windows rolled up
in a cocoon of cigarette smoke
opera music filling his atmosphere
him singing along
insulated for these brief moments
from a world that commands his every move

I glance from the side and notice that he is
the doorman from my building

when I return home that evening
he is smiling as he opens the door for me
as he always has, only
now I know the reason why.

Breakfast With Nine Black Alps

Drop what’s in your hands
the bones you’ve collected have details you didn’t anticipate

“prison doors sound like wedding bells
as you ask for change at the wishing well.”

what moral compass
who the patient zero

of fireworks and discovering Auschwitz for the first time
shivering under a bridge in a cold rain
this is a portrait of your finest hour

framed by a chilly November morning
as the sun breaks through the Youngstown fog

while a lady wearing trash bags as shoes is seen reading
letters written the previous night under the glow of a streetlamp.