Grandmother’s spiders

grandmother's spiders
live in the third basement
in her scarsdale house
the basement with the floral couch
and the wicker chairs
she couldn't abandon
in 1990
beautiful chairs
shame to just throw them out

grandmother has many spiders
but these are her happiest ones
ticking their legs around
in the moist wooden silence
trying to see how calm they can be

on five pitch moonless wicker chairs
that embody everything good about 1967-1978
with a gentleness that astounds even the spiders

Wild as teeth

the core of a feeling
, as if consciously preserving itself,
will only meet you packaged
in meaningless words

what is truest is infinitely wild
too slick for letters
too precious for the labored

declarations
burning chaotic and violent
as a star in the country sky

No boats

is
waterbugs
a
poem?

impossible things
the engine of chests

have you heard the tick tick tick
of a summertime waterbug
from your shirtless bedroom?
out the window?

itching your shoulders
with your beard
longing for boats
not assigning names
aware that names are less than
names are less than questions
tick tick tick tick
says the waterbug

Lady bugs

when you slap a presence
against your chest
in early august near the fan
it might turn out to be
a lady bug

you may revolt
no fault to oscillating fan
no fault to rolling stones
there you be

Guilty vibes

your bad dreams
a woodcarving
on your mattress

still and breathless
winking at the moon
afraid to let it bury you

like a murderer;
your bad dreams
kill

you scrub the fingerprints
entwined as you are
from this thing
which, in it's plunging,
has unclogged
that which tears
incomprehensibly
through the silence
beneath your skin