What's wrong with men these days?

Men are abandoning to women their nature given authority,
Men have surrendered their will to stand up and to be fathers.

Enough of co-education. For the betterment of boys and girls,
let us segregate the genders, until they are right to propagate.

Only women should educate girls.
Men alone should educate boys

in a perfect world where there are no pedophiles

Li Sun, Impractical Profit

Li Sun preached to his disciples,
that he was poor out of choice,
not because of circumstances beyond his control.

Whereas excesses bring nations to ruin,
austerity strengthens a community.

Have you ever heard such tomfoolery?
If people in mass were to think like Li Sun,
before we knew it, we'd all be hippies.

Gender Poetic

Poetry Woman is Poetry Mother
Queen of her household
She provides provision and shelter,
and to whomever reach her apron,
the same she graces.

Poetry Man is Poetry Father
King to his Queen
To his subjects good conscience
Privilege is his coat of armor.

Poetry Child straddles them both,
child eyes that dazzle of first light and lightning,
which at night when they close,
dream stairways to heaven.

The child matures,
Then to childhood returns for a final journey,
as salmon to birthing waters swim back to spawn.
From thence, the gender poetic moves on.

Adolf at The Reichstag

The snap of a finger is time sensitive

Time measures events
Events emit sounds

Over Hiroshima a dark cloud hangs

I Do Not See Much Admitted

but what I see
I know I SEE

Angel

Jane or Jill might be her name, but who should care what her name is?
She's 30 years past her prime, and boy does she stink like a garbage bin.

Ona Anonymous, in the Post Office of Five Points.
writes letters on disemboweled envelopes to who knows whom or why.
Pre-stamped, she writes them back to front in unsteady penmanship.

I work the Downtown beat, magnet for the terminally misplaced.
Regarding human writing, I am illiterate yet nothing escapes my hearing,
for I am Mr. Everywhere; in jails, in psycho wards, in ambulances.
In places brightly lit and of clean sheets --- I'm also there.

Quick I am to lend assistance, even to administer reverse mouth to mouth resuscitation.
Not for fun, I kiss to the tongue vented lips that gasp for air like fish out of water.
Not French style do I smooch like so. Oh no, I'm too pure and proud for that.
Nor am I a robber of cradles. Nor am I a plunder of wheel chairs.
I do the job that's expected because someone has to do the dirty work

I'm the guy, the heavenly guy, the Angel of "Let's Make Haste."
We don't have forever, you know.

Truth and Consequences

On this fine morning, you're taking a stroll
when from an apartment 20 stories above you,
a flower pot descends and beams you into the wild blue yonder.

Life long aspirations, thus, come to a halt and to a 911 call.
Last night, you worried about making this month's house note.
Hello, up there!

Truth and consequences.

Ward of The State

There's nothing fundamentally amiss with the kid,
that appropriate measures shouldn't be able to remedy.
So, he can't stand straight, and he can't stay put,
and he wears his pants down to his knees,
and his shoes fall off every so many steps.
It's nothing that couldn't be fixed
with back to back novenas to Saint Jude.

Okay, so the imp smiles a gap of missing teeth,
and yes, his grin is a bit moronic,
but moron is a clinical term, relative to who whom is measuring.
Alas, everything is screwed up with the little bastard,
but with tender loving care you might be able to patch it from here to November.
It ain't like you're trying to fit an elephant into leotards.
From this day forward, raise the 19 year old toddler
to think like a soldier, careful you don't turn him into a hired assassin.

His grandparents have a task before them.
Corporal punishment is a no-no, unless executed before the tri-semester.
And by the way, whatever happened to his natural parents?
Well, Dad died at age 18 from an overdose of inhaling formaldehyde,
and Mom died last year from extra marriageable complications.
There's nothing wrong with the child,
that wasn't dropped on him from the crib.
And speaking of cribs, there's a gang of thugs in Memphis, called "The Cribs,"

whose specialty is extortion and murder.

I Used To Be Russian

Cataclysmic geology alters the land.
Cataclysmic human disasters causes us to move about.
A good many Irish left Erin because of the potato blight.
A good many native Americans went to missing
when we Europeans decided we needed a change from tired Europe.
After the Turks were booted out of the Middle Kingdoms,
and after Mr. Terrible was done crucifying European Jewry,
the poor Palestinians (like the Jews before them) would be forced to relocate.

It's the same old story, one of gore and glory.
Today, we here;
tomorrow, somewhere far and distant

When I testify I am Russian, by that I mean to say ---
my hometown was once located in the Union of Soviet Socialist Lies.
But beyond my Ural village, I knew practically nothing that had not been censored.
I knew there existed an America of greater and greater capitalist deceit.
And like the Irish (before me) I was cognizant that my plate was short of potatoes.
Still, I felt the umbilical connection to a greater homeland ---Mother Russia,
and so shall it remain until I die, though probably I'll be cremated right here in Brooklyn.
You see, it's difficult (and unnatural) for me to relate to America as a son would to a mother,
when America is more like the babe living next door.

Cecil B and De Mille

From childhood, Mary Sue was crazy about movies,
her dream one day to be a silver screen goddess,
like her favorite, Joan Crawford. In fact, Mary landed gigs in several flicks;
most notably as an extra in the Marx Brothers' classic, "Duck Soup,"
and later as an Israelite damsel trekking behind Moses
in Cecil B. DeMille's Production of "The Ten Commandments,"
starring Charleston Heston; Yul Brynner playing the heavy.

Those were the days when casts of thousands was not computer animated.

Mary Sue Leary married Larry O'Brien, a Warner Brothers stuntman.
She gave birth to twins, the first of whom to exit the womb they named Cecil B.
The second they'd christen DeMille.
Chubby and ruddy babies were they. Into strapped stallions they'd grow,
strong of back, but wanting in common sense.
The elder, Cecil B. --- was blond, of one brown and the other blue.
De Mille was carrot top with a stare to stop Bengal tigers in their tracks.
They were hyperactive lads; together strong, apart rather hapless.

A genetic malfunction, perhaps, had been transmitted from their stun mant father,
who at age 26, was tragically killed while playing a rampaging Apache.
Needless to say, the family was impacted dramatically,
not so much with regards to money. Stunt man's Insurance had Larry covered,
but the sudden absence of a father is traumatic,
even if he's an alcoholic with a temper to rival that of Genghis Khan.
Widow Mary O'Brian managed as best she could raising her twins from hell.

She did not remarry and would be to her boys once a mother and twice a father.

When it was high time for the kids to get hitched, Mother Mary arranged the nuptials;
for Cecil a mail order bride from Germany, and for DeMille, a mail order bride from Sicily/
It would have been an awesome, foursome honeymoon, but at the very last moment
the Dago chickened out. Let me tell you about the German war bride, though.
Ingeborg Schimidt. what a dish! (Mein Gott ihm Himmel, what a broad!)
Her skin was like velvet, her figure an hour glass with no assistance from corsets,
and she had that distinction of carrying a rear the envy of many an Afro American.

But what about DeMille (who was dumped?) Don't get ahead of the story.

This is what Mary O'Brian proposed to Ingborg in the presence of Cecil B and DeMille:
"My two boys are geniuses together, but apart, I'm afraid, they are arms without hands.
I dread to separate them. So here's the deal, dearest. Why be satisfied to write jingles
if you are capable of painting more broadly. And why be be content to be a stuntman ,
if fate has destined you to be a Cecil B. DeMille?
Do you get my drift, Ingeborg? What I'm saying is why trouble your head
as to which stud to bed, when you can test drive them both for a season.
Yes, a threesome trial marriage is what I'm proposing!

Men have harems,
why shouldn't we women be entitled to possess are own stables?
Which sounded perfectly reasonable to Ingeborg Schmidt,
the bride from war ravaged Germany
who was game for just about anything...
Come to think about,
Mrs. Cecil B. and DeMille has a delicious ring to it

Phantom of Assisted Living

Two kinds of ghosts have I known;
floaters who have no feet,and those who have feet,
but are no less stuck in time than ghosts

Vladimir married the second kind.
She was not always so.
He made Doris senile.

Two years ago, Doris died RIP, and last year,
Vladimir moved into an assisted living facility.
He doesn't care for it a bit, but what without children where to go?

It reels more lonely than when he lived by himself.
By and by, he tries to contact acquaintances not seen in ages.
You know how that goes. They're either dead or traceless.

These days, Vladimir seems to be afflicted
with a touch of Doris's malady, albeit increasing in increments.
Erasure does not befall you all at once, you know.

One morning,Vladimir awakens with a name on his lips
he has not uttered in at least two decades.
Harold Newman is his name. How strange.

During Vladimir's seventh year itch of marriage to Doris,
he developed a teenage crush on Harold,
a fellow professor at a community college.

Vladimir mails a post card to Harold's last known address
The tone is formal. Thinking of you. Write me.
It's of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset.

What follows is a trail of misguided communications:
The first is the reply to the Golden Gate post card
mailed on November 12, 1995.

(Reply) April 1, 1996.

Dear Vladimir,

Your postcard arrived at my place, but addressed to a Harold Newman.
Notwithstanding, the error, it's nice to know you're still alive

Lovingly, Mapovia..

(Vladimir's response) September 62, 199y

Mapovia who?

V.

(Mapovia's response to Vladimir)

Vlad, you gotta be kidding. Your mother was my mother kid sister.
How many summers we spent together at Cape Hatteras.

With love, Mapovia 12/24/04

To that communique, there would be no reply.
Vladimir had died two years before the postman
delivered the letter to Fountain's Assisted Living.

Jesus Blanket Coverage

New shipments of annuals and perennials arrive
every day starting in mid March right up into early fall,
at Home Depot Outside Gardening.
Spring is in the air, and I'm as levitated as butterflies are
when turned loose in fields of wild pollination.

A customer looks over a recent shipment,
picks up an annual for further inspection; fumbles, drops it.
Under the stand in front of the guy, the flower remains,
while Mr. Big Time Customer continues to check out other plants.

(Such bastards as this one do the same with virgin girls.)
Deciding not to purchase any, the man leaves the premises,
abandoned flower left in the dark. Is this right ? No, it's not!
The son of a bitch has sinned against a nursery and against nature in general.

Apropos to the above, when Jesus hung crucified, he petitioned his Father
for blanket coverage on behalf of the rabble below, that they be forgiven,
for they did not know what the hell they were doing to the Redeemer of humanity.
Here's the question.

Does said blanket coverage apply to the likes of the son of a bitch
of the abandoned flower --- or to any who soils the reputation of a daughter,
who in mine eyes deserves to be stuck by lighting?
...Oops, did I say that?

Wrath of Unforgiving Wife

You think a girl like me could ever love a guy like you.
Our marriage is a ruse, a steady walking backwards.
The things you've done to me,
you miserable bastard!

Adulterer, liar and drug addicted...
She screams in her native Ukrainian,
obscenities once reserved for Turks by Cossack ancestors.

The poor bastard did reform after a particularly disastrous Christmas.
That devilish past he's buried and wants of it no reminder,
but on Fridays, in otherwise peaceful sunsets,
she recounts him his sins like clockwork,

her special gift to the Sabbath.

Like Snow In Sunlight

Like snow in sunlight
melts in trickles
into layered ice beneath
and runs from there its course
still deeper
streaming under glacial mass
the razor river frozen creased
now advancing
now receding
shifting, groaning
along torn banks
of shredded pines
and shredded rocks

like snow in sun
God work with me
God work on me

A Pain In The Marriage

Fate is neither cruel nor fair
Where we are, is where we're at,
the promised lot like or not.

In drawing straws,
the one that's drawn
is the one deserved.

Darwin's Predictament

Darwin was born big, the kind of big
that makes you wonder how did his poor mother manage?
The kind of big which makes puts you to think,
what thoughts went through his parent's head
when spark exploded conjugal climax?

At 2, Darwin was bigger than most kids three times his age.
But because his mother was a seamstress, dressing him posed no problem.
At 6, he was so tall, he needed to scoop to pass through the door of the trailer
where he and his parents resided.

At 13, Darwin could have gone pro wrestler,
except Darwin was a gentle giant who would not hurt a fly,
except to pull off their wings to examine their undersides.
Like his famous namesake Charles Darwin, Darwin Saunders
was immensely interested in nature.

The lad was a whiz with a microscope, but because of his physicality
he suffered taunting from his fellows at school, teachers included.
"Freaky Freak" they labeled him. Due to a condition of premature thinning
of his hair they called him, "Coconut Skull."

What really, really hurt, however, was that the taunting extended
to Darwin's parents. Mom was a dwarf, you see,
who nevertheless towered over Darwin's very diminutive dad.
Eventually, the couple decided to home school the kid.
Thus, ended the bullshit at the brick and mortar school.

So it was, that Mama and Dad and Darwin chose a life of relative seclusion,
having little to do with the neighbors, restricting outdoor activities
to their fenced off backyard, and to drives to the country in dark tinted glasses,
and shopping via the internet.

Now, here comes the happy ending,
for let not happy endings elude us forever.
Those who did not accept the Darwins for who they were
would be surprised to know how things worked out for them
Today, in these hard times, the freaks live a life of leisure in San Diego,

where they handsome living, writing scripts for educational television.

Trouble in Dublin

Had I followed my uncle's counsel,
and entered the priesthood,
I probably would have been a derelict priest,
filth and skeletons hoarded in my closet,
parishioners losing their faith on my account,
choir boys cringing at the sound of my voice.
All for the sake of job security.

SNAFU

Take care to fly under the radar.
Don't draw attention, strive to be normal.
In an abnormal society, normal is quite extraordinary.

If society were whole, everybody would be normal,
but since society isn't whole, almost every Tom, Dick and Harry
falls way short of average (the synonym of normal.)

Should you suspect, however, that your irregularities physical
and/or of character are beyond the realm of modern science to modify,
try at least to be pass as Mr. Nice Guy. Mr. Nice Guy often disguises as normal.

If after a thousand attempts at normalcy,
you feel totally a basket case, don't despair.
Consider a state subsidized lobotomy.

You see, a citizen's primary duty is to conform or immigrate.
Nobody will miss you. Do you believe anyone would miss Rush Limbaugh
were he to move to Costa Rica? Maybe for a day or two.

Every rush is replaceable.

Canvas Power

A strapless shoulder to me, a tattoo artist,
is paradise found for my pigments and my pins.

In the valleys which are epidermis,
we scroll hanging gardens;

dragons, unicorns and bolts of thunder.
Where you like it, we can imprint.

If in an armpit is what you're wanting, first shaving cream
and light of razor, then I'll ink.

I've done tattoos to blow your mind,
on implanted buttocks stretched around the globe.

I've done tattoos to make you blush,
scorpions walking backwards from naval into pubic swamps.

For me, a strapless shoulder is like a treat of wine and roses,
or for that matter ---a bikini coming off!

Poetry In Labels

Irresistible, smart snacking,
whole and natural,
Resealable bag,
and oh what a zipper!

Such the wrapper has promised us,
in choice speak to elevate our consumer awareness,
that we suffer joyfully erections of merchandising.

The Insistance of Instinct

Fog horns at night in the Port of New York
where the child was raised after arriving from Africa
Fog horns weighed anchor in her
through myriad siren songs and undercurrents.

To them she responds like geese to the call,
of "let us fly springtime to the Arctic,
and back down again when fall arrives,
and winter blows hard behind us."

The instinct of species is what it is,
bite of stirrings you do not suppress for long
like inland sea is to inland her,
blurred yet no less distinct this craving.

Fog horns of then ---
insistence of instinct on Riverside Drive
where the girl once walked a virgin
to which she regresses mentally

Ocean salinity, my own blood's salinity,
salinity related to ethnicity,
related as well to menstrual cycles
as Eve is related to Adam

as Adam is related to dirt.

Toccata and Fugue

Opens a rose bud in toccata refrain,
and on its petals raindrops shape
like tears in happy eyes well up
before they spill their joyous banks.

If remembrance were total,
I'd go insane
because in selective forgetfulness
mercy for me has been dispensed.

Thus let us muse; thus let us breathe
neath heaven's canopy, the mystery -
specks of dust that we are
aglow in its presence, no lesser than the stars.

In the great unfurled fabric of the universe,
amongst zillion of major and minor suns,
qua-zillion times over and still multiplying -
one source of radiance forever for all.

One Truth in Jesus,
His Sacred Heart transmits,
every corner filling,
every soul will reach.

Manuel of Mapovia Medicinals

Gather ingredients carefully;
hair of toad
wing of bat
three scopes of dirt from and old grave site.

Saute in grease of geese
Pour in a bottle of Ripple
Bring to a boil
Age overnight

Bottle and label:
For the consumption of the unforgiven
and for them
in desperate need of a purge

Loneliness

Loneliness is treasure
is an overflowing treasury
a flower of unequal fragrance

The pursuit of privacy
can and should be
the throne of every monarch

the attainment of undisputed privacy

The Beautiful Day

The garden greens electric
On padded claws, the storm moves on.

Weather like this can cut your current,
make faucet water run dark and brown.

Oh, that beautiful days such as this one
could last forever,

like calm and turmoil, from start to finish,
in symphonies play out

KKK

The story which follows you might find weird.
Weird is like strong; strong is like pretty.
No matter how weird, strong or pretty,
there's always weirder, stronger and prettier.

Ever since I was a kid
I dreamed the impossible dream.
Born one of the whitest kids in Tupelo, Mississippi,
I wished I had been born a few hues darker.

When this strange desire invaded my mind,
and migrated down to the soles of feet
and, indeed, took possession of me, body and soul,
I can not say when or how it happened."

It could have been before I was conceived.
It could have happened in kindergarten.
It could have happened while watching Soul Train on TV.
It could have happened when no one was looking.

As I aged into teenage years,
I became ever more curious about things "colored."
That's how Afro Americans were called back then
in the days of separate water fountains.

In high school, I take up the tenor sax,
and quantum leap into Negro politics.
Negroes is how Blacks were called back then
when we protested in civil marches.

Out of the army, I move to Chicago,
and there I begin to frequent tanning parlors
as well to experiment with chemicals
to make my hair go permanently frizzly.

The rest is history.
In 198o, I create the KKK Jazz Ensemble.
And so the once whitest kid in Tupelo,
is promoted and ordained by his peers a "brother."

It's a wild and wonder-filled country
where dreams come true,
and are lived in full and in living color

Kelly Kenneth Knight

Hu-Mans

No less vulnerable to dieing easily,
we are germs that think

Walk The Talk

There are reasons under surface,
reasons as shadowy
and slippery as undercurrents.

The choices spanned from easy to difficult.
We were young then,
remember.
Older now, we should know better.

You came ashore in boats and choppers
I sold wares.
We met in market.

The aftermath of discord
weighs heavy on mothers
and orphaned child,
because war, too, is an afterbirth.

The day we met, you sat uncomfortably on my mattress,
waiting on me to finish bathing,
the sound of the shower, chimes in your ears.

We met to share reprieve a bit.
In war's entanglement, we shared a moment,
the chance encounter in the swift love-making
of making a living and making a deal.

You sat on the bed and stared at him in photograph,
who stared right back in frozen time.
You looked like him who looked like you (by coincidence.)

Except he dead, and you lived on.
I wonder if you still do.
Who should care
that we ever did?

There were reasons for Viet Nam.
The Chinese had theirs, the French?
Well, the French ---they always have their rationale.

Uncle Ho had his reasons
LBJ had his as well.
Labyrinth of lame excuses,
convoluted through tortured seasons.

The reasons came to visit and moved one.
They sat in my parlor and on my mattress,
and for awhile in the wash of the old rain barrel.

From Me to Her

I saw her in a Medellin side street cafe,
drinking tea. I asked her
if she spoke English

To this day, beloved,
you breathe on me Calypso
your eyes are coffee
your color is that of cocoa
your scent is of cinnamon

How do you taste to me?
How much do I love you,
how much can we stand it...

Getz Misread

During a chat at table, Mapovia and I explore a problem
which for countless generations has vexed humanity,
namely that disputes about belief can be disruptive
and have been a cause of much bad blood.

Atheists comprise a small minority
Notwithstanding, diverse opinions should be tolerated,
unless they call for ethnic cleansing.

Mapovia and I in the poem, "Useless Arguments"
proposed that we theists ought to leave atheists be.
If they want to refute the existence of God,
that's nobody business but their own.

Perhaps, the Lord of Matter and Anti-matter,
of Space and Anti-space, of Time and Anti-time has predestined
that certain individuals argue in favor of no god.

Is it not written,
God works in strange
and mysterious ways?
Includes, I suppose people

Leopold Getz

A Fitting Pair of Horns

Wise men look to marry virtuous
Fools chase after flashing trophies

Fools exchange good wives
for babes in rustling dresses

The devil lures but shows not the end game
Today's playboy is played tomorrow

Atheist Heaven

Imagine there's no heaven, imagine there's no hell,
no Resurrection, no Final Judgment
no Karma, no reincarnations... again and
again and again.

Imagine the unrepentant Adolf Hitler
as Scot free in eternity as Mother Theresa
who allegedly said the "f" word more once.

Imagine all the Third Reich people
postmortem equal with their victims.
You may say I'm dreaming,
but I'm not the only one.

Light and Darkness

Can a man, a woman change themselves?
I think not
What changes come,
time accomplishes
as soil erodes
as oil turns rancid

Jay Ar

He searches neath evening lamp posts
the painted fish mouths that are ready
in inland sea, the sprawl of London
the fisherman AKA
Jack The Ripper
Jack of scalpel.

Memo to Myself

Calm observation gathers data.
Focus successfully concludes a matter.

Behold the busy bees;
they who work, she who queens,
them that soldiers to defend their queen.

Drinking from Grandfather's Vineyard

Probe expansion, hunch back prodding
no closer to closure than when we started

Poke the joke in the crucial
Pull the tiger by the tail, see reaction to the action.

It's curiosity that keeps us relevant
It's curiosity that keeps us hopping

That's His Poetry

He has a lot on his mind
Mom can't get it right with her boy friends

A toy car, he floats in the air.
That's his poetry

That's his escape,
he's only 8.