What Have You Been Doing?

I've been yahooing
I've bin googling
I've bean lampooning
I've beam embezzling

Electronic Forming

The tears run
puff reddened
blurred

Commercial break

Glaring, blinding
squinting
geometric pixel knit

The panty liner that does not leak

Skinless the wee box
the world inhibits
fingers fingering lingering lips

Storm tracker Watch

The tips refrigerator time
iconic touch
remote

From Haiti to Leno
commercial breaks
back to front

Now, grab the lever to the brewery
the frosted glass, the bottle opener
and drink the Miller High Lite greedily

Billie

She was a seamstress of sorry
a mortified spirit, a songbird of fragile
a voice of crystal imported from in
I can not bear to hear any longer

for Billie still sings in rare radio sangs
that if she allows the jerk to beat her up
it's nobody business if she does

Well, gals, that's for pits;
take if from Sis
who just buried guy # 3,
because he 2 proved he hated his mom

Customer Friendly

You know what you want
You know what you need
Go "get it" with a capital "G."

If a bad attitude first needs correcting,
correct it.
If it's broken, fix it, son of woman!

Obstacles to self determination do not move of themselves.
A mighty push may serve the purpose,
but not without faith to see it through.

The Happy Couple

It pains me to remember the past
the opportunities missed

It's a wonder we ever survived
...and with so much
How blessed we are

Founding Father

A decade after he buried in a pink mausoleum,
a small war was fought over the relic of a locket of hair.
What a guy was Founding Father, who lives in us to this day.

He'd lead an assault in the morning,
engage the invader till mid day,
then party hardy all evening.

By the time he was 40, his virility was kaput.
Thus, he would die in exile in borrowed pajamas,
a ghost and a shadow of the Field Marshall he was.

A nation grateful, however,
remembers him with reverence.
incomparable donor of sperm.

Alas, he was human.
In that humanity was lost a saint.
Could he but live his life all over...

10

Envision zero
enter
Find the pool
seek its source

Folks All Lip

Folks all lip when not chewing blubber
chew their fellows
The kind who calls me "brother"
when eying a something for nothing.

The backward type never will catch up
till they rework their priorities,
and how to think right.

The Perfume of Her

Scent has you dizzy?

Mind over nose, you can do it!
Brain will follow dictates,
for Brain is a helmsman, but you're the ship's captain.
Just order a steerage clear of mine fields and mermaids

Be Picky, Be Safe

When lionesses go prowling,
crouching, timing,
they best be picky.

Whereas some prey can be felled easily,
some are too strong to risk.

A lady could be trampled or gored;
she, herself, wind up a meal
for laughing-dog hyenas.

Darkness at The End of The Tunnel

Can things formed out of nothingness
to nothingness return?

Is nothingness that packed ?

Predetermined

Finite does not pierce infinite
There is purity
There is corruption
Corrupt may once have been pure
The Angel of light transforms into the Prince of Darkness

Ray of light
shadow casts

The Hero Returns

Oh happy day when Garcia was shipped back home
from France first class, a guard assigned.

Sixty years earlier, he fled a bounty on his head.
to receive at docking a hero's welcome 21 gun salute,
brass band and much fan fare and waving of square inch flags

Before an august assembly of priests and colonels,
the hero's casket is opened and inspected in detail.

Oh happy day. No souvenirs from the cadaver have been stripped,
other than normal maggot wear and tear. Garcia was no saint, you know,
and supposedly normal fellows decay faster than those who have worn halos for caps.

Thousands of women the General bedded, including the wives
of foe and friend alike. At 47, he looked like a battered 85 .

Between war and coitus, his days were foreshortened.
Rumor, also, has it ----venereal disease had its part,
as the scourge of STD was known back then.

The casket revealed a skeleton cloaked in handsome braided jacket,
though terribly shredded, the Field Marshall jacket woven for him in Algiers.

The skeleton's britches were, likewise, tattered and holey.
The strangest thing, however, Garcia's right boot was as spit and polished
as the night of the ball he attended, when he leaped out a window to save his life.

The part of the boot defies scientific explanation. The same with Garcia's career.
He won campaigns he should have lost for sure

Rumor has it, Garcia made a pact with Satan Be that as it may,
today we celebrate the anniversary of his death in a high mass in his honor
where no one hears his hollow groan uttered from the great beyond.

"Countrymen, were it permitted, I would lead you in one more glorious charge."
Croaks a crow: "Fat chance of that!"

Star Struck

And here me thought
starfish were cute,
as portrayed by Disney.

Hereafter, children,
believe nothing Hollywood pushes,
whether Bambi, Snow White or her Seven Freaks.

Let me give you the low down, dearies.
Starfish are the monsters,
of whom Mother warned.

Worst than any wolf of any tail
(of the Little Red Virginhood tale)
is the dreadful starfish,

who with exquisite tenacity and built-in hydraulics,
grip and crush unsuspecting shell fish,
to ply them open and protrude into their innards,

the ever ravaging, starfish belly.
The rest is sucking,
pleasure and relish.

Sushi or not,
life is always a killer,
and rarely plays nice.

Sushi or not,
life is always a killer,
and rarely plays nice

The Count of Monte Cristo

May I never know the day
that I find it difficult
to believe in God

Ode to Technology

A washing machine does the average housewife kinder
than did the Taj Mahal,
the princess buried pretty.

Today's movies idols, their films will last
countless generations. Let us be grateful,
we are modern peoples.

Sorry for What?

Should I feel sorry that I'm not sorry?
Sorry that you got struck by lighting?
It is unfortunate you suffer so.
Still, better you than me?

Maybe it's your karma

Ghosts

Up close I've seen comets photographed
I've seen photographs of men and women lynched
I've always heard about ghosts,
but have yet to see one except in blurry images photographed.

Wait
Is not everything we see on television ghost,
ghosts being persons in specter but not in flesh ?

Pointers

She lives in a penthouse
70 stories closer to starlight
Peace and aerial over the Manhattan

Access by transfer
from one to two elevators,
screened by a doorman,
and a concierge who speaks French.

Thank the rich and famous
for security cameras up the kazoo
You got, flaunt it or play dead

Trump the bit players
Play it smart
Ahead or behind,
don't show your hand.

Have You

Have you ever seen the city
not just eyeballed it, but riffed it
gotten under her steely dress?

Have you jammed the rhythm
the slick, slick dampness
of midnight tires in you?

Every edifice her musicality breathing
brick and mortar trumpet
the dizzy keyboard of her beading streets

Have you ever done the city, really
tasted her urban sprawl and intimacies
tested in her scroll and rolls?

Have you ever taken the city emptied
mealy and high in midnight haunts
Said her name was Dawn

At first light, she yawns
at first light she falls asleep in shuttered blinds
till again tonight, same time, same session




Unfinished

Daughter to Mother

Said to her mama, a sweet 5 year old
( pretty mixed up):
Mother, Mother, I am white!

Replied mama to child
(to set her right):
Black thou art till proven otherwise.

Negro is not easy to disprove,
if in black womb,
conceived thou waz.

Happily, the opposite is irrelevant.
Conceived in a white womb, of itself,
a full-fledged Caucasian does not make you.

To The Lord of All Time

In the springtime of my closing
in the ebb that flows from me
to One alone do I belong
in longings stretched beyond
this fabric of me.

Octavia

Where earth touches heaven
where lungs breathe in sky
upward from toes,
she was the vertical.

Her thoughts are of God.

With only a prayer,
Grandmother Octavia,
could freeze any snake
crossing a path.

Home Grown

His name was Timothy,
but he wasn't timid
His surname was McVeigh,
and boy did he prey!

A dreamer, big dreamer,
he dreamed mass destruction
Reduce the Pentagon to a heap of trash
To dream the impossible dream, the White House bring down,

In Oklahoma, Tim tried a dry run
he decimated kindergarten a 100 per cent
but got caught before he could up the score
The twin towers, now that would've been nice!

No Time To Tip Him

From the menu under Desserts,
I order the flan titled "Volcano."
Before its brought to the table,
agents in black crash into the restaurant,
and people go scampering.

The agents wear baseball caps,
and on their bullet-proof vests is emblazoned "ICE,"
acronym for Immigration Gestapo
Dishwashers and illegal cooks alike, they collar,
includidng my foreign born waiter.

Him, they handcuff him from behind
and place a hood over his head,
dragging him and his comrades to a waiting van.
"Hey wait,
what about my flan?
"Hey wait, what about my flan?"

Haghood

She takes the winding stairs airborne
and in mid flight ---witch that she is,
accomplishes she suspended animation.

At 78, she drifts to a swan like landing
A ballerina, a decade later, and right foot trailing,
she does me smart one more time.

Off and on, it's why we are life time lovers
the true meaning
of aging gently.

Sockball

This planet is
a sock ball sensation
a kick in the teeth, a shank in the dark

Cardboard ghettos built on top of each other
vultures circling the road kill beneath
orphans scrounging dumpsters to live

Another wink, another trip
A Lion King Disney
A night on the town

A Broadway excursion
You give me the money,
I'll tell you the lie

My continent, on the other hand, is
hell on a billboard
a girl of 11 packing a rod

Pedro Escobar, in memory of...
Drugs and illicit
Let's get it on

Chased and Chasers

He was speared from behind,
clearly revealed from the forensics performed
10,000 years after the stab

The expression on his face,
made leather by time,
not all his hair had disappeared,
he still had some on scalp and chin.

He and his woolly garments
had lain in ice, museum exhibits
too rare a find to not show off.

Because he was speared from the rear
he might have been chased for what offense?
An outlaw, an outsider --- maybe,
a man from a distant race.

Back then, Neanderthals were the majority
but others were encroaching fast. The same old story
You fight to survive. You survive, you eat

Fading Glory

My neighbors, who used to drape flags on patriotic occasions,
did not a one hang last year. Perhaps it's due to economic recession
The tide has ebbed. The thrill is gone.

I've never been one to wave a banner,
nor sport baseball cap to identify allegiance.
It's not my style to billboard beliefs
Sentimentality, I keep close to the hearth.

The old neighbor, who survived Omaha beach,
last Armistice Day, left standing stark his flag pole.
That's saying a lot, being he's a die hard Republican.
The mechanic espoused to the sheriff next door,
not only neglected to fly Old Glory,
but their Halloween crap still litters their lawn
a month after midget goblins disappeared from the porch.

In my town on the mid Atlantic,
far to the west of the White Cliffs of Dover
black birds are swarming by the hundreds of thousands.

Am I patriotic?
I do what I can... without throwing fits
Do I love my country?
I have and I will...right or wrong.