Green Wood and Dead Wood

A woodpecker is a mighty bird,
of beak that does not splinter,
of neck that does not strain
as she makes her forest rounds
to jackhammer neath ancient bark
for grub to eat and ants to slaughter.

I think it superior to be a woodpecker than a woman,
for we are only with our tongues impeccable groomers.
In all else we are more like woody flowers to which men
come to feast and bother, not with the clear intentions
of noble carpenters. Therefore, de plume them all
and serve them on silver platters.

You Promiscouous Boy

Pray for every woman you'd wanna bed
Pray especially for the one you wed.

Pray for the virgins and the loose woman, too.
Virgins are there any left?

You promiscuous boy, consider that in another life
your one night stand could have been your mother.

Dirty old man, is your girlfriend young enough to be your daughter,
then as you would you daughter you ought to treat her.

Keep hope alive, you promiscuous guys, the day is coming
when robots for sex will be state of the arts.

End of Maya Calendar Eve

An experience so personal, so exotic, so eros, I can not fully explain what sweet torture
I endured in the wee hours of January 1st by the dawn's early light, what so glaring epiphany
leapt from the shadows bright like fire, and like an angelic host my soul and body secured.

So convinced the vision is real, please don't attempt to persuade me otherwise, therefore
no more be said, I promise. Only pray, you poets, that comet come for real, and snuff us out
like candles, that we need not suffer yet another unfulfilled doomsday prophecy.

Breaking News

Heard and seen on CNN last night.

"This is a historic occasion,
we're seeing the last American troops leaving Iraq,
except for the 20,000 who will remain."

To paraphrase the "Yes We Can," Obama electoral slogan,
Yes we can, bullshit the American public, day and night,
night and day.

Little One

What are you up to little one, attempting once more
break out of play pen to check out the options
beyond your immediate reach ?

You, little one of the crystal ball gleam in your eyes,
who exited shortly from the pregnant belly, the labor pangs
were on schedule were they not?

In the figure 8 which expresses infinity,
the track trails back to the source of beginnings.
Thus, what's on the loop voyages infinitely round and around.

Thus, Big Bang comes full circle back into contractions Peel back
the layers, little one. May our index fingers touch.
You be searching, I be waiting.

State of Being

You pick the paints to color me,
Black and blue is fine by me.
I'm partial to the darker hues.

Whitewash me if you will.
It will not change who and what I am.
I am mud, I am saffron. I'm also coral reef.

Mock me, curse me. So many times
you've spat on me, I'm numb to adversity.
Towards adversity I feel a little fondness, in fact.

Whatever you, don't dare pretend to love me,
then at random despise my race and culture.
I've already told you who and what I am.

I am lowly not because it is my station. For love of art
I dress the part. Handle me with caution, then.
I might be your siren of destruction.

For those who insist to know what I'm about,
I'm a woman of a thousand faces. Some Calypso,
a few Medusa.

Royal titles I deride. Titles of pomposity
I will bring to naught. True nobility is of mind, heart
and of temper, most of all.

Eclipse

The fragrance of unfinished business
lingered upon my lips and fingers.
The thank-you-note he should've sent,
he didn't!

Dark disk the moon devoured instead,
but lunar fuel returned refreshed.
Suffice it then. Let's go from there
to kiss and tell the testament.

It was for certain an eclipse for us,
but not for the three of us alone,
but for everyone who sweats the collar
and heeds the trickles southward bent

to midnight moth's lust provoked
to swallow light, even if only a 10 light bulb,
better a ten then nothing, Alas, the moth
by light's devoured.

In cauldrons, I'll have you know,
that brimstone twinkles in soft lit hues to then explode expletive,
and in the vibratory ranges of recoiled lava spurts
is heard the wicked dissonance of bleating mattresses,

as well as is endured the maddening cries,
which slap unmerciful the senses,
that --- irreversible something lost,
the insufferable groaning which is pure pleasure.

Eclipse,
mighty Eclipse,
Tonight, to thee we carol
and pay thee pagan homage.

Oy Christmas Tree!

Post Xmas, plastic Christmas trees are hugely discounted. Peter says,
that over a 10 year period, you could save $700 investing in a plastic tree
as opposed to buying a freshly cut tree, year after year.

Furthermore, Peter argues, the 100, 000 people employed,
farming Christmas trees could better utilized in service industries
such as health care and border guards armed with Uzis.

Peter gasps over the wholesale pillage nature suffers
due to this fairy tale we call Santa-hood, of which adults
have been conning children for generations.

Peter explains, that plastic trees have the added advantage
their boughs can be used as toilet brushes, and returned
in virtually prime condition to the trees stored in our attics.

I propose a counter argue; man was meant to farm
corn, pine, whatever. Whatever being, let's legalize cannabis
once and for all for Pete's sake, and while we're at it,

what say, we LSD the eggnog in the august halls of Congress.
They need it, we deserve it. Watch it, poet, best button your mouth.
You don't want the FBI suspecting you're a terrorist.

Apple Blueberry Mush

Difference between baby and grown;
babies love mush and when we grow old,
having lost our teeth, we're once more to eating mush.

Oh for the 60's in Hollywood

Oh for the 60's in Tinsel Town
when all the stars in the movies wore wigs,
and bras were rigged to make breasts look like V2 rockets,
that when you hugged you should take care not to press too hard,
lest a kisser might be impaled, if the pyramids did first implode.

Ego, Libido, Freedom

Movement in, movement out.
Objects in movement generate resistance.

The heat of friction is the fruit of resistance.

Movement forward, movement in reverse.
Bodies are not entirely gaps in reality.

All living organisms have a craving to propogate.

All Right, Already!

Nature, poetry does not provide
only the excuses for poets to subsist.

We ponder stanzas, we expand a one time verse forever.
To altars soiled of everything that was and is, we gift.

Here, reciprocity is consummated,
Nature is not obliged to return us anything.

It recycles everything,
eventually, even plastic.

Nature bestows,
we did not know we needed.

Three Months and Ticking

The recently born citizen has a sense of humor
which is the beginning of genius. She is all eye and ears
which is science, which is observation.

The e month old baby thinks her mother is God and that the guy
with the hairy arms might be a God branch office. She has a lot to learn.
The acquisition of knowledge translates into Paradise Lost.

Chain and Mail

On the southern corner of the lawn,
where the sundial action of the mountain initiates,
sits a bush squat and proud, a bush of barb
which stabs front and back if imprudently approached.

The bush is pissed. Who knows who or what
may have slighted him. Color iron his leaf
who wears a coat of chain and mail,
and decorates the season berry.

His head is tipped with bayonets,
and faithful every morning a bird perches on the helmet's crest,
and feasts on the half lid sun of mid December.
Think birds fragile?

Fragile like them we should be,
who keep their summer coats through wind freeze.
Now as to this narrator in your read, liken me not to the bird,
but rather to the bush on my front lawn.

In 1664, I migrated to Roanoke, Virginia from England.
Centuries earlier, in coat of chain and mail, I laid down my life
for God, Normandy and William The Conqueror.
Since then, regrets I've had more than a dozen.

On the subject of Roanoke's Lost Colony,
I'll recount you things no living soul has heard to date.
However, in countless migrations,
facts do get muddled.

Details blur,
details erase and sink.
So many nebulae to trip,
even we ghosts get fuzzy.

Purple

A purple monkey is in this room,
armed with ax and toy balloon.
A purple monkey is in my space,
wants to discuss not his but my mistakes.

A purple moon hangs above us all,
the habitat of snow white apes,
the most intolerant of all earth's creatures.
They carry tomes under their arms

of wrongs to right, of rights to massacre.
Identify the snow white apes, right now.
The aliens we married, sisters,
might be them in disguise.

Poetess in Autumn

Listen to the rustle and tumble of falling leaves.
This music, this is death and transfiguration.
This is God and rejuvenation. This is me,
a poetess in autumn.

I am a lady of night and white.
I am a girl of cool green.
I am of the Taiga.
Oceans of sand have I crossed.

The Sahara on camel.
On tramp steamer, Havana.
I saw Fulgencio Batista's last days.
My ears turn seashells to the horns of Harlem.

Tonight, I stand on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge,
awaiting a Gypsy troubadour to pen me a poem.
I am the fading light on the Palisades.
I am the sound of tires on rain-slick Central Park East.

Very Close and Finished

Neutrino is a tortoise particle that races Light around Albert Einstein's clock.
Light being a hare, he's faster than fast, but yawns when doing curvatures.
The rest is Aesop's' history.

The speed of atomic particles is plainly fixed. However, in astrophysics
(as in human sexology) the staying power of given subjects is less a matter
of how fast they go than how apt they are to hold fast to the groove in slow.

What's in A Label

Fat free label to me
is like a threat to subtract my uterus.

Were it not for our glorious fat,
we stout girls would be no better than skinny fags.

Tit for That

Whisper to screech,
Tit was barely revving,
0 to 90 in microseconds.

Tat for Tit responded a decibel higher.
He shouldn't have done that. No, he shouldn't have!
Tit's counter attack shook hours and days for years.

Male that he was, Tat sheepishly sat it out.
Eventually, Tit quieted, a little old lady fragile and gray.
Even Big Bang one black day in Cosmos shall dim.

The English Channel in Each of Us

To non swimmers it might appear that the flotation
and locomotion which swimmers accomplish
results from their lashing at the water.
This is true in part.

There's more to it than that.
To swim with ease and elongation
requires we be one with the media,
for the body is basically a water bottle.

A swimmer ought to envision herself in the water
as a hurled spear singing through the air it slices,
or as the wings of gulls in the wild blows across the Channel,
or as a carrot formulated into granny's stew.

It's not like we're talking Jesus walking upon the waves, here.
The trick far more simple: Agitate the media in such a manner
as to cause it to glide softly in and around the "bottle."
And with that proposition advanced,

Weather Cummings dipped her feet in her third attempt
to swim the English Channel. For all we know, I can not say,
if Laura ever reached the other side. If she didn't, it wasn't
for want of trying.

Inner Painting

What confronts the woman is uncertainty,
uncertainty about herself and the task ahead.
What confronts this girl are choices.

Where there are choices, there are risks.
Where few choices exist, rebellion may erupt.

There's nothing on an empty canvas
to hint of revolution.
The lady takes talons and wings.

Chaos faces Cosmos

I and Eye, and Aye, were helplessly confounded. Ouch!
Chaos mumble jumble underscored their endless bitching.
You see, whereas cosmos is law and order and precision,
chaos is the violent cousin of the imprisoned.

I and Eye and Aye were like pent up tubes of pigment,
that womb squeezed firm, and there oozed out
a desire like no other, to paint something super special
like, let's say, a Great Wall of China Mural?

I was game.
Eye dove in.
Aye yelled "yes" in escalation.
And by Jove, they done did it!

I and Eye and Aye felt really comfy.
Like three pigs in a blanket, they saute delicious.
Though falling short of The Great Wall of China Mural,
they had successfully defiled a hitherto empty canvas.

Olive Wreath

I come to you with the open hand of friendship,
with the warm embrace of padding down,
a switchblade in my purse in the unlikely event
we need to split differences.

Pearl's The Sky

Anything about me worth recording
has already been spoken by the geese where I live
in their waggle marches up from the marshes
to my back porch where they forage like herbivore dinosaurs.

Anything about me worth squawking about me, I have heard already,
in v-formation flights, where they call out to those of their ranks,
I, too, like them would shout; To poetry forever, fellows.
Onward to pearlie skies, behold our grace in aerial.

Goose God Almighty has seen it fit
to fashion us feathered and egg-like
in His perfect, avian image.
To pearlie skies forever!

King Smiley

Life in the ballet, not violent like the real thing.
Life on the stage where guns fire blanks,
and ketchup substitutes for gore.

Oh for kills that are clean,
that provokes only audiences to scream.
while the victims applaud like mad.

Immortality in curtain calls, night after night.
Nothing to worry nor fret about.
Just keep those ballet slippers white and pretty,

Performance Today

Tranquility was a day in November
when we decided to drink the morning brew
while we strolled on the beach.

We walked into the ocean,
and didn't look back.

The Purgatory of Minor Geniuses

Come on, get over it.
You were a lousy lover,
that's why the muse left you.

What do you think?
It was about making a masterpiece?
It was not. It was about finding yourself
in the stroke of a pen, in the stroke of a clock.

Like Brother Richard used to say:
it's never too late to get it together ---
Maybe.

However, most boys get smart too late
some even die old fools. It's too sad,
that when hormones are raging,
you will, inescapably, live your mistakes.

Smart as a whip
has a price tag,
the kick of a mule.

Correspondence with A Face in A Painting

She's a full moon, big face, watermelon woman
of avocado green complexion, alligator neath the skin.
Her nostrils are flared in permanent defiance.
Her mouth is the size of mail box, and runs red
as if she ate something that was slightly delayed.
It's what happens when you lose your concentration.

Watermelon woman wears on her head a copper-lined drain pipe,
which I reckon, qualifies her a cop. If you doubt, read the inscription
on her badge, "Taste me, I am ready!" Believe me, Mapovia is of a mind
to scrap this painting and start another. "Don't you dare," she warns.
"I'm the beginning what you could be, were you not such a drag
on let's have an orgy!"

"Wake up, you flat breasted, excuse for a hippie.
Do as I order, dip lustily your pork bristles into the minerals.
Let's go it together from here to the Bowery.
It won't be pretty and it won't be a painting by the numbers,
for I am you face in the nitty gritty, I am you face in the swamp.
So, roll down the canvas, Big Honey, and bring out the ladder.

I'm feeling for a mural."

Pains and Pane

Night and day, there's a roar outside my window;
from the far side of the lake, the traffic on I-65;
the whirl of choppers returned from Coast Guard jaunts;
the navy's jet fighters rehearing the next Iraq;
Harley Davidson, my neighbor next door --- rebel with a clue;
and the fisherman who when he hauls in his yacht from the Sound
envelopes the neighborhood in smoke, clearing the pipes of the outboard motor.

Where there's progress there has to be some noise.
There's no getting around it!
Fortunately, I have double paned windows with gas in between,
and this reduces the commotion to a tolerable rumble.
If you can afford a cloaked existence, as I can,
you can enjoy relative quiet within your four walls.
Just keep the Brahms playing fairly loud.

Joan The Electric Arc

Can woman partner with God?
I think she can. I know I can.
Were not my womb and woman talents
gifts from a higher power?
Friends tell me it's evolution.
Call it what they will,
I will partner.

Stairwell to Happiness

Reduce;
reduce girth,
reduce daily contacts,
reduce occasions for anxiety.

In the midst of wealth, be austere,
What's that you say, you're poor already?
Be poor then, and keep your home free of dirt.

Time in A Picture Frame

It seems to me unreal that once we lived in this abode
before we migrated westward seeking to save the house
from foreclosure swift and hard.

And now, we're back from where we started,
where I used to grow my stash in a corn patch behind the clothes line.
I can still smell and see the laundry snap in the gusts of March.

How many times, you asked me to give up the foul addiction,
which for me was soul deep inhalations.
A bad habit ain't no flimsy character.

In desperation, I felt at times I had to do something, even theater,
and so I faked several suicides to keep you guessing.
Our marriage was an icky situation.

If only our descendents knew the trials you suffered and those I, too, endured.
It's true I loved you from day one, though that it took decades
to reconcile our differences.

Hear the crow sonatas on the power line.
Listen to the geese travelogue in flight over the Elizabeth River.
Taste the salt wind blow across the Chesapeake.

Probe, if you will, the yellowing, fading album.
I am there, you are there...the uncles, the aunts, the kids.
All a family history smiles for the camera.

Bound to go Crazy

Crows walk on roofs.
Haven't seen the geese that do.

The artist who attempts to paint the Mona Lisa,
instead of following his inclination
to paint the intricacies of his nipple
is bound to go crazy.

There and Here

I am where I am
because I am who I am,
and as to you out there
do you hear me?
If you do,
how quick you moved
from there to here.

We Poets and Poetesses

Poems are terms of surrender, ladies and gents.
Poems are for gain when they help you remember.
Poems are for loss if they won't let you forget.

Poems, present duality of purpose
We poets and we poetesses are doomed forever
to carry over our heads weighty question marks,

But this is where we give as we get,
our goals may be murky, but our erections
are exclamation points!

I tell myself

I am a child of God,
I will not sin,
over and over I tell myself
before I fall asleep.

Conservative Prone

I don't mind seeing the clock go back.
Back is the known. Forward is scary.

Lil Miss Willowwip

Our encounter was a near collision . We were both to blame,
I begged her pardon, she begged mine."Miss, what enormous eyes you have,
shades of bedroom."Your lips are sherry stained.
Have you been sipping Ripple?

She of autumn apples for cheeks called me "sir."
I smirked. Were we not both dressed proletariat?
She said she knew me from my films, films she really, really liked,
films that took her back to premenstrual innocence.

Well, said I, such a compliment, is deserving of an autograph.
Thus I give, so appreciate. Be tickled with my signature mustache twitch.
And here for thee and for posterity a fleeting blush of my chalked countenance.
Make merry, see my tricks of schtick and walking cane.

I herewith perform my funny walk which has made me Chaplin in every continent.
And now, please refrain from blinking, for you may not see me in these parts again.
One last time, I flutter these eyelashes of mine with melancholy overbearing.
The key of success is to live life as in the flicks of slap stick humor. Be the star!

I bequeath to all thespians to the core, my last will and testament:
Cherish the craft, treasure the characters we play
more than the actors we are. Worship each and every performance.
Most importantly, love one another as you have loved the audience.

The Ghost of Charlie Chaplin

I sit on a stoop on 135th street when what to my surprise,
I see hang a corner neath a street light,
come from Convent Avenue in the direction of the City College Campus,
no other than the one and only Charlie Chaplin.
I exclaim, "Sir"! He blushes, perhaps, embarrassed by the "sir,"
he being a person proud of his humble origins..

The neighborhood is deserted of auto and pedestrian traffic,
just me on the stoop and the little tramp leaning on the street light.
"Sir," I continue, " I have seen great movies - films I really, really liked,
but none like yours in them taking me back to innocence."
Again, Mr. Chaplin blushes before he marches off in his funny walk
of bowl-legged landless, English gentry rocking the deck of a make-believe Pinafore.

One more time Charlie Chaplin's ghost blushes,
twitching his signature toothbrush mustache,
and this last time just for me, fluttering his eyelashes
as only my bestest little tramp can do.
This I dreamed, this I lived
in the far out Constellation of Hue.

Shak-shak

That lesser men disdain the path
crooked, narrow, dark
leading to the luminous gate
which houses the mother of all hearts.

The gate once reached, compresses softly,
its charity of forgetfulness releasing pristine dreams,
like butterflies which alight on stars,
like fireflies that ignite the night,

that lesser men disdain and scorn
we demigods and perky queens
who live the life
beyond the dream.

Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire

The Christmas cheer, the carols ,the peace on earth ad nausea.
It's not yet the 14th of October, and they're already making joyous.
It kinda makes you wanna puke.

I step out onto the Target's parking lot, and am promptly am asked
by an enterprising soul in a van marked "Kids 'R Wee" -
Sir, might you be interested. doing a gig as Santa Clause?

I don't know whether to curse the season or my enriched testosterone -
me the bearded lady of Christmas special, side show, circus freak show.
Blessed are they whose holiday is not from the North Pole.

Secrets

A little ambrosia, an incense stick
and incantations from Kama Sutra book,
we don't need no stinking Victoria's Secrets.

Cute

Made in China,
home of the brave,
land of the busy bees.

Playerr

Michael played Murray
Murray played Michael
Law firms the gaming;
jackals the bloody,
bankers the bloodless winners

Wall Street Musing

If the stock market is to be compared to an ocean,

trends in the market are ocean tides and currents,
and Dow up, Dow down are surf's breaking waves .

Big fish, little fish, tiny fish - these all the vast sea holds.
And here's the catch - can good fishing be smelled from the shore?
Maybe it can, if tsunamis can be sensed before ever they start to roll.

On this wager your bets, however,
when winds favor, don't dally,
lift anchor, set sail.

Reading, Writing and 'Rithmetic

The breaking of bread is a sacrament.
Sex is a sacrament.
Life is dedication and service.

Jazz Work It Out

I can't tell you how many times I've been slain by the horn of Louis Armstrong.
I'm a sucker for the highs lows, and haunts of sassy Sarah Vaughn.
My finger tips, toes and rib cage suffer rhythm excruciating for the sake of soul.
I'm proud to be a woman, but I'd have no beef had I been born
the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Doubt Remains

The last preparations were finalizing for what was slated to be a pleasant road trip
Valdosta and back. Things were progressing nicely till conflict erupted
Bert had already packed the trunk military style. Martha insisted it be repacked.
Bert growled, "Don't mess with my mind." Two devout Christians,
Bert and Martha could go pagan in a heart beat. But insult to insult, Bert no way
could stand up to Martha. The once virgin bride was a fire-spewing dragon.

Bert ran up the stairs to the bedroom, locking with key the door behind him.
With one swift kick Martha knocked the door off the hinges. She had been
a professional wrestler. He could not handle her unless armed with a baseball bat.
Bert would've pulled the hairs from his head save he was as bald as bowling ball.
In frustration, he downed a half spent container of Valium and followed it with as much
gin he could swallow before Martha bounded towards him and got her fingers in his mouth.

Now let's it be clear, so called attempted suicides are mainly theatrics.
Bert was confident the Valium cocktail would not kill him.
He chanced the risk in order to keep the performance real. It proved,
however, a miscalculation due to a heretofore undiagnosed heart condition.
Three days, three nights, he spent in coma in and out of theological debates.
Does God exist?

And if there's a heaven, where the hell would that heaven be centered?
And heavens to Mega Troy
should anyone be condemned to spend eternity
in a place not of your liking,
For what, for being whom?
For being Bert, a poor schlemiel?

How Now Brown Cow

Space between
between two holes,
between two notes,
between two breaths,
separation, stars and dust,
in rites in spite, attachment holds,
for speed of light is time that counts
indeed, in word, the universe is very old.

Waterfall called Temple

Tongue of water in a drop,
crystal ball of streams in birthing.

Tongue of water licks the creeks,
runs down-slope to sea and back.

Tongue of water in tears and light,
transitions into dousing.

I saw in rock where pools were fashioned.
I see in forest a cascade temple.

Can it be?

Can there be love where there's no hope?
If hope is lost, can faith endure?
Can there be God where faith, hope and love are missing?

Bert's Last Write

What you wrote yesterday is quick sand history
no one remembers including you.
It's the exhalation dissipated.

Old poems makes for rickety.
Their skin sags, their muscles stiffen,
the waste basket invites.

You, the emboldened vaulter,
like a mountain goat from ledge to edge,
one daring verse to the next.

Piece

What is peace?
Peace is no one thing.
Peace is loving.
What is loving?
Loving gives.

Narrow View Broad Vision

In song there's life,
Life through movement is expressed.
What ever lives moves at least to yawn.

Time measures movement, but is time itself alive?
Of course it is, has it not kept up
with this reader's reading of a yawning poem?

Cosmetic Editing

I try too hard to get it out.
Just let it all hangout.

I did and they recommended
liposuction.

Keep Hope Alive and The Underground

What is love of God when you're down and out, and gloom abounds,
when for instance, you've been shanked in the back,
stabbed in the eye, knifed in the groin, when your woman has been split open
for Masters to peep and overseers to sneak a sip?

What is love of God when slavery or suicide --- is the choice?
Love of God is revelation, that can flash in a second,
but take foever to reach fruition.
Love of God for me was Gettysburg.

Love of God was dubious Reconstruction,
love of God was suspended animation
when I heard Triple K hoop and holler
the rebel yell, "Kill the black ass nigger!"

Still, I managed to escaped, thanks to Harriet Tubman,
Sojourner Truth and the Underground Railroad. The Emancipation Proclamation
brought constitutional reform. The 13th Amendment was sweet to my ears;
the 14th was pure rite of passage; the 15th gave us wombs the right to vote.

So, what else do you want for crynowloud?
Condolezza Rice for President?
What if Candel Lisa ain't unavailable,
would you be willing to settle for Oprah Winfrey?

Brothers Three

One accused of messing with his sister;
one accused of messing with his daughter;
the third looks like a saint, smokes grass insane,
and no one of his family hears him speak.

Horror and Horrible

It is inappropriate for a woman of my bearing
to seek employment, especially considering
the staggering number of people out of work.

I have everything materially I require.
Why then return to a 9 to 5 grind
and be subject to office gossip?

After observing I was getting the shakes -
probably due to a nutritional deficiency -
I retired at 52, an emergency room nurse.

Thereafter, I took a young lover,
who I subsequently had dissected
when lose nose Cyrano nose played me dirty.

I would retire again, one last time,
this time to live a cloistered nun,
none for them and none for me!

That's all folks, mill on that a bit!

Sky Eye Blue

It''s that time of year, again
for love intense and gentle,
when the strata age of woods and rocks
prepares for Grim Winter to return
from its northernmost haunts, invade the hollows,
sow helter skelter frost and darkness.

It is that time of year, again!
So, have you gathered enough firewood, my dear?
Have you stuffed the Bell jars full with jams and jellies?
Are the heavy blankets out of mothball.yet?
Are the snowshoes ready to trunch the ice?
Lastly, did you store securely the Scotch?

Accidental Consequential

To find in God - the simple, and in a drop the most complex.
Dying opens up grand opportunities! Seems ever clearer to me now,
sure as shooting stars, that to live is to be born anew.

The Owl Gives A Hoot,

The question is, shall I escape the day?
Shall I untethered go the soft landing way of autumn's leaves?
Falling blooms ask no such questions,
only would be poets and philosophers are so presumptuous.
Wake up, little crooner. Who do you think you is?

Mine Vows

I have sworn off television, because my 20/20 is faltering.
I have sworn off beer, because it does not seem right to me
to spend Social Security in getting high.
I have sworn off drugs, because I have no stomach
for supporting the Mexican cartel. I have sworn off sex
for want of drive to mix body juices with them of maybe dubious reputation.
I have sworn off preachers, lawyers and doctors, because they are con men all.
I have sworn off friends, because I have none that I know of.

Only the internet, have I not sworn off, because here I am virtual,
here I am invisible. No one knows for sure if I'm man or woman,
atheist, catholic, former nazi or communist.
I am the verses I write, and it thrills me
to have such handy excuse for the perpetuation of ego.

To All Dead Friends and Poets

Leaf simple tumbles earthbound,
It experiences the sky in a different journey.

Do not inform autumn leaves
that they are dying.

A member departs,
its kind returns.

Summit Sunrise

Rejoice wing, rejoice and sing on mountain top.
This morning's tap whistles pass my ears.
I'd surrender, sure I would, to fall up into the sunrise.

From high, I spot in jagged crevice,
a bee who fingers unperturbed a yellow daisy -
he and she - brave pioneers of rock formations.

In one voice (ole English, yet) they inquire:
"Woman Tell, art thou a bug or, perchance,
some type of pollen factory?"

Nature's Smarts

Nature does not care if you are ostrich,
hummingbird, or canary.
We are what we are. Only function matters.
Serena Williams, Susan Boyle, Sarah Palin

Dark Energy

Whereas a Jew is a Jew at birth,
Muslims are Muslims by nature,
and Christians are Christians by Grace.

I judge no one, but me.

What's Hospital?

House of complaints is hospital.
Inhospitable is hospital. The strap you a bed.
They stuff they your mouth with tubes and pills.

Morgue's waiting room is hospitable.

Reorder your priorities, friends,
and be spared the waiting tunics
with anxious scalpels to cut you up.

Somewhere a glass slipper for us

We're never too old to learn,
never too old to change.
New tricks, old dogs might not learn
but nothing binds us, sisters,
to continue to behave like bitches.

Body Language

The posture of drivers in front on the cell
is that of one arm morons sucking their thumbs.

Wounded Eye

His death-day is upon us again, something to cheer about. In 34 years,
we'll celebrate the 100th year since the suicide of he and wife.
We can't get enough of him already, thanks to the movies,
thanks to the greatest war ever fought, thanks to the Holocaust.

He had the hands of a dainty lady, but he was flabby and bottom heavy.
His grooming was impeccable, and though he raved about Aryan blond
and beautiful, he was dark in comparison to his racial group,
and his nose was distinctly North African.

Were it not for his dreams of a thousand year Reich,
who knows when Israel might have been reestablished.
For sure, had he won the war we'd all be dead
or speaking German.

History's vision is singular,
but its eye bleeds intermittent.
Worst yet,
the cyclops has no heart.

Explosive

Though insects outnumber us many, many times over,
the collective passing of insect gas
can not be compared to ours.
I've heard it said, however,
that if the cows in India were eliminated,
climate warming would be reduced considerably.
I suppose the same goes for the sheep in New Zealand.

That;s Great!

Seek to accomplish the task of the day and retire.
The hidden eye might be discovered,
inspiration might mistake you for a genius.
Return to zero and move on.

Action Required

They who reason know when and how to delay answers.

Measure for Measure

You approach perfection in the measure of service.
Serve fools and delinquents,
and prove yourself more flawed than they.

1-2-3, Gravity

From eye of the eagle to horizon the hills,
the forest is sea
the see-mist lifts.

Eyes have pupils; pupils have minutes;
minutes, degrees. Trees bear fruit in degrees as well
as demonstrated in emerging seedlings.

Neath apple bout
about to drop,
Isaac Newton thinks of me.

Jobs

Who on behalf of personal pursuits
burn midnight oil and sacrifice
health, humor and shorter work weeks,
should have nothing to regret,
or is the tradeoff at the end for nil?

Double Standard

There's much alarm.
A hurricane's blowing up the coast.
Air and water are doing their thing
like we do to air and water.

Charity begins with me.

On the altar of form
where things deformed
may be reformed
or vice the worser,
I here do pledge:
to tickle my readers
to death instead
than depress them on and on
with re-tellings of navel gazing.

Forest Walker

I love the jungle.
I know its paths.

The So-called Logic of Waves

The logic of waves speaks in beats,
pauses, rises
and descends.

The logic of waves tethers the surf
captures the moment,
or breaks free from a hold.

Do you want to understand the Market?
Look for the logic of waves.
Do you want to find your pulse?

Look at Eve or Adam strip.
Which brings us to a primal question: What is logic?
If you do not know, you may google it!

Adorable

Elders to kinder, nobody but nobody dresses.
On ceremonial occasions, the guys weave grass skirts,
and swish in them the lights fantastic.

The girls, on the other hand, wear no ornaments,
except bee wax stuck to their foreheads
to which are affixed white and fluffy stork feathers..

Zoe tribal structure is matriarchal.
While the boys fish, hunt, and do the dishes
the women brew beer and knead bagels.

When a damsel reaches the age of majority,
she may wed up to four hubbies, the younger the better.
Thereafter, all parties share equally in the raising of babies.

When hunt time is good, the villages party hardy.
The women break out the kegs, and their skirted guys enter dancing.
In this society, women do not gaze into the eyes of men not espoused to them.

Thus, the ladies hold the beer jugs behind them
as the hopping fellows approach (their peanut-size penises knotted in ribbons)
stomping the dickins out of the dirt with feet and bamboo poles half their height.

Then, in the orgasmic crest of crescendo
the boys shake vigorously the jugs extended to them
so Earth Mother gets first drink.

To note: The beer does not intoxicate,
having about a .75 alcoholic contents.
The goal is not to get bombed out of your gourd,

but rather to induce vomit and exodus of possibly evil spirits,
thereby, avoiding the future spread of illness
to the community;

the logic being that a gallon of native prevention
beats by a mile a teaspoon white man's medicine,
even if imported from Germany.

These primitives are amongst the earth's most adorable peoples.
They love their children, don't abuse spouses,
and would never ever dream of suing for separation and/or divorce.

Neither do they celebrate bloody deities of any kind.
They adhere to the teachings of mythological Founding Father,
who supposedly visited from a far out orb,

to instruct the Zoe how they should conduct themselves in public and private
in order to live in harmony with the canopy monkeys
and the birds they periodically net and do eat,

for verily, Man does not live by bread and beer alone.
but also by the goodness
imbedded in animal protein.

Thou Shalt Not Shy

Freedom has a price and it's call continued vigilance.
Be forewarned: There are poets and poetesses amongst us
who use the Forum to disrupt and undermine.

We have studied the structures of their stanzas,
we have decoded their verses between the lines.
Proof positive, they convey subversive plans to foreign agents!

These poets and poetesses are fixing to blowup installations,
to bring interstate commerce to a stoppage. These traitors
must be identified to the FBI right here, right now!

We lovers of poetry pure and patriotic,
we true believers in law and conformity,
must be ever vigilante and train to be vigilantes.

Alice in Break-a-Leg

The animal we art, reflects,
for mirror has no heart that hart does not engage.
The music we compose, acoustic architecture;
the modern paintings, angular dysfunction.

Shall we then yeti a cup of tea, very dense.
Don't mind the paw of me.
let Wonderland begin.

110th Gershwin and Monk

Step lightly the years worn.
Play gladly, yet not too sad, ye sad trials unsung.
You've proven one-night bands still do exist.

Hey Lips, take the lead,
while I breaststroke this piano
from here to Washington Heights,

Doyle interjects he wants in.
We floaters float as one
as Nelly takes off her jacket.

Jazz can be so like the movies,
the long, tracking shot
which fades to black.

Powder to Powder

The insect's wings span summer.
It rocks a mountain that glistens in minerals.
It mounts a rock across bay waters.
It is catacomb, sun and rainbow.
At its core it is caterpillar,
perishable and renewable,
monarch in a world of dragons,
child's play in a world of adults.

Life Wish vs Death Wish

Love you powerful,
In me announce no fault,
that in our daily conversation,
truth is permanence,
and in your genesis
I am new born.

Dusk and Bat

Free at last of hostile feelings,
a 10 year old bastard enters my life
to make me want to hate again.
His name is Adolf Hitler.

Any Suggestions?

I need something to fill my life,
for I am rich and idle,
and haven't had a creative idea since I was 46,
half a century ago this Tuesday, the 23rd of August
anno domini 2012. I need something, a hollow gnaws at my soul.
I need something, almost anything would do.

To levitate would be supernatural,
but that might make me famous and who needs famous.
Famous is a prison, famous is quicksand, famous is the pits.
To feed the hungry of Somalis would be grand.
To walk on water would give me tickles.
Tickles, I can take but risk of drowning is not my cup of tea.

Yep, I need meaning, something nitty gritty,
but bet a wooden nickle I'd be hard up to not find it,
taking up pole dancing, tweeting or skydiving,
or even volunteering to reelect Obama.
He has his problems, I have mine.
Bet he wishes he had never left Chicago.

Forecast

Because a sudden breeze lifts the skirts of summer,
does not mean fall is upon us, but surely we hope,
for the length of August has been exhausting,
and an early frost would do us good.

The Presence of Things Expected

I awake to Appalachia mornings,
before a window open to the garden,
my jigsaw piece in the greater forest,
I usually return to body in Appalachia mornings
with a cup of ass-kicking coffee,
which when my senior citizen bones feel wintery,
I add a jigger --- or three of "Daniels."

From the closest limb to where I sit,
I've hung a feeder for hummingbirds.
The hummingbirds, who drink from it, are no bigger than bumblebees.
Hummingbirds fly vertical and horizontal in angles that astound,
and where they care to stop mid air, holding fast the reins of height.
Also of note is no two hummingbirds feed together.
When one approaches, the other departs.

Humans should be as considerate as these nectar eaters.
I identify with them. I also identify with spiders a lot.
After husband number three passed away,
relatives referred to me as "Black Widow." I don't know...
For me solitary is a bloated plum, soaked and aged in rum.
If you're not woman to suck it,
don't bitch about it either.

Country and Western

Speak gentle, speak softly, speak Clint Eastwood,
for English is never more elegantly folksy
than when stiff upper-lipped,
and never ever lower lip-flapping.

Tides In, Tides Out

Strong drink fogs the mind
and dulls the senses.
Bootlegging adulterates,
and adultery is witchcraft.

Sorry?

One plus one equals two
like 3 - 1 = 2, too.
It's not about being glad or sad.

It's the way it is,
when someone Amy-so- talented
chooses to dead.

Flag of Our Fathers

Think is a tank to be defended like cannon.
Think are the trudging platoons trenching the front.
Think raises the banner.
Think honors good work.
Think belongs to the smart.
The smart belong to the brave.
The brave belong with the free.
Flag of our fathers bequeath to the kids.

Sub Artic Folk Song # 2

And comes the time to ring your bell,
to dance Rasputin on the keg.
I smell old school, don't I?
It's 'cause romance is not my language.

Let me kiss you one last time, neither of us
is bound to live till summer.
Tell me again, what's your name,
and ist das German dat du sprechen?

The Battle of Berlin, January 1945

Sub Artic Folk Song

Ashen sky peels back into Lady Twilight's skinny leotards.
The days are getting shorter, our long johns will soon need washing.

When I think of fall, I think of crows.
How long have you been waiting for me to arrive?

Did you not see me on Doka Bridge,
when you were shoeless and in stripped pajamas?

Did you not feel me cover your back in Amsterdam,
even in America when you jamming the jazz streets of Harlem?

nEAR Perfect

Not since I was in kindergarten,
have I had the leisure to contemplate
what happiness is and often falls short of being.

I live an idyllic second infancy,
except for the occasional scoldings from Wife,
who craves 24/7 bodily and intellectual stimulation,

resisting to be to me
demure and chaste like a nun,
I, her priest and confessor.

Starlight

A star's radiance does not depend
on how many eyes telescope it on a given night.
The star is centered in its own existence,
though in night's infinite fabric,
it is but the tiniest of pinholes.

What can be said stars, can be said of thee.

Formality matters

Lessons learned are earned
and usually well deserved,
though them awaiting the noose
may not be able to bear it.

If they are sobbing sloppily,
give them pause.
If they are silent, credit them
for maintaining a sense of decorum.

Marriage Sinks

A raging brain is a universe wronged.
The woman I married, wife to a house,
curses the spouse six decades long,
No longer the man, I lean on old age.
The tip of my cane, Morse codes my missteps.

Do peacocks have feathers?

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity?
How about sex. success and religion?
Show me the business, I'll give you the measure.

So what about sex? The motive is pleasure.
And what's with success? Pure pomp and circumstance.
How about ole time religion? Are you the Pope,
and if you are, when did you last wear camel skins?

Second Hand Smoke

There are places where we are most at home,
usually in song, ballads of the road
where you strum to no one listening,
where you sacrifice self on hard liquor stands
in holocaust whiffs of secondhand smoke.

Wait

No discernible pattern has been detected,
therefore, initiate no aggressive action.
There are moments to wait and moments to flee.

Sense the tide turning in your favor.
Beg no favor except of Him
who has predetermined every outcome.

No Child Left Behind

The bee's buzz intensified 10,000 times,
sings your trumpet, child of mine.
Idleness damn but work brings salvation.

Do not fear the dark. Know who you are.
Neither fear being left alone.
Be confident in to whom you belong.

The bee's buzz intensified 10,000 times
sings my country is of thee.
Idleness damns but work brings salvation.

Watermelon Woman Farmer

The best place on earth for you
is where you're suppose to be.

What a wonderful God made watermelons.
The prayer for all seasons is WOW!

Poeticks

I never saw a poem I could write,
not at depth profoundly sad.

Be glad, lest they would have gone by wayside,
like leaf carried by torrents to the drainpipe,
like all you ever hoped shot to pieces.

You get my drift, I never saw a poem
I could right.

Conservation

Let no sheet of paper on which abstractions have been explored
find its way into your waste basket, when with a mere stroll to the backyard,
you can bury it to serve as weed inhibitor.

How far is the journey?

Piano ivory, piano ebony wired softly to astrophysics (I like to think,)
My fingers fandango the stars fantastic, keyboard skipping is my trick.
Nicotine armpits, forehead pouring, are these the questions
you've been meaning to ask?

How much much do I love you?
How deep is your throat.

How high is the high?
I couldn't venture a guess.

How far is the journey?
Flip the coin, already.

From Hither to Here

Words mouthed, words written,
ricochet behind the lids,
we visions acting out.

Blueprints are words,
reverberations are utterances,
of events witnessed, invented or soon to occur,

like the trip to the zoo when I was little,
where I saw 2 rhinos copulate,
or the thought that persists I can not lock down.

There's more to what surfaces
and more to what ripples
after it sinks.

A Mental What?

Mental blocks are mental voids.
Nothing's coming out 'çause nothing's going in.

In disregard to the observance of silence,
I attempted to complete a chapter today.

As an observant Jew,
I ought not scribe on Sabbath.

Cavernous

Purple pool in the under ground
I follow the path my derby floats by
Here I am him, here I am her
chime and lull between the gongs
Here I am faceless, here I am time

Twitt Knit

If you don't believe in spirits,
you haven't considered the cell phone phenomenon;
folks driving cars and buggies in aisles,
eyes blank, ears committed to cricket-like chatter,
a world divisible, invisible, yet contagiously audible,
twitter knit, humanity established

in a simulated kingdom of insects.

Like Rain

Rain falls in divers weights and intensities.
Spring showers are light. Summer drenches heavy
Autumn drizzles. Winter's rain streaks cheeks.

This week, it rained a lot. I stayed indoors.
Religiously, I watched the Casey Anthony Case.
With an eye for inquisition, I judged her positively guilt.

What my surprise when the jury saw it different!
Just before the verdict was spoken, I felt sorry for the accused.
Maybe she had killed her 2 year old daughter. Maybe she hadn't.

We are victims all.
On another note, what relief brings rain.
What release when a strong wind bends trees and shakes the forest.

How far can I go with this?

My timbers sag,
my heart is bandaged in barnacles.
Take three deep breaths and weigh anchor.
Balloon, ahoy! The old boy is back to kid.

Borrowing a line from a famous lady poet,
he places his tattered copy of the Kama Sutra
on the night stand, and in a glass of vodka,
puts his false teeth.

Centering Emotions

When to act, when to stand back,
clarity of mind dictates the action.

When opportunity knocks, courage is indifferent
as to the gross weight of sacrifices.

Risk factors, taken into account,
makes a dare all the more intriguing.

Lessons from The Draft Pad

When the Diva picks you, you're in for a trip,
you're in for a treat. Stay with the dance.
After its over, there will be time enough to reminisce.

The Birds and The Trees

Driving through the country, you see trees reaching for the sun,
but reaching as well for trees on the other side of the road.
The same with the wild vines scaling broken walls.
Everything reaches. There's nothing that doesn't.

Because my gas gauge drops towards empty,
I stop to refill. Everyone is on the journey,
stretch to reach, drive and reach.
Sex is genitalia reaching as do stems and roots.

What home is mine

Desert night is blue and purple veil,
wind or still in folding sands, in heavens' spin.
Desert night is resonance, Atacama and Sahara.

Everything has two faces,
we black and white,
and shades of orange,

and tones of brown,
and towards the Gobi,
people yellow.

This I believe, at some point
the ancestors crossed a desert,
This I believe, earth's core is fire.

Where then the Spirit?
I can not say. What home is mine
is dune and shifts.

Steam rises from the meadow

Thrashers perch on prominent twigs and weather
the sun a blazing or storm in making,
thrashers belt out their avian soul in sing
ancestral mode of worship.

Nature has not taught thrasher
to fear rumbling thunder,
its noise akin to grumble
of Hitler's tanks advancing.

Remembering Mother Russia

What sperm whales eat

Funnel pouring in through gigantic head,
in digestive tract reforming. Somewhere
a unifying theme from pole to pole,
from depths to steady as she blows,

I'm not much of a reader, Captain,
I muse a little.

Substance First

There is more substance in greeting strangers with "good morning"
than wishing known individuals Happy Father's Day on June 19th.

Mixed Bag

All I possess has been God sent
except for that which I gave myself.

Never had a problem not of my own creation
except for those related to my being born,

of which, as far as I know,
I had no say.

Shortest Haul

Between two points, the shortest connect
is usually straight. Experience teaches,
courses do crook. Keep hope alive!
Mistakes can be dodged the second,
the third time around.

What grand adventure
connecting the dots.

Eve Ardin ( 1 and 2)

One

The snake is a garden friend,
no need to dread nor fuss about.
The Creator who made you, fashioned it
and probably earlier than your hairiest prototype.

Two

Allow me to open you like a divine oyster
and submerge myself in your fragrance,
and in one long gulp swallow your pearl.

My Favorite

You are my favorite daughter,
you of long, lean legs of bronze
you whose face morning blushes,
you born with an extra chromosome,
of character obstinate and passionate,
not of acute intelligence like your sisters.

We are similar.

Holiness in Mathematics

You delight in your garden,
but have you lingered in it
after night descends
and intertwines with veins,
and on gloomy leaf lays hands?

There in the underground,
night reclines with grub,
worm and root.
The field mouse scurries,
the owl narrates in hoots.

If you've experienced evening's awakening,
you've drunk of Garden's dark side
as does predator and prey and fire flies galore.
We pray because we sense the fullness.
We pray because we sense the void.

Warning: The one you kiss might be deadly

Share to increase.
Don't give to those who would waste you.
They will suck you dry if you let them.
They are easy to identify.

They twist words to incubate guilt.
They have little to say that edifies.
They believe they are special - God's gift.
Live and let live is not their creed.

Control and mash satisfies their sense of grandeur.

Facing The Inevitable

There will be mourning.
There should be sobbing.

The spouse permanently absent,
there will be time to dabble in physics.

Maybe join the League of Senior Citizens,
see how far you can go in politics.

At the foot of the mountain

Pristine day on fringe of howler,
distant rain blows me kisses.

Sniper

I brave the hours, I work the hours
awaiting the moment to squeeze the kitten.

Stealth lies in breathing shallow
like cats positioned hardly move.

Victim to bullet,
this is my fate.

The Roots of Heaven

Heaven's roots are in us, infants tell
before cunning steals into them,
and with it, naturally, loss of innocence.

Arnold and The Housekeeper

Recognition recognizes the not too alien connect.
Lords of Manor have always ravaged chamber maids.
Or was that the other guy of the International Monetary Fund?

Doberman Winker

Beat them silly till there's little left of them.
Let enough of them survive that we may have dessert.
We are superior. They are inferior.
They are vermin that mustn't be allowed to thrive.

When the bombs began to fall on us,
how terrible... We felt betrayed.

A Space for Us

Somewhere near, somewhere far
no one knows me in those spaces
I who nose me more than anyone.

In The Bowels of Ghiza

If we mummies could speak, we'd curse the embalmers.
They bound us so tight, it's hard to fart.

Such a notable pharaoh was I, to this day, I possess two living rooms;
one in the King's Chamber, the other in time.

On second thought, I do believe we need more mummies,
and consequently, we need more morticians.

The Bodies We Occupy

Ends and beginnings touch.
Dressed metallic the train travels.
lighting does not bother.

Storm's approach stirs weeds between the track.
Ancestry maps the face of us passengers,
we all captives of the moment.

Home and Garden

The cherry tree has done remarkable.
"Gardening is amazing, " says Thornton to his partner.
"It's beautiful," responds Sybil
who generally sweats more than he out there.

They ascend the stairwell
to their darkened, air conditioned bedroom,
to make love for what remains of the Sabbath
this month of June just starting.

Vibrations under Foot

Strolling the beach, knee-high in surf,
won't necessarily save you from drowning.
Unseen may come to snag and drag you to an early demise.

From Chile to New Zealand, Earth is rocked.
The shakes replicate. Old patterns no longer are valid,
not in politics, nor in finances, not in the variables of weather.

Situation, Normal...

It's as true as true can get,
truth will set you right.
I descend from a long line of idiots,
In my grandchild, the trend persists.

I school him because to send him back
to Public School, Ghetto 101,
may be the nail that seals his fate.
He might wind up in jail, an inmate's bitch.

I strive to teach him the advantages of being law-abiding.
For idiots in particular, the best option is to be law-abiding.
I know of what I speak, for I too am an idiot,
one who most of the time manages to pass for reasonable.

My secret - be still and observe the action all about.
Obey the rules of traffic and of common courtesy.

Do No Harm

I've heard it said, the devil shows the bait but not the hook.
Same applies to the medical establishment where misery is farmed,
and not cured, so that high priced tickets may always be paid.

Love Alone Saves

Be concerned for your own soul.

20 Minutes of Warning

It was a kind of rapture.
A whirlwind hovered over the town of Joplin,
and pulled people out their cars through windows,
never unfastening their seat belts.

R for Radius

The radius of radio,
the radio of circumference,
the expanding sphere of influence
telephone and television and tweeter ever after

Follow The Formula

How to brush your teeth, if there is no formula.
Procedure is also a matter of formula.

Submission to procedure and execution of formula,
success is simple.

Failure ignores the simple.
Question the obvious.

Look for the hidden.

Tears

Tears in the morning after coffee
Love has many forms of expression
Knowledge hurts and joy overwhelms

Wobble Factor

Wobble is infancy, old age is wobble.
Wobble foretells a planet in trouble.
Wobble is the beginning of travel.

Gratitude

The truest poeming I could do
is in accidenting upon yours
and responding.

Work Redeems

It's not my name nor what's in my name,
for possessions entail more loss than profit

My craftsmanship only do I take personal

No Reality

The reality of the situation was that her husband was impotent.
To her it was a no reality, because we women are always ready to go.
His reality was different. Dirty sex is what aroused him most.
To her this, too, was a no reality, because we women want intimacy,
and exclusivity mainly, and in orgies that doesn't work.

Disappointment and Affirmation

How grand it would have been for the world to have ended two days ago.
It was for me a disappointment, still the affirmation was clear.
Believe no man, especially them armed with ancient textbooks.

Preparation and Prevention

They who do not prepare the foods they ingest,
such as in cutting onions, garlic, ginger and so forth,
deprive themselves of the medicinal properties
of raw manual contact with the juices of nutrition.

WARNING: Don't mess with hormonal and genetically tampered ingredients.

Why Not?

They order him dead, 'cause he's more problematic caged
than hole in his dead. The question begs;
should not have Saddam Insane received similar treatment,
or for that matter Adolf Hitler had he not suicided?

Why knot!

Still life, still born

A pearl under wraps,into a near death experience I faded,
which from eye-jolt awoke, a new perspective on life under my belt.

Though a photo be authentic, the elements might not work entirely,
you might need to go back to the negative and print it

It's for real, art is manipulation!

Love of Masterpiece

Can masterpieces be accomplished without authors
sacrificing a good deal of themselves?

The same with love affairs that surpass by leagues
the cheap one night stand.

Time is the plow,
earth is the mother.

Same old same ole

History is a habit and habits are hard to break.

The Ultimate Reality Show

Poor Republicans, so late in the season,
and can't find a convincing candidate.

The Great Republican hope to run against Obama
might be for them to draft a smart black woman.

Win At Last

if i never sin again,
the accusations made against me, to date,
ain't worth a godless damn

Straight out, politically incorrect

The one thing you'll never see nor hear on TV
is gay guys and gals exiting their closets straight.

Lust and Panic

Of sometimes similar origin,
it is that extra something in superficiality
which suddenly causes a sensory implosion.

Message

What do I know of the woman
I see her mirrored in photographs,
as real as blood-soaked cloths
and yet in her, somewhere in her,
is hope true love exists.
Her eyes glow of camp fires
and nights forgotten no one knows.

Passion

It has nothing to do with whether you can afford it.
It has everything to do with the strength of desire.

Line up the dots and go for it!
Exclamation points are launching pads.

Rule of Beak

The robins wait on you to dig,
and do not fret that you pick slow
nor should your spouse be bothered by your aging.

The Earth is older than anyone.

In Garden

I have a garden of thoughts in words,
that play in shadows as in light,
that flies the fancy in bright, brave day,
and knows no fear in whispered night,
that whistles no one wrong,
and to the lowly worm
extends a helping hand.

Mind Heart Speak

To think like The Christ,
one must love like the Jesus

Prince Cosmos

The Sun imparts life to the planet
Mankind's mission is to integrate the planetary forces.
Through such integration, equilibrium shall be established.

Believe. Hurricanes can be harvested.

Why not?

They order him dead because a hole in his head
is much less a problem than hog-tie him and parade him in a cage.

So the question begs, ought not Saddam Hussein been treated the same,
or for that matter Der Fuhrer had he not suicided?

The answer to that, a resounding, why knot!

Weapons of Choice

Her hair let down, her gun belt off,
she could sex like any caveman,
and thereafter be pretty and nice.

What is nice?
Though questionable,
she could be.

Cure All

Outsmart the pharmaceutical giants,
deprive the physicians of collateral damage,
tell the morticians to suck on lemons.

Rest, sunshine and H2O is all the medicine you might need.
When you go to the well to quench your thirst,
recharge the H and the O,too, with psychic energy from the All About.

A Woman of Leisure

I'm in no rush.
I'm a woman of leisure.
When I was a kid I packed a rod,
but since my retirement my pistol is my index finger.

Instant Wall Street

Walmart is always up to date with the numbers.
Visit it's beer and wine aisle.

If Guinness Stout costs more than when you bought some,
the dollar is falling. A falling dollar is a good time
to play the stock market.

But if you really want peace of mind, hoard gold
and forget you've done so own.

The Mood on Earth

You know that things for your are changing
when Mozart's music strikes you as annoying.

We Did It Our Way

I left you the record collection.
You left me nothing.
No hard feelings, I am content.

Hours of Operation

today home i go
in life dieing, to dieing live
where here i am, there to be

Pebble Island

The old lady, the retired warrior,
no longer the plunder of villages,
no longer an AK-47 slung to her shoulder,
no longer the spy in bars frequented by soldiers,
her favorite haunts are now the Gwinnett nurseries,
where she selects plants to adorn her pebble garden.

A Fiber Rich Diet

You know you are eating right
when your garbage can is half-filled on collection days,
and you're evacuating like an elephant.

Was It A Coincidence?

Was it a coincidence that two days after the William and Kate event
Osama Bin Laden should be killed. No, it was not a coincidence!
We Americans are respectful of the British House,
and would not pre empt on purpose a two billion people viewing
of the Royal Bash.

Was it a coincidence that at the climax moment of Donald Trump's
Celebrity Apprentice, his hit show should be pre empted
that to the nation it could be announced
Osama had finally been taken out Damn, I love our President!
It's high time we had a president street smart!

Romantic Garden

A well crafted poem is kin to a romantic garden,
hidden compartments not seen all at once.
With changing lighting, new forms are revealed.

Luster and gloom mark the hours.

At ground level there are other fields of vision.
Fragrances waif nosegays of altar.
In canopy openings, celestial clockworks fly over.

True Confessions

It is choice, under certain circumstances,
to kill men, and let lowly snakes slither away.

Cynical and Possible

Who killed Di?
James Bond, who else!

Who ordered the killing?
My guess, someone close to Henry VIII.

The Horseshit in London

The Scottish song which rings out the old year,
I believe got it wrong. It ought not be,
"Should ole acquaintances be forgot,"
but rather,"May ole acquaintances be forgot,"
otherwise you have a Windsor situation
desperately looking to marry into fresh new blood.

Tender Paring

A wreath of blue grass is all my queenship wants.
I know who I am 'cause I know where I've been.
I've plucked banjo in holier than thou revivals

I've bucked Internal Revenue and Prohibition.
My toes have danced Appalachia and high stepped the Ozarks.
Some might read my sway for swagger.

No such thing!
My name is Carriage.
My occupation is railroad tramnp.

I'm the lady of the bobcat eyes.
I'm a kitten, wearing man-size mittens.
I'm the Cherokee they couldn't find to kill.

The Low Price of Gas

When the price is skyrocketing per gallon,
think of it as a luxury tax for the privilege of driving
on roads less cluttered by those who can't afford to travel.

M over H

Congratulations.
Your name has been added to the list
of people I hope never to hear from again.

No ill feelings.
It's simply a matter of convenience,
a matter of mind over sentiment.

Trapdoor Shoot

May you always have a window with big sky view.
Similarly, let your canvasses be like big French windows.
Boldly, draw open their curtains. Enter into Rembrandt gold.
Into Van Gogh sky slashes enter...into the laughter which is baroque.

I am fullness --- the exquisite model you sought but never found.
If are man enough to shoulder my weight, I will take you to untold works.
When we pause to rest, I will do your feet and make you squeal like a pig
for pleasure's sake. I am the lover you thought could not exist.

Like me, there will never be another.
but if somewhere, somehow she does exist,
she would still be me in different flesh,
yours to dare and yours to dare to keep.

The Virtue of Distance

They tempt me to hate them.
I hate that temptation.

"No friends or relations on weekend vacations."

String Quartet

Primeval energy is in us, behind us, beyond us.
It motivates spontaneity. It projects villages, bridges and byways.
When wars break out, it's primeval chaos seeking expression.
The same is true of sting quartets.

Cereal

Reach deep into your art.
There must be something there worth saving.
You have not lived for nothing.
After all, you are not a serial murderer,
only a serial liar.

Candle Power

A one eye beast of pale luminosity,
an alien spaceship look-a-like,
the street light at my window
connected to worms of electricity
allows me a bit of clarity after dark.

Last Friday, for want of payment,
Georgia Power turned the lights.
Thus, I have been forced me into the class conflict
of what I could not have imagined, me a princess,
now another schlemiel on the welfare rolls.

Damn the three branches of government,
damn outsourcing. Damn the haves of capitalism.
Damn even the Poetry Forum!
I will be pampered
or will endorse anarchy.

Mother

Bound to her because of gravity,
consumed by her because of mortality,
of the same stresses we are fashioned.

She is a funky and pockmarked adolescent;
me --- I'm her not at all her immaculate child,
and in no death shall we be separated,

Me and Earth,
damned
and blessable.

Hawk

What put it in his head
to fly for hours from the coast,
lengths of flotsam in his beak,
with which to build a padded nest
high above the Dismal Swamp?

People Lesson

Walking down Memorial,
a cell phone on his ear,
Trudging to catch the Downtown bus,
pants falling off his waist.

Jesus taught:
"The poor will always be amongst you.
This is just not a teaching.
This is a warning.

Dragon Times

Following World War II and the awakening
as to what constitutes a nuclear nightmare,
a portion of the Japanese film industry
dedicated its resources to Godzilla movies,
a reptilian creature which rises out of the sea,
threatening Japan and by extension civilization.

Decades later, reality has caught up with camp fiction.

Samantha O'Clock

What isn't a clock?
If it breathes, it has pulse.
It it has pulse, it's a clock.
Time is pause. Time, also, is weathering.

When I worked New York,
I'd stare the night long the tower in Lower Manhattan,
the one which flashed its beacons to the 4 points of the compass.
By a week, I missed the fire works on the Hudson.

I was playing a club in Morocco when 911 changed the world.
Through tinkling glasses and nicotine veils,
an expat regular would mumble; "Play it again, Samantha,"
to which I'd reply; "I just did, Mr. Bogart."

From Weehawken to Casablanca;
from Casablanca to Port Everglades,
from Sam to Samantha.
What isn't a clock?
You tell me, Nostradamus.

To Me

She walks up on me in blue shroud jazzness.
I thought her buoy, but she hit me like an island.
She makes me crazy. Her mask of innocence drives me happy.

She talks to me in the indigo highlights of her blackness.
Hers is a neck to snuggle. Hers is a tummy
on which to praise to heaven the potency of coffee.

She takes me down forest paths to shadowed mountains.
She leads me to the glitz of her Coney Island.
She's clothed in nudity. I'm ape in tie and suit.

She walks to me, she talks to me.
She looks through my haze of Wall Street shenanigans.
Is this not 131st Street and Lenox Avenue?

Home

Geese on the lawn and stormy weather evenings,
this is home across the western continent
and the tossed Atlantic.

Fate numbers the days of people
as it does the demise of stars.

Home harbors the heart,
and though we wander, given the chance,
heart returns to the starting point.

Mr. Neanderthal knew it.
I know it too.

Very Me

Over the green rattan love seat,
the portrait of a tiger
whose eyes follow me
wherever I roam in the living room.

The green titled floor,
the green carpeted steps to my bedroom,
the dark nooks, the yellow sunsets,
the one candle dinners,

this is my place of sanctity,
the tiger portrait to remind me of my Taiga origins,
except back home they were Siberians, not Bengals.
That's okay, the albino makes that concession.

An Exchange of Saliva

The beautiful night is a sumptuous garden,
the flowers, planets; the bees, comets;
shimmering darkness covers
under which I hold fast to trellis,

to iron bedposts in trepidation
awaiting your pending entrance
with unsheathed thorn
my blossom fragrances,

you waxing, me imploring,
each accepting the eventuality
there will be reckoning,
but no restraining.

Gaddafi to Benghazi

Totally wired, high tech committed, user friendly programmable,
you can do anything you want with these young, Face Page people
except appeal to their sense of old fashion loyalty.

Ancient Poets in The Bleachers

She decided to work him over as she had from the beginning.
Maybe this time he'd throw his hands in the air and scream,
" I've had sufficient, I'm out of here!"

Her goal was that --- to get him to leave,
that she might marry a man of proper fit,
who could satisfy her every whim.

She was sensual, she was ambitious.
He was a lazy lout who only willed to poetize.
Friend, should you too be sonnet bent, don't contract marriage.

Study human nature, instead.
For amusement, write limericks or visit the Coliseum
to watch the pitching of Christians to the lions.

Popular Lies

Where it takes a village to raise a child,
the product may turn out to be the village idiot.

Mapovia's Theory of Evo Development

The sea has crabs.
The barmaid has crabs.
Every creature on the beach is a relative.

Do you suppose we voyaged from out of space together,
and at the very least we are not distant cousins?

Perverse Benevolence

Treat beggars like royalty.
They'll thank you for it.

A kick in the ass,
and if really appreciative,
they'll send you a Christmas card.

Russain Melancholia on Duck Lake

I feel like distant in faraway country
where day breaks and sunsets are indistinct,
where moments move like antique postcards.

The gray Persian on Widow Keller's fence
is feline watch to the neighborhood rats.

The flag on the widow's pole hangs fagged,
red, white pajama banner, British inspired.
I feel like distant in this time lapse camera.

Home is the stranger.
Stranger than mirror...hope is the stranger.

State What You Want

The black birds are picking at my corpse again
as they did when they and I were dreamed,
The squirrels are digging for nuts around Duck Lake
where Satan died, and Mind roams the woods

with a tongue loose bride

From The Book of Her

Before you can succeed in anything,
you must first discover the value of 1.

Rocket beyond

Filter out confusion, infuse silence,
intercourse with hearing.
See dispassionately the end game.

The moment long awaited!
Release all tethers as has been severed
the umbilical connection to mothership

Suspended Animation

Could the world's clocks be halted simultaneously,
and I were the one to stop them dead instantaneously,
it would be at 11:11 for the stark beauty of two pairs of sticks
separated by one dot on top of another.

Long and Short of It

Life, is a long story, tovarishch.
Don't get snug regarding present circumstances.
They can change in a minute; often in seconds.

Life is a short story.
When you think you've arrived at a definitive moment
you realize, it is but an instant in molecular streaming.

Strenght in Weakness

Any man can be wasted,
plummeted bloody and silly
until you can hardly recognize him.

When you think you're tough,
consider the crucified Jesus,
history's most vexing punctuation;

exclamatory and question mark.

A Writer's Guide to Instants Perfection

He sought perfection, and being one of a kind,
sought to fill the void within by addition to his person
of kindred spirit... or so he thought with all his heart and groin.

One plus one equals two, and what eggs may hatch,
during idle summers and churchless Sundays,
and liquid friction when tortured flesh cries out.

The urge to propagate spurs us to greater heights.
Thus, sought perfection is similar.
Ups are swallowed by depressions.

So, here we are, two years later, Daniel divorced,
hops a bus to Minnesota for purposes of retracing
his first hay romp as material for an intended novella.

And putting to mouth a straw from the family's barn,
as one would cigarettes lit to loin groan memories,
he draws a thousand year writer's block.

Our Kind

Rarely do I meet a likable missionary knocking at my door.
Atheists are more my kind of people. They do not press
nor intrude to evangelize.

Atheists say they do not believe in God (take or leave it.)
I believe them, that the God they do not see,
is the very One I seek.

But who should care what they or I believe,
and what they do not see or who I seek?
To love is what is crucible...

And not to love out of let's-pretend,
as bombers are showered with affection
before they suicide, nor to love as Hitler loved his dog,

nor to love as Goebbels loved his dark knight Hitler,
but to love the human family in its complexity, entirely -
regardless of its condition, no man in my sight an alien;

every woman to me my mother, my sister, my daughter
except the crucifix to which I'm wed.


Love is what is crucible,
and not as Hitler loved his German Shepherd Blondi,
or as Goebbels loved his dark knight Hitler.

Love's flame is lamp not holocaust.
Love profoundly loves the human family,
includes all, excludes no one regardless of condition

Let no man ever be to me an alien;
all women be to me mothers, sisters and daughters,
except the crucifix I married.

A Night in Seville, 1974

Be a man, stew in your misery quietly!
If you must, sauce your lips with strong drink
Unrequited love and/or executions pending,
give license to this.

Because we were adequate in bed?
Or because of our delightful head games,
is why you think I married you?
Because you showered me with finery?

We did wed because once in a romantic interlude,
we mistakenly thought it could last forever.
Why then did we divorce? Because you knew
how to request it politely.

I'm not one to wrestle rings off fingers.
I may be primitive, but I am decidedly non violent.
We did it our way. You purchased the divorce.
I left you the furniture and lap dog.

So here in Andalusia once more amongst my fellow Gypsies,
I strum the instrument of hips like a woman,
strumming achingly this borrowed guitar,
akin, I like to think, like Miles Davis blows his trumpet,

he in a dive in Harlem; me in a den of thieves and flamenco.
To set the record straight, I'm not Spanish but a Russian Gypsy.
To witness, our tribe has virtually no boundaries.
It's what keeps both woe and cheer but fleeting conditions.

The Hole in Space

Parents will take secrets to the grave,
and well we should. Why trouble progeny
with incidentals?

Even if we could recall the groove, should we tell the kids
what on earth we were thinking at that moment, moment of moments
when we shot them body and soul through the hole in space?

Rub

"If's" spelling is strange,
its tone is alarming
Up stairwells it creaks
under the steps of the unknown.

If is always present,
It always feigns,
and in every situation,
obscures the final solution.

"If you're gonna love me..."
Stop in the name of love!
Why so much trauma
just to propagate the unholy species?

Sir, there is no magic,
there is no science
there is no futile hope
comparable to marriage

Twain in Golden Years

I don't recall my hands looking so delicate.
They used to be brawn-built for heavy groping,
the reaching of the aims of man in heat.

My hands look even of a different hue
as if of burnished copper. Maybe so long
having worked the red Georgia dirt.

These hands begin to resemble yours.
Is this what the years have wrought? Your face
a little blacker; my neck a whole lot redder,

our skulls molded to the nuptial pillow,
fixed to the off and on vow of death do us part,
our chats, nothing out of the ordinary.

Badges and Huggers

He was buckling his gun belt when I entered the kitchen
to brew a cup of Sumatra. From coffee to Air Tran, we spoke nada
(which everyone even those who don't speak Castillian know means nothing.)
And that's what we spoke none pause to the airport --- Nada!

At the dividing line between village and cornfields,
dumb-in-law put the car in park to let a freight train go by.
It's metallic rumble would have been symphonic except it wasn't.
A radio a commentator was ranting.

Commentator furiously rants on Wisconsin government striking workers
putting in jeopardy our Western Way of Life, part of a communist conspiracy, stretching from Obama to Cairo. What is this Western Way of Life?
Is there an eastern, northern, southern equivalent?

Dumb-in-law thinks Sarah Palin is America's Joan of Arc.
I think Sarah's cute but a media whore, an all too typical politician.
At the fare ye well, I would have embraced son-in-law,
but he sticks out his hand as if to say, keep your embrace to yourself.

Officer Rod drives back to his backyard grill in Southern Illinois,
to the swigging of patriotic beers with buddies, to the wall memorial
in his basement bar to fallen fellow heroes. I fly on to Hatteras
to my liberal, leftist-leaning, tree hugging agenda.

Fields Again

Wind bumps your image,
clouds blow you backwards.
You're taken apart,
ball of fur and web that you are,
gossamer poised before pursed lips,
scattered under belly waves of migrating geese.

Southbound is the way to go
this blustery time of year.

Noit Seug

Are we perchance a collective thought
perchance shorting in impulses private?
Are we ego nothing more, blending,
melding, hopefully higher?

Accept evolution as possible evidence
that revolution is a millstone
tied around our collective necks.
Are we that? Law and chaos.

You bet, we are.
Don't fret. Hug,
tug, let us frug.
We always have.

More Kindly Human

let us all cry for one another
we can only hope to be washed of the ash

it may seem novel
that the earth opening and swallowing

makes us all
more kindly human

Go hoop

When winter withstands the skeletal
of Indiana's naked woods and the cornfield neglect
of soggy chaff and frozen scraps,

when inside the window of our house in Dyer
the walls resonate with childhood play,
that back then, you missed instead a more deserving quiet,

which alas has come to sit by the fireplace,
like trophies and family portraits of those passed,
who but for Kodak moments are near forgotten -

siblings, parents,
and divers sepia generations
to rural cemeteries banished

to the hush of impending blizzards...
You miss the noise of happy, voices,
and yet you know that such needs are mainly seasonal.

Take Off

Do not fear the sudden jolt.
Flying machines will shake a bit in turbulence.
In landings and takeoffs, a bump or two is only natural.

Everything immobile, eventually, is set in motion,
Everything that moves, sooner or later slows and pauses.

Call it cardiac arrest,
call it a sensation of sudden panic,
it's the realm of going cosmic.

75 going on 92

Better than sex
and the equal of having your back scratched,
is a cup of coffee, expertly brewed
lovingly served to make you feel 38 summers old
one more blessed day, before the floor shutters
and the curtain drops.

Among my myriad mountain reasons
is why I love Colombia like a granddaughter
who looks up her grandmother
as the most complete of women
any man ever took.

The Turnip Plantation

Another wheelchair, another set of crutches
to the funny farm --- them whose own names
they have forgotten,

forgotten likewise to whom they once were married,
in smashed goblets and hot wet kisses
as well as been forgotten the names of sons and daughters
who near bankrupted their parents in wild parties.
Sundry degrees received from UCLA and Ivy colleges,
hardly relevant, wouldn't you say Mr. Madoff?

Adolf Hitler would have cherished you.
Let the survivors eat pound cake, say I.
Let them bathe in balmy Bahamas' waters.

Pharmaceutical Alzheimers be stewed, say I,
like Doctor Jacobs's mother, Sarah,
who dreams in isolation picking turnips

in the former USSR,where still rules a Czar from Georgia
by the name of Josef Stalin. "Hey Stan, call the intern,
I think she's dead."

Zipper Released

be pure now for purity's sake
let subconscious undergo a peaceful demise

let beyond take over

you've tried in vain to make the trains run on time
and hundreds of locomotives have run you over

be good now...do no harm

Boy Flies Kite on Beach

The beaches do poetry and do not know it,
their stanzas scripted in sand and wind,
expounded by surf through gawks and gills;
the verses expired in breathers of whim,
nostrils consume and let out again.

Place in The Sun

Wheresoever I wander,
I find my safe haven,
my place in the sun.

Caracas and Karachi
I am there on the street corners,
my tawny face increasingly darkens.

From where hails this unsightly lady,
I am the fallen peoples
back on her feet.

Caressing Irazu

The wind-stop top
volcanic heaped
bottom down
burps intermittent.

Wisps of clouds
sweep its ridges
between Hades and Heaven
the beach I walk is exquisite.

Of grounded glass and minted pumice
where minor gods have fornicated
I, a human, am an intrusion,
though I, myself, am of volcanic action,

ever on the edge of leaping off cliffs,
held back by the gravity of timidity
held fast by the anticipation of finding my Zoltan
I caress the volcano one last timem

before returning to the sightseeing bus.

Night Travel

I am a dreamer
a sleep walker
who upon awakening,
logs in the night's encounters.

These are my poems.
I savor an infrequent nightmare.
I order myself back to sleep
to re-dream a happy ending.

Egypt and Back

The baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt
When the kid rebounded to Jerusalem,
it was then they nailed him.

Gee Time

Time as a playmate,
time as a passing shadow,
time, the thing in the closet

You have time, you have no money worries.
You have no time, you probably have a noose around your neck;
might be a bow tie, might be the hangwoman's strapless dress.

For me this day, this Saturday, I have plenty of time.
I do not leave the covers, but for to piss and attend bodily concerns.
Wouldn't it be nice to be as hard and passive as a rock.

Lesson Hear

Five days late to work this week.
Day 1 - I'm warned.
Day 2 - Warning repeats.
Day 3 - Reprimand issued in writing.

Behold how compassion screwed a kindhearted guy like me.
On Day 1 - I waited for a bus, a little girl beside me.
I allowed the bus to proceed without me to not let the child alone on the corner,
where she could be snatched by slave traders and shipped to who knows where.

Day 2, Day 3 - same story. On the fourth day, I'm fired.
There's a lesson here for goody-two shoes of my ilk.
When to ride Route 88 or no, poses a moral issue,
don't fret, get up earlier and take another bus.

The Hell We Call A Prison

He was my master, I his disciple.
I knew they'd chew him up and spit him out
a bleeding mess forever crippled.

I, therefore, did for him what he could not do to himself.
As he returned from his 12 by 14 walk in the prison yard,
I shanked him neath the left bottom rib.

His parting words to me:
"Thanks lad, even this
I forgive you."

Planet Spin

Gravity holds the axis
Spin determines wind
Wind determines weather

A tilt, a blush and there you have it!
Sunny nights in Point Barrow.

Requiescat in Pace

Eye as self,
self as whole,
one for God,
God for all
Sabbath forever
is what I've been told.

Sharon Silverstein or something like that.

For personal reasons,
I can't abide her raunchy comedic routine.
I will admit, however, it's brilliant.

If by and by a documentary is done on her,
I volunteer to write and direct it.
The things to which we're drawn are mysteries.

Bay of Bengal

The bags you want,
we have!!!

Vampire Tactics

The cult of gore is kicking swell.
All the news fit to tell.
Be blessed if of it you have no part.

Morsels of murder madness keep in place
the tubes to our minds that we disconnect,
when we can go casket before first light.

Angel and Altar

The angel sits upon an altar,
his toes play misty in frigid waters.

The angel doesn't know he is chosen
to ram Titanus into an ice head

Far removed is he from his mother's birth pangs,
oblivious of North Atlantic's shears.

In its stead he's sees a chandelier of many colors
bewitchingly spinning over Her Majesty's floating palace.

It's then the helmsman-angel hearkens to the low
and nearing rumble played under the band's soulful lament.

In the key of thud we all stop dancing,
that emerges chords of ripping steel.

These Hands

These hands more youthful than I am ancient,
these hands of mine are white light,
that voyage the night to rest upon your astral shells,
and relieve you of your body hurt
that where the giver is, receivers are
who may survive to tell about.

Truth- in-Truce

The principals by which wars are waged successfully,
peace forged, law, order and progress advanced:

In drawing up battle plans, the objective should consider
positioning one's forcesin such a manner that they can be attached
to the underpinnings of the opposing entity, thereby systematically dismantling them and replacing resistance with a newly acquired desire on the part of the former enemy
to cooperate fully with the terms of surrender.

However, in the solution of Mideast conflicts,
it might be more cost efficient to convert the desert to a sand box.

Adam Factored

No person is complete
until his destined purpose is reached.

In kind of cloning Adam
in kind of grafting Eve to Adam,

God's purpose of 2 in 1
was reached.

Cruelty and Kindness

Cruelty is defected by what tricks it into satisfaction.
Like parched earth, cruelty erodes in rainy weather.

Kindness on the other hand, is akin to grassy meadows
that grows and absorbs and grows some more.

To survive, know kindness,
for the cruel of heart are readily smothered.

The wicked perish over and over.

Shunned and Shattered

She said I was no longer attractive to her androgynous friends.
She said it nasal of why I wasn't mixing. And there I sat dejected,
my art work no more in vogue.

By the throat, I took Cassandra to the kitchen,
where I severely warned her, that I wasn't kidding,
she was making me despise her.

She countered with a cleaver, but I in a ballet move
hurled off the condo wrap around balcony.
Nineteen stories down, she lay shattered.

I confess my intent did in no way prevision evil.
Believe me, it was self defense, for hell knows no fury
than a relationship between an gallery owner and her partner

who happen to be more than just professional acquaintances.

Bold Face is Stone Face

Mister Hosni says he's afraid to quit
because chaos will follow.
What a man, what a soldier!

Afraid to quit
kept him in power 30 years
and not a day of chaos ever, ever.

And that's why he's afraid to quit?
May he reign long after
he's a mummy.

Antarctica Meltdown

Curl your tongue towards your throat
to keep the tears from running over.
Weep privately if you must.

We stout of heart,
have the wimps think we're made of iron.
we, as soft and as absorbent as surgical cotton.

In the face of certain meltdown,
keeping up appearances
is the essence of courage.

Kiss goodbye Martha's Vineyard and the Blarney
It was nice to have known them.
The day of reckoning is upon us.

From Queensland to Nantucket
the oceans are swimming inland.
To the highlands, let us be going.

Keep content the ignorant a while longer.
Stay dry, you chosen people
Moses did when the sea he parted.

Muuuu

He is no jerk this Pharaoh
Let the noise makers have their fun
shout dry their mouths and tire
famished return to prayer

Enter the fresh platoons
with sticks and stones pro Mubarek
and then... the Army police the square
caretakers hose down the tiles...

and Egypt go back to being Egypt

That Works

Wring the towels of truancy.
To the jazz joint, let us skip.
Graffiti red the blooming sunset.

Everybody do the solo.
The quartet parts, we'll keep.

Moan we players out of pain and pleasure.
Bring the towel, but heavens...
not to weep.

Wes

Put yourself in another man's keyboard
to sense what he may be thinking.
Because his swagger is his signature,
his signature is his authority.

His authority is that he's stepping.

Lay It On

This organ mocks my Negro voice
and I mock its.

My finger tips are ivory built,
don't wonder that my soul is black.

I have, you see ---
planetary eyes.

One Clear Day

At some point, breathing stops,
the pulse pauses, does not restart.
At some interval, the mind implodes,
space contracts. Infinity zeroes,
eternity blinks.

Life Itself is An Addiction

I pray God
forbid me sin again again,
I addicted to what kills.

Addictions are hard to break.
Unless on tortured wheels they be dismissed
life's addictions are to the end.

Forget them of hormones gushing sticky
who have no breath to do the rosary during Lent,
unless a rope be fixed to snap their neck.

Youth fancies speed, old age tends to shun it.
That death should bring relief - to them haunted,
makes no sense.

The Ancient Trees That My Oaths

I witness, yes, to this terrible flaw
I love trees more than I love people,
an ungodly sentiment, I admit
I am unspoiled America.

Alaska to Patagonia,
my woods the peoples wrecked,
my waters did they stink.

My air unpure
Haiti did I love,
deforested it slides
into yet another graveyard.

Dawn's Smudg Kiss

I am whelmed
I am joyed
I is sorrowed

which is to say

I'm on the verge of overwhelmed,
on these here cliffs of tugging joy
looking down at sorrow's canyons

which is to say

I greet the dawn in glorious silence
No tweet of bird, no stirring
My hearing aide needs a battery

Closer Than Supposed

The depth of our beings
in raindrops deflect
the sky at the height of our toes.

We inhale heaven's breath.

Labor Pool

Waiting to be chosen to clean a galley kitchen,
dozen day laborers also wait,
I do not know how I'll escape minimum wage work.

I will be liberated, I insist.
Nature hears me and enlists
I be persuaded more.

Years later, I do not run the kitchen.
From ice packer to mobster boss,
I am a mafia politician

Wagner

In opera, mythology is sung.
However, nationalism's most fervent expression
takes place in events unleashed in stadiums
as in international soccer matches,
or as with those audiences going bananas,
over a ranting man, whose eye balls periodically
roll back into his Aryan head.

Fatal Mettle

What attracts
maybe toxic

Behold the lovely necklace
the coiled coral snake

If you could kiss Nefertiti's nipple,
you might drown of ashes.

Work Ethic

The job accomplished is delicious
to bricklayer as to hit man

Bottoms

Your indwelling uneasiness
will not be put to rest
by any set of happenstance.

Question marks are hooks with balls,
guillotines which slice through intelligence.

Therefore, if space goes on and on (as is supposed)
as deeply as you might penetrate the atom,
think you'll ever reach its bottom?

Island

blue pond
desire holds
blue gap
in lovers' mouths
the nursery trout
Schubert ago


come if you can
in song return
i know you must
disappear

Market Day

Listen, look, think.
Chances of surviving
depend on capacity to think.

Huh?

Behind my eyes,
between my ears,
this here is my doll house.

Huh?

Don't mess with my doll house
and on't mess with me.
Beware before you reach.

Huh?

I have my property rights
of avenging woman.
Think twice before you speak.

No Action Required

We know it by what it isn't and fails to do.
It does not contend, it does not expropriate.
It does not engage in the exercise of ambition.
It does not interfere with the rights of others
Where no thing is, it is.

Brush Hairs

When Rubens is abstracted,
ugliness is Picasso.
When Picasso is abstracted...
that's another line of separation.

In Out

I had no intention of existing.
Now that I am, I think it cute
that some should profess I disavow it.

"Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way."
Open the flood gates, Lao.
Ready or not is always at hand.

The Past Passed

Fractions are true as fractions go,
only fragments, never the whole.

So too, experience segments solely.
The truth the total holds.

How Quiet The Morning

How quiet the morning
when the carpet is snow,
and in the trees above,
birds are nesting late.

First Day Forest,
a doe passes through the gate,
which is the mind of God,
into Man's domain.

Hurry, Sarah, get the gun!

Monkey Bars

I can assure you, Butch, my childhood does not exist
as it does for you in the fixation of painful memories.
The blows I took, few scars remain, none to cry about,
certainly none to brag about for the most part ironed flat.

The sepia photograph of Aunt Millie no longer trances me as it did,
though her gaze continues spooky, her smile an indelible question.
I wonder where in me she might hiding beyond her fading image.

I can assure you that if she and I were kids in the school yard
on a higher rung of the monkey bars, I would at this stage
of my latter day wisdom, restrain from looking up her bloomers.

This day I declare myself sovereign and independent.
Indeed, in word and for all perpetual purposes
I ordain myself my own ancestor. Don't say I shouldn't.
I already did it.

A Stroll Through The Park

Take a stroll through the park with a poet,
you're in for a treat. Everything is dreamy, creamy;
the cotton ball clouds, the leaning towers of Central Park.
To note; you had dropped acid just hours ago.

Take a stroll through the park with a Wall Street broker.
You'll probably with you didn't.
Take a stroll through the park with a mugger.
Forget the mugger, the country is violent enough.

I remember early one Christmas Eve, strolling pass Tiffany's.
I ran a high fever. The wind-whipped snow melted before
it doused my face. Had it not been for winter,
I might have died dehydrated.

I entered the park in Columbus Circle.
I wished for a mugger to try me.
I was in want of a reasonable excuse to kill.
I had unrequited love on my mind.

I was then as I am now
the center of the universe,
but am no longer
the owner of Central Park.