LIFE CHANGES

Life changes

as a worm and stork 

head for New York

in the rain and snow

washing out our drains

in the Big Apple,

day after day while sailing
on the South Seas

Melville after whaling

fishes for wisdom

ipso facto in a hymn
to freedom,
a stand up comedian

realizing we the spoken

hear the June bug crowd

ripping with laughter
all the way to Hoboken

like feathers from waters
then watches
the feeding of the birds
near St. Francis chapel
by Brooklyn's graffiti walls

and gently with a surname

enters a French bakery

where saint Henry James
lives on by Washington Square,

the poet- comedian buys
a spinach croissant from a tray

catches a dripping hot latte
in a drenched cup and saucer
says a prayer under his breath
buckling under his knees
asking for the angel Michael

that he make the right choice
by not taking a wrong turn

of going the other way

in the dead end alley by the bay,

he wishes to visit an art arcade

with the exhibition's consultant
and a friend of his great aunt
Gertrude, full of Kultur
with her incongruent confidence
in her nephew
with inconsistent excuses
of his own critical indebtedness
to her back home in California,
her furniture always dressed
in Dutch laced doilies
who once taught
the Fifties expressionists
here on a park bench,
her nephew announces

"I'm here with her permission

filled with potential"
now a young poet
with existential nerves

like Hamlet

with adolescent inhibitions

in drawing lots with many coats
of multiple colors
covers the sunlight galleries
with his picture verses

and turning his life around

in creating a portrait of Gertrude
and her daughter on a napkin,

it's not enough to be merely good

in this artsy neighborhood

here after so many years spent

by Babylon's twin towers

now with the high buildings rent

cannot hide any original spin

in any tree of life metaphor

as pastor James the lay minister

gives love to his neighbors
by the laying on of hands

from knuckles of his skin

once this morning
in a work out at the gym
he trying assure the congregation

as a priest returning from war
for he is a repentant chaplain

among the night sweepers

views the grim reaper

no longer as a stranger
at the lottery counters
giving out surplus food
to the multitude
meeting the former prisoner
and Santa Barbara gambler,
Tim ,once a fresh captive
of Vegas's loser hell
in every show and tell
as in a wide screen personnel

who still hides out
but now arrives at church
to ring the bells
he returns the lector's pages
in a Latin singing hymnal
Tim,once a former prize fighter
and champion of the flesh
as wrestler of his fate
once with carnal censorship
always passing on his plate
who now worships
in a new relationship
by the manger's baby creche.