Sorry

Three beautiful children came knocking at my wee, small door.
Oh what a lovely sight. They looked like angels.
One even held a battery powered candle and a halo.

I forgot tonight is the night of angels and goblins.
I was sorry to have to tell them
I don't celebrate Halloween.

Closet Capers

You're on your easy chair. You've toiled hard and long.
Remote control in hand, you turn on the luminous contraption
and lo, a freak show parades across your living room!

As with installations built to shelter against disasters,
television ought to be watched in bomb proof closets.

Trial and Error

Observation begets knowledge
Observation and experimentation begets the scientific method.

The who are studious never tire
and rarely are superstitious.

Cookie Crumble

Make a fervent New Year's wish,
broadcast it to your friends,
see it melt away in a fortnight.

If you want to see your resolution through,
whisper it to no one, except perhaps your mother.
Don't tell me about it, do I look like your mother?

Tell Me About It.

If you think man is basically a noble savage,
disadvantaged by societal circumstances,
exploited by class warfare, etc. ---
believe in Marx.

If you think, man is a loser
bound to self destruct,
pray to Jesus.

If your beliefs are somewhere else,
tell me about them.

Antebellum

Where bondage is love is at risk.
The dysfunction lasts generations.

A Near Rape in A Near Prision

Risks must be weighed,
dangers considered,

I informed the formidable opponent
that one of us could be murdered,
the other seriously injured.

We could have wound up holding hands.
Instead, we learned the advantage of distance.
Territorial respect makes for civil cell mates.

I Live In A Burrow.

True wealth provides leisure ---
leisure to indulge in tasks generally non productive.

Do you want to desire friends?
Make them believe you're rich and famous.

Do you wish to get rid of some that you have?
Make them think that you've gone hopelessly indigent.

Invariably, the fewer your friends,
the greater your leisure.

Humbuggery

There is no such thing as little white lies,
only big white lies, disguising as Santa Clausery.

Merry Christmas to his elves.
Peace on earth to the meanies in North Korea.

Ready or Not

You take precautions
to not live in dread.

You are not entertained by violence
unless it be by mutual consent.

You accept that anytime is dying time,
that living full is living without regret.

The World was Smaller Then

I saw in his sketches of playing cards,
keys and loose change scattered on a table,
in the lampshades of tassels that he drew
in styles baroque, cubist and classical,
I discerned the artist was into pubic hair.

It was a time of poetic license
and Freudian liberation.
The human form seemed less curious
than in former times.

Wonder Woman

I would not ask you to break a promise
to do charity beyond what I have budgeted.
Time after time, you have proven,
you are the Mother of Provision.

As my young bride, I took satisfaction,
that beautiful women make humanity proud,
Thirty five years married to you,
I celebrate something greater;

a virtuous wife is a gift from God.

To The Late John Baptist

Mister, for me I would not have asked for your heart in a bowl of linguine,
nor that your head be brought on a silver platter.

I merely did what Mom expected.
Blame her and Herod's sweaty, stick fingers.

Love and Resignation

Get rid of the messenger
but keep the message
this is love's enduring tribute

That Keeps It Dutch

My hand is trellis to your flower,
your body which comely ages
like a Rembrandt painting
that darkens in the frame
yet retains the glow
that keeps it Netherlands.

Balanced

In fullness, I am rejoicing
nature is rebounding,
the universe is juggling.

The Newmans

Grandma remembered only a few disjointed verses
of the thousands she wrote as a child,
gone up the chimney in Holocaust smoke.

This is the sad part of life,
that things treasured are lost forever.

Grandfather's Iron Cross, awarded for World War I service -
well, that too was lost in the Holocaust confusion.

This is the sad part of life,
that some things cherished
may not having been worth keeping.

Finality

In a banquet of delights
nothing is ever as it seems.
You will pay the tab before you exit!

You need not tip the waiter
to ensure proper service.
Pain more than pleasure is on the menu.

O'Clock

Hands of a clock render the example,
that movement traces space,
that time traces movement.

Thus, the myriad theories of relativity,
and swinging pendulum guillotines
and non stop cuckoo interjections.

Black, White and Greenbacked

Let's not bullshit each other,
we're too mature for that!
We know racism is at the core
of the American experience.

The enlightened fight it everyday within themselves.
I once was attacked by a pit bull so viciously
I must remind myself, not every dog is a pit bull.
Similarly, not every offense is racist motivated.

To quote Rodney King, martyred by the LAPD:
"Can't we all live together,"
At the very least, let's laugh it off.
Ain't we Americans and good at that!

Armfull

I have and will always need you
With mind open, I embrace you
to express my defeats and purpose.

With eyes shut, I kiss you
to look beyond this moment.

Blue Danube

One can be conked on the head with falling debris.
The planet is still smoking. From high ground,
the rain of stars is more apparent.

One can forage for days
and not come upon another upright.

The sphere vibrates with the sound of music
which one day will be called; blues, jazz
and heavy metal. The Waltz is yet to be invented.

Crocks on The Banks

Idle chatter diminishes the workplace's productivity,
yet, who does not relish a little water cooler tidbit?
It also fosters a sense of camaraderie.

As with Acquaintances

Stand too close to a picture,
you may see it blurry.
Stand too distant,
you may not see it.

To view a person clearly,
the proper distance is crucial.

Too Close for Comfort

"Familiarity breeds contempt,"
goes the popular saying,
popular because it's time proven.

With lovers, though, might not
familiarity breed content? Still,
conditions can change and readily do;

as happened with Murial and Tom,
as happened to Tom when he wearied of Sally,
as happened to Sally when she dumped Mark.

Might not indeed, familiarity breed contempt,
political and religious affiliations
being no exception?

Bipolar National Anthem

Experience guides,
intuition prompts.
Between the layers,
duds and mine fields,
bullet ridden bodies,
rust pitted armor,
trenches and groaning

the night

Slab Face

Flattery's purpose is to entrap.
The purpose of entrapment is to extract.
One easily flattered is easily undressed,
and may be slapped onto a slap, as naked
as the day he saw first light.
Musings in a morgue.

I Got Your Back Covered

Intelligence is not the master. Spirit is.
Intelligence is a but a foot soldier,
a ninja warrior at best, to serve at the bidding
and pleasure of her Master.

Cheek to Cheek

How to trust one's gut feelings
in a mugger encounter or on Wall Street?

Be there for the right reason,
and be prepared to exit smartly.

A Simple Day of Rain

As the tortoise's shell is hinged
so also should be one's persona
for the shielding of ego
when blushing is insufficient
to cop a plea of innocence.

It is a simple day of rain.
The pain restrained almost washes
of when I almost lost my one true love ---
me, of course --- the beginning and end of life
as I knows it.

Psychology

The hole is the sum of missing parts.

Hangman's Noose

Only the goal of securing escape proof prisons,
and of attaining liberation for all parties involved,
justifies capital homicide.

Babcroft and A Half

Babcroft's pieces were altar offerings to destruction;
the candles he waxed to the size of condos;
the houses built from broom sticks,
without knots to bind them .

Each work stood out as much in its falling apart
as in its building up. Babcroft considered
a piece complete only after it had reached
the state of collapse.

Art is quirky. The first to think of a tombstone
created a utilitarian sculpture for many to copy.
The first to decorate the wall of a cavern
was a precursor of Picasso.

Art exhibits are essentially showcases of vanity.
Long live vanity, without which we'd be short of entertainment.

Witchcraft

Pretend is powerful,
but not invincible.
Genius and imbecile
can be one in the same.

Show Business

The more you're sought,
the more you're booked,
banquet of make believe,
feeding frenzy of pretend and tell.

Center Stage

An actress plays many parts.
At the end of her career, who is she really?
A script unread, the theater emptied,

the hologram she was fades to dark.

Before

This we do not know
where we were in the before.

Still, wherever that may have been,
attached we were like vines to trees,
like trees to rivers invisible,

like prisoners sentenced
to vagabond ancestors.

Sticky

So much wonder all about about
why dwell on mean and ugly,
except to extract the thorn,
cancerous suckerous and gooey.

It's a sticky navigation between self exorcism
and resisting the call to exercise blatant justice.

Strawberryfields for Crynowloud

Dead or alive, fame doesn't go unattended.
Everyone wants a piece of the action.
The Force be with us to protect us.

Fanatical fans go homicidal
in the attempt to change history forever,
and so they do, they really do.

I'd say invisibility is preferable
to being a bull's eye out on the town.
Remembering John Lennon and others.

Their Weekend Vacations

Because misery loves company,
it's a sure bet they'll leave you
feeling miserable.

If your life is nearly perfect,
you mustn't have relatives.
Give me solitude
and give me gold fish.

Says She

When I was a kid,
I regretted nothing.

Older and on higher ground,
I regret almost everything,

which is like casting a bucket of sand
in the ocean.

Move on, the ghosts of the past
can't touch me.

J.K. Rowling and Oprah Winfrey

Two billionaire women, eye ball to eyeball,
musing, amusing the perils of their unrivaled successes.

The author on the left looks like she could pilot a broom.
The media empire on the right resembles a gigantic frog on a down-sized couch.

Does the world window lie?
Surely not. It magnifies.