Words Don't Count

Words are not nails or pearls or drinking glasses full of milk

Words are not sails or the wind that fills them

Words are not eatable or bankable or capable

Of cooking dinner or putting a sandwich on the table.

Words are hot air, hisses, and lisps

Pushed by our lungs over our lips

Our tongues and our teeth get in the way

Turning the air into something we say

Words disappear as fast as we say them

And depend upon ears to validate them

And the printed page to illustrate them

And memory loss to eradicate them

Still, sometime, words are all we have

And they flow over doorways we build in our brain

Like cool breezes flowing

Over a transom

Like the sound of the moan of a far away train

The chill that raises the short hairs on my head

And the sounds of the night

As I lie in my bed.

Hot One

Coffee is not good for Spaz,
but I share mine anyway.
his tongue long and blue
laps down into the cardboard cup
down on the concrete,
and he drains it,
spilling not one drop.
He waits for me to pour him more.
I do,
and when he is through
a spot of the sun
breaks past
the baggy buttonwood trees
between us and the projects
and he begins to pant.
It's going to be a hot one
again today.

We are right in the flight path.
White, red and blue tail-sections
of the prop planes
and the commuter jets
on their diagonal way
to cities within five hundred miles
of LaGuardia,
fly right over the projects-
right over where I sit-
on the curb,
in the last of the morning shade,
retreating from
the gravel
and broken asphalt drive,
behind Randall and Castle Hill...
it promises to be a hot one
again today.

Spaz and I retreat
from the expanding
seven a.m. sun.
Into the office
painted
not white or gray or green
but some disturbing color
in between.
Strangely agitating
and morbidly routine.
Piles of papers
garbage pails of dog food
computer screens
and dust bunny's
bits of hardware
and sheets of glass
a coffee maker
and an adopted family of dish-ware,
in the pantry
unwashed
and waiting...
but the portable A/C
is running
and the ancient stereo
is humming.
It is cooler here
than anywhere
else
on this block
in the Bronx.
it promises to be
another hot one today.

The phone rings
and the other end
unswervingly demands.
try and try,
as best I can,
there is no purchase
no a-mens
sufficient.
and I find myself believing
it is me.
it is my fault
I have gotten too old
for this grind-
If not for Spaz
and a laugh
now and then
I would never come to
the Bronx again.
Certainly not
for the weekly pay.
Certainly not
during a finite summer's day,
and it appears
it's going to be
another hot one today.

Penny in the Crapper

In the crapper there is
a penny on the floor
it sits in a dust ball
below the hinges on the door.
it has been there
a couple of years
(or more)
and I see it
every morning.
Dozens of people
must have seen it too
but sits there still
as if it is glued
to the asphalt tile
strangely unmoved
by human hand,
bucket and mop,
or broom.
Along with
the K-mart towel
(a new one
each year)
a florescent bulb
an immobile fan
the penny lives on
on the floor of the can-
as a point of focus,
an example
of inflationary trends,
as a testament to
those tiny pleasures
shared by man-
a cup of coffee
a toilet
a private moment
contemplating
a single cent
on the floor of the can.