The Man with No Name

My laundry, being spun dry
down two-floors below the
apartment, can wait and wrinkle

while I try to catch this
slowly dying firefly that
flashed green, bright last night

-

A college friend of mine only
had a student ID number and
a social security number, but

no name. As a child, with no
parents, he was told what to
be called by his teachers, they

asked him "Timothy?" "James?"
"Zach?" "Clarence!" and each
name sounded wrong like a song

in a minor key playing home
the football team in the town
parade; a sad shadow of identity.

Instead, he liked what his class-
mates called him more: "Freckles"
"Porkie" "Stupid" and later "Fag"

because these names were about
him, like words on a t-shirt or
a bumper sticker, they fit even

if they weren't really him nor
the best thing to be called
while hitting a home-run

"Run it all the way to home-
plate, Fatty!" wasn't the way
he liked to win. Regardless,

as he became a man, he would
sign his name with an X and
when he walked at graduation

they just called him by his
accomplishments "Our All-American
Baseball Valedictorian" and

as he made the graduation speech
to his high-school, to his friend's
and their families, he didn't

talk about what it was like to
have no parents in the baseball
stand or what kind of study habits

it took to beat out all the other
honors students. No, this young man's
speech was about how having no name

made him so much strong than the
rest of us: "I didn't have the crutch
of Identity that inhibits personal growth.

Looking in the mirror, I saw and still see
everything out of my making, no parents to
have claimed me, no reflection to answer to."

The applause was limited, like a golf-clap
and a few students cheered cat-calls like
"You go, dude; fuck the system!"

Inside, he knew that even with his
perfect grades and baseball records,
he had missed something big and

that a name would be the way to
find it. He decided that, in college,
he would never tell about growing

up with no name and that he could
make a new identity, with an imaginary
family and place to return of Thanksgiving.

When printing his name on his registration
card in September, he decided that instead
of an X, he would make "Given" his given name,

It was easy come-up with because that what it
said in the box right there; "Please write
your Given name" and he wrote "Given"

Now that the man with no name had a name
a Given name, he stopped attending classes
and couldn't hit a baseball, he lost

his scholarship and hardly lasted through
the second semester of school. Girls would
ask "How did you get the name 'Given'" and

he would coolly respond, "you know, it was
Given to me." Of course, this was a lie,
it was all a lie, his new face, stories, world

a construction that was packed with nothing
but bullshit, and then, suddenly he decided
to let go of his name; and that's when he met me.

Sold.

Something in me has snapped.
I cannot consume the way
I used to; the way I am used to.

It's hard to watch television,
or to read signs on the highway
even a magazine, without feeling

cheap, cheated, preached to,
attacked. I've had years of
a steady diet consisting mostly

of hours upon days of advertising,
commercials, information where the
sole purpose is to sell something.

I was weened on such a diet of
consumption. Years that tell me
"you are valued by what you own"

"Your beauty is based in objects"
"Your worth comes from our perception"
"The more you have, the better you are"

and now the sounds and signs of
"THIS WEEKEND ONLY" or
"GET AN EXTRA 10% OFF!" turn my

dreams into a poisoned pool of
two-dimensional flashcards that
draw the eye to an object for sale.

Invisible Jesus

Sometime I make jokes
in front of my catholic
private school class,
that invisible jesus
is "watching" them

then, the agnostic public
face that I present
later melts on the
car-ride home, the
freeway traffic

mixing with meditated
window time and I realize
that patronizing my
students, my catholic
students, on the day

that they are doing
teacher evaluations
might not be such
a great (especially
with the economy) idea.

While We Wait

I will stamp you out
On an inches high keyboard
With just my thumbs
While we wait at the salon,

Or the barber shop or
Whatever we call youngs on
Washington and lincoln in
Venice. Don McClain's

American pie sings savory
On the station, socal soft
Rock. The woman to my right
Flips her magazine and

Each page smells like cologne
Strips unstuck, she plays with
Her hair like religous beeds
And we, we watch while

We wait in the long lunchtime
Line to get our 12 dollar hair
Cut. Don't make that mistake,
You are indeed here too.

Pinback

Note: please take note
that this note is not for
nothing, nor for no-one.

I hate you rob crow
I shout out at the band stand
that del mar friday free show
the race tracks way to get
us youngs to come like
horse's glue,

then, right then
he knew that this
one, this merry-go
- round show will
be a good one,
and even though

one of his best
men was leaving the
group tonight, that
yell, that seemingly
uninteliagable scream,
made the night.

so bring the beer bottles
flying, the road manager
whining, the spit and the
sin and the ocean's star
covered night; delight in
this guitar and the red sky.

Egg, Over-easy

heat the pan
medium heat
take one egg
out of the
fridge and
place it
near the
hot pan

crack the
egg with one
hand and let
the clear
whites turn
white, flick

your wrist
to cook
both sides,
you may have
to break a
few yokes and
have a few
tries before

you get it
right.

Regarding Illness

sickdays seem like a twisted
time for reflection;
where there is no work
to be done and outside
the sun still shines

like a workday, and
the windows, they show our
neighborhood with its
swayed-back crop-top
spread open, quiet

while you were gone
at work, I stayed
sick in bed and I
wrote you this poem;
the sprinkler's on

a timer; one is busted
and shoots a four foot
fountain of free reclaimed
water right up-down on-top
of your used car

the car you left so I could
buy hot chicken soup or
orange juice, so I could
buy something special, but
now it's all covered in shit.

To Wong Foo

The 1990s, if you weren't
there as a fully-formed human,
may seem perplexing, but I promise

if you were a boy, and
you watched "sex in the 90s"
and "showgirls," "kids"

and then you expect the
rest of life to be that
life, where New York is

gay and a set for the
real world, an MTV set,
then the 21st century

where all the newness,
color, has been swept
under a digital rug

makes that flash, that
freshness, that purple
eye-shadow drop like

a glittering flaming
times-square twin-
tower ten second ball.

Rash

I think that in 1966
my father and his mother
went to France, to some
costal village and my
Dad, he saw a man sit out on
a cobbled street near the sea.

The two of us, we basked outside
his San Diego home with a half-
bottle of champagne and a half
lobster each to show that we,
us men, had become the vision,
his boyhood dream.

That man sat, dressed exquisite,
in 1966, and ate his meal of
1/2 lobster tail, 1/2 bottle of champagne,
and my 14 year-old father exclaimed to his
mother that that's who he was inside,
who he was going to be.

But that lobster, from last year,
it gave us both a week-long rash
that reached its redness into
our ears, eyes, noses, our belly
buttons; a dream undone with
its contrition. my poor father.

it took us days to figure it out
because we hardly see each-other
and we had to corroborate the story
on the telephone. "Dad, I have a rash"
is hardly the thing I would say to
the man. Now, he avoids lobster

and I avoid him.

Drip Castle

I plan to write about you again.

Let's walk down, you and I to where
the tide comes up and licks the side
of your foot, the blade of your foot

there we will sit-down and get sand
in your diaper; where the water rushes
up not 3 feet away, there we play

with that not-yet-solid sand
that gets stuck in your hands
your little hannies between fingers;

we let it flop-flip-plop down
one drop down on-top of the other
to make a freckled pancake

like an arizona delta whose
face was just kissed with water
17 thousand years ago

this hand-made sand-cake
slinks up high like a running
ballerina, up the stairs with

a dance in her step and as she
gets close to the door, the tower
falls in on itself and you, little boy

you giggle and squirm and shriek
as the water rushes up and
pulls at your heart's strings.

Hello Nurse

It's rare when I step foot in a
department store, but Bloomingdales
brings out something ugly in me,
the green greed that grinds teeth;

while sliding through racks of shirts
I will pull out the arms of each shirt
and feel the material between my thumb
and index finger, rubbing it like it's rich

sometimes, when no one is looking, I dip
my head down to smell the shirts, the long
sleeved shirts, like they are indonesian posies
or a rolling-boiled Cambodian stew, made by

foreign hands, and man do they smell sweet,
a sweet sweat sticky sewn puzzle piece placed
hung hanging right in its place, with that tag tucked
neat next to the neck's collar, so sweet smelling

and that's why I will never buy it.

Bad Sex

So a minute ago, i was laying in
Bed and I had to get up
To write you and tell you, someone

That the neighbor beneath me,
My downstairs neighbor must
Have brought home a man

And man, they must not
Have paid attention in health
Class or watched any tv for 20 years

Because they really really suck
At Sex. I'm no expert but alcohol
A good dinner, chatting, laughing

Being enemies even and just getting
It all out there; this makes for
Ok sex, maybe even good sex

But bad sex, when you are
A thirty something junior high
Teacher, after a long week,

That's inexcusable. Say something
Dirty. Let's hear some passion,
Some action, a bed rock or something!

But, I had to get up and turn on my
Computer to tell you about the rocking
Horse rodeo downstairs. The riveting sex

That is so vanilla, I wouldn't dare
Call it french. Kisses like with your cousin
And moans from a looped tape recorder.

I'm sure when he's done, she's done.

Ball and chain

We are the kind of people who don't take days
Off
The kind that don't give up
While walking during a marathon,
Just as a subtle reminder,
I'm playing for keeps

I'm not here just to make your day
Or to make you smile or think
No no, I'm here for guts and glory
For fucking medals and prizes
And the real shit that comes with
Being a real poet, the kind of real

Writer that can write about being a
Writer and still get away with it;
The kind who walks out to the
Lake and tells a fish to come
And it appears there is his net
And he doesn't have to cast a line.

Clever

Writing, in twenty ten, has
become a tool for getting
attention on a micro-level

saying something funny (haha)
on a status update makes you
the talk of the digital town

finding a way to put into words
the answer to a problem on a message
board might make you the most mentioned

so when we type that flippant response,
the attention-grabbing stanza
let's not forget, the public is watching.

The Pantry Cafe

Waking up at 6am on
Saturday to take you
to Union Station after
only sleep for 3 hours
wasn't half-bad because

I planned ahead of time to go and get breakfast alone.
Two eggs, runny scrambled with ketchup, liquids warm
Five long strips of Bacon sweating sweet down in that soup,
sided by hot-old oiled potatoes; two texas french-toast,
extra eggy, that go in a white thin styrofoam box to-go.

butter. coffee. newspapers.
no menus, call yer number, brill cream.
at the counter, Kentucky-derby-sized men
and I bellied up for moment of morning worship;
obesity seems like a new friend waiting just

around some night-time corner, to meet me
in the mirror, to wake me up. Bang! yer 40.
Boom, you are obese.

The waiters and cooks, on the otherside
of this 50 foot counter, each wear white
crisply starched and pressed shirts, that
only wrinkle beneath the waistline, and
everyone. I mean everyone. is almost dead.

Advanced Open Water

we are having one of those days
where the smoke from the night
before still seems to hang still,
like that cigarette is a ghost

or a phantom, some woeful spirit
smelling of cologne and tar, some
American Spirit still lingering
into the afternoon; alone, the

party's cups still wait half-full
and silent, growing thin films on
their surface, the kind that can't
be tasted, but will stick to the

roof of our mouths. I will open
the windows and dump out all
the plastic redcups, but there
is no breeze and the cups stay full,

they full-up and up, never half-empty
and they remind us still, the lonely
shoegazers, that soon enough, we will
all face the afternoon, with no night.

On Teaching Billy Collins

The twisting and spinning steps
Of the lanyard between the ears
And on the eyes of the students,
We couldn't see the sex underneath

The surface of the Atlantic, not in
This catholic school, not around that
Hanging cross or those small smiles,
All the while the Osso buco morrow

Of erotic flesh hangs in each of our
Teeth, and each of those tasty
Lusty licks of bloodily baptized
Bone broken, right in the desks

On the white and black pages
Like a butcher's loin tucked
Into newspaper, sent home to
The icebox. Take him home kids.

The (M)other

I am a woman
that works in
the office, the gym, that
restaurant; I'm the clerk,
nurse, check-out girl and you,
you are the man

I am a woman
who played with you
in daycare, making minimum wage
and sleeping on her cousin's
pull-out couch and you
you are the man,

I am a woman
that avoids pumping her gas
at night, because of your gaze
those eyes and that tongue,
I will grit a smile; there
you are the man,

I am a woman
who will build schools
and lift cars off her
children, who will hold
her tears for times alone,
you are the man

I am a woman
that waits up with both
eyes open for her husband
to come home from the bar-
alcohol or perfume, still
you are the man

I am a woman
who sings with her mouth
open and kisses with her
eyes closed, who breaks
doors, world records, naively
you are the man

I am a woman
that won't take shit from
her teacher, her boss, those
fucking police, that broken
judge in his hollow box; proudly
you are the man

I am a woman
who washes her hair, blow-dry
eye-shadow, lips, brows, bangs
at the club, church, casting call
waiting, praying, hoping that you
you are the man

I am a woman
that watches him walk in the door
with a face like God expecting
my praise, when I am the only
one working, bathing these kids,
you are the man

I am a woman
who wears black sunglasses to
the graveyard; I won't cry and
I don't plan to miss you, and
I will bury this one with you.
you are the man.

I am a woman
strong in her step,
built to love and stand
arm in arm with her fellow
woman; look me in the eye,
you are the man.

See-saw

In the backyard of the
old house, rust and ivy
covered our rickety seesaw

and that ol' thing wasn't
regular, I mean it was a
see-saw, but it also turned;

it spun circles around its
center axis, helicoptering
above the overgrown grass

and when you and I would sit
on either side, eyes and thighs
pushing wood, nails, splinters

we would giggle and whoop as
our froggy-jumps spun this
make-shift masterpiece, this

old and unsafe, this broken-
down thing that made us
stare at the other's smile

while the world whirled by.

XY

Once you find out how
simple every man is,
you'll be sorely disappointed

not focused on building
a better world or a better
self, but on food, on sex

on power and greed, on
hunting and fighting and
flesh: the pursuit, the kill

our eyes aren't set on
each side of our heads like
grazers; no, we can read

because divinity has
made us close-set in
eyes, the head of a hunter.