Carlo Danese - carlo@danesedesign.com
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Blind Planet

Man hard, woman flowing 
how will we know each other 
when the world is only darkness
what color are your lover’s sighs, when 
I look for clues will I see the truth, can
we gaze across a valley and invent perspective
why would you hide things and where could you run to
will we have pornography or photographic memory, how far 
would away be, can we blow a kiss to a beautiful stranger
if I touch the sky how will I know, would mornings 
just be warmer or more noisy, how deeply 
can you look into your lover’s eyes 
how do we know if we’re alone 
or when we lose our way?





Neighborhood Stories 

     Across a block of backyards a TV pulsing violet
     shocked the inky night, today
     that same guy’s white shirts twist
     on rusty wire, bleeding sun. 

Old Nicky lives for off track betting
can’t get to the track no more 
but sees his grand kids every day, once
surprised them in the schoolyard taking lunch
looked at him like a stranger as he limped away. 

Gracie lost herself again today, her daughter
found her in the basement with the photos
last week it was the discount store.  
My Sacks Fifth Avenue she winked at me 
as if she knows we think her mind is gone. 

Angelo did three years, holding just a dime
not nearly half enough for lunch
what kind of dealer could he be?
Doesn’t matter said his Dad, He’ll never 
be in my house, never ‘till the day I die. 


Little Josie’s trike got rusted shear in half
makes sense it was Big Josie’s first
then all her sister’s kids from Jersey used it
wheels morphed into giant pretzels 
perfect for a round trip to the corner. 

Jimmy’s brother whispered in his girl’s ear every night
for three years still she didn’t get it, then
he had to go away for work she missed him so 
the first night back she asked him to propose. 
He cried for half an hour, was it joy? 

Some guy’s cousin’s dog played chicken on the curb
tongue trailing spit in wavy patterns, bolted
at the neighbor’s tom but didn’t look both ways 
got shot to heaven on a pickup’s bumper 
trying to console her Felix fell in love. 

    A foghorn, is this a movie?
    Verrazano blazing bright as Christmas
    peeking above the roof I helped
    my best friend fix last summer. 





Sanctuary

When I go out to drink with a friend you stay home, and later
staggering into the shower I find a note full of x’s and o’s
proclaiming how much you missed me. 

So I scatter choice bits of myself on a doorknob, a teacup
a low hanging branch you’ll be sure to brush past, hoping
some day we’ll make contact.

Between coffee, lunch, and a hangover’s ghost, finally
I feel alive, a bird twitters summers away in a movie’s belfry 
a new Quasimodo’s Birkenstocks groan as he yanks nylon rope.

I fall to my knees, praying
that all is not lost. 




Summer 

I photograph the wind in steamy backyards
drunken music slinking under doorways to the alley of the dammed
who shout; See ya soon, how’s your Mom ?

I slam a window, fall back on the bed and push the HI COOL button
praying to be etherized, another day is gone I’ll kill time; Anybody seen my keys?

TV baseball blares a homer, trumpet solo, ice cream jingles
farting Harleys scoot beneath the fat ass of eternal youth
soon the sky will streak, then darken. 

I find the woman at the shop and notice that she’s blind
Did you bring enough for me?  I wonder how she reads the scale. 

The crunch of paper startles us, I snatch her halo, clinging tight
she circles me three times, and finally
both of us know why I’m here. 

I drink until my belly swells, a soft breeze flutters over steeples drifting me to heaven
Do you laugh because we’re naked?  I twist south; the reek of sulphur hovers, tilting dusk. 

Below me on a flickering terrace high heeled people clutching sweaty glasses
heave great wads of sky up at my feet, hearts dry 
as crackers, stale from travel. 

​I dance;

​Tears dripped on molten steel and pulsing 
Hard, like all things wet. 





Air 

The white clapboard house where that kid lived, Allen
was his name, smelled like his mom never washed his clothes
he made me laugh but then moved back to where he came from
with his squeaky voice, twitchy smile and ugliest hair cut ever. 

We would talk about feeling girls up both hoping to be the first, one time
he told me what his older sisters breasts looked like
the day his old man tore her blouse off
because she called him ‘pack a day’. 

That house is cut up into offices, the siding on the long blank wall
where the driveway dips all smeared shit brown
from diesel stains, more dead than rust
but they say it’s not so bad. 

Allen came back, married now, lives downtown where the sky surrenders, sunset
boiled to ochre, lost horizon, small tomorrows
blunt perspective shrouded, cowled
the world’s dead end. 

One night we drank, I walked him home through concrete voids
our shadows sprung ahead of us for blocks then whips lashing
switched beneath the high arc of the lights to follow. 

Rent’s cheap he shouts above the iron bellow
of grinding gears and shrieking brakes; 

Every night I gotta shut the window, run the AC
clinic’s just around the corner thank the Lord
I’m sick a lot, this job don’t give insurance.
 

Playing ball his little boy runs half a block
then wheezing, begs to watch TV. 


​


Christmas Prayer

Christ!  If only
He would come down to us 
we could be more like him
every day had a useful result.

Jesus!  If only
Things cost nothing, nothing
could hurt us, money was free
or we ate less and just didn’t need much.

God!  If only
Death would go begging, life
lasted longer, organs never felt scalpel, sons
didn’t go off to war, daughters
didn’t have to dance naked
for somebody’s father.

Man!  If only
The devil had problems 
that wrecked his agenda, gender
got bent out of shape every day, race
had a finish where everyone wins, beggars
rode free to their dreams on the horse of their wishes.

Christ!





Doublemint Twins 

I saw her over at Billy’s, no
it was that other bar, maybe 
it wasn’t even her, I swear
she called my name, no 
she has a twin, maybe
​a hundred twins
in a thousand bars, do 
the math man; 
that’s more ways
than days in a year 
to get caught with her sister, but

is it so wrong to want you twice? 




One Chance

One chance, it is said, we only get one chance, cloaked
as a threat, never an outstretched hand or a warm cup of tea.

A rutted back road, high fence warning trespassers  
it leads to a pond choked with spongy trees, flabby tires, ghostly appliances
that slowly bob, hunched like icebergs, a dock chewed and brown as tobacco 
where an old man squats, singing of the loons that would skim across
when dawn was still lovely, calling to mates on the misty far shore.

But only on your lucky day, the two of you wading in 
a clutched breath shy of sunrise, his blind eyes brighter than sky
lit only by memory.




Winter Afternoon

Parking on side streets, so impatient for spring the way your first girl shivered 
until the heat came up, gas was cheap so you left it running 
soon the windows fogged and you could pretend
that no one walking by saw you, but
people know your car anyway, so

You drive clear out of town, that farm you worked
last summer had a shed, good half mile 
from the main house, you remember 
it was clean, they kept it so clean, the wife
once proudly explained; ‘In case of guests’ pointing

At a rough cabinet high up on the wall, away 
from the dirt floor littered with corncobs, leaves, scraps
from some fence that got in a tractors way, inside 
piled high with moving blankets; her uncle drove a rig for twenty years
and the worn out army green one they sent him home in.

The sun finally fallen behind the last ridge sprays weak light, splayed hands
saying ‘Take me’ to the winter night, you ease the shift down third to second, back 
up then down again pumping the clutch so the tires caress the frozen dirt, ‘How much further?’
she wonders and you nod to the distance then in case she took the brevity for impatience, smile
reaching across where her sweet hand weaves an unlit cigarette.

‘We’re here!’ nosing hard against a rut, ass end angled up so her door slams into a drift, the shed 
a soft shape, barely darker than the growing night; ‘I can’t see’ she whispers, snaking 
your arm through the glove box you explain ‘Flashlight somewhere’, flicking it on  
she giggles ‘Oh my hero!’ then coat falling away circles your face, sighing 
‘Kiss me here’ and blushes quivering under her open blouse you find 

Heaven, her bra crumpled pastel on the floor mat, incongruity
part of the romance and tasting the place you dream of can’t stop
till she pulls away, ‘We should go inside’ you’re holding the flashlight still lit so
she covers your hand ‘I can see now, I can see good’ stepping inside 
you fall together mouths everywhere you hush ‘Wait’ reaching up 

To the hand made cabinet fling the door open then blankets tumble down 
you lay them in a fat pile and grabbing the fuzzy green army one wrap her all creamy 
in it’s softness you can’t believe how perfect the world is; she struggles
with your belt, fingernails shock at first but learning quickly 
she knows just how to guide you, it’s rough

But soon you both find the rhythm you already knew, finally 
laugh when she screams ‘oh baby!’ for the first time then somewhere 
snow crunches under boots, a lantern clanks, hinges squealing swing 
yellow blaze, a single blast then endless echoes no more laughs just red; gushing 
where her face was the farmer in the doorway standing proud, blue haze 

Clouds his grin; ‘Always knew you been messing with my wife’ no sooner
do the words fall out his mouth like rocks from a dump truck but his eyes, traveling 
the eternal silence of a beautiful young woman finally inform his brain, ‘God forgive me!’ begging to be accused but you’re still holding her as if looking for a missing part, dip two fingers in your forsaken mouth and run them along the surface of what she was, your hand 

Lumbers, winged monster over a burning lake.