poem: yes, that is you

[While on the Massachusetts trip, Tina and I wrote a passel of patina poems (paschal + tina = patina). This is one. The Resident Youth also collaborated on three or four of the poems himself.]

i.

rescue damsels & chew bubble gum
put your blue crew on notice
after the barn wobbles, this is
last call of the wild Kahunas,
drinking Kahlua and coffee in
a sacred ritual that warrants remembering
that the last time you left Cambridge
you were bereft of all
but the beach glass in your Tarantelle,
globs of prissy membranes
membraning your velvet receptacles -
traverse down from the North Shore,
a dip in Spy Pond should
refresh any grumblings,
where the overcast color follows
you into a past life you
once lived, where Armenians
walked up and down Watertown,
hands clasped behind backs,
walking toward a Utopia that
only lives in their mind's eye,
an eye bewitching the eye's tumble through
space, portals the size of Wonderbread
capsizing the half-baked yous into
fully-baked raisinettes & Holy Mutton.
Is this the mourning
coffee that dons your present
tomorrow? No, it smacks of
the true ferocity of Life
that ekes out past any small
identification, any moment
of time, and explodes into
the real yes that is.

ii.

you can yes that moment into
rhythm and rhyme and you can drag
the blue sky across your back, all
the while backpedaling a metronome
in bubonic flood time, a geriatric
impulse to feed the flame, clasp
your Klimt to a vagabond future
anchored at Good Harbor.
Remnants of poppies live
and bend toward that flying
blue sky, a hue of heart
that melts into coronas, amid
solar flares of
passionate connection,
tender webs that light up
when you blink,
knowing without a doubt that
where you are standing
is the vast ineffable place you trace.

poem: your notorious

sexy shoulder dresses in
the back alleys of Yerevan,
3 to 8 bucks apiece, that's
a hunger richly deserved,
80,000 to choose from,
these are your margins
in the jungle:
sexy jingle to match your
notorious bigs,
hammer the fading dreams
while you slip on the rounds,
carouseling the plangent
afterchords you lost,
childhood poverty,
adolescent fatima,
vagrant deserts in a 1000
lifetimes, Yerevan still
questing, still coursing
through your veins,
this single match
that flames, a failure
in no small magnitude:
if only you could see into me
verified longings,
amber swerves round
the corners,
the music withers,
lifting you homeward.