would that it was her own worst nightmare
this peppermint vision of ovarian troubles
a spear in the gut

there is nothing so easy as failure, mother
and there’s much I need to say
though I make no real claim to wisdom

I picture you at home by yourself,
the television on
arms folded
you have no idea how angry you look
to little seven year old girls and boys
I consider the paradox of procreation
the rum settles the ice
I reinvent the ink I’ve been avoiding for 3 months
and mull over the life I’ve lived
the friends women and moments in between
I cannot find room in the world for a woman
who believes herself to be meant for that
having brought two lives here
on desks, floors, maybe beds

I’m looking for you
is the honest truth
I have no anger left
though I am tired before my time, I think
and I have no use for blame anymore

I live my life for the piano solos
warm weather and soft lips
your spiral into misery fucks me up
the possibility of that melody becoming mine
is something that keeps me up at night,
thinking where it all goes wrong

it’s about the freedom of women
to shake their Indian asses
on the avenue, at midnight.
ask me again and I will not reply.

its about the strains of a rusted homeless tenor
saxophone
pumped through with the depest blues
and more invisible soul(s)
breaking down the checklist of suffering
in this lifetime agony
through an instrument

and despite his empty belly the sounds run full
up
from the subway platform 30 ft. below
and up
through the bedrock and milk crates
and up
to find air beyond the grates that feet find purchase on

for a moment

as the masses swirl on

in a city where nature can’t help them

and if all the fluorescents went out
we’d be unable to read the poems on the page
and life would still be inconclusive

ask me then and I’ll admit my arrogance
but at least something was written
for men
who expect salvation from the milk of women
in any sympathetic destruction of skin
or rescue
from the memory
of soft lips
mouthing
sweet
words
…

when they take the exclamation marks off the typweriters
it makes it impossible to speak with conviction
and ask the right questions
but we kept on down the avenue regardless
and we spoke in iambic couplets

she and I.

maybe all is well in the world when we bare our teeth and let the
fur stand straight up from our necks and make no bones
about how close it is we really do sit to the earth,
human as we are,
flawed as we are,

little gut buckets of regret; like summer and fall in expected,
IF A THEN B relationships of motivation and change of heart

this is not personal

passion is for everyone, an undercooked mass-produced commodity that
goes down quick — its taste is often that of sweat trickling down the small of a back

passion in love and hate, passion in reason, things deteriorate
passionately as passion is given away on the road and found drowning
in the bottom of a glass of beer its gills flooded
with the salt of the earth

picture the melancholy of its heartbeat as it enters a new room,
knowing its coming is strung to its going, as the sunrise is to the sunset more than anything else we share

this legacy we are all born from and that men and women
have died for, shamelessly…

…but, no: this much should be said:

none of this was personal.

and these are my demands:

I don’t want to know about any backrooms of undercooked loves,
the last thing I need to see is a happy couple,
only page me with a 911
if you want to get a drink,
don’t even look in my direction
if you’re not gonna give up some leg —love is something I don’t need
anymore…
promise that moonlit windswept moments
with passion everlasting
are not going to occur
because I know these things end fast
tell me that sex is a fuck
remind me that I could lose 5
…maybe 10…
maybe 15
minutes of your precious time
be straight with me
point out that we’re both obnoxious humans
and you’re a mile high bitch
and I love my jazz more than I love you
and beer makes me happy
pay attention to me when I tell you
I’m the greatest motherfucker that ever was
and no one can top me
and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet
the shit I got cookin’
knock your panties off and make you come
and then tell me about that brown spot
by my eye
and the sun in its freezing sky
how mutts can be inconsiderate bastards
full of gas
and I’ll suck my glass nipple
consume the nectars of langour
point out that Jesus needed pussy,
too,
and you’ll scream
and throw things at me
and songs will end
and we’ll have to sit
with our slow march towards death
and wait
and see
that at least we had conversation.

Arn Chorn-Pond

This photograph transformed my life.

At times, I feel swallowed by circumstance. Like a toy pulled out to sea, propelled by something far greater than I can imagine, grateful for simple buoyancy.