PEACE


At the light
of day that gives
us peace
by a labyrinth
of branches
in a hyacinth warmth
at the name
of the sea
which gazes at us
reaching for a shell
at a shadow of stone
by the beach lighthouse
squirrels climb the hill
at noon in a quandry
when life is at a standstill.

COMMODITY (1943)
to Symborska's memory

What an oddity
the world thinks of us
as a commodity
at a blink and loss
we are not to be sold
for forty pieces
of silver or gold
yet we are told daily
not to be temperamental
we are by the threshold
of a bidding war
to skin us alive
yet we want to console
our flesh to survive
hiding the yellow stars
on cattle cars
in the far country
we stand by the manger
as a stranger to the creche
or by Jesus cross
with 1943 nails
upon the tree
three souls are bargaining
for their lives
by Warsaw's ghetto gates
it starts to snow
we ask for angels
as a poets life waits
not lost to our manifold soul.

SZYMBORSKA'S BIRTHDAY
1923-2012
July 2

Words aglow
even as you sleep
in spilled out memory
we recollect
your pocket poems
in our ringed memory
from secrets,wonder,voices
we have to love
with no hours to lose
when you open our secrets
from your nature's language
and tomorrow in Warsaw
the birds will be out
sunning themselves
in your house's ledge
returning to their shadows
and the four winds
of you translated in silence.

ALONG HOLLYWOOD BLVD.

Outside the squirrels
hide in the leaves
of Evergreen branches
on the hillside
a solitary singer
offers her blue Monday
tune in a raindrop
moistened by the language
planted from her tongue,
it is a time of morning silence
when our initials
are hung over
by the summer rosebushes
on a rubbed-out signature
in pure gestured breathless fire
the wind rushes to the memory
of a young poet's nature
in the wilderness woods
dressed by a motionless hour
near passer-by processions
of soccer stars on summer floats
along the corner
as a child with a new compass
wishes to be easily assured
to live in tourist pictures
from a pretense and charade
on a cash in Hollywood
and Vine lines delivered by
finely dressed actors for hire
on Los Angeles admired time.

YOUR LYRICS

Unknown words
seep in your ears
but like Van Gogh
a painter's shapes
his thimble of fears
a poet is often unaware
of hieroglyphics
until his symbols
of his enigma
become the grammar
of his poem's lyrics.

IT WAS A JULY DAWN

It was a sunny July day
Harry was missing
surely Harry was at the pier
everyone first said
fly fishing at the bay,
but his rod was there
but not him,
surely Harry was out
for a swim,
we went to the dock
every hour on the clock
and it was dark
had Harry been eaten
by a shark
we all tried not to panic
but to comfort one another
to everyone in town
Harry in deed was a brother,
was it a latent sadness
from a parental storm
or hapless form of madness
that let him not conform,
whatever common gossip
on every busy body's lip
perhaps Harry
was simply on an acid trip
or just on a blip
on the T.V. screen
when Harry wins
a writer's international prize
monetary award
and life long sinecure
what a surprise in town
as Harry returns to fly fish
down on the shore,
he treats me for a meal
at "The Fried Dish" next door.

SALLY TOLD ME

Sally told me,
as mom and dad
social worker,
the school shrink
chaplain
reminded her,
"We cannot get
inside her head
so in other words
think,
do not drink
or make your own bed
or you'll wind up in the clink",
this does happen,
received a call
from a locked unit
on this writer and poet
who was a fighter
for others human rights
to live and perhaps
in her collapse ,to live,
she was taken away
one day in June
without her fellow
she as an actor Desdemona
in a graduation play
who loved an Othello,
now made into a loner
in her tiny room
could not cut her nails,
others worry
if all should fail
she could forgive herself
at least,
and now after therapy
would be released.

AS MANY STREETS

With maps
to many city streets
on the Atlantic dock
by four oceanic gulls
who seem to rise
by a motor boat rig
on their webbed feet
to laugh on the East wind
screaming in swelling echoes
a musician in sailing boots
country straw hat
in an old sear sucker suit
watches the tourist ships
under open air sheets
not yet aware of the clock
or the time to play
a smooth jazz on sax
not in a panic
but remaining suspended
on a sleepwalker's box
with melon fruit drinks
having a late night picnic
rehearses in a retreat
before his summertime gig.

WE REMEMBER

Four days of hiking
or bicycling
on tall grass
over mountains
or on the long pass
for an excavation of art
and artifacts summoning us
for a path of adventure
with Eddy our tour guide
covering common grounds
too luminous in the sun
by caves where we hide
for a rest
as we run into
a visiting chorus
by the side of a fountain
near the cactus
offering to sing arias
of Aida for us
remembering how
Verdi's opera
changed our vacation
into a new metamorphosis.

WHEN OUR STILL LIFE

When our one still life
of Vermeer
we still long for
is no longer there
on the walls
of the museum
gone for repairs
hidden from our view
or moved
by fears
or taken away
the colors matter
or such a day
the space is empty
though we walk
side to side
there's no time
to decide
at a limited
walking tour
so I do not ask
but mask my eyes
as the crowd scatters
or we bask
by another exhibit
in the open window air
to compose these lines
with a quick passing
poetic prayer.

WORDS

Words upon the sand
keep me near the sea
today a castle
does not want to exist
in a vassal state
so fingernails obliterated
it, however words
even manicured
or manufactured
when they touch us
answer or question
what is literate
they will not go away
even in middle age
but stay on the page
to reach us in a portrait
or act upon as a pun
above the riddles
on the stage
like a lasting kiss
or a passing strike
upon a cheekbone
in act four,
here a face in the waves
surges like the eventide
of a once sculptured stone
still swims like a bride
for it is love which craves.

MUSIC LESSON

We turn back the clocks
a minute on the metronome
to what was once orthodox
at arms length
of music's holy grail
to hear the strength
of our hands on
our piano and jazz violin
as the music lesson rings out.

Years later
from aunt's grand opera box
we remembered our demanded
augmented scales
once played on her spinet
as her church voice sings
a leitmotif melody chord
to take to its limits of pings.

The critic Di mato trusts
his cleft measured votes
and we are assured by our guest
the blessed impresario
to take his quotes home
who will listen, yearn, search
for our notes and strings
with choice con brio
and keep others guessing
for a minuet and trio.

EXCHANGES

Gold rushes on a bench
through a thousand hands
crushes forty pieces of silver
in the currency of demands

Exchanges lent for capital
a French peasant for a horse
what is pleasant of course
rides or stalls on the bourse.

GOLDEN RULE

When we are vulnerable
and unable to express our mind
we still try the honorable deed
willing for other's needs in kind

The Golden rule embraces us
through everything we ask
it becomes easier to love
when we remove our mask

Then our soul is child-like
we grow as an Evergreen tree
dreaming among garden friends
to know a pardon is to feel free

We are not driven by any weight
even on four winds of a day
warmly forgiven at every storm
in any form of fate on our way,

It may seem fortunately divine
how our goals turned out
in serving of bread and wine
consoled by any secret doubt.

WHEN YOUR DAY OPENS

When our day half- opens
in unshaven grief
playing a sonata by Chopin
at daybreak weighing in
being between green innocence
and a summer remembrance
of feeling without purpose
helpless at surface wounds
in past aches of adolescence
we awake to our belief in life
ordering blueberry pancakes
with neighbors in a local diner
near the Golden Calf
or just to embrace in laughter
a surrendered memory
of that melody in B minor
which moves our riffs
still rambling in the spirit
such music which outlasts us
as a visiting Dutch poet
silently buries
his words on a sandbank shelf
along the riverbed mermaids
who hear country songbirds
on slate roofs of the Cape
waves arise beyond myths
from his draped words
over nereid nymphs of the sea.

CONTROL

Did you know,Clio
even you are controlled
by your own history
or are you wearily aware
that the news from family
is filtered to outsiders
before the story reaches you
as a spider outside the wall
yet we find in mythology
Jason's fleece
and here the queen bee
is in the hive
rises at a sunny silence
yet in secret
you survive to console it all
at a higher peace.

WE WINDOWS

We windows
of recollections
in a prodigal discovery
of spring foliage
by a thousand sand dunes
move our space
of landscapes
drawing in a sail
on the surface of the shore
shadows rarely escape us
by sea squalls
within reach
of the beach blue gazebo
asking the sky to photograph
the sun's forgiveness.

ADMIT THE SUNSHINE

Admit glory to the sunshine dawn
covering the green water falls
here between the ocean and sky
our shadows live in silence
this early morning hour
on the home harbor hulls
anchored in a shade of serenity
motioning for our summer journey
unsealing our kayak memories
along a sailing Atlantic venture
wanting to sleep on the beach
with the sun to our outback
or go along with a procession
of a middle aged fisher king
unable to move on his mission
until Arthur locates the Grail
or like Melville's Ahab
searches for the white whale
named Moby Dick
all in stories of exiles scouting
for a forsaken world
as Ishmael wanders
amid a once cloudy nimbus
from a passing compass of time
my words follow an apparition
in a poet's now shrouded trek
along the horizontal shore
waves rise to four winds
to outer reaches of the sea
by the light house of exiles
near unborn waves of riverbeds
a sudden thunder brushes by us
covering the church window praise
as black or red winged songbirds
over wonderful distant voices
exalt heaven from an azure sky.

AT ADVENT

No ash, fire nor snow
at advent
will answer me
in my knotted tongue
moving all raindrop shadows
of my reaching safety
against the woodland trees
belonging to hidden branches
on a higher rung treetop
as a young poet
treading in the frost
below motioning riverbeds
gets himself lost
by an Evergreen's path
his initials once scrawled
on a tall shade grove
sleepwalking as if in the hollow
of a small birdsong chorus
under nightfall's flakes
grackle voices awake
to discover the poet
at the cooling rock garden
by the breakable dawn
finding precious stones
a sparrow left me in silence
yet searches in a dark wood
and chooses the cleft of light
below the flooded blue hills,
while a pack squirrels
no stranger to my memory
appear of the forest
their shadows in the grove
gather up acorns
crossing by the river
seen from nascent blood moon
a boy hides by church windows
just before the dawn silence
travels by the upstream footbridge
a young dreamer
within every horizon's desire
yet he climbs on Jacob's ladder
over hyacinth which rose
through shadows of flames
for human life knows us
to pardon even the snake
walking by many ocean stones
on the shore's ivy hedges
searching for any bread
beneath the leaves
in an hour of silent wonder
among nests of dry bones
as a solo bird by the light house
in faraway suspended wings
forsakes his luminous invocation
the hidden wind grieves for us
reaching out on high steps
we are daily wrapped by dunes
wishing an invitation to believe
we rise with the dead
on the last day.

SKIN

Skin in the game
of my hoops winning
in my town,
taking my camera lens
over seas
following troops
of an army coup
who attack in a capital city,
we're near bodies of water
relaxed far from shore
motioning the scales
on a filet of sole,
now playing alto sax
by the skin of my music horn
cool as the skin
of my Adam's apple
when I was born
in the slap of my jaw
my life sliding by the law
taking its toll
Eve kissing me in the rain
just missing the train
by the skin of a gut
over a skilled membrane
and notes within a brain
to create a quatrain
but still we are made whole.

AT BOSTON

Near the narrow bird path
feeding the sparrow
takes a scented water bath
as an adolescent in the sun
returns from his jazz lesson
to the Esplanade
reading the words
of Boston's Sylvia Plath.

AGON
(In memory of T.S Eliot
1888- 1965)

Birthed on St. Louis stones
in a noonday visionary stare
scattering by the sea rocks
your Petrine prayer atones
by an inherited courted sun
embracing a desired love
from the rising of the dead
that dares loose its flame
with bread granted shadows
of slight red shading
in a white and black drawing
of a mourning dove
above the Evergreen trees
with your initialed name
fathered by a sea breeze
by a clever knowing Nereid
the poet buried far away
by St. Michael's grave
of what is wrought by fire
here is a poet T.S. Eliot
in shadowed visits to Rockport
by the greensward grass
a memory desired to this day.

WHEN OUT

When out of slumber
people discovered
they were mere numbers
in a concentration camp
put on trial by a computer
exiled writers run away
with their poems
in a once thriving democracy
driving the bad guys crazy
not to suit the authorities
backed by the higher powers
that be in the country
no one knew what it was
to be free as jazz could be
after the struggle in the war
we stand by memorial graves
at the El Escorial monastery
watching to plant in the earth
a still flowering Judas tree.

IT WAS SO GOOD

It was so good of you
nana to introduce
and to pursue me
into Ulysses
and Djana Barnes's
Nightwood
then I found Derrida
in my own neighborhood.

DO YOU

Do you really wish to be
Umberto Eco's echo
or name the rose
of Gertrude Stein
and drink from her
red wine glass in Paris
and not be embarrassed
(not even to be harassed)
by the Occupation
or be Bishop's bishop
or Sexton's sexton
or stop by at confession
even if it be in poetry
or at watch
to envy Sargent's agent
who sold his paintings
as a Boston professional
turned up
in a Yankee's uniform
at the storm and duress
of Wall Street's market
covering a secret address
of a banking mathematician
who made a million
while discovering
his wife is fainting
playing whist
with a former Tory
who turned at election
into a predatory Labor politician
and covering for her digression
wrapped in a curly bayonet
(so the story goes)
of a lover's cursory tryst.

SEVASTOPOL

We entered the church
of all old,young
and non believers
those whose ancestors
survived the Russo-
Japaneses war
on both sides
by intermarrying
or by some faith,
here with great fear
trembling brides of Chagall
still walking
on in wheel chairs
ex generals ancestors,
grandchildren of peasants
and aristocrats who follow
Leo Tolstoy,
those on the steppes
of exile, ex cadets,
soldiers of misfortune
Party cadres
petty bureaucrats
boys in white blouses
from Siberian prisons
from health spas
with bandaged incisions,
collaborators of all kinds,
an orphan from Rostock
surviving fascism
who studied endomorphism
when his life was on the rocks
curried Rosicrucian's doctrines
Confucianism, Ezra Pound
and the Arctic dolphins
in the docks of Russia
mindless except of Prussian
childhood prayers,
Jewish souls whose house maid
secretly baptized her,
graying emigres from South Africa
searching for the green diamond
or opal but realized
after being analyzed
in shock treatment
money was only lost stock
even in the China drug trade
of Vladivostock
a beautiful loser of the wheel,
Vlad from the Riviera
who found then lost
the most valuable postage stamp
in the Huguenot cellars
and fortunately lived on
after food stamps from Vichy,
those ancestors of Hugo
who played a piano
for the left hand
by Ravel as prisoners
destined by law
for examination
for experimentation
termination
and extermination
but whose souls live on
here at Sevastopol.

CALLS OF THE POET


We're reading the Amherst poet
in her finest words
from an old edition
as blurred threads in a shawl
worn by Emily Dickinson
along an academic hall,
after my semester break
in a morning brick of space
a tiny windowless room
staring at a Van Gogh painting
of a Dutch landscape
shining at the thick edge
of the museum's back wall,
now the sun briefly shines
through Central park
after the watery dark rain,
we are under umbrellas
on the park bandstand's edge
by a city street's drain,
a chorus of small birds intones
each in their own voices
along a dusty road's ledge
remembering the Cape
every Father's day in June
draped with ivy
along the river beds and dunes
in summer squalls of thunder
as my lyrical laughing ear
expects to share my lecture,
now he suddenly prepares
for the next swimmer's race
with clocks in half time
over the dock
trying to save face
takes the plunge
and lunge into the pool
glad to take an hour
from teaching summer school
playing by the gazebo
all the highest musical notes
of Coltrane's saxophone's wonder.

IN THE OLD HOUSE

Summer's silence
only a Bach solo
plays from my hands
in a radiant bow
day dreaming
of the Mediterranean carob
and the Evergreen,
sounds of water move me
at the windows
a few cardinals suddenly fly
along the Cape's shore
overlapping dunes and trees
by the Bay's shore
a few sailing boats journey by,
all is quiet and tranquil
in the azure June breeze,
my still life hangs
on the drawing board
leaves its eternal image
walled in my own world
Bach swells to flood
the sound proof studio
as sun offers warmth
now sitting by the piano
shadowed as muted light
on a welcomed new bookcase
and awakened threshold
discloses my musical memory
as mirrors of a childhood dawn
emerges by summer bird voices
by the beach whale watchers
tourists board
a sea sail of ships
as illusions of innocence
travel to the deck and port
near the voices of songbirds
attached to Jacob's ladders
growing in the back yard
near the pale phlox
by burdock and hemlocks
surround our rock garden
near Acacia's thorny trees
which seem to burgeon
as green leaves
newly born to blossom
by the swings cool breeze
waken to my lyrical arpeggios.

EIGHT STORIES

Eight stories
below my heights
feeling like a songbird
constantly above buildings
on skydived flights
needing water on occasion
nature accommodates
even in high elevation
by electric wires
providing for a city
during a fasting's duration
in feast or whitened famine
exploring every sensation
to examine each night
a poetic novel's sensation
reaching from his sheet
and scenic proofs
at his sleepless sedation
keeping a business watch
outside of space and time
offering us a narration
of verse as an angel
in a planetary separation
as we race like astronauts
through the spider webbed air
in exaltation gliding
over fourteen metro stations
recovering our life's salvation
with a bright cloud
on a blurred longitude
mapping out our lyrics
overlooking knots of stars
as invoice for our trios
as night falls and follows
the wings ,winds and arpeggios
to play along on scales
and encircle through moons
over music notes and high bars
not to mimic our mood mimes
over the timeless tunes of Pillar
with her Spanish guitar
from a June's passer-by,Joe,
an entrepreneur and impresario,
who discovers her arias
and makes her dreams a reality
in Paradise, California
then vanishes behind her eyes.

AT TRIESTE

Like James Joyce
sleep walking
in the city night
sheets to a kindled fireplace
of unwarranted imagination
collapsed into pitiless thought
for a guest in languor of a liquor
from an old bottle of brandy's
unbridled sweetness
in a bandy of winding phrases
at the ultimate pettifog night air
being in a repast of memory
yet wholly aware as any bird
lost like him in a forest's nest
in an exile's surroundings
hanging on the banister
you jest in low voiced riddles
here in Trieste
among unbridled knapsacks
of oboes ,clarinet and fiddles
by lasting vittles on the stove
for a moratorium of survival
exhausted from lacuna's
banter of Irish drama's verse
squandered in a selfish meal
exploding on a quarrel's trauma
of disentangled mindfulness
turned loose in informality
in a modicum of a traveler's wit
and a reveler's lonely music
in valid congeniality
hidden in magic Gaelic tongues
without a balanced sheet
of dwindled cash
from debit and debt
in a magnetic potpourri
under a future laurel wreath
a hidden stash of words
beneath the  snowy rungs
of a painter's ladder
you wonder
if it will matter
when Ulysses becomes
a classic.

THERE IS A MOMENT

There is a moment
in some forgotten
fragment of time
anchored on the sea
making a chapter
of collecting rhythms
in a standstill of drums
that break out of silence
a thunder making us
in a defenseless mood
circling out uncertain steps
to recapture our past
involved in art's interlude
through a labyrinth
of my diary's investigation
two thumbs down
all over our expressions
in different European tongues
in a cosmic log of memory
without a noted trace
of a mercenary disappearance
drummed out of a vacancy
or any place to live
among wandering stars
or calling on St.. Jude
closing the good book
curled up in dreamed
of still life's miracles
remembering madrigals
grandmother taught you
on the piano in her voice
now lost to oblivion
with 1940's absent nails
to even cross your mind
that not even a bird on the deck
or a card shark hears us
distressed from the four winds
in a cloudy map of navigation
lost as any exile
with gentle waves to anyone
on the satin blue high sea
who will rescue us
in exile on a flag ship
as any Odysseus or Jonah
of the stateless wind
keeping a vigil for our history
or just reading a memorized Virgil
as a guide in Latin script
translated on ink stained words
of the original scribe
with passages lost in the fog
boarded up on the St. Louis
bound for a far city off shore.

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE

It is not possible
for two to have
the same dream
on the same night
in the same bed
and to dread
waking up
to the waning sun
as the sea weaves
its rushing waves
from live South winds
fading as an gull in the dawn
over the veranda
as new born songsters
from the port call out
to other shivering sparrows
wrapped in weekend sheets
of musical notes
living in a murmur of harmony
with the resonance in words
of moving alive in the breeze
in a dance of your choice
hearing sounds of a bee hive
and birds floating on trees
each in their own voice.

IN NEW ORLEANS

Outside it is raining
intimacy is only a bar away
on my sax notes
sinking a sound B flat
over my left arm
in the underground
riverbed off the ports
of a breathless recital
swimming by
an aimless fate
by fleeing a night
of parental storms
muffling my weekend
waking up matching faces
to break up in pieces
of a musicians life
caught like a spider
in a web of others
supported by an outsider's mess
of song and dance
in a fortress on the coast
from solitary rooms
we cannot host
nine to five
in a routine like this
of my metamorphosis
by piled records
near a broken sofa
a prodigal son gnashed
in his own wilderness
reaching on the beach
for sea shells and stones
emerges with a musical wave
abandoned at the sea's edge
by his sightless sore hands
he stumbles as his bones
smashed by wine glasses
love is an incoherent echo
of unintended smooth jazz
abstracted as an hour passes
as unforgiving as his rights
to an extended shore gig.

JUNE 17

Songbirds over the train
by wellsprings of memory
from darkness to light
sleepless for ages
stopping my insomnia
from a long night
trembling on winding roads
with dusky eyelids
of thirst and hunger
simmering with nerves
ending in afterthoughts
for the past ventures
a late poet emerges
wishing to laugh again
after a lifetime
of reaching for justice
in a spring's lassitude
of setting aside
my second lapidary thoughts
brushing on stones
as we pass by wisteria bushes
wishing for a visionary nature
fortified by an insightful lens
among polished colorful words
connected in a day break
bridge near sea and sky
in watch for the morning
waves enlightening toward me
by a forgiving sunshine
the birds on fly over winds
near a waterfall of voices
blanket the welcome dunes.

HEARING CHOPIN

Today it's easy
with a pass
to have a glass of tea
with some kvas
to read to you
on the dunes
of June's tall grass
to vanish in my words
a parole and palabras
by the open gardens
to play a sonata by Chopin
and seek your pardon.

BERLIN WHISPERS

At the threats
of freeing myself
from towers of idolatry
in the mimic and mime
of a tree of life
cut down to foolish rhyme
by the Nazis and Stasi
at Checkpoint Charlie
you were passing roses, tulips
and love poems
through the insider walls
knowing China
and Jerusalem too have this
like a puzzled Kafka
in a spider's metamorphosis.

PRO OR CON

Reading Dos Passos
missing my passage
on the train
feeling always to vanish
as the Sephardic conversos
in the love of Spain
vowing to do right
above a sunny Andalusian plain
a republican which left
us like Lorca
from many hallways
of memory in vain.

ADOLESCENCE

When life is charred
you call me Kierkegaard

When you are lost in a knot
you turn to T.S.Eliot

When you stall,cannot sit still
you fill yourself with Pascal

religiously faint you lean
partly on St. Augustine

When life makes no sense
there is even penance

amid a chance of heart crimes
in silent times of adolescence.

A DAY ON THE CAPE

Waves,
seaweed, castles
on the sand dunes
by a gazebo
the sunshine
clears in our silence
near the kayaks
and kiosk
becoming bands
of music
from our sax lips
violin fingers
heated hands
interwoven knots
and kept notes
on a sailor's web
of an insider's log
our eye shadows
the open earth
as an advancing wind
on forces of nature
makes us sing
from forgotten words
a childhood French tune
around the trees
veiled by spiders
bees and June bugs
in the mirror of waters.

SEEKING FAVOR

Sunshine
you won't stop opening
us up to praise
in a word that chooses
to love us
even in doubts
of what is real
for your revelation
reaches us on ports
of the sea
trailing us on roads
of traveled actors
from a far county
in dialogues
of summer stock
from eleven
unknown students
in their company
on the coast
by homes harboring
landscaped dialogue
in havens
of contested boasts
spelling out poetry.

DRAWING CLOSE

Drawing close to my letters
drenched in thin lines
of unfolded envelopes
by the window pane
watching the light of dusk
shadows of oak branches
fallen by high winds
over the river's edge
imprints all my colors
in a faraway crest of shore
simple garden scents return
from childhood gardens
near the school yard
offers a beautiful pardon
of double minded loves
which have been shadows
of my saving past
set on the flagstones
created alone by my eyelids
as lightening shouts
from its house offshore
brushing shapes on sand
lingered by the throngs
of the past sailing boats
in tremors fading fast
anchoring shadows
over the hull and deck
by a thousand dead bones
of a shipwreck
in our faulty dream lives
memory closes to atone
and remembers the winds
of conquered chances
past tomorrows
existing in this still life
in anonymous penance.

ANNE FRANK'S BEST FRIEND

Anne,
a play now
in new Amsterdam
make us remember
her diary
her life damned
and turned
into a personal death
by fascism's bestiary
how many would be
her best friend
given her history.

MAGNA CARTA
800TH ANNIVERSARY

They stood
800 years ago
this day
with old King John
making his sign
as the nobles stopped
his divine rights
as he propped up
his pen and signature
when tyranny
ruled in government
in binding a nomenclature.

BUREAUCRACY

Bureaucracy
drives you crazy
boxing in
any legacy of happiness
it what pop psycho's call
"a state of mind"
extending their sovereignty
over our drops of humanity
in their all knowing persuasion
of controlling mankind
taking away by degrees
the privacy of our soul
with publicity's invasion
of recreating your image
on pleasing occasions
is their goal,
while you on your knees
praying they will ease up
to take away your cup
with their saucer
as you are trying
merely to read Chaucer
in the library
and told
on your folded exam
to be politically
and literally correct,
they are there in a scam
by their cameras in focus
over your shoulders
subject to face
an intellectual challenge
or sexual change
the profs. suddenly appear
like Kafka's bug
within university range
of intimidating to pull you in
to acknowledge
a contextual metamorphosis
and take this beaten rug
making you hiss,
it's the devil's business
wishing to rob you
of kissing you goodbye
as you are hit
and missing out
on your knowledge's joy
taken away from college
far from home
like an alchemist
wanting to make you
merely a chemical alloy
of an x or y chromosome
or an ally to be a toy
from every light affliction
in the book, bell and candle
of a discovered medicine
trying to defeat us in sin
but we laughingly look
at the adversary attacks
in a contrary way to face
by handling their party hacks
to pull and kick under duress
until we are recovered
from self pity and stress
sticking in our countenance
counting on grace
and the fullness of favor
from any chance
of adversity today.

IN THE GARDEN
(for Boris Pasternak
in memory)

In the Gethsemane garden
sweating blood red
as a pomegranate and grape
those seeking pardon
as only angels are aware
where spirits dwell
and men try to escape
his shaped words
scattered from what He said
amid the living and the dead
in forgiveness before
the dread of their own Hell
for no bells are heard
among the mourning doves
and sky of birds
Jesus is snatched and arrested
and taken from us
to be put on trial
and hung on a trees cross
yet gladiators appear
on contested Roman fields
daring along gymnasiums
before the flesh yields
to the mad pagan crowds,
instead the Messiah
knows some day
a forum of senators will bow,
proud statesmen will cower
as priests, savants and kings
in their high towers
by eagles wings,
as in a poet's memory
of Tiresias in prophecy
life summons a meeting
with Odysseus in Hell
from an underworld journey
of demons and spirits
here a legendary carpenter
has a humble man's power
tells us to bless the poor,
among rebels, outcasts
or loving whores
here not among the clever
but serious servants
of the Lord's words
as good gospel news is heard
in every neighborhood
of the ancient world
for Jews and Gentiles
needing to be assured.

A POET FISHING

Fly fishing with Carlos
and Juanita off shore
who hail from Buenos Aires
after a stroll by the blue hills
and a swim in the ocean
trying to have patience
doing exercise motions
with amphibian gills.

JUNE BIRTHDAYS

Feeding the June birds and fly fishing
while reading Irish Paul Muldoon

enjoying Jonson's lyrics and plays
his comics of "the Alchemist" amaze

wishing for different states of mind
in W.B. Yeats we vent and unwind

offering a voice of quotes
a choice of Joyce Carol Oates.

ON THURSDAY

The laundry done
under intervals
of turn around washes
and now drying in the sun
near the tall dune grass
by tuft and cluster
with all the energy
we can muster
in this June mound
shining spoils
of cloth and clothes
in socks and hose
up to my knees
by a vast dawn of light
from scant clouds passing
in a luminous yellow
wondering if after this winter
in hibernation
we are deserving
of a bright chirping laughter
as a cardinal hovers nearby
covering an Evergreen branch
hearing a mother sing
a Spanish lullaby
by a wishing well
to her baby daughter,
the crickets sing a miracle tune
in never ending perfect harmonies
taking water from the springs
drinking in the blue lake
by the waking morning
of two mourning doves
shouting about the dunes
near neon butterflies
a fellow bard motions to me
by his churchyard fence
of his corner ranch
tells me that a bee
from his hive
might sting him
on his pitching arm
if he can't pay the rent
offers to play cards
from his own solitaire
and recites to me
on a deeply flowered bench
French verses of Baudelaire.

PASSER -BY

Passer- by my city

a Beat poet with gentle proofs

welcomes you with a candle
returning to my past
half ghost voices going higher up
to his apartment for a reading
while resting in forgiveness

here beside a rock garden wall
near a sandlot playground

where the hounded
throw stones at the wounded

the night watchman arrives
on the fire escape
who barely catches sleep

in the deepest part of Babylon

where there are no hours

to stop the lights 

between the taxi screens
and screams of cab calls
hailing its daily emergencies
near this poet's old hang out
in his adolescent years
outside a dance floor
as voyagers play jazz
on faceless Sixties nights
over the Brooklyn Bridge
quoting Ginsberg and Crane

on wisteria street walls
filled with young graffiti
as a Gothic young Edgar Poe
dressed up at carnival time
in black clogs
jogs by though the shadows

who refuses to pardon his past
putting his tongue out
as Oz's scarecrow

insists he is a futurist
as a breathless witness

of a world of art now gone

by summoning memory

which leaves you hungry
feeling in temporary distress
and powerless,

suddenly the big media sends
drones above us
eyeing a five star actor

once in TV soap operas
who signs off
on his former contract
suddenly appears
for an outside audition
in a summer playhouse
of Shakespeare in the park
wishing for bravos
and autographs from a chorus

in radiant darkness on stones
like a loner Odysseus
returning home
having been in exiled perdition
after sailing the seas
now hearing an oboe wind
reciting life verses of Homer
about the human condition
awaiting his lover
and wife Penelope.

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.

ALONG THE DUNES

Shuffling a pack of cards

for solitaire

under the rolling sea shore

flowing near wild flowers

and olive trees

at morning's high tide

the sun on our backs

and thunder away on the hills

childhood memories

return to me as a Beat

wrapped in June sand

along tall grass dunes

the hours sinking in words

shadowing my veins

from an inkwell of verses

as unruly waves overpower

washing the Indian blanket

near groves at my feet

the red winged bird sings

and drinks 

by those taking to the waters

planting me by tendrils

that curl about a girl's hair

as was the actor Delores

who sang in the chorus,

as my past leans on life
corner me as the waves

thinking of so many things
that a poet saves
in his memory
my early plays in laughter

and stand up comedy

written in a fury of youth

in curious histories
of my friends in the rafters

and rival enemy critics

trying to be fair

kindled by the summer breeze

when the day wakes here

on the open air  original theater

aware of tragedy

after the troubling war

scouring along the boulevards

with my urban acting troupes
composing and performing
in a new time
of break dancing in mime
and in the now suburban outback

reciting the protruding phrases

of the troubador author Villon

with the fervor of Baudelaire.

ON CRANE'S BEACH

Within reach
on the water
we run along the beach
as the sun watches
the lovers under wraps
take cover and relax
from tourist traps
composing an entertainment
on my sax
as it starts to gently
then pours out
in the vaporous air
over our rain wear.

D DAY
June 6,1944

In the Normandy trenches
and back benches
of parliament and House
there is an uneasy quiet
of a mouse that roars
in a mighty war
for Europe needs hope
and in 1944 to be free.

EXPOSURE


Watching a T.V.
with the memory
of sitting on a monkey
bar stool rocking on a roll
in a five star hotel
somewhere in Manhattan
not knowing who you are
like the British poet Pope
here after the '80's Roxy spell
my knees are shaking
down by my feet
Hell, feeling like fool
a Beat with his heart breaking
here after school
can't you tell how we survive
waiting without hope
or life taking its toll
eyeing a celebrity
of sorts so we can tell now
there is Christine
still alive
speaking English out of school
knitting a sweater
or writing a dear John
or saint Joan or Jane letter
about her self esteem
who should know better
of requesting a cash loan
while putting on the cream
or milk in her coffee cup
along with her make-up,
going back in her memory lane
once palpitating in the corner
hiding out in her living room
feeling the pain and gloom
without much composure
of the world's disdain
once at seven dressed up
crashing at midnight
in her mother's Dutch hose
and patent leather shoes
putting on her perfume
of heavenly ambrosia
her henna hair up in a net
in interest of full disclosure
knowing she will always
be more than a headline
for a publicity jester
to nickel and dime her
for public exposure
in the Daily Times'
society register,
she wishing everything smaller
taking off her stiff collar
of her snow white suit
to put her hand on a guy
perhaps an athletic fellow
like Bruce Jenner
(now called a woman Caitlynn)
after watching eye to eye
the Olympic decathlon
wants to pick a winner in sports
and measure a Marathon's span
on a muscular man of sort
as the T.V. spins
from the high alabaster table
her picture on the screen
knowing she is different
when searching for a gent
not wanting his cash
on the  dollar
yet not able to pay the rent
but lets him makes her
a trust fund good offer
for an x- rated tryst,
with what credentials she prefers
in her own master bedroom plan
to be sent or represent her,
others outed her
outdated passport
he insists to surrender
in a former affidavit
she initially supported
and proposed a writ
on her understated gender
in her well courted transition
that awaited for her,
here a young poet
offers her a Lisbon rose,
for it's not the dress of clothes
or length of hair
that make you a woman
or words that make a writer
merely aware in his metaphor,
nor strength that makes a fighter,
yet Chris cannot be indifferent
for her being different
or cast you as a actor or actress,
does prayer make you a lector
of the saints Latin
just walking by a church door,
then why do publicists claim
you as a satin gold digger
it's to their own shame
as any foreigner
being blamed and accused
of being a spy
not understanding the "why"
of a political dissident
as a nice conscientious objector
is loosed from the service
or a poetical dissident
pays the sacrifice and price
from any government's
royal ranger,
a criminal may be a beggar
without any inimical crime
are you destined
Christine,to always be a stranger
in the long hallways mirror
wanting to flirt
in a flared new cotton miniskirt
imported from Lagos,Nigeria
to reverse roles
in a situation comedy's date
or play act in Shakespeare's
"Taming of the Shrew"
"Cymbeline",
"Merry Wives of Windsor"
or "Two Gentlemen of Verona"
needing her to be assured
from the umbilical chord,
yet you cannot share
her impressive secret
knotted inside
like a foreign war bride
in a far off zone
not understanding
the meaning or hormone
or testosterone
others mocking you
as you hide out
in your cold silk stockings
or talking in whispers
for four hours
hearing your own blues
still fishing for a prom date
with a mandate to refuse
an engagement ring,
chocolate bonbons or flowers
wishing for an expressive lover
perhaps for a bridal wedding
on this bar "the Other Side",
how jarring is this reporter
in the print business to sell
his yellow journals
fully worth investigating
as the vile goal of chit chat
on the news stands
(remembering Irish Oscar Wilde
who landed in Reading gaolin
in London, and all that
for his understanding soul),
though you are old news
still the selfish camera guy
from the Big Apple
will choose to show and tell,
others still challenging you
of what is Biblical
right or wrong
hearing Judy Garland
in her "Over the Rainbow "song.

THE NIGHTMARE VERSES

While eating steak and eggs
rather late
on an arty tray
in a garden variety
of sweet peas and carrots
ordering a coffee cup
as night is breaking up
you overhear a tarot reading
as dark shadows embrace
a crevice in a bitter high ceiling
approaching in distress
devouring our time
as a once silver corner mouse
watches a pale lady
in a purple veil levitating
from a black party dress
from her last supper
kicking her high chair
to impress a higher power
God is assenting to my prayer
to delay her pitch in case
of any daily crime's danger
by taking liberties
from an astrology's stranger
as a spraying odor by the door
rides over the wayward windows
brimming with seaweed kelp
sailors are shipping out in song
in a Moorish bridal lore,
gone is a suicidal nightmare
from a trauma
in a tell all visionary drama
nothing more,
a sweet perfume suddenly emerges
behind the curtains for our benefit
and cool air again prevails
as a sacrificial conduit,
and all urges of life,
dreams of our two children,
games of parchesi,
letters and joyful picture frames,
as an evening song of poetry
suddenly overtakes us
we're taking it easy
forgetting the lady's obituary
making her ways of the occult
in exclamations difficult
in the past tweet in her hand
she moves on her full cushion
to a reactionary discussion
someone asking about Germany
in the nineteen twenties
near a shepherd's whelp
in a Yeatsian phrase
of explication
wondering to my self
is that madam Blavatsky's niece
or just a resemblance
to carry in your valice
as the policeman carrying
out his word of making peace
a rosary chant is heard above
the hum of a band of bees
near a distant firing squad
someone calls on
Mary's son and God
with no explanation
for a pardon and help.

SPIES

Spies are like flies
they are everywhere
like princes of the air
riding through our windows
dancing on our privacy
as daring shadows
taking any lying information
of person,place or thing
where they may locate it
by finger print or D.N.A.
through every plane's wing
even on our train of thoughts
as conduits of a higher power
beyond our control and realm
in their own compartments
carrying our luggage
and baggage in their helm
on their saluted arms
they wish us to cower
like moles on skin heads
reading our souls in bed
it is way beyond 1984
that Orwell prophesied
for they want our whole world
on their Hellish side
as they gather up
for any wars they decide on
but the lonely poet
once the champion
of a conduit of truth
may not let the enemy
hide from us our sagacity
on our election day
for he is even camped
on ballots with bullets
in the voting booth
stamping us right or left
through the hallways
to select their candidate.

YOU ARE NAMELESS

You are nameless

by those who make war

for shameless profit

with their deceit off it

(you know,
as a friend of the poet)

who has wronged us
is the devil politician
whose mission
will offend you
to make you in submission

for a higher measure

who will cash in
at the end of days

all of his stash
for your treasure

and spend and suspend us
to another world

curled with a life long sin

not of your value

holding an old receipt

who will try to cheat us
from a sectarian spirit within
calling on our guardian angel
needing our prophets
more any profit & loss
who will win every battle
now at the cross road
though all nations retreat
those who love will not worship
any golden cattle at his feet.

SCREENS

Man methodically
in this twentieth century
on this planet earth
began his day
with screens
swallowed his coffee
by a screen
turned on the news
by a screen
worked in his office
nine to five
on a live screen
survived a horror flick
of a thousand gory scenes
by screams on a screen
kicking wild sex over
riding to cover all orifices
once hiding on screens,
or takes a language course
of French poetry
trying to write an ode
on the park bench,
goes to his wave radio
yet mistakes Morse code
by discovering the force
behind money on the bourse
at ninety has an operation
on his turkey neck,
with one click
of a wide screen
even though he tried
every healthy diet
solely of green beans
now we have even picked up
his obituary cast on screens
with his last will
and envious testimony
about his dreams of divorce
in a society of jealousy
of course,
past his alimony history
behind the screens
now others watch religiously
catching his life of re runs
where the wind now blows
over his T.V. reality show.

ON SPECTACLE ISLAND

Contemplating the seas
at dawn by bird song voices
here in the home harbor
wishing to be Melville
to travel by boat
and compose a novel "Pierre"
or at the cross roads
with fair St. John the Divine
on the isle of Patmos
eating love's Word,
with bread and wine
or in exile
as Ulysses sailing at will
and smile
given my liberty
in Boston exploring
the city's jazz scene
with a mean alto saxophone
will rejoice under the sun
every hair numbered
from every war zone
in prophecies past wonders
and day dreams of peace
to be still and relax
for twenty one centuries
awaking out of slumber
we poets will outlast time
as Picasso's doves increase.

ROLFE

Rolfe, you were home taught
James Joyce
caught you reading Ulysses
when you were eleven
by the doors
in the school corridors,
at sixteen on the highway
were a chauffeur
driving a Rolls-Rolls,
you started to sing
on the golf course
as you were discovered
by a impresario
as a bird on a wing
you were once a cantor
in your early days
now a tenor at the opera
with a  lyrical song of praise
as long you are alive
in musical ways
beloved,
rejoice,rejoice.

AGE IN WAR OR PEACE TIME

Age is not by number
drawing us in
a colorful painting
daily our heart palpitates
and we may refuse
to take take to bed
in slumber or fainting
nor does our life 's fate
depend on the mind
but on the soul
as we search for sleeping beauty
to find a prince or pauper
when you were called to serve
nor does any army sentry
need a name dropper
while on duty's call or roll
for he has his guard dog
to rise up from what is said
death will add to its scroll
in every bell of breath
to toll the dead in monologue
no strife need be preserved
in shadows of an outside wall
from a widow spider's dialogue.

BARTOLI

A few times
addressed in a century's art
as Cecelia Bartoli
sings Cosi fan Tutti
do we hear
the musical luxury
expressed and performed
from Mozart's
opera's voice
with an orchestral
lyrical part
from a woman's philosophy.

MARGOT ROOD

With a huge ego often
up staged in the opera world
in an orchestral setting
listening to her sing Purcell
wakes an angelic voice
out of heaven's veil and snood
dwell from her musical muse
the critics taken off their throne
as an Australian soprano
removes rouge from her face
Margot Rood suddenly chooses
to awaken the music of grace.