Seen from Yellow, Watery Eyes

Eyes, my love Frankenstein
Give me such longing, holding their shine
Friendly lashes, by and by, herein
Once worded, ears tucked under signs.

Fallen one, a mother who lies
Lives without, the head a ruing seal
Stand straight, see all the wonder
Let me see all your truth.

Not twice, Frankenstein. See me glimmer sharp
with two stern lines. Look inside me.
Bid me blackened and then go away.
How far one’s father flies.

Do not wonder if I am capable.
I won’t be found through gentle gestures.
Tricks, oh eyes, what the whispers halt
from the Golden overflow of these wounds.

4/28/11

Flying Monkeys and Such

There was a time when I tried to fly
downhill full speed arms flopping
like a Canada goose running across water
hoping to take off into air.
My feet rarely left the grass
and I clearly remember the disorientation
of disappointment. Judy Garland never
got her answer. No one ever wrote her
a sequel to Somewhere Over the Rainbow,
the one where rules apply, restrictions enforced,
dreams crash down and shatter as glass panes
against the jagged rocks below. There
will be other dreams but since that day
I have learned too many answers and am
content with these limits.

4/27/11

Pitt in my Brain

Forty or so years ago,
imprinted in my head
like a stamp. WOMAN.
Mold is cast, ink still wet
prone to smudging. Never
got off to you, on you
despite such considerable
assets and your confidence
to display them, even
through clothes and bubbles.
No, there is a higher standard
at work here, an eastern European
archetype of cheek mole, accent.
This is the role of lifetimes over,
more immortal than any vampire.

4/26/11

Circle Meets Square

A bond not to be broken
between natural/unnatural
It taints stains erodes away
while it solidifies joins together
reminds as a constant decoration
or symbol it is always noticed
even admired rarely removed
If so, it usually leaves an impression

4/26/11

Musings from Scribes

The film is finished. Throughout the ten

Directions of space, we are not alone:

We have brothers in the hills and sisters

In the jungles. We want the empty offices

collecting dust! I am at one with the world

and yet stand out from it. There is no such

thing as standing still. Link by link, we forget

the chain. There is no reason to play with death.

I tell her the truth.

Jack Hirschman, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, d. a. levy,

Diane DiPrima, Bob Kaufman, Gerald Locklin, Lenore Kandel

Only Child's Fairytale

An old Queen had been dead.
A beautiful daughter, a King’s son
living beyond the open. The wedding
drew for leaving furniture
and cups
and jewels
and adornments of gold
and silver.

She gathered everything proper
for she loved dearly.

4/22/11

Hop-A-Long Meets the Axe

Given the holiday
Easter is here again,
time to recall all the
trials of Spring.

Evil-grinned rabbits that
hide all my treasures in
mischievous burials.
Murder’s the Thing.

4/22/11

Anita, 1954

Soft grey to convey an icon
lit only by window out of frame
she studies her shadows on the
bare floor bare from form. Fingers
fracture in surprising angles—a deeper
grey, not quite black.

No universals here, only shades of light
grey, dark grey, textured grey. Such shades
define her form, but in only the softest sense.
There are no lines to remain inside, only blendings
of greys, gradations of light, and where light is
not yet allowed.

Her hair alone offers a world of greys as she
is immortal, looking down into the light. Kneeling
over at rest, a supple form and shape—a study in
grey with all of its connotations, like a sky of similar
hue. The world is better off with the depth of grey.
Nowhere is this more evident.

4/18/11

Shall I Compare Thee?

How do we compare ourselves
to the thick and thin of it?
Diametric opposites? Books on shelves?
Is it the length or the width
after all? We all spout off
the same, but it is worth
the time to explore rough and soft
textures, unearth
salty and sweet treasures
from beneath covered shadows,
revel in painful pleasures
of dizzying heights and bottomless lows.

Comparisons are the middle ground
between what is lost and what is found.

4.15.11

Fair Food

Traced from a streaking blur
through dapples from holes in
tree canopies, shifting open sky
and reflections from water
below, a streak of royal blue
and eyeball white, every so often
add a dash of burnt orange and
forked tail silhouette. Emergent
insects become ducks in a shooting
gallery row, as swallows pay their
fee to the Spring County Fair.  

4.14.11

The Magic Number of Cranes

In the tundra
I came upon a Renaissance Man, bundled, sophisticated
Who, standing upright,
Held his brain in his hands,
and discarded it.
I said: “Is it bad, friend?”
It is wondrous--wondrous,” he answered;
“But I hate it
Because it is wondrous
and because it is my brain.”

 4.13.11

Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman

I’ll make
it up
to you
tomorrow
or the day
after that
or the day
after that
after that.

It’s only
fair, I know.

It’s something
I owe to you
but you never
ask for, at
least not
explicitly.
This is the
dance we
perform
day and night
on the couch
in the bed
making coffee
sharing cigarette
smoke. Flowers
on the odd
occasion, a card.
An undercooked
dinner, the gentle
nudges instead
of alarm clock
violations. 33 You
deserve, need this.
That cats know
it. So do I.
It, this, I
am here for
it all, so long
as you can put
up with . . .

4.11.11

Since You Asked

Play me as the Devil’s
Advocate, work me over until unexpected
slice me in quarters and thirds again
so that I continue to surprise,
initiate overdue seductions.
Only then can we have afterthoughts
naked as we sip morning coffee together.

4.10.11

"Saturday in the Park"

I’m living alone
with cats and playthings
that echo against the cheap subfloor,
the double pain windows. Cereal for lunch,
beer and bratwurst for dinner

bouncing between everyday errands
or meditative debauchery,

Calcium crickets and worms for the lizard
and half-off castoffs that take up my day

interjecting between the dialogue of sun and fog

Today is a good day to be alive.

4.9.11

Communal Thoughts Up In the Air

If you are one of those

frequent flyers who recline
their seats on an airplane,
I want to kill you slowly
taking our time to savor
the destruction of self
absorption, entitlement.

Ability is not justification.

You know who you are
and I don’t want any excuses.
Time to bleed you out
through the back of this
ever-encroaching confinement.
Touch down into a better
place to be.

4.1.11

Fridays During Lent

After nap, some beer and chips
then sprouts and catfish on my plate.
Now back to beer, both stout and pale
to drown the health food I just ate.

4.8.11

Once Upon America

America seemed like such a good idea

as if by chance, a once upon a time
in storybooks and fairytales. Althea
then told me I need protection against the crimes
of elected leaders, those deaf to cries. The Dead
have all the answers and I’m flying that flag
as a common sense freak in the war on intellect instead
of budget. It seems democracy has hit a snag,
a glitch in program design. Go back to templates
of Founding Fathers and Mothers, daughters, and sons
to clarify what others obfuscate
for private agendas.  Return us now to a nation
that dreams once again, that stands for reasoned ideals
in a responsible and rational court of appeals. 


4.7.11

Corner Bar Poetics

Hey you, the one reading this. Are you here
for some morbid curiosity, to see if these
words are sour roses? If so, geradeaus.

You won’t be disappointed, unlike
the Missys and Michelles of the world
for whom I was just a bland banana,
a dusty peach, a mealy apple.

These days, I string letters together
for trick combinations, as likely
to scratch as I am to sink the called
shot but only after a six pack, smoke
screens, and a jukebox that encourages
more more more. Hang around. You’re
in for a long night. Will you remember it?

4.7.11

One Word

Transjunctivitis.

4.6.11

Lizard Prophetic

Civil unrest, protests of military action,
conflicting sexualities, experimental escapism.
Breaking through new frontier, holding keys
to locked doors of political demagogues,
seeing through crystal ships of prismatic
manipulation, lighting fires and waiting,
waiting, waiting for you to come along.

This was a half century ago, and here we
are again. Strange days indeed.

4.6.11

Bleeding for the Dancer

I looked over the filthy rainbow
into a world of inversion
of beautiful dust, vibrant decay,
luminescent shadows.

Heard melodious creeks,
harmonious screams.
Touched gentle razors,
tasted delectable rot,

smelled wondrous death.

I followed to the very end,
to the golden reflection and
took in all the reversion/aversion:

faded adornment, eroding vitality,
diffused light,  shrieking music,
dissonant voices, cutting genteelities,
spoiled pleasures, meaningless life.

Rainbows are best left in the dark.

4.5.11

Shallow Puddles Without Reflection

Remove your face and this all becomes
less personal, less intimate. A blank mask
that hides who you are, eager to reveal
every other contour you can offer. What
remains is a palpable distance, safety of
anonymity. Expose your private reality
without ever having to reveal who you
actually are. It could be held against
you some sunny day.

4/5/11