Hierophany

Your legs cold, your
skin brooding.
A martini drunk only
for the olives.

This entry posted by J Rand : 10:34

Is there room for you
in this cab? Yes, if you
can straddle the glass
between me and driver.
It is hot and my bare skin
sticks to the vinyl. Even
the windows are sweating.
He says there is not enough
gas for air. He sits up there
snacking on coffee beans and limes.
My door doesn’t work—the
handle busted. My luggage
fills the trunk. The meter keeps
running. At the moment, we’re just
sitting here on the side of the
heat-sheen road wondering what
you’re doing with your thumb
stickin out. But it doesn’t matter.
Climb on in. Tell us where to go.

This entry posted by J Rand : 15:34

When it slowed
I undressed and washed my face.
It returned with lightning
to tie the game at five.

This entry posted by J Rand : 07:35

There is no reality,
     there is only life subject to circumstance.
Reality is how things should be—
     it is never how they will be.
I danced once with reality.
     I put my hands at her waist
          and buried my nose beneath her hair.
               Lights flashed,
                    the jazzband screamed.
She said, It’s circumstance that’s brought us here.
     But she wore circumstance like a wreath upon her head.
          I wished it a tiara.
I raised high her hand;
     spun her away;
          closed my eyes;
               imagined a night with her,
                    bejewelling her tiara,
                         lapping at her jadestones,
                              shining tight her lapis lazuli.
Too bad, when I opened my eyes,
     to find her gone;
          the dancefloor emptied;
               the jazzband packing up.
Circumstance, the trumpet player,
     had taken her home instead.
He bragged to me about it the next day.
     I said, Your playing’s flat;
          and, She’s more real to me
               than ever could she be to you.

This entry posted by J Rand : 07:11

we’d be goin
     we’d be goin
          we’d be goin

the stairs, you know?

     Kramer,
          you buzzed me strange—


that hair of yours?

          like a scorpion
               nestled
          in fedora brim

This entry posted by J Rand : 17:59

You coulda been rich, boy;
     you coulda owned the mountains.
We coulda done business, boy;
     we coulda hog-tied heaven like rodeo clowns.
But you wouldn’t meet my aspen fist, boy;
     you wouldn’t flirt with the slightest sandbank.
You shorted the wrong stock, boy,
     and got nothin but colors in return.

This entry posted by J Rand : 17:47

Nothing, no effect, which is to say
     I’m not brilliant.
Which is to say that when I pop this jaw
     my tongue only goes so far.
It does not put out fires or fill parking lots.
     It does not taste basil.
The stack of books I burn, the stains of
     paint I cover with newer, truer stains.
And tomorrow do the same, sodden with
     grass that refuses to grow straight,
beset by prescriptions I can’t fill. My first
     instinct toward a bottle of brown glass
is to recycle it. I pray they take it
     from the curb in their
bone-crushing, environment-saving Fords,
     sucking down glass and plastic once
society has licked it clean of drug and—
     what is there besides drug? Memory.
Yes, memory. Drug and memory like
     oil and water. There is no drug for memory,
no ginko biloba. The drug for memory is
     no drug, and beyond that no drug further.
Just water and cheese and bread. Not even
     beaujolais villages. A picnic in the desert,
awed by the curlew’s call, drunk on mountains
     and how far away they are we’ll never know.

This entry posted by J Rand : 16:01

The sky and earth collide
white on white
towers and steeples
floating in the air

This entry posted by J Rand : 14:36

Describe how this island
     became an island; whether
it was once all water or once all rock.
     The petrels matter to the ocean.
If they do not fly there is no island—
     there is neither coast nor reef.

Under the reef, more rock,
     originally hot, now cooled to stone
by the slender hand of God,
     reached down from dim Ceres
to leave an invitation
     for a séance at Vesta 4.

An invitation we never got.
     How could we have?
For, it was buried beneath coral and lamprey,
     meant only
for the minor gods of magma and pumice;
     for the soft-boned fish,
born in the teeth of the mako,
     circling in waters above.

This entry posted by J Rand : 17:54

For it burns like a fox in autumn
so you can see the way
to this, my bed.

This entry posted by J Rand : 07:54

My thrift-store friend
has no money.
I have a little.
Tonight we’ll slide
down the gray Missouri
throwing foreign coins
at a midnight moon.

This entry posted by J Rand : 06:31

Occasions for celebration
are plentiful as lost hairs.
He passes a mirror
and catches his glance.
"Not bad," he thinks.
Indeed, he doubles back
for an encore
but ice cube echoes
tell him no.

A glass of cognac waits, melting.

This entry posted by J Rand : 18:53

I can't remember what I miss most,
     the poetry in me,
its nickel-hot core,
     repeating all the things I say
and wearing that
     goddamned purple bra,
repeating all the things I say and
     signing the check with a smile.

This entry posted by J Rand : 18:57

The hamstring strains
to find offer and acceptance.
The yoga instructor’s calf
just winked at it.

This entry posted by J Rand : 23:01

Full of air, seamless.
Drawing men like a magnet.
In two hours, put away.

This entry posted by J Rand : 22:53

men are dying to say—
you must get something done, now.

Marines decide to drive
priuses after a second tour.

The neighbors are starting
a production company and
your current nemesis
has just received a
ten thousand dollar grant
to complete charcoal drawings
of sea cucumbers and other
cephalopods in the Lesser Antilles.

It’s either that or Iraq.

This entry posted by J Rand : 22:59

Wow, that bright light
with its hand outstretched,
begging for money at dawn
is the Moon—
waning and wanting a fix,
tired by now of filling in
for the Sun at night.

The Moon beseeches
comets passing by,
suggests an arrangement of
light bulbs slipping across Earth,
a necklace of radiant pearls,
a release from celestial debt.

This entry posted by J Rand : 22:40

This is a night
when men run their fingers
over tusk-like keys
in hopes of unlocking a woman’s brassiere.
There will be caviar,
cocktails, and champagne.
Someone will talk quietly
of her winter in Moscow—
too much vodka and Russian police.
In another room,
I’ll hold my breath while I’m dancing.

This entry posted by J Rand : 11:07

The clink of the cognac
tells. What, I'm not sure. Perhaps
revelation, in the next sip.

This entry posted by J Rand : 21:52

Her naked foot rubs against
     the unborn blue of the mattress.
A tiny pair of socks airs out
     beneath the open-sky window.
Someone has gone running—
     but not very far, and not very hard.

The room might not be so big.
     They haven’t slept in it since
they hung his latest painting.
     It’s been too hot.
He could close the window, yes.
     But that wouldn’t keep
the dog from barking
     into all corners of the night.

It doesn’t matter,
     he doesn’t need sleep—
he is sure of it. Yet,
     he closes his eyes each night,
plays the game anyway;
     thinks invariably about
weather patterns, or
     his high school graduation.
Sometimes he just listens
     to what the house has to say.

Gasping, she awakes to the smell of him;
     rolls over and asks,
“What are you doing?”
     He stops breathing.
By morning she will have forgotten
     ever asking the question.

This entry posted by J Rand : 15:05