THE PARTY'S OVER

Petite ticklers at the party kept
their distance from a particular guest
until the time of silence when I
mentioned how she sobbed when
the host played the march of death
on his gold trombone and all the rest
squirmed and grimaced,
bobbed like rotten apples
in stagnant water
held their bad breath

and you my dear date
burned your bra in a late
fit of defiance
while the fish oil
in your purse
stank like hot iron.

This party’s over!
thank god for that,
grab your waist/
coat and your
quite over the top
bold crimson top hat.

Stash the capsules of fish
near their massive front door,
while the butler’s blue eyes
lock much on blonde
Maud’s deep bowls
of pink jello,
her quivering cleavage
(such a gelatinous whore)

it’s time for a stand
to take like a man:
we’ll party oddly
and bodily mingle

be tickled passive
and fickle with giggling
buffoons and strumpets
blowing on trumpets
no god damn
more!

Bathroom Traveler

A map of the world
in living color
hangs like a plump
ripened apple
or clear curtain
of diaphanous film
from the rod
of my mysterious
shower.

As I unzip
unbutton
and disrobe,
discard a chaotic pile
of jeans and socks
on brown tile,
I wonder where
on earth
shall I trek
towards today?

Morocco Spain
Finland Red China

each beckon
brightly their
unique seductions

like thick paint
for smearing on canvas
or page after page
of brief poems of beauty
from hemispheres
across astonishing
oceans,

these nations’ murmured
strange grammars
and customs which
surprise and enchant me

take me forth far
across borders
with no guards,
no smoke spewing
twelve year old cars.

Then standing naked
and tall in the tub,
I turn the faucet
wide open to soak,

playfully splash
and rub slick soap
over skin in no hurry
without need
for passport
or worry

fly solo in high
clouds of cool
spray cross time
zones in ten
seconds flat

as I travel within
the lands of this
refreshing
transparent
flat map

in these dear days
of liquefied
hours!

SILENT ONE

Quiescence settles across
the inhuman patient face
of the shimmering lake

you calm the constant call
to talk or mingle when all
that’s needed now
is to claim and sense
in the marrow of the morrow
your promised fleeting
singlehood,

a lone egret stands adorned
like a white prince entranced
by morning’s water,
gazes through the quiet steam
of mist in a forest of ruddy
reeds so still they seem
to think.

Now, you turn and blink
towards the gleam
and glimmer
as the walking on the water
and the wonder beyond
all ponder begins its
long hot summer,

this sizzling liminal
simmer.

My Values at 60

a home without
one hunk
of volcanic rock
plunked atop
a dusty bookshelf
or chaotic edge
of a bureau

is a seething roiling
crater of self
with no bottom
to dredge
or vacation
in Prague
taken alone,

no language
no fun
no Euros.

basic theology

to a bloke
who’s broke
the welcome
blow of
a stranger's
toke becom/
ing second
hand smoke
across face
and nose

is token
proof of
nicotine god’s
basic
good grace
and flow.

DANCE ON!

We are always dancing
in the biggest ballroom
even if we know
the movements not

every moment a step
or glide or falter,
hip-hop waltz
twist foxtrot

and that golden light
we move in mystery to
emanates each night
from an open ceiling,
the highest altar,
when we cease
all effort

as the music of the kind
band leader pours forth
sweet honey from amber
trumpets onto tired
somber hearts.

Waterfall

the waterfall
sprays cools
and refreshes
a loose gaggle
of oldsters
who chatter
like chickens
spreading
their wings
at the gray
granite base.

Dream of an Old Girlfriend

her name is Lori this old girl friend of mine
and last night or this early morning

she arrived in dream unbeckoned
and we, I tell you, had a lovely fun time.

the sweet pleasures we shared
after so many years
cause me to smile and sigh

feel like a bird gleaming
free in full sky

as awakened by
whispers of
our lust
and her beauty
I type these
dear words.

A Walk ( for the Summer Solstice)

open the old wood gate
with your strong cracked
calloused hands

hear it creak and shake
on its silver hinges

as birds on the back fence
leap hop and peep
in a binge of joy

line the twelve steps
to the squat square house
with your very best poems

printed with careful attention
on parchment and vellum

and with nary a twinge
you move through
the lush green yard
fresh spilling
with flowers

while your once sad
wandering feet
do find their
way home.

A Cup of Joe

African coffee so black
and so bitter

every taste bud stood
up,
trance danced
and
shivered

one for the money
two for the show
three to sip bravely
go man go

run down the mountain
through mud and muck
where slave traders’ gun/
shots blast the day broken

fill canyons with
bullets and leaded
dark mugs of thick/
ened bad luck

oh can Joe reach 'fore
his neck drowns
in flood rivers
of blood
and coagulated dread

that funky rusted red truck
parked next to the hut
where coffee is roasted,
ground to powder
and savored,
ritually drunk?

Paperboy Blues

suburban stillness screams
along broad green lawns and

crosses leafy streets of Spring
in floating daydreams
as crewcut boys on sturdy red bikes
clang and ring tin bells
deliver today’s news
onto each front porch
with a strong heave and pitch,

screen doors crash
as fractured glass flies
towards front yard grass,

yapping pups nip,
bite and gulp
cool sweet air,
chase rolling fleet
tucked up feet

as the glass-breaker’s
heart pounds loud
to escape real fast
down this steep street,

far up the next block
a newborn drum
beckons him home
as it beats and beats.

My shaman offered
an omen:

let no one proffer
(or prosper)
to transform
another.

MORTAL MORTIMER

the melting of Mortimer went unannounced
in Monday morning newspapers the whole
world ‘round.

puddled tufts of twisted dog hair were all
that remained as white hot
searing lasers were finally
turned down.

he’d been a fairly faithful and good dog
for quite some long time,

but as with you and me too,
there’s always a final stop sign
for our breath and foolish rhymes.

The Miser

there’s a dullness inside
the smooth forehead
where a hidden miser
stashes seeds of fresh
ideas

ignores as dead
his dozen smiling
grandchildren

mutters stale
grayness
to himself in
shaded afternoon's
encapsulated
building

boasts of
agoraphobic
piled high
wrinkled cash

unviewed dvd’s
pirated from
unwary libraries

to foreign ghosts
in the boarded
floral parlor

as the stars in night’s
black sky
no longer shine
their golden twinkle

no, in his wild greed
and blind blue hoarding,
he sees stars not burst
nor twinkle..

HITCHCOCK'S BOYHOOD

running for air, he sped lean on thick lawns of moss
and clover, felt green streaks of quiet amidst Catholic
terror and panic, constantly looked over his shoulder
for what he wasn’t certain but nonetheless the shadowy
gent behind the shower curtain pierced his mind with shards
of red rain and black vertiginous thought, blocked hard his
deep needed rest and thus blessed the tormented fat boy
with swirling unbidden currents of paranoid story and
crimson iron saturated droplets of grand murderous glories.

BLACK WATERS

("Mission accomplished!" GW Bush)

armed marauders float to earth
as plump clouds billow in beauty
above their bloated girth,

these waters of their unquenchable
thirst are black as tar, filled with
toxins of greed and insatiable need
about to burst,

the foreign palace of perennial sorrow
awaits its redacted fate as adrenaline
addicts in green afraid of boredom
aim their hate,

while these poorly thought plots
for nation building implode once
more and the drowning screamers
of talk radio provoke
and whore,

I ask the serene cerulean sky
as it looks down on this dimming
river of human drama,
the constant current and flow
of rage and roil,
our unfinished story in all
its blue glory:

why can’t unstable mercenaries
and their mad bosses of shock
and awe disarm for good,
shut the fuck up, stay put
on their own
far shore?

LUMBER HARD

How can this stocky mass of pink tissue,
matted failing hair and salty seashell bone
from ancient inland oceans be fundamentally
composed of so-called spirit-light
and universal energy

when it lifts its creaturely self each new dawn
in heavy glacial time from a dreaming bed

lumbers its wayward body achingly across
the wooden floor like a lone arthritic rhinoceros
with bleared and blurry eyes

and earthen cave deep mouth seared dry as Kalahari
winds simply to sniff and search for a private safe
secluded place to piss in blessed peace?

questions

has love's light fattened your sweet and hidden soul?

can you let the gold sun--glow massage your fearful weary woe?

does your throat's dry sound scatter across time's reddened cliff-cut canyons?

shall your heart's cry bound along the rock strewn bouncing stream?

LAKE EFFECT

A single fish leapt from a tired lake
in quiet time’s best moment,

its ruddy sheen a glint in June’s near sun,
scales of silver coins shone and tempted
like a ballerina’s milky pink
bare shoulder,

seconds flashed and poured like rain
or bright revealed light,
drenched the boat of foreign tourists
with joyful scintillated pleasure,

a lone trout alive in dual commingling
worlds of air and fluid,
mystery--dripped and daring,
this gleaming Piscean druid

an exclamation point
marked the day’s
unwritten story
in swift explosion
of sheer so sudden
wonder sparked
in steaming
measure,

as life brought
forth again
its purely
grateful
treasure.

Magic Geese

Dirt and smudged rock coat this slender
anonymous body where a man of 60 years
or more has fallen flat and far
to his spacious ungracious end.

Each precious concern he may have held in his calloused
grasping hands disappears in the April wind.

Clouds of death’s first wife trail across the cerulean sky
and the magic geese cry loud in bright angelic song,

they with speech so strident,
in tight algebraic formation
fly higher than man can write,

as heaven herself heaves
a simple
sinking
breathless
sigh.

HOW

how can I write this poem while ants bite

my bare leg (it hurts I tell you)

after entering my home quite uninvited

and coffee has not yet lifted my mind to

the lofty spot where small words crawl

sneakily like dark insects from the waking

brain onto the world’s sensitive waiting skin?

Lesson Plan

learning to love myself ain’t
at times easy
like holding a peach
or pear with a dark
bruise on its curving side,

gently pushing in with
the stronger thumb to feel
the soft spot
and how it gives
a bit
where it hurts
the most,

and then after that first bite,
the sweetest juice begins
its meandering dribble
down my
grinning
chin.

Lemon Grove, Remembered

the June day, resplendent
and gorgeously shining,
fluttered across the kitchen
window like a dance troupe
of angels or magic show
for giggling three year olds,
cotton candy sticking to pink
lips and stubby happy fingers,

and yet for all this beauty
I still see the phone booth
outside the desultory liquor store
in the bleak town of brown
denuded hills and the boy
with the dime and the phone
on the far end which rang and
rang and rang..

the harsh stucco hardened
in an alien furnace
of unrelenting sun
dried and scraped his
eyes as they lost
their boyish shine
day by empty day
on that strange corner
of Broadway
and Massachusetts

where tattooed
mannequins on
motorcycles
smelled like
early death
and neither
angels nor children
sang or licked
with hopeful
tongues
their sweet
fat sticky
fingers.

Speaking in Tongues

the sacred tongue
opens its pink
budding
doorway
to whole
communion

complete taste
and touch
with another’s
fleshy soul

such wet
pleasure
and repose

in the virginal
wafer where
we languish
and compose
in ocean’s deep
replenishing
swim

of salt
and sex
sensuous
and serene

let us pray
and float

relish
rejoice
and be
replenished

toast each
precious moment
in this one
golden
bowl.

Crooks Crackle

one husky oak
crackles quick
and breaks in the black
of dark--drenched
hours as five lurking
henchmen plucked
from prison’s stark
dank bowels
cruise dust coated
atop a funky
scratched pick/
up truck over
and up ruts
and rocks
plopped down
and foul
like condemned
tract homes
for lease
or sale
on this lone
straight road,

none the less,
odd illicit
twists of street
or plot
surprise us
not,

convicts pre/
dicted turns
fail to earn
an iota
of care,

what’s written
here evokes
no nod of
‘I’m right there’,

no embodied
sense of true
concern,

no real fuel
to heat white
the night

to blow wild
and blue,
to blaze
and burn.

your laughter
shines
like dew
in diamond
form

outlasts
the dark

in light
you're born.

What Shines in Fog

the park shone in prisms of dew
as red bougainvillea crawled
drunk and rampant across brick
walls of pure forebearance,

soft footfalls glistened in lost
moments of his first absence,
saturated the taste of air
like fog afloat on afternoons
late in June.

minor chords played in the theater
of her sad observing mind
while their days of wonder
echoed between twin canyons
in the bluest mist of wandering
forgotten time.

not for this did she take him home
that windswept October eve…
no, not for this she thought
and yet

the day said ‘come’ and like a traitor
or a fool for heroes she walked and went,
sat still in the red chair of reverie
and remorse, brown eyes bent towards
the wild raving ocean and coal black
thriving horse

whose sudden thunder ached and birthed
their souls’ true-taken deepest course.