LUCIAN FREUD
Dec 8 birthday


Lucian Freud
escaping fascism for England
drew us to the museum wall
of his explorations
from our modernist psyche
over islands of colors
no matter how his comedy
compares with our own spasms
at the parodies and paroxysms
ever biding on a brave impact
with complexity and proximity
in spacial newness
and a special panache
on a museum's display
in scenes of eccentricity
in the candid nature
of shaping art
from a city narrative
at our century's influence
from sympathetic and synthetic
innovation of expression
finding at portraits escapes
to interview model and painter
as an aesthetic interior
of our own discovery.

PLAYING MARTINU

Dec 8 birthday

I played your jazz idioms
in your classical music
Martinu
knowing you studied
in Paris
with the conductor
Charles Munch
who lived near us
watching him as a boy
walk his dog
up the Blue Hills
my aunt introduced me
to you as a child prodigy
and we talked of Martinu
at the symphony
then had an audition,
yet with the musical world
at my feet,
"BZ suddenly turned
into a crazy Beat"
(some relative said)
at my family's only hearing
yet comparing
every note of every phrase
of playing Martinu
he thought that poetry
was only a phase
of my adolescence haze
yet the presence of words
kept me to relax
interweaving, illuminating
with my violin and sax
in a recital circling on tour
and on Martinu's birthday
he will not be ignored
but will play in his honor
at a local venue
from his first sonata's score.

DON'T WAIT, LENA

Don't wait
a moment
write, play, compose
don't lose a Beat poet's
line of thought
for Lena a flower child
of the Sixties
still puts on a rose petal
over a California float
caught up in the frenzy
for the coming parade
in Pasadena
don't wait, Lena
or fritter away
each day
just don't float,
wade or fade away
in the Pacific
but show boat
with your keen wit
as a stand up
or you will sit
with a cup of pea soup
or knit in a rest home
without even a T.V. dinner
see that you don't despair
in a motel room
nor pull your hair out
with a comb
dream, be with it,
Cousin Lena
and renew your youth
desire the earthy dew
with your poetry laurel
cover a green Parnassus
with Jason's memory
it's where the Muses live
on the mountain lift
forget all family quarrels
your lover may still be heard
as a Christmas gift
though not alive
since his ski fall
in Greece
Jason is still
in your golden fleece
he will live in peace
with twenty candles
spread out on the cake
with red wine in a bottle
it's on us, awake, awake
Lena, put your hand
in mine,
forget Whoopi on T.V.
life is a drama that goes on
you have no enemy
in the family
forget the many years
of psychiatry
after Jason's parting
life has a way of outsmarting
any loss
play the trumpet or drums
sing from Samson or Delilah
read Plato or Aristotle
hold onto the cross
or join a free chorus for us
as Handel's Messiah sings
out from the symphony
with timpani crashing.

ICE SKATING

You put you skates on
as you enter the rink
near the glazed Frog Pond
on Boston Common
by your mates
and start to sink
but it's happened before
so you think
and here is friend
by the icy blaze
and you are sure
to think twice
as I watch you
with my sheep dog
intently in the haze
you take the advice
of your teacher
as he reaches for his niece
she is safe.

STEPPING OUT

The sky's stars
surprise me this December
resisting the awaking cold
with a consuming light
inside my telescoped heart
which enfolds light snow
in my rock garden
doing my part to remember
and like St. Francis to pardon
and feed the last chorus
line of floating birds
near the lake
as a homeless needy soul
who calls himself Linus
lights an animated bonfire
near the church
circling our bodies
as the winds increase
let our own common ground
bring words to search
in a self effacing metamorphosis
and grace for peace.

KANDINSKY'S BIRTHDAY
Dec. 4

Images and icons
transfixed in my memory
when as a child
as in a waking dream
with my uncle and aunt
in the Big Apple
after a chocolate croissant
strolling in the museum
got a glimpse of Kandinsky
in assuaged surreal colors
asking to admit to art
in chaotic fingerprints
of a wild abstract
along scenes by corridors
of luminous language
hoping to draw near
the long paneled halls
to take the part as any guide
from Virgil to Dante
searching like Christ
for a bride
knowing only beauty
survives all what has buried
in early winter has not died
and instruct us for the ages
for what is on the wall.

YOSANO AKIKO
birthday Dec.7, 1878

The lyrics you pen
from your wrist
are still modern
and delicate in their twist
of raw cutting emotion
from your pacifist words
here in a Japanese Zen garden
by the sands of an ocean beach
we swoon to participate
as you pardon our wounds
we wait on the small birds
from a less fevered heaven
to reaching out
in a lyrical way
and sing a musical chorus
by the mourning dove
and all we ask
is a handful of stones
to toss by the river
shivering from hunger
in this orphaned world
at a monastery's silence
under the juniper trees
and red Autumn yews
away from storms
of war rumors and violence
we hear on the radio news
to be delivered by a warm sun
along this breezy river bed,
visit us today Yosano Akiko
with the beauty of your verse
covering a unique fiery spark
with friendship and kinship
from all shadows of the dark
bring us to seek your light
where we are safe from snow
covering the Common statues
as a cat appears by mistletoe
here in early winter
we wish to hear a lark
over a bright fir tree's glow
at a public park.

HORACE'S BIRTHDAY
Dec. 8 65 BC-8 BC

Why did taking Latin
for four years
ignore Horace's odes
considered too controversial
in his textual codes
for a chorus of children
and yet we see quotes
patterns and traces
from his sexy verse
on commercials today
as he influenced Dryden
and the moderns
like Hopkins, Housman
and Auden's universe
in his "Blame Poems"
with its disarming verse
of lyrical satires or scandal
from whom musicals
are still inspired
in Manhattan's Broadway
we desire his charm
on his birthday
December 8th
for a clever poet
never retires
for heaven's sake
or puts the candles out
on his fiery Roman cake.

RILKE'S LAST RIDE
Dec. 4 1875- 1926

Moving in the cafe
your eyes toward the glass
of an apologizing red wine
reading a daybreak letter
from Marina Tsvetaeva
on a white laced napkin
she wishing him
an animated greeting
of a happy birthday
amid the still shade of winter
in the windy noonday air
feeling they will never meet
though it is both their desire
as he glimpses a familiar face
and an inky Russian signature
from his muffled red scarf
a cold Vienna lamp
near an ardent first violinist
plays the second Hungarian
dance of Brahms
as cat-shadows tremble
along the dawn blue wall
of quick first light
as all the black birds
have gone away
toward a frozen Danube
as a poet's last ride
transforms his words
from a sheltered carriage
in a rapid horsemen's tears
as Marina Tsvetaeva
throws stones by the rivers
which do not come back
as the word songs of Rilke
are heard by memory
along the Volga or Neva.

THE SHIPS ARE EXILED

It is almost that Thursday
November 26
and the ships are exiled
with this poet chaired
to a rock in Plymouth
near the Mayflower air
transfixed in a home harbor
with the lone love letter
in an open sax's hand
by a percolating coffee
under a Pilgrim poster
between whale sightings
reciting a Melville poem
from the open portholes
and offering thanksgiving
to anyone hungry at table
this morning and nightfall.

IN THE MOON'S SOLITUDE

In the moon's solitude
waiting for the hand-outs
of my new poem sequences
among the last red leaf
in the whistled leaves
waiting to play sax
in the breathing of waves
from a montage of pages
in my impatient mind
and outside are November stars
grieving for the silent woman
Allegra a long time friend
who has family in Paris
telling her the only answer
is to love a heart that is light
and she asks me to play
a lucid French tune
of her childhood
before she left for America
and the evil doers invaded
her luminous memory.

JAZZ PLAYING

Smooth jazz playing
from now shut mouth organs
at a natural good night
for my last gig
buried over quarter notes
drowning in pockets of sax
bellowing over the townhouse
asked to play at a birthday party
by a warm bombed out menu
warmed by wood stoves
in a November midnight hour
watching a bird through windows
chirping under trembling oaks
in the soft showery rain
the whole length of hours
remembering French onion soup
and vanilla pancakes
on the fire near the floorboards
to watch dancing and propose
a toast that persuades you
that the thirst and hunger
of our menu wheelhouse
is perfectly arranged.

WALDEN POND TRAILS

On the Concord river

we sail my kayak in denims

by a swarming nest of hornets

over us by a fawn rustling by trees

we're spreading lines of Thoreau

at my students orientation

wishing to hold hands of language

flashing love and nature

by first circles of light

with a glow in companions

breathing hard in a marathon

from grassy hills and dunes

under dry orange leaves
as new Fall acorns drop
we run into shadowy strides
as a horse back rider waves
to us down hills of open songs
over Walden Pond trails
by breezy gestures of the wind.

ON LENGTH OF DAYS

Words fall on me
on length of days
with the same pulse
of verse as on my kayak
rolling on the bluest sea
on unexpected hours
or trekking over back roads
watching cardinals sing
over Jacob's ladders
in an open language
of seasonal herons
climbing on mountains
a woman in red high heels
tells me she has lost
her tourist visa and passport
on the last ship at eventide
holds my matches
on the sandy coast
for a neon campfire
near my hammock
out in the neighborhood
under the town's light
hearing my sax sonata
in the white deserted sand
my words wash over you
with a butterfly net
at the freshly painted gazebo
by the lighthouse luminosity
in wonder of woodwinds
over blanket quilts of love
on my peace arm band.

FROM MY BOAT

Early at my untied rope
from my anchor on my boat
lent to me by woodcutters
from the Azores
who enjoy singing
amid a rainy dampness
searching for blue fish
oysters or salmon
passing the heavy dunes
and sleeping rocks
in a sunlight landscape
on ports of call
by sea voiced shore birds
in a chorus by pine trees
chirping on boundless Oak
touching the tall greensward woods
as acorns fall over green hills
crawling by white sands
my sax sings by the waters
off the Cape hidden by leaves
birds take off for the South
in an unusual consuming sun
at a November's noonday
with a Marathon companion
as a few deers run by us
in a flash of first light
of red and orange dry leaves.

AT CEDAR GROVE

The wind of the blue hills
drinks in my Fall morning
in a landscape I'm drawing
full of liquid horizons
in a vapor of life's shade
to make up for a poet's
lost Monet blue sky time
missing my Paris days
when parking my bicycle
near the iridescent Seine
when I was an extra
in a student film on 1968
induced a smile
playing the auditioned part
of a student of Sartre
and Simone de Beauvoir
talking to the camera
in two languages
from a documentary fashion
about Derrida, Julia Kristeva
and other deconstructionists
whose daring moments
update my poet's diary
of a zig zag life
as liquid raindrops fall
on my cool drowned sax
with my music of smooth jazz
used in the sound track
was also recorded
from an absent street
deep of conflicted dialogue
by awaiting to be interviewed
from a group of reporters.

AT MY ROCK GARDEN

Six outgrown petals
in a corsage
of last summer roses
three Valentines
not forgotten by time
a first woodland love
by wandering days
over my album leafs
page of my poems
in mute muse and stone by
the waiting hedges of vines
by yellow hyacinth groves
I'm in a Fall blue blazer
with apple scents
in faint trills from my sax
playing in my backyard
along wind swept trees
along the home harbor Bay
by dangling shadows
of now ripened raspberries
on my walking path
holding my life within.

WHO KNEW,MAGRITTE
Born Nov 21, 1898

Who knew
that Magritte
would inspire
the sky sound of bells
in the spit of an exhibition
and an eyelid of the moon
for a surrealist poet
living before a gesture
of endless words of love
in all that is dusk
and ink learned pencil shadows
as an outside observer
whitened seashells and harbor
marble stone and rocks
etched in your drawing
with me in a helpless November
overgrown with elder flowers
and heavy dream songs
of my own sadness
would fill the night
to admit me to your gallery
holding onto your colors
shouting for green
Rene,
do let me in your drawings
not caring to sleep again
on burning caresses
or sailing permafrost
full of forsaken awe
from shaken cranberry bogs
with my sheep dog on all fours
by mildew suburban roads
in nobody lands
kindling a thin haven
of your sculpted sinews
of overdue memory
with martins over me
open to hear your voice
in your etchings
of light magical figures
from trembling fingers
in the corner of my eyelid.

KOKOSCHKA'S LEGACY

Butterflies at the exhibit
out of breath
from a marathon run
and enjoying Kokoschka's art
his painting of himself
and Alma Mahler
gathering into the parlor light
from pumice sky scrapers
in the lasso of adolescence
indurate with no sleep
and an assignment
for my class on my last lap
before final exams
mixing colors of bougainvillea
by my November's umbrella
my eyes transfixed
in the enclosures of phonics
on the highest range
of slamming on paint
with infinite strokes
brushing my sensations
and a day old mustache
making everything persuasive
hanging out in a museum corner
with a first love
thinking everything to be new.

SITTING IN ART MOVIE HOUSE

Alone in the art movie theater
eating pop corn and m and m's
for three days of a blizzard
with my college uncle Nat
a student at the New School
and projectionist
who became a director
and executive in L.A.
when he was older
watching accompanied
by Tuesday Weld
and Frankie Avalon in
"I'll take Sweden"
then remembering being
transfixed by the sunshine
after the storm was over
and outside the waterfront
eating at a French cafe
filet of sole and fries
hearing fog horns and tugboats
harboring coasting rocks
the ocean literally
started to sing
and for being a boy
without complaints
was taken to Sweden
by Uncle Nat as a gift
at that time for Christmas.

THE GREEN FLY(in the It HAPPENS series)

It happens.

The green fly was our nickname for our sixth grade substitute teacher for Allegre Antoine Griffin

would would sing French tunes to us after she told us it was her code name during the war.

She was giving out croissants at our lunch. We asked her about rumors in the school that she

was a one a good spy. She told us she worked in the Resistance where she met her poet husband

who was murdered by the Nazis after being caught in an Allied ambush in Lyon.

We could  actually picture her in a trench coat in the rain.

Later we learned she married an American GI. who came to pick up our teacher at the end

of the school day.

There was a boy in the back of the class who yelled out "Daddy."

SPACE SHIP  (in the It Happens series)

It happens.

We imagined if we hid in the back of a space ship at Cape Kennedy or Kazakhstan as a astronaut

or cosmonaut we could actually fly to the moon.

We corresponded between two countries as pen pals. Yet as we attempted to board with our home

schooled passes we met other creatures who where none too friendly who captured us, put us

on the back of the bus and the world never heard of us.

But one of the most outrageous creatures with strange features called up the C I.A. and K.G.B.

respectively saying we were kidnapped and taken in for questioning and sent to the opposite

country all the years of the cold war.

Igor become Jimmy and I was Igor. I was sent to Cuba with the Venceramos Brigade to cut

sugar cane and met with  members of the Fair Play for Cuba committee and Jimmy was aligned

with Progressive Worker Children as spies.

Jimmy met a guy who the press claimed killed a president and I met so many red diaper

babies who were in the nuclear freeze movement and almost sent to Siberia.

We found a neutral place to meet but the creatures were still around, snapping our pictures

for their files now hopefully in the dead letter box.

We learned each others languages and the authorities knew what we liked in bed. At every job

interview or on any date the weird creatures showed up to hypnotize us. They despised

"earthlings" as they called us.

They tried to make us as the enemy and pretended to befriend humanity. Jimmy got a hold

on their space craft and blew it up. The next hour it was back.

No one would believe our story in the literati or the daily press.

RED MARBLES(in the it Happens series)

It happens.

We had a game on May Day watching the big shots of those who survived the year to be on the

Politboro. We had different marbles we saved up to gamble. We could cheat if we asked our

parents if the Prague papers  (usually more accurate than Moscow's press) hinted at a change of

politics and who was in charge.

I'm sure this game of the children in the populace could also be played in National Socialist

Germany, in ancient Rome or among the emperors or Egypt if allowed.

I was down to three red marbles when we saw a new leader and he was not very known

though it was whispered he helped starve the Ukrainians in a nonexistent famine in the 1930's

that he has a peasant mentality himself even though someone claimed that he wrote his thesis

on Lysenko's wisdom about his agrarian wisdom on the burden of the Kulaks in the woodshed.

I bet my marbles that he would last a few years, that he would visit America, that he would

turn against Stalin's memory and Igor had to give me his marbles. May Day was a chance

for Russia to show off its larger rockets in a Freudian sense and to blow off steam. But for

us children life was only one game to play, to see who was on top.

MOZART MINIATURE (In the it Happens series)

It happens.

The Mozart miniature statue was on the piano in a Parisian living room when the Vichy police

working with the Nazis was stolen.

After the war it found its way to Berlin when an American G.I. found it and brought it to New

York City.

In a pawnshop the owner of the Mozart miniature who was a pianist saw it in the window at

Christmas- Hanukkah time in December.

It was snowing and Anna spoke to the elderly proprietor. She invited him to her recital and

told her of her musical life interrupted by her time in a death camp and how Mozart saved her

life as she played him in her memory until liberation.

Anna received wonderful reviews and wherever she travels the miniature goes with her even

in Paris or Berlin.

When the curtain came down an unknown person wrote Anna a note, saying " I was young

and fascist, who invaded your studio now I am crippled by the war  in Russia and am truly sorry."

BLIND DATE (In the It Happens series)

It happens.

Marie sat there waiting an hour before petting her dog and the dog receiving her love. Billy was

late as he had to fix his new car, having turned sixteen. He keeps putting on Aqua shaving lotion,

even on his newly minted chest. He also has with him nude photos from the carnival nearby and

some protection hopefully for later in the evening.

He is at the bar making contact with Mary who is much prettier than Marie. They decide

to walk out on Marie as they notice a white cane beside her.

"Mary, you never know what you find on the internet."

She notices Billy's bulge and accommodates him.

They are at the drive-in watching one of the Gidget beach movies until the end of night when

they notice Marie holding hands with another blind person and her dog a seeing eye.

NOVEMBER IN PARIS, 2015

No light
in the Eiffel Tower
no music in a concert hall
no art at the Louvre
no menus for even a croissant
at the outside cafe bench
no doors at the restaurant open
no people enjoying life around you
no one reading poetry
and with Notre Dame closed
finally opens on Sunday
we glimpse the hurt souls
in the French body of liberty
as an ally is knifed by violence
disbelief rises in us
nothing makes sense
from the darkness of "Why"
to reinvent this memory
in silence of all conscience,
we think of Joan D'arc
to share and say
France you will not die
and say "yes " to life.

WHALE WATCHER

By the lighthouse shadows
a right whale ascends
to the surfaced air
rising to encircle us
those left here in Plymouth
by the famous rock
as the captain's tour guide
points at the camera
with Ahab's finger still on him
feeling like Melville's spirit
is with this musician- poet
alive with our November breath
checking out nature's power
by a roaring of waves rising
watching the big fish
and thinking of Jonah
praying in sackcloth at Nineveh
here is a stretched out
frosty mouth whale
with maladjusted lip
entangled by rope
demanding to get a fair look
at his unexpected exposure
now a wild sound is heard
from the daring deep
and all we wish for
is for the whale to be safe
and to hope for closure.

MARGARET ATWOOD'S LIGHT
Birthday Nov. 18

We waited to hear you read
for over a generous hour
from a short cloudless river
at a light distance at the Charles
in Cambridge by a bird chorus
under the misty November rain
from an academic room
in an old brick building
making your words invulnerable
yet grafted in a moonlit time
to your singular wonder of words
which shine outside the waters
by a dizzy night sky of birds
in a illumined vineyard
reflected from your speech
prompting me
as we walk not to be late
under red  and orange leaves
over puddles to arrive early
in reaching for immortality.

CELAN'S NIGHTMARES
Nov. 23 birthday

The backbone of any survivor
say Treblinka ,Hiroshima
or Sobibor
has not broken a mirror
or cracked the code of a poet
in the war's background
as a child sounds out near
iron curtains and blinds
of quarantined string
and shutters between states
where souls cannot leave
or stay anywhere to sing
without any earth's ashes
to call your own
but smashes a century's icons
wavering in unspoken lines
which make certain waves
in your long corridor's voice
from dry bones breathing
out of an exiled music.

ALLEN TATE'S BIRTH
NOV. 19

Each hour reading you
is taken inside
a fugitive's comfort zone
at fourteen stations
on the 1865 agrarian nails
still over the Southern cross
seen in sky blue sequins
of the starched bridal gown
in florid and liquid Maple
from a beloved Marian flower,
at sixteen when on vacation
reading you by the ash trees
in a capable romantic hammock
how you chose to smoke
out the sectarian candles
on your scintillating marble cake
murdered over
your third wedding day plates
yet offering to us a fern of memory
darkened at our failing history
watching the impolite clock
of Abe Lincoln at Ford's theater
your shuttered words twisted
shot up and pistol whipped
in a beautiful conscience
of a silent yet resilient pacifist
an enlisted cool knight of faith
whose radiant showering verse
iced the twisted body of my thesis
in a rested masked silence
of masculine -feminine
middle aged authorities
yet sensitive to form and grace
divining the spirit of a poet's place
reminding me of the movie star
in a guerrilla's role for Errol Flynn
as a good guy Robin Hood
in your forest neighborhood
as we watch an intruder thief
with an assassin 's scrutiny
in the night awakening curses
at rambling fearful sounds
for an ace of diamonds history
in a four of clubs you win
up your  pace of a gambler sleeve
at Arthur's grail fought for
the immortal chalice cup
around a superficial enabler
seeking another Guinevere
not  ever playing the joker
in life's clever lottery
but not ever giving up
outside at the parking spot
with any Lancelot who was there
always up for a sword fight
at the rear and avant garde Word
but only using your facial verse
in mirrors, bars and round tables
made into a poet's romantic life
critically free toward you
in so many scrapes forthcoming
as a token of papal love returned
the things of unspoken powers
hanging just by the thin rope
of belief you earned your reward
amid the towers of angels wings.

ROLAND BARTHES AT 100
Birthday Nov. 12

Now no words
for a Beat, no limits
from your ideas or career
only an empty voice and tomb
looms ahead
as a immaculate id, ego,
and portrait of the nearly great
Roland Barthes is hid away
who loved to write of defects
and effects on other personas
like on the novel genius
of marvelous Marcel Proust
but Barthes did not have poof
why once forbidden one liners
live on and into grief
remaining on remainder
shelves so many years
in unbelief until I picked up
his "Mythologies" in Paris
on an unfortunate library date
Nov. the twelfth of your birth
nearby the Seine bench
back to critical Sorbonne
a bit embarrassed in a disclaimer
to read you in French
but you did not want to be read
only to be an idol and icon
chanted by your academic friends
in the seedy Autumn dawn
on a lonely muted rain
realizing in the final exam
when you never recanted
as an innovator and surprised me
by the self hatred of the past
you were no more farsighted
that the swan before me
by the grassy mirrors into
a red leafless riverbed.

WALKING ON

Walking on sand dunes
squatting on blankets
between earth and big sky
on Crane's beach
picking up shells by the shore
reaching to hear bird voices
over the vacant sea
while composing a sonata
in B major
for piano and viola
to embody this morning
as red and orange leaves fall
from my mountain top excursion
and now daily rest as squirrels
quickly climb over Oak
wanting to meditate
by a first glued ear
to the cooling ocean air
in a half light early hour
wanting to float over water
stretched out in November
at my last brief kayak trek
coiled in my Franciscan song
that in dawn my tongue utters
from a mouth of its ineffable love
headlong into a diving wave
once covered
in  an eye sore white dust
which pulsates on my feet
by a labyrinth of waves
remembering the stray cat
by the aqueous chorus of wrens
a poet lies smothered
by a circle of infant birds
who walk me to the Bay
as three snow flakes fall.

PROGRESS ON WHITE MOUNTAIN

Going up as a lucid poet
through separate hills
yet being muted in caves
of the buried Vermont crevices
by arriving early travelers
on first iced snowy peaks
that all look alike
in colorful fleeced jackets
with my own binoculars
yet abandoned in my pilgrimage
as repetitions of morning light
open a witnessing hunger
of promised goings over
spying a caught speckled fawn
spiked near the bushes
needing a rescue in a clump
of entangled Maple trees
shading my blinding eyes
brushing through a tall wilderness
conversing with November's body
of west winds whipping my back
between bands of rains
in a cloudy forecast
motionless in a landscaped shot
by leaning on a scraggly boulder
as my adolescent scout memory
returns in a daily litmus divide
of my own cross examination
when opposing forces
crash your body releasing
over the minor monitors
of our own ego egging us on
emerging to bluff our way
in a metaphysical anguish
when we silence the gliding
of an early embodied journey
in a lonely intimation
of our fast footfalls
on this frosty Fall hike
carrying my bundles of water
and brie cheese baguette
up these White mountains
with only the song bird
in the cleft of the rock
waiting for his bread.

TO TAKE BACK TIME
(For Phllip Larkin 1922-1985)

In the trampled weight
surprised by the waves
along the ocean
sharing the double oars
of a dissonant hour motioning
from the transient siren songs
of a swinging chorus chants
like honorable Odysseus
seeking to return home
to Penelope
after his troubled time
thinking of you, Phillip Larkin
without any sense of venture
in your cold water flat
over the English Channel
did you ever imagine travel
or leaving for Greece
yet only counting ashen faces
of your own hell bent grief
walking into Jason's fleece
of a woolen blankets
on cold Fall nights
worrying about the rent,
yet your work out dream
in full body opening
of words that make our worlds
double their inheritance of love
without any reason of belief
even in our exiles, shipwrecks,
open heart operations,
chance living in Gulags,
on soccer fields, war zones
reciting canticles
by a hundred candles
we survive in long corridors
from sheets, hands over pianos
or behind troubled recital doors
holding onto your verse.

PILGRIMS ON MAYFLOWER
Nov 9, 1620

Pilgrims sight land here
on Cape Cod
believing it was no whim
that shaped and shared
an enlightened plan of God.

BETWEEN US

Between phlox in a rock garden
and pebbles from the sea
the dead stones come alive
from my noon daydream
of tackle fishing in November
on the other side of the Bay
here for a last run on the Cape
miles away from the shore
as trout survive
seconds, seasons, times
now remembering my headlight
of my motorcycle
needs to be switched off
e mailing my sailor friend
along these predicable waves
visiting me from England
who plays drums like Ringo
named by his blues singer mom
who named him after
her attending in London
my Beat poem reading
hoping Ringo
would become an ecologist
traveling like his brother Mo
on roads always of exodus
living in tabernacles and tents
over unnoticed desert borders
to protect and rescue turtles
sea lions, whales, other mammals
by outposts of crowded sails
under chromatic rays by sunshine
with look-outs over grassy island
though Ringo was a Hollywood extra
in a brief dust up column
about a movie involving
a triangle affair
starring his wife Brenda
who was also film director
who understood his life of venture
and eventual poetic surrender,
tells me not to worry even though
he is tossed in motionless waves
riddled by his own jokes
in his blue angler kayak
who says he noticed
the old Harley and fixed it
in the parking lot on the dock.

LET THIS NOVEMBER

Let this November dawn
be a morning
of such Keatsian perception
that signs and wonders
will be in our hiking direction
thinking to pause on windows
to watch chimeras of songbirds
hearing cicadas and cardinals
on whatever road we travel
by Robert Frost's birches
on James Dean's cycles
thanking life's moments
for a worthwhile day spent
bemused by glimpsing times
of recluse Salinger in Vermont
for miracles of Kerouac's prose
or visiting Emily at Amherst groves
where we park on the right route
over deep expressway obstacles
by a thick river of cars
off the pike to her cemetery
planting a shoot of roses
from near my rock garden
and along the Cape's riverbeds
to seek in very boundless words
as a cool mortal Beat
and a smooth jazz guy
in my hands, toes and feet
may pardon, circle and disclose
of their memory when the grass
on the golf fields are still green
we will remember the rumor
going round this map and square
that even in our terrifying times
when we are lost in traffic
eyeing the orange and red leaves
in the sponged sunny footfalls
of their Autumn foliage
our aging still life has the art
in a language of humor to share.

MARATHON

Jolts in my body
hitting the wall
hearing barefoot fans
interceding for us
by road beds on river ruts
our shaken up bodies
near birds on statues
singing by tree stumps
at the first hour of dawn
by indelible tracks
on distant paths
crosswise near green hills
some recounting time
others wishing to make
a record for themselves
under reconveyed bridges
soon with wobbling knees
and sweated shoulder pain
bodies with feet blisters
cramping hope on rugged terrain
far from home
with one hand clasping
from two sidelined
recumbent leaning bodies
wishing us well
all in search for meaning
or here for charity
as our salt eyelids
rivet from its blur
wanting oxygen
and a bottle of water
rising to a jazz rhythm
keeping in the lane
forgetting past riffs
by helping one beside us
to get up from the grass
hearing sax music on the field
of a recent blueberry harvest
grinding around us
with fourteen hours left
to mimic last night's sleep
yet pressing toward
the recondite right landmarks
gambling on this day's calling
with no stop watch
not quitting until dark
until the yellow finish line
appears out of now where
yet miles not acquainted
or time acquitted
falling short for rest
in my path by a golf course
near crooked peaks
and red birch
as runner ups in landslips
over greensward dales
trying to be undaunted
but not fully understanding
why here at my age
taking turns over this time
off and on windy lashes
unlaced in a chalk circle
following an eagle on the Bay
not frightened by a skin head
on the side of the road
in any gifts of suggestion
but with our better life spirit
my heart seeking more water
yet determined and vigilant
to keep running the race
in a touch patch of life
without strength of flesh
near St. Joseph's church
now too hungry to change lanes
but to shower quickly
without inspecting any damage
get into a coat of many colors.

NOVEMBER 9TH BIRTHDAYS


It's November 9th with
a wonderful birthday wish
for Anne Sextant
and James Schuyler
are still here in a city vista
seen by critics or academics
in a brief era winding by
to the extant that words,
suffering, identity, love
still matter between earth
above summits of the sky
in this time of sensation
publicity, and celebrity
of do, die or acquit
from a untamed anger
a competent shame
of deep benevolent feeling
and close enchantment
between poet and reader
that a life's pulpit confessional
was more than a scattered obit
like filtered water
for a returning bird feeder,
when a son or daughter
who discerned about suffering
was asked and then learned
to come out in practical life
not to be hidden as in a veil
or under a holiday's
forbidden mask
in a free pass
or press expression
or from a Village gossip column
for more than a concession
in a miracle moment's pause
but today there are few
solemn hours of care
for such expression,
yet why not for us
to remember them
with a single candle incident
as November 9th births
of Anne Sextant
and James Schuyler
for all their laughter and tears
of their vigilant fans behalf
after these writer's have gone
there is a now a neophyte
vocal chorus of shared souls
living fearless among scandal
in their local place
surrendered to leaving us more
than a loving covenant
of two added names on a roll
of all these unscrolled years
in a wired newspaper dispatch
as a crowded afternoon fades
they are not anonymous now
knowing how wronged they were
snatched only for our eternity
in their own famous
mad Sixties time and space.

THERE IS STILL ONE ROSE

There is still one rose today
by the icicles to make me alive
many shall pass its red petals
yet only a few ardent neighbors
or strangers will be impressed
by Vermont's turning nature
even think how the lonely flower
still survives in a sleepy garden,
for life is a brief page of news
to laugh or to weep,
as two adolescents with attitude
first in jest then in a narrative
not making any sense
to the garrulous eye
start a warring jealousy
of a fight on the wrong street
as a poet prays they will change
without any crime or violence
that tension of revenge will cease
in a submissive space of time,
as the geometry teacher
and a strong wrestling coach
intervenes as an arbiter
with a gesture for some peace
and the two boys leave alone
at a standstill in silence
with a high five,
here in a nest of songbirds
emerge from the Oak tree
by the chrysanthemum's river bed
who may be thirsty
for the springs
stop nearby for a drink
and to eat our bread crumbs,
the red rose wraps our attention
and this poet delivers words
or sings a canticle of St. Francis
to brother moon, sister sun
and pardon our thousand ways
of courting the ray's reflection
or relives a line of Tom Merton
in a morning's creativity
as windy leaves succumb
the last rose stands by
a broken wing of a bird
we will be a comfort
to the animal family
over this hill and Bay,
the bird suddenly flies away
there are still miracles
on this Autumn's Thursday.

ON THE GREEN MOUNTAINS

How close are we

to verge of our journey

up the Green Mountains

as our hiking boots turn

in an unseen silence

sighting a deer in first light

a morning fills with frost

encircled in a path of snow

sheltering words in these lines

which emerge outliving our time

from an earth-wise nature

on this Fall seasonable pike

as flakes drift trekking 

from Vermont's long memory

in white coated anonymity.

FIDELIO

In huge concert hall
crowded with patrons
of the symphony
lovers of music
that cool November
seat a boy in short pants
seven years young
already with the libretto
to study on his lap
with interwoven notes
of Fidelio's overture,
that my uncle and aunt
supplied the ticket
here on the balcony
of exported culture
to an eager nephew
soon to play on the piano
his own interpretation
of Beethoven.

MOZART CALLS

Mozart's miniature calls
upon me at the grande piano
over boundless notes
from a breath of sunlight
committed to the morning
whose motif and motes
reveal a culture of volatility
in music heard in corners
of my family music school
as a bass, horn and cello is heard
by our own metronome's
dark hours passed by
anecdotes of critics who visit
my solfege and piano lessons
for an early admission door
to college's muted realms
as a neon butterfly shadows
to rise on  cathedral ceilings
near the blue marble fireplace
by a bone china vase
of Japanese flowers
in my great uncle Linwood's studio
around yellow and blue gentian
below a cathedral ceiling
in a mansion's window
with Mozart's miracle signature
revealing a lively body
of a home for Thursday concerts
in even numbered rows
as my hand plays in recital
your twenty third concerto.

SINCE YOU AWAKE

Since you awake
from a first light
lingering in a change of time
without sugar in a latte
in a huge coffee cup
this early November
listening to Dusty Springfield
as we turn the clocks back
remembering the pastimes
with an English muffin
in a darkness of mirror
with undisclosed lips
of my favorite singer
to bond with ideas
and clouds of wishes
for a recital of a love band
on your sleeping arms
in a corridor of mums
from a yellow bouquet
grafted in your hair
in carriages of limbs
from dahlias of fragility
and sax sirens of exile
ready for an urban read
now extricated in cold air
from undisclosed robes
of keenly suited observation
sharing my chilled out riffs
from a taxi cab window.

AT RIMBAUD'S WATCH

Making the rounds
a nurse,
a chaplain,
a solitary
a bishop at Mass
a warden
a missionary
a wrestler
all falling yet rising
as Lazarus from the dead,
hidden in four corners
Rimbaud watches
lives in French routines
his eyes open at the windows
at a tiny coffee shop bench
toward a bake
of cinnamon croissants,
baguettes or raisin bread
with his three Charleville aunts
feels at times as a clairvoyant,
picturing a starving midshipman
who sails to Brittany country
by a Bay's thrilling seaside
craving La Tartine Gourmande
as thyme-infused sardines
sauteed with tomato sauce
from a old French marinade recipe
are basted on the grill,
as Rimbaud remembers
the kindly sextant who cleans
off the Virgin's statuette
feeling as an idyll bard
who dream tosses at his exile
while in Paris or Casablanca
wishing to make sleeping waves
rises over the body of the seas,
or once knowing an innocent man
on trial sent off to Devil's Isle
in his contrary engaging thoughts
he encircles the university
with its large library
roundabout the cascade
on narrow roads and streets
children watch a puppet show
still there between wars
or stands by on Bastille Day
for a revolutionary parade
near the city's cemetery grounds
assuaging the wise in adversity
always wishes to be astounded
or carry on in a tent
with a Casbah's surprise,
yet even pitying a limping beggar
in the alley before bed
under the bright and leaping stars
imagining the Christmas Magi
being put in the store window
as an absentee student runs
away from home at school
being teased for his belief
taunted and execrated
in the school yard snow
being named "sale petite cagot"
as his visionary shadow
winces at long suffering souls
trying to escape their foolish fate
now drinking cups of red wine
on draped stools behind bars
a vagabond asks out loud
for another round
among a crying out thief
once nearly executed
by rope's guillotine
here in the line ups churlish crowd
this proud fool cannot wait
to be free while he is blamed
yet this time exonerated
not seeking a peaceful relief
yet seen here as a collaborator
in another street pick pocket crime
loudly mouthing and proclaiming
his innocence spilled here
with his  hopeful brother
upon release.