The Catalog of Unwritten Poems


A cellar full of wine
bottles, sleeping on their sides,
heads down, dreaming
drunkards’ dreams.

A rhetorical question,
in a Yiddish accent, George Jessell
(with a lazy eyelid) asking:
“who is like god?”

The attempt to write
upon the inside surface
of a wedding band,
purchased for “the other woman,”
by another man.

The epistemology
of insects, and brown-skinned
fancy-dancers,
chanting.

The portrait of the artist
as a young automobile accident.

An attempt to decipher
the acid vision hieroglyphics
of acoustical ceilings.

The moral imperative
of extensive tattooing.

The portrait of the artist
as a middle-aged credenza.

A secret history
of the victories
of small potatoes.

The learned distrust
of anyone named Howard.

The endorphin junkie’s lament.

Epiphanies in pop songs –
life changing illuminations
in box-office flops.

The portrait of the artist
as a Dead Letter File.

Sidereal time in a bottle,
(from the cellar in the first stanza),
decanting streams of data.

The elegant flare
of a young girl’s hips,
drawn with deft lines
on the insides
of your eyelids.

The death of love, displayed in toto
from Chain-Stoke to rigor mortis,
and finally its ghosts arrival
on your doorstep,
carrying
a toothbrush.