Alan King

Just Chilling, B

The hours are large bills
spilling from a fat wallet.
No work today and

the lady’s away.
Idleness winks at Silence.
You guys on a porch

somewhere, playing
dominoes or cards.
Idleness puts an arm over

your shoulder like,
Whatchall tryna’ do?
Even a tree seems to shrug

at the wobbly question
formed by the cardinals
perched in its branches.

Time burns a hole
in your pockets.
Possibility rolls up

in a late model ride.
Top down, stereo blasting.
Sun smiles in the metal

and slides its light, the way
a young man runs his hand
along the curves,

admiring the candy paint.
Yo, he yells. You three shrug
when asked, What’s good!
​

---

Near-Music

                                          
When people love, they bathe with sweet-smelling soap, splash
their bodies / with perfume or cologne, / Shave, and comb their hair,
and put on gleaming silken garments, /…After loving they’re relaxed
and happy and friends with all the world.
​—Dudley Randall, “A Poet Is Not a Jukebox”

When you wake me at 4 a.m.,
the late poet laughs somewhere.
The morning warps like a smile

and I’m blessed for the day’s
near misses: the ticket an officer
won’t write, a dog that won’t attempt

to bite. Both too busy trying
to place the name for what circles
my head the way canaries and

blue jays circle the crowns
of trees blown toward one another
when the wind mistakes itself

​for match-maker. Those mornings,
when you wake me, earth and her pals
dot a music staff around the sun,

and dawn is the light
emitted from what young stars
attempt to sing.
​

---

Vacant 

after Tony Medina

Lying in his
hospital bed,
my uncle is
something
condemned
and roped off.
His mouth
sags
like a warped
porch. His
eyebrows
are shutters
long overdue
for repairs.
His unshaved
stubble--
mildew collecting
on façade.
Cancer squats
in the basement
of him.
Chemo
runs up
the stairs
inside.
Something
yellow
loosens
the plywood
from his eyes
to peek out
the windows.
 




--
Alan King is a poet and journalist, living in the DC metropolitan area. His poems have appeared in Indiana Review, MiPoesias and RATTLE, among others. He’s also the senior program director for DC Creative Writing Workshop, a Cave Canem fellow, VONA Alum, and MFA candidate at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program. He’s been nominated for both a Best of the Net selection and Pushcart Prize. His first collection of poems, Drift, will be published in 2012 by Willow Books. Find out more about King on his blog at http://alanwking.wordpress.com.