Detroit

The triumphant notes
did not hold, but their memory
returns, disfigured, like an awful vendetta,
extorting us
to hushed whispers, then silence.
Heirs of gamblers,
foster-children of the god
unknown, we were born
for the long fall
and zip our coats accordingly.
In vain, you will have gnashed
your teeth over debts
of the fathers we disowned—
we will not repay.

Why shudder before tattered flags,
or empty train stations?—
the plague did not spare
fair Pericles, and barbarians vaulted
the walls of Rome. Our libraries,
stocked with folly, were torched;
their scant wisdom dispersed
to the heavens. Purple robes fray,
scepters grow weary, and your finest
parades will deliver the punchline—
may the joke not be lost,
or the devil take you!

Fortune will have her way;
yet will you promenade
through the rubble
to our campfires, flickering
in the distance. Together
we shall raise a toast—
to the tottering ages
and splendor that remains.

The work of labor

The pavement seeps
into my bones, but I grin
through the stupor.

Knowing better, confident to
pace the red brick and
bear it, I gaze on vacant streets,
illegible sidewalks. Yet I am cursed
by mobs.

Disperse the ingrates, the ignoble
bastards! Before they run
riot, before you cower,
weak-kneed, into
the mounting drifts!
Leisure and love affairs
do not await, nor long island ice teas,
only this balding oaf, with
bad teeth.

At his door, I wait until
we bite our lips, until the city
is stirred to submission, pallor-faced,
and our trails are erased
no sooner than we lay them,
without mercy. And the torch I saw
yesterday, on the western horizon?
Extinguished. The chalice I
raised to her, in good spirits?
Empty.

I hope he leaves
a decent tip.

Red card

"To think that Suarez, when he committed the hand ball, knew what was going to happen afterward would be something superhuman. The hand of Suarez is the hand of God and the Virgin Mary -- that's how Uruguayans see it." -- Uruguay coach, Oscar Tabarez

There was a young man from Uruguay,
whose hands struck the ball away one day.
In football that's taboo,
you're 'sposed to use your shoe,
but no law governs the heat of play.

A little world fell apart

"It's a tremendous act of faith to even get up in the morning."
-Cornel West


The simplest things can become terrific feats.
I remember, on a chilly afternoon last January,
a woman dropped by to quarrel.
She had weathered this storm before,
her brother lost his teeth to the police,
and we had no rapport to speak of.
My demeanor must have been incorrigible,
because her whole face twitched,
and suddenly her points collapsed in an awful shriek:
“My only strategy is to find a reason to wake up
every morning and keep from slitting my wrists.”

We hardly knew each other,
any one present in that drafty room,
so all looked on, mutely.

My tired arms
were possessed by the longing
to clasp her about me like
my tattered childhood blanket,
(a tiny prayer to ward off monsters under the bed)
investigations be damned, along with the vexing intrigues
that accompany blood feuds:
“Isn't he an anarchist?” “Isn't she a punk?”—
(anarchists, nothing but middle class honkees,
and punks, drunk scenesters, y'know)—
such were the lines we drew,
and cartoons we became.
The gravity of the situation
forced us apart
and we never talked again.

Still, I like to think our torsos,
strangely close, would have orbited
our estrangement,
and taken momentary refuge
in the delicate embrace.
Vanity, I know,
but such fictions, withdrawn
to the hinterlands of possibility,
may be enough, perhaps everything.

At a show the other night,
the kind of venue she might have graced
with her rusty bicycle and black stockings,
I saw a man,
a kindly, wrinkled face,
arms extended, his calloused fingers
offering cigarettes to no one in particular.
No one noticed him talking to himself
in the shadows, and the gift receded, as
the steady hum of street lights.

Futbol

Another World Cup game on display.
The barista grins, "regulars", shaking his head,
and carries on with co-workers.
“You really get into this, don't you?”
On the patio, I marvel at Robinho,
the scorching afternoon cannot match
his knack for happenstance and soft tap
of a black shoe that pierces
the finest cracks.
He glides ahead of yellow-shirted comrades,
forehead laced with brooks of sweat
like champagne,
peerless, triumphant.

Of course I have a taste for excellence,
my sleepy limbs tremble
before a dash of libertine flair,
but I am too unpracticed,
I manhandle the ball,
and fear my lungs are ruined.

Wittgenstein once remarked
that he created his own oxygen—had to—
he lived in the heights, surveying affairs from a lonely bivouac.
I may be winded now,
last week my dear friend
accused me of cliche,
but retreat to the musty corridors of scholarship
is unbearable.
To inhale brisk air, romp on the pitch, and attack the goal,
is my last stand
and point of departure.

Like a gypsy

She looked stunning, “like a gypsy," one of her housemates mentioned in passing. It was definitely the black scarf adorned with faded red roses and thorns that she had tied into her boyish hair cut. But that wasn't all. She wore a form-fitting grey thermal, coffee-stained on the chest. Then, of course, the indigo skinny jeans she pilfered a few weeks ago. The ensemble would've appeared tacky, out of place in the world of haut coutre, but he couldn't have felt more contrarily. Especially tonight: beyond the clothes, her whole demeanor had changed. Her mannerisms weren't choppy, gestures weren't exaggerated, even her lively skin tone whispered a certain poise. So they glided through the night in each other's company, it was really something, and for once it wasn't suspicious to anticipate a happier future. They were already tasting it, and that was proof enough. The difference was one of emphasis. All the usual problems were present in new disguises, but tonight, two hours of conversation interrupted by the housemates and her frequent visits to the bathroom showed that they both were reaching a point of no return. They both were learning. He was moving back, she was moving out of that unhappy house with dignity, and that's how they were becoming themselves again.

You still know me by name

Staring.
Again words blew about aimlessly,
like so many tumbleweeds, no further comment.
Only I kept chattering while we occupied the loveseat,
and you pillaged through an oversized purse in search of another cigarette.
You were thinking about tattoos, and heartbreak. Always heartbreak,
and occasionally disturbed by the question, how we will pay for our anxieties?
Our lungs will gradually resemble coal mines and the weary miners will go on strike.
At this your stomach grumbled, or from too many shots of whiskey—
we are frail animals, our cheeks discolored, and we are frightened by our own scent.

It must have been the gossip that stifled me.
The unavowable longings of two bodies complicated by details,
such as personalities, mixtape collections, properly sorting the recyclables, political views and stories about pet ownership:
the jibber-jabber of seduction will forever conspire against our best intentions
to produce loneliness.
So it hardly mattered that my fingers savoured the gentle relief of your spine, or carefully stroked your bangs, or how you unmistakably turned, leaning in for the kiss.
Yet for a moment there were only quivering lips, erratic graspings, and other squirrely maneuvers,
the whir of a ceiling fan
that reminded me of betraying her parents' trust in the basement long ago,
and my forgotten love for astronomy.
Maybe we both were pretending.