The Golden Ticket

In late 2009 I took advantage of a unique opportunity, an at the time unprecedented offer by JetBlue airlines: travel, for one month, on any JetBlue plane, from any airport JetBlue serviced, to any airport JetBlue serviced, for the cost of a single $600 ticket.  I jumped at the chance for adventure, and for one month, with no driver's license, little prior knowledge of my destinations, and only the luggage I could carry in a black canvas backpack, I set out to explore thirteen US cities.
Charlotte, NC, my third destination, was a personal challenge: how would I fare in a place about which I knew nothing, not even apocrypha?  I'd never heard, or read, so much as two sentences about Charlotte.  But this journey was about discovery, and so, late on the night of my 30th birthday, I boarded a flight from San Francisco to Charlotte.   Arriving in Charlotte early in the AM, I bused to a nearby Motel (I couldn't find a hostel) and caught some shut-eye.  Early in the morning I bused to the nearby business district and began exploring.  After a few hours I began to feel discouraged - I'd footed to every corner of the downtown grid, and found little to do.  More worrying, there seemed to be little beyond the business streets.  Convinced no city could be this dull, I questioned the locals.  A few mentioned "NoDa", Charlotte's arts district, as worth a visit. I'd found my grail, now I had to claim it.

not a poem

The kid turned his head to the right, and caught an eyeful of his own eternal glory in this moment - his image, reflected in a glass display window of some sporting store. His reflection matched almost a the mannequin behind the glass: a sleek alabaster plasticene model, arm at 90 degrees in perfect running form, torso pitched forward in the midfall of a stride. The model's clothes were pastels, robin's egg and one of two hundred shades of pink, and impossibly clean. The kid wore a grey hoodie, scuffed at the elbows, dark green with greying black tentacles printed all over. His face was almost as smooth and sharp as the mannequin, but his eyes had not just life but glee. He grinned and saluted the mannequin, stolen pipe still in hand, then his left foot pounded pavement and he was past it.

He tossed his prize from right to left hand, and glanced over his shoulder. His newest victim, a portly man in a checkered jacket and newsboy cap, had quit the chase after only a few steps, and now stood impotent, square, amid the mid-day pedestrian flow.

Mischief in full flow, the kid hopped out of his run, turning to face the poor son of a bitch who'd had the misfortune to stand too close to an impulsive moment. He grinned and brought the pipe, still lit, to his lips, and blew as hard as he could, spraying sparks and red tobacco into the air.

Open, closed

How joyful
And how shaming
to encounter you
How funny
Shying in your sight
And dancing naked
Wanting to be seen and see
how foolish
to peer hands cupped over your eyes
Kissing a circus mirror
our two distorted faces
Wondering

Anger

Under  city hall philadelphia
From 15 to 13 hearing old man penn
Stomping to be heard over the  indifferent roar of
Train
Council
Pacing police
and the men whose hands he shook
Are exiled to casinos and midwestern enclaves shouting unheard proclamations :
"independence" "betrayal" "renewal"
As in greece a retired worker pulls the trigger in the town square "dignity"
He says he is preserving
And he falls with the prediction of public hangings
Meanwhile signs from 13th street shout "buy"
"clothing""buy"
"freedom" "buy"
"pizza" "buy"
"companions" "buy"
Andeven vanity metal signs say
"cynical frustration" "buy"
So if you shout "fuck you"
They'll sell you back the echo as the train rolls past and Willie Penn points wrongways with his exposed scroll toward northeast philadelphia and the waters waiting to rise

an injury

I have discovered I am trailing blood

and walk to the garden to water what I find.

Healing, perhaps, is a hopeful dream.

Those injuries one finds -one may lick, and sorrow over

but as in the parable of the wagon,

the blood is not the injury,

nor the exposed muscle the injury

nor the uninjured skin at edge the injury

and often I imagine the cause

but the imagining is not the injury

and the flowers can not drink my memory

even if I pour it over them in words or tears

the scab is not the injury

nor any pain the injury

nor the dull pleasure of the suffering, the injury.

still, the planted rows, and the unplanted weeds, and the creeping grasses

drink what blood they can

and grow if they are wont to grow.

When daphne cried

she cried as veins that branched like fibonacci's dreams pale blue and downy hair like faint calligraphy found alchemy to bark and bud each sinew rising from a central bone a small ballet of spoking twigs

her eyes beholding it

so wide

her mouth an O

as she first drank the sun

observations, possibilities

the trash bags

The many electric lights

and sockets

The stairs

or the window above them

a bottle of cleaner

scissors

pens

glass shelving panes

the little brown ibuprofen

that rattle in a large bottle

so like rain

the passing cars

and trolley

song like faroff thing

a love song

like a mountain

seen at distance

from the road

lyrics murky in morning mist

rising with the tune

under the beat

of your steps

but you can't see it all

until you run

your first real one

to sing

the song is rising

and it's closer

as you walk there

knowing, now

it's yours

to give

and on that hill

you're looking down

and you can see it's

bigger but it's

meant for you

to understand it

then the road is past

you've run too fast

and

in the distance

looking back

it's oddly small

and slightly stupid

in the way it leans

there's a love song

by your shoulder

if you bother

looking over

but it

tends to hurt

your eyes

the way it gleams

Oh daphne,

daphne cried

and veins that branched pale blueneath olive skin like fibonacci's dreams

and downy hair above like faint calligraphy

all turnied crisp to bark and bud

each sinew rising from a central bone

a small ballet of spoking twigs

her eyes beholding it

so wide

her mouth an O

as she first drank the sun

The promises
When she says no
The tales you learned
When she says no
The songs you sang
Don't matter
And the faithful dog
Snot there
In wandering
she won't be
The white deer
When you find her
the moon
You can't reach
won't be her wish