italian

"ma che cazzo"

and that tree on the back patio?

Just call it “fica’s benjamina.”

noiseless food

the mannerless goo

nameless mismatch

and goatee-less moustache

tried forever

to fried food neverland

and begged

the ring

to let go of your hand

it speaks to me

of where

and special places

traces of love

and the faded photographs

of 45’s smallish talking

barely singing

hardly breathing

o don’t believe

what you can’t see?

Think again that it’s

All about what you witness

As your own experience

What if what you exert exacts

Its vengeance in allowing

You to believe you hold the reins?

Rights for the providence

And ceremony

What if we can grant nothing

And our tolerance is conceit

Disguised as lust? My metronomic heart

Speeds hastily toward a coda-fied conclusion.

© jim hill 12-04-10

the season

down

'til the child's

book

took me by

ked-straps. i was,

and for all times,

apologetic but

not regretful.

fearing and

loitering

resting on laurels

on shushes

and don'ts:

a bather

with fewer

options than

a dry martini.

(c)jim hill 11-19-10

guitar variations no. 1

i became,
for a time,
acquainted
with the absolute
but in that,
the blues were
ruined forever:
the ugliness
of pleading
with imperfect
string strangling.

(c)jim hill 07-03-01

sugar ray

you don't agree

with the wind i decide.

i find you in the closet

in the spring

when the devil storms

blow through

leaving dust a quarter inch

thick on the sills and tumble-

weeds pinned under our cars.

i think i caught you crying to

match the howling yowping. i wasn't

scared so much

as unnerved by your fears. i felt that

same sense of creepiness

when you introduced me to

bathing in the dark

and insisted you tag along.

i discover only now (or think i do)

your ploy for boys.

when i write your

history/epitaph i'll call you "moped"

as you had no penchant for manlier machines

and i see you riding side-saddle through

those gates to houses

inside those mansions - rejoicing

(only) at the lack of wind

but small piles of (angelic) dust.

(c) jim hill (08-01-10)

untitled (giacometti)

you said

living with me

was like having

a giacometti sculpture

in your back pocket. that's hardly

a compliment

for an accomplice. am i that prickly

and artsy that you would have

me limned as a linear

exertion?

i don't need to go over

and over, revisiting the lines

of you as i inscribe your face in my mind.

it is a sad one, your face. i hate to think

that i've made it that way, but so be it. you'd

rather hear it from a stranger - that color

is incidental and washy - not something

defining your world; not really even enhancing

what has, for you, been determined to be

so black and white that there's no room

for the grisaille.

(c) jim hill (07-10-10)

untitled (today anyway)

it's different than

the way you told it

i'm fine with that

what time did you say

we were finished?

is it that your eyes

can't wash away

what you imagine?

is there no reconciling

vision with what i know

to be real?

i look out on a

lake

and see the darkness

underneath

whole towns

and villages

swept under

a wave of progress; you

insist on seeing the reflection

of the clouds. who gets the most

out of the truth? is it the surface

that tells us the most of what

we want to see? if you learn

the answer leave a message.

(c) jim hill (07-10-10)

nobody pacific

screen door leaks

(obviously). it's a yellow

submarine afterall,

that (apparently) we all live in.

it's more ark than originally designed,

but the rain won't/can't let up. el nino

and his foster dad, Al, will it.

if what i've said

is a wealth

of something you'd consider

relevant -

if from a more credible source -

would you say, "i'm sorry,"

then fight hard for its pop-significance?

we'd paired off - back then -

then pared off what was left

when all species' subdivisions

were placed on the grid.

we took what was left -

no greed, just need -

after history had been

re-traced

then re-written

back

to front.

(c) jim hill (5-27-10)