Batterman Photography » Uncategorized

Gang Slide

blackhermes — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:46:07 +0000

torn plastic

black markers and sinful hacking

the crossing of names

a spiteful tune in blue metal

kids look on, quiet

fingers in mouths

Eldo

blackhermes — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 03:18:23 +0000

loss leaves a hole,

smells of old thoughts dying

tunnels under railroads, a brash hand thrown to the sky

eating minutes seconds hours

there are too many pocketknives in the drawers

too many notes, manuscripts and paintings

for you to leave so quickly

and yet so late

Run Through

blackhermes — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 05:11:24 +0000

faceless, a doctor leans into a light

sniffing for pungency

curling his finger around the

scalpels he calls home

Bar

blackhermes — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 03:51:19 +0000

in a bar in a little southern town

there’s a ruddy-faced man

knocking back bourbon and laughs

obscene santa, whitehaired

a man who likes to say things like

“take a lickin”

“sho nuff”

who hangs on the creaky doors of old trucks

watching bird dogs shit in tall grass

who scrapes the mud

from his boots on the front threshold

who has a million things left unsaid

between him and his children

because he was never taught to talk

his children have biblical names

wear a lot of khaki and knit shirts

and have faces thick with sunburns

he can remember the Bay of Pigs

Nixon resigns

man on the moon

Ford falling down the stairs

Reagan, descending from the Mount of Olives

his fat fingers clutch at icy drops

running down his glass

and nobody listens to anything he says

5:30

blackhermes — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 04:35:05 +0000

feeling like a rough pearlstone

grey and unwashed

a morning when you’re afraid

all the little tributaries of thought

will swell and burst from your head

and it’ll leave this awful mess

and your friends will be left picking up your thoughts

Relativity

blackhermes — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 04:50:30 +0000

you are living in Boston in 1939 watching lights bright sparkling crackling air hard tires on old cobblestones or walking a block in Philadelphia, 1968 pulling winter around your shoulders and shuffling in a white drift or maybe you are an addled old man in Detroit, 1953 warm under a crochet blanket with useless smooth pale legs or running down the street in Bedford Stuyvesant in ’77 during the blackout shirtless howling fury sweat and the crash of destitution and rage you are trapped in the idea of time as it runs away with you

(image courtesy of Google Images)

After The Settled Score

blackhermes — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 19:58:22 +0000

I laugh and the curve bends towards the tunnel
with the sudden bright lights
the interior of the car flooded with superhuman yelloworange

when is all this going to stop?
trees, embankments, buildings
guardrails, cars, skinny housewives,
bankers, rocks, mountains,
lakes and rivers

one day it will all quit moving
our little ball in space will stand still
and we will float off in graceful movements
to eat strawberries on the hills of the moon

but that would be all too good for humanity
we deserve much less
withering away our hours in doorways
and elevators
doctors offices
waiting at the DMV
buying toothpaste at all night pharmacies

we probably deserve to sit on top of trash hills
and drink motor oil

exit the freeway and turn in front of the hotel
with thirty dollar rooms past the strip club
and the Hardees

the car is dark
silent bridges swallow like caves
and the bus stop proclaims
glamour
and
hope

A Walk to the Post Office, June 1st

admin — Sun, 23 May 2010 13:26:42 +0000

A long worm crawls from a hole

deep in sodden ground

the air passes overhead

grass strains for sky

heat, uncomparable heat

beating like wings, engulfed in flames

sidewalk sizzling

footsteps plod towards shade

biting, coarse exhaust

tapping cylinders in the rhythm of stoplights

tight faces behind green glass

staring at cellphones, twitching their lips

in anticipation of movement