Mary Poems

Here are the two poems I've written for Mary. They both take place in Maine.


In Ogunquit

At the Abenaki pow-wow,
some greasy shaman took five
bucks for parking and told us
to enjoy our day, while we walked
out of parking lot Dreamcatcher 5.

Do you remember the smell
of the breeze hinted with organic
wieners and teenagers smoking shit
weed in the port-a-potties? Or the deerskin
steering wheel covers made by the elderly
couple with Rush trucker hats?

You grabbed my hand when the palm
reader blew white sage in our faces
and told us we were meant to be. I was still
pissed that she left Bengay smell on my
immaculate hands when you smiled
and gave me that peace pipe,

the one with charcoal drawings
of men with spears, chasing bears
that made it all the way to the tip.
You told me I could pretend my mouth
was an escape route for them, one that ran
all the way down to my flat feet.

Returning to the car smelling like
firewater and potpourri, you smirked
when I teased you about looking like a Navajo
midwife roving the Arizona valleys,
and even though you didn’t, I fantasized
about being your secret cowboy all the years more.


In Kennebunk

I remember the yo-yo shaped sun when
we walked across the sand, trying our
best to farm the fattest clams of the summer.

We bought pop guns at the corner store and took
one, two, ten paces outside before I fell to the ground
writhing about in false pain, your lips pecking my fake wound.

I looked up after making a clandestine sandcastle,
and saw your face dribbled with gull poop, trying my
best not to laugh when I ran to the pier and stole
a kid’s napkin, right from his yogurt-soaked hand.

And so what? I still talk about the whirlwind of creek
leaves, circulating so perfectly in it’s own simple
waltz across the road, like it was our gusty chariot
picking us up from the edge of the frontier.

My Favorite Axe-cident

Last night, I dreamt I was in some wishy-washy club in Greenwich Village, listening
to four Beegee look-a-likes playing Beatles songs, flipping their hair
and waiting for the beat to sink into the warm room. There was Capote, rolling
his tongue around his teeth, his skin a rotting greenish color, and he was
sitting with a sunken-faced Marilyn, her mouth half-blood and half-cigarette.
I was too nervous to talk to them, but as soon as I tried to leave, Brando
caught my arm and pulled me behind the bar, looking like he was about to puke
all over the dusty bottles of gin balancing over our heads. He said not to go
outside because there was a swarm of Bogey zombies walking around the parking lot.
I ordered straight grenadine and waited for the end of “Revolution” to try
and walk out the back, only to see Ol’ Blue Eyes chopping oak to throw into the furnace.
I lit up my cigar too close to his face, and the next thing I saw was my severed
neck spewing out fresh tobacco smoke. I don’t believe in heaven, but I definitely remember
someone lifting me up hard into a giant white space where my angel, a young
and clean-shaven Rick Moranis, was juggling thousands of rainbow beanbags while standing on one foot. I looked and smiled for the first time all night, until he started throwing each of the bags directly at my face, like I was just another kid to shrink. I tried to talk to him, but he
just kept laughing and wiggling his ears like he couldn’t hear me. I finally woke up
and figured that’s what I get for watching My Blue Heaven before falling asleep every night.

Here....We....Go!

Ok, so I know I should be writing these brilliant things about whatever I thought I saw today that was cool, or my opinion, but for now, I'm going to use this blog for poems. Would appreciate comments! Second summer poem, was due last week.

Early Bird Special



On the pier before dawn, I saw two old bastards
cleaning their poles with spit, pulling worms out
from jeans lined with golden stitching, toothless
guffawing at another stolen sunrise.

The roundish man with the creamsicle shirt,
helping his boy position his hands correctly
to cast, only so he could reel it in quickly
enough to catch a passing swimmer’s cap

fifteen feet down. The teenagers on the shoreline,
licking their wrists and burning each other with lit
cigarettes, laughing and wailing all at the same time;
they’re doing it to impress the girls nonchalantly basking

in heat. There’s a little chowder place that I can
see, full of locals and tourists alike, slurping
bits of crackers and clams while chugging
types of foreign beer I can’t pronounce.

The saddest person of all is the woman
who paces along where the sand sucks
up your feet, because she cries into her
hands like they were bowls, her face like

alabaster. I wish I could end it all by rolling
her out to sea, waving goodbye as the
riptide pulls her away and the dolphins tow
where she can be alone and not in the
company of the most vile people alive.