OPEN QUESTION

An adversary
in an age of Auden
or a page out of Eliot
with innovation
in night or waterfalls
of faith being modern
where the contrary
is sought.

ENGAGEMENT

Whether in love
or at war
who know y or your ex
or wherefore
in an existential malaise
outside your borders
or your human ways
on trackless trails
going somewhere
from the path
of animal curiosity
as our daily sight fails
to fully perceive
your own poetry
from Prince Hal
since any enemy
of your spirit deceives.

EDITH STEIN

a world arrayed
in an eye lashed history
betrayed by brother
dusty statistics
named denials
victims,
shoes by smoke,
there is enlightenment
from a philosopher
and the beautiful feet
with realization
of good news
on her arrival
at a near death tent
of civilization's survival.

CORRIE TEN BOOM

You were observant
to a creative moment
a servant
in the shadows
when hatred
overpowered earth
and the dead
often envied
the living hiding out
in Dutch attics
caves, monasteries
without keys
to the kingdom.

LE CHAMBON SUR LIGNON

We drove
fifty snow laden miles
on pale slip covers
to view the film
"Weapons of the Spirit"
but it worth seeing
ordinary believers
in others or God
helping so many souls
of many backgrounds
religious or political
find a village
away from the Nazis,
knowing brother
and sisterhood is for us
for the snow vanished
in our silences
and we were given
a movie poster
for our Daniel's den.

A BRUEGEL AFTERNOON

Feeling anonymous
among peasants
and great art
among seven deadly sins
and a transfigurable memory
taking off my sun glasses
trying to relax
among the middle ages
and reformation,
two unknown pupils
pass by with me,
hoping for clarity
we visit a surreal Bosch.

GENADY

You are by the river
a shell from the last war
goes off
is trampled on by a snake
in the tall grass
be aware of the harshness
on similar grey days
of chaotic explosions
by drained gadgets
in a precarious peace,
when words are whispered
under the still rain clouds
and not spoken in thunder.

IN CONFIDENCE

Do not talk to yourself
in the morning mirror
or collect your faces
too seriously
even if you are not
TS Eliot in context
just a plain Jane t.s.
who has changed
your sex in a gown
for a passing night
on the town.

THE WAY

The way the card player
hid his alias
in the cassette player
not knowing
it is being recorded
in a Las Vegas club
stripping reality
of its joker
from petty office sleuths
state bureaucratic spies
aligned with capers
of crony capitalism.

THE MUTED LIBRARY


An echo of volumes
an open book
of Emerson
and Hawthorne
vibrates from easy eyes
of fourth glances
from chapters
in remembrance
of Proust and Baudelaire
in belles lettres garnished
aside James and Wharton
who thrive in margins
sustaining memory
of effaced shadows.

LAMENT

For the lost
mourning dove,
the runaway,
the vase
from the last war
the book
not yet published
for fear
of the authorities.

 THIRTIETH OF AUGUST

Wishing to listen
to silence
scattering solitude
among shells and stone
in reverie at the beach
sunshine brushes dunes
by the edge of the shore
washing wild roses
and our first dead leaf.

THE SEA SHADOWS

The sea shadows
the two of us
bracing our bodies
for the ocean air
my oars tremble
from a starting sound
moving in the high tide
as crew contestants
wave to nearby surfers
on a dawn of first light
round the Pacific Coast
harboring green waters.

SUNDAY BY THE SEA

Even within
this Georgian tea cup
by this half empty corner
my memory
by these mirrors is clear
under a marbled eyed ceiling
in this lighted cafe
unlike the scratched graffiti
we noticed
near the old walled ruins
of another era
spaced along countryside,
getting out of my car
by the bell tolling church
keeping a quiet vigil
along tall landscaped dunes
along the transparent sea
overlooking an ancient bridge
under puffy gray clouds
on an August Sunday
an exhaling young swimmer
in an orange towel dances
with a radio sounding rap
by children along the sand
over a wizened road.

WEEKEND ON THE ROAD

On the road

drinking in first light

three days

into the season

and in a rushed flurry

of holiday traffic

when my heart

suddenly beats me up

and raises the pitch

of traveling noise

by a huge moving jam

filling each lane
near the toll booth

as neon lights

kick me off the highway

running into car trouble

yet I'm still playing sax

in a Van Gogh day dream

safe in a field of sunflowers

when totally refreshed

yet famished 

near an all night diner

and gas station

under green apple trees

as my tire is fixed

by the dirt side road
of a wide strip.

SLEEPING LATE

Sleeping late

in your sweat shirt

hearing quarter notes

from woodwinds

smarten up rhythms

near your music stand

yet wanting to hang out

in quiet flat holds

and smooth moves

of your alto clarinet

until tonight's recital

at the island's gig.

REMEBERANCES

Is it not time
to let go
the backyard
dead leaves
as fallen ashes
by the last summer mum
of the rock garden
you remember at a glance
the knowing eyes
of the mourning dove
now grown pale
once wildly forsaken
on the oak branches
under the slate roof
of our attic window shadows
by frosted gleams
of green sand birds
who will be back soon
in the ruddy sunlight.

CONSOLATION

No grief group
or shining language
will efface secrets
in undelivered letters
or your once repented chance
meeting last year,
you surmise
that your fate was set
in a mirage of fallen flesh
now spirited away
by a series of mum voices,
yet your day dream recurs
and spills over a coverlet
of blank verse
from proverbial winds
which will not leave you
by the windowpane
filled with a dying pulse
of a short lived
morning glory,
yet you need to exchange
a bent inclination
to surprise your own words
of all faux pas of speech
and get over
a lover's third glance
toward your inscribed
unsettled body language
on similar shapeless days.

ESCAPING

You want to escape
to any get away, far off
wishing for a morning voice
of a winged bird
leaving branches
of an ash tree
or wandering by the sea
listening in a sea shell
on a shadowed conversation
even embracing another
time zoned countryside
hearing Mozart's notes
sounding in a cadenza
of Horowitz at the piano
scattering gestures
as sunshine plays on
its blushing silhouettes
over an unseated horizon
for your final destination.

DEPARTURE

We celebrate
a departure
and if we tarry
the wind in pleats
of a flashing sky
will guide our fate
waiting for travel
in any capacity
for future time
in the horizon's
currents among
a body language
at the visionary edge
of a celestial sea.

AT FIVE A.M.

A short wave
ex Gulag genius
goes around the world
with underwater cables,
an actor from Java
with summer stocks
in solar energy
drinks a cup of coffee,
a Malevich expert
has located
a lost love letter
in Siberia
does puzzles
of Turner landscapes.

AT NOON

The trapeze artist
from Minnesota
loses her luggage
at LAX airport,
an ensemble cast
rehearses Brecht's
"Three Penny Opera"
waiting for a flight
to Paris,Texas
a once weary runaway
turned pro football
line backer
expects a quickie divorce
in Las Vegas
marrying Guy's ex,
at Six P.M.
a house detective
locates
a missing person
who told fortunes
from tarot
to a grief stricken
news reporter
from the last war
a one time card shark
on the poker network
who has ebola
symptoms
but runs the marathon
in Boston and wins.

ON THIS NOONDAY

On this noonday
a lost abstract
is lost in a cab
on 42nd. Street,
in a carpentry class
a boy creates
an electrical
Hindu elephant lamp,
on this noonday
a pick pocket
is playing chess
in Central Park,
on this noonday.
a muscled wrestler
offers a nanny
a ride in his cab,
on this noonday
a magician gives
mouth to mouth
to the pick pocket
at the Y pool
near the poetry center
and finds the abstract
in the wrestler's cab,
the boy's elephant lamp
is sold to the nanny
at a chess match
as the poet autographs
her new collection
at the Y
for the wrestler
and asks the musician
to play at her wedding
with the chess champion.

EARLY THIS NIGHT

Early this night
hearing your secret
a boy
buying a Portuguese bread
a runaway
submerged on a boat,
early this night
a German refugee
with a yellow starred coat
has a Turkish bath,
a sax musician
between thunder strikes
confesses to his ex
early this night
that he survived
as an extra
in a warlord
Hollywood film.
a mechanic dives
into the Pacific
to locate an Oscar,
the boy escapes
from the boat
to the home harbor
the refugee
helps the mechanic
to locate the Oscar
for the musician's ex.

NOT EXPECTING

Not expecting
a tsunami
a child
a legacy
not expecting a map
or burning treasure
a bristling mind
a drowned soul
after a baptism
not expecting
a light sentence
a heavy conviction
a silent gesture
not expecting
a future lover
a pastime divorce
or present tense
of my absence.

AUSTRALIA'S MURRAY

Rapids in a rushing wave
to me pounding my kayak
finding a coral shell
after being
hidden in a quiet vigil
after reading you
giving me a still life
amid the red and yellow
early foliage and boats
in heavy fatigues.

AUSTRALIA'S A.D. HOPE

Gathering words
in a still life
stirring me, A.D. Hope
as birds from the bush
rush over a faded sun
on a stretching hammock
by fireflies and trees.

CANADA'S GLENN GOULD

When the Steinway melts
and feeling alone
fainting from composing
and a bit desolate
needing a savor of Bach
in a dog day mood
Glenn makes me stronger
in every gesture
of a welcomed guest,
never a stranger.

PIANO COMPETITION

A diminished interval
at the piano competition
playing Chopin waltzes
in live moving moments
knowing how important
each phrase is,
as this recital shuts off
my metronome
in this sound proof studio
here under the strobe lights
with the last contestant
not easily sweating his time
after an all night preparation
in an unchanged ashen sweater
from an insomniac night,
making my prayerful way
on a nervous morning
my long fingers caress
the black and white keys
knowing what audition doors
could open for any of us
when past memories
exercise in shadows
of my scattered notes
sailing through  light pages
now playing embellishments
in measureless pursuit
of a cherished scholarship.

INTO WOOD SIDE


Leaving my bicycle
with my back pack
near the dunes
Into the wood side
as colors of Autumn
of a Turner landscape
cover runaway leaves
from the cool crisp air
rays filters through
a labyrinth of fields
of pine needles
rambling with sunflowers
its roots and veins
in the lanes of our path
as crows circle skies
wood winds sound
by crickets and blue jays.

PARIS, 1999

The century turns
congealed in a sun's
cold glaze
with permafrost on walls
in the Romantic section
at the Sorbonne library
by a French lexicon
of once underground poets
Baudelaire and Rimbaud
once again mind playing
smooth jazz on my sax
in alternating rhythms
of rondeau redouble
before a baroque mirror
doubled in a rimy room
with Verlaine and Mallarme
the wind has Parisian icicles
it rains outside a cafe
we kill off warm croissants
after portmanteau newsreels
of Spanish and Jewish refugees
fleeing past the war years
resembling bridal angels
of a Chagall
in the night and fog
of our passing a church
and synagogue.

POE'S ETERNITY

On spaces
of a liar's thread
an unfamiliar trace
conspires with the dead

Only speaking as Poe
for the living inspires
all curses stretch
forgiving the wretched foe.

WRITER'S BLOCK

Your mind turns blank
on tonight's clock
with a shout out
of writer's block

Yearning for a sentence
or a conviction
to be resonant
about your own fiction

It makes no sense
of my own dereliction
it awakes repentance
within my own diction,

A mind will organize
and answer its letter
in a surprise welcome
with something better.

PATIENTS

Patients are patient
but want to be well
on a sick bed covers
a recovery from hell

Thick skin and bones
on a mattress will heal
hidden wounds dressed
a panegyric will reveal

that scientific gains no loss
in the hygienic body code
at a healthy crossroad
bodes well from painful mode.

CHATTERING CLASSES

I refuse to lift my glass
to the chattering classes
who proclaim the news
as art to mankind's masses,

Whether it's war or peace
with a culture of my own
my mind does not increase
by one sculpture or stone

It is though logic and loss
that we gain and refine
as in a dialectic and cross
that our pain is benign,

To kiss with warm lips
soaked with tears
is not to miss the storm
of an Apocalypse of years.

POLLS

Refusing to let a poll
overtake you
when the public
is not part of the state
but private,
excusing yourself
while you tie a tie
a worn tux
and a cravat.

AT YOUR WORD

what blackberry
hides its integrity
from free thinking
widening its very heresy,
a history inking
out its computer
its heredity records
and rewards to suit her.

THE LAST

The last wave
of the last loss
the last man
of the last hope
the last faith
of the last disciple
the last star
of the last cross.

IN MUTED GRIEF

Over a glass of tea
over a film noir
over a suspicion
over a woman
over an intoxication
over a lost dog
over the pavement
over an accident
over the bicycle
over the child
over the discovery
over the desert
over the storm
over the flowers
over the generation.

YOUR DOUBLE OR DOPPELGANGER

Over your body
is another similar
in language and build
to the caress
of his past
at a sidelined stasis
and nerve
from an outsider
that is inside her.

FAMILIARITY

Highly overrated
partly weighted
or simply dated
at art's familiarity
we are saturated.

INITIATION


What initiates
is always first
the others imitate
shut out and cursed.

SUN AND CANAL

A picture of sun and canal
drawn by the Charles
a river run on my way
to the artist's quarter,
my small water color
showing now in the studio
imprinted my imprimatur
as any familiar impresario.

YOU HEAR

At once you hear
the bell
and the phone
on a creative day
by the metronome
while playing Bach,
writing a paragraph
yet feeling alone.

IF AND WHEN

If and when
your tense
moves in silence
it becomes ours,
a poet approves
with his pen
in deference
for poems open up
as children.

OUTDATED

No one wishes

to be outdated

in a selfish way

only a novitiate

gains his prayer

when a mated life

may delay
or ingratiate her
to consummate.

FEARS

What thousand of sentences
distillations, expressions,
speak under an ashen heaven
as fears beforehand
pass though spent years
yet when a heart repents
it's a short lived chance
from a partner's passion
for the devil make care
is in own her fashion
of an artless dance.

 THE RENOIRS

Auguste,
a portrait painter
under the light dangles
as his son Jean
looks on
not yet knowing his films
will be a masterpiece
and brothers,
Claude, a cinematographer
and Pierre, an actor.

MALLARME'S PATTERN

We are part
of your silver
summer nights
a half-moon shadows
by silhouettes
of guardian stars
shimmering over
the Seine
you walk silently
in the sultry breeze
as a fellow traveler
of solitude.

GIDE'S JOURNAL

Returning to a duality
so serenely
met with terrible ease
after a troubled essence
of a trembling life
as your enemies of truth
lie over your bed
yet a memory eyes
the double entendres
in your journal
with a savor of duality
in favor of a sexuality
mounted as diurnal cycle
on your daily routine
convinced you have
instead found
the extraordinary mean
of being in between
(dismal to some men
maternal to women)
secrets in your diary
with a familiarity
of much regret.

DOUBT

The doors rap

open for the stumbling

back slapping politician

between electoral defeat

and drinks up

near a fancy napkin.

VETERANS

Veterans of surprises
tree surgeons arrive
as bombs leave
no vegetation,
generals lunging
on another map
over failed missions
on plowed ground
war criminals
who are art thieves.

FILM NOIR OF DAVIS

Watching Betty Davis
biting her smile
in "One Man's Poison"
a few tricks
from living lines
of knowing death
is an opportunist on time.

PURGES

Liquidated
as the last speech
of the last execution
a stern jaw turns
as the house library
is looted.

PUBLIC OPINION

Separated discourse
riveting with sudden news
enlightened as dusk fades
a child chews on a candy.

THE MAQUIS

Not forgotten
in the mountains
as partisans
of Resistance
in the warming sun.

WHERE A MILAN GOODNIGHT

Where a Milan goodnight
pulls my hat into the breeze
by the roadside window
in a perpetual blinding rain
after vespers of Monteverdi
in the darkness of silence
a soccer ball near
the cab's traffic lights
makes the drive in the fog
a way to remember my verse.

RICHTER PLAYS SCRIABIN

What an encounter
breathing out sounds
of playing distant
notes released
from hands
moving in landscapes
spanning a century.

CONFISCATION

An infatuated state
of passionless
mind control optics
checks out
over a thin skinned media
in a consoling megaphone
and teleprompter
of our own aphasia
in this aged abyss
of body language
amid color digital T.V.'s
brutality contained
as a mad scene in Macbeth
in an impersonal
acting speech
striking out at us all.

RUBRIC

Bouncing back

no matter how
libelous a label
of my composition
under the cluttered table
of runaway fragments
alerted to kinetic
reaction or Oedipal
satisfaction
in a disconnected page
of scattered notes
teasing my parsed reality
of my personal
yet clandestine ease
of execution.

A POET'S DETONATION

Informers with a personal
identity surrounding us
all in the unconscious
of cutting work
for a linguistic exercise
with our ephemeral breath
burning with energy
over a natural gymnasium
with open rings to hang me
yet words get in my way
catching on the ropes
as images take over
my body language
of a jackknifed day
ineffable to the touch.

AN UNWINDING HOUR

An unwinding hour
to catch up on
thoughtful moments
not calculated by dawn
yet sorely to be remembered
phase by phrase
in a breath's wind
planting myself
by green warmly cultivated
out-door antecedents
by open fields
in an an earth-wise practice
with a poet's arrangement
of unconscious
yet desired words
as contented forms
among brambles
of language
in a network's combination
of fugitive comprehension.

DECONSTUCTION

Lilacs decompose
outside my window
opposite my kettle
of green and ginseng
restless in my voice
yet silent as the inflection
of my poem's persona
kindling of embarrassment
in a kitchen nook's circle
bare at a haven's table.

ZIP LINING

Cautious being
roped  and wired in
as an aerial runaway
shimmering by gravity
on a dirt playground
choosing life
over a death slide
between buildings
under a guiding sunlight
not willing to break
my back or neck
in the dawn's fast shiver.

DISLOCATION

Not pigeonholed by words
or Baedekers
nor by the waiting sunlight
of a myth in language
between outlines
of my secret arrangement
here for the metaphor
luminous as rolling speech
with a premonition
of this verse in my sleep
turning its fragments
in nascent dreams
of an unasked alibi
in lucid reflection of reality.

"TURKISH" CONCERTO

Rehearsing Mozart's
no. 5 in A major
concerto for violin
"the Turkish"
with rubato
for my recital
trying to quiet down
near my pianist
for Friday's recital
practicing my vibrato
in sounds not ascending
through the sound proof
studio windows
as the shade opens
and friends ask me
to play football
not knowing my uncle
and teacher forbids it.

ON THE 66 BUS

Undergoing a suspicion
of what characters
snap on my mind
for tonight
as I'm reading my play,
" A Man's World"
a biting satire
on the sexes
to be performed
at the Middle East
the sun is palpable
by the sweaty driver
trying to ignore
the traffic noise outside
yet around me eager
Harvard students,
Africans and Asians
each with lives
of busy travelers
the bus mirror's
poet underwrites.

WHAT BETTER

What better
than first light
off the green mountains
when dark leaves
first turn red and larks
sing by a nest's repose
or landing a love note
which will reach you
amid an apple's orchard.

HELP US

Help us
waiting for the sun
at the refugee camps
a lone soccer ball
along empty dirt roads
an odor of tobacco
and cheap wine spills
from green bottles
along the fetid air
by the river running flood
children climb over tents
to get away,
a horse out of Guernica
trots by an empty wagon.

GREEN OF SUMMER

Green of summer
away from the dark mist
of Cimmerian days to come
in endless fog by the seas's
unearthed shells eloping
my shadow on the shore
by an orange kayak's anchor
intoxicated by first light
of a congealed laughter.

THE HOUR

The hours metaphor
cannot calm
the sunless morning
but you,wild Oscar
wait for an aging garden
in Italy
glimpsing youth
to pardon the thorns
in a thousand rose faces.

SPENDING TIME

Spending time
behind bars
drunk behind the walls
over unmentioned verses
draped over stars
of uninterrupted curses
imprisoned by a crime
that could not speak
wild Oscar,
we have to hand it
to you.

EMERGENCY FOR A POET

Emergency for a poet
in a weightless state
has an airy elevator of time
over exigencies climb of fate

Only in a metaphysical
conceit on our condition
will cheat our musical soul
from a lyrical perdition.

LANDOR'S EPIGRAM

Those hidden years, Landor
on a life's brief moment
from tears and languor
amid strife to repent,

A quick epigram or panegyric
may yet praise your lyrics
damn objection to any critics
raised from your abjection.

MATISSE'S RED

Dissolving collages
whose red interior
opens on the lines
of an analytical couch
having had the blues
played on my sax.

INSOMNIAC

Not sleeping
played jazz
until four
then read Paz
in peace
walking the dogs
returned to my door
and looked over
catalogs of Matisse.

ALL  KNOWING

I knew a person
who had a body
with three others
in one
would often
in love
bask in the sun.

INTERLUDE

A very elderly man
meeting up shade of hill
says to his august friend
also with white hair,
"I miss the snow
in the air"
who replies,
Not to offend
or be contrary
I like the heat
and a set of drums
to beat
with my two thumbs
playing smooth jazz
makes my day complete,"
"It's with Mozart
that takes my counter part"
at the end of the mount,
the older guy speaks,
"My feet hurt,let's descend,"
his pal says,
not to be curt
why should I pretend,
I'm hot as a jet
and will take off my shirt,"
as they make their retreat.

TOURISTS

When tourists
visit Notre Dame
Chatres, St. Peter's
even Wren,
some take notes
with a ball point pen,
we seize on
all these trappings
and a delightful bell
or are we here for art
and doing your part
by napping in the chapel
or are you here
for love of God
or fear of Hell.

THE BOY
(with apologies to Hardy)

The boy had his porridge
as an adolescent his fudge
then as a man
searched on a bridge
and fell from a grudge.

THE SEA

A serene confession
by this boat's anchor
of an artistic impression
as a condor floats by,
an assurance of nature
as he flies by the lean poplar
over fields of mature dunes
and a poet in an adventure
growing into adolescence
by his digression of words
dotes on trees and a bird.

KIPLING'S VENTURE

When Empire
was a venture
in a cosmic desire
outwardly pretended
you laud its praise
as its bard-
Rudyard Kipling
with a suspended phrase
knowing its still life
had its own critic's god
and will not be open ended.

BECAUSE

Because you loved

because you hated

in your soul

because you killed

in your heart

because you desired

and denied 

and died.

IN PHARMACOPIA

In Pharmacopia
a town you live in
a street without an exit
only appointments
cancellations,
medicines,
cures, prayers,
don't come back,
just be well

2.

Enough of those years
of Hippocratic oaths
hypocrites
hypochondriacs
hospital
hospice
numbers
slumbers,
liquids
blood tests
at wits end,
just be well.

BONE MARROW

Number 18,
she sat
in the chair
with a broken watch
chain on her neck
carrying an umbrella,
"I need a transplant
but my sibling
is a runaway,
I do not have the time."
Number 19.

ALL AROUND

A sailor
with four oceans
to guide him

A lighthouse
with five ships
in view

A factory
with six workers
sleeping in

A poet
with nine proverbs
inside.

JEAN DEG0TTEX'S DAYS


Hypnotic from paintings
in a shade coloring
through air
and water drops
of patina's disbelief.

JEAN MASSAGIER'S SPIRIT

Filled with
a paint's longing
your canvas
weightless as night falls
in patinas of sky loops.

CHECKPONT CHARLIE

Checkpoint Charlie

you are no longer there

or Karl Marx Stadt
nor the Stasi
but the Germany
of democratic resistance
of Heine, Bonhoeffer
Marlene Deitrich
Brecht
Fassbinder
and in her poets must live.

QUOTIDIAN DAY

Unclear and recounted
at the end of the day
being estranged
as a self defeating sun
when it can cause
the death in your skin
yet you sit on a towel
along the beached shore
absorbing rays
for your own vanity
enjoying all the body
of language echoing
as your vitality struggles
over dizzy zig zag blankets
for tender sex's sake,
as adolescents
spawn as mollusks
at the water's edge
you find a turtle
drunk in solitude
wrinkled like your worries
resting on
myopic day dreams
encompassed by waves
summoning you to the sea,
only wishing
for a  white shell to sing
you being a good sport
long for indifferent love
turning the sand upside down
by Kafka's Castle
next to you
in quiet contemplation
wishing for more
than the ordinary,
than just raising your hand
for a blood orange
or an imported Danish cheese,
you imagine a Mondrian print
in the favorable shade,
half expecting a ship to dock
with a new Greek lover
in an aquamarine swimsuit,
or to compose a sonata
for alto clarinet
in a contrapuntal harmony
as a memory of the skies
in havens of canaries
and celestial songbirds.

JOHN HOYLAND'S'S COLORS
(1934-2011)

joy of red colors
green and yellow
fair and appears
next to my unsettled
nourishment
and present voice
now in abeyance
floating into rainbows
recalling masques
of sequences
now in your absence.

GEORGES MATHIEU'S PAINT


Circular attraction
in an abstract
it was all light
in another dimension
from mirrors
of clearing tones.

SOULAGE'S AGES


Waiting for you
not being a stranger
engraved in my soul
when I first visited you
in a zigzag of onyx
threading in a catalog
of new mediums.

AT THE MUSEUM

You write your thesis
on Delaunay
crazy for Orphism
recognizing
the abstract
guiding our conversation.

NEWS

helicopters ride over
headline news
dropped into
harrowing reports
amid the terror
of war and rumor
in the last days
you need
the good news
to save you.

WATER SHORTAGE

Rates of statistics
from catastrophic
climate critics
not listened to

under the mountain
a mother and child
under shadows of trees
only drops of rain.

A TRILOGY

A trilogy
of my prose
on stage
without a funk
of nervousness
knowing words
are my services
I bring to the world.

20 20

Fervent
to explore
all that's out there
the Beat eyes
the Beatles
or Dylan spinning
close to lyrics,
at first shy
then explodes
in optimum visions
his antenna up.

NOT REALLY

Not really a new born
a suburb
an inlet
high heels
a half mile
a hay loft
a bicycle ride
a half truth
a luxury cab
not really a poem
a drunkard
a hurricane
a whirlwind
a tropical storm
a loss
a death,
not really.

THE FIRST SNOW

The first snow
breathes outside our house
from a night's Northeaster
slumbers toward morning
when childhood watches
the shivering fields
in the grey dawn
it been a weathered March
by fir leaves and pines
and a boy near the keyhole
spies the few icicles
from the slate roof
on a frosty windowpane
and the cat runs by
waiting for its milk
as white flakes
float through clouds
in the lightening air
and a sparrow searches
on minty branches
for slices of bread.

STRIKE US

Strike us with life
in Messiah
as a stone trembling
for your love's desire
minister to me
I have no other friend,
strike me with your fire
as a Sharon rose will bend.

APOLOGIA IN ALPHABET

All my foolishness
by a mind
created for you
dictated in language
early to write
forgetting no sin
given over to
holiness
in
joy
kindness
newness of life
opening
psalms
quickly
restoring me
stay near
the saint
under
voices,
wonder
for your son.

WALTER BENJAMIN'S VOICE

You chose suicide
and culture
than the land
of your fathers
rather sweating
an existential threat
betting on revolution,
you let on to be part
of the Arcade arts
as your last regret
in the final solution.

ROY CAMPBELL'S CONCEPTION

Translating Juan de la Cruz
you feel you are not
taken in by the Left
and you were right
that there was excess
in the persecution
of the monks and priests
yet you lose
all Republican virtue
creating a mighty fortress
for Franco
who allowed the Jews
to survive if they escape
like Walter Benjamin
who almost
made it back to Spain
yet committed suicide
from centuries in fury
and antisemitic folly,
waking up
his unconventional years
of philosophical pain
when all positions fail
from those political gods
by the wall that wails
under Inquisitions
and the Holy Grail
near Roy Campbell's
prayerful interventions.

LINKED

Linked
      and renewed
  each dawn
as my sax blows
  in someone else's skin.

MARTIAN POETS

Bathrooms
pitchforks, spoons
welcome to rose-hip tea
see your poems
with their skill
recorded for all time,
leave the stars
and meteorites,
explore the ash trees.

AT THE CHELSEA

The snow masked
our blinded hotel
on our way
to the Factory
a grackle on the roof
with curdled milk
and a slice of bread
left by a rocker
who jumps to his death.

VISITING LEGER

Standing by "A man
and a Woman"
from the hand
of Leger
trembling from moving
of prism images
in cascades of color
from united elements
in a profiled cubism.

THE BATHERS

We met early
wave, kiss and depart
by "The Bathers"
rushing up
to the Cubist figures
taking an image
with me
of a luminous date
that does not separate
my memory
of resourcefulness.

EBERHART'S SOUL

Everything that has eaten
the last summer rose
in the failing frail petal
we have not forgotten
in your imperishable words,
every dolorous attention
by pink flower attrition
of unthinkable light colors.

AGNES NAGY'S MIRROR

Eye lashed
by the Resistance
your face moves
in the mirror
to make up
and take
a chance
from tension
when we mention
other poets
in post-war Hungary
only embrace
a pension,
your marginal lips
traced in red
separated
as a visionary
in a lyrical dissent
with a lovely and contrary
Agnes Nagy reaction
in a musically disciplined
descant and melody
of a ready writer's retraction.

WATCHING CARMEN

As a boy
watching Carmen
in a orchestra seat
as my cousin Rita
sang in mezzo soprano
with the its history
on the program,
outside the theater
it began to snow
kisses from the sky.

MANDELSTAM'S DREAM

Enmeshed
in correspondence
when the knock
on the the door
sent you away
you named the stars
covered in the rain coat
like Joseph in a dream
you are in the pit.

EXPECTING SNAILS

On the waterfront
a tiny store
with Canadian
French speakers
behind the counter
in white aprons
snails, escargot
to go
with a picture
of the Little Flower
on the door.

GUMILEV'S MISFORTUNE

A short night's rest
under an angel fallen sky
reserved as a visionary
sharing Anna Akmatova's
bread moving away
from table
to travel as a stone
without a monument
only among frosty stars
your voice seeks words
quivering as permafrost
forever.

SCROLLS

Scrolls hidden
underground
from hamlets
escaping exile
and grief
now alone in a garden
you count geraniums
from your window sill.

NO WITNESS

No witnesses
they say
until
the uninhabited
town
now no longer
on the map
still hears voices,
do you sense
a body of blindfolded
sleeping eyes?

WILDE RESONANCE

Picking an ethereal
bachelor button
worn on your lapel
by a cat's nine lives
near your Roman vase
watered in exile
like you transplanted
after you die again
with no laughter
in solitude.

ALWAYS BETWEEN

Between persona
and person
sound and howling
pure dawn
and grayish dusk
discouraged death
and encouraging life
between bridge
and canasta
wound and health
bitterness and pomegranate
rose of Sharon
and flowering Judas
Jacob's ladder flowers
and Violet Esau
every prophetic dream
and daily nightmare
the poet exists
to capture images
and send ideograms home.

JAYANTA MAHAPATRA 'S MANTRA

Revels and revelation
in mystery
of strange silences
centuries old divinities
spells,
wild running initiates
refreshing Ganges waters
encircled worshipers,
coiled as monks
with blood orange smells
from Darjeeling teas
cradling songs
in chasms of transparency
from snake-like cells
mystifying the serenity
of flute players
in underground caves
as a woman offers relief
to a visiting poet
from her own long suffering.

FINLAND'S SAARIKOSKI

Been there
through the infiltration
of error and terror
when history ends
at a hospice bed
and a turnip
on the menu
hopscotches out
the door
criss -crosses
and blind sighted
the underground
and onto the sidewalk
as a homeless guy
thrown of of his job
as a cook
eats the crippled turnip
invents a recipe
and become rich
in a day.

CELINE'S INSTALLMENT

Fallen as stones
dead or picked up
on grave sorrows
as white crosses
and yellow icy
coats of stars
chant over the earth,
you laugh at us
in your installment
of combs, hair,
unlucky charms,
margins in breastplates,
fingers in papers
hidden histories
black and white photos
stationary love letters
left for our conquerors.

THE TONES OF RAMANUJAN

The music of bansuri flutes
alights on me
needing a safe haven
from a string of poems
in your skinned words
opens by red spores
of Indian wild plants
near a butterfly net
of your delighted words
as tiny gulls pass on skies
by a charred world
near the sea
and you, A.K.Ramanujan
floating upon words
as tiny birds hear
in a tundra of echoes
by the combrinan shrubs
from the Ganges.

ALL RISE

All rise,
says the eccentric
hallucinogenic judge
to a jury
of his blind peers
watching the clock
all are victims
unprotected by innocence
who entangled
with defenses
of injured parties
then disappear
with justice constantly
moving us
with a conviction
in life long sentences
of incapable voices
for hours sequestered
of a mercy killing
of everyone's time.

DEATH IN AN INSTANT

Death in an instant
coffee grinds you
as the television
focuses on a commercial
of buying and selling
and a last day preacher
comes on the channel
tells us is reality
before the end of our age
for the poor and well fed
alike we eat our losses
as though nothing else
could happen
as our zig zag lives
are only crossword puzzles,
only God knows.

WHY SPEAK OF OTHERS

To read other minds
that entwine your own
is to go beyond
the unfazed bones
in fishing for lost
flesh and bloody fins
which die and regenerate
in a subterranean pink
as a changing lobster
now banished from the sea
traces nearby a turtle egg
not interfering with nature
in a fetid feverish
tidal basin
spilling over
a relieved whisper
in a lagoon and Laocoon
from a faint wave sinking.

TO CAPTURE LIVES

To capture lives
is to caption photos
ex rays and blue prints
we leave behind vines
and fences
seeds of secret maps
we have hidden
in our own geographies,
half open pictures from
red family albums
hidden away
with old stamps, coins
for another civilization
to discover the meaning
when the unknown
transformation takes place
by the heavens and rivers
speaking of that music
which never ceases.

NGUYEN CHI'S RELEASE

Imprisoned
under stars
re educated
for sleepless nights
the stone of tomorrow
cries out early
to awaken your hand
by broken silences
in tower and iron fences
knowing the sea
is out there
and the water eyes
your thirst.

SO CHONG-JU'S JOURNEY

You say
it's only words
in the valley
which rises as roses
being as mums
and mute
in fragrance
releasing petals
and more phrases
aware of every stem
as an original
in your photo
as an ex ray
of the ox
you want to name
as he circles you
and the radiant sun
overhears the sparows
drives through the dawn
in a lotus position.

GU CHENG OBSESSIONS

Long suffering
yet a smile
from the darkness
the one you deny
out on the wilderness
and wild imaged night
you hold onto trails
denying the light
of yourself more than life
hangs your own betrayal.

SHU TING'S EXISTENCE

Altercations
from your lines
of your tiny mouth
from betrayed oranges
and the photos
dead upon the rocks
submerge by the sea
fallen as ladders
and angelic rains shower
when the gesture of boats
overturns at first light
as a thousand sting rays
rise up your imagination
the second movement
suddenly devours the music
at your thin hand
against the wind's will
in a mutant mirage
of time circling
what will free you
at daybreak
the thunder returns
in the crescendo
and a fiery sun
clings and leaves us
breathless but alive.

BEI DAO'S UNDERWORLD

During the months
of undiscovered death
admitting exiled life
is planted for you
as for every poet
who like words
in the origin
of languages
is born to travel
in a refrain of grief
toward land and ocean
to seek from thirst
and hunger
for the sun's brief hour
to save metaphors
from oblivion
on a rainbow leeway
driving past crowded roads
in a remaining search
of a runaway on a highway
and motion for a hand
to pick you up
as a flower.

TAMURA'S QUEST

Searching for a time
when imperialism
and war
will be a tired
and retired crime
of desolation

Eyes
like roses awake
in speculation.

TWO LOY WOMEN


Time composes
into the words
of Mina,
a modern poet
admired by Eliot
and Picabia
knew Picasso
Stein, Djuana,
and Rousseau,

and Myrna
the screen star
and actress
as the delightful Nora Charles
in "The Thin Man,"
and as an MGM comedienne
with Spencer Tracy
in "Libeled Lady"
voted as the queen
of Hollywood
with king Clark Gable
in 1938.

MACHADO'S MOON

Moon
flashing
as a leaf
opening on lovers
turning toward
the sky
to take off
for the river bed.

RUTGER KOPLAND'S PRACTICE

You worked on nerve
endings of others
but landscapes
in the Holland
of our house
in a man-size space
and panic scene
for those who migrate
to Amsterdam
to visit a Dutch uncle
or Anne Frank
and receive a collection
of wisdom poems
in a used bookstall
from a now familiar road
among language canals
still not pulverized
or occupied.

DENNIS BRUTUS'S WEAPON

Like the justice-
seeking Brutus
wishing to be a god
hating a Caesars'
scavenger's race
of tyranny
now twice slain,
but now Dennis Brutus
in Southern Africa
an avenger
yearning to knife
the furious menacing
death squad faces
of twentieth century Cains.

JEWISH HUMOR

Legend has it
that there are
36 Righteous
on the earth
at the same time
inwardly knowing
Jewish humor
saves more lives
of everyone around
than the revolts
against their enemies
which is
their charm
that foils and disarms,
talk about gallows humor
ropey dope sarcasm
with the Three Stooges
pogroms on programs
from music stands
even gas chamber pointers,
stand up comedians
and Borscht belt jokers,
and there you have
the one liners
that make our days
out of Las Vegas losers.

BACHMANN'S CIGARETTE

Walls sink

on a fire lighted

cigarette in

an Italian apartment

and you,Ingeborg

lost in sleep

as the floors fall in

yet your work lives

beyond the dust

of borderline sunlight

dying in a solitary

net of your own purgatory

here away from madness

of our hourly bundled lives.

SORESCU'S WORD PLAY

You always fool
authorities
hiding below
their knees
in their programs
and staged playbills
not even the secret
police can police
your words
nor catch you,
Martin Sorescu
in your vanity of wit
making a liar
and satire out of them
in their own shit
before their wish
to put you
in their black van.

NORBRANDT'S CAVAFY

Two souls mates
meet one day not far
from Hamlet's feet
of stone and clay
somewhere reading
to themselves
in a Danish Cafe
smelling Turkish coffee
both killed off pastry
and a few grape leaves
Greek salad
with olive dressing,
in a moment of appetite
they wait for each other
to make way for the door
but sit by each other
smoking fags
in Norbrandt's imagination
and speaking of Byzantium.

STANESCU'S WALK ABOUT

Intervening acts
of words departures
you enter our lexicon
from a blinding rainstorm
by a stray alley cat
not expecting your words
to dissolve like showers
or save us
under your language's
black umbrella
but soothing the cat fur
and to offer a tin of milk.

ROUMANIA'S NINA CASSIAN

Under a platinum mirror

a child falls

in the abyss of angels

rises by the fragrance

of a ripened blood orange

Nina emerges dressed

and smothered 

in emerald jewels

of language

by her less 

than grand dresser

telling us no fables

as a sister or confessor.

THOMAS LUX'S LIGHTS OUT


Just when you think
he is moving toward
a promised conclusion
he moves you
in another ingenious
dazzling direction
with a metaphor's
wayward dictionary's
glimpse and shadow
of an approachable
in coming word
he passes you by
and you wonder
what drives him
with the lights out.

WATCHING THE BICYCLE THIEVES

Da Sica
impressed me
at The Bicycle Thieves
with my Italian
needing an English
translation
on a date
in Harvard Square
and later enjoying
his brilliant acting
in Hemingway's
A Farewell to Arms
with the same date
who herself became an
actress in my company
coming to the audition
on a stolen bicycle
which was once mine.

JUAN DE LA CRUZ'S OIL

The lamp wicks
won't give any relief
from the quivering heatwave
yet a motionless wind
in an immense darkness
by the Spanish cathedral's
swing of silver bells
resembles black mariahs
offering vigils
in the long corridor
leading up to the altar.

DESOLATION

Nothing but misery
in refuge of war
haystacks are fiery
yellow in country farms
with two kitchen boys
in a foreboding sleep.

PROUST'S AILMENTS

They called me Marcel
at school
in French class
a few library books
in my awkward arms
with my own timorous fears
of a body language
in conjunction
to blunted implications
of your appearance
in a picture of Combray
my poems
on my locker's mirror
minding me
of a nascent torment
from others
with a breadth of familiarity
escaping doubt
of my future
but knowing the reality
of all your nightmares
insufferable pains,
worry, anxiety
hypochondria
may emerge as art
accepted in the innocent.

VAN GOGH'S LAST

In fields
you put on
a straw hat
the butterfly
and sparrow
then a humming bird
reminds you
of your last painting
landscaped canvas
and full ear.

MUSIC SCHOOL

The timpani
drummed the sax player
out of his hurting element
reflecting the awkwardness
of a pale silent kid
with protruding
reddish lips
with a muted ear piece
disengaged and speechless
by the ruffling breeze
near the ash trees
telling each other
only the music school
will save us
from parental storms
here in the long corridor
smelling of hospital food
deciding to play soccer
on the green garden lawn
after our lessons
sharing our wash
of sharp
notes in our journals.

DYLAN

Dylan is an artful name
Bob whose voice
saved many from suicide
like-wise Dylan Thomas
no doubt fills
in the blank spaces
of our mesmerized
zig zags of our lives.

WATCHING BERGMANN

Watching Bergmann's
"Smiles on a Summer Night"
next to a Swedish friend
with his blue fixed eyes
on the screen
at the Brattle Theater
and later
discussing the theme
and sets
overlooking a chessboard
of our own pawned lives
in surrender of our nerves.

VERLAINE'S SHELF LIFE

Outside a flowerpot
of bent  July roses
on the window sill
the tame breeze
impersonates mirrors
of the word pictures
in your journal
you apprize
your sentence
from elapsed months
of writer's block
you have not heard
from Rimbaud either.

A RUNAWAY

Sun strokes
his long hair
as a beach comber
of a sandy earthiness
along the Cape
slowly walks on sands
the clouds seem to sway
as distant sea songbirds
voice earthy echoes
the heat breaks
a diminishing dawn
as tourists board boats
he watches the sparrows.

WAR

War expiated
your lips
as a wounded veteran
sits next to me
on the 66 bus
leaning with Tolstoy
on my left elbow
with his lit up way
in his early twenties
with long suffering
written legibly
on this once optimistic
boy face
his back to the wall
in a huge brace
as time reddens
the loneliness
of your two crutches
he speaks in whispers
and hobbles away
at the next stop.

DERAIN IN OCCUPATION

We have the painting
of the sympathizer
and artist of collaboration
changed several times
at Gestapo headquarters
hidden in a loft
from a dealer
taken away
to the camps
his windows closed
in the attic
hiding a few shades
and colorless shadows
of fascism's war
on the children
of sorrows.

WATCHING FILM NOIR

Shot out
of gun range
shooting off mouths
in detective gestures
to find the serial killer
in calculated later moves
from indifferent moods
in film noir
always during the rain
outside the police station
profiled as mug shots
of indissoluble doubles
who invariably show up
as a single guy
or eternal gal
in 1940's trench coats
from a traveler
on a cable car
driving with
a temporary permit
to discover the wallet
of the identity
lured by the experience
from a tape recording
as an unforgotten
documented victim.

BRAQUE'S DAY

We met
at the museum
under the Braque
on high walls
of the loft's museum
until our memories
are joined
as the glossy sun
at the entrance
your still life trace
remains sensitive
in dazzling display
like the Parisian paint
of a beautiful outline.

PICASSO'S DOVE

Those days
of anti fascism
when Spain
was on the left side
of what was right
and her plains politics
mountain painters
surrealist poets
spoke for us all,
a poster of Picasso's dove
on top of our marches
for a world image
without executioners
or inquisition.

WAYWARD WORLD

For a poet

in a wayward world

on the ruins

of hollow advice

needing the tears

of his blindsided Muse

from her transferred

hotlines

conveyed in transience

by a ethereal glimpse

at a timely emptied

loneliness
phoned in by skype

by an unhinged vision

of diaphanous soft flesh

yet difficult to bare.

IN SPITE

In spite
of war
terror
rockets
eye sockets
death squads
kidnappings
fanatics
P.R. tactics
human shields
a gaseous history
in breaths
of human responses
life rights itself.

AT THE SHOPPING MALL

Adolescent estuary
of escape
high heels step out
to a guy
hard breathing
for a blind date
yet shocked
as a capricious
drag queen
emerges denuded
from a clothing
store.

A POET'S NOTEBOOK

Unlettered in prophetic
breaks
in being centered
with no apologies
except to my Muse
placing my pen
ordered as ink dreams
from implicit signals
to paraphrase
fragmented words
on a conveyed mural
in a log of floating
body language
lands in focus
of a manicured destiny
informing us of an angst
of a buried unconscious
on the lid of a poem.

EMILY BRONTE'S EROS

Dream on a daily
vacated nightmare
covering Wurthering Hills
over splintered tiptoes
as lusting replies
from nature's conversation
in a grey corrosive
livelihood hurting Cathy
yet every wall
has a secretive mouth
of panting groans
in a convex light's mirror
when sex lies in despair.

COROT'S "MORNING"

In an easy eye landscape
the smell of the wood
chills your earthy hand
beneath a perfumed aroma
planted among vines
and a warbler's voice
sings outside with an echo
amid the swift wind
of first sunlight
wishing that the trees
would be infinite.

MENARD AT THE LOUVRE

Signs

in your benign vision

from a country table

of enigmas

unravel

in mirages

 and images

CORNELL

Shirtless

 boxed in and

outside the vigils

of an escaped 

   yet eternal

  vision

indifferent hands

 change

  immortality

in a simple order.

ROBERT MORRIS'S SELF DEPRECATION


lingering
    over
an experiment

in a deconstruction

 of  your own persona
 
sculpture in pleats

of your own nature

fooling a mask

in masculine firearms

of a denuded presence

 

RAUSCHENBERG'S ERA

Your era
in "Combines"
and silk screen palings
charms fine gauntlets
in a leitmotif 's
challenge shaken out
on trace papers
of an insight's discovery
by two columns
in a spectacles insight
here at your exhibit.

IN THE PICABIA

In the Picabia
of my mind
dawn and evening
are one
as no sun
will run out,
your figurative lines
between patinas
and meshes of color
weighs my light
on your speechless body
a posthumous solitude
from lingering weariness
your charm of gesture
rejoices "The Dance
at the Spring"
blinding memories
of our dark visible past
from a paint possibility
as luminous expression.

MALIBU

How exotic it sounded
yet in my white shorts
and Panama hat
writing a one act
on the beach
waving off
all conversation,
if memory
served me right
maybe Manhattan
sounded exotic
too at Ellis Island.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Anne Frank taken away
with her dear ones
on the ninth of Ab
in her Hebrew calendar
on the wall
to honor the destruction
of the Second Temple
and a fast was ordered,
and today Aug. 4
3 Jewish kids
murdered in Mississippi
for black civil rights
and Lizzie Borden's family
axed to death
and those who hurt
Rodney King sentenced
to jail,
O God of justice.

GOSSIP

Insufferable talk
a leg moves
under the table
on your long suffering
menu you choose
every time
we meet for brunch
given the sweet wine
in large goblets
you offer a toast
to challenge sexism
with a hanging celery
between your teeth
moldy from cigarettes
from the Casablanca
where you were a singer
as you take out
your lipstick and album
of our photographs
and papers of love notes
dried up as Moroccan figs.

CONVERSATION

It was as if
we had the same
conversation
ten years ago
the same telephoned
recorded messages
of your last words
when subject matters
silenced my pride
like unfolded
artificial petals
in an ancient Roman vase
which wanted to come a live
at me and blush
yet a few thorns arranged
are always this way
in an hourglass and water
to hinder and divide us
from a kiss
and a handshake.

EXPECTATIONS

In the park
a young actor
from the Village
reads for me
my own play
his gloves
wet with snow
tells me
the power is out
in Manhattan,
tonight off off
Broadway
is his debut
in a bowler hat
with a pipe,
yet does not show up,
the understudy
far more talented
is recognized
in the Voice
and becomes the star
without a rehearsal
such is fate
he said in Italian
of a reversal.

MILAN DAWN

The sky rows

in a pale milk cloud

rain not far off

on a hushed morning

a warbler's voice

on an industrial fence

as blond blind beggar

who is neither

a work-out guy

returning from the gym

holds out a plate

stolen from a movie set

a telephone book

drops from a purse

by a leashed dog

lightly scolded by a priest

the beggar has the purse

and goes off 

with the woman

who reads her film lines

to the muscular guy

who suddenly sees

the rainbow on the corner.

IN BATTERY PARK

Running in a marathon
before a decade
of decadence
overtook the Big Apple
the tall Moscow dancer
was in a delirium
after the war and Gulag
ripped off his family
moving to "Little Russia"
by row houses
in Brighton Beach
in told me his mother
had a heart attack
when she saw
all the food
in the supermarket
he spoke Esperanto
and we discussed
Pushkin and Yevtushenko
then he joined
my theater company
and now is in Hollywood.

A SWINGER

A swinger
and singer
walked into the club
with a rum odor
smoking pot
as I played
smooth jazz
he stood by the piano
heightening his voice
looking the image
of his famous father
a movie star,
I asked him
and he admitted it,
and tried out
for an audition
in my theater company,
a New York critic
was in the audience
saw the father
in the son
called him a god
and out to Hollywood.

SING SING

Claiming he was born
after his dad
returned from Sing Sing
he got an audition
in my theater Company
but realized he was a tenor
and deserved
to be in opera
unfortunately he was drafted
and was to go to Nam
he chose Canada
his solo highlighted
the season.

DIVA

We thought the diva
of mixed race
in a mini skirt
deserved four encores
as she sang an exquisite
Violetta Valery
playing a courtesan
in La Traviata
at the Met,
she had a wide range
was polite
and cosmopolitan
even as flirt
then she/he revealed to us
at the opera cast party
she had a drag name
Helena Handbasket
and we consumed
our vanilla desert.

BROWN SHIRT

He puts on
his brown shirt
in the mirror
feeling his oats
and proud
of his Alpine figure
by his skis
has a slice
of Black forest
chocolate cake
prepares to harm
the helpless.

SEPT,1939

The last dream
of the first love
no longer there
too little,too early
in a jumbled boundary
of a scribbled order
given by a commander
to extinguish
a shitty town.

DON'T MENTION IT

That bird voice
which passed away
in the third battle
of the fourth skirmish
from the sixth battalion
your mouth said
three words
don't mention it.

NO HIROSHIMA HEROES
Aug. 8 anniversary

Rain showers
on a murdered bird
a skeleton
at the fountain
the blood thinning
a generation
and dying flowers
are not in the picture
of the landscape,
there are no heroes
at Hiroshima
only 1945 paper cranes
released for peace.

TO LIVE

To live through
shadows of war
being straw men
at the edge
of Hiroshima
or Dachau
to sense
a dark warning
in the sky
or burning smoke
of your own death's
departure
in a slow tar
lingering smell of flesh
burning in strange
fields covering
a sickly space
growing pale
of the passing time
when no one
speaks,touches or looks
in a slip of light
at the next siren's
whistle in black lungs
of the wind sounding
from all our days.

ART CINEMA

As a child
two cowboy movies
for fifty cents
at the Pilgrim,
at my adolescence
the porno
dealers took it over
and sailors
from the wharf
came in,
followed by
others cruising
for sailors,
no more Pilgrim
or Puritans,
then I turned
to art films
neo realist films
from Post war Italy,
Pasolini, Fellini
and Bergmann's
journey from
a faithless time,
enjoying anti-
fascist movies
being partisan
rooting for the partisans,
non parasan,
then film noirs
of Hitchcock,
watching old musicals
in watery technicolor
of Esther Williams,
followed by
sex and race films
then Disney animation
finally swallowed up by
cheap double bills.

MESSAGES

On a lost plane
our bird shot red eyes
receive messages
above the live horizon
in a radar morning
under laptop clouds
of sky writing
hovering in safe passages
with a sound of words
trembling in an instant
from our realigned emotions
in a sphere of terror
glued to our seats
hoping from this sheltered
yet tumultuous time
and din of existence
off shore
a cool wind will surface
as in an old outer space
black and white film
the pilot speaks to us
and we make a landing.

DISPLACEMENT

It could be you
in any line
from identifying
your body language
in trembling answers
not knowing
the heat
from your questions
could not excuse
your death in life.

A TIME WITHOUT US
(1939-1945)

A few attempted rescues
when anguish nods
in fragile silence
from fascism's turgid face
of an adversary avowed
to take over the world
in seven cities of Europa
you are pursued
without a passport
in a faithful economy
of survival mode
you will perish
on a deceitful rope.

RENOIR PRINT

You kept the Renoir print
in your large purse
throughout the occupation
and the round-ups,
there in the snow
without any socks
around your ankles
with torn shoes
running by the Loire
hiding by the last winter
in abandoned buildings
no doors open to you
even the museum
closed its doors
in ashen liquid silence
without precedent.