Neighborhood Days.

 

 

 

NEIGHBORHOOD DAYS.

(Selected poems, 1997 – 2001)

 

Timothy Brickley

 

 

Free Pamphlet Publishing

Indianapolis/Jersey City

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS.

Preface. 

Winter now.

Hark! All Herald The Arrival Of A New Rock God!

Summer Girl Vs. The Woman In The Suit.

Honey Girl.

Little Bird.

Fireflies.

Fluid.

Friend.

Kid.

Cops.

This wasn’t a dream.

Tripod

The Last Day.

You Fuckers, #2.

Fucked-Up.

Ohio Poem, #2.

You were out running.

King Sid.

The last minute.

The worst sin.

Aunt Ruth.

Yes, to the soul question.

Underneath.

In offering.

Same old dream.

 

 

 

PREFACE.

Most of these are just the result of everyday life.  After walks, about animals, the way the sky looked, the poems that you don’t think are anything, just the things that are in your head when you get back. Aren’t they all?

Some of them are bigger poems. The rest are just life, the things that happen while you are waiting for the stuff of big ones. That may not happen. What’s bigger than everyday life, your friends and family, the way the sky looked?

 

 

 

WINTER NOW.

goddam leak in the back, what
can you do when the gutters are frozen
solid block ice and a constant drip comes
in through the roof, around that glass block window Scott
and I put around in back.
it ain’t sealed so good so
i will go every 6 hours or so and empty
the buckets that are in and outside
need to get big Bob’s big ladder and
get up there and beat through the gutters
and until now
I was digging this big
winter we were having

winter now
walked into the bathroom at the restaurant
to take off my winter gear and there
was a kid,
a young-teen,
standing there
looking at hisself in the mirror just
got done pissing, had his shirt way up above his nipples
(startled me)
pants way high, doing his belt,
glasses, you could tell he was retarded or something
he looked at me real open and said
You look nice, he said, are ya going dancin’?
No, I sing here, i said, he made me smile
what kinda music?
jazz
oh, he looked away he either didn’t know jazz
or thought he didn’t like it and didn’t want to
embarass me either way
he was a kind kid
You look nice too, I said
as he was smoothing down his hair in the
mirror
(i remember adolescent self-conscious hell)
have a nice dinner
i said to him and we walked out, together
i’m hungry he said
me too
he looked through the glass doors and said,
winter now.

1/8/1999

 

 

 

HARK! ALL HERALD THE ARRIVAL OF A NEW ROCK GOD!

Hark! All Herald The Arrival Of A New Rock God!
a Pan-Sexual Superstar playing that bass with the goddammed authority of a
young son-of-a-bitch who started from nothing and spent all those dark nights of Dosteovsky gloom in someone else’s fucking basement learning how to play It,
learning how to live,
It. Who left the dull safety of the go-nowhere pro shop
who politely said Fuck You to the Marine Corp.
who fought the chronic wake and bake monkey and the silver-dust gypsy bitch in his soul
who discovered
It.  And now He has It.
Up there in the diamond white spotlight loving It in his two earrings and cool suit that I used to have as I rock on the dance floor with some little hippy chick
who weaves her serpentine arms in front of me
and You Now Are The Nazz, my friend,
you are beautiful inside and out and
It shows.

5/2/1998

 

 

 

SUMMER GIRL VS. THE WOMAN IN THE SUIT.

Oh, how I love you
women who can make me cry
and cry you make me do
in this big cold hotel room bed
you standing by the closet now
I have some real problems with trust
you say in the dark
and yes, I guess I can see from
where you are
i have had chances
there were times
and if we were meant to be, we
would
but still that does not diminish
all that I feel for you
which is tremendous, deep
i just want to hold you
i don’t just want to fuck you
(but you know I would)
you know that
but you don’t want that
it’s the woman in the suit, you say

me? I had known summer girl
that’s who it was all those years ago
those hot july-sweet nights on the floor
but now the woman in the suit is my escort
tonight
(if only you
would hold me
like you did before)
but no
and summer girl will not come to my rescue now
win over this cold one
who can’t hold me close
anymore

(I know you’re crazy
you never have to pretend with me
and I am too
I let you see me)

and now
your coming baby
the baby we should have had
when you asked me
those years ago
you called me on break
a thousand miles away
the girl behind the bar said
you have a phone call
i took it in the kitchen
james, the quiet cook, eyeing me
suspiciously
one hand on my ear
what? you?
you said:
remember when you told me I was the one woman you could ever picture pregnant, pushing a shopping cart around for in a supermarket? Well it’s time. I want a baby. I want you to be the father.

all these junctures, where I hestitated
i was so in love with my little one then
and now you’re having some crazy guy’s baby
back living in a little apartment not too far from your famous
mother dearest
what a child this will be
the guy’s out of the picture,
so it’s
you alone to raise her
you’ll do a marvelous job
(I’m assuming it’s a her – because of you)

12/20/1998

 

 

 

HONEY GIRL.

honey girl

perfect-tight tan linen dress
standing barefoot on the front porch
drinking beer
early-summer afternoon

i can smell her sweet
honeysuckle tangle blonde hair
and taste her salty tawny skin
from here

which is about as close
as I’ll probably ever
honey girl
get

unless
she has a
yard sale
or something

6/12/2000

 

 

 

LITTLE BIRD.

little bird in the middle of the street
just standing there
doesn’t move when i come close
cocks his head
i go inside
can’t save the world
cats’ll get him
5 minutes later
take a peek through my blinds

god damn it.

i go out with bread crumbs
he hears me coming
nervously cocking his jerky head
i kneel
i don’t think his eyes are open or
even working yet
did he fall out of the nest
the runt
destined for early death?
i pitch the crumbs towards him
no motion – doesn’t smell
or see them
then
one hits his leg
and he – BAM – takes off, explodes into stuttered
whirly flight
i look up dazzled against the sky
and he’s carreening in small circles
around me
wings noisy flapping
he’s new to this and he lands
ungracefully
right by Joan’s porch – closer
to her mean
cat
but at least out of the
middle of the fucking street.

3/24/1999

 

 

 

FIREFLIES.

there is that brief window
in late june
when there are all the fireflies
and tonight
this year
I stop to celebrate
it, I am drunk in my
boxers in the backyard
looking at that full
prairie moon looking down
at me and
i stop, to
join them in
the rose bushes, the
big tree growing up behind the garage,
even down in the grass
and i know the beauty
and briefness of it all
too

 6/29/1999

 

 

 

 FLUID.

my emotions are
fluid
the anger concrete my
envy a sliding scale
of invisible chemicals
released on a schedule
determined by chaos
regulated by sugars
from some far-off plantation, the
dirt of our forebears
holds much information so
now i am streaming
through electrons of wonder
and commonplace horror, my
memory volatile a
flash-rom existence
it’s all just a gimmick
all the same
particles,
reflections of pure light

2/18/1998

 

 

 

FRIEND.

it’s the death sentence we all got
only maybe a little sooner
it’s a wakeup call to pay attention to the body
take care of this temple of our making
it’s got nothing to do with
lack of love
gay or straight
or any of that crap
it’s just nature
and now it is here
and now we must deal with it
together, although
no-one can go through it with you
(long dark night of your soul alone
 coughing up pills in that hospital bed
 fuck yeah i held the bucket)
(and yes i looked at that healing little paper cut)
but you don’t have to go through it alone
all anybody got
is maybe some friends
family if you’re lucky
you’re still lucky, friend,

(nothing is over ’til the dirt hits the wood and)

we’re lucky we
got
you,

friend.

11/20/1998

 

 

 

KID.

the kid made the most
dexterious, deft little move on the skates,
up a hill, staying in place
a flurry of quick graceful little crosscuts
as he talked to some older girls
so offhand
so precise and beautiful the light, strong
agility of a young
Fred Astaire
and he didn’t even know

i thought
i’ll never be able to do that
i was never good on skates
and now with these new
old knees of mine
doubtful
but I can become
more
graceful,
can’t I?

And i remember that house at 10th and Prow
little shady side street in Bloomington
i was a senior in college
David lived down on the corner of the next street
in that rooming house but
I had a little place of my own
a little two story house carved into
4 apartments
now i know, i understand
that it was the first time i lived alone
god i loved it
at the time, in retrospect,
now i know why
it was what my life was going to be
so far, at least
living alone
typing up that long paper on BIlly Wilder
taking 22 hours and fucking aceing them, jack
David and I writing
doing those films (videos really)
listening to music. reading.
my 21st birthday was there, ah. that inglorious night
getting drunk at the Bluebird, ending up alone
eschewing those who loved me for the empty search for……them.
picking up a fat drunk blonde who drove a big white Lincoln Continental
trying to convince her to go home with me,
and then after that was done,
trying to convince her to walk.
It would have been the proper
thing to do. But she wouldn’t hear of it.
I remember her lurching to a stop, and abandoning the car at a rather non-traditional parking angle
somewhat on my street (and somewhat in a neighbor’s yard.)
I was drunk, shit. I guess the music was really really loud.
It was late. I was new to this.
I was still going out with Bev and the guilt and paranoia was racing round my young dumb thick drunk skull.
I guess the music was really loud.
There was a huge pounding on the door.

(I knew it was Bev, oh shit she came down to surprise me on my birthday and what am I doing? I’m trying to fuck this dumb blonde girl that I don’t really want to fuck…no, i do want to fuck her…but i love Bev, i do,  but, oh shit.)

There was more pounding on the door. Yelling.
The music, I noticed was really LOUD. It was The Tubes, probably.
The girl on the bed was naked drunk, writhing in her own drunken symphony.
Head pounding I lurched to the door and swung it open.
WHAT?

It was Brett, the upstairs neighbor, a beautiful actress girl from Canada.
Short, marvelous breasts, dark hair streaked with auburn.
I loved her. I adored her.
I felt she was so out of my range.

“Can you turn the music down?”

She seemed very upset.
Why?
Oh.
Was it the nudity? The drunkeness? The sight of the girl on the bed, the music?

I remember shame. Brett, Bev. Shit.

I wonder what happened next?

Oh yeah.

The rest of my life.

So, then:

Kid,
dance your little move.
Be joyfully unaware
and just be
great.

11/7/1997

 

 

 

TRIPOD.

there you were
in the middle of College
just after a rain
little three-legged scruffy dog
terrier-looking
lost, confused, stopping
traffic
dragging your little raggedy three-legged
ass through the street
and my heart pangs for you
so small, so alone
like all of us
we’re all dying
and feeling sad and lonely for the world
i loved you and i stopped my car
in front of the studio and ran in
and all we had were baked corn chips
and a styrofoam cup of water and
i come back and you’re sitting in your odd
cockeyed little way right in front of my glass door
and you look right at me then
you take off down the street
and other people were moved by you, too
an old couple in a big old dark luxury car stopped
and the hipster kid from the other coffee place on
his bike following you too
but you go in a backyard away from us
so i go
leave the stuff in front of the studio in case you
come back
and i drive to the store
but then i look down the sidestreet and
there you are right in the middle of the damn road
just sitting there, angled, wondering, tired
and i sigh in love and i quick drive to the store
and get my cat food and my fresh scent bleach and i’m hurrying and of course i get dog biscuits – small
dog biscuits
and I’m naming you and cleaning out the garage in my mind and putting in one of those little flap doors and wondering how the raccoons will stay out
and i drive back to the neighborhood
down, one side street
i knew it would be fate if i found you
and i find you. i see you hopping down the
east sidewalk of college, heading south,
purposefully bouncing along
and i park crazy at the intersection by the garden shop and i grab some biscuits
and i run behind you
fast, silent, not wanting you to feel chased
and when i get behind you i stop and say softly
puppy….
and you turn and immediately sit down
on your no-leg
and look at me
why?
you’re raggedy and your coat is bad
and so wet and i can’t believe i didn’t look for a tag but i didn’t see one
and i toss on my haunches a biscuit toward you
and you sniff it, and your tongue comes outs and you lick your dog lips
but don’t eat so i break one up and throw the crumbles to your feet
paws, and you sniff but don’t eat
and i’m thinking
trio, 3-piece
tripod
and you’re so cute and your eyes are scared but made up
and you look at me once more
and take off-kilter down the sidewalk
hopefully
home

8.26.97

 

 

 

THE LAST DAY.

yes, you’ve had some heavy slings
and arrows thrown at you
we could have despots and tyrants
intolerant militiapeople
but no we had you
i feel mock-Whitman to your lesser-Lincoln
goddam, you have some balls
and tonight their busting them again
doing your
PBS/Nightline wrap-up and
you’ve got one day left

I always knew, even on the night
i watched you dance, the first guy who I
ever voted for for president who won, and
I knew, I knew back then I would
look back to these days in wonder
these have been good days
you’re my old man’s FDR to me, glad you
didn’t get the motorcade
treatment

i went to see you, i watched you speak
in the big cold fairground bldg.
for our plain speaking black lady
congressperson
you looked a little hungover
yesterday you had been in the fucking
middle-east negotiating with those crazy
fucked-up people who apparently will
hate each other until
they, we
are all dead, but still you
cranked it out man, still there was
that light in your eyes, that light
you don’t see too often
certainly not much in politicians
but in people in general it’s
rare

and you know what? if you fake it
that good, it ain’t just acting -
it’s art, it’s true
)
like the guy who begs everyday
at the big swooping exit ramp of 86th and Keystone
same sign
same hungry kids
same spot
at that point it’s real, his job
is to be the guy at the corner
(it’s a jungle, those at the margins are
thus built into the equation)
)

no, you assumed a tremendous responsiblity for us
you knew you were smart enough and
strong enough and later when
it’s history, it’s grandiose but when it’s happening it’s
shit, it’s the intestines right there open
on TV last night
it’s messy and deadly
and here you are
still standing
on the last day

and you know what?
we’re still here, too.
they were good days

and now we got this Texas lunkhead
coming in, that same old
Big Ol’ Texas agenda, you know
sometimes great movies
don’t do too good at the box office
and total shit rules the
day, so this is the
last day and you were
smart and strong enough and
you got balls way bigger than
the size of anything
Texas.

1/16/2001

 

 

 

YOU FUCKERS, #2.

at the club
three little four-year olds
all dressed up for a wedding reception
in their big people clothes
two pretty girls and a boy
clustered around, pulling
and tugging on the shiny bright
cigarette machine
seeing themselves in the
pretty mirrors all dressed up
frenzy of activity
pulling and yelling
the one pretty little red head girl
gutterally, loudly
“WE…GOT….TO….GET…US…..SOME….
CIGARETTES!!!!”

 3/23/1998

 

 

 

FUCKED-UP

so a census worker
bled to death after being
attacked by a group of dogs
trying to get some info
from this fucked-up little cabin
in Brown County
with all those No Trespassing
and Beware Of Dog signs
tacked-up on fucked-up trees
she was 71 years old for chrissakes
i can’t imagine her
challenging a pack of turf-protecting
dogs too much
hope they lock the bastard up who
kept all those dogs
in that fucked-up condition
in that fucked-up cabin
in this fucked-up state where
somebody died over the
goddam
fucked-up
census

 6/12/2000

 

 

 

OHIO POEM, #2.

he lived in a
broken shack with a
satellite dish the
burned bare trees
and the billowing white steam from the
generating station
his constant companion
and the refinery down the way shot it’s
black smoke up to
heaven

8/6/1998

 

 

 

YOU WERE OUT RUNNING.

the sweat shining on your shoulder, your
lovely raven senorita hair is getting longer,  it’s
pulled back and you
have on big silver hoop earrings, and
you look fabulous, timeless
you’ve been running, and
you smell sweet
earthy
a garden, and
there is this light
a glow
the halo
of your soul
that pulls me in, and
I am once again taken
in by your limitless eyes
and grace.

9/1/2000

 

 

 

KING SID

and so it’s farewell,
King Sid,
no more perched in your tower
surveying the whole store
with a gaze both
caring grocer
and weary police detective
all the money in
the world couldn’t get you
out of this one
those damn hearts, right?
always breaking
in one way
or another

I saw you most every day,
King Sid,
and did I know you
or you me?
god knows what to make of me
I hope you grew to
at least acknowledge my
tenacity
it wasn’t any 36 years
but I was still around
and now you might know
I learned things from you.

9/6/2000

 

 

 

THE LAST MINUTE

the freefall plunge in darkness
did the engine just go?
did you feel bad for the girls?
but they made their own choices
kind of
(uncontrollable screaming)
did you feel like the world’s sexiest
fuck-up
as you saw all the good years
that could have been
flying up and past you?
did you keep your eyes open
to experience every last moment
of the privilege of
consciousness?

7/19/1999

 

 

 

THE WORST SIN.

Karl, goddammit
i am so sorry i didn’t say hi to you
i barely know you
but enough
you looked a stick figure a kid
would make in class out of that wire
covered in soft stuff,
only wearing clothes
and you walked like that
stiff, arms out for balance
slowly making your way to
get a paper out of the box
and i walked by you into the
coffeeshop
and i think you looked at me as I passed
and i should have said hi but
i fucked up
i was scared
you should not ignore the dying
that’s what you looked like
that it the worst sin
my fear beat me
you organized that first french market
at that cool spanish-looking catholic church
and we played it
and my sis was still in town it was a
beautiful fall glorious day and she had a little table
with my mom and they sold her jewelry
and you had that booth in the antique mall
downtown – we talked a few times
and i think i blew off the market the next year
and always felt bad about that
and now i missed you
i hope i see you again

10/18/1999

 

 

 

AUNT RUTH.

my Aunt Ruth almost made 100.
She died yesterday at 99.
99, damn.
born 1900
the last thanksgiving i made a point
to have a chat with her
after dinner, it’s sort of
hard, awkward, you see these people
once a year and I’m a damned alienated
sort anyway, shy in small groups,
but I’m trying to open up my heart to
family and love and be
brave so I talked long with my aunt ruth
sittin’ round the table, you know
up to like 96 or
so she was happening
but then it started to fade
cancer and things
but 6 months ago she was up
and about
and at dinner and
she told me of 1917, in school
in Colorado (damn, the year of the Russian
Revolution, I see those herky black and white
newsreels and touch her warm, wrinkled hand -
she’s here!) and
she went back there to Colorado Springs and told
me everything about this big dance
she was going to
and the dress that Mary Ellen White (she
emphasized the last name) White wore who
was trying to steal George away, George who would later
be her husband (the sire of most of this
big brooding brood here) but he didn’t like
her, he liked me (she emphasized “me”) me and
i thought of how some more soulful cultures
revere the old, the near death, for their seemingly
growing connection, bond, gateway to
the spirit world, the ephemeral dissolve back
into the void, the voices calling
and when she was done and we (the old
man wanting to go, me and mom wanted to stay)
had to go, she didn’t really know who
i was,
(who really does, anyway?)
and that was a little sad, but ok
because we
had our talk
(and we went back there together)
anyway.

3/10/1999

 

 

 

YES, TO THE SOUL QUESTION.

Mia just came and got me
i was sitting here writing
and she looked
at me with those beautiful pale blue eyes
and spoke
a single word that said
follow
so i did, her leading
i said where are you taking me?,  laughing
where are you taking me?
But I knew.
She knew.
As I passed the bookcase
I opened that thin drawer
filled with all kind of things from various
times
and women
and I grabbed her brush
and she walked through the kitchen
and into the sunroom
and she looked back at me
and then she was on the table
she loves the sun
and it carressed her body and
she stretched in heaven as
I brushed her.

11/8/1997

 

 

 

UNDERNEATH.

everytime i play with the cat
underneath the basement stairs
i think of gena
watch this, she said
probably doing laundry
(probably mine)\ – even though i didn’t want her
to do it – my laundry -
watch
standing underneath the open stairs
Mia would stand on the top step
and stick her little front legs and paws
down, batting, playing
and you stand below and you stick your hand up
first on one side of the step, then the other
batting at her paws, grabbing her
and she goes back and forth
front of the stair to back of the stair
like tennis

and so here i am doing my own
laundry
and the cat wants to play
and you know earlier
I’d been thinking about Gen
and I said her name out loud to Mia
Where’s Gena?
and she perks up and looks at me
quizzical
i swear she does i know her
after all these years
and I say “missy miss, missy miss” in a high voice
with the intonation Gen would use
and the cat looks around and looks back at me
she remembers
i remember
i did love you, honey
(i’d come home late and watch you sleep asleep on the couch)
i still look at pictures and my heart swoons
but here i sit
aging, lonely playboy never-rockstar
who
can’t commit
to a
shopping
cart/.
(

1/16/1999

 

 

 

IN OFFERING.

i realize now
she was -  in a sense  – in
a yoga posture, bent
over in front of me,
grasping her ankles and
in offering herself to me, she
wasn’t just offering herself to me, she was
stretching and releasing
her back, and her hamstrings
and using me
to connect her (our?)
voluminously heavenly circuitry
back into the universe

9/22/2000

 

 

 

SAME OLD DREAM.

crawling up a hill
the side of a house,
grass, on a cliff
sheer drop-off on the right
way far down, scary
house on the left
brick, sturdy
crawled up next to the house
moist dirt, edging
up aside some concrete stairs
and you came out of the house
in the winter coat with a fake-fur lined hood
looking so cute and
you pulled back the hood
and you smiled that sunbeam/heaven smile and
held out your hand to
help
me
up.

6/24/1999