Night Karate

I'm walking you girls back

From the train station in the dark

When you both stoop, to snap at dandelions

Shimmying out of a crack in the pavement

And I’m immediately transported back to our walks

When you were young

At the time

It was a welcome indulgence to know

You were old enough to walk

But still insistent we take the stroller

So I could cart you like twin, gliding empresses

Upon your royal sedan

Inevitably, at your command

We would halt

To select from nature's open curio cabinet

Stocked by, as you both had called her, “Mother Garden”

Which I refused to correct

I gave you treats

To keep your mouths content

With something sweet and constantly melting

Upon your happy red tongues

Sometimes, a lollipop

Which, minutes later

Would resurface, wordlessly

Dual, empty flagpoles of no special allegiance

Your eyes continued to dance

Over the slowly advancing corridor of foliage

Hungry to spy the next prize

The next addition to our growing cache

Of Nature’s exotica

Which we never, ever kept

You were showing me the world again

A different world than the one I knew

A world where a marbled orange stripe

Through an otherwise plain pebble

Was a magical and miraculous gift

You both shout now

And I’m startled back into the present

You are excited by how distinct and long your shadows are

In the harsh beacon light of a gas station’s signage

There’s a pealing joy in your screams

As you both karate-chop at my shadow

And with the same motion

Empty your hands

To let the dandelion heads fall

Hot Air Balloon

I haven't seen many since

But I did today, driving home

It drifted across the Baltic blue

Like a comically large, rainbow-colored mote

In some giant's eye

For years

I've tried to forget

Tried to stop wondering

But as it likes, the world insists

In the first gentle bump of an elevator

Or the flirty lightness in my stomach

As I drive over a swell of road

I tell myself

I miss you less

Than that hot air balloon ride we never took

The day you dropped me, from us

Easy, like ballast

Now I'm forced to imagine

The grand balloon's deflated, nylon envelope

Folded and cold in some dark shed

Unused, like my dream’s own overstock

That summer, lying in my bed

And burning with hurt and anger

I resolved to save all my money

And buy a balloon of my own

One I could take out at will

To fly out over your house

And fire the flame as I pass

The frustrated snort and glare of an angry god

Casting an orange, hateful glow

Over your house

A super-imposed hellfire

To burn it down, with you inside

But then

I also imagine the stoked burner

How it would bathe my skin in heat

As your lips had once done

And I remember the hot rush of our breath

That together, made me buoyant

How beneath you, I had floated along, seemingly forever

Gliding low and smooth and effortless

Barely off the ground

Just one remove from reality, but enough

To make it abstract, and bearable

Me, you, and the unchanging blue above

And that ever gentle, sideways lift

Of real, longtime love

The Hoffman Box: Trying to Get Boston to Download Upload

I won't lie that I had high hopes for the day. Who wouldn't? I was driving into Boston, setting my sights on over a dozen bookshops, all within a two mile radius, and ten pounds of my first novel in my backpack. I had print outs of a local article I had been featured in, print outs of my Amazon reviews, and business cards. I was ready.


I hop in the car, and--oops. No gas. I'm dimly sensitive to early, bad luck omens for my day ahead. But this is no problem. I pull into a station and fill-up my tank, and a receive a bonus ego stroke. A fellow pumper crossed over the island. "Hey man, that must be fun to drive." He pointed at my Challenger. I laughed. "Oh, you don't even know." But in truth, a snow storm was due that same night, and muscle cars perform like Bambi on ice in the snow.

On my drive into town, I worked through my pitch, imagining myself pulling out, with a flourish "Upload" and its vibrant green and yellow cover, smooth as a snake oil salesman. I reassured myself. Even if I botched my first encounter, no big deal. I could recalibrate, if necessary, and improve my sales craft as the day progressed. I'd simply march on to the next store and perform that much better. Unbeknownst to me, my new hiking boots had entirely different plans for me.

Whistling, I pulled into a parking garage in the center of Boston's Financial district ($10 for a full day, not bad), set my Google navigator to pedestrian mode, and set off. Here I go!








By the way, not only is Boston chock full of bookstores, but also churches. With each church I passed, I wondered if I might take a knee inside and beg for divine providence.

My first stop was a very well known bookshop in Boston, a block away from Boston Common (OKAY, this was NOT my first stop--this is an outright lie, which I'll cop to later).

As I opened the door, I tried to turn a blind eye to the words that seemed to drift toward me from the painted window panes: "antique", "rare", "oldest". Damn it. Maybe not the best fit for a just published techno-thriller. I was out the door again in three short minutes, the awkward exchange akin to asking for a Big Mac at Burger King. Okay, strike one, but several to go.


I considered more seriously looping back to the nearest church, but I marched on. I consulted again my mapped out route, ignoring a disconcerting rawness in my heels, and a vague suspicion I shouldn't have worn new, untested shoes on my walking tour of Boston. Although--maybe this wasn't a bad thing. There was a certain religiosity there... A physical penance for my poor planning.

Already limping a bit now, I wasn't able to find the second bookshop. The bookstore was on my map, but in reality, it just wasn't there at all. I was reminded of a Twilight Zone episode I had seen where a couple accidentally wakes up minutes earlier than fate had planned. They go outside and literally witness reality being assembled before their eyes by little gnomes. No gnomes came for me.

The next shop was closed--on a Saturday?! As I worked my way between locations, I am barraged by a strategically placed cast of professional vagrants and college students, each begging for money, but for altogether different causes.

I quite liked the next bookstore, set below street level, an old world set of steps ushering me into the quiet shop. And score one for me, the owner of the shop was actually on site. He patiently listened to my pitch from his folding chair, mountains of books and magazines surrounding him. With the same patience, he explained that I had just walked into a bookstore solely devoted to lesbian, gay, and bisexual literature. I looked around. Yes. This seemed to be true. That would explain the ten foot tall rainbow colored store sign out front.

"But..." he said, "There seems enough of a mystery in this book that people would like it."

My first consignment.

I was now two hours in, and having minimal success. I began to feel like an outsider, marching in and bothering an otherwise sleepy, contented, antiquated Boston with my shrill and bright new book. I was hungry too. And what the hell was going on in my shoes? I dropped my bags and sat on a stoop to re-lace my boots that continued to bite into my heels with needle sharp teeth.

After a quick bite (a magically delicious and restorative slice of buffalo chicken pizza), I was back outside looking for my next challenge. My pronounced limp seemed to work in my favor now. The vagrants stutter stepped as they approached me now, studying my grimace, seeming to think twice about my capacity for charity. That, or they recognized some kind of beggarly kinship with me at this point. Hell, my hand was out just as much as theirs was. Wow, this was hard. I marveled at how difficult it was to get the word out, to broadcast myself. So it was at this point that I remembered a software testing apparatus named the "Hoffman Box", which is an enclosure used to test how software behaves when deprived of its ability to connect to the outside world. Hmmm. Yes. Sounds distinctly familiar.



I then made my way to South Station (a coliseum-like transportation center) and limped around it twice looking for the next bookstore I could see on my map, but again, not in reality. I had a revelation. I should start CALLING these stores first. I called, and it turned out the store I was looking for was located INSIDE South Station. Neither the bookstore manager nor the owner was present, but the employees I spoke to were very encouraging and I left them with all the information I could. Thousands of people passed the bookshop daily. Of all the shops, I hope hear back from this one.


The next two shops were outliers to my neat little 2 mile radius, so I decided to call them instead. And I'm glad I did. Both said their book purchasers weren't in, but shared with me their contact information. I had a sinking feeling I could have done 90% what I would accomplish today from home.

Time to remove the Hoffman Box, I thought. I stopped marching along my own delirious Freedom Trail, got out my cell phone, and called the next five stops in rapid succession. No solid deals from any of them, but I received all the information I need on each store's book purchaser.

For the entire day, I had been slogging around my laptop bag, along with the backpack, hopeful to find a place to write at the end of the day, when I finally tired of my trip. I found a spot in a local cafe, and scored the writer's trifecta: a seat next to a power outlet, an end table, and a twenty ounce latte. I took my mind off hocking my first book and spent three hours editing and updating the draft of my next novel, "dirt", and was heartened and encouraged all the more for it. Finally, real progress.

With my day complete, I headed home. I had tried. I certainly tried. Back in town, I stopped in at a local pub. Superstitiously, I wanted to close the loop, and make the circle complete. Because, you see, here's my confession: my first stop wasn't actually to a bookstore, but to a pub, for a beer, an on-deck circle of sorts where I could steel my nerves, surrounded by memorabilia of the city I was about to invade. So to a pub did I return, closer to home, and as luck would have it, I met who I had been looking for all day: a bookstore owner, with a store one town over. Seems I didn't have to venture so far after all.


As I turned in to bed, I decided to take a look at what had been bothering me all day.

Luckily, most of my follow-up bookstore legwork with eight other stores will be virtual.

On a Pale Pegasus

Our priest urged the rhythm method

My wife and I opted for something

more like jazz, strong but flexible

And for that produced with

the embarrassing terror of

accidental combustion,

a daughter

And so my love for our daughter

was a confused wall of marble,

heated and pressured

and densely streaked with lack of intention

I pictured her

held up against this calcium carbonate love

The near ivory reflected her well

Her cheeks as dual suns

Her nose a shier, pug star

But somewhere across the eyes

and near the gentle collapse of her throat

there streaked ashy stratum fissures

obscure and fatal

As with all of her birthdays

(precious stones collecting in our hearts)

She shared her last

with a despised and diseased twin

A child also of accident

This twin who pulled her down

making our daughter move

and breathe in ocean wet sand

fighting a shadow with ambition,

twice the weight of her body

that worked its malicious hands with thousands

of mucus shiny serpents as fingers

into her chest and lungs

In the first minutes of morning, every morning,

the coughing would seize her

Those hissing hands would squeeze her passages

writhing with renewed jealousy

and it was then

my daughter began

In between short, muffled kitten hacks,

the scrape of movement upon our ceiling, her floor,

jolted through the lightning rod of me

(my love became that way, maniacally receptive

to all energies she could display, I drank them in)

and released into the basement and foundation below

Beside me, my wife slept vigorously withdrawn

her snore a steady trot

while our daughter moved mountains of her white,

golden-knobbed furniture in the dark

After I first heard her nocturnal movements,

ragged hoof beats and snorts

I ripped up her uncooperative carpet

the very next day

and laid bare her hardwood floor

So then, when she thought I was asleep, she impossibly pushed, with an adrenaline panic for life, LARGE, FILLED BUREAUS, HOPE CHESTS, A HUTCH DISPLAYING HER RIGID RHYMES, A TWIN BED, HER STICKER-COVERED DESK, RE-HUNG HER HECTIC, TENSE CRAYON DRAWINGS, REARRANGED COUNTLESS PORCELAIN PEGASI (never still for long, a silent stampede of noble, rearing equines, front legs staggered in the effort of ascent, hoofs she painted red for prettiness, a silenced message curled in the frozen haste of their sprung wings), RAINBOW LAMPS, END TABLES, ALL HER SLUMBERING GALLERY OF STUFFED ANIMALS

around into new order

as if her life were the board games we played

her furniture the game pieces

Either we had started without her

or the deck wasn't shuffled right

and she insisted, with each grunt and push

of her enervated limbs,

we needed to start over

I didn't tell my wife

that the scrape-shock descending

through my shameful heart

became less

My wife didn't notice

the furniture was no longer drastically changed

Nothing large and encouraging

mistakenly blocked our daughter's door

Her room was frighteningly negotiable

There was perhaps the empty wicker hamper moved

or that green bean bag chair that wheezed tiny balls of Styrofoam

as I struck it with my fists

was in another, nearby corner

My wife didn't know,

when I started making our daughter's bed,

how I would hold up her bedclothes

to the morning light of the window

and measure our daughter's life and disease

slain into a salty aura of sour sweat

that described her outer form,

like a fully eclipsed sun,

upon her sheets.

Next novel progress...

I'm so excited to be done with the my first draft of "dirt". It's around 80 k or so, will do one more pass of touch-ups, and take in some beta reader feedback, and then be ready to submit!

Oasis

As if only upon the remembrance of fuel

my car rolls into the gas station

like the first beast of burden

to finally think for itself

and stops

I pump high-octane as a plea

and beg it, stroking its rusted quarter panel

for at least three more zeroes

or four more bald tires

coaxing it with premium liquid chocolates

and some little verse

when suddenly I see, pasted upon the pump

a statement refusing third-party checks

and scribbled to the side, I read

that Crystal loves Bobby (signified by a plus and needing no equal)

in faded blue ink

But Bobby is now crossed out

Crystal’s made the effort to come back

not for the penny less a gallon

but to tell Bobby

her tank is full

and she pumps her own gas

Ayudeme!

(from a small plastic box at the check-out aisle)

Even the size nine feet at the end of the day come out

of the size six shoes

The large square peg stops attempting

the small round hole

After mere hours, our heads emerge from

the straining birth canal

Diamonds are finally mined from eons

as claustrophobic coal

Luckily, the pressed butterfly falls out

while looking up the word "hegira" from Webster's

And always, mercifully, there will be another

infinitesimal pause between tick and tock

The pea has days off between nights

beneath the princess

But without mercy, more pained than a New Yorker

pinned under the Statue of Liberty's stiletto heel,

is the lonely, trapped,

Mexican Jumping

Bean