What Can Be Done
What Can Be Done lies
stupid-drunk and sprawled
across my couch, a ghostly
squatter in my house,
watching my TV, drinking my beer.
I hear him beeping endless
numbers into my phone,
sweet-talking giggling
ghost-girls, while I
rise to close the door, sink back into my chair, stuff
cotton in my ears to better write
one more love poem to you.
Poem #267 – and What Can Be Done
is belly-laughing through the cotton, the door. The Fonz
is thumping one more
pop machine, the crowd goes wild, and I
dream your heart sliding down
that chute into my eager hands. This poem
will be the one to finally shake
your machinery, for sure. Happy Days. I push
the cotton deeper, clutch my pen, scrawl
Love, then Love, then
Please, please, please... then pause
to admire my perfect rhymes. What Can Be Done
has ordered pizza. The smell of olives,
pepperoni, four piping-hot cheeses creep
like apparitions under my door. I pinch
my nose, breathe through clenched teeth, turn
to a new blank page. Poem #268 - Your golden hair is fresh like...
Oregano, basil, green fields
of anchovies after a spring rain. What Can Be Done
is throwing a party; dancing feet
thunder through the floor beneath my shoes. I curl
into a tight fetal ball, hover in mid-air, your poem
clutched small and fierce against my chest.
Poem #269 - Come fly with me... The door
flies open. What Can Be Done
sambas in, a fat Huna king, cold beer
scepters in each hand, grass skirt swaying
beneath a tilted lampshade crown. I shrink
into a fly, tap my futile poem in shaky
Morse against the window. Poem #270 - If only I
could be alone with you... The guests
file in, two by two, their gossamer forms
strangely fleshy as they sway, cavort, sneak off
to make ghost-love in some dark
corner of my house, while I
finally find the words. Poem #271 - I have no life
without you... The music
stops. The ghosts
collect their things and mill about,
worried faces eyeing clocks. What Can Be Done
hulas fatly to my side, crouches down, sleights
a tiny paper hat from behind
my tinier fly ear, straps it to my head. Write
this, he commands. Poem #272 - Dear Loser, I
am having a party, and you
are not invited. The ghosts
snicker, snort, guffaw, then laugh
out loud like breath-filled living beings. The music
has come alive from somewhere lost, and I
am dancing. My human legs spring out to join
a Bus Stop line of pink-
faced girls, beautiful girls, Real
Live Girls... Your poem
lies forgotten on the sill – And you,
neither forgotten nor forgiven, lie
stupid-drunk and sprawled
across some ghostly couch of memory, while I
embrace What Can Be Done, surrender
at last to the life of the party,
the sweet, warm fat
of friendship and time,
those graceful human healers of all loves, all losses.