WILD ASIAN ORCHID
(for you)


I'd like to put it on my table.
Where it is closer
but soon
it will die there.

It is much better
to spend the time
and the effort
and slight inconvenience
to travel

in whatever way
to see it alive
blooming
where it is happy
where it is healthy
where it will last

where it belongs.

THE FILE


She says that she has a file on me
-unlike the one I used to get free
from her, her's had teeth
that can still make me bleed

Sometimes
Sometimes
when I been out drinking
on a bar crawl
or walking
slower than reality
-or so it seems

Or some windy night
long past midnight
going home
I'll hear a newspaper roll
down the street
and I'll start to think

maybe it's a page
that was able to escape
from that mysterious file on me
A file that I've never even seen

It clouds my heart and sometimes I feel
that no matter what I do, she'll
have a hold on me
cause she's
got a file on me

WALLS


She's going to call again
I can feel it
Just like back East
how you can feel it in the air
when it's going to rain
and all of the leaves
on the money tree
turn inside out

The walls
want to do the money tree on me
but I keep watching them
hard
they're whining
Just one wall"
No
The one with the window and the door-
No!
it's not a big wall-
No!!
Just a little corner?
No!!!
How about the baseboard behind you?
NO!!!
Please?
NO!!!!

The phone rings
startles me
breaks my concentration
I pick up the phone
that I forget is connected to the wall
as they curl and turn
-laughing.

ADMINISTER


She says:
I don't drink anymore
and I only smoke once in a while
I see the kids at least once a month
Remember the car that we thought had caught
on fire out in the desert?
Sold it.
I work as an administrator now.
Moved into a place with more light.
Got married.

---figures.

REQUIEM


Light milks forth from a hole in the basement
I hear you clog down the stairs
walk through the light
and disappear
into the sound of a closing door

close my eyes
sleep
again
the door scrapes open
and I imagine
you in the light
of when you once believed
in me
and we slept together
sharing the same dream

Now off
More out of fear of my anger
than courtesy
up the steps
more unsure than before

Hesitant Requiem
postpartum thuds
of a wooden chamber
of an empty gun

THE PROPHET AND THE KING


Define the beliefs of a people and you are a prophet,
Assemble them and you are a king.

MIDWAY


I'm only here to break up your sight line
a side line on a carnival of dreams
Merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel dance
I wish I was a midway and you-
the eternal last chance.

SONG FOR GISELE (1979)


The lights go out on the Sante Fe
The moon's still there, it's all that remains
and the night wind tells me to take it on home
-but I don't want to go.

Thinking about you
and all the grief that I put you through
We quarrel through the night
-try to win all the time-
or we don't talk until we do.

I told you that I love you
and I meant it for more than just words
but now that I see
us falling apart at the seams
I'm feeling a bit insecure.

I said I'd be yours forever
but you know how those forevers go
it was fate that cast us together, babe
but you know fate just loves a show

So if we can make it though this night time
on this never ending flight
though I'm feeling confused
I don't want to loose
this feeling for you that's my life.

The lights go out on the Sante Fe
moon's still there, but there's more that remains
though the night wind tells me to take it on home
I still don't want to go....

*The Sante Fe is a train I used to try to hop after she and her family were transferred to Charlotte with IBM. The part about fate and casting refers to the Senior Play we were both in and how we met.

TOOBLACKEYES



It's always 2 Black guys. I knew a girl who
was raped by 5 Black guys once. She was riding
the bus late at night from downtown to the edge
of downtown and these % Black guys got off when
she did and took her in an alley and did her.

It was an incredibly sad and personal story and
I hate to say it, but I doubt that it really
happened that way. It wasn't the fact that she
was a low cost call girl making money so that
she could take her acting classes, or that she
had a natural flair for the dramatic that made
me question, it was the fact that she said it
was 5 and not 2 Black guys.

The phrase is so common that, in the near
future, it will be just one word. Then there
will be no police graft, gangs, drug dealing,
no bigotry, racism, or any type of prejudice.
By then, we would have forgotten where the word
originated from, just like so many other
colloquialisms and, because of our declining
educational system, our use of adjectives will
have decayed to only one word for ill-fated
circumstance; tooblackeyes.

BECAUSE I CAN'T HOP THE MOON

I'm feeling the need to jump a train again.
I want to ride my motorcycle until I hear a train,
race it,
pass it,
park,
wait for it,
hop on.

Just go for a couple of miles,
knowing that I could go farther.

THE NIGHT AND THE SEA


I can watch the sea
but it will never call me
and never stop me
from falling--

As the night calls
I know not how to answer
in a way so I will get an answer
from my father
for I am Night's bastard
and yet I scream
Why won't he reveal himself to me?

"I am your father," the Ocean said
"the Night is your Mother, though we ain't
never wed
and although she blankets you and comforts your head
I want you to know, and never forget
that in me are all of the tears that you have
not yet shed."

I finally understand
what it takes to be a man;
and just as the night shows the emotion
vast as her sky
as she cries
the tears for the ocean;
My Mother will always govern my sleep,
knowing my Dad,
though strong,
is full of tears
but will never sea him weep.

D.U.I.


4:00
No, not me
Cop pulls me over
asks me where I been
and I deliver a line so sweet, you'd think I
just got through baking one of Mrs. Smith's
apple pies

-But he ain't biting

Driver's license
formality
No need for tracers
he knows where I am
Left breast pocket
notebook
behind
no
in front
nothing

Give him the notebook
Drivers license
notebook
driver's license
-It's in my jeans

dig it out
flip through the rubber banded flats of plastic
feel the heat of the tracer
give him the license
like a bus transfer that I'll be using
here on out

-busted
He should have taken my notebook
instead of the transfer
'cause that's who I am
and where I'm going

JUDAS



Judas took his gold
went down to the store
bought a pack of smokes
and a thistle turned rope
to string another bead in the blackness

stumbling down the road
was he doing what he was told
and, after all, can a spirit be sold?
all of the questions racking his mind
Why did he pass on the bread and the wine

busted, broken, not knowing why
tore off the plastic from the cigarette package
mind fully primed he went through his jacket
how could I
How could I
HOW COULD I
"CHRIST!" he cried,
"Where the hell are my matches!"

CHANGING HORSES

He knows

He knows the beauty of lyrical pain
Impulse rejoices for his acceptance
Easy access to rib-cage vaults
Unwind the tensions of this
Maniacal doom

He tastes

Tastes the emptiness that comedians
See at the bottom of their glass
The residue of transient bravado
is made still by his whisper

He perceives

Perception of death
Enlightens his ovation
His tonation takes hold of
Surface designs and
Guides their risk to his iris
Rigid lines in shadow curve into
Stone bodies that kneed (need)
Precise lotion administered

He returns

Returning to the constellation
He gently kills our
Lame horses
They die with open generosity
They die and he rides toward
Red horizons never using a whip
They volunteer for subjective infinity

He will guide them through
Granite domes into yellow and
White meadows
He will guide them because
He knows

---Jonathan Mittleman
01/25/1988 Los Angeles
Written for Thomas Michael Angelo

ECLIPSE



Your off the cuff comments,
dressed with my suspicion,
perceiving more then what you ever said

I probe slightly like a blind surgeon
around with curved intonation
The last sliver of the moon caught in my throat
with a direct question
Sacrifice the crescent
for a sickle

She,
silent,
her pain
my sickle

Mistrust
takes over the brightness of the moon
and the obvious
as it slides the light to the edge
and then off...

Eclipse.

Trust in what you can't see
Love is all you believe.

MEN


Men leave for 2 reasons,
either the fire isn't hot enough
-or they get burned.

Prayer at night should I wake with God.
Poem at dawn should I work with man.

L.A. - 8/23/09

FISHERMAN/ARTIST

What I catch
I give away,
Each to it's own purpose
-To fulfill my own.

DESIRE'S REIGN


Ain't no love
just a train
and desire
a hot summer rain

I thought I loved her
'til she yanked the reins
and I could tell by my reactions
that I was just trained

SELF PORTRAIT (MUFFLER MAN)