Rocker Knocker

The sizzle upbraids me silly when Wild Jill struts on stage
and gets in my groove with sweat and funk, and undulations.

I need picker upper the morning after 'cause It ain't easy being Norm
in hot group of frenzied harpies.

I fear, my Jill, I might one day derail, and skin one of your temp lover,
'cause I too, Jill have my dark side.

I'll plead the Judge in self defense, I should have seen it coming,
and chosen the church organ over The Bitch Rock Five.

Our latest album, "Lobotomy." Get it!
Got it?

Reincarnate

How lovely is my house,
the gate to it is ivy laced
under the magnifying glass where I'm content.

How orderly is my garden, tree embraced,
that like veined arms in sleeves of green
raise to the sky the smoking reed of breathing.

From there, fingers of the week deposit days of fruit.
From there, ice strips naked and performs erotic
to the hosts of sweeping stars and falling comets.

I walk these swirls of fragmentation; the nearly distant strands of death.
I come upon butterflies celebrating their own emancipation.
Up and down and around they figure till they themselves are finished.

I see stars a twinkling.
Of course it's true that stars don't twink.
At given moments they blow their fuses.

Harpooned in Cancun

In order to succeed; you must do better than just survive.
How well you survive depends on how well you procure.
Pimps, hookers, beggars --- everybody procures,
the Marxist pig included.

Somehow, I missed the obvious,
salvaged in a moment of snort epiphany,
while I vacationed in wicked Mexico,
that if you procure, you're a cartel accomplice,
for there is no innocence in straw-driven, nasal connections.

The Given

If you want to play it safe,
assume no one speaks true.

Only poets do not lie.
We create alternate realities.

Rob Roy, Entrepeneur

Who would've thought that a revival of an ancient artifact
would have secured for its capitalist a handsome franchise.

In olden days, photo booths were virtually everywhere; in amusement parks,
airports, bus stations as well as other places of pedestrian traffic.

There also existed back then, coin operated scales for weighing and fortune telling,
turban-wearing, talking mannequins who for quarters dispensed snippets of wisdom.

In the photo booth,a flash behind drawn curtains and there you had it;
a portrait of you and your soul mate making funny faces at the camera.

Photo booth were made possible, thanks to the innovation of snapshots developed, framed and delivered in minutes.

Photo booths disappeared when snapshots could be shot on the fly
with even the cheapest of cellphones.

In the year 2030, however, the "Booths" were back with hologram enhancements.
The lure of drawn curtain had once more gained consumer favor.

Today, there's hardly a municipal center in the nation that doesn't have a booth where nuptials are officiated and divorces decreed.

Certain fads wax wane, and after an absence are back in vogue.
Therefore, there's a chance heterosexuality might yet stage a comeback

Retired Hairdresser

She's 64, single and loving it,
retired and tourist, craning her neck
to look up at Manhattan's big ones.

New York, might be an interesting city to live in,
but it's a hell of a city to visit. The rush on the streets,
it's like people are fleeing from falling buildings.

On a busy thoroughfare, a freak in vinyl overcoat flashes my Aunt Sarah.
His hairy chest is so unkempt, it utterly absorbs the beautician's eye
and somehow she ignores the vertical stance of the pointing penis.

Says she to the middle age lad, in Jewish Mississippi drawl:
"You call that a weave, Sonny?" Sonny takes off in a flash,
bothered... and now with erectile dysfunction.

Stand up Schlemiel

his vision is blurry
his tuxedo resembles scrambled pizza

yesterday's best man at the wedding
wakes up smelling of urine and puke

he's spent the night in the slammer
how he landed there, doesn't have a clue

a day late with the ha,ha -
he struggles to get through

the mass, the mess of stand up comics,
toasters and roasters and anal based humor

Retired Hitman

You weary of the stupid turf wars.
Age brings golf. As your time on earth grows shorter,
you nap a lot, but hardly feel well rested.
Someone has pinned to your back a sign that reads:
"Target Gallardo."

It took 7 lieutenants to bring down Francisco Pizarro,
ambushed at the age of over 90, but he wasn't armed as you are
with an arsenal that would make envious the Newark Police Department
What's more, you're escorted by your trusty Five,
prettier than poison ninja daughters.

Old assassins never retire. Eventually, they get wasted.

Lib's Lips

learn the game you should have learned
you live with quick sand under your feet
everything she says is to set you up
she wants your balls and she'll have them

This is The Age of Women

Closet Moments

Upon awakening, I wash my face.
I brush my teeth with Colgate.
I gargle Listerine.
Then I go into closet isolation
where I light incense:

Lord, my brother Dimitri is hurting badly,
but he's no easy candidate for salvation.
A shot of haiku wisdom might do him wonders,
like that advanced in "Ever since my house burned down,
I have a better view of the rising moon."

Sometimes, all a guy needs is a change of scenery.

Rollers

We two are from the coast.
While we were still in embryo,
fog horns tuned our ears.

Far from this place of origin we languish,
but hasten here from spell to spell.

We pack the wagon lightly,
and feed the engine horses ethanol,
and ankle deep, wade in.

We talk the talk of couples
and of gulls bound to the reappear.

Blessed are The Pacemakers

Let me be re-reminded,
"Blessed are the peacemakers."

The urge to hit back is quickly passing.
I see no gain in protracting anger.

Is this maturity awakening
or might it be the bypass?

Eight Ball, Side Pocket

Embrace the possibility all might end in an instant
Walk free amongst the fossils,
the relics and the living.

Tomorrow is "domani,"
and so is the day after domani ---
dopodomani

Forward and Onward

Flee the destructive critic. She seeks
to make opaque your moral clarity.

Trust your instincts, brother.
You desire no one evil.

It's always be about survival
and enjoyment, isn't it?

I Thought I Read a Pussy Cat

How now pale shadow --- toothless wonder of romance gone sour.
She ditched you in renewed midlife crisis.
Get over it, frat boy! Didn't your mother tell you, that life moves on?

Shouldn't those failed twosomes and a half
be like open doors --- of little import
in your going in and out? Get over it, frat boy!

Ain't it high time, you dwell on true adventures
than pretend you're back in teenage angst?
As you are I was once.

Missing Parts

The ethereal kind have no feet
They float tethered to circumstances
theirs alone

We call them ghosts
Were they more annoying
We'd have them fumigated

HIM

My love is his.
His love is mine.

He spoke to me.
I hear,
I listen.

"Be still and know that I am God."

Survival of Fruit

Black butterflies of luminous markings
have found a place in sun and shade,
in dry and wet, under entanglement
of heavily laden branches.

Here, as well,resides a wasp,
the size of a middle finger,
whose legs set wide apart,
ravages rotting figs.

A gardener in rubber boots,
happens on the feast
and bludgeons the beast
in throes of elevation.

The Caribbean, Pacific Gamut

A highway runs through downtown,
east and west into the hinterland.

The merchandise moves heavy,
in from Asia, down to Colombia.

Through Gulf slicks
plow the container ships.

The whales don't stand an Irishman's chance
of surviving this doom's day scenario.

Japanese harpoons await.

On Crater's Edge

Vapors ascend the acme face,
sulfur scarred, hardened black,
yellow laced.

Clouds sweep over the outer wall.
Lies on the other side
an expanse of pumice beach.

A noiseless height this place,
that sucks the stress out of feet.
The moment would be perfect,

were it not for the grandson tagging,
whose non stop gab and facial quirks
remind me of a baboon's ass,

severely orange and out of touch
with the present need to absorb the peace and quiet.
Here the wind sails gallantly and circulates silently,

no chirp of bird to assist,
no tick of insect to mitigate.
Were it not for the kid,

I'd speak to God personal.

You think Ants worry about if it will rain?

Is human nature at its rawest
at odds with Mother Nature?

What makes us the so destructive?
Our intelligence or our inheritance original sin?

I observe the antisocial behavior and am confounded.
I pick my nose in disbelief.

Raining In Weather

What instrument is more passive than an umbrella
that makes its bearer impermeable,
unless its thin cage and bat-tipped wings
are turned inside out by act of wind?

Might be a Pedaphile

He's beefy, balding and seemingly uncomfortable.
He's entered the hotel's pool area, camera in hand.
Two young boys are splashing about.

The man seems intent on shooting the courtyard trees.
A botanist? Perhaps, why then can't he decide what trees to photograph,
and if to shoot them bottom up or from the palm heads down?

Give the benefit of doubt, but fakes are easy to detect.
The first sight of him sent a tingle down my back.
Am I right or imagining things?

The trap is set.
Vigilante justice
must be flawless

Breakfast at Denny's

I overhear two crusaders discussing commerce.
Bold face, devious, they pretend to be honest.

We forget how late in the day it is
to make amends and die with clarity.

Art's Purpose

Bring harmony back into our lives,
disjointed, emotionally disemboweled
by subversive forces.

Art sustains us, science drains us.
And yet, one without the other does not continue
just as dysfunctional marriage endures, in spite of everything.

Filling

The broad smile of a pretty girl
invigorates like a cold shower,
snaps as a bursting dawn
and makes an old heart feel young again
as he stumbles and canes his way into fading day.

Hiho, Silver, the ole Ranger.

Advice to Louise

You fret much too much, my Queen,
about what people might say or think.

What people say and think is for the most part whimsical.

If you are rich, lead them to think you're poor.
If you're poor, it's to your advantage they think you rich.

The Big Walk

We do the procession through downtown's decrepit streets
of mansions done melting back into adobe. The time is passed
when parasol ladies strolled and gentlemen tilted their hats.
Likewise,is gone the time before, when our long breasted girls
wore no brassieres, when the Americas discovered
the terribly, awful Europeans.

We do the pilgrim's walk
passing habitats on stilts standing rickety by creeks,
flushed with recyclables and shanty waste.
We pass toilet facilities rented out to the pilgrimage.
We hundreds of thousands in the uphill march,
our forehead vapors evaporate into the clouds.

Lightning flashes. Rain descends.
At day's end, we reach the sacred place
where Virgin Mother appeared to humble girl
gathering kindling by a brook.
Without faith, you cannot live.
Without water, you cannot survive.

Earthquake 1910

Be dull, be gray, be boring, be passionless.
Be not a slave to emotions,
neither of exaltation nor of depression.
One is no better than the other.
Each carries its own liabilities.

Let people call you lifeless.
You know better, you experience anxiety daily,
but restrain yourself to not show it.
Only when one has become totally dull, boring, and passionless
can one turn on the fire hydrant of true happiness.

Play It Again, Louise

Another day of anchorage severed,
Louise wants to change hotels, again.
The maid did not clean the room to her liking.

"Louise, honey, it's a hotel, a place mainly for sleeping.
Two more days, and we're back in Sunnydale."

We tour the Third World
to better appreciate what we have back home.

Consider the girth of our available credit.
Consider how much taller we are than the natives,
how our eyes sparkle at Happy Hour.

Relax.
Next year, Pasadena