So Wrong

why we were so wrong,
were we
do we go that way
since the game of true undying love
is so real
the radio not on
the mirror dark
and face not so pretty
as before

Corona Del Mar
the exotic trees
         a wrong turn
backup
leave me
and so wrong

i come through an aisle
of idle people with cameras,
cases for traveling salesmen
everywhere
a candy bar i didn't eat
on the plane
so sad
and so wrong
were we

hiding underneath a pile
of papers
unopened manuscript
a life we made for our make-believe
lovers to live with
returning to where we are
supposed to be
look at me
wrong for the way i
enjoy "how"

the clock looks like
too many times
i said is this the time we.

i feel a string of numbered lines
that add so many odd
to even
you are another numbered combination
of them, the dog who
chased the cat away

and one passenger on the plane
said "i have a dog and three
cats" and they are okay they are
just okay to feed them and leave
them out
tney start to bark or whine
and it gets sticky
and you take them with you
everywhere you go
have to feed them and leave
them out
it gets sticky when you leave them
go without getting them groomed
somehow that is just how silly it gets

you spit at being a burden
get tired too often
just lay around and sulk

you, young lover, said
"I enjoy 'how', but now it's
like "i don't want to play anymore, Samie"
or you don't
you never
you have ascertained winning prizes
that Whitman couldn't win even if
he tried to
by changing his name and wanting
like hell to be alive again
the knapsack i left in New Your
is gone
and the poetic vagabond died years
ago. She is the ghost of
Hermann Hesse and a boy in Perth Amboy, NJ
who loved the Amboy Dukes and Steppenwolf
for what it was
i left you in the middle of
the room
remembering you
i would rather walk alone now
get back
to being free
see the horizon with the memory
of you
staring, a prized dog

will you please
suggest the kind of lie
you like to eat sometime
this "train" or something
that rides you out to the ocean
or the kind that sends you
to Cleveland in the Post, maybe
hoping to meet an important
friend at 8:45 AM in the dewy morning
and soon as you step off
the plane
act excited and say, "I can't
wait to see you,
old friend"
the whole time
the "train" is running a black
cloud of white dust above,
i said
"see you . . . "I'll be leaving
tomorrow"

look at how many old dogs
don't die they just roll over
who will buy me lovely flowers
how exciting it could be
how pretty
if I knew you'd have been a good
kid and forgive

i'll miss you, ole' boy