Beyond Sin

Resonance, mates, let us seek;
to still winds that need be stilling;
to tell and see a misplaced mountain relocate.

Like a child, that rope in hand, skips in cadence,
and twirling loops (quick time or slow) she commands
--- to prove what? That her powers are pure happenstance?

God forbid, I dare tempt (or test) such weighty matters.
Instead, spirit filled, faith filled submit me I to:
Life, Way and Truth.

Romance December Evening 13th

Your dense lips smack the sax,
polar moon and homeward back

Your tapered fingers tear drop the notes
into well springs of spontaneity

It's the turquoise flow of commonality
that makes of our kind surviving folk

Man and woman,
we two intended
before we knew it
before attendance

In spite of ups and downs
consensual, reciprocal to border lines
improvisational we wane and wax
awhile longer...together

Beacon

Riveters shooting steel
where normal humans dare not tread
construction workers on high beam stunts
we owe much to Joe Hardhat

Clanging iron, the next step up
skyscrapers rising taller by the hour
we owe much to engineers
we owe much to hands that work

This city my city, New York City
is layered in geological and human doings
The island of Manhattan was carved by glaciers,
and neath our streets we have the world of cables

Our first tenants were Redmen
Then, came Dutch and English after
When I speak Bronx,
you can't tell if I'm Jew or Irish

JFK (the President) said, "Ich bin ein Berliner."
Make no mistake about it, Abigail is a New Yorker
born and bred where the estuary in two divides;
Hudson River to the West, Harlem River to the east.

At the southern tip, the land-grip of Twin Towers,
flashing codes of world commerce
and then, one day...destruction
Burn in hell Mohammed Ata.

Scream

It was New Year Eve, 1978
The last movie posted on the marquee would be,
John Travolta and Olivia Newton John's, "Grease."
The audience numbered five lonely hearts
No popcorn in hand,
no popcorn in mouth...
nothing better to do on an Ole Year's night.

The concessionaire stand had already been crated
Television had sealed the movie house's demise a generation earlier
There was a time, you could make out all afternoon in its balcony
Two full length movies, newsreels, cartoons...and vaudeville

In the weeks and months and years post closure,
the boarded up theater took on the appearance of a crypt
Till one good day, an investor had an idea.
Remove the planks from its doors and exits,
fumigate the joint from top to bottom,
dress it in blood red velvet
rechristen it, "The Little House of Horrors."

Two blocks from the ocean
off Atlantic Avenue
where hired part time workers play ghouls and goblins
Halloween, 52 weeks a year.

Yuletide Post Viet Nam

My used army jacket keeps out the nip
The falling snow reminds me of a Hollywood clip
falling snow that costs us nothing,
paid for when we got drafted

In Philly pissed,
City of Brotherly Love
of Philadelphia lawyers
and drive-by murders

Peter Pecker

The scribbling pauses
The static in his head subsides a little
It'll have to build to a pitch, again.

Will it ever stop, for Pete's sake!
And who in tarnation
is Pete, anyhow?

Pete Pecker pecks at the writing machine
like pigeons pecking at crumbs
dropped by a bum in Central Park.

His obsession to write is his will to escape
Hop on, all you bleeding hearts and drunkards
Zero to 60 in one deep breath

It's what keeps us toasting
the sorry, old hag ---
The Muse of Suffering

Getting Out of The Shell

Errors in a shoe box stored under the bed
regrets to fill a closet
psychotic behavior hard to break
it ought not be so complex

First, destroy
then, remake