Local and Express

I've been riding buses and trains
since I was knee high to my mother on many an errands with her
once under the elevated line through the Bowery
where on every street congregated alcoholics, stumbling dizzily
in the sorry state of zombie, bolts of sunlight flashing their movements
from the trusses overhead.

How many poets were among them,
their grievances moon shine distilled and bottled?
On Third Avenue when I was 10, on the way to be fitted
for a first Communion suit.

Later, much later I'd cross the Pampas,
west to east, south to north, hauled by restlessness
and smokey locomotives up the backbone of the Andes
to the lunar landscape of Potosi.

The planet seems to me to be a massive railroad terminal,
billions of people milling about, eyes some blue, eyes some night
eyes of shattered mirrors,
eyes of criminals and their victims

Am I still a hobo passenger,
or have I been promoted to porter?

Invention

I'm the voyager
You're the trip

You're the inventor
I'm the invention

I struggle to create the letter A
You're the finished Alphabet

Am I thrilled!
You bet I am!

Zealot to Poet

I fancy poetry,
really I do...
its rear view detachment
to trauma and/or other emergencies

But show me a guy who can contrive a haiku
while fleeing for his life
from a machete-wielding crowd,
that's the guy I'd wanna emulate.

Show me a bloke who can sonnetize
an iceberg's luminous geometry
as the Titanic slides through currents to its grave,
that's a romantic zealot to envy.

Loneliness Forever Banished

I might as well be from Mars.
I enter a restroom in Walmart.

"Restroom" --- strange designation
for a place to piss and defecate.

I note with interest, that the person in the stall adjacent
to the mirror where I refresh my face ---

with no apparent strain ---maintains a perfectly normal conversation
with an invisible acquaintance.

Who needs silence.
They have cell phones.

Name of The Game

When I play uninhibited
by the thought of losing,
I invariably score.

When I play, giving prime importance
to advancing a position rather than to winning,
I rarely miss the clues which enable me to reach the goal.

Police Action on The Prarie

It would be the last big shootout between settlers and Redskins
on that desolate stretch of the Great Plains.
A cattle baron by the name of Hawkins
decides it's high time to end the tenancy of the aborigines.
Clashes of culture and commercial interests have peaked
The standing peace treaty needs
revisiting.

On the last Thursday of November, 50 of the Baron's cowpokes
ride thunderously towards a Sioux encampment,
descending upon it like a brush fire.
In less than an hour the eviction is complete.
Not a tepee stands erect. Some of the victims die huddled.
Mrs. Hawkins, family and friends watch from a distance.

Unbeknown to the adults, the kids had separated
to view the day's events from a bit closer,
and there in the heat of battle are massacred themselves.
Mrs. Hawkins shall see the rest of her life in an insane asylum
where she dies at the age of 52, as loony as the day she entered.

Jack Hawkins personally shoots the men responsible for the mishap,
then turns the revolver on himself. His eyes had been deceived,
mistaking the fruit of his loins for Indian kids.
It was he who gave the order:

Kill every last one of them,
including their dogs,
and painted ponies.

The Ship's Rocking

On blustery days, I'm left to imagine,
I'm walking backwards. I'm at the wheel again.
My world was a ship, before I went blind.

My sea legs were all the balance I ever needed.
Sea and sky were soul mates of mine.
My colored world was aquatic tinged.

I shunned the idea of relationships surviving.
I have circumnavigated this globe many times.
I was the man, before I went blind.

In the long voyages I'd get channel fever
The smell of shore would draw me in
One more barroom raucous, and call it quits.

Then once again, down to the sea in ships.
The dockside girls wave their farewell.
The mariner waves back at them.

The Pump Is A Drum

Music is language. Language is musical.
Both are divinely and humanely coded.

Drum is percussion.
Strings are percussion designed for strumming.
Wind is percussion encircled by lips.
Keyboard is percussion for fingertips.

Blood flows percussion-like
through our veins and arteries.

The Rest is Dust

seconds of mumbo jumbo
the planet entrails rumble

windows rattle, ceilings crash,
buildings pick up and tumble

widows and orphans, the decimated streets
the silent minority under the rubble

here and there, a scratch
here and there, a rat

this morning, Gotz wakes up with a sobering thought
he is not the center of the universe

though he's at the epicenter in the 7.5 Richter,
and one of the first to give up the ghost

Virus

We need all the protection we can muster
First, the birdies were infected
Now, the porkies caught the flu.

God spare the nation's zoos,
virtually the last surviving bastions
of wild life.

Is to Kill to Murder?

Every breath
every bite
labors on behalf of survival.

Every breath
every bite
kills something on behalf of survival's interests.

As a poet, I recognize I often kill
the noble English sandwich (language.)
However, linguistic murder has never been my intention.

Call my misdeeds, therefore, language-slaughter
as opposed to manslaughter.
Murder is not my intention, when I sit to compose you a ditty.

As regarding the Ten Commandments, though,
if I'm not mistaken, it reads ---Thou shalt not commit murder,
not Thou shalt not kill.

Simple 32

Colors can perk or depress
Colors can rearrange your mood
Put on rose tinted glasses, and the world looks pink.

Black and white are absolutes, girl friend.
And that is why we love to love Humphrey Bogart
in Maltese Falcon and African Queen.

Had technicolor come first,
you and I would've been blown away
when black and white photography was finally discovered.

Liberation

4,000 women he bedded
4,000 he rocked --- perhaps
Each took a piece out of him

Dying of consumption
he was heard to groan:
All I ever wanted was a simple life

On The Road to Tucson

Suddenly, I'm surrounded by bikers by the dozens
on snorting, growling Harley Davidsons.
Helmeted, bearded and smelly looking
they have expression of angry Vikings.

Are we all headed to the same convention,
Queer Americans for Peace?

In passing me, their horned leader gives me the finger;
the following slogan emblazoned on his jacket:
BLAME IT ON GOD.COM

I change my route and head for Phoenix.

Stuck in The Middle

These true believers are a sight
They wear ski masks in sweltering weather.

We come upon them, occasionally, in desolate places;
they and the army trading punches.

Both swear, they love us to death,
and are apt to shoot us to pieces

It ain't easy being a primitive

Weekend Bender

As archaeologists dig,
he digs to understand what happened

He tries to reinvent himself
He binges to erase the ruins

Time Capsule

The morning exercise at the piano,
a little of Bartok.

On Wednesday, Gotz climbs
the vine and steep Avila
to gaze upon the valley
and the city of Caracas.

Its rumble traffic sounds
creep up the mountain.

Down the north face,
the Caribbean glitters back at it.
In the finite...
the infinite.

To Remember Is To Live ?

Say what you want about nostalgia,
that it is the candle light of groping romantics,
that to remember is to relive.

Humbug,
to remember is to die
bit by bit

Nothing Personal

The power brokers were scheming and dealing
when the Mighty Towers smoked the harbor
and floor on floor crashed onto the sidewalk

Dreaming? No, siree, dreams don't usually last for years
or keep us wide awake, awaiting a second strike

At the airport, we're ordered, " Off with your shoes."
Nothing personal, you understand,
just can't afford to lose another flight

All Souls Day

Be prepared to die,
says a skeletal creature.
Naturally, take a step back
to defend from the would be assailant.

But in no way resist demons
rather assist them to go
in the general direction
they're going.

A void awaits stinky creatures.
Just don't let them breathe on you.
I've seen such as these before
in Halloween dungeons and closets

Many

Jews, Italians, Puerto Ricans
The Dots --- how I call the Hindu people
The Slanted Eye ones --- how I call the Oriental people
the Nubians ---how I call the darkest pigment people

The people from Eng-land and Ire-land and Hol-land
all the peoples, we are the people
the E Pluribus Unum

The Backward March

The casualties were not a few
not just of bullets and bayonet

but primarily because they were bald
and in pursuing ice storms

they lost the caps
that kept them warm

Subway

How dare they intrude upon my solitude
to sell me vials of oil and sticks of incense
these peddlers on the subway
while bound am I to my apartment cavern
I read the Confessions of Saint Augustine

Mistified

Blow hard you gales over the Atlas Mountains
erode from them whatsoever you wish
if yours is the lung power ---
power to reorient the Sahara

Fissures open wide across the Pacific
Give pang to island if you got the push
--- push to sand its beaches
to the rim of volcanoes

Destruction, this has in common,
with contractions ...

orgasm.

Ghost

No wonder you foam at the gum
No wonder you rent your clothes
and tear the hair out of your head

You're shackled neck to ankle

Fetus Movements

Breathe in the deep azure
suck in the icy night
something in the universe would be missing

without our teeny weeny breathing

The Virtue of A Low Profile

Given the choice of what famous skin
I would have liked to have inhabited,
I'd say, rejoice in my own.

To be famous is to be miserable,
the high price of being too visible.




He always had the perfect rebuttal

Simple 30

Does light have shadow?
Well, maybe it emits its own kind of echo
in its traveling straight most of the time.

Do unspoken thoughts make sound?

Thoughts can raise blood pressure.
Therefore, unspoken thoughts (at the very least)
should be able to make a gurgling sound.

Painful Melody

I've heard that song thorn before
can't place it, darn it.

Maybe Dark Side of The Moon
maybe Gregorian convent

Oh, how it so pains
wonderfully.

I'm glad I'm not a goblet
another note, I could spill it.

Did I Do That?

Discourse can be like running water
follow paths of least resistance
may cause erosion
dissension
the termination of friendship

Children of The Forest

A song in dance of falling veils
a song in dance of fountains lifting


What did they think, him and her
when for the first time
the clouds released on them

Infestitation

Makes no difference
to microbes stewing
if in private parts they fester
or if they weep in sewerage

Home of The Brave, Land of The Scam

And here we are the bunch of us
brought by force or pushed from every island continent
clowns and felons and captains of industry
bankers and pirates and pedophiles

We talk business and late night trash
If we love, we'll love you to death
if we don't, we'll smart bomb you to pieces

Numbers

If you're inclined to read into numbers
secrets of ages and all sorts of superstitions,
Friday the 13th was a bad break
for the Knights Templar.

1776 is a 21 gun salute.
666 is terribly spooky.
911 continues alarming,
but what better way
to summon the cops.

Simple 28

The dragonfly is aptly named,
a dragon in every respect,
whose romance with damsel kind
more than turbulent is often fatal,
a fulfillment that freak men
sometimes seek.

Globular Entities

The atom models the cosmos
Atoms are globes which pulsate, flutter and winkle
Every global cosmos is an eye
Every eye is a me

every eye is a me

Surprise

Coffee mug in hand
I am about to counsel a co-worker
who suspects his wife is horning him

In Ancient Spain, adulterous women
were buried alive between two walls.
In Ancient Israel and certain Muslim countries,
even today, they are stoned to death.

Just then, you'd never guess what happens next,
the remains of a plane exits an elevator
clear through the other side.

Confession

I am attentive to turning in an honest day's performance
I am hygienic in my bathroom rituals
I do my Russian best to speak grammatically
I am adverse to using foul language
Ecologically, I am a Mother Teresa.

Other than the above,
I'm a basket case.

Night

candles lit in every corner
a wake in light years
to cheer the night

On Slopes of Seven Springs

Throughout the night
machines blow heavy
man-made snow
out tubular orifices
for skiers to ski virgin

Steam issues morning
from their nostrils

Slat and pole tipped,
downhill we go.

Curl the angles agile
carve the blanket's whiteness
how good it is
how sheer joyous
to live free and capitalist

Myron's Lounge

Noise and nicotine, a bad, bad mix
not as damaging as gasoline and fire
but toxic still to soul and lung

The lounge is closed, the lounge is quiet
except for the hushed sounds
of mice and crawlers

Fashion Statement

Be not enraptured by a pretty face
Who knows what hides behind demeanor.

The advantage of skirts over pants
they rustle and are more rhythmic when they shuffle.

Seven Springs, Again

Down the slopes
I glide with grace
until right leg goes in one direction
and left ski snaps above my head

Deny I would
Concede I must
Speed and daring is for the young
Who I was, I no longer am

The Flow of Go

ice melts
creeks fill
liquid tongues tumble
over breasts of veins on nipple hill
where lolly pines stand erect
remains of winter
spring overture

First and Foremost

Back from Houston job searching
the mail box stuffed with unsolicited trash
but not a reply to the 200 job applications
I mail every month.

If there's a Satan ---
my soul for a job.
I'd pledge allegiance to Hammer and Sickle
I'd be a fascist in a minute

Entertainment Tonight

In the coziness of sub zero weather, up close to the radiator,
on the wait for the news at 7, the networks make me thankful
I ain't in Cambodia, Cuba or Slowvakia. I have modern comforts,
I have Paris Hilton candy for my eyeballs.

Watching men in a cage beat themselves bloody,
I deal with my personal demons vicariously.
I then am sanctified by the likes of Jimmy Swaggart.
Why not you only live once!

I have a hankering for pornography?
Cable (believe me) has a hugh selection at bargain prices.
Bored by the above, I switch to educational TV,
to discover Jim Jones documentary.

Jim Jones is one wild and crazy preacher who convicts his parishioners
into accepting that mass suicide is preferable to being duped by Babylon.
Say I, why not play Babylon instead of letting Babylon play you.
Heck, you only die once.

I believe that if Jim Jonestown had had the internet;
had the parishioners been Facebook subscribers;
had they've been enthusiastic tweeters instead of stupidly listening
to the preacher, the collective suicide would not have transpired,

and I wouldn't be sitting here on my big, fat couch potato
watching this wacky documentary on Jim Jonestown.
Time to change stations. and sink my teeth into some real drama,
the likes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Post Colonialism

Just a few lines from abroad, Mathilde,
to let you that I arrived safely.

First impressions: A quaint place is this republic
though sultry and distinctly backwards ---
probably a factor of climate.

The natives will probably need to meet an Ice Age
for them to cool down,
and be launched into the 22nd century.
Were it not for ice,
Europe may not have expanded.

Colonialism

The helmet is a vessel for the soldier's shaving,
serves as a cooking pot as well.

The island's sweat is in its sugar cane.
Damn the English and their tea.

Once a year, we have a blowout, we call Carnival.
Damn the Vatican and its Catholicism.

Lady H.

In Africa's water holes,
neath blue tinged skies of tenderloin,
dragons lurk submerged to snatch
distracted beasts at drink's last binge of thirst.

In these evaporating pools abides, alongside the famished crocodiles,
a normally peaceful herbivore, the absolutely Hippopotamus
who would no more go carnivore than could a python be convinced
to sing the lead role of Aida..

Crocks know to keep hippos at a distance, for the latter's weight and size
outranks the crock's own nasty disposition; which is to say, if you're size xxx
and some one's wild idea of a banquet, you better have fearsome jaws.
Take it from yours truly, who herself is like a hippo.

What Big Eyes You Have

To whom I whisper against the pillow,
who I wrestle to come to terms,
pray forgive me for what I'm about to do.

Tried I have but I know not how much longer
can be restrained in this strait jacket of my own volition worn
so I won't go wrong again .

I wonder, you victims past, present and future,
if criminals like me can can ever be rehabilitated.
Granted, this is a fairy tale.

Pretty please, society, give me a break, a break of the neck, a lethal injection
or a kindly lobotomy under heavy sedation. I'm simply a desperate guy
leaning not as heavy as I could on a little Red Riding Gal.

Thus spake Wolf after the home invasion of Grandma's cottage.

Vagrant

A bleeding sunset upons us now,
and downtown is like a prize fighter fallen over
who hears the count and let's it ride

Middle night is ushered in by the gong of twelve

These towers of glass are hieroglyphic
that finger the map, pawing at star light
while, I a vagrant, wander vacant

dwarfed by the city

Simple 27

Everybody's got a story
Everybody's in somebody's story

What's your story?
Hope it isn't total bullshit

A fair amount is excusable
After all, the field has to be manured

Simple 26

Young folk, take this advice:
If you're gonna get married,
give up your friends.
Let spouse be your sole adviser.

If you have vice,
rid yourself of it
---or stay unwed
until you've succeeded

Forgive and Forget, says Who?

To remember too accurately and be to evildoers unforgiving
is as bad a curse as any that may befall an innocent.
And yet, why forgive those who do not ask to be forgiven?

I'm thinking in particular of the guards of Treblinka
and soldiers like them of every race. Orders are orders,
and those who blindly follow them are stupid to say the least.

You who tend to forgive easily,
consider this, does God always forgive,
or does He at times dispatch straight to hell?

If God always forgives,
then He will forgive me
for not forgiving my oppressors.

I'm thinking particularly of cowboys and Indians,
who bloodied us badly while we went about are business.
sweeping tepees and skinning the buffaloes.

Ghettoland

the same route to and fro
where you are
once we were

pass freight yards and graffiti
pass tenements in mish-mash

existence neath the smoke stacks
of shops now closed
and jobs shipped since to China

Writer's Entry

She's married to a writer.
He's married to his craft.

He writes: I behave like a writer
even when while I sleep.

The hard part is fleshing out characters.
Once I'm on, I can finish a play in a week.

He writes: No two people see a play the same way.
Plays can't be explained in a line or two.

I do alright in summoning dialogue.
I'm a flop when it comes to marriage.

I'm on my fifth.

Simple 26

What's all this huffing and the puffing about
the panic to catch the 6:30 suburban?

The ruckus fades
life moves on

Now and then,
a near forgotten memory emerges

Port of Call

Behind the curtain,
I blushed pink in the forbidden
until a taste of brimstone hit me
in the you-know-where and why.

For all the tea in China was it worth it?
The ship's doctor would opine;
"Let us trust in penicillin."

Moon Rock

I'm whispering to inform you,
we're packed too tight down here
in a slithering glacier, 40 below.

For 100 thousand years,
it's been snowing pellets on us,
crystals, volcanoes and avalanches.
Can you hear us? Can you dig us?
We're closer than you think.
We're in your genes.

S.O.K. - Save Our Kind.
We're not what you'd guess.
You might be amused.

Desperate X Wife

At 3:26 of a dismal, Weehawken morning, the call was received
while I stared absently at the Manhattan skyline. Fourteen minutes later,
the call ended as abruptly as it had started.

Terms of separation were agreed to that quickly.
Wife of 12 years could keep house and the Carol King collection.
Eleven of the 12 were excruciatingly boring but there was a child between us.

We had another thing in common beside the 12 stations of the cross and the kid,
we had married too young. The divorce was decreed in Santo Domingo
which shares the island of Hispanola with Haiti.

How's that for a geography lesson. Across the street from the lawyer's office
was a lowlife bar, the kind you see in south of the border movies.
Cornelia and I shared there in Santo Domingo our last margarita.

How's that for a Meryl Haggard ballad! We popped a coin in the jukebox,
and danced in Santo Domingo one last bolero. The locals seemed amused.
I read their thoughts, "These gringos dance like elephants."

"One more for the road?" I inquired of the ex Mrs. Wellington, meaning;
let's have a banger -- meaning; let's have some rough and tumble sex.
She declined.

Boy, did she decline. She declined steep and hard.
Mutual acquaintances informed me that she took up with a toy boy type,
probably something she picked up in Santo Domingo.

In any event, Cornelia took sick
and eventually died of AIDS.
How's that for a kicker!

Luck of the draw, I suppose had spared me,
which brings me to the question;
What is chance and what is kismet?

Conclusion: A stranger entered
may have no exit,
but to exit.

Votive Moment

As to dynamite --- they have fuses
As to candles, they have wicks

A wick is but a rope
encased in paraffin, a worm of sorts
that fire eats.

See the match's cherry head burst like solar
Out of respect, lower your eyes

It's not about sex nor drugs
It's the solemnity
of pyromania

Keep Hope Alive

Pray diligently for every female
you want to bed. Pray particularly
for the one you wed.

Pray for every woman ,
loose or virgin. Virgins?
Are there any left?

You, players, your lover could have been
in another life, your own dear mother,
your sister, your daughter.

"Lover," did the poetess say lover? Do lovers still exist?
From love slaves to sex dolls, keep hope alive,
robots for sex will be state of the arts.

Would be

Tarot vs Lifeguard

The palm reader predicted he'd suicide.
The lover felt he was a latent homosexual,
because, she said, he was in the habit
of peeling off beer bottles labels.

They both might have both been right,
but for Jesus.

Baboushka's Dim Recall

Resting hoary head upon wrinkled hands
she stares at parlor adornment,
a print picture hung on yellow wall.

The wall paper loosens.
Oh, Babouska, cover the mirrors.
You have aged so fast.

In the print, a stream halves autumn woods
from which mist rises. Ruins in the mist or maybe not;
perchance a bank of slate on water's edge.

Through virginhood, I stared at the print,
something about the woods,
something about the stream and the mist.

I sensed something of Baboushka hidden
in the print's mist, in the print's ruins
or in the slate on the waters' edge.

Simple 24

There may be a book somewhere
that tells the instant we'll be no more
and how and where we'll perish

There may be a book somewhere
that tallies the total number of words we'll speak
before we shut the trap

If there is such a book somewhere
it seems as if the best chance of lengthening days
might be to speak no more than you have to

The Almost End of The World

Rain stored for weeks is released like a 13 month pregnancy
erupting placenta, signaled by a bolt of alighting,
which as luck would have it, struck the White House dead center.

Whispers in the corridors of Congress,
a situation in April of which we will know next to nothing,
till the relevant documents are declassified in a 100 years.

Pepperoni DRAFT

With hankering for angelic sophistication,
Michelangelo lets hammer/chisel fly
and chips ricochet top to bottom

It shall, this slab of marble conform or be junked,
from whence a hunk emerges soon enough
of man as never seen before
or ever to be surpassed again

David, shepherd boy, resplendently jock,
Adam Florentine, no sign of fig leaf hanging anywhere
The perfect piece of marble sculpt

except for two small details;
hands too big for his torso,
and a penis uncircumcised

In other words, the pepperoni is not kosher,
but should it matter really? It's art, we're talking people!
Not biblical correctness

Precipitation

It always seems to rain at funerals
Shovel of earth, lower the casket.

I'll go home, and get drunk.
And then, it hits me.
She won't be there.

Darn DRAFT

Dripping faucet, creaky floor
scary murmur of his own heart

The kids call from time to time
the eldest wishes he'd be more active

Won't be long before the three are scheming
to have him admitted in assistant living

Ancient versus Modern DRAFT

The Coliseum crowds were rowdy
for their noise you could not hear

the crunch of bone
the gurgling sound of spilling blood
or how a lance deflates a lung

We have better effects in Hollywood,
and the actors don't usually get crippled

Sunset Tropic DRAFT

Big bottomed galleons pink of billow
blue algae stains their undersides
these are the clouds
moving inland

From The Eastern Shore DRAFT

Last year's hurricane reshaped our coast
washed tourism away
to other islands

we miss the visitors
their circus ships
cruise after cruise

descending the gangplanks
boarding the sightseeing buses
snapping photos of sloths in our plaza

Over sized creatures
in colorful garb, these wild old people
these strange natives from North America

Washington Heights DRAFT

New York swelters in August
followed by crisp September and October

Then flurries in November
and chill in January that cuts to the morrow

I was born of transplanted parents
Apartment 1D was a shadowy place

of flickering candles and eyes in the somber portrait
of a great grandmother who followed you wherever you moved

I was born cloistered
and then turned loose

West Indian Lament

Big pit fruit trees grew in our backyard
avocados, mangoes, cashews

When it rains,
the mangoes drop in numbers

Plip, plop

When we were young,
before we moved to Brooklyn

Love Thy Neighbor DRAFT

Love them as you love yourself?
That ain't easy when you have for neighbors
the lazy, thieving slobs who surround me

What does it mean to love them anyhow?
Wish them no ill?
Well better dead than in mischief

Wish them far away?
In principal, a neighbor in New Zealand
is easier to love

than the one who lives down the street

Patience DRAFT

He intends to teach the youngest to drive,
she with elbows extended toward the windshield

stretches over the steering wheel,
to gauge the road beneath her

Lesson One, says her father --- relax
Feel the road in the seat of your pants

Huh? says Marnie
Replies Mr. Crewsow;

Let's stick with the right turns only.

Sea Spray

I love you when the moon is plumb
and when it's absent, too

I love you neath the fanning geese
in flight between two planets

I love you when the wind blows stiff
I love you in the wash upon the rocks

where hulls were split and cargo spilled,
and in all the howling of the night

not a man nor rat was saved from drowning

What is Faith? DRAFT

When torture has you by the exquisites
you either enter heaven hopping,
or screaming descend into the void

Resolution in A Flat DRAFT

As coffee piping hot or that first whiff of Australia
when you've been out to sea two months
I need a lift

Forget the one who left you
Dishes languor in the sink
Get back to work, pick up the pencil

The Finger DRAFT

The vagrant and his wheelchair are in equal disrepair
The vagrant wears trousers of mixed design

One trouser leg is pink
The other violet polka dot

The vagrant asks if I can spare a quarter
Straight answer to straight question is

I can not spare a quarter. I'm not Bill Gates
He gives me the finger

Power to the people

Lost DRAFT

An obese young lady eats out of a bag
more than her fair share of the world's food supply

an old lady asks if the next stop is West End
nobody hears her

everyone in this car is either wearing ear phones
or can't be bothered

the old lady has strayed in space and time
what with winter and fog rolling in

the old lady might not make it home in time
this is a city of walking catastrophes

Specimens DRAFT

Continents will drift
it's to be expected

the planet is always changing
like we ourselves are flaking skin

Come filmmakers
come curators

the dinosaurs are no more

What you see is what you get

Two stargazers look through their respective telescopes

The first reacts: There is no god

The second whispers: The heavens declare His glory

Walker DRAFT

He's always been a sucker for a pretty face
this gypsy cab driver

She's a knockout
her mouth is painted like a stop sign

She chews gum
like cows chew pasture

No creature should be this attractive

Moon Day DRAFT

It's the morning after Sunday,
She's been had

She stares at the lug by her side
who turns heavily on the mattress

whose arms are clubs
whose head's a block

were it not for his brawn
he'd be useless

till his testosterone runs out

Dance Lesson DRAFT

Slowly and lightly, she instructs
"This is a tango, not rumble
Save the rumble for the mambo lesson."

Love on The Dark Side

Is there any theme more intriguing than evil?
Love you say?

Love Othello style.
love Romeo and Juliet spaghetti.

Love Tristan und Isolde Celtic Gothic.
Love that Brad Pitt versus Angelina Jolie.

There is no spice to beat romance,
no juicier gossip than adultery who done it.

Flood follows Drought

It rains like a story book
it rains drops the size of rubber boots

"It doesn't seem as if this rain, is gonna let up any time soon,"
says the grocer to Mrs. Noah, doing her weekly shopping

Metropolis

The weight of cities weighs down on the planet.
Towers are crumbling
The fumes of autos diminish our chances.
Sewer pipes are bursting.
Any wonder we cringe at the sight of rats;
they inhabit the seamy and hidden confluences.

The drilling for oil leaves voids that collapse.

Make on The Train DRAFT

He recites a curriculum pages long
at the conclusion of which, says he's no regular guy
And she half reluctantly, accepts his business card

She appears to pay him no mind,
but who knows

Anatomy 101 DRAFT

Imagine if one's brain were located between one's loins,
you'd have to be castrated for people to say, "It's a no brainer."

Imagine if the brain were located in the rectum,
that would really be a pain in the ass.

200 Years Fast Forward DRAFT

Our indigenous walked straight back then
the breasts of their women were sweet papayas
Europe had not yet exported the ribbed brassier

When General Gonzalez's casket was exhumed
on the hundred year anniversary of his passing,
the same was shipped to his birth place
Lo, on inspection, his left riding boot
was found to have been spared the ravages of decay

Everywhere in Santa Ines, statues are eroding quick time,
and lately, we've seen a plague of locusts
as big as sparrows

Hey, somethings in the air

Boulders of Saturn

The deep look
the hard look
the tender look of I-have-you-in my-sights

The near view
the far view
the underside look

What rings zoom by
what boulders fly
I am so privileged

Bo and Gi

Darkness mellowed
and from its density,
clay was fashioned hairy.

A while ago, a ding-dong wakes me.
Dazed I look about. "Where am I,
what am I, who in the pits is me?"

No reply comes from rocks nor clouds.
I, Knuckle Guy then spies another creature
to whom I screech in irrational glee - "Gi !"

Creature, more hairy than me,
(but in a higher pitch) screeches back -"Bo! Believe it or not, folks -
I speak true, letters "r," "i"and "l" evolved simultaneously.

And that's how gi languaged into girl. Subsequently, consonant "y"
was appendaged to syllable bo , and since then has rarely been uttered
as the best of compliments but is not the worst of put downs either,

unless you are deeply pigmented
and over the age of 21
in the fabled land of Dixie.
Since then,

Subsequently, consonant "y" was appendaged to syllable "BO,"
establishing the word "boy which ever since those primitive times
has remainednot the best of compliments nor the worst put downs.

Snapshot of Other City DRAFT

It rarely freezes in April
but toes have been known to snap off
in late winter blizzards

She's rides the rail all day
exits at the Airport station for a piss or a breather
The snoring bundle of rags looks up for a second

The approaching station is Arts Center

Simple 23

"Free at last," means but one thing ---
Take responsibility for your actions

Transit Authority DRAFT

A few scattered Caucasoids
ride east to Cabbage Town from Five Points
engrossed in reading
so as not to look up at the passengers

some in veils, latter day Muslims,
and there the vendor of exotic oils
I can vouch for his incense,
and there the evangelist scolding the sodomites


My people,
my color
black glistening,
others dusted in construction powder

The Neighborhood Declines DRAFT

When they pass from hand to hand
their age and ruin is not be cloaked

shingles loosen
shutters slip

the one time mansions moan
pools behind them moss and swamp

where frogs for insects fish
and snakes fish for frogs

Imagine DRAFT

It's a given
Everyone wants to live in America
Half of China --- we'd all be crammed in closets
Latin America --- California would fall into the Pacific
Africa --- forget it. Who would mine the diamonds?

For the sake of humanity, my fellow Americans,
let us go forth and nationalize the peoples.
Annex every nation... The United States of the World
No more war, no more "isms."

A world without borders
like New York is to Jersey
Imagine, 195 stars on our Star Spangle Banner
All the peoples ruled as one

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Lift The Veil and Weep DRAFT

Fluff the pillow as you usually do
assume the fetal and hatch down the lids
the countdown begins

Go with the flow, the undertow
quietly into the deep
Sleep well, star voyager

Sweet dreams, lover
The birds will awaken singing
but not for you

This time, you dreamed to far

Simple 22

Law and order...
peace will follow, or well it should
like ducklings a mother goose

Live to love, love to live
Risk breaking rules
that serve no good

Simple 21

Are you happy?

What is happiness
not in passing?

Are you at peace?

I look worried to you?

Simple 20

Let one's grumbling be internal
unless one's grumblings can instigate a riot,
and the riot a revolution which spares nobody

Simple 19

A pacifist who allows himself to be entertained by blood sport
is no better than a celibate entertained by theatrical hanky-panky

I stand accused

Simple 18

Suicide is mean-spirited and indefensible.
what with so many worthy causes in need of martyrs

At the least, donate your organs

Simple 17

The study of nature provides the freest form of worship

The study of nature is meditation eyes wide open

Simple 16

The spectacular patterns of serpents are unappreciated
when panic has you speechless,
'cause you just found a snake slithering in the kitchen

Why do we (especially, us women) cringe at the sight of this curious creature?
Is it because it's armless and legless, and crawls on its belly?
More reason to pity than to detest