Sullivan Street

Poems L-P

Little Zacchaeus

The firemen's parade made its way every year down 4th street and we lived at house number 600 North. My little brother Michael was five the first July that our mayor rented a convertable Limousin to ride with the siren trucks wave and smile tossing hard candy by the handfulls to the crowd. Michael climbed up the Sycamore tree in my neighbors front lawn as the mayor passed by I heard a cheer from above and over my left shoulder I saw Michael clapping and waving. Like a little Zacchaeus he climbed back down and elbowed his way back with the other children to get a piece of hard candy before tires coming down the street would smash the sugar down into the ground.

Matty For Sale
Sequel to Joey For Rent

(Dedicated to BR and how every day we sit in the campus center and wonder "whats going on here?!?")

That Matty fancy sneakers living off of stories from those boys who say they know. I want confusion grabbing at their throats and take them charging out the window. Dumb boys'll want us soon enough needing attention as they go. Matty for sale. With side-kick Joey stylin' let's just move them to Long Island with those guys who say they know.

Magazine Rack

I look at the girls with sunken eyes and necklaces made of bones and skin. Belts of decay and peel from within. Shoes of nothingness. Heel and sin.

Photograph Nails

I smelled someone snapping a picture and upon turning back I asked him what he wanted--- "In a most compelling way" he said, "you are part of the disturbing pattern I believe in." This much sought after position made up my emotional framework for the evening--- and the negatives of lips and teeth to be made public on the street corners--- Concrete with plaster grey and concecrated with my life and soul left on display for the crowd to gobble up until their stomachs explode.

Learned from Linda

Beef paddys on the griddle smell of life drained out for a dollar twenty-five and our teeth marrow from what was ground up within a circular slab of shrivling pain from cage to block to pan wincing as it hisses swimming in a pond of schorching butter. Injest into me this river of blood and bone?!? Yeah right, and maybe pigs will fly! (Straight out of their pen and into a pan!)

No Way

"It isnt love. If you dont want to talk about it than it isnt love. Well, I guess I'm going to have to live without."
---Counting Crows

You cant build love on good intentions. There is no way to become what you say you will become, you say. We will become. But I have stopped believing in you. And I can finally say, I'm over us and over the way you looked at me in passing. Lost smiles. I cant believe there's no way of you coming back. No way to become the summer again, and live as if a whole future was in the making. Please don't pass the blame. Somebody should have told you that good intentions only get you go far... ....the rest is up to you. And everybody knows that now.

Never Trust a guy in a White Car

Never trust a guy who drives a white car they are all the same. Rich boys, sons of wealthy doctors, teachers, mostly left lane drivers as they live their lives of danger. I'd rather have another color to ride along in instead of white with those wolves in sheeps clothing on four wheels.

Love

"I wanted to see you walking away from me. Without the sensation that you're leaving me alone."
---Counting Crows

Nothing was left or, as I thought the same. Keep the music playing after all is finished. Know how I feel for you. Let it have no reason to matter. The key was lost as the door was opened, What started anyway? Flowers cannot grow. Well they do, but are confusing justly thriving downward. If the sun were to fall with the moon and go swimming joining them, there I would be in the middle of my elegant pleasures. Waiting for you to come. Branding my thoughts with your image. And this peace that we would feel together could calm the ocen waves. Pick up the moon, grasp the sun replace them in the sky. Then find the key that was exchanged for all my wonders and illusions. Make my days worth living. Carefree signs of long lost times and you When everything was the same and we were just beginning.

Lefty Up to Bat

"I belong in the service of the queen. I belong, anywhere but in between" ---Counting Crows

Lefty up to bat... "Strike One!" Looking at the backfield wall "....so far away, so very far away...." I hear him say Sweaty palms and squinted eyes He swings and misses, ("Strike Two!") what a surprize! Standing on the pitchers mount hoping he'll prove what he's worth.... "Strike Three! You're OUT!" "....AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!" Miles around can hear the shouts! I should have known what this would be about! He loses again, and sulkes back to the batters box So I turn coyly to the 2nd baseman and say..... "I think I'll find me a homerun hitter to take home today!"

Leaving the Campsite

"She remembers, and hides it whenever we meet. " ---Counting Crows

I see by the hinted shadows until the water turns to the mirrored trees who shutter in the wake. Please help to make it easier (my leaving) and let me hold this eternity in the palm of my hand. For all that remains is an illusion of you as I walk away, with my head up high like a soldier returning home.

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