A Well Placed Secret

From my high mountain
I look into the forest deep,
forbidden region of gigantic creatures
Glad I need not eat them
I'm no match for the likes of ants
taller than my fortress gates
They down there, me up here.

What I stir fry, I grow myself
My hands are stained
my brawn is sufficient
At night, my Afro grows galactic
I have garden tools and weapons
I have armies no one knows
My balconies are strategic
I am the Lady of my domain

In restaurants, I tone it down a bit
Waiters' trays flip inexplicably when I'm around

The Passionate Living

Free to - is free of.
Free to live is free of fear;
free of lust is free to love
free to love is free to grow.

The School of Lust for Life might argue,
all passion is primal. To lust is to live,
thus, to live is to lust,

Passion is sacrifice.
To sacrifice one's life is to find it.

At Large

In the world, I see you
In night, I see the me who roams
the mirror sky of my black soul
My thoughts guide me and me alone

Tomorrow Wood Be

As evidenced by the discarded wrappings
the gifts were opened with with lustful excitement
A bed disheveled like an after-winter kitchen garden

To his scent she awakens,
a fragrance like tobacco hung to dry
To the occasion he arises unsteady
April would be tomorrow

River Laden

It glistened blue above, below
and in my ears, it glistened, too
the river talk, the river flow
in every sound of stone and brook
in every chirp of me in birds

The Smoothness of Time

The sway of ships is the long and the short
of perpetual motion of amoebas and stars
the long and the short of staying the course
of weathering storms and reaching one's port,
and back again for one more haul

The sway and the wash
song of the deep

See No Evil

Symmetry, the hermit purposed
equilibrium of thought and action
misguided language throws off track

Seek, then, a window's symmetry
peaceful intention of design and purpose
Seek the impartiality of the gate unlocked
which as easily swings in as out

Third Floor

My first verse and last poem is to you
breath and mind awe-inspiring
who births stars and planets
who time can pause on cue

Like a note sustained
make me traveler
turn me hue

Heaven is in Us

Hell breaks loose where ever one turns
Should there not be an opposite?
Chaos excluded is heaven desired

Teletransport

Their eyes surrender to the up and away
wind in their feathers, weed in the wind
route of the cord, here and be gone

Glimpse

Sometimes it feels her spirit wants to leave her body
Suspended birth awaiting impending death
Sometimes dark fountains

Sincerity

I've been depressed lately
The situation in the Congo?
The economic stimulus package?
An earthquake in who knows where
Maybe it's because it's been three days
since my last cigarette and a cup of coffee

Art + Finageling = Power

First, state the poem's intention categorically
Next, stage its deployment with apologies to no one
Then, fire the contraption so it returns a fiery rocket
blowing the cover of all liars,
destroying society as we know it

We are not positioned to reveal our identities
lest you dispatch agents with straitjackets to detain us
and thus derail our mission, the final solution

As From A Child

I should write you more often
but what to tell you
You already know

This morning, another downpour
Me looking at the buds emerging
Your gaze upon me, kindly... please

Frigid Night in Bloomfield

As best they can, they try -
do spooky voices, make scary faces
what elders do to pacify a hungry infant
on what planet has this voyager landed?
Cartoon is it, or psychiatric observation?

Little Bright Eyes has had enough!
It's mother's milk or face high decibels,
you tired veterans of past disasters

Just in time returns the "Nipple,"
the gentle ways of blessed woman
who mitigates the pending tantrum,
And grandpa and sidekick glance at each other
The kid was tough, but we had him conned

Morningside Heights

know
sweep call
up

Invitation

Come to my house
You, reputed for restoring sight
and freeing victims of bad karma

You, to whom I would be disciple
enter please my hole and hovel
still, my heart I guarantee

A House Without Windows

It sits on a wooden stand
in a wooden strand
by a concrete driveway
a house without windows
which drops its draw bridge gate
two times a day -
once to receive, twice to surrender
circuit and shelter, the mail box

The Invention of Time

Time began when Man awoke from ion sleep
looked at the rays piercing the forest umbrella,
named the sun before it went down
and shuttered that night at the sight of stars

Under the reigning circumstances
boundaries would have to be set
some sort of time piece invented

The next morning, Man awoke again,
yawned, hungered and looked around
to see who he could eat

Thrasher

Listen to that bird,
that outrageous bird related to the nightingale
who between the woods and my one bedroom tower
jazzes me into old age, knowing nothing of my existence
nor the juice I squeeze from its harmonics

What's the rush?

I can not tell you how much I've lived
to wish myself deceased by now
I'll do more laps if I must do them
but I'd opt for cruise control,
if I could only have it
It's not like I have given up,
it's just that nothing thrills me

Then comes a fellow looking like a stick of incense
who tells me ---Don't sweat it, kid
in geological time, you've already been turned relic

Half Way to Separation

She calls him "dog"
His response is silence

Although he thinks he battles passive,
each goes for the jugular according to their methods

To the pair not going bonkers,
give them till next year

Grim Reaper's Hour Glass

It's said that time is money. This is obvious.
It takes time to mint it, tax it, blow it.
Time is the irreplaceable in every formula.

Measures moods, measures weather.

The universe is clockwork wondrous,
which poses the pendulum as a guillotine,
destroys in order to create anew.

The Face In The Mirror

Who has not at one time or another considered it?
One might say there are two kinds of people;
those who think about it and follow through
those who don't, for whatever the reason

Plastic surgery and suicide have lasting effects.
These are not decisions, you'd want to rush into

Lonliness Made Us Platonic

I wrote a poem to let out the cat
The cat was distraught at your message,
that we call it quits, once and for all
Were we not kindred spirits, like alcoholics anonymous
tortured souls in the chat room medium,
You, pretending to be Lolita - a widower senior citizen
Me, unhappily married posing as a boy peeping through the window

Marry The Masseuse

You lay face down on a mat
Strong hands press down your vertebrae
popping kinks, undoing knots

Pushed deeper into the mat
you smell the humidity of your breath
Refreshed blood reaches your brain
You'd purr. Instead you groan

A Duck flies Escort

Wow, this niece of mine is flipping out
She populates her doodle book with nightmares
stars with tentacles and moons raining down

Someone needs to tell her, stars and moons do not move in packs
Houses don't resemble Christmas trees
Christmas trees don't explode like Roman candles

And who' s that woman on a broomstick
zooming across the winter landscape?
"It's me," says she. A cranked up case, this kindergarten child

Confidence in Finality

What could be more simple than the option,
that to believe in Jesus makes you chosen
Just you and he, no middlemen complicating the deal
Just your unconditional acceptance to what he offers, or a flat out -
"Thanks, but no thanks. I do not accept pamphlets or prophets"

What could be so simple and God sent easy...if it's for real

Evolution in Reverse

I dream a fellow sitting on a rock
contemplating his skull in a thinker's hands
The rock transforms into a throne
The thinker transmutes into an ape
The skull stays skull

Wogging The Neighborhood

I was dropped on a society of misfits
all the men wearing smirks, their trousers cuffed
all the women wearing bras, their lips greased red to stop a bus
Me a child of nomads, come to the Empire fleeing the aftermath of war

Welcome kids to the Land of the Free, Home of the Scam
Take no offense, patriots. Mark Twain would be the first to admit
Scamming is what got us to Manifest Destiny Land of the free?
You gotta be kidding. The colored were still forced to the back of the buss
So, there we landed in the land of Dixie, us not Chinese, not black nor white
Something else (to say a lot) the blood of victor and raped run in our veins
Our tongue, Ladino, which is to Spanish what Yiddish is to German
We were also fluent in Arabic and could recite the Psalms in Hebrew

Eventually we moved to The Big Apple,
and that same summer upon arrival visited Central Park
Bonkers, was I thrilled to see a real zoo
In the Casbah, I had not seen such but in pictures
Giraffe necks outstretched the length of serpents
Rhinos, horns growing out their snouts?
Monkeys gone crazy seeing peoples.
Gorillas so lazy, their stomachs swollen with bananas and stuff

And then I saw them and screamed with glee, the "focas,"
and every worthy citizen spun around wanting to see a lynching.
"Did that dusky kid just scream, "Fuckers, maybe fuck'em?"
No, she didn't you misters and misses, and you kids in knickers!
The kid said, foca --- "seal" in English
like those flipping focas, their keepers flick fish to
at feeding time at the zoo

In Bed All Day Without A Chocolate

The phone's recorder beeps every 11 seconds
I've timed the lapses. Midnight and still beeping
Messages easy to ignore. I'm vacant, it's easy

Beyond the beeps, a ticking clock
beyond the ticking clock...wind
beyond the wind and snow that's falling
a periodic flush of toilet

Like a nun of cloistered cell
I've been faithful to my 12 by 7,
awaiting to expire... not just yet, I reckon,
Else why would I be getting hungry?

Prolonged recessions can lead to a depression
A depression prolonged beyond a reasonable time
will bring down the little men from Mars
with their little picks and shovels, and their smiling little faces

Warning to The Gullible

The eye sees quickly
the ear may have caught it
the mind failed to hit the panic button
on sensing the fleeing shadows of other victims
but seeing is not always acceptance

You all have misread his signals
The man is not a dreamboat
if only you would have listened
even close your eyes to hear him
your heart did try to warn
something else told you forget it

Adverse Effects of Pure Adornment

Y has trouble explaining "simple"
like why would Y move a flower pot
from an unlit corner to a bright window

Like poets need mobility, plants need light
Back to dismal, X moves the aching pot
because when guests are forthcoming
corners should not stand unadorned

Rain

It matters little when a child first sees rain
From then on, it falls singular and repetitious
in the drizzles accompanying funerals
through irreconcilable differences
in and out of failed marriages

I would cry us pools
Find a vial, even then...
I could not fill it