A girl scoops up a neglected chunk
of concrete and reads it’s texture
with her lips.
One smooth surface seems to say
nothing
while the jagged underbelly cries:
Plug me into the sidewalk from which I broke!
This almost un noticed piece of pavement is an epidemic of the larger gap
between her wild and primitive past
and her cold gray, over civilized future.
Spring ’90 © KD
While mourning Deborah Taj Anapol’s death. I find myself reminiscing through old journals. I found some forgotten poems, and against my better judgement, I’m posting random sad poetry here with a couple of recent ones. They are sort of angsty and existential. Sorry, I don’t always write about sex, and love.
Untitled #2:
The water jug looks empty.
It doesn’t care that I am thirsty.
The Ice-cream carton is forming a sticky puddle
on the table across the room.
The sink is still full of dishes.
I can’t…
I don’t want to…
I wont…
separate my body from this sofa.
Winter ’97 © KD
Talk Therapy:
A disjointed regression
becomes an endless encounter
with partial perspectives
an over-eager investigation
produces fabricated evidence
in a case where the magnifying glass
catches the subject on fire.
Fall of ’94 © KD
The poet and the Photographer:
Angle their heads
framing
composing
capturing
the exact angle
a precise perspective
omitting
objectifying
manipulating
the perfect lighting
at least 24 or 36 times
before printing
one or two keepers
Winter ’01 © KD
Untitled # 3
the words come to me
while you play the music
i wish it were the other way around
but i know better
than to wrestle with Reality
i still haven’t recovered
from the last time
she kicked my ass and
humiliated me on the mat
so, I’ll stick to the words
if you’ll strum our song
Summer ’15 © KD
To Life:
We toast. Like always.
The words land inside me for the first time.
Unlike the million mindless rituals that came before.
Something about our clinking glasses comes alive,
my throat fills with fermented grape guts, and for a flash,
the way a shooting star takes my breath away, I forget
who I am, and what I’m doing in physical form.
I lift my face to the window in search of the moon
but see only a streetlamp, spitting filtered light
onto my neighbors tiled roof. What would she say?
If given the mysterious gift of speech,
which I hope to never again take for granted.
“L’chaim!” She seems to scream,
‘To the gift of life,’
but more immediately:
To being alive!
Summer © ’15 KD