From a Train Window

THE PERFECT PITCH not music, just sound as in sound bite. An elevator pitch not vertical, but narrow. all inclusive, a one-minute miracle I love you is a perfect pitch Publish my novel because it’s exciting is not a perfect pitch I love you so much I wrote you a novel that will touch your spirit and tickle your fancy because its characters, though weird when you first meet, turn out to be much like you. An imperfect pitch Return of the Santa Ana Winds The dishwasher grumbles, growls, and snarls. Is it simply a loose door? Soiled dishes and pans lie around the counters waiting for someone. Godot? For Congress to pass an energy bill or define pornography again? The smallest task grows like taxes and everyone feels like a slave. Lincoln did not free us and God just kicked us out. Freud and Becker define the porn and the world of Hieronymus Bosch. Yet the hot winds still scatter eviction papers, and grime coats my words as they form. The Belle of Amherst is one who knew that some words are phosphorescent. Where are the glows, Monsieur Villon and the snows of yesteryear? Metaphor “Make up metaphors every day!” intones my poet lover as if his were God’s words according to Ecclesiastes. “Look through a camera,” I say, “Wear blinders to see a hundred-to-one reduction and Fibonacci’s series.” “Focus,” I say, yet gulp panorama like brandy and lemon with time-released seeds and ache for metaphysical miracles for Pompeii, where love is a permanent noun The earth moved because it is matter. Struck by a stroke, my father moved 4.8 on the Richter Scale to a nursing home beside a pre-school playground. From his wheelchair He gazes into a small boy’s eyes that stare back, knowing without knowing what meta is for READ THE RECIPE FIRST She poured in a whole quart of love before the man was warm didn't save enough sugar to sprinkle on anyone else. She melted all of the butter, too. There wasn’t enough left to grease the pan let alone the kids or the skids. She whipped up a frenzy without separating the juicy bits from the facts. She set her oven too high let her edges burn her middle sink. Next life she vowed she'd read the recipe all the way through, measure before she began. The next life she came back as a pile-driving man. Your Deep Blue Eyes When you opened them in the recovery room you stared at me You knew me You've never stared at me before yet every day in Intensive Care you stared at me arcing the space between us I stared at you in your narrow bed inhaled your hope for life Your deep blue eyes reached into mine for rope and built a ladder