a poem for Zachary Cohen
your footsteps are like echoes
a ticking clock in an empty house
hours earlier the sun has fallen
and strolling down an avenue towards
infinity you no longer care about wallets
and missed calls
questions or the unbearable need for answers
do you remember that night
when we drank whiskey in Brooklyn
and you flirted with some Puerto Rican girl
who was married with kids
I tried speaking Spanish
to her, but all I really wanted
was to black out and wrap myself
twice in that tweed coat
I’d bought
and so maybe it’s important to love
or be loved
to not be the same as your parents
but to maintain a certain moral turpitude
like the villagers of days yore
but I remember evenings
wine stunk in pocket park
reading poems from a memo
pad and imagining Che Guevara
was riding in my ephemeral sidecar
another night, San Francisco breezes
the ocean’s stink and seals bark
as I lay on a bench and drank straight
out of a bottle of sweet 2 dollar port
a whole poem in my blood
and negative space upholding my neck
to care is something different I think.
money is a curse of adulthood
someone should shout fuck you at the banks
I spit on the ATM and pee in garbage cans
buy leather shoes and stick them in the fire
whilst still on my feet
Driving through Nebraska at 18
all I could imagine was something that never could be
do you remember the smell of pages
the stacks of I.O.U.’s and the rivers
of filth flowing through the crescents of our moons?
Do you recall the thunder of rain on
air-conditioner units?
Do you say I love you to the meanings?
in queens she was raped while all the neighbors
watched, but a recent study proved that it wasn’t
apathy, it was faith in others that allowed it to go
unreported
faith that someone else will do what you wish you might do should you do anything
I listen to music
I write novels
I make money
I am a poem
I drink because I have nothing better to do
I drink to black out
I drink to drink
Whiskey and wine remind me that America
can cushion a fall as long as you admit you’re falling
Europe will burn
and so will New York
remember 1977
and the world is all a cycle
nothing is new
money money money
better make sure they pull the net
I want to fall into the abyss
do you smell the rivers mush
the refineries cough
and the powerplants whirr?
On 1st avenue
it’s easy to fall in love
if you don’t try to
I walked all night
until my toes bled and my body ached
across bridges and under
highways searching for a reason
to believe
at the end of it
all I heard were footsteps
and the echoes of those footsteps
and the sound of my voice
reciting a litany of verse
from the columns of my mind
It’s hard sometimes, writing poems on the fly, a night time bender, the moon hidden behind lights and clouds with puffed out chests, the inherent violence of life, incumbent charm, a father in a chair sleeping to college football, weather the whether will be weathered
noontime drinks in the yard, kicking dry leaves, autumn chill and gray clouds, a wind whipping eastwards towards the sea, the smell of chimney smoke and cinnamon and dust. the water of the sewers singing like a waterfall
The word “and” can be used like an accelerator pedal, dumping words like fire on the dry eyes of a dimly lit house, thimbles full of tears, drinking the salt like wine. God never called and if he did would you even take the call, when elevators ascend the midnight hustle of your lowly lived life.
silverware, and candles, the blur of conversations and how the voice can grind one’s own ears when at the end of a sentence he can truly hear himself trailing off. The news on a nationally broadcast station reporting terror to two year olds, lives dumped in the wreckage of a medium.
I subscribe to The Writer’s Almanac and get a poem in my inbox everyday. Occasionally I think the poem is so good I want to share it. This morning I got this one and I loved it!
What Did We See Today? by Robert Bly
Some days we are passive, listening to the incoming waves.
On other days, we are like a light that sweeps
Out over the husky soybean fields all night.
What did we see today? Horses at the end
Of their tethering ropes, the wing of affection going over,
Flying bulls glimpsed passing the moon disc.
Rather than arguing about whether Giordano Bruno
Was right or not, it might be better to fall silent
And lose ourselves in the curved energy.
We know how many men live alone in their twenties,
And how many women are married to the wrong person,
And how many father and sons are strangers to each
other.
It’s all right if we keep forgetting the way home.
It’s all right if we don’t remember when we were born.
It’s all right if we write the same poem over and over.
Robert, I don’t know why you talk so confidently
About yourself in this way. There are a lot of shady
Characters in this town, and you are one of them.
Some shots from the new show, READ ALL OVER, opening Saturday, February 12 2011 5 - 8 PM, 2255 India Street, Los Angeles, CA 90039.
Come check out some great art.
Life is an experiment.
the senses, a stack of
moments collected
& laid to rest some-
-where obscure
and meta-
-physical, waiting to
be triggered back to
life
in a shocking
moment. These thoughts
& impressions are
collected into the
mind and spatially
they lie in the most
uncomfortable crawl
spaces of the
mind.
tiny little details,
sunken pleasures,
that
wet
cracking
sound
of paint peeling
off
a
roller
the feeling of
water
soaked
through the cuffs of
pant legs
the
smell
of
tobacco
when it’s first lit
a
warm
sweatshirt
a spider web
walked
through
and tangled
up on
finger-
-tips
traffic
rain
the
whistle
of a train
cash
registers
and typewriters
a
standup
Bass
someone
w
e
e
p
i
n
g
softly
on of those
bells on
the door
of a
retail store
a
cold
greeting
SPLASH.
It’s only in aging
where we realize
the incredible predictable
nature
of time
humans
and the society we live in
so to emerge from a
collector’s Deco apartment
on West End Avenue
to a freezing
New York night,
a cocaine burn in the nostrils
and trailing red lights
one remembers the simplicity of action:
dig you hands deep into the
pockets
lower head
raise shoulders
and march persistently
towards the nearest
subway station.
~ Craig A. Platt
10.12.2010
http://bit.ly/9yD1dD
A Trip By Train
I left the train
behind, it was snowing
and I was tired, so I didn’t
go and meet anyone at
any bar and countdown to
the new year
It’s occurred to me
more than once
that seasons are segments
of time meant to cure
or cause
depression
it’s only natural
I was in bed when the planes hit
I was in bed when the space shuttle blew to pieces
I was in bed the day we started the invasion
I was in bed while she went into labor
I was in bed while you fell in love again
I was in bed when I was supposed to be at work
and the avenues are like
shallow canyons outside
my window,
not the bottomless
crevice of nightmares
but the shallow pools of youthful
exuberance.
The trains are all iron and
aluminum, silver screeching
bullets loaded with worriers
headed for different destinations
with a platform, a bad cup of
coffee and the USA Today in common
the weather meaning
a slide show in between
A soundtrack would
be nice for these types
of situations… Another
distraction from the eyeless
face that is your memory
crying babies
kicking feet
and a cold window
against my cheek
C. Platt, 9.14.2010
Los Angeles, CA
Guessing a scribble
today Los Angeles
as I drove down your
narrow streets
searching for something
William Blake might
say about your
parked cars
crooked like broken
noses
A poorly manicured hedge,
bright green artificiality
in this town there’s
no telling what’s real and
what isn’t, like fractured
relationships, mistresses
and madames, hotel bars
and dives with over priced
drinks, a hollow
facade chased into
the psyche of your residents
Los Angeles, unafraid of
the lie
that hazy glow of
windshields, milky and
oil smeared
washed out paint-jobs
on deep green volvo
car hoods
like a tied dyed
badge for the
painfully disenfranchised.
In this pair of hips
i’m spying, a
dramatic cartoon-like
sway, jeans black
as their intention,
spied through the steam of
my coffee, now tasting
rich and sweet
a kiss to my stomach
in a white room washed
by sunlight
my morning read, like
exercise to my mind
the sun begging
for this cool breeze
red peppers infinitesimal
with an other worldly
glow, another
fabrication of the morning
of rhythm and recovery
every ounce of concentration
lost through the luxury
of the day off
coming back to the notebook
with the U.S. Open
in the background
gladiators
on the green
commentators whispers filling
silence
the pop of synthetic strings
a roar and a break
and the fanfare on
network television
and my inspiration
slowly
lost.
C. Platt, 9.11.2010
Silver Lake, CA
