Stuart Krimko

The Man In The Moon

with his collapsible Floridian eccentricities, 
his travails in the shape of old cheese,
his growling acquiescence to the cycles
his mother has bequeathed him,
his bloodlessness in the face of exaltation
(just when you thought he would give in
to the fascinations of power, he putters
around his brooding townhouse like a
sullen implement),

his deep commitment to figuration,
his entirely unreasonable way of
speaking to the sun, his father, his mirror,
even, one could argue, his memory–– 
sometimes I just want to tell him
to snap the fuck out of it, his faith in
me be damned.

But then I begin to countenance his sorrow,
I sing him the lullabies he used to sing me 
when the two of us were younger and his 
youth was what made all the poets
twinkle in a bereaved firmament
like momentary arcs of fire and prejudice,
I soften his self-inflicted blows,
I bleed him into his balsamic vegetation 
like a medieval doctor with a cure
for Black Death.

Big Brother

I like the empty rooms
where nobody lives but clothes
lie scattered about anyway.
I like the simple freshness
of a place where nobody is,
where no shadow troubles
the corners and no scent
of cooking or emanations
intrudes upon the purity therein.
In an empty room
the window is the brightest feature,
the father of the view and a world
outside outdoes the one within.
When a room is empty
you don't want to live in it, you want
it to live in you, for its peace and 
behavior, its beauty as the thing itself, 
silver metaphorical lakeboat.
What little in empty rooms
makes one sad––a window cracked
open, the whisper of a mouse,
their having recently been cleaned–– 
protects one from wanting them
too badly, from tearing oneself open
to implant a room too big for a soul
long closed for business.
An empty room unto itself
should be shuttered and dark, unviewed 
and unviewable.