A COLLECTION OF EARLY SHORT POEMS ON LUST & LONGING

for Charlene...



MEMORY

Instead, I’ll feel your breath on my chest
And like a blindman
Memorize every line.

-- Ocean Beach, 1979



ACCOMPLICE

Love your neck, nipples, mouth on rising.
Roaming inclines suspended.

-- La Mesa, 1980



FLEETING GLIMPSE

Wounded wheels
Cut the night long.

Dilapidated taxi’s mirrored eyes –
I fantasize you there
My fingers warm
Exciting you.

$19 this side of poor
I touch myself
Dreaming of your skin in my mouth
And I pull my hair
The way that you do.

--San Diego, 1980



OPEN WINDOW

I dampen her
sleeping body, watching it dry
and the blood flows on beneath her skin.

-- Ocean Beach, late 70s

AFTERGLOW

Not the whirrrr of leaves and branches
But the kind of sound kids make with their lips
To overdramatize wind.
Sounds like people rolling over and over
On clean sheets.

-- San Diego 1979

ONCE IN A BLUE MOON SPECIALS AT EVERYDAY LOW PRICES

Glistening leaves fall from her
Snowflakes my beard. Some not-so-mirage
Trembles under her skin. The taste of her pleasure
Brings us together. I dress hurridly to stand in line
Behind 3 pre-law students trying to beat the bar.
(in the aisles I felt her stickiness, her breath, her quivering
on my face. Standing in front of the bread I wanted to rip open
a loaf of “Regular Wonder”, sponge my face
gulp it down, sending her deep into me...)
a woman glides in for yogurt
dressed to kill, long legs and fine form
slipped into a dress that turns the eyes of shoppers,
boxboys, needles, potatoes and hurricanes
trapped in Drano bottles. I smile at the hour-old sweat
drying on my legs and the lacy sounds of movements echoing on my tongue.
(a block away sits a warmth that beats this walking pulse to death,
a touch that withers this flowered breast, a smile that screams, “More”)

-- Ocean Beach, 1979

THE RACK

Her pink nipples an inquisition to bear
harsh light of her porcelain flesh blinding
Soft underbelly midriff terror
Rosebud Pavlovian lie detector
Nightmare vision of never again, there against my beating heart
Waking, sweat drenched fear of not seeing her eyes smile into mine…
Sheer torture.

~ for Charlene, s. rockfield, sometime 2000

SMELL THE COFFEE

night's cloudy veil falls away in slow motion
the silent, gentle rocking wakes me from a dash of fitful sleep
my starchy eyes find myself alone
with the sound of filtered air
the checkered past of yesterday
miles behind us
the glorious hopes of today
not yet jaded by the reality of tomorrow.

it's now when the world decides
to catch its breath.
(man lights cigarette on dim empty platform
awaiting the 5:40 to Penn Station;
boy bicycles in BIG circles
in the middle of the wide street
testing the fragile balance in this morning's bag of newspapers)
and I wake up dizzy with dream :
your nakedness astride me on this train
my hands on the ellipsis of your familiar
ass, pumping the electricity, the fear,
the kinetic, frenetic jazz energy
of New York City into your anxious body
and the world's eyes are slits
aching with the Jesus beams of dawn's mumbled joke.
I can almost see alarm clocks shaking off their night stands
as lights go on in the upstairs windows
up and down these racing blocks
of empty streets...
...smell the coffee.

II.

people dressed for the day
smelling of shampoo and make-up;
the zip/pout snore emanating from 2 rows behind
another reveler fearlessly trying to make up for last night's excesses.
my eyes snap shut and open and shut
my neck does the Zapruder dance
my instant dreaming of your eyes
perpetuates my last waking thought:
that I should pull out my warm self
tracing a smile upon your imaginary lips with my essence
as the sun splashes the air with morning
pulling itself kicking and scratching
through the blanket of New Jersey fog
a high beam in a white-out blizzard
somewhere between Trenton and home.

- written at dawn for Charlene, new jersey on the train
July 2, 1996