Monday, November 17, 2008

Dana Jerman (Poetry)

Dirty phone rings up the wrong sound -

This mouth keeps on with talk, I keep catching ideas
and despite my fascination, these are the times your eyes
are reaching, straining, toward the door.

When we leave the table after three or so hours
the trash includes love notes
and you walk fast, up ahead of me.

I've got my luck and this date
and the check of course, but you should know -
I'm searching for my little piece of the end of the world with you.



For Brandon-

She shows up at his doorstep at some eight-thirty when she expects his body to be home, hunched over one or another guitar. Beer in hand from a six pack of white cans with blue labels. She’s had one already in the car on the way over and she walks around his house to the backdoor. All long legs in tall socks and tennis shoes and short shorts on the stoop in the dead end of summer.
She is a big smile in a hoodie when he answers the fast knock and puts the beer just inside the door so he can pick her up at the waist and kiss her on the forehead. The greeting is simple and it fills up with all the things he won't say. He thinks she is beautiful, standing against the old pinkblue dusk light coming in from the door, framing her. “Surfs up.” – she hands him a cold one and cracks open her third, sipping and shaking the condensation from her hand.
This is the first time they have seen each other in a while, maybe since last year. This time they get to share the fall and the winter. Maybe walk where the leaves have fallen, then again in the crackling frozen snow. This year there is time to take time. The greeting is simple, the sticking-around is a bit harder.



The Theologists Humor-

He makes a note to be poignant.
To tell the truth and the truth about
knowing the truth.

He has great moments at stoplights.
The way home is littered with thinking
about dreams and a lover. An objective joy.

He wants existence. Finding Deity in the profane
isn't hard. But he cant do it forever.
God won't let him.

He thinks of all the breath men use to tell jokes.
The unhad laughter like licks of electricity
connecting faster than prayer.

His smile is a secret reflected in holy water.
Made of blood and bile, sexual in nature
and forgone as God's bonedry conclusions.



scratched tattoo-

trouble tiger dreams of machete
the night is a skin and sex
sells your fur
scratch paws claw gazelle tits
and legs meat crave no street
no body to carry
teeth in the horns
orange house or a tank
or thick fire
bruised ocean all that african
dust to hold and you with
your half black weight
kittens breathing already knows
giraffe taste uncollapsed so fresh
taste brain makes it thru
to tomorrow for hot zebra
red splash on local object
camouflage
snarl play takes it. baby tooth
bitten back that one tree there
was for miles
youth, tiger, youth. old nicks
in the blade were your friends
dead landscapes
flora cut fucking down
dream hides chop chop sounds
where stillness translates yesterday
and lack of water
horizon extension final when
heart beats scratchy tattoo..
now no more troubles, tiger.

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