BECKETT
I hear you in your plays
not fading away
like my music making
spilling its notes
by the piano legs
of human incantations
waning blue
under the strobe lights
of landscape's speech
like opening curtains
and the rising barometers
of applause.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
AN UNBELIEVING AGE
You may think him,
a poet,lunatic or lover
under his music sheets
or a novel's critical cover
but he is like any Adam
cursing the ground
amid the birds
tilling his garden
hearing a pardoning sound
of many words
in a land of Nod
amid that Cain
who murdered godly Abel
in a dishonorable reign
when empires buried us
then David became king
and Moses in the wilderness
the enemies buried at the Red Sea
the enemies buried at the Red Sea
and then liberation, exile
as Josephus speaks of Cyrus
then of Messiah Jesus in Zion
his life and Crucifixion
and so in the lexicon
and each portion
we remember Ezra,the scribe
Nehemiah,
Jeremiah of the tribe,
under the Juniper trees
all the stories in pastorals
all the stories in pastorals
then the thunder of the Macabees
the glories and wonder miracles.
THOSE PEOPLE
It's always those people
who are to blame
or game the system
who give rise to deception
at every Party's reception
always manage
to harass and sue
in forbidden intemperate
city street zones,
and feel superior
to the anonymous Jew
yet secretly make love
with the interior minister
who is a reactionary
yet you appear alone
at street demonstrations
with the camera in view.
It's always those people
who are to blame
or game the system
who give rise to deception
at every Party's reception
always manage
to harass and sue
in forbidden intemperate
city street zones,
and feel superior
to the anonymous Jew
yet secretly make love
with the interior minister
who is a reactionary
yet you appear alone
at street demonstrations
with the camera in view.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
IN SPITE OF IT ALL
Your third face lift
unlocks the old T.V. spirit
from your last soap opera
even you with all
your fairy dust
falling over your sequin gown
which you pawn shopped
for the dress rehearsal
after your daily success
you turned down that script
of a grade b black and white
crime picture now a re run
with a one eyed embrace
lifting a retinue of press guys
those Hollywood manikins
who still walk behind you
with their mouths open
for some paparazzi gossip
carrying your a bronze statue
as an rubbed out idol
on the now faded red carpet
of a once golden age
as you try to make it on time
in spite of it all.
Your third face lift
unlocks the old T.V. spirit
from your last soap opera
even you with all
your fairy dust
falling over your sequin gown
which you pawn shopped
for the dress rehearsal
after your daily success
you turned down that script
of a grade b black and white
crime picture now a re run
with a one eyed embrace
lifting a retinue of press guys
those Hollywood manikins
who still walk behind you
with their mouths open
for some paparazzi gossip
carrying your a bronze statue
as an rubbed out idol
on the now faded red carpet
of a once golden age
as you try to make it on time
in spite of it all.
Monday, December 29, 2014
FIRST NIGHT
When a young stand up
comedian stumbles
at his last laugh
before the curtain folds
and first night lights up
on a past bowed occasion
of pumping up the crowd
cool as crossword puzzles
waiting for his impressions
of played out celebrities
in his velvet underground gold vest
is mobbed by his fans
after acting out schoolboy charades
with a new routine
of blushing humor
against all the free speech codes
that he was recently expelled for
from his freshman year.
When a young stand up
comedian stumbles
at his last laugh
before the curtain folds
and first night lights up
on a past bowed occasion
of pumping up the crowd
cool as crossword puzzles
waiting for his impressions
of played out celebrities
in his velvet underground gold vest
is mobbed by his fans
after acting out schoolboy charades
with a new routine
of blushing humor
against all the free speech codes
that he was recently expelled for
from his freshman year.
DECEMBER'S 29TH
Grass still not buried
by a palpable snow
awakening to hear
the slosh shadows
as grackles snap
on the evergreen branches
in a sun's imponderable day
the cat drawn to landscapes
from the town painter
in the Square quiets down
a poet wraps his red scarf
by the riverbed
cannot live another life.
Grass still not buried
by a palpable snow
awakening to hear
the slosh shadows
as grackles snap
on the evergreen branches
in a sun's imponderable day
the cat drawn to landscapes
from the town painter
in the Square quiets down
a poet wraps his red scarf
by the riverbed
cannot live another life.
BY PARK DRIVE
A bird in hand
to feed with bread sticks
respectfully
on a silent avenue
intimate at dawn
at first light's lifting
over the dune's tall grass
through the elms
by marathon roads
along woodland paths
as if childhood
never ended coming home
on snow days
concealed in emerging words
from a new year's start.
A bird in hand
to feed with bread sticks
respectfully
on a silent avenue
intimate at dawn
at first light's lifting
over the dune's tall grass
through the elms
by marathon roads
along woodland paths
as if childhood
never ended coming home
on snow days
concealed in emerging words
from a new year's start.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
W.H. AUDEN'S TIME
A fortuitous hour
of the self conscious
business of Freud has begun
with the courteous Auden
in a two continent run
over an industrious earth
of the once unemployed
giving a modern critic's nod
to Kierkegaard's rebirth
with regards to his God
with an unforgiving public
except for the innocent,
Catholic and Protestant
not repentant but annoyed.
A fortuitous hour
of the self conscious
business of Freud has begun
with the courteous Auden
in a two continent run
over an industrious earth
of the once unemployed
giving a modern critic's nod
to Kierkegaard's rebirth
with regards to his God
with an unforgiving public
except for the innocent,
Catholic and Protestant
not repentant but annoyed.
TWENTIETH CENTURY
A time suppose to be
for reform turns creation
on every form and subject
predicated on immolation
Whether arbitrary politics
ethics, religion or sex
a library turns quickly
into their contrary text
The honorable ignored
or murdered in the war news
a third disabled or interred
in fabled words of the Jews
Such reward is progress
with the sword
few bless
or confess the Lord.
A time suppose to be
for reform turns creation
on every form and subject
predicated on immolation
Whether arbitrary politics
ethics, religion or sex
a library turns quickly
into their contrary text
The honorable ignored
or murdered in the war news
a third disabled or interred
in fabled words of the Jews
Such reward is progress
with the sword
few bless
or confess the Lord.
CRY OUT
Cry out for your city
on faces you have known
covering its sloping lubricity
in its rags, skin and bone.
Walk over dead leaves
burning by graffiti walls
the odors and pictures
here in the smoking Fall.
Then pause with your eyes
on the blind gas lights
as sleepy shelters thaw
in the helter -skelter nights.
A shroud of birds flee
against the storm
birds cloud the sky
in a frenzy to keep warm.
An awed poet under cover
over his newly printed words
God's three in one lover
a trinity of wonderful bells heard.
Cry out for your city
on faces you have known
covering its sloping lubricity
in its rags, skin and bone.
Walk over dead leaves
burning by graffiti walls
the odors and pictures
here in the smoking Fall.
Then pause with your eyes
on the blind gas lights
as sleepy shelters thaw
in the helter -skelter nights.
A shroud of birds flee
against the storm
birds cloud the sky
in a frenzy to keep warm.
An awed poet under cover
over his newly printed words
God's three in one lover
a trinity of wonderful bells heard.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
AT HARVARD SQUARE (1974)
With a range of slights
in a literary conversation
language has its interlude
from an arbitrary relation
Here at table
the somewhat enlightened
jealous in contradiction
poke fun at Nixon
With poor pronunciation
for a dedication
the few patrons
in a nightfall of speculation
At Harvard Square
the menu is all set
for Yankee pot roast
and green tea
A young university man
has the latest news
of ancient archaeology
in a parchment of the Jews
Another critic dedicates
with a mind of curiosity
takes out sheet music
of his latest virtuosity
Delighted minds
wonder about politics
or what of our poet's
newest panegyrics.
With a range of slights
in a literary conversation
language has its interlude
from an arbitrary relation
Here at table
the somewhat enlightened
jealous in contradiction
poke fun at Nixon
With poor pronunciation
for a dedication
the few patrons
in a nightfall of speculation
At Harvard Square
the menu is all set
for Yankee pot roast
and green tea
A young university man
has the latest news
of ancient archaeology
in a parchment of the Jews
Another critic dedicates
with a mind of curiosity
takes out sheet music
of his latest virtuosity
Delighted minds
wonder about politics
or what of our poet's
newest panegyrics.
JOHN MILTON
Born on Bread Street
Milton became a Puritan
was no Republican fool
submitted to Cromwell's rule
knew there was a reason to tell
and teach as a Christian poet
why a treasonable Satan
preferred to rebel
in hell and remain in it
rather than in an honorable heaven
Milton believed for us to dwell
in reasonable justice and freedom
of speech, we would be well
he is always a soul
within reach.
Born on Bread Street
Milton became a Puritan
was no Republican fool
submitted to Cromwell's rule
knew there was a reason to tell
and teach as a Christian poet
why a treasonable Satan
preferred to rebel
in hell and remain in it
rather than in an honorable heaven
Milton believed for us to dwell
in reasonable justice and freedom
of speech, we would be well
he is always a soul
within reach.
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
IT HAPPENED LONG BEFORE
And before the round-ups
it was long before
and the marches
it was long before
the fires
it was long before
the burning of their houses
it was long before
and their falling in love
it was long before
and their turning into ashes
their twin deaths recorded
it was long before,
but it happened,
we remembered,
it was long before.
And before the round-ups
it was long before
and the marches
it was long before
the fires
it was long before
the burning of their houses
it was long before
and their falling in love
it was long before
and their turning into ashes
their twin deaths recorded
it was long before,
but it happened,
we remembered,
it was long before.
Monday, December 22, 2014
IDA, THE POLISH FILM
Only if you had been
an adolescent Marxist
in a post revolutionary era
or a later day Christian
after a religious age
has passed you by
at a May Day march of time,
when only children
inspire your absence
from the lost crowd
by the river's edge
alone with your notebook
holding onto a birch branch
with your carved initials
waiting for your lover
or in the silence of a monastery
from a retreat by iron doors
could you expect "Ida"
to surprise you.
Only if you had been
an adolescent Marxist
in a post revolutionary era
or a later day Christian
after a religious age
has passed you by
at a May Day march of time,
when only children
inspire your absence
from the lost crowd
by the river's edge
alone with your notebook
holding onto a birch branch
with your carved initials
waiting for your lover
or in the silence of a monastery
from a retreat by iron doors
could you expect "Ida"
to surprise you.
WATCHING JEAN GABIN
Watching Jean Gabin
in Crime and Punishment
a French adaptation
in the pleading voice
of nineteenth century
Russia, you call us back
from stolen impulses
in the hollow of tears
from shadowy forces
of inexhaustible drama
from a demonstration
of a nightmare's guilt
in lines facing
a mirror's madness.
Watching Jean Gabin
in Crime and Punishment
a French adaptation
in the pleading voice
of nineteenth century
Russia, you call us back
from stolen impulses
in the hollow of tears
from shadowy forces
of inexhaustible drama
from a demonstration
of a nightmare's guilt
in lines facing
a mirror's madness.
PARIS OPERA
The cold lemon wallpaper
of the hotel room's crevice
collapses in time
to discover a pre war print
half finished of Chagall
behind a Berlioz work
now at the Paris opera
without an equal
in music or art
lifting my blushing memory
to again hear Romeo and Juliette
refusing all Vichy water
of invisible collaboration.
The cold lemon wallpaper
of the hotel room's crevice
collapses in time
to discover a pre war print
half finished of Chagall
behind a Berlioz work
now at the Paris opera
without an equal
in music or art
lifting my blushing memory
to again hear Romeo and Juliette
refusing all Vichy water
of invisible collaboration.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
MEDITATION
Like Thais
commanded an opera
in offers of caresses
obliging a soul and body
of work, days and words
an eternal mistress
like Flaubert's desert saint
in immolation
of reaching out
for water in love's oasis
from a profane violation
and renouncement
of a captive daughter's world
born of romanticism
to a purple mirror's oblation
reaching in a hands-off
echo of hallucination.
Like Thais
commanded an opera
in offers of caresses
obliging a soul and body
of work, days and words
an eternal mistress
like Flaubert's desert saint
in immolation
of reaching out
for water in love's oasis
from a profane violation
and renouncement
of a captive daughter's world
born of romanticism
to a purple mirror's oblation
reaching in a hands-off
echo of hallucination.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
INCARNATION
Discard your bouquet
of carnations, Lorca
your blood weddings
images, blood oranges,
flaws, in laws,
mediums, tedium
in the guise of time
over the crime of politics
La Pasionaria,
even your red cards
are overthrown
on the snows of the Gulag
over the revolutionary rags
of the latest news
(or have you not heard
the unspoken Word)
in the commentary
of the wise Jews
on the Titanic deck
the joker takes over
from Tarot
and there is no place
to go.
Discard your bouquet
of carnations, Lorca
your blood weddings
images, blood oranges,
flaws, in laws,
mediums, tedium
in the guise of time
over the crime of politics
La Pasionaria,
even your red cards
are overthrown
on the snows of the Gulag
over the revolutionary rags
of the latest news
(or have you not heard
the unspoken Word)
in the commentary
of the wise Jews
on the Titanic deck
the joker takes over
from Tarot
and there is no place
to go.
Friday, December 19, 2014
ASSEMBLAGE
Encrusted
disregarded days
pounding on the radio
from Rapallo
with all that noise
what of poetry 's pose
and poise,
the upturned red nose
the agon moment
as Tiresias,
gets the last obituary
off his chest
of he who died
in the Kultur war
at last in the parataxis
of fascism
like Metaxis
or the axis powers
that were and are no more.
Encrusted
disregarded days
pounding on the radio
from Rapallo
with all that noise
what of poetry 's pose
and poise,
the upturned red nose
the agon moment
as Tiresias,
gets the last obituary
off his chest
of he who died
in the Kultur war
at last in the parataxis
of fascism
like Metaxis
or the axis powers
that were and are no more.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
INVOCATION
Across the pond
early in the century
goes H.D. and Frost
freely criss-crossed
to meet Eliot,
Yeats and Pound
hearing the sound
of voices in its lot
like dry leaves
the soul reprieves,
soon Spain will be
in the pictorial bane
with editorial adolescence
from its Escorial plain,
now does poetry
in our modern efflorescence
as Auden says,
make any difference.
Across the pond
early in the century
goes H.D. and Frost
freely criss-crossed
to meet Eliot,
Yeats and Pound
hearing the sound
of voices in its lot
like dry leaves
the soul reprieves,
soon Spain will be
in the pictorial bane
with editorial adolescence
from its Escorial plain,
now does poetry
in our modern efflorescence
as Auden says,
make any difference.
LIBERATION
(in Memory
of my relation
Premier Mendes-France)
Seventy years ago
France's liberation
from her Vichy dance
a romance of collaboration,
shame on some parts
and partners of the nation
yet there was the stance
of those like my relation
Premier Mendes-France
of a heart's Resistance
in his stance.
(in Memory
of my relation
Premier Mendes-France)
Seventy years ago
France's liberation
from her Vichy dance
a romance of collaboration,
shame on some parts
and partners of the nation
yet there was the stance
of those like my relation
Premier Mendes-France
of a heart's Resistance
in his stance.
ANNUNCIATION
In a singing language
known by the ancients,
the chance of knowing
the resonance and silence
imparting to ourselves
holiness in its brightness
blesses the enlightening
of the thunderous awareness
that we are in His cry
as the raging winds
outside our doorways
a shadow shelters us
in the kindled night
over Zion's horizon
we cannot deny its brightness
as a spirit passes by.
In a singing language
known by the ancients,
the chance of knowing
the resonance and silence
imparting to ourselves
holiness in its brightness
blesses the enlightening
of the thunderous awareness
that we are in His cry
as the raging winds
outside our doorways
a shadow shelters us
in the kindled night
over Zion's horizon
we cannot deny its brightness
as a spirit passes by.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
ANNOTATION
After the debris
of the rain
by the doorway's wild roses
in the cool drafts
of the poem's seventh
revision, Anno Domino
the desolation of feeling
sings out of hyacinth
with nothing to speak of
but a mock- heroic couple
who are obviously in love
disclosing of trying to rent
a penthouse sublet
for the summer
and then I'm going back
to my couplets
in pentameter
from demotic failure
by the pepper tree
feeling for Hebraic roots
like Jeremiah
under the Juniper
for a linguistic prophesy
that makes sense
in heroic sequences
desiring of a catholic tercet
away from roped voices
from the dry bones sea
by vatic proposal
in nones stained glass
away from manic disposal
of the refrained intellect
and having rejected my past
which outlasts all laughter
and irony of mimesis
beginning in the genesis
of B.C.E.,eyeing
all the resources of pleasure
of the younger in white shirts
making money
on Wall Street and the bourse
within the skirts of time
taking Odysseus course
on a journey
without a catalog
even in Tagalog
from Forbes-Burney
in solid patrimony
and departed legal
tender parsimony
having resolved in oath
and deed to forsake my need
of a drone's analysis
for a ship to locate Tiresias
yet completing my elegy
from my mentors,
confessors and professors
with the knowledge
of the martyrs
unlike Uncle Sam's go- getters
by critics of Spinoza's clocks
walking slowly in New Amsterdam
by districts of the Orthodox
thinking of Robert Browning's
"Rabbi Ezra" and his black locks
promise to write letters
to my era's betters.
After the debris
of the rain
by the doorway's wild roses
in the cool drafts
of the poem's seventh
revision, Anno Domino
the desolation of feeling
sings out of hyacinth
with nothing to speak of
but a mock- heroic couple
who are obviously in love
disclosing of trying to rent
a penthouse sublet
for the summer
and then I'm going back
to my couplets
in pentameter
from demotic failure
by the pepper tree
feeling for Hebraic roots
like Jeremiah
under the Juniper
for a linguistic prophesy
that makes sense
in heroic sequences
desiring of a catholic tercet
away from roped voices
from the dry bones sea
by vatic proposal
in nones stained glass
away from manic disposal
of the refrained intellect
and having rejected my past
which outlasts all laughter
and irony of mimesis
beginning in the genesis
of B.C.E.,eyeing
all the resources of pleasure
of the younger in white shirts
making money
on Wall Street and the bourse
within the skirts of time
taking Odysseus course
on a journey
without a catalog
even in Tagalog
from Forbes-Burney
in solid patrimony
and departed legal
tender parsimony
having resolved in oath
and deed to forsake my need
of a drone's analysis
for a ship to locate Tiresias
yet completing my elegy
from my mentors,
confessors and professors
with the knowledge
of the martyrs
unlike Uncle Sam's go- getters
by critics of Spinoza's clocks
walking slowly in New Amsterdam
by districts of the Orthodox
thinking of Robert Browning's
"Rabbi Ezra" and his black locks
promise to write letters
to my era's betters.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
SPECULATION
An time of paparazzi
to spy on celebrity
where there is little
dignity only a spittle
of humanity
where all is cash
and getting ahead
with ponzi schemes
bashed egos
and going to bed
with a stash of dreams
and no remorse
now lost in reality
or on the bourse
of the Stasi revelations
and neo Nazi visitatations
Hollywood's readaptations
of a once Golden age
in crime creations
from high secret stations
and there are no regrets
only secret bets
of who will full next
when corruption
without interruptions
shouts from texts
on graffiti walls.
An time of paparazzi
to spy on celebrity
where there is little
dignity only a spittle
of humanity
where all is cash
and getting ahead
with ponzi schemes
bashed egos
and going to bed
with a stash of dreams
and no remorse
now lost in reality
or on the bourse
of the Stasi revelations
and neo Nazi visitatations
Hollywood's readaptations
of a once Golden age
in crime creations
from high secret stations
and there are no regrets
only secret bets
of who will full next
when corruption
without interruptions
shouts from texts
on graffiti walls.
Monday, December 8, 2014
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Thursday, December 4, 2014
COFFEE HOUSE
Lisa settled in the middle of a sentence, put down her green bag from Columbia University, mumbled a few words, killed off the middle of a croissant, insisted on writing her diary, meets Andrei who,after reading a pirated Italian issued "Doctor Zhivago," suddenly found himself as a refuse-nik in New York City after a bout with the authorities.
There was no doubt today they were meant for each other. Not The Neva or Brighton Beach or even Paris could separate or could keep them apart, regardless of Lisa's bi polarity or Andrei's playing sax at six in the morning.
Everyone hears and captures a different high note in music, some picture landscapes,others
their last love affair.
Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" fell out of her bag. Marlin Waters came here regularly and was a piano virtuoso,teaches at Julliard, smiled at the couple, his incisors poised for a battle of words but it was not to be for Lisa or Andrei who had to leave him empty of a purpose for his day.
Marlin had just copped a plea from the judge to show leniency for his non payed parking tickets. He stared out of a rainy side window reading in "the Times" about "the umbrella" protesters in Hong Kong as he and Leah Chang, his student and lover exchange momentary glance.
It would be a slow day writing in his diary, December 4, 2014.
Kyle makes his pilgrimage to Coffee House , feeling hard up while not doing his theology or watching his favorite gay German soap opera, being the son of Dr. Francis Rank who studied with Professor Van Doren, the quiz kid's father, and the late Father Thomas Merton. He has a latte and meets with his friend Lannie who appears on T.V. ads for peanut butter but wants to do more serious acting.
"You're right on time, Lannie... for a change."
"I had trouble sleeping. How about you?"
"The same without encountering you. You do not like me as a peanut butter nutter and wrote me a nasty note and sent it off to the press.You can be so brutal,Kyle, yet so sentimental."
''Chalk it up to my being German.
"You could be a mensch.Where is the usual gang?"
"Lisa must have been by with Andrei. Marlin, Leah also. I missed them all. I sometimes think I'm missing out on life."
A literary reviewer, young Marcus, joins Kyle and Lannie. His girlfriend Bettina has again
left him.
"I'm suppose to go to my shrink so I can't stay. Bettina is to model after receiving her Ph.D. in
Asian Studies today. We all have to make a living in this economy."
Marcus is planning to review "Suspended Sentences" by the French writer Patrick Modiano who recently won a Nobel prize.
Marcus takes it easy by taking a white pill.
All of a sudden, the T.V. news anchor announces a future manned space launching to Mars.
Lisa settled in the middle of a sentence, put down her green bag from Columbia University, mumbled a few words, killed off the middle of a croissant, insisted on writing her diary, meets Andrei who,after reading a pirated Italian issued "Doctor Zhivago," suddenly found himself as a refuse-nik in New York City after a bout with the authorities.
There was no doubt today they were meant for each other. Not The Neva or Brighton Beach or even Paris could separate or could keep them apart, regardless of Lisa's bi polarity or Andrei's playing sax at six in the morning.
Everyone hears and captures a different high note in music, some picture landscapes,others
their last love affair.
Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" fell out of her bag. Marlin Waters came here regularly and was a piano virtuoso,teaches at Julliard, smiled at the couple, his incisors poised for a battle of words but it was not to be for Lisa or Andrei who had to leave him empty of a purpose for his day.
Marlin had just copped a plea from the judge to show leniency for his non payed parking tickets. He stared out of a rainy side window reading in "the Times" about "the umbrella" protesters in Hong Kong as he and Leah Chang, his student and lover exchange momentary glance.
It would be a slow day writing in his diary, December 4, 2014.
Kyle makes his pilgrimage to Coffee House , feeling hard up while not doing his theology or watching his favorite gay German soap opera, being the son of Dr. Francis Rank who studied with Professor Van Doren, the quiz kid's father, and the late Father Thomas Merton. He has a latte and meets with his friend Lannie who appears on T.V. ads for peanut butter but wants to do more serious acting.
"You're right on time, Lannie... for a change."
"I had trouble sleeping. How about you?"
"The same without encountering you. You do not like me as a peanut butter nutter and wrote me a nasty note and sent it off to the press.You can be so brutal,Kyle, yet so sentimental."
''Chalk it up to my being German.
"You could be a mensch.Where is the usual gang?"
"Lisa must have been by with Andrei. Marlin, Leah also. I missed them all. I sometimes think I'm missing out on life."
A literary reviewer, young Marcus, joins Kyle and Lannie. His girlfriend Bettina has again
left him.
"I'm suppose to go to my shrink so I can't stay. Bettina is to model after receiving her Ph.D. in
Asian Studies today. We all have to make a living in this economy."
Marcus is planning to review "Suspended Sentences" by the French writer Patrick Modiano who recently won a Nobel prize.
Marcus takes it easy by taking a white pill.
All of a sudden, the T.V. news anchor announces a future manned space launching to Mars.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Saturday, November 22, 2014
POLISH NEW YEAR
JANUARY 1, 2000
Despairing of fathomless cold
birds wait on the fountain
for rain water over stones
by the war memorial,
two friends from the country
wrapped in leather jackets
sleep in turn after celebrations
of the new year's century's peace
one wakes with a poem
the other turns his back
and finds his lost motorcycle
by a church's stained window.
JANUARY 1, 2000
Despairing of fathomless cold
birds wait on the fountain
for rain water over stones
by the war memorial,
two friends from the country
wrapped in leather jackets
sleep in turn after celebrations
of the new year's century's peace
one wakes with a poem
the other turns his back
and finds his lost motorcycle
by a church's stained window.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
UNRULY NIGHTMARE
I was lost on a train,
no one knew
if we were headed
for Germany or Russia
the camps were ready
for us
I had 1944 stripes
on my back
embittered by war
with a heavy cross
on our back
from Mount Calvary
which never goes away
the yellow stars
over the arm bands
of our sisters and brothers
in lamentation from our God
who loves all in death
and new life.
I was lost on a train,
no one knew
if we were headed
for Germany or Russia
the camps were ready
for us
I had 1944 stripes
on my back
embittered by war
with a heavy cross
on our back
from Mount Calvary
which never goes away
the yellow stars
over the arm bands
of our sisters and brothers
in lamentation from our God
who loves all in death
and new life.
CHOPIN'S HEART
We are still moved
by your well- being of music
from your body of concertos
waltzes ,impromptus, sonatas
we played on grande pianos
now some want a diagnosis
of your death
but life has a greater name
which though paper,words
hidden in a grave monument
containing your soul
which survives in view
of love, war, disease, debts,notes
what survivors know
of a higher innocence.
We are still moved
by your well- being of music
from your body of concertos
waltzes ,impromptus, sonatas
we played on grande pianos
now some want a diagnosis
of your death
but life has a greater name
which though paper,words
hidden in a grave monument
containing your soul
which survives in view
of love, war, disease, debts,notes
what survivors know
of a higher innocence.
POLISH WINTERS
By the winter of 1939
the world saw Hitler's mark
on graves of students ,farmers
and intellectuals
telling us of the stunned visibility
of evil and growing madness
from widows windows
and by the winter of 1949
his co signer of a death warrant
Stalin again emerges
this time on television
hiding his sweating and angry
from his eye witness darkness
in murder and deceit
from a war weary public
under the ice of propaganda
yet feeling shadows of spring
would yet emerge
even from the Katyn forest.
By the winter of 1939
the world saw Hitler's mark
on graves of students ,farmers
and intellectuals
telling us of the stunned visibility
of evil and growing madness
from widows windows
and by the winter of 1949
his co signer of a death warrant
Stalin again emerges
this time on television
hiding his sweating and angry
from his eye witness darkness
in murder and deceit
from a war weary public
under the ice of propaganda
yet feeling shadows of spring
would yet emerge
even from the Katyn forest.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
THE QUARTO
The lobster cargo now
bound for another port
here in Gloucester
by Good Harbor
seeking spoken support
in prayer that sings out
from fisher kings
tiny statues now broken
over the ringed floor
from the Northeaster
on their knees,
their strong wives
once behind shades
of their cottage house windows
listening to echoes on radio waves
of their rough sounding lives
during the pelting snow storm
turning to rain which melts
and parks its shadows on earth
pounding with a northeast wind
on frozen mornings like this
icicles form as silhouettes
across these jetties
waiting with curiosity
for any possibility of rescue
in these dark green seas
with sea birds disappearing
and you hearing the breath
of the volcano type hail,
four stories high, staring at
the hump backed whales
expecting a picture with tales
from your ship, the Quarto
once on a striped star shipping lines
by the heavy drawn locks
and you now sitting by the docks
sipping Portuguese wines.
The lobster cargo now
bound for another port
here in Gloucester
by Good Harbor
seeking spoken support
in prayer that sings out
from fisher kings
tiny statues now broken
over the ringed floor
from the Northeaster
on their knees,
their strong wives
once behind shades
of their cottage house windows
listening to echoes on radio waves
of their rough sounding lives
during the pelting snow storm
turning to rain which melts
and parks its shadows on earth
pounding with a northeast wind
on frozen mornings like this
icicles form as silhouettes
across these jetties
waiting with curiosity
for any possibility of rescue
in these dark green seas
with sea birds disappearing
and you hearing the breath
of the volcano type hail,
four stories high, staring at
the hump backed whales
expecting a picture with tales
from your ship, the Quarto
once on a striped star shipping lines
by the heavy drawn locks
and you now sitting by the docks
sipping Portuguese wines.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
IN THE BASEMENT
In the basement
of dream and bird
those days of sunshine
when leaves turn a blush red
after a night music of love
and letters arrive
from an unknown city
saying my poems
about the sea
have moved you
here is line by line
voice by voice
by a now known name
and picture
from a kinetic light.
In the basement
of dream and bird
those days of sunshine
when leaves turn a blush red
after a night music of love
and letters arrive
from an unknown city
saying my poems
about the sea
have moved you
here is line by line
voice by voice
by a now known name
and picture
from a kinetic light.
TEX
Tex was born
dirt poor
from out of eight
if it weren't for
the senator's wife
(he became a man of State
gave up i ching
then joined Heaven's gate)
and would not have any offspring,
she stood behind the seats
at the general store
but had to wait
on the soda jerks
to get any sex to articulate
her needs and had Tex
carry up her cup of mojo trays
and became her own prose lore,
she rightly suspects
Tex would run in a get away
from wealth and home,
while listening at eleven
to sports on the radio
he tuned out one day
and joined the rodeo
pushing a healthy horse
and the bull about
in a ring of course
which was his seventh heaven.
Tex was born
dirt poor
from out of eight
if it weren't for
the senator's wife
(he became a man of State
gave up i ching
then joined Heaven's gate)
and would not have any offspring,
she stood behind the seats
at the general store
but had to wait
on the soda jerks
to get any sex to articulate
her needs and had Tex
carry up her cup of mojo trays
and became her own prose lore,
she rightly suspects
Tex would run in a get away
from wealth and home,
while listening at eleven
to sports on the radio
he tuned out one day
and joined the rodeo
pushing a healthy horse
and the bull about
in a ring of course
which was his seventh heaven.
ONE NIGHT STAND
The pride one moment
and the void the next
with an empty text
repeating itself
each gigolo night
after night
in a routine
of not even listening
to a date
blind or not
on the spot or off the record
about how your half sister
was born in an iron lung
or reborn in a convent
because there was no rent
only rented garments
how you were a great
gentlemen of Verona
as a stud understudy,
or wanted to be a secret agent
on the James Bond set
or how you were an artist
repainting "The Yellow Christ"
by Gaugin in a forgery
or a once member of the clergy
in a pawn shop black robe
to get in good for a weekend
with jet set religious mentalities
but whose middle aged
morality play was the theater
of the absurd,
soon you were toast
or compost
with all your end games
came to haunt you
as you flaunted yourself
out to all sexes
just for the money
lacking any testimony
who you ever were.
The pride one moment
and the void the next
with an empty text
repeating itself
each gigolo night
after night
in a routine
of not even listening
to a date
blind or not
on the spot or off the record
about how your half sister
was born in an iron lung
or reborn in a convent
because there was no rent
only rented garments
how you were a great
gentlemen of Verona
as a stud understudy,
or wanted to be a secret agent
on the James Bond set
or how you were an artist
repainting "The Yellow Christ"
by Gaugin in a forgery
or a once member of the clergy
in a pawn shop black robe
to get in good for a weekend
with jet set religious mentalities
but whose middle aged
morality play was the theater
of the absurd,
soon you were toast
or compost
with all your end games
came to haunt you
as you flaunted yourself
out to all sexes
just for the money
lacking any testimony
who you ever were.
Monday, October 20, 2014
ELECTIONEERING
They wave
they shout or laugh
about half wave elections
or show a brave face
of an elephant or donkey
and we do not know
about the intrigues
or who is in league
with labor or the conservatives
to honor what keeps or lives
on the other side of the fence
meanwhile we do not want war
but a peace memorial
with an editorial against
any selection of business
or governmental injustice
and for cheaper rents.
They wave
they shout or laugh
about half wave elections
or show a brave face
of an elephant or donkey
and we do not know
about the intrigues
or who is in league
with labor or the conservatives
to honor what keeps or lives
on the other side of the fence
meanwhile we do not want war
but a peace memorial
with an editorial against
any selection of business
or governmental injustice
and for cheaper rents.
AT THURSDAY'S END
The worst offering
of yesterday's standing
in the chorus line
at the play's dress rehearsal
in the college basement
amid snacks and cookies
is a sudden forgotten tune
you sang with strum und drang
for us amid rich human feelings
with overwhelming sentiment
in the scent and sentimentality
of your last red rose hat
of French chapeaus
in October's music shadows
you put on for us in a festival
for a feel easy show's rehearsal
about Marlene Dietrich.
The worst offering
of yesterday's standing
in the chorus line
at the play's dress rehearsal
in the college basement
amid snacks and cookies
is a sudden forgotten tune
you sang with strum und drang
for us amid rich human feelings
with overwhelming sentiment
in the scent and sentimentality
of your last red rose hat
of French chapeaus
in October's music shadows
you put on for us in a festival
for a feel easy show's rehearsal
about Marlene Dietrich.
DO YOU SPEAK SPANISH
Unknown roses sent
after my last short film noir
written in my basement
"From a distant Denver or die"
as a dear John
love letter purloined in the West
is discovered with it
in the margin of a Spanish novel
found in a green bottle
by a newly -wed couple
at a Cape Cod harvest festival
promoted and implanted
as Poe phantoms rise up
this October morning
and a barefooted child
squatted on an Persian rug
by a fading hyacinth
recites from her own composition
an enchanted apparition
composed into night music before.
Unknown roses sent
after my last short film noir
written in my basement
"From a distant Denver or die"
as a dear John
love letter purloined in the West
is discovered with it
in the margin of a Spanish novel
found in a green bottle
by a newly -wed couple
at a Cape Cod harvest festival
promoted and implanted
as Poe phantoms rise up
this October morning
and a barefooted child
squatted on an Persian rug
by a fading hyacinth
recites from her own composition
an enchanted apparition
composed into night music before.
THE WOMAN WITHOUT SHADOWS
DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN
Watching the collaboration
between the composer Strauss
and the sublime poet and play write
Hugo Von Hoffmansthal
after many years
brought me back
to a Weimarian hope
for a democrartic aeon
just as I read Musil, Bloch
and the Mann brothers
but it was not to be
or not to give up
on literature or Kultur
even after seeing Fassbinder's
long film based on Doblin's novel
at the once Marx Engels Platz,
what operatic shadows still quiver
from the woman without shadows.
DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN
Watching the collaboration
between the composer Strauss
and the sublime poet and play write
Hugo Von Hoffmansthal
after many years
brought me back
to a Weimarian hope
for a democrartic aeon
just as I read Musil, Bloch
and the Mann brothers
but it was not to be
or not to give up
on literature or Kultur
even after seeing Fassbinder's
long film based on Doblin's novel
at the once Marx Engels Platz,
what operatic shadows still quiver
from the woman without shadows.
WHEN I LOST
When I lost
the night music
briefly
in a chamber recital
at a basement in Frisco
yet restored by Mozart's
clarinet's harmony
in the slow third movement
all indolent regrets
groundless secret passages
suddenly appear
in the third movement
it reminds me
of the orange squares
in a Mondrian
on the arts balcony overhead
speaks to my estrangement
like a mirage of notes
listened to as in an experiment
of my words.
When I lost
the night music
briefly
in a chamber recital
at a basement in Frisco
yet restored by Mozart's
clarinet's harmony
in the slow third movement
all indolent regrets
groundless secret passages
suddenly appear
in the third movement
it reminds me
of the orange squares
in a Mondrian
on the arts balcony overhead
speaks to my estrangement
like a mirage of notes
listened to as in an experiment
of my words.
STOP
Stop at the red light
from the old red light district
the dusty basement apartments
over a bygone cinema
with putsch of old loves
that wound actors and actresses
up for veteran entertainment
halfway up the steps
of the now stripped flowers
in the park dives
driving in the grey dusk
by nests of bird calls
of an unsettled past.
Stop at the red light
from the old red light district
the dusty basement apartments
over a bygone cinema
with putsch of old loves
that wound actors and actresses
up for veteran entertainment
halfway up the steps
of the now stripped flowers
in the park dives
driving in the grey dusk
by nests of bird calls
of an unsettled past.
MISSING OUT
(654765)
Missing out
as a missing person
for a mid century
of victim hood
in this neighborhood
before the war
you thought you knew
whom you were
her only explanation
a tattoo of numerology
the lying biology
of botched science
the psychology behind us
based on racism,
the face of fascism
until you are discovered
in a sanitarium
and partially recovered.
(654765)
Missing out
as a missing person
for a mid century
of victim hood
in this neighborhood
before the war
you thought you knew
whom you were
her only explanation
a tattoo of numerology
the lying biology
of botched science
the psychology behind us
based on racism,
the face of fascism
until you are discovered
in a sanitarium
and partially recovered.
IN A MOMENT
In a moment
you are lost in the fog
or saved by the light rain
which you drink
from the large basin
by the ancient fountain
in the deer park
here in October
feeding the animals
in a secret tongued language
as some will go underground
like Beat poets
and political prisoners
not heard from until the spring
and here on a wooden bench
made of oak putting
my library card
in a Proust's volume
speaking of the Vanteuil sonata
for violin
as the last shovel
gathers the reddish leaves
in the winds smoke in,
suddenly meeting a friend
from the classroom past
sensing her own loneliness
as she clutches her Matisse poster
from the Metropolitan
on her brown tweed shoulder
asking me out for a drink
squeezes my neck brace
now hurting in seconds
once scarred
during a marathon run.
In a moment
you are lost in the fog
or saved by the light rain
which you drink
from the large basin
by the ancient fountain
in the deer park
here in October
feeding the animals
in a secret tongued language
as some will go underground
like Beat poets
and political prisoners
not heard from until the spring
and here on a wooden bench
made of oak putting
my library card
in a Proust's volume
speaking of the Vanteuil sonata
for violin
as the last shovel
gathers the reddish leaves
in the winds smoke in,
suddenly meeting a friend
from the classroom past
sensing her own loneliness
as she clutches her Matisse poster
from the Metropolitan
on her brown tweed shoulder
asking me out for a drink
squeezes my neck brace
now hurting in seconds
once scarred
during a marathon run.
WHEN TIME RUNS AWAY
When time runs away
from rain on windows
and drops in on another
sea and season on us
we ask for perspicacity
and the capacity
to survive the city life
out here in the Cape's country
under October's reddish leaves
and swelling tuber branches
to breathe and expand
by these aspen and poplar
on the greensward scythed
tall grassland trees
as the rain dissolves
brushing on my blanket
near a stone monument
of a hermetic past,
intercede for me,
you who hear my silence
amid the ocean sirens
in exile from love.
When time runs away
from rain on windows
and drops in on another
sea and season on us
we ask for perspicacity
and the capacity
to survive the city life
out here in the Cape's country
under October's reddish leaves
and swelling tuber branches
to breathe and expand
by these aspen and poplar
on the greensward scythed
tall grassland trees
as the rain dissolves
brushing on my blanket
near a stone monument
of a hermetic past,
intercede for me,
you who hear my silence
amid the ocean sirens
in exile from love.
IN JUSTICE
In justice
and out of patriotism
or greed
or the need of revenge
the skies do hear
the rain showers
on concentration camps,
Emmett Till
Hiroshima,
the passports of the unknown
seeking another path
in the adjacent line
of work
the artist's hand
loosened in a lost time zone,
the poet at the crossroad
of faith from the slow solitude
by a window's concealment,
the play write swallowing
her actor's primordial pride
in despair at a third act,
those surpassed by music's fire
calling the siren's cry
in motioning a separation
of desire over the flames,
the friends of the arts
in dialectical mercies
attending what joyful chorus
is left to kiss the earth
and the tall grass blades
by the greensward forest
of our diurnal mirrors
which haunt our awareness.
In justice
and out of patriotism
or greed
or the need of revenge
the skies do hear
the rain showers
on concentration camps,
Emmett Till
Hiroshima,
the passports of the unknown
seeking another path
in the adjacent line
of work
the artist's hand
loosened in a lost time zone,
the poet at the crossroad
of faith from the slow solitude
by a window's concealment,
the play write swallowing
her actor's primordial pride
in despair at a third act,
those surpassed by music's fire
calling the siren's cry
in motioning a separation
of desire over the flames,
the friends of the arts
in dialectical mercies
attending what joyful chorus
is left to kiss the earth
and the tall grass blades
by the greensward forest
of our diurnal mirrors
which haunt our awareness.
WHEN OUT OF TOUCH
You wait for a ride
no one is there
at the rainy curbside
and take your bicycle
not matter the traffic jam
you play your inward
smooth jazz in your coolness
opposing the thoughts
that hasten any demise
and decide to go by
the Bay side
to witness the Greek ship
along the shore
imagining ancient days
of travel in the sun
by the heated stones
in sight of heroic statues
drowning in Orphic praise.
You wait for a ride
no one is there
at the rainy curbside
and take your bicycle
not matter the traffic jam
you play your inward
smooth jazz in your coolness
opposing the thoughts
that hasten any demise
and decide to go by
the Bay side
to witness the Greek ship
along the shore
imagining ancient days
of travel in the sun
by the heated stones
in sight of heroic statues
drowning in Orphic praise.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
A SOUL
A soul wants to know
what you taste like
a heavenly rhubarb pie
after the church bazaar
or devil's food cake
as a left over crumb
from a soiled napkin
after an oily mute nightmare
scattering your limitless
thought as a fated accomplice
after treating yourself
to a Roman a clef mystery novel
not laughing
in a desert a la cart.
A soul wants to know
what you taste like
a heavenly rhubarb pie
after the church bazaar
or devil's food cake
as a left over crumb
from a soiled napkin
after an oily mute nightmare
scattering your limitless
thought as a fated accomplice
after treating yourself
to a Roman a clef mystery novel
not laughing
in a desert a la cart.
Friday, October 17, 2014
TRY OUT AUDITION
"I'm not here for games," she said
waiting for the tryout
of her audition
checking out her lines
trying to be on point
in a whole-toned instruction
telling us she passed away
in her last four plays
off off Broadway
as the artistic director
sleepwalks in the studio
from the subway curb
ankle deep in rain
to interview actors
under advisement
from his fugitive doctor
over in Denmark
not to be double minded
or vain
in his quest for his roots.
"I'm not here for games," she said
waiting for the tryout
of her audition
checking out her lines
trying to be on point
in a whole-toned instruction
telling us she passed away
in her last four plays
off off Broadway
as the artistic director
sleepwalks in the studio
from the subway curb
ankle deep in rain
to interview actors
under advisement
from his fugitive doctor
over in Denmark
not to be double minded
or vain
in his quest for his roots.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
OCTOBER BLUES
The rain, the sun
the roots from bulbs
have already dried out
yet playing the blues on sax
to survive the coming winter
plants us blindly in the night
of our own hermetic habitat
that stays its resin and radiance
in a jazz violin's luminosity
far from the city's deepest waters
playing in nature's hands
from cool air night's darkness
here by the blue lake's mouth
by Rockport's childhood
early morning home harbor.
The rain, the sun
the roots from bulbs
have already dried out
yet playing the blues on sax
to survive the coming winter
plants us blindly in the night
of our own hermetic habitat
that stays its resin and radiance
in a jazz violin's luminosity
far from the city's deepest waters
playing in nature's hands
from cool air night's darkness
here by the blue lake's mouth
by Rockport's childhood
early morning home harbor.
GLENN GOULD'S BACH
In so many rooms
of quiet pianissimo
in rainy unknown villages
or Canadian concert halls
there is a glowing expression
on the spellbound faces
that Bach is momentarily agreed
to be uniquely yours and ours
without a jealous melancholy
from the music critics bench
whether in German ,Spanish
English or French
he speaks to us again.
In so many rooms
of quiet pianissimo
in rainy unknown villages
or Canadian concert halls
there is a glowing expression
on the spellbound faces
that Bach is momentarily agreed
to be uniquely yours and ours
without a jealous melancholy
from the music critics bench
whether in German ,Spanish
English or French
he speaks to us again.
SEFERIS'S SHADOW
More of Seferis' shadow
in a nameless fire
among the docks
swerving against the sea
spaced clear what blows
in a light wind's fragrance
breathing in the tide
with two friends
who cannot decide
their assured fate
under a haunted sun
or desire to move
from the voice of rocks
in a naked vanished time
along the Corinthian canal
chanting in a blind light
an astonishment of words
you put down on paper
by a glass mountain
of sea birds.
More of Seferis' shadow
in a nameless fire
among the docks
swerving against the sea
spaced clear what blows
in a light wind's fragrance
breathing in the tide
with two friends
who cannot decide
their assured fate
under a haunted sun
or desire to move
from the voice of rocks
in a naked vanished time
along the Corinthian canal
chanting in a blind light
an astonishment of words
you put down on paper
by a glass mountain
of sea birds.
IN A RUDE AWAKENING
In a rude awakening
from the middle ages
of knight and king
sounding from Arthur's
round table box
opening to Chaucer's pages
of a Chanticleer and fox,
passing in an anthology
of Spenser and Shakespeare
we all fear for Hamlet
King Henry and Lear
then onto the Romantics
and a new environment
Keats, Shelley,Byron,
until the Gothics of Weir
like Edgar Allen Poe,
then we are modern
in an engagement
from Eliot to Auden,
now everything is posted
with a click of the wrist
in a blanket arrangement
we twist from our pillow.
In a rude awakening
from the middle ages
of knight and king
sounding from Arthur's
round table box
opening to Chaucer's pages
of a Chanticleer and fox,
passing in an anthology
of Spenser and Shakespeare
we all fear for Hamlet
King Henry and Lear
then onto the Romantics
and a new environment
Keats, Shelley,Byron,
until the Gothics of Weir
like Edgar Allen Poe,
then we are modern
in an engagement
from Eliot to Auden,
now everything is posted
with a click of the wrist
in a blanket arrangement
we twist from our pillow.
HELL'S ANGEL
Lucifer told Pound
to stick around
and to marry
Dorothy Shakespeare
interfering as an angel of light
he was going to change
the atmosphere,
Pound agreed
to stay clear
of democracy
for a newly found
way to hell
whereby the intellectual
will sound "All is well,"
and Mussolini and Hitler
were just small mentors
to sound their bell.
Lucifer told Pound
to stick around
and to marry
Dorothy Shakespeare
interfering as an angel of light
he was going to change
the atmosphere,
Pound agreed
to stay clear
of democracy
for a newly found
way to hell
whereby the intellectual
will sound "All is well,"
and Mussolini and Hitler
were just small mentors
to sound their bell.
Monday, October 13, 2014
THE SPANISH FILM
Watching the Spanish movie
Watching the Spanish movie
"La Venganza"
taking a chance
to voice the oppression
and censorship
of those who suffered
under dictatorship
and a love story
of wounded passion
knowing history
lances and renounces
our human screen
to sustenance confession
and open our eyes
of shadows from its images
in a hard-breathing film
of treachery, solace
and inconstancy.
and censorship
of those who suffered
under dictatorship
and a love story
of wounded passion
knowing history
lances and renounces
our human screen
to sustenance confession
and open our eyes
of shadows from its images
in a hard-breathing film
of treachery, solace
and inconstancy.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
COMMUNICATION
Admittance to the lab
of science
she then attends a seance
of metaphoric prophecies
swallowing words
in variations
which lets you slip up
on your hard nosed homework
feigning an exhaustion
of a bruised thesis
then decides
helter -skelter to attend
a lecture on the gestures
of film deconstructionism
forgetting the charm
that delights in you.
Admittance to the lab
of science
she then attends a seance
of metaphoric prophecies
swallowing words
in variations
which lets you slip up
on your hard nosed homework
feigning an exhaustion
of a bruised thesis
then decides
helter -skelter to attend
a lecture on the gestures
of film deconstructionism
forgetting the charm
that delights in you.
AT THE PARK BANDSTAND
Woodwinds face each other
on the flashing memory
from the gazebo
as first date disappointments
are often beaten up
by the musical media critics
after parental storms
play interference
on the football field
from a pastoral quarrel
here after the game
rested out to musicians
from the summertime symphony
as each others handy notes
of arpeggios are lost
on the park bench
before the early bird performance
now gathered up from the breeze
by an eager fan wearing
a cross,shell and star on her arms
embraces the sun's burning light
caressing her glaring program
flares over upon us string players
and she saves the night.
TIME OUT
It was noonday
as a Dash passed me by
rain filling the curb
near my borrowed Moped
as a dubious sports-minded
crowd on the left side
on the toll booth
headed for the ball park
one guy brandished
a large home made banner
of his local team
tasted Charles river air
as his twin brother
puts on his baseball cap
backwards
taking off by the sandy dunes
on the right bank
as chestnuts fall from the trees
resembling a painting of Corot.
It was noonday
as a Dash passed me by
rain filling the curb
near my borrowed Moped
as a dubious sports-minded
crowd on the left side
on the toll booth
headed for the ball park
one guy brandished
a large home made banner
of his local team
tasted Charles river air
as his twin brother
puts on his baseball cap
backwards
taking off by the sandy dunes
on the right bank
as chestnuts fall from the trees
resembling a painting of Corot.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
FORBIDDEN FILMS
(from nana's advice)
The index
rejects sex
or what is wrong
Midnight Cowboy
or King Kong,
check and balance
if you get the chance for
Quo Vadis or Ben Hur
or to M.G.M. musicals demur
in a dance to a lyrical song
always take out a rental
that doesn't make you mental
forget the Snake pit
try a film with wit,
always be a lady or gent
that's entertainment,
nana's advice,
think twice.
(from nana's advice)
The index
rejects sex
or what is wrong
Midnight Cowboy
or King Kong,
check and balance
if you get the chance for
Quo Vadis or Ben Hur
or to M.G.M. musicals demur
in a dance to a lyrical song
always take out a rental
that doesn't make you mental
forget the Snake pit
try a film with wit,
always be a lady or gent
that's entertainment,
nana's advice,
think twice.
MATTISE'S WINDOWS AT VENCE
Stained glass windows
at Vence by a tree of Life
perhaps of recompense
for your health's recovery
as abstract flowers
pass the seasoned hours
of the church's discovery
in rose,black,purple, red
embedded by a cross
and crescent moon shed
near golden flames yet not lost
nor named in your creation
by the fourteenth station.
Stained glass windows
at Vence by a tree of Life
perhaps of recompense
for your health's recovery
as abstract flowers
pass the seasoned hours
of the church's discovery
in rose,black,purple, red
embedded by a cross
and crescent moon shed
near golden flames yet not lost
nor named in your creation
by the fourteenth station.
BY AUTUMN OAKS
A student lamp burns late
in a freshman's dorm room
reading T.S. Eliot
by ancient oaks reigning
outside landscaped orchards
the scalloped rain
awaking sparrows on branches
the reader wishing to be back
at the garden gate hammocks
near faded clotheslines
yet preparing for the crew race
along the Charles this October.
A student lamp burns late
in a freshman's dorm room
reading T.S. Eliot
by ancient oaks reigning
outside landscaped orchards
the scalloped rain
awaking sparrows on branches
the reader wishing to be back
at the garden gate hammocks
near faded clotheslines
yet preparing for the crew race
along the Charles this October.
Friday, October 10, 2014
ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ'S HOUR
In a chaos color
of a mural
in an October flash
through light
of a city traveler
the eye
full of pronouns
wounds the hot earth
near the warmest body
at sea,
when even the sleepless
will rise on canvas
to blanket the earth
with pantomime green
innumerable as half- moons
on a brackish shore line
of trees.
In a chaos color
of a mural
in an October flash
through light
of a city traveler
the eye
full of pronouns
wounds the hot earth
near the warmest body
at sea,
when even the sleepless
will rise on canvas
to blanket the earth
with pantomime green
innumerable as half- moons
on a brackish shore line
of trees.
RENE MAGRITTE'S TIME
(1898-1967)
A primal cluster
of colors as three
oranges in the night
fall half-knowingly
on our consciousness
over the trees lawn
with a transparent tongue
absorbing meteors
of words and shapes
where a child's notion
in rustled myths
now absorb
by a muse's voice
that even a vase
may become a sculpture
or sepulchre
at the same moment
as the October hill leaves
will offer up its clay.
(1898-1967)
A primal cluster
of colors as three
oranges in the night
fall half-knowingly
on our consciousness
over the trees lawn
with a transparent tongue
absorbing meteors
of words and shapes
where a child's notion
in rustled myths
now absorb
by a muse's voice
that even a vase
may become a sculpture
or sepulchre
at the same moment
as the October hill leaves
will offer up its clay.
ELUARD'S POEM
They took you
from your poem
during the war
everyone expected
the streets to speak
of you but your words
were read silently
by park benches
as wayfarer winds pass
children wrote out
their names
secretly named for you
knowing it was a language
of love that wanted
to preserve your memory.
They took you
from your poem
during the war
everyone expected
the streets to speak
of you but your words
were read silently
by park benches
as wayfarer winds pass
children wrote out
their names
secretly named for you
knowing it was a language
of love that wanted
to preserve your memory.
IN THE LAUNDROMAT
On Saturday night
sax put away
by pacific waters
surfing in a celestial swim
and compressed
from a scarecrow wash
among uplifted clothes lines
of foreign bodies
vanishing in lights
empty sacks of socks
cook's aprons
in bathed bleach
waiting for the sunrise
drift as powder clouds
here where strangers
become instant friends
as silk, cotton slips by
as chancy arrangements
swirling shadows
knock against each other
as love or art objects
disappear in shiny scents
and accents pulled as words
from a drawn basket.
On Saturday night
sax put away
by pacific waters
surfing in a celestial swim
and compressed
from a scarecrow wash
among uplifted clothes lines
of foreign bodies
vanishing in lights
empty sacks of socks
cook's aprons
in bathed bleach
waiting for the sunrise
drift as powder clouds
here where strangers
become instant friends
as silk, cotton slips by
as chancy arrangements
swirling shadows
knock against each other
as love or art objects
disappear in shiny scents
and accents pulled as words
from a drawn basket.
HUMAN MIRACLE
The passed away will rejoice
that line your bookshelves
Cavafy is more comfortable
by the billiard table
or playing chess
with Auden by the attic Greeks,
that on your art shelf
the yellow Christ
of Gauguin would fit in
near the conflated trees
of Rousseau,
that life itself will not waver
but shines against hurricanes,
flames, executions
for we rise on marvelous dunes
watching soaring blue birds
covering tumbleweed fields
reaching tremulous skies,
our words will be retrieved
like paintings
from every Beckmann, Klee
Chagall, Renoir, Velasquez
and paper cranes and kites
may be as the likeness
of love letters
in this printed world.
The passed away will rejoice
that line your bookshelves
Cavafy is more comfortable
by the billiard table
or playing chess
with Auden by the attic Greeks,
that on your art shelf
the yellow Christ
of Gauguin would fit in
near the conflated trees
of Rousseau,
that life itself will not waver
but shines against hurricanes,
flames, executions
for we rise on marvelous dunes
watching soaring blue birds
covering tumbleweed fields
reaching tremulous skies,
our words will be retrieved
like paintings
from every Beckmann, Klee
Chagall, Renoir, Velasquez
and paper cranes and kites
may be as the likeness
of love letters
in this printed world.
AT ROBERT DUNCAN'S WAKE
Still you speak songs
in a no name wind
with footfalls to flourish
in your whole notes
as a frieze of ourselves
all will be loved
cared for,
everything, even sunshine
rises to walk
by crippled water
we travel now not alone
on the greensward valley
by the black mountain school
near the bluest river
as diminished chords close
on the hard drive
still you, Robert
speak now without words
as your minimalism rises up
in our footloose language.
Still you speak songs
in a no name wind
with footfalls to flourish
in your whole notes
as a frieze of ourselves
all will be loved
cared for,
everything, even sunshine
rises to walk
by crippled water
we travel now not alone
on the greensward valley
by the black mountain school
near the bluest river
as diminished chords close
on the hard drive
still you, Robert
speak now without words
as your minimalism rises up
in our footloose language.
NIGHT SKIES
Night skies
hearing Ray Charles
anywhere on the earth
or Coltrane
from a blast of sax
as if everyone's solo
connects notes
of our correspondence
lighting up our club,gig
or apartment
when we have a free night
to visit,make friends, laugh
at stand up or write
our sit down diary
or walk under a reprobate rain
on my faltering city Square
by gas lamps
of cyclopic buildings
to the home harbor
to throw in unlucky coins
in the latitude
of a transparent wind
as waves by the sea wall
rise by the bay side wharf
or siphon off a beer
in a cafe spiked
until the next day
by rumors of an encounter
from a stranger's tongue
overhearing the stupor
of an exiled morning
circulating in a glass
of my own invisibility.
Night skies
hearing Ray Charles
anywhere on the earth
or Coltrane
from a blast of sax
as if everyone's solo
connects notes
of our correspondence
lighting up our club,gig
or apartment
when we have a free night
to visit,make friends, laugh
at stand up or write
our sit down diary
or walk under a reprobate rain
on my faltering city Square
by gas lamps
of cyclopic buildings
to the home harbor
to throw in unlucky coins
in the latitude
of a transparent wind
as waves by the sea wall
rise by the bay side wharf
or siphon off a beer
in a cafe spiked
until the next day
by rumors of an encounter
from a stranger's tongue
overhearing the stupor
of an exiled morning
circulating in a glass
of my own invisibility.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
READING PATRICK MODIANO
(Nobel Prize winner,Oct. 8 2014)
In the Parisian sun
with a hopeful sun
through my French
jealousy window
reading your novel
"Missing Person"
about the Occupation
nervously alone
awakened by these lives
in thanking your words
by furtive corners
transfixed by your images
from my naked eyes
melted by loneliness
about informers and heroes
as echoes of the Resistance
now from your geography
where humanity spills
its locution
from a grieving time
you bring memory to life.
(Nobel Prize winner,Oct. 8 2014)
In the Parisian sun
with a hopeful sun
through my French
jealousy window
reading your novel
"Missing Person"
about the Occupation
nervously alone
awakened by these lives
in thanking your words
by furtive corners
transfixed by your images
from my naked eyes
melted by loneliness
about informers and heroes
as echoes of the Resistance
now from your geography
where humanity spills
its locution
from a grieving time
you bring memory to life.
METAMORPHOSIS
Tonight October's car mirror
outside lover's lane
night shadows
presses bachelor buttons
in a Freudian book
saved from burners
pushing our century back
on its blood trails
of fully loaded trains
for whitewashed sentences
carried out with no convictions
by death squads
all over the European theater,
as the Hollywood
actress next door
kills echoes
of daily nightmares
and will not forget
her starvation diet
on the refrigerator door.
Tonight October's car mirror
outside lover's lane
night shadows
presses bachelor buttons
in a Freudian book
saved from burners
pushing our century back
on its blood trails
of fully loaded trains
for whitewashed sentences
carried out with no convictions
by death squads
all over the European theater,
as the Hollywood
actress next door
kills echoes
of daily nightmares
and will not forget
her starvation diet
on the refrigerator door.
EAST WEST FALL
Thursdays at noon
with gentlemen and ladies
at Boston's Durgin Park
have their boiled dinners
with choice Chinese tea leaves
baked beans and Apple Betty
facing the waterfront docks
as runaways board ships
with their flower children
off to San Francisco
by uneasy Autumn sleep
to outlast every fortune teller
predicting we will meet
a foreign soul and body
in our future lives
by a last summer rose dooryard
hearing old fairy tales
from our French teacher
wanting to search
with our outstretched hands
by expressive city lights
beneath unknown addresses
of telephone directories
to find our extended families
reminiscing about our childhoods
from frazzled northeast winds
when October becomes absurd
on a cross country road
and every good intention
lacks eligibility
by a tin roofed setting dusk
lures us from the Atlantic
to the Pacific's breeze
from fluent lunar hours
in new blood moon shadows
moves every unseasoned traveler
to make us somnambulists
under Nob Hill's red eyes.
Thursdays at noon
with gentlemen and ladies
at Boston's Durgin Park
have their boiled dinners
with choice Chinese tea leaves
baked beans and Apple Betty
facing the waterfront docks
as runaways board ships
with their flower children
off to San Francisco
by uneasy Autumn sleep
to outlast every fortune teller
predicting we will meet
a foreign soul and body
in our future lives
by a last summer rose dooryard
hearing old fairy tales
from our French teacher
wanting to search
with our outstretched hands
by expressive city lights
beneath unknown addresses
of telephone directories
to find our extended families
reminiscing about our childhoods
from frazzled northeast winds
when October becomes absurd
on a cross country road
and every good intention
lacks eligibility
by a tin roofed setting dusk
lures us from the Atlantic
to the Pacific's breeze
from fluent lunar hours
in new blood moon shadows
moves every unseasoned traveler
to make us somnambulists
under Nob Hill's red eyes.
JACK KEROUAC'S TIME
Your language
follows all time pieces
up the watching stair
of verses you share
in hollow coffee houses
of the 1950's cafes
like the Red Drum
where your grief fills
huge mugs joined
in the sublime jazz
with your notes
like landscapes
remain open seas
of our likely correspondence
offering uneasy poems
when your shirt
is taken off on the road
between life and departure
remaining the same bodies
from the century's dust
as visionary flavors
crowd forty candles.
Your language
follows all time pieces
up the watching stair
of verses you share
in hollow coffee houses
of the 1950's cafes
like the Red Drum
where your grief fills
huge mugs joined
in the sublime jazz
with your notes
like landscapes
remain open seas
of our likely correspondence
offering uneasy poems
when your shirt
is taken off on the road
between life and departure
remaining the same bodies
from the century's dust
as visionary flavors
crowd forty candles.
WITH HENRY JAMES
Passing by your street
this October
by ephemeral chrysanthemums
swept by the darkness
in dusk's night air
at 2 Washington Square
your New York life
in harmony of patient stones
staring at brick-faced houses
at sundown's hiding places
seeing through fine shadows
from neatly dressed windows
with a reluctance of pleasures
the fears of inheritance
the minor pains and destinies
on these Fall serene hours
for your time of novel writing.
Passing by your street
this October
by ephemeral chrysanthemums
swept by the darkness
in dusk's night air
at 2 Washington Square
your New York life
in harmony of patient stones
staring at brick-faced houses
at sundown's hiding places
seeing through fine shadows
from neatly dressed windows
with a reluctance of pleasures
the fears of inheritance
the minor pains and destinies
on these Fall serene hours
for your time of novel writing.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
PLAYING BOSTON
An October rainstorm
below high windows
overlooking Boston Common
a sax in heard
by the bandstand gazebo
a sunrise bleaches us
below the blinds
playing Boston,
our cards held in check
never expecting jokers
in jazz clubs
on a faded smoke filtered
newly seasoned dawn,
we decide to leave the table
to walk on the Public Gardens
near the swan boats,
aristocratic twigs fall
near Frog Pond acorns
by thousand year elms
tugging on yellow jackets
now passing
revolutionary graves
dealt by an old hand.
An October rainstorm
below high windows
overlooking Boston Common
a sax in heard
by the bandstand gazebo
a sunrise bleaches us
below the blinds
playing Boston,
our cards held in check
never expecting jokers
in jazz clubs
on a faded smoke filtered
newly seasoned dawn,
we decide to leave the table
to walk on the Public Gardens
near the swan boats,
aristocratic twigs fall
near Frog Pond acorns
by thousand year elms
tugging on yellow jackets
now passing
revolutionary graves
dealt by an old hand.
WATCHING BETTE DAVIS
Watching Bette Davis
in "The Letter"
as a star in torment
from dramatic necessity
when at last love became
unfaithful in cold flesh
and a jury did not decide
rightly for justice
on the injured party's side
because he was departed,
coquetry and jealousy
blinds the actors
in this killer movie
with a pleading case
pulling in our critic's power
with a chance warning
to our cool minds
even at our age
for any character's flaw
from the law's chance
of palpable innocence
when in a fury of rage
steams out of control
to unwind the silence
in the conscience
of a thriller film
about a lost soul.
Watching Bette Davis
in "The Letter"
as a star in torment
from dramatic necessity
when at last love became
unfaithful in cold flesh
and a jury did not decide
rightly for justice
on the injured party's side
because he was departed,
coquetry and jealousy
blinds the actors
in this killer movie
with a pleading case
pulling in our critic's power
with a chance warning
to our cool minds
even at our age
for any character's flaw
from the law's chance
of palpable innocence
when in a fury of rage
steams out of control
to unwind the silence
in the conscience
of a thriller film
about a lost soul.
Monday, October 6, 2014
WHEN WE LOSE
When we lose someone
it's as if the earth
of our inland soul
moves an indifferent time
to an open space of grief
from an insensate pity
here under tinder woods
of Fall clouds that resemble
a nervous sky alphabet
which leaves us alone
from late aspen buds
being quiet to our hands
as we are recounting
rain showers
by the Blue Hill's lake.
When we lose someone
it's as if the earth
of our inland soul
moves an indifferent time
to an open space of grief
from an insensate pity
here under tinder woods
of Fall clouds that resemble
a nervous sky alphabet
which leaves us alone
from late aspen buds
being quiet to our hands
as we are recounting
rain showers
by the Blue Hill's lake.
BY THE HOTEL ELEVATOR
By the hotel elevator
on an impalpable holiday
is the loneliest scene
as sleep walking suit cased
yet tranquilized survivors
half -open faced
sandwiched between
bar and lobby
provide and divide space
to these seasoned travelers
reaching for teapots
and glasses of white wine
doled out with napkins
under doubled chins
from slow kitchen helpers
because it is always
a long trip and cold
from another's hands
looking up to the balcony
in the latest fashion show
losing yourself in mirrors
of soft lights moving you
away from Mozart's muzak
stumbling up the steps
to your inner sanctum
to celebrate sounds
of your lost appearance
sauntering in lost thoughts
by habitable towels
undressed by the sink
your mind not intact
or awakened by the rush
of blinded window last light.
By the hotel elevator
on an impalpable holiday
is the loneliest scene
as sleep walking suit cased
yet tranquilized survivors
half -open faced
sandwiched between
bar and lobby
provide and divide space
to these seasoned travelers
reaching for teapots
and glasses of white wine
doled out with napkins
under doubled chins
from slow kitchen helpers
because it is always
a long trip and cold
from another's hands
looking up to the balcony
in the latest fashion show
losing yourself in mirrors
of soft lights moving you
away from Mozart's muzak
stumbling up the steps
to your inner sanctum
to celebrate sounds
of your lost appearance
sauntering in lost thoughts
by habitable towels
undressed by the sink
your mind not intact
or awakened by the rush
of blinded window last light.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
CONNECTIONS
From your secret location
in a glance's view
of new information
as yet unknown
yet may be true,
from any vetted apology
yet unspoken to atone
in any regretted vocation
or out of the blue pardon
among the wood's rock garden
there is a moonstone,
as in Stravinsky's"Firebird"
many elocution's force
before a dancer's outside call
in full curtained voice
with blinding secret wonder
a ballerina emerges in a theater
among nature's belladonna
on steps of connections,
out of rain and thunder
in a poetic word's
language's ballet
by answers and questions
to the critics' directions
at night and every day.
From your secret location
in a glance's view
of new information
as yet unknown
yet may be true,
from any vetted apology
yet unspoken to atone
in any regretted vocation
or out of the blue pardon
among the wood's rock garden
there is a moonstone,
as in Stravinsky's"Firebird"
many elocution's force
before a dancer's outside call
in full curtained voice
with blinding secret wonder
a ballerina emerges in a theater
among nature's belladonna
on steps of connections,
out of rain and thunder
in a poetic word's
language's ballet
by answers and questions
to the critics' directions
at night and every day.
Friday, October 3, 2014
HERE BY THE WINDOW
Here lies the ocean
always hungry
for another sailor or poet
any Ulysses
staggering after time
in the late darkness
to show up hungry
in a Poseidon watch
of a sun's return
on the beach
with a South wind
three notches below
the boat once grounded
with a ravaged survivor
in the sorry sightings
and breezing sail of winds
running toward land
eager to escape Troy,
and war, tombs, escapes
with an earth-wise poet
greeting you
from his window blinds
remembering your story
full of births and departures
misfortune and ventures
out on the sea's distance
now from his epic verse.
Here lies the ocean
always hungry
for another sailor or poet
any Ulysses
staggering after time
in the late darkness
to show up hungry
in a Poseidon watch
of a sun's return
on the beach
with a South wind
three notches below
the boat once grounded
with a ravaged survivor
in the sorry sightings
and breezing sail of winds
running toward land
eager to escape Troy,
and war, tombs, escapes
with an earth-wise poet
greeting you
from his window blinds
remembering your story
full of births and departures
misfortune and ventures
out on the sea's distance
now from his epic verse.
WHAT WE HAVE
We have a starting point
in life shaped for us
like a geometric sculpture
of Giacometti,
climbing uphills
like Sisyphus
but forced down
by stones and rubble
that give us trouble,
we have darkened sea
with a lark's cry at noon
but we weigh diving
into a day's just surviving,
you make a run
on the starting line
in your life's marathon
but time may run out
even here on the lawn.
IN A PAWN SHOP
(Oct 7, 1849 Poe's passing)
In a pawn shop
in New Orleans
among famous named
and unread Poe volumes
and library antiques
when you unashamedly
need a leak
waiting for the auction
to begin
your weak nerves begin
to be in shreds
as Poe begins to speak
in heady whispers
and then out loud
in the midst
of a Gothic horror
of the boisterous crowd
and what if critics think
that my accent
is like his
as the business starts
my breath swirls
and my heart beats
a million times
as if there was my rhyme
with a raspy verse
of his reciting in time,
none leave the premises
or want to think
of an arbitrary curse
or a detective's crime
this being the anniversary
of Poe's death
as an old inspector
in a raincoat
from the basement
holds up the first book
of his to sell
and all goes well
for a hour or two
as the room empties
its traffic of retinue
yet here is Poe
or a facsimile
resting in an armchair
by me.
(Oct 7, 1849 Poe's passing)
In a pawn shop
in New Orleans
among famous named
and unread Poe volumes
and library antiques
when you unashamedly
need a leak
waiting for the auction
to begin
your weak nerves begin
to be in shreds
as Poe begins to speak
in heady whispers
and then out loud
in the midst
of a Gothic horror
of the boisterous crowd
and what if critics think
that my accent
is like his
as the business starts
my breath swirls
and my heart beats
a million times
as if there was my rhyme
with a raspy verse
of his reciting in time,
none leave the premises
or want to think
of an arbitrary curse
or a detective's crime
this being the anniversary
of Poe's death
as an old inspector
in a raincoat
from the basement
holds up the first book
of his to sell
and all goes well
for a hour or two
as the room empties
its traffic of retinue
yet here is Poe
or a facsimile
resting in an armchair
by me.
RAINED OUT
Rained out on Sunday
for your
official performance
but still the numbers
of patrons arrive
and you do not care
what the media
or your manager says
and you open the hall
with extra keys
find an electrician to do
lights and a friend
to pass out the programs
call up the critics
get up on stage
until the initial dawn
and blast your sax.
Rained out on Sunday
for your
official performance
but still the numbers
of patrons arrive
and you do not care
what the media
or your manager says
and you open the hall
with extra keys
find an electrician to do
lights and a friend
to pass out the programs
call up the critics
get up on stage
until the initial dawn
and blast your sax.
DON'T MENTION IT
The possibility
that the street
you walk on
collapses in a sink hole
or a meteorite hits
like a glacier
on your noonday
and you miss work
in the inferno,
or "Death in Venice"
become a reality show
from the riverbed flood,
or your old wounds
of your expressive words
open up as you meet
your ex lover
by the city walls
running for your lives.
The possibility
that the street
you walk on
collapses in a sink hole
or a meteorite hits
like a glacier
on your noonday
and you miss work
in the inferno,
or "Death in Venice"
become a reality show
from the riverbed flood,
or your old wounds
of your expressive words
open up as you meet
your ex lover
by the city walls
running for your lives.
BELLADONNA WEEKEND
In "little Italy"
watching the film
"Il Sorpasso"
after the cast party
having orange pasta
at 3 A.M.
with two guys
disputing Nietzche
and Che
waiting for the Sunday
papered over reviews
of my play,
expecting to rise
up and jog in Central Park
on my belladonna weekend
from your night shade
in a better mood.
In "little Italy"
watching the film
"Il Sorpasso"
after the cast party
having orange pasta
at 3 A.M.
with two guys
disputing Nietzche
and Che
waiting for the Sunday
papered over reviews
of my play,
expecting to rise
up and jog in Central Park
on my belladonna weekend
from your night shade
in a better mood.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
WHY A POET
Why do words
fall on my countenance
just as the dancer
of Swan Lake
awakens her feet
at her nightly performance
reaching a Russian
surreal painter of light
like the Dutch Vermeer
mastering his brush strokes
on a canvas
he must complete,
like a jazz musician
Benny Goodman
or Louis Armstrong
words fall on me
as a Beat
every day of the year,
the poet like bird song
as a spirit breathes
with such ease belongs
as a prophetic seer.
Why do words
fall on my countenance
just as the dancer
of Swan Lake
awakens her feet
at her nightly performance
reaching a Russian
surreal painter of light
like the Dutch Vermeer
mastering his brush strokes
on a canvas
he must complete,
like a jazz musician
Benny Goodman
or Louis Armstrong
words fall on me
as a Beat
every day of the year,
the poet like bird song
as a spirit breathes
with such ease belongs
as a prophetic seer.
ON LOCATION
Move your arms
said the French director
like the Renaissance statue
of David by Michelangelo
let your voice resound
in the range of an Italian tenor,
your body
like a lion, stud or stallion,
your earthy eyes
like Valentino
every nuanced expression
as in Eisenstein's Potemkin
with romantic poetry lines
under studied by Wordsworth
Byron, Shelley and Pushkin.
Move your arms
said the French director
like the Renaissance statue
of David by Michelangelo
let your voice resound
in the range of an Italian tenor,
your body
like a lion, stud or stallion,
your earthy eyes
like Valentino
every nuanced expression
as in Eisenstein's Potemkin
with romantic poetry lines
under studied by Wordsworth
Byron, Shelley and Pushkin.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
ON BOARD BZ'S SHIP
Beyond the home harbor
you hear the morning call
of birdsong reaching high
over the sound barrier
by reefs on the ocean,
a ship's noted passenger
hears the brief melody
and composes
a jazz sonata for oboe
in b flat major
attends its premiere
in Paris,
also listening on board
a poet writes his lyrical epic
based on that one note
theme in his word play,
a Polish artist washes
the canvas of modernism
after hearing
the air born winged singer
in the impalpable wind,
yet what of the canary
who escaped its cage.
Beyond the home harbor
you hear the morning call
of birdsong reaching high
over the sound barrier
by reefs on the ocean,
a ship's noted passenger
hears the brief melody
and composes
a jazz sonata for oboe
in b flat major
attends its premiere
in Paris,
also listening on board
a poet writes his lyrical epic
based on that one note
theme in his word play,
a Polish artist washes
the canvas of modernism
after hearing
the air born winged singer
in the impalpable wind,
yet what of the canary
who escaped its cage.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Saturday, September 27, 2014
DRESS REHEARSAL
It's already six o clock
for the dress rehearsal
for my play "The Beards"
in the shady early night
the actors in form
and shaped for the sound
of their performance
and hopefully no chance
of any break down
in the last love affairs
or at sleepless insomnia
checking that no one
of the extras is left behind
if an actor has had glasses
of vodka or rum
the morning before
and that the choreography
has matched the upstaged
scenes as were decided
last week
that all costumes are
back from the city laundry,
the hors d'oeuvres
wine and cream dips
are ready for the cast party
and after playing
marriage broker
psychiatrist and a prophet
as well as art director
for a fortnight
we are ready, like Hamlet
or a ham to cut up
for our "Beards."
It's already six o clock
for the dress rehearsal
for my play "The Beards"
in the shady early night
the actors in form
and shaped for the sound
of their performance
and hopefully no chance
of any break down
in the last love affairs
or at sleepless insomnia
checking that no one
of the extras is left behind
if an actor has had glasses
of vodka or rum
the morning before
and that the choreography
has matched the upstaged
scenes as were decided
last week
that all costumes are
back from the city laundry,
the hors d'oeuvres
wine and cream dips
are ready for the cast party
and after playing
marriage broker
psychiatrist and a prophet
as well as art director
for a fortnight
we are ready, like Hamlet
or a ham to cut up
for our "Beards."
MANTUAN
1447-1516
A city on a hill dream
from a Christian Virgil
awakes to fulfill you
into writing ecologues,
as Mantuan,
the Carmelite poet
writes masterful dialogues
without interruption
from a monastery,
searches for words
against impolite corruption
at warm summer's noon
now perched on a hammock
trembling inside
by a tree's birds
nesting on branches
for an upturned future
of a church's reform.
1447-1516
A city on a hill dream
from a Christian Virgil
awakes to fulfill you
into writing ecologues,
as Mantuan,
the Carmelite poet
writes masterful dialogues
without interruption
from a monastery,
searches for words
against impolite corruption
at warm summer's noon
now perched on a hammock
trembling inside
by a tree's birds
nesting on branches
for an upturned future
of a church's reform.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
COPING
(In memory Cesare Pavese
1908-1950)
Bouncing his leg
off the table
saying farewell
to his nerves
nibbling at his soul
to wish he were
at a year or century
earlier or later
having seen anger search
for him in his stress test
in signals and signs
weighing on his life
of literary exertion
scaling in different
directions of Italy
like a weather vane
under Turin's grey sky
for so many seasons
trying to forget a memory
of mountainside sorrows
in noiseless playgrounds
and college libraries
reading Dante and Virgil
expecting change
in an earthy twilight
or on the seashore
with promises unfulfilled
in love and punishment
from an arbitrary existence
yielding to a squeezed fate
of vigil and desertion.
(In memory Cesare Pavese
1908-1950)
Bouncing his leg
off the table
saying farewell
to his nerves
nibbling at his soul
to wish he were
at a year or century
earlier or later
having seen anger search
for him in his stress test
in signals and signs
weighing on his life
of literary exertion
scaling in different
directions of Italy
like a weather vane
under Turin's grey sky
for so many seasons
trying to forget a memory
of mountainside sorrows
in noiseless playgrounds
and college libraries
reading Dante and Virgil
expecting change
in an earthy twilight
or on the seashore
with promises unfulfilled
in love and punishment
from an arbitrary existence
yielding to a squeezed fate
of vigil and desertion.
Monday, September 22, 2014
ALONE
Alone by the Cape's
sun, rocks, shore,
briefly meeting
the evident dunes
and wild roses
stones picked up
in my horizon
now in a sailboat
as waves move
my subterranean soul
remembering so clearly
a fine seasoned refugee
and art friend's phrase
of being transformed
by natural color
when every
exiled thought
whispers
its liquid solitude
of a passing sea voiced
on a blue kind of sky.
Alone by the Cape's
sun, rocks, shore,
briefly meeting
the evident dunes
and wild roses
stones picked up
in my horizon
now in a sailboat
as waves move
my subterranean soul
remembering so clearly
a fine seasoned refugee
and art friend's phrase
of being transformed
by natural color
when every
exiled thought
whispers
its liquid solitude
of a passing sea voiced
on a blue kind of sky.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
WATCHING OUT
Through the windowsill
of geranium's space
where bird wing prints
survive on resting places
of a chilled twilight
watching a sandwich man
deliver rolls of beef
with a seasoned refugee's
shopping bags tearing
an arm loaded with wine
and French bread
hurries in his steps
passes through the wall's
rough plaster walls.
Through the windowsill
of geranium's space
where bird wing prints
survive on resting places
of a chilled twilight
watching a sandwich man
deliver rolls of beef
with a seasoned refugee's
shopping bags tearing
an arm loaded with wine
and French bread
hurries in his steps
passes through the wall's
rough plaster walls.
TOLSTOY AT YASNAYA-POLYANA
Who in times past
an aristocrat
strolled by pines
drank like the swallows
scourged from passion's
once grey Gogol overcoat
turns out to be weeping
on a Fall's dance
of the hours
over bare-iced sheets.
He walks this night alone
by breakwater's embankment
through a mute September
yet knowing his fevered ways
where black bread
is only a genuflection
of a hunger much deeper
than his own peace.
Over a lake landscape
the birdsong's communion
of a child's awareness
pervades him
here in these woodlands
the dreadful cold blazes
under a full moon
of Autumn's fretfulness
with a deep seclusion
only a Count may hide.
Who in times past
an aristocrat
strolled by pines
drank like the swallows
scourged from passion's
once grey Gogol overcoat
turns out to be weeping
on a Fall's dance
of the hours
over bare-iced sheets.
He walks this night alone
by breakwater's embankment
through a mute September
yet knowing his fevered ways
where black bread
is only a genuflection
of a hunger much deeper
than his own peace.
Over a lake landscape
the birdsong's communion
of a child's awareness
pervades him
here in these woodlands
the dreadful cold blazes
under a full moon
of Autumn's fretfulness
with a deep seclusion
only a Count may hide.
PREJUDICE
Group thinking
they are all reds
capitalists
peaceniks
warriors,
machos
pussies,
fanatics,
killers,
disloyal lovers,
traitors,
terrorists,
pansies,
all like that,
look at yourself
in the garden
on the soccer field
or in the photography store
with your sister & brother
and make a selfie
seeking a pardon
for being human.
Group thinking
they are all reds
capitalists
peaceniks
warriors,
machos
pussies,
fanatics,
killers,
disloyal lovers,
traitors,
terrorists,
pansies,
all like that,
look at yourself
in the garden
on the soccer field
or in the photography store
with your sister & brother
and make a selfie
seeking a pardon
for being human.
NEW LIFE
Helpless September
overgrown with ferns
and greensward elder
heaving with song birds
along Walden pond
a salty sea voice admits us
to hold on to my bicycle
for a new life
not caring who laughs
from the woodland
at our buried secrets,
artifacts, lovers lane,
nor blush at the breeze
when sleeping on caresses
in the clearing meadow
by the dunes light shadow
along cranberry bogs
by mildew roads
we are in nobody lands
among a forest's
haze of leaves
as four gulls overhead
with high pitched soundings
cover the tall grass,
squirrels and garter snakes
wound by pine tree trunks
a poet makes a hammock
and reads Thoreau.
Helpless September
overgrown with ferns
and greensward elder
heaving with song birds
along Walden pond
a salty sea voice admits us
to hold on to my bicycle
for a new life
not caring who laughs
from the woodland
at our buried secrets,
artifacts, lovers lane,
nor blush at the breeze
when sleeping on caresses
in the clearing meadow
by the dunes light shadow
along cranberry bogs
by mildew roads
we are in nobody lands
among a forest's
haze of leaves
as four gulls overhead
with high pitched soundings
cover the tall grass,
squirrels and garter snakes
wound by pine tree trunks
a poet makes a hammock
and reads Thoreau.
ON THE BLUEST HILL
In whirlwind gusts
every leaf was gone
in the coal green darkness
of early dusk
of the Fall's bluest hill
daring the frosted birch
to acknowledge
premonitions of our fate
in a living windy move
of rain on wellsprings
gathering by aspen
of sparrow and grackles
behind smothered brushwood
and a poet in a red scarf
from luminous days
living a hundred years
beyond the clearing
seizes on memories of words
to rejoin his quick step
asking for wonders and signs
in the slanting sunset.
In whirlwind gusts
every leaf was gone
in the coal green darkness
of early dusk
of the Fall's bluest hill
daring the frosted birch
to acknowledge
premonitions of our fate
in a living windy move
of rain on wellsprings
gathering by aspen
of sparrow and grackles
behind smothered brushwood
and a poet in a red scarf
from luminous days
living a hundred years
beyond the clearing
seizes on memories of words
to rejoin his quick step
asking for wonders and signs
in the slanting sunset.
CEDAR VALLEY GROVE
How fragile
your hands
at the piano
has the dawn
grown still
except for Chopin
swollen by memory
from a time,
not ours, anymore
a leafy earth dust rises
across the road
after your spellbound recital
under a quarter moon
you walk on bird feathers
on Cedar Valley Grove
your fingers alive to us
radiating at dusk.
How fragile
your hands
at the piano
has the dawn
grown still
except for Chopin
swollen by memory
from a time,
not ours, anymore
a leafy earth dust rises
across the road
after your spellbound recital
under a quarter moon
you walk on bird feathers
on Cedar Valley Grove
your fingers alive to us
radiating at dusk.
CANADIAN GEESE
Rain instead
of radiated showers
as Canadian geese
cover the roof
of the fine Art's museum
make their understatement
of leafy noises of sky echo
waiting to hear me out
as we approach
the dazzling court crowns
of Velasquez,
admitting light
of Vermeer and Homer
the unquenched nature park
of Fantin- Latour's woodlands.
Rain instead
of radiated showers
as Canadian geese
cover the roof
of the fine Art's museum
make their understatement
of leafy noises of sky echo
waiting to hear me out
as we approach
the dazzling court crowns
of Velasquez,
admitting light
of Vermeer and Homer
the unquenched nature park
of Fantin- Latour's woodlands.
SECRETS
A mute voice rises
by resolute crows
on an ash tree
a poet between branches
stuck in the brushwood
of a smothered sweater
carrying wild roses
between his fingers
along the bee lined edge
of the grove voiced jays
with dark possibilities
of silent twigs fallen
by acorns on earth
you locate your love letter
implanted a decade ago
in the pollen's low clearing
covered with marigold
in the green absinthe bottle
still shut in a wanderer's space
of time's even equilibrium
held in my sheltered fate
of an indifferent noonday
that the wide worms path
will turn in my absence
to impalpable roads
from my cold sandal feet
covering blankets of secrets.
SUNLIGHT
Not leaving you
in a shadow of sunlight
following on the road
noticing apple picking
on long resonate fields
your warm presence
disclosing wild roses
in the hilly pockets
stretched out
among the yellow scrub
with a glimpsed laughter
at a feral cat underbrush
from thoughtless groves
we excavate ripe hours
beneath a bird width sky
in a furtive wood
to catch the clearing
among breadth
of pleasant spinney vines.
Not leaving you
in a shadow of sunlight
following on the road
noticing apple picking
on long resonate fields
your warm presence
disclosing wild roses
in the hilly pockets
stretched out
among the yellow scrub
with a glimpsed laughter
at a feral cat underbrush
from thoughtless groves
we excavate ripe hours
beneath a bird width sky
in a furtive wood
to catch the clearing
among breadth
of pleasant spinney vines.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
MIRROR
A third skin
by the warmth
pressed to the vessel
of ironic arbitration
from a disruptive
interview
of your paradoxical persona
from sunlit windows
interweaving
your passages
of a voice spectrum
as a fragmentary day
shields you from illusion
of influence
from a world scaled back
of dead weight.
A third skin
by the warmth
pressed to the vessel
of ironic arbitration
from a disruptive
interview
of your paradoxical persona
from sunlit windows
interweaving
your passages
of a voice spectrum
as a fragmentary day
shields you from illusion
of influence
from a world scaled back
of dead weight.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
A LIFE
With energy
in a single silence
near a river bed
with notebook in hand
by edged rocks
off the sea coast
lying on a blanket
of speechless reminiscence
full length
in the abrupt sunshine
dissembling his papers
by the deck of boats
in the home harbor
watching bees everywhere
in a grimace of worry
and shapeless nerves
breathing years of words
near a lost compact
with two boys stumbling
in the ditch water's edge
under a warning sign
for our protection
in a shattered gorge
and land passage
to recover loss
in an undertow
a swimming memory
of being there years before
among noxious cat calls
and hasty judgments
by growing wild flowers
garden snakes and turtles
in a a life deserted
remaining only as gestures
of my trembling fingers.
With energy
in a single silence
near a river bed
with notebook in hand
by edged rocks
off the sea coast
lying on a blanket
of speechless reminiscence
full length
in the abrupt sunshine
dissembling his papers
by the deck of boats
in the home harbor
watching bees everywhere
in a grimace of worry
and shapeless nerves
breathing years of words
near a lost compact
with two boys stumbling
in the ditch water's edge
under a warning sign
for our protection
in a shattered gorge
and land passage
to recover loss
in an undertow
a swimming memory
of being there years before
among noxious cat calls
and hasty judgments
by growing wild flowers
garden snakes and turtles
in a a life deserted
remaining only as gestures
of my trembling fingers.
Monday, September 15, 2014
A CANADA EXPERIENCE
A poet late
for his urban read
takes a wrong u turn
emerges on the boulevard
between two countries
winds up
behind the beech tree
gazebo and esplanade
meets a French woman
sunning herself
on a blanket by hedges
next to her oil portrait,
she gives him directions
and asks to accompany him,
they arrive early
she translates his poems
for the Montreal audience
then is awarded a contract
by an art studio director
who sees her portrait
and elopes with her
and the poet in the courtyard
huddled into the shadows
signs his autographs
on the back desk corner
spending a restless night.
A poet late
for his urban read
takes a wrong u turn
emerges on the boulevard
between two countries
winds up
behind the beech tree
gazebo and esplanade
meets a French woman
sunning herself
on a blanket by hedges
next to her oil portrait,
she gives him directions
and asks to accompany him,
they arrive early
she translates his poems
for the Montreal audience
then is awarded a contract
by an art studio director
who sees her portrait
and elopes with her
and the poet in the courtyard
huddled into the shadows
signs his autographs
on the back desk corner
spending a restless night.
THE PLEASURE SPHERE
In a flowing checkered mu-mu, the internationally broadcast TV reality show host Renata speaks over her microphone.
"Today we make history as our pilot series "Robot Reality Show" broke all records. We know the controversial nature of our commercial free program featuring robot sex sessions and the lessons for us all. Yet it's that time of the week as our guests and contestants come to us from all walks of life. We have included all races, all sexes,from the religious to sex addicts anonymous, to the homophobic to the living necrophiliac robots. All may try their hormonal skills with our different robots designed by Dr. Ron Cage whom he recently added the S. and M. Robot and Mr. Dastard and his partner Sissy Birch. Now who is our first fit guest tonight, Philomena, give her a full robotized hand of welcome. Our first try out contestant to see who is most compatible with which robot is Bing Meriwether."
Bing is about 6' 6"; an ex-baseball player.
"I was injured in a hurting place."
"What is your preference, Bing Meriwether."
"Looking over the robots I like home gal Sal."
"You mentioned your favorite books were "Gulliver Travels" and "Black Beauty" so we have teamed you up with Robot number 1,Sal,who will try to give you satisfaction from your hurting place. Two life guards now harness Bing with Robot number I Sally whom you see dressed in a pink taffeta rodeo outfit. Now let them go at it. Don't be embarrassed big guy. Under the curtain we are all the same except for size and shape. Meet Robot number 1 Sally as she is now wound up. Take your time as this reality show lasts 24 hours a day. All the civilized world is watching and listening as our leading shrinks like Dr.Bulge and his partner Dr. Skulls with Ron Cage our designer have created this modern reality show of shows."
The ropes of the curtain come down and Bing's clothes come off, and now we head into the Pleasure Sphere on a bed of roses. None of the couples knows they are being recorded by public private and government spy agencies who want to recruit all the contestants. Sally allows Bing to enter her robot suited machine.
"Wow,this is living and I don't have to prove anything."
"How can I best entertain you, Bing?"
"Just go slow as I am in recovery."
"How much shall I strip off right now, big boy Bing,you being the strong and and silent type."
"Take it all off. I've been in a coma since I played the outfield and all other positions. But I got caught in the post game summary on the sports channel 24 camera when I lost all the balls sent out to me as I removed my glove".
"So you had another hidden life?"
"The newscaster found me hiding nakedly in the dug out. But now I'm out with you,Sally. You can see I'm a man not a bat boy."
Philomena starts up the robot puts Bing inside it. A few sexual sounds from the multiplex as an orchestra plays "Take me out to the ball game." The camera moves away as Renata introduces the next guest, Leslie.
"Leslie you said you could not decide if you wanted to be entertained by women robots or male ones. You took our sex test with Dr. Bulge and Dr.Skulls and you appeared in personality and temperament as bisexual. We watched your intra-sex reactions to two of our robots number 2 very female and number 3 very male as we watched your member move and enlarge or discharge at the outcome and the results are not definitive. What do you prefer here Leslie Wood one of each?"
"I thought I was a happily married metro man and a well known stand up and late night talk show host with the highest ratings until George came on to me as my summer replacement and then my co-host. Then I felt I was missing only messing about with half of the human race. At least that's the good docs told me after my hypnosis, analysis and diagnosis."
"Don't you have a mind of your own?"
"I try to process everything until I had sexual amnesia which brings me here was put on your sex blog and in an infra sex box for two months to improve my image.What do you think of my image? I had the highest ratings as a TV night host. I am Leslie Wood, after all."
Leslie walks along the stage.
"Which robots have you chosen?"
"Number 5, Jan and 6 Anonymous."
"Great choices."
"Jan and Anonymous come out of your closet, and Leslie go behind the curtain," as the curtain closes.
"I'm a little hot under the closet."
"We have assigned you, Leslie, as a cosmopolitan composite of the modern metro man. So take your pull pill with mineral water and let's have a fun time."
"After five marriages and bloody divorces I've about had it with sex. The Daily Sun gossip columnist says I'm suicidal and I can't face anyone in bed."
"Leslie you have the four R's our doctors told us before the show, rejection, resentment and rebellion and retention, all fatal."
"I thought everything is private here, Jan."
"Except to a femme fatal like me who invaded the good doctors office a half hour before the launching of the show.Now I propose to give you our pill pull potion and then if and when our climax happens at the end of the show and hopefully our ratings go sky high after you die from all our sex acts you will have our necrophiliac love with us as Philomena as our witness."
"I'll be damned. Let's go for it."
Leslie is positioned with Jan and Anonymous after Leslie literally dies our special necrophilia silent treatment appears on the screen. Our next guest Vera wants to go with S and M Robot number 6 and Mr. Dastard, number 7. Vera an elegant model gets into the double robot suit and her two fit choices emerge she is angry.
"I want my lawyer. I won out sexually over both the S and M Robot Mr.Dastard and my favorite Sissy Birch."
"Our spies tell us you broke up the robot machine and jammed everything up. You will be held accountable,Vera."
"Because they could not give me satisfaction or even to give love to each other. These machines have no emotion to give out."
"Vera calm down, will you?"
She takes a fiery plug and sets fire to the set. Renata and Philomena announce a temporary cancellation of the show. Bing walks out on fire and goes after them.
"Give me back our pleasure sphere.I want to be inside Sal forever and the media has taken her away from me. I want Sal, I want robot number one."
In a flowing checkered mu-mu, the internationally broadcast TV reality show host Renata speaks over her microphone.
"Today we make history as our pilot series "Robot Reality Show" broke all records. We know the controversial nature of our commercial free program featuring robot sex sessions and the lessons for us all. Yet it's that time of the week as our guests and contestants come to us from all walks of life. We have included all races, all sexes,from the religious to sex addicts anonymous, to the homophobic to the living necrophiliac robots. All may try their hormonal skills with our different robots designed by Dr. Ron Cage whom he recently added the S. and M. Robot and Mr. Dastard and his partner Sissy Birch. Now who is our first fit guest tonight, Philomena, give her a full robotized hand of welcome. Our first try out contestant to see who is most compatible with which robot is Bing Meriwether."
Bing is about 6' 6"; an ex-baseball player.
"I was injured in a hurting place."
"What is your preference, Bing Meriwether."
"Looking over the robots I like home gal Sal."
"You mentioned your favorite books were "Gulliver Travels" and "Black Beauty" so we have teamed you up with Robot number 1,Sal,who will try to give you satisfaction from your hurting place. Two life guards now harness Bing with Robot number I Sally whom you see dressed in a pink taffeta rodeo outfit. Now let them go at it. Don't be embarrassed big guy. Under the curtain we are all the same except for size and shape. Meet Robot number 1 Sally as she is now wound up. Take your time as this reality show lasts 24 hours a day. All the civilized world is watching and listening as our leading shrinks like Dr.Bulge and his partner Dr. Skulls with Ron Cage our designer have created this modern reality show of shows."
The ropes of the curtain come down and Bing's clothes come off, and now we head into the Pleasure Sphere on a bed of roses. None of the couples knows they are being recorded by public private and government spy agencies who want to recruit all the contestants. Sally allows Bing to enter her robot suited machine.
"Wow,this is living and I don't have to prove anything."
"How can I best entertain you, Bing?"
"Just go slow as I am in recovery."
"How much shall I strip off right now, big boy Bing,you being the strong and and silent type."
"Take it all off. I've been in a coma since I played the outfield and all other positions. But I got caught in the post game summary on the sports channel 24 camera when I lost all the balls sent out to me as I removed my glove".
"So you had another hidden life?"
"The newscaster found me hiding nakedly in the dug out. But now I'm out with you,Sally. You can see I'm a man not a bat boy."
Philomena starts up the robot puts Bing inside it. A few sexual sounds from the multiplex as an orchestra plays "Take me out to the ball game." The camera moves away as Renata introduces the next guest, Leslie.
"Leslie you said you could not decide if you wanted to be entertained by women robots or male ones. You took our sex test with Dr. Bulge and Dr.Skulls and you appeared in personality and temperament as bisexual. We watched your intra-sex reactions to two of our robots number 2 very female and number 3 very male as we watched your member move and enlarge or discharge at the outcome and the results are not definitive. What do you prefer here Leslie Wood one of each?"
"I thought I was a happily married metro man and a well known stand up and late night talk show host with the highest ratings until George came on to me as my summer replacement and then my co-host. Then I felt I was missing only messing about with half of the human race. At least that's the good docs told me after my hypnosis, analysis and diagnosis."
"Don't you have a mind of your own?"
"I try to process everything until I had sexual amnesia which brings me here was put on your sex blog and in an infra sex box for two months to improve my image.What do you think of my image? I had the highest ratings as a TV night host. I am Leslie Wood, after all."
Leslie walks along the stage.
"Which robots have you chosen?"
"Number 5, Jan and 6 Anonymous."
"Great choices."
"Jan and Anonymous come out of your closet, and Leslie go behind the curtain," as the curtain closes.
"I'm a little hot under the closet."
"We have assigned you, Leslie, as a cosmopolitan composite of the modern metro man. So take your pull pill with mineral water and let's have a fun time."
"After five marriages and bloody divorces I've about had it with sex. The Daily Sun gossip columnist says I'm suicidal and I can't face anyone in bed."
"Leslie you have the four R's our doctors told us before the show, rejection, resentment and rebellion and retention, all fatal."
"I thought everything is private here, Jan."
"Except to a femme fatal like me who invaded the good doctors office a half hour before the launching of the show.Now I propose to give you our pill pull potion and then if and when our climax happens at the end of the show and hopefully our ratings go sky high after you die from all our sex acts you will have our necrophiliac love with us as Philomena as our witness."
"I'll be damned. Let's go for it."
Leslie is positioned with Jan and Anonymous after Leslie literally dies our special necrophilia silent treatment appears on the screen. Our next guest Vera wants to go with S and M Robot number 6 and Mr. Dastard, number 7. Vera an elegant model gets into the double robot suit and her two fit choices emerge she is angry.
"I want my lawyer. I won out sexually over both the S and M Robot Mr.Dastard and my favorite Sissy Birch."
"Our spies tell us you broke up the robot machine and jammed everything up. You will be held accountable,Vera."
"Because they could not give me satisfaction or even to give love to each other. These machines have no emotion to give out."
"Vera calm down, will you?"
She takes a fiery plug and sets fire to the set. Renata and Philomena announce a temporary cancellation of the show. Bing walks out on fire and goes after them.
"Give me back our pleasure sphere.I want to be inside Sal forever and the media has taken her away from me. I want Sal, I want robot number one."
FRAGMENTS
Allegories,
a silk stocking,
a bourbon glass
in an actuality
of fragments,
thoughts,
opaque sun,
improvisation
at the 13th station,
a paradigm
worn of desperation
in the Jerusalem
cross,
a partial vision,
by a rock
water colors
its clam shell
shadows on pale stone
reefs, unbelief,
the last fish surviving
in the Yantgze river,
or a scene
of Heddy Lamarr
in a Hollywood
orgasm in "Ecstasy,"
the Toulouse Lautrec poster
damaged at matinee
played by Jose Ferrer
in the movie house,
a partial eclipse
the aurora borealis
sky writing.
Allegories,
a silk stocking,
a bourbon glass
in an actuality
of fragments,
thoughts,
opaque sun,
improvisation
at the 13th station,
a paradigm
worn of desperation
in the Jerusalem
cross,
a partial vision,
by a rock
water colors
its clam shell
shadows on pale stone
reefs, unbelief,
the last fish surviving
in the Yantgze river,
or a scene
of Heddy Lamarr
in a Hollywood
orgasm in "Ecstasy,"
the Toulouse Lautrec poster
damaged at matinee
played by Jose Ferrer
in the movie house,
a partial eclipse
the aurora borealis
sky writing.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
WHAT IS NORMAL
Smart
from the start
Cowper
Blake
with break downs
and long suffering
as once revenants
awakening an inward start
in an artistic sense,
forsaking their part
expected to be played
with complete indifference
parlayed by language
on bets and vetted
of an original parlance
as proper lyrical gents,
with nonsensical Edward Lear
or castoff John Clare
their lives scoffed in arrears,
like poor Rimbaud,
Montesquiou and Baudelaire
my God, as a dandy
having an honorary degree
of divine favor handy,
and by the good wake
of their bandied souls
would ache with mine
at the words taking up
their arbitrary tolls,
as Artaud and Poe
give them
a literary break
the Muse will not
let go,
or Eliot, Joyce
who heard a dissident
voice from a nervous soul,
like Sylvia Plath
for all her wrath
in confession
while not divine
in her profession
set us on another path,
or Sextant
with a wit and talent
in her quirks to tell
all the lit-crit jerks
needing repentance
of her long suffering intent,
and our local friend Lowell
in his poetic works
whose commentary
was not a vocal crime
even in his "Imitations"
in momentary space and time,
yet spent on by critics
whose local intimations
they found didactic,
like restless Pound
not of sound mind
in their assignations
and sent away
on unsavory grounds
of political assassinations
being absurd
and eccentric
pacing around like a bird
with their mind racing
bound by sleeplessness
to confess their story
and sum up the poetic age
in a melancholy hell
just for glory of the word.
Smart
from the start
Cowper
Blake
with break downs
and long suffering
as once revenants
awakening an inward start
in an artistic sense,
forsaking their part
expected to be played
with complete indifference
parlayed by language
on bets and vetted
of an original parlance
as proper lyrical gents,
with nonsensical Edward Lear
or castoff John Clare
their lives scoffed in arrears,
like poor Rimbaud,
Montesquiou and Baudelaire
my God, as a dandy
having an honorary degree
of divine favor handy,
and by the good wake
of their bandied souls
would ache with mine
at the words taking up
their arbitrary tolls,
as Artaud and Poe
give them
a literary break
the Muse will not
let go,
or Eliot, Joyce
who heard a dissident
voice from a nervous soul,
like Sylvia Plath
for all her wrath
in confession
while not divine
in her profession
set us on another path,
or Sextant
with a wit and talent
in her quirks to tell
all the lit-crit jerks
needing repentance
of her long suffering intent,
and our local friend Lowell
in his poetic works
whose commentary
was not a vocal crime
even in his "Imitations"
in momentary space and time,
yet spent on by critics
whose local intimations
they found didactic,
like restless Pound
not of sound mind
in their assignations
and sent away
on unsavory grounds
of political assassinations
being absurd
and eccentric
pacing around like a bird
with their mind racing
bound by sleeplessness
to confess their story
and sum up the poetic age
in a melancholy hell
just for glory of the word.
INTERLOPER
When you go
beyond the norm
in any field
at school or dorm
even called a fool,
we do not need
to conform
just slip out
in the pure rainstorm
shout for what's not
in another's brain
and your lips are hot
getting warm,
your ego is secure
not ever hidden
from any apocalypse
be surely and cleverly free
in your id and sinecure
let them call you interloper
for they have no cause
in art, the word or beauty
nor hope in nature's kind
or for love, law
or state of mind.
When you go
beyond the norm
in any field
at school or dorm
even called a fool,
we do not need
to conform
just slip out
in the pure rainstorm
shout for what's not
in another's brain
and your lips are hot
getting warm,
your ego is secure
not ever hidden
from any apocalypse
be surely and cleverly free
in your id and sinecure
let them call you interloper
for they have no cause
in art, the word or beauty
nor hope in nature's kind
or for love, law
or state of mind.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Thursday, September 11, 2014
AS IF
As if in the sunshine
the street made
me apologize
for the silence
of my vanishing
to go beyond
the sidewalk
and on the grass
of this new future
in my absence
near the river
to play on the dunes
and passing by
you emerge,
my love,
shadows land answers
reminding us
of being located
in the light.
As if in the sunshine
the street made
me apologize
for the silence
of my vanishing
to go beyond
the sidewalk
and on the grass
of this new future
in my absence
near the river
to play on the dunes
and passing by
you emerge,
my love,
shadows land answers
reminding us
of being located
in the light.
RUNAWAY SAX PLAYER
Hiding under
the snowy windshield-wiper
in my water soaked taxi
a revelation of riffs
to play for tonight
from my broken door ajar
in blindfolds of laughter
with flakes thumbing out
on a guy going to my gig
who hibernates here
traffic jams with me
until we get into the club
at midnight rawboned
and bathed by song.
Hiding under
the snowy windshield-wiper
in my water soaked taxi
a revelation of riffs
to play for tonight
from my broken door ajar
in blindfolds of laughter
with flakes thumbing out
on a guy going to my gig
who hibernates here
traffic jams with me
until we get into the club
at midnight rawboned
and bathed by song.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
TALKING HEADS
Heads of politicians
tales of magicians
stand up comedians
down and out musicians
they all come on
late T.V. with their notes
in their back pockets
with no brains but brawn,
with no brains but brawn,
Rob who plays a front man
for the mob and rackets
all made up for the Soaps
near the weary face of a star
with an Oscar winner hope
in an open sports car.
in an open sports car.
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