Saturday, February 28, 2009

runninginwater

running in water
thriving in splash
the blue refreshing
ongoing dash
of porpoise
and whale,
spindrift’s truest
best friends,
who mingle
and gurgle
leap effer/
vescent into life
full and fresh,
afloat open--
souled replen/
ished from end
to glistening
end!

DREAM WOUND

“ Don’t turn away from the bandaged place, that’s where
the light enters you.” Rumi

the wound hideous, although just starting
to heal along dark outer edges of ripped skin
there on the side of my brother in law’s leg,
his calf actually, like Buster Keaton’s gaping
mouth, or if I’m honest, really more of a huge
vagina, an open pink cave of layered flaps,
overlapping oysters cut deep into this fleshy orifice,
a labyrinth of lips and torn tongues the eye wants
to enter so bad,
maybe linger inside in awe, yet holds back from for
fear that disgust or another power outside the fence
line of human words will overtake you
and you’ll have to go away,
far, to something smooth safe covered shut,
mute, healthy and normal,
and it better be
damn fast.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Unsafe Harbor/Jackson Pollack Remembered

“when the armies
of your heart hit
the shore of my coast,
cannons and grenades shattered
red trees, left the blue
sand screaming,
can we unbury Big Sur
and the late hurried toast
to your profligate father
dreaming of Finger Lake
vineyards, soft rain
in Vermont”?

Friday, February 20, 2009

Convenience Store

Again and again and again
like the soft pour of incessant rain
onto a waiting street,
she patiently received these
motley bunches of customers,
a far-away gaze in her
limpid blue eyes,
and rang up ice cream bars, packs
of generic cigarettes, neon colored
Slurpies fake flavored so fucking
popular, slim cardboard boxes of Tampax,
bags of Cheetos and chips and single cans
of Campbell’s tomato soup
from start of shift at noon
until the sifting shadows of night,
not forgetting for more than a minute,
or two at most, her date later
with black haired Johnny the boy
from south of Highway 94
and their dance of sugar and salt,
salt and sugar
of freedom and feeling,
they’ll do over
and over
and over
reeling in each other’s
glad and grateful,
hungry arms.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Axis Turns

the pomegranate shone,
a crimson poem
which dangled
in the dust
outside Tehran in winter,

songs of Hafiz pulled the prayerful
down where only the heart can see,

small children called to one another
in the cool clear air of day,
shouted out with glee to friends
in Farsi along Esfahan’s
blue broad river

while across the deepest sea
the certified axis of evil
rotated on its spit,
sneered and chuckled
in tongues of fear
in twisted Texan vernacular,
smelled the taint and grief of oily lies
like sticky shards of broken talk
painted primitive black and white,
disgusting in its dirt
clogged lips
a slithering uncoiled
rattlesnake lost and starving
for a target, alone without prey,

the end of saber rattling
this ancient bluff
of huff and hubris,
he doffs his store
bought hat,
broods towards
one sober plodding
thought,
who or what if any
is eternally saved?

the crisp absurdity
of pungent sage ablaze

he is almost ready
in this torrid heat
for the shallow
cowboy’s grave.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

A Ringing Answered

Blindness blasted into pieces
each remaining sense so boldly
like a brazen bullhorn colonizing,
completely quieting each lone forgotten
particle of bullied muffled fog.
The skinny bed, hot and wet--
the furtive clutching
of her cramped and wasted
cornstalk limbs,
a roadside trap especially when
the far thin voices came
with lukewarm porridge or the half crunch
of limp and tasteless vegetables
on a tray or crooked table
for the weak and wrinkled lap.

Swirling consonants and vowels,
her caved-in sentence stretched
for many winding miles,
meaning melted deep within
a cratered furnace of the mountain.

There was no place
or time
or person
in the foreign alleys
the baking backstreets
to tell the how
or why of this
which happened
yet had emptied
out her life.

The rotting stink of fiery noise, the bursting
urge to name the need to take a piss,
colored months of flaming terror
and this turgid being on her back.

The turgid being on her back
swollen fragments of incoherence,
broken listless shards of days
in high school, a young girl with
her i-pod braids and boyfriends
and the woeful day she picked up
the strident and seductive
relentless brutal phone.

Oh, how does hope
that ‘thing with feathers’
crash so bad, dive too fast
to bring but fevered visions
of black and sour weather
to us of humankind?

WINTER PRAYER

beseech the woolen god
who is good
but not too good
for gladness and each its friends:
ask forgiveness on your soul
such that old stains
connote sweet beauty
and great warmth of heart
defends you,
yes,
may real warmth,
strong heart
sustain you
up to and
through the
shining
end!

Work and the Family Man

The hit man’s grin outshone
his orange umbrella and two-toned
saddle shoes, work was pure pleasure
these days, the hours even better, strolling
no, strutting down Fifth Avenue
on this breezy, drizzly Saturday
daydreaming of dizzy play
in lofty piles of crimson leaves
while family business deals
swept away wet doubt, circulated
iron throughout his hot bloodstream,
(he loved the notion of ancestral teams),
he was Hillary triumphal
atop infinite Everest,
Berra crouched low behind Yankee Stadium’s
home plate,
Captain Cook sailing oceans to stand tall
on sensual Tahitian white sand beaches,
and he knew in his dead uncle’s black pistol
and silver money belt swollen with bills
that life for all its vexations
and occasional rare honest cop
was damn good,
hell, real good, all the way
down to gristle and bone.

Turning suddenly onto Twenty-Fourth
and into a small quiet shop
just off the corner, his face somber,
eyes focused pinpoints of light,
silently attuned to the task at hand
like a world class neurosurgeon,
he shot the jeweler with a lethal
gambling habit once through the neck,
carefully cleared the carotid by a whisker,
whacked the bald man dead,
quickly wiped fingerprints with a clean
fresh handkerchief, combed his slick hair
and stepped out onto the bustling street,
smiled easy contented
a journeyman’s pride in work well done.

Late that afternoon when the Autumn sun
hunched low over Central Park’s open green,
and deeds of the day darkened behind,
he gratefully treated his twinkling-eyed
six year old daughter,
gleaming and gleeful as she held Dad’s hand,
to a thick caramel shake and heaped up plate of crunchy
crisp fries after a syrupy sweet double feature,
a maudlin mushy family matinee
of hold-your-breath,
last-minute-to-the-rescue
several horses and dogs.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

ODE TO TURNING IN SPRING

(“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns..”-Homer)

FOR JEVAN

bat cracks!
percussive snap
of smooth ash
mitts thunk
hands clap
heads lift
up

white ball
orbits deep
sails leaps
onto green

kids perched
on wooden
bench
lulled to
sleep
scream like
banshees
adrift in dream

one hauls
ass count/
er clock wise
from base to base
dust blurs sight
dulled cleats bite
dry infield
dirt

hat now
gone
rounds third
tight
almost
out
of breath
this last
high peak
on his
mind

head down
sprints so
fast
despite
hurt shins
to home
plate’s

“safe!”

ecstatic
grin.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

ELMER'S WORLD

a squat squinting chap, rifle in hand,
trudged like a chunky old spud
through thick oozing mudflats
from garden to garden in the dark night,
targeting a long-eared crop stealing thief,
a scoundrel who burrows and hops
leaving the lone runt of a hunter
downcast bereaved.

bewildered, befuddled, beaten down,
but not beguiled one bit
by the
drip
drip
drip
dripping of daily annoyances and
those no--account nit-picking
neighbors of nuisance, Fudd
found some small shred of solace
in browbeating and buttfucking,
essentially buggering ‘Bugs’ good,
the wascally wabbit whose gray
fuzzy felt nose was forever nestled
in deep soil, moving through fenced
plots of dirt like a greedy reader
librarians love or a trucker toiling
on speed Sunday drivers hate, sniffing
and snorting the yellow-orange high
in vitamin A good for your eyes,
(for a fresh crunchy one he’d give you his hare shirt)
garden variety cocaine commonly called carrots.

Living low, close to ground zero,
made Elmer feel bugged, envious of heroes
a low groaning grumble in his mind droned on--
a sticky second hand smoke which
stunk up his house, his thirsty third wife
and her porky smooth pink skin
like a stumbling drunk with yellow fingers
on a wobbly 2 a.m. barstool.

One windy eve on his wayward walk home
after several or more tonics and gin,
he met his nemesis the rabbit down
on the curb, heard how the carrot crop
had withered and vanished from an unusual late frost.
Elmer’s enemy looked almost human
in that strange rare moment of straight honest talk
and with no further ado into his cottage
did the two walk for a post-midnight snack
of barley and cabbage and a frosty cold one,
from that moment on Mr. Fudd still stubby
yet now un-befuddled, in tipsy epiphany
found suddenly true blue an unsoiled agape,
this selfless, unspoiled love of one bunny.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Same Old Story

orphaned over
and over
and over
as great ocean waves
crash relentless
underneath
an ashen
blasphemous
moon,

a pair of siblings
ancient forlorn,
wildly wrestling
emerge on a beach
like starfish stranded
or faded bleached
echoes of salt,

torn up, tousled
and worn,
catching merciful
breath they wait
for redemption’s
late feigned
impotent reach
in the wet sopping
cold weary night.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Saturday on the '405' (for Keighty)

‘you don’t know how lucky
you are babe…back in the USSR..’ (The Beatles)


hey happy day,
hey hey hey!

these radio songs take you away,
even the freeway quite frantic
has on its mind fun gigantic
as you sing, steer and sway
at sixty or eighty dodging
those Kias, Tundras
and Dodges,
weaving your way north
to LA where your daughter
post-op retakes her day,
gets ready to study
banter and talk,
make sweet music with school chums
she’s missed for two weeks
on busy Bruin walk.

and you chant your song
of pure thanks
for her pink-cheeked recovery
and full health regained,
in gratitude you go fast
tires spin circling grins
do their attuned inaugural dance
for the successful surgical lance
as you’re transported,
perchance exalted,
by this wide noisy band
of instrumental asphalt
playing hit after hit
in ten or twelve lanes.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Hunger's End

myriad doors of uncertain dimensions
opened in dream after dream.

a rogue dervish stands
and twirls at the strange
threshold,
waits forever
for his or her god.

invite the masters, the morons,
blessed mundane buddhas,
mean spirited and midgets,
may all dine at the feast
of true life!

one trembling brave hand
grips a burnished door knob,
turns it twice, twists once
to enter and taste
(not desist)
deep pleasure
of being
right here.

stroll with grace
eyes eager so open
into the laughing
festive great hall,
sing and sup,
dance lascivious
‘til dawn cracks
broken
its first lusty full
throated yawn.

later, haystacks
of piled up celebrants
well sated,
doze deep
throughout
the green day,
idle and snooze
as one creature,
are replenished
ready composed
for the tumult
and throes
of next eve’s
nourishing thrills,
love’s wild
godly
full fray.

Friday, February 6, 2009

COLOR OF HOME

the proud loud shout
of red letter days a’glow
shone like crimson
crayola through windows
of glass and crumbled
walls of gray stone
in the small Ohio town
of these mornings and nights
of repeating deep
dreams where blue river
rapids, old busy buildings
and an ongoing urge
of full lively streets
mix and marry
in a playful splurge
of colorful traffic
and the endearing
motion of crowds,

a beckoning dear city
pictured in affection
hope and belonging,
with a warm cozy home
to enter embody and name,
curious sidewalks for strolling
exploring with ease,
and an enduring life
no longer the same,
to recreate and plaster
with paint from the bright
oozing pallet of Mars--

a sanguine abode
of seamless dreaming,
this gathered up dwelling,
vivid vision on loan,
touched down to earth,
my one and my own!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

STILL, LIFE

a plateful of citrus fruit
sits flush on the smooth
tan table,
like happy fat heads
convened for the quiet,
speaks a tart tongue
of tasting
and waking,
tingling
what’s fresh
today
for the taking
and making,
these orange
and yellow
orbs and one
ancient
brown brush
create a bright
lush painting:

seven or eight
contemplative
planets
at play
in a pig-pile
of colorful
prayer.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

nice legs

She has nice legs, very nice legs
under her mid-length skirt
as she sits with them crossed
in the gold lit coffee house,

until she stands up and takes
short stutter steps
in shiny black heeled shoes
down the two stairs

out to her car
and whatever the day
ahead holds

in its lucky,
brown muscled
arms.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Sunday,New Day

head groggy, thoughts thick,
formed slow as churned butter,
body dense shoulders tense
and why wouldn’t this be the fact
after a week such as this?

a single crow caws its cry of dawn
as the neighborhood awakens,
takes its Sunday yawn.

guitar music,
brisk air on deck,
me wearing
a warm
blue
sweatshirt,
spacious
clear
silent sky
overlays
all
today.

even the street
is smiling
in its tired
morning stretch.