Black Notebook Series 1.0 KK

Watching baby birds tremble as they first get their bearings
I am reminded of what it was to miss

I use the time between trains to see what shoes strangers like.

Lately every walk home from the bars becomes a Kramer entrance to the empty flat.
Stumble towards the sink. Face to mirror face, practice, without sarcasm this time,
"I've heard she's a very nice girl."

It has been months since I've needed to check the mail box.

The poems I wrote about you weren't the best poems I've written.
They were the saddest.

Draft 1

A violin, a box, a blue envelope. A list poem, the list poems. The list poems from the boys I didn't have. The ones they sent internationally, which is significant. Consider the tongue, fingers, the walking involved. Brief illustrations of events since our parting. Went to Poland with my father. Fell in Love twice. Ate oranges in San Francisco. Sometimes they were accusations of the happiness I've forgotten. Back when you were a dream only I was having. I don't remember their faces now. Shadows in leather jackets or baggy sweatshirts, hoods pulled over the eyes. Maybe they sit together at the bars, unknowing. I'm their common thread. Went to South America. Became an uncle. Did what they did to forget the time when I was a dream only you were having. A clown nose, a photograph, honey dipped bread. Real things are Real things because they simply sop when all wet.

bargaining

I'll give you all the money in my pocket, the rest of my cigarettes, and my first born child

Anything you want.

I'll drive your sister to the airport.


No deal?


I'll stop drinking. I'll stop stealing cars. I'll stop lying about my life of crime.

I'll go to church, I'll wash your car, I'll bring you clean socks from upstairs.

I'll give you cartwheels, expensive suits, flowers, and diamonds the size of my fist.

I'll give you my gmail password.


No good?


I will take pieces of ny times articles to construct clever poems for you every afternoon while you are not yet home but I am waiting. I will be waiting with the cat who does not know he is waiting and for that I am envious. I will put my envy in a jar and save it till I have enough to make a soup for us for supper. The soup will be delicious.

Ok instead

I will no longer be envious. I'll start eating better: my pride, my hat.

I will fold 1,000 paper cranes. I will live secretly in a closet under the stairs, only to appear when needed, for a predetermined sentence of time, a maximum of six years. I will fold my cranes there.

I will begin to read moby dick in silence and not speak until I have finished.

I will apologize to everyone and let them know it wont happen again.

I will call your ex girlfriend and tell her you were right.

We can draw straws. We can shoot for it. You can borrow my gun. ANYTIME.

Ok? Fine.

I will go to the store.
I will buy the milk.

He wrote his dreams down backwards so that he would not miss a thing.

But then he'd send them to me that way,
all mismatched, and fucked up,
eternally opposite,
leading to the beginning
the moment of falling fast
asleep.

Have you ever read a letter back to front?
So it starts from the goodbye, the love, the yours, or sincerely, or since early,
which is the whole point of the letter anyway.
You work your way up
thru family news, weather pleasantries, hello greetings, finally the date.

Like stopping sex.
Sex stopping.
You refrain holding hands, from clasping to fingertips
to hugs with cheeks and noses touching toward pretending to be asleep first, to hugs
and lastly to the tiny wave, so much like the first that drew you in;
"Why yes, it's you, hello, you've finally come."

Like hearing a great book report on a novel and its ending.
You buy the book, start from the start, edge toward what you know..
Though in this particular example you don't mind much, you're just grateful, and ready.

Much like it being April
yet we know the summer already.
Later, we'll tell it,
"We rode bicycles, we were very poor
there was so much to say."

What If He's Not Crazy

What if he's not crazy.
What if he believes his arm is actually his woman
and he doesn't want to take his coat off because
then she will get cold.

What if that's why he won't take it off,
The young cop's so mad and they're going to take him away
but he's not upset, because at least he'll have his arm.

If hunger causes sorrow and thirst will make you mad
then I do not want to eat you.
I will stake out the bar and take you in little shot glasses
and swallow one by one until my piece of mind comes back.
Better this, than happiness.

What if we're not lonely.
What if I believe you're like a candle going out
when you're really a black cat walking toward me;
your little back raised high, stretching
ready for sleep.

If You're Not Here

If you're not here I hope to God you're in New Orleans;
the heat so high you could fry an egg.
Sunsick. Get so dizzy you walk into someone else's house
and kiss their wife,
start living their life,
until things cool down a bit.

You forgot to pay an oil bill and some
woman asked about your mother.
She's been long gone, I said.
How longs long gone? No one can say.

Living alone means using one tea bag for
three cups, washing one towel at a time.
I've got room for my sewing machine now
and can knit something fierce, all night, some nights.

Yes, if you're not coming back I hope you're in the dark
French bars sipping something bitter. Alone
like you like it. Your wide tongue grabs a cube
just to hold something while
it melts until it's gone.

the jerk

I will be having the teeth.
I will be having the dessert.
The woman to your left, shes mine.
I kill horses.
I make easy money.
You are most certainly wrong.
I am most certainly right.

There is no room in my heart for you.
There is no heart in this room for you.
You will never be my valentine.
I will have your finest whelp,
your heaviest cloth,
your most ancient clock.
I will have it now.

I forgot your name.
I've met dozens of people who look just like you.
I can see spirit animals and yours in unappealing.
I can see the future and yours is unappealing.
I am going to write, star and direct in my own feature film.
I don't care how long it takes me.

I am going to be immortalized by a brand name.
Your children will adore me.
Your mother will too.
But you will not,
you most certainly will not.

And it will mean nothing to me.