Calle de Desnudas

Where the Street of the Nudes
meets the Alley of the Dolls
there is a bookshop.
Its owner is a ginger man,
with ginger hair and a ginger voice
(in the Calle de Desnudas, his tastes turn to ginger).

Where the Calle de Desnudas
meets the Callejon de Munecas
there lives a tailor.
He is a blue-blooded man,
with blue eyes and a blue soul
(In the Alley of the Dolls, he drapes a hundred tiny bodies in blue)

Where the Alley of the Dolls
meets the Calle de Desnudas
there is a butcher.
He is a russet man,
with rust-red hands and a red-flecked smock
(In the Street of the Nudes, he hides his scarlet shame)

In the place where the Nudes
are converted into dolls
there is a growing crowd.
It is a pale crowd,
with clutching white hands and pale stares reaching
for the Nudes and dolls, displayed in pale.

When the Dolls come alive
and throw off their old clothes
there is a drunken revel.
It is a purple frenzy,
the purple of life and the purple of pain.
The Allies and Streets flow purple with spilt wine.

Pancakes

I make you pancakes every morning.
Every morning you eat them
In good-natured silence
Never thanking me.

I put a little of my soul
Into those pancakes
But you never notice.
You just go on chewing.
You’re consuming me
Bit by bit
You pour syrup on me and devour me.

Bitter Root

On the night that I first saw her,
the sky gave birth to a thousand flames.
Or was it flowers?
I can’t recall.
Flavors? Philosophies?
Perhaps the sky gave birth to them all.
Now it is gone. The sky is just the sky.

Love, my enemy,
has thrust her bitter root
deep through my ribs.

Oh, love, take pity!
Cut my shadow from me,
let me cast no darkness.
Cut my reflection from me,
I cannot bear to see it.
Cut my thoughts from me,
they are crueler even than you.
Cut my emptiness from me,
cut the ache.
Cut the night from the day
and the sky from the earth.

But unless you can take the root, please
don’t cut yourself free.

Your Headphones are too loud: A Quick Trip on the 6

Tinny, tiny, tachycardiac cacophony
assaulting my coffee-addled, overcaffeinated brain
salt on the wounds of my overcrowded workday commute

Headphones, clanking gears, hushed voices - I’m all ears.
More ears than I can take, in this clicking ticking crate.
unstable collection of specimens, a mess of them
in a dirty silver bullet shot into the city’s gritty
arteries. Don’t look at me!

Tinny, tiny, tachycardiac cacophony
assaulting my coffee-addled, overcaffeinated brain
salt on the wounds of my overcrowded workday commute
Like rain on a tin man’s hollow head,
your iPod drums are driving me inSane!
Adding to the arrhythmic rhythms on this overstuffed…
burrito? ..train.

The rhythm of your drums
the rhythm of his drums
the jazzy tootling of that guy’s sax
the rhythm of the sex that I’m imagining
with that girl, over there, with the ribbon in her hair
Jingling, jangling,
bumping, thumping,
grinding gleaming screaming
make it stop! make it stop! make it -

It stops
at 23rd street.

America the Colossal

Give me your tired, your poor
your French Vanilla,
your huddled marshmallows
yearning to sizzle for me.

Not like the brazen giant of yore
with conquering limbs astride from shore to shore
Here at our flickering neon gates shall stand
a mighty woman with a deep-frier, whose flame
is the imprisoned essence of desire, and her name
is America.

From the bacon-grease beacon
gleams world-wide welcome.
"Give me your people,"
she begs with swollen lips.

"Give me your hungry, give me some more
the caramel, chocolate, the milk and the cream
I'll spice my melting pot with the best
ingredients from your teeming shore.

I'm America, I'm hungry, and when you get here
You'll be starving, and begging, you'll clamor for more
For money, for glory,
for golden-fried chicken
for streets paved with pennies and peanuts
shells and day-old daydreams

Send these the ravenous, tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Babble On

Babble on, young tigress,
after the flood, after the act.
An eye for an eye
an ear for an hour
in your fertile crescent

I settle, silent as silt
on the riverbed, while
you fray these
sentences into syllables
riddles unraveling
in the muttering deep

Shell of bronze, heart of heat
your skin's an isle where golden apples
hang in gardens. Tigress!
Your babbling breaks
my code of loss
my mouth content to breath
My heart content to hammer

I'll be settling down, down
tired of hunting for answers
gathering fruitful clues
your words shred sense into softness
build us a nest
sink us to sleep

I Gave You A Ring (or, Stick it in Your Ear)

Put it in my hand
the pinprick
the single drop of blood

It shines forever red
the gentle wound of your indiff'rence

Put it in my head
the throbbing
the sleepless tossing doubt

It wakes me every night
the steely ring of your nonanswer

Put it in my gut
the poison
the kicking, clenching pain

It brings me to my knees
the sudden certitude of knowing

Put it in my heart
the dagger
the gaping, gushing hole

It severs all my hope
the slamming door of your rejection.

Our Secret is Safe

Our secret is safe
our secret is safe
the night knows nothing
and the day is mute

But, oh, how it glowers,
the towering sun!
And, oh, how it murmurs,
the slumbering moon.

A horizon of baying hounds
couldn’t give us away
but still the wind hollers
until it’s blue in the face.

Rivers, rage-white and roiling,
are mocked by the cynical stones
By moonlight they calm, and a carpet
of frogs croons a lullaby

Every grain on beach
grabs at ankles in vain
The lazy stars shine
light on the deed like a pillow

Our secret is safe
the night sees nothing
Our secret is safe
the day cannot speak.

Straphanger's Ball

Lonely dancers
in this straphanger's ball
I'd like to dance with you,
but it would be rude to ask

(rude, even, to look)

But there's a swing in the stride
of the train that we ride,
there's a clank and a clank
and a whoosh in it's stride.
There's a gleam in the dank
and it's us, it's the train
We could turn inside out
and start over again.

We could whoosh, we could sway
we could clank, we could spin
We could open our mouths
we could speak, we could sing

We could ... clank
We could ... maybe grab a coffee sometime?
We could ... clank
We could ....

With your nose in your book
and mine in my magazine,
we sit, still
hurtling under the city

separated by inches of space
but miles of memory.

"Hole" and "Pinocchio"

"Hole"

There's a hole in my heart,
a you-shaped hole,
bigger than the hole in my old jacket
bigger than the hole in the sole of my shoes
bigger than the hole that was my car's window
bigger than the whole of me.

How is it possible to lose,
more than you've ever had?



"Pinocchio" - a haiku

Poor Pinocchio
cuts his strings and doesn't know
on his own, he'll fall

Untitled - I've had a lazy weekend!

"Untitled"

Seeking just a taste of your honey,
I filled my heart with bees.
They nest in my ventricles,
my blood must flow through honeycombs

Why did I fill my heart with bees?
No explanation remains, only the stinging and buzzing

Seeking to preserve this feeling forever,
I dipped my heart in a vat of brine,
smoked it over hickory
and left it to dry for weeks.

Why did I cure my heart?
It's leather doesn't speak, or feel. It creaks.

Seeking just to stop the burning,
I put my heart on ice.
It'll keep for weeks, but when I take it out
I must use it right away, so it sits

Why did I freeze my heart?
I thought it would save my life.

The Wisdom of the Bones/ The Unknown Tomb of the Poet

"The Wisdom of the Bones"

They found you, Federico,
or so the newsmen say.
And soon your bones will be borrowed back
from their residency in the earth,

Picked over by new vultures
who seek in the scraps of your skeleton
the secret songs of bone.
The years of forgetting are over.

Five others, desconocidos, rest with you.
Who are these dusty ghosts?
Will they speak with rotted tongues?
But it is you they want, Federico.

When the spades strike
like the bullets struck
I hope your bones find voice
sing them what they seek
Forgive them, Federico, and sleep.



(I am, as usual, not certain of the title. Originally, "wisdom of the bones" was in the poem, replacing the "secret songs of bone." I may return to that, because the singing bones idea is brought up again, in the last stanza. "The Years of Forgetting Are Over" is an alternate title, as is "The Secret Songs of Bone.")

Tina, You Have Seven Messages

(In which I attempt the sestina form).

"Tina, You Have Seven Messages"

Tina, I just called to say I love that skirt
and making out in the bathroom stall
and that’s not all, fuck!, I mean
Tina, maybe I love you, I just might
There’s only room in my head for one word: Tina.
You know where I’ll be, when you get this, let’s talk.

Tina, do you have a minute to talk?
It’s me, Jack, I still have your skirt
It was here this morning when you left, Tina.
Oh the sex, Tina! I think I might install
a shrine to Tina in my room, I just might
but this note - call me, I’m not quite sure what you mean

Tina, do you want to see me get mean?
because I’m spitting lead, and it’s not just talk
I’ll come after you with all my might.
How could you do it like that, wearing that skirt,
batting those eyes telling me I’d lost all
your love? You fucking tease. Fuck you, Tina.

Do you remember the good times, Tina?
when we had sex and both knew exactly what it would mean,
when you would lead me to the riverbank, grasses tall,
and blossoms bursting forth from their stalks
and you took off my shirt, and your skirt
and we just lay there together and loved with all our might?

I don’t want to sound like I’m gloating, I know that I might
But I want you to know that I feel sorry for you, Tina
However you try to dance around it, you can’t skirt
the truth, that your new guy was just mean
I mean, he hit you and left you, at least that’s the talk
I guess it’s just your turn, sometimes we all sputter and stall

Tina, I think I’m finally ready to stand tall
and I hope you are too, I hope you might
forgive me, Tina for all my stupid talk
Forgive and forget me, Tina
And I’ll forget you and your skirt

Oh Tina? One last thing: your skirt -
I threw it away, so we won’t have to talk again, I mean,
I might… Nevermind, Tina, goodbye, that’s all

Beggarin' Blues

"Beggaring Blues"


I've got a different song every day of the week

sometimes I’m in your face, sometimes I’m meek

standing at my corner on Bleecker Street

shaking my lonely cup


You don’t have to approve

You don’t have to shine my shoes

You’ve don’t have to sing my blues

but brother, can you spare a dime?


On Monday, I’ve got AIDS

A stack of bills that ain’t been paid

I couldn't tell you the last time I ate

so, brother can you spare a dime?


On Tuesday I was just like you

a wife, a kid, a good job, too

but the layoffs came and now I'm blue,

so brother can you spare a dime?


You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to love me, but

love the cup, love the cup, love the cup.


On Wednesday I endear,

I tell you what you want to hear

I'm a worthless bum who just wants beer

so brother can you spare a dime?


On Thursday I tell tall tales

my wife is kidnapped and up for sale

and the ransom note says I'm five bucks shy

so brother, can you spare a dime?


You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to love me, but

love the cup, love the cup, love the cup.


On Friday I sing the blues

My worn-out boots become dancing shoes

I'll sing all the Motown hits for you

but, brother can you spare a dime?


On Saturday and Sunday, too

I'll sing a gospel tune for you

If you were Jesus, what would you do?

You'd open up your wallet for me.


You don't have to approve

You don't have to shine my shoes

You don't have to sing my blues

but brother, can you spare a dime?


You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to like me

I don't care if you hate me, just

love the cup, love the cup, love the cup.

A Picnic, At Dinnertime, Your Lower Lip, Wetback

This first post will have four poems, one old and three new, all dealing more or less with relationships and food.

#1
A Picnic

We savor the juicy lunacy of our tuna
sandwiches, sliced neatly down the middle.
Such a thing should not make sense
This is meat, long dead, packed in a can.
This is mayonnaise, greasy, squeezed from plastic
This is delicious, you and I
One half down our gullets, we are incomplete,
our sleepy eyes not yet in sync.
We sink our teeth into our other halves
and are made whole.

* * *

(This is probably the poem that I'm most proud of, out of all I've got. The title is the one thing that I'm not happy with.)

#2
At Dinnertime

Clever cleaver,
how it parts the portions
between us, without ever really trying.
Wise as Solomon, swift as a whisper;
with a sharp wit and its own slight weight
it sings its way through bone.

We do not share this meal;
we conquer it, divide it.
The cleaver brokers the peace,
So we sit, silent, and eat.


#3
Your Lower Lip

There are times when I fasten my teeth around your lower lip and I think to myself,
“Why let go?”

Why not bite down,
chew and swallow,
and keep at least this much of you with me,
forever.

Then you make a noise, and I remember that I kind of like your lips where they are.

* * *
(This one, to me, is kind of on the borderline, in terms of whether or not to include it. If I, by some miracle, write a lot of really good poems, I might leave it out. But we'll see where I stand in a month. If I use it, I'm not sure about the line breaks - the long lines are mean to be read as straightforward statements, while the shorter ones are a little more drawn out.)

#4
Wetback

What is the first thing you remember?
Was it a game of peek-a-boo?
Sneaking looks through a hole in a ratty blanket?
Were you stung by a bee?
Did you cry, and cry, as the little red lump swelled on your skin?
Did you pick up a fallen feather?
Did you stroke it until your mother grabbed your arm and told you
not to touch such dirty things?

My first memory was a family picnic
in a public park, somewhere in Rockland County.
I was four, and we were four,
my parents, my sister, and me.
We met another family, visitors from Spain
and spoke Spanish with each other,
stretched out on the lawn.

I remember four boys on bicycles,
how they circled us like Great Whites,
sniffing for blood.
“Spics,” they spat, and “wetbacks,” too.
“Why don’t you go home,” they said, and pedaled off,
laughing

Now, when the rednecks and townies get me down,
I close my eyes and try to remember what happened
before those boys showed up.
It’s hard to hold on to, but if I can find it,
there’s a moment in my mind,
a darkening window to a purer time
when I didn’t know what it was to be harassed for simply speaking,
for simply being

* * *
(I cut the end of this poem from my initial draft, but I think I could cut it off even earlier. based on a conversation with a Hannaford grocery worker. But with the less rambling version, "rednecks and townies get me down" might seem incongruous. What do you think?)

A Poem a Day Might Win Me a Thousand Bucks

Since I'm in Martos and have a relatively large amount of free time on my hands, I'm trying to be as productive as I can, writing-wise. Work keeps the boredom away. And it might just win me $1,000.

My current goal is to complete a book of poetry, 50 - 100 pages, by year's end for submission to a specific contest. That way, even if I don't win, I've got a bunch of poems written and collected, with some thought given to how they're arranged and fit with each other. I'll have a more-or-less finished product that's all set to be pitched to other publishers.

So I'm going to post a poem a day. Sometimes more, but we'll see how it goes. Then you all, people whose opinions I trust, can leave comments or email me. It'll be easier, I think, then sending out mass e-mails and awaiting responses. Since I'm not really a poet, and am new to writing poetry, I plan on experimenting a lot with different themes and different forms, both traditional (i.e., sestinas, cinquain, etc.) and not (more visual poems that incorporate a bit more graphic design).

I may attempt to publish the poems under a pen name, or change my name to incorporate my mother's name. Knauth, as a last name, seems like an impediment to becoming stupendously famous as a poet (although I guess reality is also an impediment here). I'm also interested in incorporating Spanish into my poetry, either within a single poem, or writing English and Spanish versions of each.

I'll occasionally try out other things on this blog - short stories, mostly, and maybe very short comics or drawings. One project I definitely plan to post here is the story that is the namesake of the blog: The Saddest Viking. I've been kicking ideas around since 2007 and have written a bunch of scenes, but there's no finished story. The plan is to post, weekly, a "chapter", very short, and write a continuation for next time. Eventually I'll stop, and then I can figure out what I've got and how to edit it. It's probably going to be short, so the posts will be short themselves - a serial short story.

Also, read my nonfiction blog, about life in Spain as a teaching assistant in a bilingual school!