Under the Lone Star

after Gerry Murphy

I lay awake under the lone star
green light on my face
3:33 AM.

I can turn the minutes into days
that measure the distance
til the moment of your smile.

You, somewhere laying awake also,
are always just out of reach.
Always an hour, a hand,
a state of mine, ahead.

(Yet, the punchline -
actually a year behind.)

Restless I switch sides
leaving the left and
settle right where your body
would be.

I cloak myself in the sweatshirt
of your memory, burying my face
in the water that leaks from me
and dive into the reservoir of reverie.

My skin tingles with the echo of thunder.
My cheek with the cool of breeze.
My lips reminisce about the hiss
of rain falling softly through trees.

And though, I'm not entirely sure
whether this cerebral cinematography
is a dream or mixed up memories,
it's a beautiful picture.

Myself, sailing across an ocean
like the sea warrior I used to be -
before I became landlocked
before I left what is dearest to me -
but the salty hydrogen and oxygen
nourishes synchronicity.

In my vessels, the rose
of the compass always points North
and though I wade through nautical imagery
my heart doesn't belong to the sea.

It is where there are Adriondack lakes and rivers,
It is where deep brown water encompasses me.

And it's blessed FACT!
not fiction, that sings me to sleep.

I do not know what about you
it is that undoes what about me
I was convinced was so - I don't know what
I was thinking because

You are looking at me
and suddenly I can feel red
and my eyes are no longer - I don't know what
I was thinking because

Your eyes are so deep
and suddenly I can feel brown
as I am sinking down into - I don't know what
I was thinking because

things that used to make sense
suddenly won't do and all this
hard-earned negativity doesn't
seem to be true because -

I've forgotten the words.

I know that there were names
of the things and people that were here
because suddenly you're closer
and I can only feel you're near.

My skin prickles with the electricity
in the air before the storm
and like the hush of rain across water
I can feel my goosebumps form
All the magnets that hold me together
are now pointing to your North.

And I've forgotten what I thought
about the stuff that used to do
that other noun I used to verb
because you're holding my hand
and 'love' is the only appropriate word.

Picturing Pronouns

She wants to make movies
hold her eye to a glass
and capture a world (that she directs)
in a lens, frame it in black.

I know her through pictures,
one in particular, but it
doesn't move the way she does
and I provided our soundtrack.

Our stories are similar
but have different interpretations.
I have cliche characters, plots, and theories-
she twists expectations.

We have parallel histories
(though I'm the only one who survived the dark ages)
the branches of our family trees entwine
leaving echoes in the bones under our eyes
coursing under our skin
cells calling to their counterparts
to the steady rhythm of hearts.

Mine beats a little faster,
Hers a little harder,
but our blood inevitably bleeds
the same color red.

She wants to make movies
show the world something new.
I write cliche stories, because
no one listens to what's been said.

Around us, the universe whispers
unsure of the consequences, or knowing the rest.

Inside me, the verses flounder
unable to determine the words which are best.

So,
I rearrange letters and
p
l
a
y
with pronouns.

She is ME.
I AM.
Together, WE.

Our 'us' is a pronoun I trust,
though the sentence is incomplete -
Because it's the beginning of something,
something I'd love to read
and what the world needs to see.

Reciprocal Functions

6 billion people on this Earth.
That's 9 zeros. Ten figures.

In such a wide data set
it's hard to see the fish
for the sea, or ride
the sine waves of information, hoping
the torsion of distance will shrink
over time until A meets B.

And of course, we'll meet
tangentially. You'll be the spurious dot,
no correlation.

They'll say we have great chemistry
but really it'll be that your gravity
pulls me in, falling at -9.8 m/s2.

I'll be the valent electrion orbiting
your element, vaguely negative but
ready to bond, to build, to create
ions of being. Our constancy
adding together our lives
subtracting our fears as we
multiply, making two into three or four
sharing our love exponentially.

I'm looking for something you can't measure.
Something integral to existence,
an infinite but not imaginary number.

I'm not saying that our equation
will always make sense.
Numbers can be odd and even
reciprocals can't always be right.

We'll fight, we'll divide, we'll miscalculate.
There will be plenty of variables to confuse us.
Ones to carry.

But I believe we'll get back on track,
meeting at the X and Y axis, so it's all equal.
and we'll laugh at the origin of our problems.

I'm aware that numbers aren't real, they're irrational.
That the answer to my theory relies
on the acceptance of the very first premise.

The universal law that states
we can do this,
if and only if you want to.

i like my body when it is with your

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

- ee cummings

Chinese New Year (draft)

Rising and falling softly,
sleeping with your eyebrows knit
against the wall
pins and needles
my arm is
pins and needles

This is the moment
where I should wake you
where I should admit that
I'm trying so hard not to fall in love with you
but I'm silenced by
your sleeping frame, a painting
canvas heavy with layers
and it hasn't dried yet.

As I watch your skin get goosebumps
with the touch of the morning breeze (Chi?)
I think about how I should
clean the house
sweeping away last year's
negativity so that good luck can
creep in and have room to breathe

(Don't forget to hide the broom and dustbin
so it can't sneak out again)

Maybe later we'll go to Chinatown (Cermak)
have passerbys hand us red packets
and if we're lucky they won't find us odd (reserved for death)
but rather like Tikoy, the brown sugar
of your skin mixed with my Irish powder

Laying here, I know that there's
one thing the Chinese got wrong.
The color of love and luck isn't red.
It's yellow.

I want to kiss you,
but when I open my mouth
yellow comes out filling
the room like a great Tsunami
of my gut-grounded-feelings.

But I can't wake you.
I can only marvel at the gold
of your hue, my fascination
with your pigmentation, the
predicament of dawn
in a city never darker than dusk.

"Oh, Canada" (draft)

Canada,
I have lived spread eagled on the border
Between desire and empire
Dreaming of your territories.
Je me souviens, very well,
When you were between my thighs
My strange Northern Ally,
And I touched your maple leaf.

I have heard your white noise,
And compared to American boys,
There’s something I enjoy about those
I found in your home and native land,
From the BC man who fucked me and
Stole my poetry to the Nova Scotia
Lady who let me travel her Saint-Lawrence
River of blonde belly hairs to the locks
Of her seaway.

Canada. I want you. I Seskachewant you.
I want to dribble syrup
On your snow white mid-drift and
Nibble it off when it gets hard –
You know maple candy always melts
In your mouth.

And hell, if you want to carve stars
Out of bite-marks and stripes with
Your nails on my spine and shoulder
Call me in October when the weather’s
Colder and we’ll have our own
Sugar shack.

On the first of July we’ll celebrate
The dirty act which made you
In 1982, and named
My foreign soul mate who knows
Dominion on my affairs of state.


In the room women come and go,
dreaming of Toronto.

Oh, Canada. I don’t mind being under you.
I flirt with the border patrol, the royal mountie
Can mount me anytime he wants, thinking common-wealth
Thoughts as he plays with my loony and two-nie and hails
God save the Queen.

C-A-N-A-D-A

You’re my strange situation, my fascination,
Your vowels so round they fill my throat
Like poutin, Molson, and sin,
‘til you make me scream ‘EH! ‘eh! ‘Eh!
My darling canuck, ‘til I make you howl
Like the Habs just won the stanley cup,
Je ne sais pas que je te desis mais,
You’re what I’m talking aboot.

Potential Heartbreak

Unsatisfied and a bit used

Nursing a hangover in an empty room

I think about the words I wasted on you

Potentials now lost, the adventures we’ll never share

Each appearing as invisible and tangible as the air

Surrounding me.

Your smiling face, in a dirty Red Sox cap

Rediscovering cribbage with my Dad, at the Lake House

Although he rags on you for being a Canuck,

And I laugh on the hammock

Looks at me from an empty picture frame.

Farther down the wall is the collage from

Our non-existent road trip, the time I didn’t meet

Your family (your mother loved me, by the way)

Our uncelebrated anniversaries, undefined magic moments

Next to the ticket stubs of the visits you won’t make

As the silent soundtrack of the CDs I never made plays.

The table in front of me is cluttered

With drafts of poems

I’ll never write as you sleep.

My cupboards are full of meals

We’ll never make and eat together.

My head is brimming with answers

To questions you never asked

As my secrets stay hidden behind all the things

You love about me but haven’t

Discovered.

Looking at these things,

I’m not angry.

And while I may

Mourn for unmade memories,

I feel mostly sorry for your ignorance.

That you gave up these things without a glance

For a few laughs, an easy lay, the character you play

And you play him well. Hell, I fell for it.

I gave you my heart, my body, my art

And you took it all without a return.

So as I clean out this room of potential

I take the 3 things you gave me,

The lessons you taught me:

You can’t share with someone who’s selfish,

You can’t make love to someone who fucks you;

You shouldn’t love someone who turns poetry into a trophy.

These are the last words I have for you,

No longer will you haunt my sentences

Hiding between the letters and sneaking into

The dots of my Is.

But let me close with this, with no deceit or motive,

Not even a play on words or decent rhyme,

just blatant honesty.

The night that we met, for the first time in my life,

As you walked away, I thought

I’m going to marry that man.

And while it’s silly at best.

There were things that you said,

Ways you moved, pieces falling into a puzzle that

All seemed to fit (despite my logic)

But I guess the finished product

Looked nothing like the box.

But, it was only potential, after all.

does that count as a loss?

A Song for April

by Sean Lewis



This is the story of your longest journey

and how it came to meet your fate

and how the reasons, time, and people tangled

and how your answers lie in wait.



And how it whispered, "O, adhere to me

for we are bound by destiny.

And whatever doubts that fill your mind,

follow me, you will be fine."

This is the story of your longest journey.



This is the story of your past lifetime

and how it's with you even here.

Your little loves, your books, your dreams, your freedom:

there were the things that you held dear.



And the little glimpses that you get

are the memories you can't forget.

And the feelings that you can't deny

Now you know the reason why.

This is the story of your past lifetime.



This is the story of the boy who loves you,

who loved you then and loves you still.

And how he stole this song to try to please you,

and now he's waiting on your will.



And if you return to me

I'll make sure that it's meant to be.

If you let me into your heart

I'll rend your ventricles apart:

This is the story of the boy who loves you.



This is the story of your longest journey.

Pure Naked Idle

The scent of your skin
is peppered with freckles
the sheets, the peach
of your pigment
the color of my predicament

I want to erase the taste
of the spot beneath your navel
while I'm able to convince myself it's best

but horizon or skin,
where you begin, where I end
is the blurry line of 'could be' (ecstasy?)
and it will never be defined.

"A Toast" - revised

Though I have been interrupted
and in bad taste
my lips still hunger for yours
and linger in your memory
because as our awkward bespecaled adolescent
faces kissed
our glasses clicked and made
a silent toast to our love
the unspoken words lay sweet
on our tongues tumbling over
and under
each other
shouting silent sentences in our shared breath

when you imbibe from my glasses
a little piece of blue plastic
of me
stays in you
surfing your blood stream
tangling in your ventricles
as we grow close

and then drift apart.

Ailise

Sky turns an amazing shade of blue
and though I've dreamt this six times
your shillouette as you make breakfast
is the only reality I want to accept.

Cerulian skies, but your eyes have
become the standard for all the hues.

Ink colored hands over paper white skin,
unable to tell whether horizon or sin
I can breathe this moment.

And I wonder, out there
what the sea is up to.

St. Patrick's Day After

Hung over, splayed
On the couch
I listen to the hail hit the window
Face nestled in the crook of my arm

Finally I admit to myself
That you’re not going to call
(Although we both knew the lie when you made it)

In this cave of my skin
Half-hearted I list precedents
The events, indications, failed expectations
And marvel at how resilient
My desire to see you is.

A lesser woman would blame you
Citing feminist propaganda
Etcetera, ad nauseum, et al.
I don’t.

Your silence isn’t violence, it’s a monastery.
Your sanctuary. The sound of retreat.
To hide from what you feel for me.

The dangerous girl with blue eyes.

Who you’ve managed to own
And discard
Simultaneously.

Selections from Gerry Murphy's "End of Part One"

'Reductionist Love Poem'

Never again
your lovely face in mine
as I wake blah, blah, bah.
Never again
my arms around you
as I sleep etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Never again
those long involved conversations
after midnight
but then, never before.

'Water Myth'

"Whatever inspires,"
you call from the shower
the water stunned into droplets
on your suddenly delicious skin
"Well," I reply,
from the airport
twenty-seven years later
"even with arms,
in your presence
the Venus de Milo
would be queuing
to be kissed."

'Further Out'

I can't tell you
where this is happening
I know it's a dream
becuse the left bank of the Siene
has just appeared directly opposite
the right bank of the Lee.
I know it's daylight
that silver-grey, residual glow
from some imploding star
shining in your glossy black hair.
I know it's you
because there is not one
even remotely as beautiful
on the stony inner planets
as I know you have been kissing me
for over a minute
because I have just woken up
gasping for breath.

Last Words

These are the last words I have for you
no longer will you haunt my sentences
hiding between the letters and sneaking
into the dots of my Is

There are many differences between us
I spell savior without u
when we kissed your lips
held no Eucharist
only the stale taste of old Guinness
and the lingering smoke of your cigarette
I just didn't know it at the time

I hope you never read the words I left you
Because I didn't mean to give them to you
That little peice of paper covered in ink
heart beating lips dry hands sweating I dared
to leave with a sleepy man you work for
after knocking on a window and disturbing the peace
of my mind
was meant to be shared, not taken.

Those words (and these) though written for you
do not belong to you
they belong to me.
And you stole them with your silence.

I hope that little peice of paper was lost
amongst the napkins behind the bar
or on the floor beneath some old woman's heels
covered in spilt red wine or mud
that would blur the words and tear the paper

because dirt would be better for them
dust and neglect, in ignorance
would be better than your knowing silence
that rings louder than the flat line
of blood that rushes through the capillaries
of my ears

I'd prefer that you hate me
than ignore my invitations to poetry slams
or for a shared pint with yours and mine
or cared enough to call and say it was just me
instead of a callous and cowardly text message

Rather that when you saw me at the bar
you were so overcome that you would have to leave
turning on your black heels, pulling
your leather jacket over your shoulder, scowling.

Than be peferctly able to wave a half hearted hello hello
share a dance where our eyes won't meet
and spend the rest of the night twirling about
with a woman who moves better than I ever could
and places her hands without shame on your backside

But that's the way of things, isn't it?

Words. Words. Words.
Empty syllables resound in my head
I should have interrupted you
saying that I'm a girl who doesn't kiss
after a first impression
Who doesn't spend the night
on the first date, or fall in love
with someone, a stranger, a dancer, a Canadian
with a heart of stone and teeming with apathy
who could disregard a girl who's willing
to wear her heart on her sleeve
and bare her soul in her poetry

Dying is an Art

Looking out of wire squares
That frame the world
Water tocks as it trickles
Over glass
Somewhere a distant creak
Voices muffled through plaster

Stolen time, shadow time
Silly feeling sullen so
Breaths and gasps echo
Breaking the buzz of silence

Give it to her good, man.
If I must hear your bodies slam
At the vertex
At least make it worth hearing

Sylvia Plath said that Dying is an art
Like everything else
I do it exceptionally well

Three hours have passed since
The hollow ring of a dial tone
Heart heavy my eyes
Leaking framing the
Pallor of my putrid face
I realized that a cup of tea isn’t enough
And forever isn’t always for partners
For lovers, that is.

The death has taken hold of me
And tonight the reaper is out
Having a drink with my friends
Grinning with a plastic red cup in hand
Winking at strangers who might make her breakfast
While I write poetry

And listen to Bruce trying to
Cleave the poor Scottish girl
In half with the dull blade that hangs
Between his legs
But she sounds like she likes it
Another notch on the bedpost for Uncle Sam

Rumi - Like This

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.


When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this.


If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "God’s fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.


When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.


If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.


When someone asks what it means
to "die for love," point
here.


If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.

The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.


When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.


I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.


When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.


How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.

How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.

A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.

When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us
Like this.

Delicious.

The Basque Nose

I may as well be invisible
when Curtis says to Idoia his wife
That Basque nose
Let me touch that nose
and she lets him
and I’m surprised I don’t
repeat him: Let me touch that nose
even though I’ve thought more often
of her chin— what I would abandon
to touch the line along
the muscle of her neck
to the small ridge below her ear —
a place which has no simple word
even in the half dozen languages
we choose not to speak in that room

Curtis—one of the most benign
men I know except for one
New Year’s when he got drunk and vaulted
his six-foot-four Iowa-farmboy frame
over the dinner table to stomp
the gum out of some brute
pushing up on Idoia
But do you blame him?
The brute I mean
for blabbing anything
the liquor—he mistook
for muse—inspired him to say
just to hear Idoia speak—her vowels
thin cool and round as céntimos
dropped in a beggar’s hand

I smoke on their front patio
Idoia stops in the kitchen
And I hold my cigarette
to the window between us—how (for a moment)
she purses
her mouth near the glass
a mock gesture too much
like a kiss for me to ignore


After dinner Curtis Idoia and I drink
wine which gives me courage
to practice my Spanish I think about
the difference between saber and conocer
conjugating each verb beginning
in first person New Jersey familiar
So when Curtis gets drunk
and kisses his wife’s shoulders
they both close their eyes and I’m still
muttering I know... You know... He knows...
Patrick Rosal

So. Good.

"Uncommon Denominators"

I add up the times I’ve fantasized about
women I’ve seen but never spoken to
and divide that by the hoursI drive past cemeteries and add again
the weight of breath in your mouth
measured in the ancient Tagalog word for yes
— but the number always comes out the same

So I subtract the moonand the smell of incense on Good Friday
trying to connect Planck’s Constant
to the quantum moment between a candlelit flick and the back of your neck
setting aside my 7 dreams of having sex once
with Tyra Banks who tells me God
You Filipino guys know
how to make love to a woman and even if I tally the 10,069
channels launched by satelliteswhich have an asymptotic relationship
to the count of stones cast
from a sinner’s fist raised
to the power of eight million punch-clockstiffs heading home late
still the number comes out the same
and when a beggar pirouettes along an expressway’s center lane
swearing this won’t be his last
cigarette (smoke rising fromthe rust in his moustache ) I suddenly know
the acceleration of a falling body
has little to do with slippinga mother into the ground or
a whole greater than the sum of its parts

And if you ask what I’m doing
with 7 loaves and 4 fish multiplied
by the root of a dried tamarind tree
or the coefficient of friction
of a bullet on the brink of a rib
or the number of clips emptied
into an unarmed Guinean man
on a dark Bronx stoop I’ll tell you
I’m looking for the exact
coordinates of falling in love plus or minus
the width of a single finger
lost along the axis of your lips

Patrick Rosal

Interrupt Me If I'm Wrong

Interrupt me if I'm wrong

Roaring voices straining to speak
above the saturated air
silently my eyes travel
the solid black horizon of your shoulder
and rest on your chin
as accidentally I brush your arm
with Guinness courage given

dizzy drunk dancing
circles around a dark haired man
eyes shine lips smile
he knows Hello Hello
and takes me to an alcove
that smells of cigarettes
where our faces press
against each other

Interrupt me if I'm wrong

shillouetted by the firelight
eyes trace the lines
of your face and rest
in the shadow of your bright eyes
I envy the syllables that roll off your tongue
and through your lips

I wish I was bolder
to reach across this card checkered table
saying that I've won four games and my prize
is to go take your hand and press
it softly against my cheek

Interrupt me if I'm wrong

beneath the emblem of your home and native land
alight with a blue glow
timbres and tongues tangling
marble white bodies bare
what the fuck was that
I don't care because it was us

the sun streams through
lights floor beams as
lazily let my eye I
linger on you
rising and falling softly
but it's goodbye

Interrupt me if I'm wrong

but I don't want to belong to you
and I may not be long with you
but there's something here
I'm not wrong for you

These are my intentions

to make you my world famous pancakes
to swap CDs with songs that speak for me
to exchange books so we can learn
and watch you make shadow puppets
that all look the same (but I'll never tell)

I don't want to keep you
I just want to know you
while I can
and enjoy the random acts and events
that caused an american girl with dimples and a bad sense of balance
to collide with a canadian man who sings and dances as he cooks dinner