Jonathan Hayes
Hop, Snickers Bar and Sex
stimuli shiver / dog drivel
add zero / ad infintium
[Jones Street]
shopping cart basecamp
street soldiers trooping pavement
not able to get back to Detroit Rock City
tricks are better in a john’s house
hotel rooms loom with bad moons
outfit
bottlecap
blacktop
= the impenetrable stare
moaning rugburns marvel
Saxifrage and Sepulchre (An Urban Ekstasis)
“ "And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth" ”
In snow boots on the avenue, under the Atlantic sun, the footprints leave the poem, and run home to be near her heavy breasts in the kitchen.
Sky.
Moment.
Clouds.
Turning coins over in pocket like a prayer.
Blood in the playground.
Gossiping grass.
Fat lips. Loose teeth.
Start a fire.
Punishable names.
Burnt branches. Sky purple.
Wine. Tee shirts.
Bicycles. Riding – standing up.
All buildings are built to fall – it’s not until they’re gone that you feel the presence of their architecture. The tragedy of the paradox is how your heart can feel the air of emptiness.
The stank of ammonia piss by the jungle gym.
Peddling. Orange. Big Wheel.
Village. Laughing. Adrenaline toddler.
The craft of childhood. On a swing. A photographer captures DNA.
The park smells like dead brown leaves and horse shit. On the bridal path and under dark dry-stone tunnels, the walk is kinder than jogging above ‘round the reservoir of turtles and a shrinking exposure of algae and whatever regret swims over the cold cyclone fence.
The flesh is unable to prevent the entrance of certain emotions, insects, and others. When the movie is over, continue to talk to me.
It’s not safe to go back.
An Amtrak away.
Tighter and colder than a central nervous system left behind in Fanual Hall of couples and high school trashcans. Sad aquarium seals and pathetic penguins squeal in the tourist glassy wetness.
Ted Williams. The Science of Hitting.
In the batter’s box.
The Green Monster.
Bleachers. Pounding.
The dugout empties, and charges the pitcher.
“[G]rass sprouting between the stones, imposing carriage archways right and left, immense double doors standing ponderously ajar”
A fallow fort. Hilly bunkers near seashore. Fish and Chip breath.
Imaginary friends. Pirates. Rocks and sailboats.
Fishing. Tipsy buoys.
Earth falling into sea.
Making love to it all, again,
with salt.
The rival sisters make an obscene scene in public, and then agree that there are poems in the painting and paintings in the poem.
Wonderland Dogtrack.
Confidant. Toward the sea. Dinner and drinks.
At suppertime the children do not eat when they are somewhere else.
Eyelids open under Frankenstein lights with stitching putting things back together in the translated parking lot.
Medicated eyes in the hallway.
“Nevertheless, every breeze strains the bridge a little, every tide does something to weaken its foundations; every change of temperature alters the adjustment of its parts”
Most of the Mimosa. General Electric toaster oven.
Good little muffin swallowing Hollandaise.
Living room. Silence. Night.
[TV Guide / Remote Control / Sofa]
The Joker’s Wild. All in the Family. Sanford and Son. Good Times. Hogan’s Heroes.
What do you think, Winky Dink, how are you gonna get out of this?
Permanent black magic marker.
Meticulously she unwraps the sky-blue paper of the Filet-O-Fish.
Ginger Ale makes the stomach feel better.
Howard Johnson’s fried clams in a hot dog bun.
Shinny silver dimes.
A cheese omelet with radiation at the x-ray 24 hour diner.
Not all soda jerks are jerks, but all the soda was jerked on East 84th St. and Third Avenue.
Surplice, soup and jalapeno peppers.
Dining on steak-knife mood swings and getting drunk on carafes of catastrophes.
Caesar Salad ballad.
Scallops and garlic bread.
Relish.
Paranoid seltzer.
Applesauce.
Yellow gone. Paintbrush crutches. Sunflower hospital.
In the elevator. Stoic feet and claustrophobic eyes. A rush of flushing floors.
Coal miners in the office building.
Somewhere, a pyramid of metal.
Hallmark cards in the boring gift store.
The Harlem projects.
She keeps a bowl of water under the bed, where her head lies.
The element provides protection.
“[A]n anxiety about man’s place in nature”
There are no Band-Aids in this land.
Lifting off for sailing.
Beanie Baby.
Toy therapy.
White-coat hypertension.
Donkey Kong dummy heads.
Slackjawing.
Frozen flesh.
Mario Brothers, forever.
Insomniac clowns laugh circus excitement at unclosed sub-sleeper eyelids.
“I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre”
On the ghetto couch under the electric blanket, I wait for her to come home.
Jonathan Hayes lives in San Francisco, California. He has taught poetry at 826 Valencia – a writing center for children – located in the Mission District of the City.
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Hop, Snickers Bar and Sex
stimuli shiver / dog drivel
add zero / ad infintium
[Jones Street]
shopping cart basecamp
street soldiers trooping pavement
not able to get back to Detroit Rock City
tricks are better in a john’s house
hotel rooms loom with bad moons
outfit
bottlecap
blacktop
= the impenetrable stare
moaning rugburns marvel
Saxifrage and Sepulchre (An Urban Ekstasis)
“ "And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth" ”
In snow boots on the avenue, under the Atlantic sun, the footprints leave the poem, and run home to be near her heavy breasts in the kitchen.
Sky.
Moment.
Clouds.
Turning coins over in pocket like a prayer.
Blood in the playground.
Gossiping grass.
Fat lips. Loose teeth.
Start a fire.
Punishable names.
Burnt branches. Sky purple.
Wine. Tee shirts.
Bicycles. Riding – standing up.
All buildings are built to fall – it’s not until they’re gone that you feel the presence of their architecture. The tragedy of the paradox is how your heart can feel the air of emptiness.
The stank of ammonia piss by the jungle gym.
Peddling. Orange. Big Wheel.
Village. Laughing. Adrenaline toddler.
The craft of childhood. On a swing. A photographer captures DNA.
The park smells like dead brown leaves and horse shit. On the bridal path and under dark dry-stone tunnels, the walk is kinder than jogging above ‘round the reservoir of turtles and a shrinking exposure of algae and whatever regret swims over the cold cyclone fence.
The flesh is unable to prevent the entrance of certain emotions, insects, and others. When the movie is over, continue to talk to me.
It’s not safe to go back.
An Amtrak away.
Tighter and colder than a central nervous system left behind in Fanual Hall of couples and high school trashcans. Sad aquarium seals and pathetic penguins squeal in the tourist glassy wetness.
Ted Williams. The Science of Hitting.
In the batter’s box.
The Green Monster.
Bleachers. Pounding.
The dugout empties, and charges the pitcher.
“[G]rass sprouting between the stones, imposing carriage archways right and left, immense double doors standing ponderously ajar”
A fallow fort. Hilly bunkers near seashore. Fish and Chip breath.
Imaginary friends. Pirates. Rocks and sailboats.
Fishing. Tipsy buoys.
Earth falling into sea.
Making love to it all, again,
with salt.
The rival sisters make an obscene scene in public, and then agree that there are poems in the painting and paintings in the poem.
Wonderland Dogtrack.
Confidant. Toward the sea. Dinner and drinks.
At suppertime the children do not eat when they are somewhere else.
Eyelids open under Frankenstein lights with stitching putting things back together in the translated parking lot.
Medicated eyes in the hallway.
“Nevertheless, every breeze strains the bridge a little, every tide does something to weaken its foundations; every change of temperature alters the adjustment of its parts”
Most of the Mimosa. General Electric toaster oven.
Good little muffin swallowing Hollandaise.
Living room. Silence. Night.
[TV Guide / Remote Control / Sofa]
The Joker’s Wild. All in the Family. Sanford and Son. Good Times. Hogan’s Heroes.
What do you think, Winky Dink, how are you gonna get out of this?
Permanent black magic marker.
Meticulously she unwraps the sky-blue paper of the Filet-O-Fish.
Ginger Ale makes the stomach feel better.
Howard Johnson’s fried clams in a hot dog bun.
Shinny silver dimes.
A cheese omelet with radiation at the x-ray 24 hour diner.
Not all soda jerks are jerks, but all the soda was jerked on East 84th St. and Third Avenue.
Surplice, soup and jalapeno peppers.
Dining on steak-knife mood swings and getting drunk on carafes of catastrophes.
Caesar Salad ballad.
Scallops and garlic bread.
Relish.
Paranoid seltzer.
Applesauce.
Yellow gone. Paintbrush crutches. Sunflower hospital.
In the elevator. Stoic feet and claustrophobic eyes. A rush of flushing floors.
Coal miners in the office building.
Somewhere, a pyramid of metal.
Hallmark cards in the boring gift store.
The Harlem projects.
She keeps a bowl of water under the bed, where her head lies.
The element provides protection.
“[A]n anxiety about man’s place in nature”
There are no Band-Aids in this land.
Lifting off for sailing.
Beanie Baby.
Toy therapy.
White-coat hypertension.
Donkey Kong dummy heads.
Slackjawing.
Frozen flesh.
Mario Brothers, forever.
Insomniac clowns laugh circus excitement at unclosed sub-sleeper eyelids.
“I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre”
On the ghetto couch under the electric blanket, I wait for her to come home.
Jonathan Hayes lives in San Francisco, California. He has taught poetry at 826 Valencia – a writing center for children – located in the Mission District of the City.
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