oh, crumb beneath my keyboard key
your like bread but not like tea
I saw you once last Friday night
you glowed like beige electric light
your crusty soul is effervescent
like soup that joined a family crescent
your melancholy little face
has linty dreams of outer space
I poked you with my favorite pen
you ran away like 7 men
you scooted left, you scooted right
then shouted nothing in the night
my heart became a velvet spoon
it sang at noon beneath the moon
your fragrant silence hurt my toe
although my toe was down below
o crumb. my crumb my desks delight
you haunt my snacks with snacky might
a sandwich died to let you be
now you live rent free under E
the laptop fan began to roar
it blew you toward my bedroom door
you rolled beside a dusty sock
then married it beside a clock
the clock said tick, the sock said blue
the crumb said " I am missing you"
I cried one tear in my exam
then wrote your name upon a yam
so, sleep dear crumb in dusty doom
beside the dust bunny in my room
the world may laugh, the chairs may fight
but you dear crumb, you take flight
He has left the world.
A half-made bed creaks still.
A life left elsewhere,
not here in this blue rat-tailed viewing.
Display the cold hands,
the musty suit newly buttoned.
Teeth wedged tightly
inside a cosmetology mask.
Earwax continues.
A smile sheens on formaldehyde lips.
Outside, a spasmodic rain quivers.
Never before has he been this ready.
His pockets bulge still with balled-up notes
a linty jot and tittle left unsung.
Damp mourners ebb away
dabbing milk-less eyes.
A soft hat sags from a paint-chipped hook
dripping like a nose.
Half-washed dishes are his legacy.
Close the door quietly least they rattle.
If I met God in a snow-kissed wood,
Would he sit beside the fire’s warm glow,
And share my wine and quail egg soup,
And marvel at the falling snow.
And speak of truths I’ve overlooked,
But listen without a tilted head,
Beneath a canopy of linty pines,
With two bellies fully fed.
Now he would think it rather odd,
This battered man in tattered shoes,
In a chilly wood with notebook and quill,
With nothing more, but my dreams to lose.
Not once would he pray or sing a hymn,
Nor surmise a confession, my list of woes,
Nor wish for a thawed breeze to hie,
Nor ponder the direction longing goes.
Nor criticize my fondness of another’s bride,
Like the full moon married to the night,
Thus only spy but never reach,
To her golden shores of Leyte.
Then God would stand and tip his cap,
Without a final word would go,
And wander off into the dark,
So I might marvel at the falling snow.
My palms are sopping and my lips
Begin to part as my body grows sweaty
My skin grows tense with indefinite excitement.
Kwela kwela I begin to feel again
As inch and cinch my heartbeat races
Faster and faster speeding past my heaving chest.
Reaching out for strong ropes that bind
Lonely rambler onto the rock of Everest.
T'is couples' bedlam in a soundless theater
As heart race after thieves of thieves.
I can feel my eyelids
Shutting up and gently closing
Shop as my erratic breathing slowly
Becomes hard and audibly fast.
Just like the beak of a duck
So my lips take a linty shape
Not a whisper or gossip......
I wanna kiss, but tell me
Are you the one
For me?
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