[Tenement Life] a tanka string

i know nothing about flowers 

or snowy mountains ...

let me peer into a human's darkness

a cool morning 

when i leave the job-site

"we miss you Sandy. we miss your turns of phrase"

passing an overturned park bench 

bits of litter...

this tenement life is something else 

was told that love is the ripening of peaches...

climbing into a cool bed

nothing but the whiteness of a dream

mid-Fall moon sugary white 

i too want to glow with 

an unearthly inner light

passing the bus stop 

tonight a homeless woman adjusts 

and re-adjusts her shopping cart 

trading emails with that Norwich woman 

what do we do with these 

broken lives we've been given

the 'somethingness' of this life 

how quickly i pour minutiae

into oblong shaped tanka 

standing on the balcony 

wrapped up in a thin robe 

smoking a cheap Black & Mild

Samantha Sang crooning about emotions 

the Bee Gees accompany 

my cup of tepid coffee

no man to wake up next too...

brief text message 

from my ex-lover greets me 

on the kitchen counter 

a half burned incense stick 

Sunday-what shall i do today 

a coming election...

i tell no one how my Brown skin 

trembles violently behind closed doors