Love Poem #3

One day like two or three
Days ago
It will seem
I will wish
It will have been

One day when all this flesh rebels
And would that it had been
Subversive instead
Planting quiet seeds
Of revolution long ago
For some form of rebellion more subtle
Than flat out decay

One day, when I am asked
I will say
I knew her when
I knew you when
And know you still
And they will say:
Oh, when is that?
I will say: now
And they will nod
And cut my toast
The harmless old man
Clinging to his ghosts
While he chews toothless on
This one imagined
Happy memory
And margarine

Love Poem #2

I have always liked fire escapes
Standing by a kitchen window at a party in someone’s apartment
Or a bedroom window of some girl I have recently met
Who smells of soap and shampoo and incense
And some mysterious fourth ingredient
And seeing the rusted metal of a fire escape
I imagine climbing down
I imagine sneaking away into an alley that leads to a different life
That difficult last step:
A ladder that extends downward
A ladder of questionable integrity
Into an alley—the sort of alley they have in movies
Where black cats pop out of garbage cans on cue
And a large rat disturbs the reflection of the moon in a puddle

I imagine the fire escape like that
And imagine fleeing
As if this party or this girl
Was a building actually on fire

Love Poem #1

You came and visited me in my small second floor efficiency
And said you liked my Chia pet in the shape of Popeye the Sailor Man
I was happy and we chewed on our teeth for awhile
And you said
Maybe this would work better with food
And I said
Well that’s an idea, let me see what I have in the fridge
But all I had was some mayonnaise and a cantaloupe of questionable vintage
We can graze on Popeye the Sailor Man, you said
And I was hurt and went to bed in a huff
Well, not bed so much as the mattress on the floor
You stayed on the couch
And in the morning, you were gone
And my Chia pet stood on the dining room table
Actually the box the mattress came in propped up on cinder blocks
I intend to get a real table someday, honest
But anyway, the Chia pet in the shape of Popeye the Sailor Man
Looking all stoic like a small shrub-like plant
That had just been pissed on by a cat
Mostly because the neighbors cat had jumped through my window again
And pissed on my Chia pet
And tipped over my garbage can to get to the rotten cantaloupe
Fucking cat