Tag archives: smoke

Dating a Cloud

“I want a poem about a bad date with a smoker.”


 She dates with a subway stare
passing through the appetizers
like a soldier wading through a swamp
pushing reeds aside for the wine.
 

 

More and more the people nudging
clutching at her sleeves like ghosts
trying to push her smile out
haunting her with obscene jokes.
 

 

A Saturday date inside, but
she smokes with a Sunday fervor outside
forging a private atmosphere
with every grey breath she forms
 

 

so she climbs into her cigarette cloud
both hands digging down, like a hazelnut
 

 

burrowing past all colors
through the skull of the Earth
through the edge of her drowsy wine
into her heart- still warm on the plate,
for all that want to bite the black.

Frank O’Hara Rondel

“Is it too much to ask for a rondel about a holographic Frank O’Hara and I using the light from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to spark our spliffs?”


We take our silent turn;
Hologram Frank and I
Simple stretching of fire
We light a spliff and churn.

 

He talks and I yearn.
The smoke climbs high
Hologram Frank and I
We take our silent turn.

 

We call this a sojourn
The unknown soldier shrine
Pale comrade trapped in time
Hologram Frank and I learn,
We take our silent turn.

Spanish Armada Dolphin Cheese

“Hello

I would like a poem about a dolphin that falls in love with the spanish armada. But it’s actually a metaphor for cheese making. Or, one about love.

Thanks”


My love has slowly brewed
warmed for only five minutes
spreading from fin to tail,
like quiet waves approaching
the clean white beach.
 
The wooden ships on Spanish shore,
bobbing – blowing gently with natural tendency.
Sweet tender Spanish armada, sleep.
I will wait for dawn before stirring,
because our love can only thicken.
 
Your covered decks seize the dawn,
stretch your rafters, nest, and sails.
Today our love lifts away from here,
with your elegance – my heart elopes.
 
I follow you in these changing seas,
but my heart seems to only dissolve in you
as you trudge bravely on to war-
brushing my painted heat into the ocean.
 
You remain unstirred from my touch,
but I follow your white sails silent.
Whispering heartsrings tug me to you,
forever across this callous sea.
 
Now hark! What rope is so cruel
as one which turns your cannons.
Lighting the air to new flame,
striking the stranger.
 
My Spanish sunshine smashed,
a rage of smoke sweeping all.
English and Spanish sweat strain
breaking the peace with gunpowder.
 
The admiral’s sword cuts swiftly,
turning and cutting through English muck.
I smash against the wooden hordes,
and pieces break from all sides.
 
My heart flicks unbridled and furious,
but mi Armour is no more.
Shriveled and shrinking, he is cut.
 
I took the pieces away.
Scraps and splinters.
My wooden treasures I keep,
like clouds saving the sun at night.
 
Slowly my love comes again,
and I take one piece of the bow under
into the salty depths of the sea
so we can fly from the smoke.
 
Bloody waters gone,
now we must hold together,
tightly- for the sea is harsh.
We wait for the moon to wane
and wait for the sun to shrug the pain
and my fins can bandage our love again.

Clove

“I need a poem about a lovely girl I met in a bar over a clove cigarette.
I help her hand through the crowded bar and listened to acoustic music till we were too drunk to walk.
Thanks.”


She smelled like my smoke,
and walked like my booze.
Everyone knows her,
in the easy acoustic notes
that billow in every bar.
Well, last night she was mine.

 

The crowd let us escape
from the days that don’t let go,
so we could talk about nothing
and feel more than anything.