Marc Awodey

The Conversation

You sketched me
at the coffee house,
we spoke absently of drawing

and literature.
I took exception to the manner
in which you drew hands,

I said-
you make them look like machines.
Citing Ingres, I plotted a continuous line.

You agreed.

Critically eying the young
who hovered near decorative book stacks,

I muttered a condescending remark
about nose rings, poets, and tattoos.
But you refused to objectify or malign,

saying- such is the nature
of this establishment and of youth.
I agreed.

We nodded heads
and silently stroked Socratic beards
as the artifice of conversation

strolled for awhile longer, into longer
pauses over a couple of dollars worth
of cooling Ethiopian Harari.

We Never Knew The Sea

We knew a seemingly endless thread
of peppery beach and beach grass,
we watched an azure haze enfold horizon;
     but we never knew the sea.

What we spoke of is sincerely lost.
Still, could shoreline be refound
the sound of sounding lighthouse
     would not acquiesce to variance.

Sandpipers would not conjure fewer risks,
frail rows of curling waves would break
in strains that do not murmur any less.
     Yet those sounds would not resound a sea,

for we never knew the sea.

Numb Flesh

         virgins stalk dumbo
dressed in black like Ezra Pound
before his capture

Talented, abused people.
His eyes could not meet
any other eyes. David muttered
  dull              obscenities
upon seeing a few exposed boards
of hardwood floor smothered
under green   linoleum.
There are many talented people.
                          Pickled eggs
in a gallon jar. A table cloth.
A greasy vinyl table cloth.
A scab of dried ketchup      reddish brown
and cracked rots on a greasy vinyl table cloth.
       Rhymes like raw colors danced
an odd little jig behind his eyes.   Moor.
Door. Whore. Deplore. Ignore.
          Semaphore- he grinned
  over Semaphore. It reminded him of boats
in distress, and that he was still wearing
his pea coat.
He had once watched a gutted cabin cruiser
              get way hauled away
onto a hill of slime- at the city dump
  sunk- stabbed in the back
  by a guy in Oakley sunglasses,
and a filthy captain's hat
acting like he was      nervous
about disposing of a fiberglass boat that way.. .
   as seagulls circled and laughed.
The dump in high summer
has an indescribable    fetor.    An unwashable
  stench.     It just needs to wear off
           over    time.

                         ***
Jim Morrison yowls
don’t you love her madly
            as    the glitter ball
turns

john Berryman
growled     at a wide-eyed
sophomore class-   you will never know
the old navigator would soon hoist sail
farewells to the wind
fly     for the edge
           to savor
the syntax of obscurity’s
blank verse   sonnet

toe
nail
in the night
manumit these
              manuscripts
let me be-
dismissed

dumbo, dumbo, drum
   in and out the artists go
     waxed before they wane
frayed sheaf of vanities
my advantage
sabotaged
wait
for Waskow-
maybe you   should move!
the artists carp
   of cold lofts
i’ve survived
             on    ice
twisting through gutters
dumbo- my mind
       paris green
soon-    erasure marks

i wish haiku were fiction
i’d give a
            kidney
for it to be so

it’s an evil journey-
   no eurydice- why go?
without beatrice
   i’m lost
dumbo
   limbo-
cock    fights
don’t you love her
          madly
joey heaves
pantoums

let’s call it haibun
shoot my insulin-   weaving
men’s room
        no Stanhope

needle
in the trash
diabetics should not drink-
let’s call this   eating
  and then
remember
boston after the reading-
let’s call that
                 talking

where has Waskow gone?
him and grad school Eric
            prance
dumbo studios-
two hours this dive
stuck- a pinned down frog
on york street
spinning     haiku   tops

wrinkled leaves
besiege-
kid artists- jabber     walking
hearts quick, hearts tranquil
on the rocks
good friday
york street lights
          glow redder
dumbo grows fatter

o k
stranded here-
got no keys
into brooklyn
can’t read subway maps

fatalistic plan
it’s like playing
     a tabla
  how my fingers tap
squeezing new york ticks
maybe we’ll see something
once
  we escape the lips
my harmonica
it’s back home- snow entombs
vermont
i'd   play it here

dumbo-     lofty met-
rip the F from MFA
  i should warn Eric
i should
         cast   this   out-
a message in a coke can
      drifts down
lake champlain

dumbo dumb
    foul     play
disgust marauds
my griege gut    no-
      this ain’t haiku
Kerouac
     i think
seeing Issa-
hallucinated his haiku

now   joey    goes    home
my crisscrossed vision cannot
quite   make out my home
love    fear     loss
   home      sea
nyc   brooklyn boston
  vermont   met   dumbo

some ulla-lulla-
borrowed blanket
         for guinness
all down the
           granite

everyday- i guess poorly
place, win,
        or show?
dumbo chum      dumber-
how come
you don’t teach?
i only know
cigarettes
        confer cigarettes
Ulysses- green puffs
sailing through my spectacles
blindly       wandering

dumbo- you hammer
thanks for showing me
this grin
       a fine evening
thanks
york street-   thanks
this helmet fits just fine
-makes    the welkin
ring

snow
on his beat boots
camels became parliaments
       while night
slaughtered him

twenty bucks-
water
greek town,
brooklyn,
boston,
       new york
has a thousand eyes
i only see lines
-bottles in lines
-rest room lines
can’t unencrypt them
   where is Cezanne?
where are the pigeons
i didn’t feed at the met?
   the kids   double   up
   to shade couple, and
connect dots with soft
           pencils
   five      marlboros-
Giotto’s angels roll
into purgatory
new artists appear
-sir, can i have this seat?
i say-
                  help yourself
he smiles, nods his head
thinks it’s a figure of speech-
  i     near      psychosis
poems all amplified
the long grin- the figures
of speech

budweiser is swill
one blue match
from the Stanhope
game shows from
             hades
ramble
    foreign tongue-
de paroles vacante
       et ce corps
alourdi
         symbolists grope-
drunken bastards- hash eaters
         stillborn in a jar
misshapen   haiku
this poem will only fail
when it    is     published
  get me
  out of
   here
dumbo- acronyms
abound like     no
           don’t say it
      it’s getting too tight
17 gaunt syllables

the    butcher

              splatters

and our roman heads!
weeping for red tuscany
what could i have done?

Eric- you must smoke!
what good is grad school if you don’t
yes-    smoke   like a      ham
blitter dall gumbo
my fear and dear vermont
i will tumble there

salons of boston!

i will come and read to you
of paris
   green bronze
where the fuck
              Waskow?

-how can i illuminate
chained to a      damned stone?
artists leave
artists arrive
from frozen york street-
they crave the warm seats
       i lust haiku truth
how few books you really sold
how few oil paintings
how few marlboros
is that box really crush proof
is budweiser      gall
     must gold   be so foul

is alle kunst ist lokal
for real? if so why?
             why bother going?
to new york city    ever?
shun Cezanne? haiku?

Dante!      Orpheus!
guide my ambergris to light
     Ulysses- your bow

where in hell
Waskow-
i can dig no deeper here
it beats
it’s still warm
is this not enough?
must i throw it on the bar
      drag it

through the snow?

Copyright © 2005 Marc Awodey

Cover Design: Joseph McNair