Shaman

In the upper reaches,
a dark and brooding face
of unspoiled nature
in silhouette, looking askance
looking a far, not directly at me.

I study without trepidation,
whatever it is,
whatever it's gender,
whatever its origin,
high in the branches.

In bending forest branches
from my second floor, I see.
My midnight soul of window.
My ravaged, salvaged inner sanctum
The face in me...one tribe, one intonation.

The Court of Crow tried to demolish this realm.
My ancestral spirits warred against their filmy mouths
Their shed skins we defeated in stealth and open combat.
I did, I did --- I survived the Inquisition
Bagpipe against imperial cannons.

Hard Times in The Bronx Zoo (draft)

When the air is stale
and mole ridden,
when humidity pools
and mosquitoes fester
and there's not enough frogs
to eat their larvae,
you wish you had been born a snake.

When the frost is delayed
in fair Newfoundland,
you'd tear down Gotham City
for a taste of a freezing.
You'd say to the Snow Queen;
Thou full of grace, take me
I am your cuddly shaggy.

Pelt me with ice cubes.
Stab me with icicles.
Certainly, homo erectus are devils,
for hell they have laid and hell shall they pay
But in the meanwhile, ain't there a heaven
for us polar bears in Bronx Zoo captivity,
summer to winter, year after year?




I wretched and polar
in Bronx Zoo captivity

Strummer

Last night late, I saw him on the far end of the strand.
The bars are smaller and the patrons less affluent there.
The musicians strain to play to washed out crowds,
if that;s what you call a rowdy handful.

Where my across the street neighbor serenades on weekends,
with his 3 piece combo singing lyrics ,
"My father's name was John, a running, strumming man..."
Words across the memory lane nostalgia.

A pathos performance to its equal in people,
too steep in their drinks to hear the man fading,
except me and the homeless bastard
parked on a boardwalk bench listening.

At the end of the jam, says Son of John
to the six barely attendant,
"How you all doing?" Feeble response,
he signs off; "See you, tomorrow."

Tomorrow and tomorrow,
till the season is emptied.
Labor Day gone,
October nearing.

I'll see him again in the morning
as he steps from his across-the-street-house
in topless pajamas, to sniff the air,
his eyes a quarter to 11 squinting .

A barrel for a belly,
middle age old and bald,
he'll stretch and yawn,
and reach for his crotch...

To scratch as he usually does
in that half -way there style
of how he strums his guitar
at The Fisherman's Angle, on weekends.

Color Book

Find your voice,
your bloody DNA distinction!
Damn the devil and all defeatists.
Don't be timid to experiment.

You got wash to take to the laundry.
You got angst to arm wrestle.
You got myths to fabricate.

Don't shy to open your psychic gate.
Shout out, I come, you all
Let no idle talk of heaven
tone down your canvas.

Let no fear of hell,
dampen daring
Virtue is power

To Hiller The Message

Don't even consider it!
Go back to the crypt where you came from.
A love affair burnt at both ends
is like fossilized sperm or ashes to ashes,
blown to distant Tibet.

The idea to revive what we had going,
as Daffy Duck you suggested in unwelcome e mail,
is like a seismic run fissure in the back of a church
which uncovers cadavers forgotten and buried.

Hey, Bill, give it a rest...

Hour Glass Beaches

You complain, I sleep much too much.
What's it to you, bird brain!
You pay my expenses?
Time you find yourself another place to lounge
Walk or I'll throw you out this five story window.
Don't think I can't. Don't entertain the thought,
that she wouldn't.

Count Dracula snoozed during the day as do I,
so at night, he would be energized
to put on his tuxedo and bat wing cape,
and get creative with the fools he romanced
with roses and Bela Lugosi accent.
Mapovia is no blood sucker as was the Count.
The Lady, simply, has special needs herself.

Eighteen hours of sleep as opposed to 8
When sundown turns off loud engines metropolis,
I strip to the waist to do the fandango
and squeeze tubes of paint,
till dawn advises, put away brushes and canvas.
Draw close the drapes. Day is for dreaming,
night is for thinking. Blessed are the pure of heart.

A Rearranged Couple

In the southwest quadrant of the village,
resides a pair as quaint as if they were Smithsonian figures.
His father was an Pentecostal preacher.
Her mother was a chronic gambler.
The pair both hail from Brooklyn, as did their parents,
not far from Coney Island.
In junior year, the two dropped out of high school
after he pregnatized her.

The guy's uncle got him a job on a used car lot.
She was deeply distressed for most of the pregnancy.
The poor thing went bipolar
around the time they moved to the Carolinas
That very same year, she gave birth to twins.
A boy for him,who he named Harvey.
A girl for her,
she named Lorena.

Lorena, so named, in honor of Mrs. Bobbitt,
the Colombian who went bananas on her husband's penis,
who flung the severed appendage out the driver's window.
Do you remember?
It's an American classic,
like Marilyn Monroe,
like Charlie Manson,
like Lee Harvey Oswald.

Let's give our characters fictional names, shall we?
The used car salesman, we'll call Potato Head
because he rides a Harley that goes "potato-potato-potato."
His bipolar wife, we'll rename, Coney
because Coney Island used to be an amusement park.
Potato and Coney, and the terrible twins live by the sea,
where gulls squawk brash over juicy morsels.

The family of four increased by one last week
when Dad moved in another woman.
That other woman now rides the rear seat chariot
as haughty as an Amazon warrior princess going to battle.
Have the threesome converted to Mormon?
'cause polygamy is still very Utah to us in these parts,
but give us a chance, for change begets change,
and change is hard core reality, like it or lump it!

The arrangement of three might yet morph
into Utopian communes of tens, of hundreds
perhaps even thousands, trans gender included,
like the tribal sub nations which once were our Indians.
The great experiment which is our United States.
The unalienable American right to life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness, no matter to others,
it seem a tad queer.

Studies In Doors

swinging doors, cowboy saloons
revolving doors in office buildings
stage doors, peep-hole moments
that race the heartbeat,
that lump the throat

hidden panel
leading to cellar
to scientist and Igor assistant,
the hideous creature,
in the midst of assembling

sounds creepy
if you can not discern
if it's rat or roach
or thief
in the kitchen?

a phantom in the closet,
you say?
Stan, is that you?
...you say
if no, who in hell let you in?

The Artist Who Painted Trains

If you admit to being crazy,
you've admitted to being stupid
Crazy is stupid to the extreme.

Because a painter speaks to a canvas
does not necessarily mean she's crazy
There's power in words. Words are a train

The artist who painted trains
saw light and dark, steam clearing
saw passengers boarding

Black hole was tunnel approaching
locomotive hugging the tracks
It might have been an accident

or she might have committed suicide

Same Ole, Same Ole

Every drop the ocean takes
every drop leaves drip or absorb

I'll poem you the old fashion way
paper and pencil and verses galore

The sun in my eyes, your breath on my neck
what matters where inspiration comes from

30 years for robbing a shoe store
30 years to rewrite the first chapter

My Coastal Village

The Postman walks his route faster than usual,
twice the speed of slow motion,
for we do not rush in our coastal remoteness.
Even the storms are not hurried much

The eye of lighthouse scans altogether unblinking.
Only the inexperienced get nervous when the sea's choppy.
The vane of this weather is the season of year.
The big ones have not yet blown in from Africa.

The gulls ignore the far away rumblings.
Magoo goes placid on his 2:30 spin.
He trusts in dry leaving, in dryness returning.
The Postman is different, he's on a mission.

Wet correspondence is characteristically non postal.
Hope the rain holds up a bit.
The Postman's expression is one of peace,
of a guy who knows where he is and has been.

Aside from the postal van of right-handed wheel,
we hardly see vehicles in our coastal remoteness.
Still, there's a hare who darts through yards,
and looks to the left and right, before crossing streets.

Mid Life Crisis

The girl who I married
would not think me crazy,
if the verses I write
were buying her dresses.

She'd have me chained to the bedpost,
a slave of small print. Truncheon in hand, she'd rant ---
I'm waiting, write faster, you fag.
Where's the anthology you promised last year?"

Only poets appreciate what poets suffer
in gathering butterfly bouquets to present to our Goddess,
who through the ages gazes cold and cycloptic,
who pushes her faithful to drive off of bridges.

Chapter Book

He's not a bad kid
but could easily be turned monstrous
pins and needles stuck in limbs full of veins and piss
a life of jailhouse beatings and graduated rape
his heart could easily be massacre bent

For now, he has a kid's heart towards his mother
loving and loyal, still kind to the uterus
He has a lot to learn about lipstick and lies
that his mother's has eyes only for lovers
(if that's what you call them that pokes you)

Three suitors in the year in progress...
damn going on August, already...
In the sweltering bayou, three bastards of different size
who would rather have you sent to Mongolia
than be one of three surrogate fathers

Studies In Touch

Unity expresses form
Separation defines the limits

No idea is complete in itself
Two in opposition will overlap and selectively rub
and generate the heat of friction

The Song that Tina Sang

Thirty-nine steps up the winding stairwell
39 steps in the sham marriage I entered

in which I forsook
one who truly loved me.

To marry, instead, an octogenarian ---
if that's what you call a guy way over 80

who insists I breast feed him, periodically
in the hope it will restore his vigor.

Call me a whore
Call me a gold digger

What is more accurate?
A girl has to think of her future.

Seymour and Me

My brother-in-law takes me aside
to show me something he's hiding from Aretha my sister

He pulls a high shelf, a dusty box ---
in it, a handwritten manuscript,

a manuscript as big as a family Bible,
I'd say.

Seymour, says he has become a writer,
Unbeknown to Aretha, he's writing in secret, late at night

Wow, what a coincidence.
I'm doing the same. Carl has no idea..

I can't to see what's in the box,
and boy am I surprised!

No War and Peace, No Moby Dick
No Hundred Years of Solitude

His project is more expansive than any of the above
What Seymour is writing ---

or to say it more precisely--- what Seymour is copying by hand
is the King James Version of the Bible, Genesis to Revelation.

Wow, what a coincidence
I'm copying by hand the entire works of William Shakespeare.

Reactions to Actions

Pushes, surges and drives
generate a certain degree of regression.
It's post inertia lag and drag,
It happens to conquering armies.

Every advance creates reversal.

In social terms, it works like this:
The colonists swallow the colonized.
Eventually, the colonists get swallowed by the colonized.
Progress swallows them both.

Bonnie and Clyde

Let's return to childhood, one last time.
Yes, we've been messed with,
but not defeated in our defiance.
Let's get back to where we were at age 11.

We're just two teenagers,
a night on the town, a car that is hot.
guns that are smoking, youth that is kicking.
Our hormones runneth over

Let's rob a bank, you and me.
Hands up, this one's for practice.
Nobody move, nobody gets hurt,
dozen always turn out like you figure.

Players Excite

After a week of extraordinary profit taking,
I feel as if I've tamed a bronco,
that the snake which had me in its coils
is now a calamari sandwich. Eat slowly.
Ideally, each fork to the mouth
should be chewed 32 times.
Advice well suited to the ingestion of financial schemes.

After holding my breath for more than a fortnight,
release the tension, but slowly. Stay sober.
To your acquaintances, even look somber
The Market giveth. The Market taketh.
As it rises, so also it nose dives.
Stand steady.
Wait for the fresh scent of kill

Be like the swordsmen of old,
ready to strike
ready to fall.
Advice apropos to Psalm 46,
verse 10.

Queen of Hearts

Her Majesty is very un-regal.
She thinks etiquette is a Danish.
She can dismember drumsticks
faster than jackals could strip them.

Her Gracious Sovereign burbs when she wishes,
farts where she pleases, signs proclamations from the commode.
Her Queenship resembles more and more
a barge almost sinking.

Her Aloofness has no neck to speak of.
When she walks, the ramparts tremble.
When she's angry, get out of sight.
When she's gay, best giggle as one.

Hush, she's barks another edict.
"Bring forth the Court Jester, the 4 foot vibrator."
Mother of Cards, last week, you had him impaled.
"Then, send me Maid Marion, she's always good for a laugh.

Going Out With A Blast

The number 3 plays off in pairs
in words, door and floor
3 letters in common
3 that are different

I pace the floor for nearly an hour
then down the stairs to the parlor
where Him watches intently
episode of Crime Scene Investigation

I slip off the gold band from my wedding finger
and simultaneously release the coarser ring
set them quietly behind him like a cup of warm cocoa
Him not the least interested as to what I am fixing

I head for the front door
two letters of o; one an r
Him growls,"Where the F, you think you're going?"
Seconds to count, "House of Sticks go boom."

I Live With A Man

I live with a man
who saved me from whore
I live with a beast
who weekly reminds

I've had more men in me
than hermit crabs switch shells
I live with a man
who tests new found bounds

I know how to poison
I know how to knife
I think I'll not know
how to be a sweet wife

White Nights, Star Kisses

Somewhere, a star is pushed out the window.
Might be the latest of a long line of sofa auditions.

Somewhere, a star is gold plated, rolled from dirt poor into fame,
and subsequently rolled into the Wax Museum.

Acne face boy and brace-tooth almost virgin,
you'll be our new poster child.

Girlie, we'll make your waist as thin as a thimble.
Your beauty will be fluorescent like that of heavenly creature.

Boy, your face will be Adonis, full lip like Adam Lambert's.
Menstruations, as far as Japan, will be missed because of your dimples.

Frankly, who would not exchange their soul,
or swallow a rat by its tail for the chance of being a silver scream idol?

Frontier Landscapes

Eat once a day
Forget to eat is better

Be frugal in usage of water,
vigilant in daily speak

Be kind to everyone without exception
to the size of their wallets

Covet not others spouses
Covet not your own possessions

Be protector to the defenseless
Be a lunatic to other investors

Casablanca

You lay on your bed trying to get a poem in your head.
It just not happening.
Maybe you're trying too hard.
Poetry like healing is a matter of opportunity.

You lay on your bed,
wondering if you're at the far end of universe.
Maybe you are and don't fully understand it.
Awareness, like healing is a matter of opportunity.

It's gonna be a Saturday matinee at the movies,
that will run into the evening. Mother has made us a basket.
It will be vaudeville with cartoons and double features.
You don't care much for the vaudeville, ditto the rest.

What you find intriguing is "The March of Time,"
as was called back then, the newsreels. Fat ladies a dressed
busting bottles on ships. Soldiers a marching,
Al Capone a smiling in handcuffs;
and of course, the wonderful collisions of trains.

I Don't Get It

Because atheists insist
god is man made,
they refuse to accept
God is for real.

Would, then, our atheists poets
refuse to write poems
because poetry is also created by man ---
amongst other inventions, like candles and cake?

If indeed, men make gods out of pre created stuff,
is it not possible that God makes Men out of the same?
Of God, I am lover---herewith I confess,
and lovers adhere to the simple is easy
and abundantly clear.

Studies In Window

You get a feeling about windows
according to who's looking through them
Curtains drawn continuously,
something gloomy might reside inside

If the window be boarded,
suspect the worst
It's said of eyes,
that they are soul's apertures

I am a child at a window, again
I see seasons change, I see light turn to dark
Another child at the same window looks in at me
Mirrors are windows? Yea, and mouths are gates.

Mirrors are windows! Give me a break!!!
Ain't that stretching the pane somewhat?
Just now, I left the window blank.
Have no fear, I ain't coming back

Super Man

On a freight train bound to nowhere
plowing through kilometers of snow drifts
chugging strenuous but frugal
history gets shipped this morning
from the Babylonian captivity to Eastern Europe
love lost in Poland behind barbed wire.

Belching chimneys of uber alles
new fascists may deny
in Stalingrad steel jaws paid back
I suppose that never happened either,
that Hitler was but a scattered scarecrow,
his critics mostly annoying freaks.

Doest thou wonder that I'm a communist
card-carrying and battle ribboned?
Doest thou wonder how I do it?
My Jewess murdered in Budapest,
I leap to a drowning in the Danube,
on the Volga, I held back.

Studies In Closet

Thirty years elapsed before the similar circumstances would repeat.
Tim walked into the closet, sat down and stared out.
30 years before, the oak had yet reached the window in front.

30 years before, he rolled up a joint and smoked up the wardrobe.
30 years ago ---"ago?"--- that's a queer word. Is it a compound?
30 years later, Tim occupies the same body in almost the same effects.

Minus the wardrobe and the cannabis. of course. Closets are so utilitarian.
More so than kitchens where other issues evolve.
More than bedrooms. Oh, certainly more than those,thank God!

Philosophically speaking, closets are more like bathrooms
Places that lend themselves to pondering existence,
and internal examinations. There's hardly a better place to pray.

30 years ago, this closet moment would've been a dream come true.
All the beer I can drink, all the poetry I can write.
It's my closet, not yours. Find your own, if you please!

A boy in his tree house,
and me where I sit.
Closet and time and Timothy Xavier O'Lear.

Dragsters

We meet after dark in an industrial park
the emboldened have converted
into a makeshift race track
We meet in the dark.

You ride a Kawasaki blue lighting kamikaze
My chariot is Audi with a gear box, zero to 80
that zips like bullet in a barrage of boulders
We meet in the dark, as well we should.

We speed opposite to Hummers and tankers
between 16-wheelers, inches from curtains.
Where pedal meets metal, kid,you got balls,
but I have twin exhausts pipes that can't be matched.

And so we resolve the evening's romance,
a game from which neither will retire too young
nor would we wish to retire too bent out of shape.
You're only 16. I'm 27. You're just a babe on the highway of life.

Your camp name is "Where's Funny," you live a warehouse.
Question marks are written all over your sweater
My camp name is "Roadster," I live in a cellar
Next to the bed posts, I park chariot and umbrella.

Speaking of which, let me slip into something ice out of leotards too sticky,
of black leather straps and matching bra, and helmet tucked to the chin
The blinds are shut tight; daylight's for sleeping. Night time is our time
for smoking the circuit. We meet in the dark, always have, always shall.

Every Time

"Now" is a given
that too soon is taken and offered to others,
sometimes on whim.

Passion inspires all kinds of excuses
which make fish to swallow bait, hook, line and sinkers.
Now is an art form special to these.

Now is a palace of pleasure which decidedly crashes,
the instinct which flashes "you better get legs."
It's also the sentence carried out by an angel dressed as a nurse.

For cry-now-loud, seize the momentum if there's gain to be had.
Don't blow it, don't leave it, don't let it escape you.
Press it tight to your heart, don't let it stray far.

Sir, begging your pardon, Sir.
You're singing a swan song.
The fatal second just cut short the trombone.

4 Studies in Motion

1) It enters the world inquisitive
to coos and grunts, vocally limited
what free to be up a limb on a tree
never to zoo brought down

2) You look to me Country and Western
I was before I took to helicopters and fire engines
See how they chase
remote in hand

3) Make my day
show me what you can do digital
reverse and fast forward
reality in pixel is pixel in pixel

4) Mr. Magoo rode pass my house this a.m.
on a bicycle inches from the asphalt
I would've hurled at him a snowball
except we've relocate from Boise to Tucson

Unless Regret

As always you question
You question and ask

You are the door I've always sought
You are the mouth which never deceives

You are the eyes of light that does not dim
There are situations which blurry the tear

Alas and truly, there is nothing to fear,
unless regret

Cherish and Nourish, Then Instruct

The Instructoress has forgotten what it is to be 10,
vulnerable and bendable. She speaks to her ward in bazooka,
makes her feel despised and inferior.

Can you reach the abused kid to be embrace your criteria?
The Instructoress calls the girl dense and lazy.
Dense, because Cinderella is insecure about everything.

Lazy because poor Cinderella's initiative has being successfully shredded.
No, Cinderella. You are a dunce. You don't even have looks.
Sweep with the yellow broom not with the one that's off-yellow.

No, Cinderella. My infantile daughters are way smarter than you.
No, Cinderella, I was once two sizes smaller than you.
The Instructoress grows meaner by the hour.

Naked Truth

Summer beach is body-party
of every fit, of every discript;
the big headed Troll,
the more kindly endowed,
the unspeakable one in the middle,
Shorty and Shorter,
and lest we forget, the misshapen Dwarf

It may seem preposterous,
but it is plainly true.
We all are one--- toes on a foot

Get It Behind

In front of the mob,
it's a riot out there,
so get me behind ---
well, well behind the angry crowd

In front of hypocrisy,
it's submit to perversion,
or get pie in your face,
so get me a rock under which to hide

In front of reeling, fanatical cheerers,
it gonna get wild, it gonna get freaky,
so, Bitte Meine Herren ---
way, way behind is not far enough

"Get it behind" say shepherds to 4-legged workers,
and sure enough, a flock running helter-skelter
falls into line
proper and sheepish.

Life IS A Beach

Girl bride, lady of poise and grace
Mother of provision
I'll have you not widowed just yet

You commence the morning stroll
across mulch paths
down to the chain fence

Passed the cypresses
passed the blooming privets
rosemary fragrance and busy birds

Stick in hand, you shake off spiders
You talk to every tree you've planted
every bush you've nourished

The wild flowers wave to you
The bees still scare you, though
No one is perfect, least perfect your husband

If you were more reasonable
He might not fall asleep during long winded concerts
Could the two of you but only speak without the moving lips.

Your back is straight, your arms are black
Your eyes flash brilliance day or sleepy
A pity you can not admit when he's right

This garden of yours is this also this garden of his
The rock garden is of your design
but he always imagined it the beach it glistens

In the Georgia highlands, yours and his
600 hundred miles from the oceanfront
as highways go, not as the crow flies

Work In Progress

Hunger wells and pales in canvas
Vacant of your cunning geometry,
I stand by the window
Awaiting, trusting you return

You're back before you left it seems
In-trance enshrined our truce
Dark halo above
Galaxy like falling confetti

Swell and spew you elusive truths
I walk from here to the gate
My feet don't move, the vision shapes
Brush strokes follow

Moving On

I've hopped and skipped
I've had drama and trauma, too
Tossing ships, I've ridden a few
I've sunk every relationship I ever had

Now, let me pause to die a little
to mourn myself a bit
before I'm gone for good

When you've reached my age
you know that time is winding down
but there should still be some left
to carry out one or two more experiments

When Buffalo Poo Disappeared From The Prarie

What a relief, it's gonna rain, by thunder!
Off and on, it's tried for months. A crying shame
Here and there the faintest of sprinklings

Like something unholy is jamming the sprinkler
The parched earth begs for a wetting
A dust bowl is forming. Black clouds are lifting

Should we do a rain dance?
Jeepers...we haven't done a rain dance
since the Blue Coats established the Bureau of Weather

That's awfully cute of you

An artist repeatably grabs his crotch during his staged exhibitions

Curious

Gesture intended to scandalize or just artistically freaky?

The artist should be asked. No one does. Who cares anyhow!

So much for in depth reporting

The Other Cheek

Tit for tat is whack for slap
You damage me, I'll blast you smart

Such is the story. War is hell,
and wars never stop, to give peace a start

Alternate: Turn the other cheek,
when you get struck. Is that a fact?

Not if you're President of USA
Not if you're Mullah of the Fighting Taliban

Sought

Myriad voices vie for attention
The voice of violence startles

Conscience voice is gentle
The voice of true silence deafens

Pride's voice parades with brass and floats,
and big-headed marchers with grimacing faces

Temptation's voice is a siren's call
Sly devil knows all the tricks

God being God,
does not reveal until you seek

Completely Communion

I want the hands of Jesus
his feet, his eyes and features

I want his flesh and blood
because he offers it

I want his mind
for the attainment of infinite clarity

I want his heart
for love's perfection

I will not argue with cynics
I want him all for myself

Willing to share him, however,
with whoever wants a piece

P = P
Piece equals Peace
Completely communion

Nourish versus Instruct

Do you nourish or do you instruct
and which comes first, if both are necessary?
Instructing, you provide knowledge.
You give lessons, you give orders, you give quizzes

Nourishing, you furnish development.
You promote, you elevate.
But can you furnish development without providing instruction,
and can you provide instruction without giving orders and quizzes?

I order the child to listen
I order the child to be still and listen
Me child is naturally rebellious
Me child is positively curious

Me child is curiously wicked

Uuugly

The crockpot warbler is disgusting bird
contorted face, droopy expression
slimy mouth, tongue hung to its waist like necktie
bill that resembles decrepit chainsaw

This dirty bird is bottom heavy to the extreme,
for that reason can not sustain flight,
and soon after takeoff has to alight
to demonstrate its droppings pedigree

Think of a gargoyle, its best years behind
rambling senile of the dripping kind
shot to pieces, of greasy feathers
Crockpot Warbler hope never to meet

Shadow of which foretells
economic downturn
minimum duration a decade
from here to Japan

AnyTime

Day cares not a wisp
if this be frigid Patagonia
or sweltering Maracaibo

Day cares not a switch
if this be lightning bug night in Georgia
or gray November morn in Nova Scotia

The day cares not a stitch
the place, the year, the season is
500 B.C. or stuck in 3000 forever

Day looks upon the face of God
while mortals read calendars and weather

Pea Shooter

In a planter's hand, a pea might gasp;
"You seem to me so big; and me, oh gee,
so tiny."

Tiny might say to Big,
"Tiny is what tiny was ---
a teeny weensy distant planet."

Distant Planet might say to Teeny Weensy;
"I know, i know,
but size does matter!"

Matter might say to Size;
"The seed of light, now that's a trip!"


All might say to Speed of Light
"Who's to say if All is not more?"

What Kind of Woman ?

What kind of woman
waylays a stranger under a street light
in the denseness of Isis Unveiled?

The Upper Nile is all too dusty
The King's Chamber is all too creepy
What kind of woman sets a macho mouse trap?

And because you do not answer her riddle promptly
she dispatches you to parts unknown to unravel
What kind of spooky Missus, memorialized in stony Egypt?

A she with wings, that's who!
A semi reptile bride of dreamy eyes,
of pleasant mouth, of lion claw and loin

Her tail is a dragon's, this Greek myth
I would not wish on Steven Spielberg
And yet because she is the Sphinx...

T'is your misfortune to have crossed

Dirty Old Centaurs

We husky guys, when we were kids,
were riotous living stallions
but as we age, the horses in us limp to pasture,
and as further years elapse, we're fed to canines...

except in Viva La France
where frogs eat horses

The Higher Calling

Love of village
Love of people
Forgive them inappropriate conduct

Love of spouse
is love of self,
The basis of the Great Commandment

Love Thy Neighbor
no more, no less
than love of self

BHIS (Black Holes in Space)

There are astronomical notions which are lol
One of these is the concept that Black Holes exist

Come to think of it, the idea's a joke
A black hole in space like a big open mouth
a funnel of humor, a whirlpool of let's get it on
sucking in everything too close for its good
shooting them through spiraling myriads
venting them in stand-up routines
Knocking them dead before they're cooked alive

I have prayed to understand
I think I have