MAN RAY'S CENTURY

As outlines in a vista
of skilled dada you twisted
parts of a camera's statements
into an anti artful culture
from an enlisted legend
for an ambivalent millennium
which evokes a graphic rapture
of overcoming all focus of forms
in your transparent calling card
of a bard's penned signature
to witness for a prism's locus
in a culture's discordant intoxication
emerges new inkwell discoveries
channeling all navigation,
day dreams in short films,
photographs as a still life moves us
in exposition following
your metamorphosis of imagery
along inventions on margins
of an indwelling visionary
to take up your energetic invitation
into a scrolled surrealism
for our memory of extras
in elemental impressionism
to complement his century.



'

CALDER'S MARK

Your mobiles
move our vision
etches a sculpture
around your brow
on ladders of nobility
a visionary of solace
in human solidarity
over a life-field of memory
as imagination moves
through the museum walls
with an eagerness of images
transforms us
since great art appears
on a cultural recollection
luring me back
to more than fingerprints
though trembling
by cold metal mirrors
of mirrors moving us
enfolded by scintillation.

ROTHKO'S REMEMBRANCE

By the annals of history
inspiring and inquiring of us
how we love your innovation
with an open palm of your belief
in ecstasy of your expression
and stone bas relief
cast in a lucid abstract tone
of your oeuvre's confrontations
as a free practitioner of motifs
in a transcendent juxtaposition
to invent with replenishment
for my enthusiastic generation,
which connected our reality
in a spiritual recognition
at your cathedral in Houston
when we in our grief
at your passing
of legendary significance
from my young affection
in Rothko's remembrance
doubling down at the Metropolitan
and standing in long lines
by open doors at the Big Apple
for hours waiting on a weekend
to view your miracle of drawings,
you ignited the face of abstraction
staying with me in a cool class
of students attempting
to honor your Sixties soul
on this Beat's opening
his hazel poetic eyes
to enlarge experimental ways
from those wise frontiers
in a critical open ended
daily space gazing back
at surreal conferences
when we took to the podium
to lecture on your absorbed part
of calligraphic inventiveness
when your temperamental opacity
and gracious inheritance
introduced a new chapter
of our cities' canvas
in all these still life years since
not assuaging our distance
of unrelieved guilt and reprisal
to foreshadow the drama
your personal wounds
as you labored
to unravel a panorama
of puzzled expressionism
you bequeathed to your fans
to an an awed grateful generation
so near and yet so far apart
in a narrative's second thoughts
that we cannot forget a hero.

AT THE RESTAURANT

Arriving with map and atlas
with student manners at table
moving in her own direction
Charlotte orders cheese croissants
and waits on a spinach vegetable,
chocolate bonbon confections
and glasses of bourbon
as assigned for two guests
in the back of the restaurant
here upon the Vermont bench
a poet rests by an open window
phrasing his traces of verse
with a shadowed palimpsest
listens to a pianist playing
waltzes and etudes by Chopin
here are many customers
in the March foliage shadows
track their way on skis
making the press notice
as the jet setters are returning
from Paris where she learnt French,
Charlotte arrives from St. Dennis
with a traveler's attachment
from a Cape Cod's resort
already to play indoor tennis
yet chance to seek for a double
to take for her collegiate sport
to keep out of trouble
she calls her uncle
from a dorm at school
to watch her rehearsal
at practice for her new ballet
as the poet awakens
to catch her Swan Lake
knowing his niece will perform it
on ice by her kissing fans
I'm talking to her
about Anais Nin and "The Maquis"
telling her of her Partisan cousin
once a hero in the Resistance
she already has a Montreal partner
for her performance
a Canadian ice hockey star
she met in the lobby
who has a resonance for dance
and will be the double
for her tennis match.

BORGES LAST EXIT

The city opens in Buenos Aries
thinks of its good fortune
in having Jorge Luis Borges
upon the literary ladder ring
as a poet's higher critic
researching amply for orations
reaches on the library wall
for life's diction of explanations
located by antiquities design
here in his Eden of a living room
explores paraphrased commentary
rooted by vast heirloom histories
when beseeching a scattered fiction
located at pastimes, places, signs,
in presences, phrases by art masters
covers bizarre geometric lines
on global geographical maps
as an intelligent mind encounters
visions,awakenings,horizons
epiphanies,memoir and diary
in a glossary of personal testimony,
as Titian and Tintoretto appear
on his artistic projecting screen
over Borges recent revelation's lips
silently records what shapes
all of man and woman kind
from Creation to Apocalypse
when a sculpture of Donatello
closes the the curtains of his mind
which drapes his world era,
then Mexico landscapes appear
on a Spanish veiled scrim
drapes a freeze of Diego Riviera
and Frida Kahlo vanishes with him
Jorge suddenly hears far off notes
of Mozart's musical miniatures
in a played sonata part on his piano
as he leaves with his last exit
at the contrary atheneum's archives
with a  good friend driving with him
after a morning's addendum,
returning from his study guide
now rests on the patio
under a generous sunshine
as he feasts on salad, filet of sole
and a pepper mint herbal tea at noon
feeding over his verbal finger tips
with a mouth of shared herbal wine,
soon this scholar Borges is reading
his parchment of a Torah scroll
sent as a day dream fiesta arrives
reading his Aleph, Bet it seems
as a thousand birds rise to circle
their way to the South pole
from an Argentine celebrated sky,
later a twilight lit city will dazzle
the stars through dusty blinds
by guilds of a history's wrinkle
he yearns for an hour in the park
listening on a hilly breeze
to jazz sax riffs till dark
by wide greensward of trees
as a Cinereous Mourner's ashes
rise on the shading
of a seasonal four lateral wind
a black bird sneezes on branches
for an exile's miracle kiss
near a rural cattle ranch lawn
on a bench by coral flowers
he hears an astral visionary's call
on an hour's masked starry sky
to sip from a proverb's looking glass
in a talisman's floral flask
disclosing a new lyrical translation
and reading his creative reviews,
yet hearing of the burning books
on the news from Germany
upon learning of persecuted Jews
how a carnival festival
or a holiday maker can quickly
turn to war and fascism's sins
in a devil's abyss,
Borges has compassion
from his depth of thinking
in an alpha and omega's creation
to span over a radical fashion
at a magical realism's generation
to challenge millions of poetry fans.

SOME MAY DAYS

Some May days
one does not wish to think
too deeply, just do push-ups
on the gym floor
or sing a Sabbath hymn
that our spirit can't ignore
yet a poet emerges
through the library door
so contrary to his plans
locked without priorities
that he will stay
by the motioning clock
watching a coiled
garden snake in shadows
overgrown with mossy grass
submerged through a path
at my kitchen window
acting defensive in the garden
rattled without demands
makes natural sorties
as his shadow succumbs
and just slinks away
on this May doldrums day
waiting to swim in the waters
along the iron life-line fence
near a threshold
of sea shells
along Degas' blue rocks
waking up my memory
of the gold finch
with long wings
flying by a jetty's wharf
who sings us a song
by a tied row boat
now take a short swim
in the rush of a wave.

AT THE COAST

On a renovated boat in the sun
reading by the ocean shore
psalm ninety one
then in a whim thrust forward
to float with a valor
as my hands motion
for a lost golden retriever
over dancing volley of winds
making me a believer
in more than fate
when it turns out to be Artemis
who belongs to my neighbor
now tasting half my brunch
moving with sea voiced gulls
along the Coast of the Cape
trout fishing on my kayak
in the lull of a copper sunshine
now sore on my back and knee
with a pale net catch of fish
near brackish marshes
where wild tiny flowers ripen
as wishing well rush of my net
sparkles as waters on high seas
like mirrors in our day dreams
answer long silences
by this poem in a hazy dusk
heading for remote rock
on a string of islands
sailing by a jetty and docks
with Chinese markers
touching ocean logs
my vision multiplies
on my emotion of verbs
for a new play's monologue
as golden rays flash mirages
bubbling as snapping turtles
emerges by sand dunes
and calling on Sasha
about his rescued family dog
once adopted by his daughter,
once in the pound as he shares
the past crisis of losing Artemis
in a reinvented memory
about seeing Artemis
how he was missed and found
in my own metamorphosis
and not ever being drowned.

AT THE AIRPORT

Betting for a wait
before Memorial Day
inspectors arm wrestle
an innocent passenger
with a bandaged pulse
in a straight jacket
when four hours
turn into dusk
trying to shadow box
to bracket my own lines
of free verse poetry
in my daydream mind
encountering dizziness
from past turbulence
unaware of air pressure
from the force of sadness
my memory goes back
to my adolescence
of wearing a poppy
for Uncle Jack
year after year
on the green grave
with fresh flowers
and now removing
my Red Sox cap on backwards
taking out my sunglasses
yet speaking to another soul
with huge outrage who is here
burying her Dutch daughter
studying American history
at night and shadow
who was at a vacation tavern
given a date drug in a drink
at a good bye graduation party
trying to make sense of it
over the mirage of waters
when times are loveless
and war has cursed us,
with her luggage lost
filling out so many forms
in the commotion of flight
feeling so much alone
we share forgotten photos
our past hidden love notes
inked in a sleepless hour
by fortune cookies
flashing car keys
expired passports
in long corridors of stone
awaiting a holiday weekend.

AFTER A RUN

The breadth of a bardic Beat
venture returns to my memory
after a run on Boston Common
on Memorial weekend
Elizabeth still photographs me
after a minor marathon
resting my feet
along the Charles River
in the blazing sun
taking off my sweat shirt
on the Esplanade
up to the mirror of fountains
where children play cards
laughing in their fun
now on the edge of the shore
a sail boat moves us in the harbor
where sparrows make their way
circling the azure sky
brushing by the trees maypole
concealed in birch branches
by the morning river bed
where a poet adds a parenthesis
and the bee keeper keeps watch
on this New England colony
in the shed with my amanuensis.

BY THE HOTEL ELEVATOR

By the hotel elevator in Paris
on an impalpable holiday
is the loneliest scene
as sleep walking suit cased
hearing the AM
speaking of raging war
ethnic cleansing
final solutions
yet tranquilized survivors
by half -open faced sagas
of oblivious tourists
sandwiched between
bar and lobby
provide and divide space
to these seasoned travelers
reaching for teapots
and glasses of white wine
doled out with napkins
under doubled chins
from slow kitchen helpers
because it is always
a long trip and cold
from another's hands
looking up to the balcony
in the latest fashion show
losing yourself in mirrors
of soft lights moving you
away from Mozart's muzak
stumbling up the steps
to your inner sanctum
to celebrate sounds
of your lost appearance
by the vacuum
at sauntering in lost thoughts
by habitable towels
undressed by the sink
your mind not intact
or awakened by the rush
of blinded window last light
from your secret location
in a glance's view
of new information
as yet unknown saga
yet may be true
from any vetted apology
yet unspoken to atone
in any regretted vocation
or out of the blue pardon
among the wood's rock garden
there is a moonstone,
as in Stravinsky's"Firebird"
many notes of elocution's force
before a dancer's outside call
in full curtained voice
by the concert hall
with blinding secret wonder
a ballerina emerges in a theater
among nature's belladonna
on steps of connections,
out of rain and thunder
in a poetic word's
language's ballet
by answers and questions
to the critics' directions
at night and every day.

JACK KEROUAC'S HOUR

Your language draws us
into your personality
to make us travel with you
recollecting some of your stories
shining in a recall of memory
embraced in a diary reflected
in D'harma Bum faces
disclosed vocally and directed
from your country's unlocked
pieces of novel intimacy
or in momentary poetic creation
on the roads, beach and docks
watching you on the city steps
off Kerouac's lost highway
crossing by City Lights alley
reaching for your writing chair
in hollow coffee houses
returning from the 1950's cafes
empowering words of scat
melodies miraculously sing out
at the the Red Drum memories
where his sacks of grief fills up
huge beer cups joined to share
at Kerouac's summoned hour
as sublime sax riffs over
his chapter of notes in unbelief
offering jazz's changing scene
as a Beat escapes to a new reality
fully extends his unfolding relief
in an encounter of pop art
from Edward Ruscha
at the L.A.'s  Hammer museum
remains a guardian angel for him
at the Sixties surreal season
of a likely imparting correspondence
offering an uneasy clearing line
between two newly discovered talents
recalling when Jack's is clearing Frisco
his motorcycle handle falls off
on the road between local cars
nearing a departure of taxing life
and nature of his waxing ego
not ready for the stars in heaven
words transfer to the another body
by Jack's transmigratory soul
from the century's cultural dust
still bites him as a visionary must
to span forty seven candles
to be created whole.

READING PATRICK MODIANO
(Nobel Prize winner, 2014)

In the Parisian sun
with a hopeful sun
through my French
jealousy window
reading your novel
"Missing Person"
about the Occupation
nervously alone
awakened by these lives
like my radical cousin
Mendes- France
in the Resistance
thanking your words
by furtive corners
transfixed by your images
from my naked eyes
melted by loneliness
about informers and heroes
as echoes of the struggle
now from your geography
where humanity spills
its locution
from a grieving time
of fascism
you bring memory to life.

SOLO FLIGHT

When slowly meditating
on arpeggios before a recital
on Debussy's solo flight
over the Atlantic ocean
taking me away to France
on orphan sky dream notes
as classical miracles alights
from my motioning hand
on a half violin and rosin
art reaching me in childhood
as laughter from an impressionist
interprets a romantic score
curls after my fingering exercise
floats as whirling winds depart
to Debussy's bohemian dance.

IN AN OLD BOOKSHOP

In an old bookshop

perusing on a shelf

near an English pavilion

meeting Jane Kenyon

Stevie Smith and Bishop

and for a cold shilling

to bet from that day on

that there was more wealth
to thank their wisdom to 

that any on earth's billing

or in the bank or any coupon
in a time of killing melancholy
for an exile who spoke to us
at Oxford with motioning lips
that war hypnotized a crime
realized for our humanity
in the Seventies political folly
that poetry could in our time
be recognized to share vocally
in a time of radical Apocalypse.

RODIN VISITS SALEM
May, 2016

In stone you shape
your geometric bodies
from hands shaped
like clay and bronze forms
connected for posterity
what is smartly shown
in a salon and studio
as flesh and bone
into a directed show of dancers
transforming our day
on a chain of being humanity
that only art answers.

EXPRESSIONIST DREAMS

In a miniature of the dark
surrounded by a portrait
in a landscaped culture
of a Van Gogh and Picasso
amid draped floating images
off Kandinsky and Franz Marc
as a curtained ether of the air
with Munch and Klee
covering worthy shadowy eyes
from George and Sophia Delaunay
removes Thursday's despair
with a contrary nightmare
in expressionist day dreams
here on a museum chair
from an improvised scene
entering a solitary paradise.
not knowing where I've been.

C.D. WRIGHT'S PASSING

She wrote as a guide
eye lashed with a glimpse
of her final step on stones
from uncharted scenes
through verbal undertones
departing to ride away
as outlaw weights rise
now fall as words leave
gone now from her chest
and atoning poetic heart,
may the last wings flow
out of Arkansas
and you critically depart
covering as the river grieves
of the white singing bird
by last January snow
cause you ,C.D. Wright
to be delivered and at rest.

DO NOT HURRY

Do not hurry, be miffed
or discouraged to lift phrases
from your diary or testimony
in a poet's flurry of Whitman
which ages or erases
any adage or ceremony
know it's your own own gift
to welcome home
a metamorphosis of words
on loan from lips of prophecy
to a younger amanuensis
that drifts by your past creation
from your personal parenthesis
over a genesis and Apocalypse
that we constantly pursue
from our own culture
in lifting up our vocation
to what Ezra Pound said
"to always make it new"
as sound and rhythm reacts
from our lasting signature
by casting off our shell
like any turtle on edge of shore
when Florida's injured Myrtle
needs an environmental helper
to compel her healing
from a crushing casualty
of nature like any creature rushed
by veterinarians to Wood's Hole
sounding by hospital knowledge
to save her from any fatality
and to make Myrtle whole,
we who on kayak or a Cape's boat
rowing back on the shore
have our cameras ready
with a sideline language
for our signature
upon our notebooks and pen
writing all the time like Dickinson
Thoreau or Emerson,
managing a drink like the swallow
while towing in an anchor
thinking of a wellspring
Spanish song
in choosing words that vanish
from any hallway's darkness
with repeated cruised insight
more in the service of the spirit
with a "yes" in the light
amid a prolific language
of a San Francisco Beat
when a rebellion wild wind
howls at the night exile
on the gazebo pavilion
or children without a passport
visa or money's support
still hearing a riled voice
over the white glassy sea
calling out a divine destiny
for a child son or daughter
as a refugee watches from a sail
a humpbacked whale
on a fishing land line
from another country's span
who waves by the high waters
on the ocean to an orphan guest
in a smile of angelic form
tossed in the ebb and flow
as an owl in a storm
in perpetual motion to stow away
amid the elements seeking rest
follow her or him on the web,
think of whose garments
were rent that we cannot fail
even when man would stone
the innocent in jail,imprisoned
or nailed over graffiti One is risen
to atone for the lonely remnant
those put on trial for dissent
once sent to an electric chair
or tortured for politics
or like Socrates
shut up for his ethics
or polemic
not putting his critics at ease
or others needing psychiatric help
for their clinical life at loss
from their schizophrenic cross
in a mind set on censorship
from a jazz dance worship
or tossing to sleep on your knees
look up and live lyrically
at any loss of a music of a word
then give out your deep poetry
faithfully as Bird Parker plays
in my mind as a sax riff sounds
from a miraculous romantic epiphany
on a relaxing metaphysical day
free of any taxing censorship
to radically forgive all topics
dramatically on holy grounds.

THE MAY WIND

Overturned ships along the Cape
concealed by the sands darkness
revealed expressionism
draped on my bare canvas
under this white painted gazebo
as geometric lines shapes us
by learning how art witnesses
to events one year ago
and returns to haunt us
in a fainted marble stone tableau,
my prolific nightmare like Poe's
rotates its own part of an axis
continues to sustain my ego
recovering my maps graphic universe
of those Russians not saved st sea
when those signaled pirates
on the waves of darkness
say on the wireless
"no or nyet" yet mean"da or yes,"
like clever critics who part our words
without using a writing brush
or a jazz soloist on the roof
riffs on a soprano saxophone
tracing imaginary notes
attempting the find the truth,
or a gardener by this orchard
transplanting this green fern
until sunshine listens at spring
on grounds to lean on and learn
or when sunshine day breaks
when morning branches kiss
the May wind shakes me
in my own circled abyss,
as black and bluebirds wake
near a sponge of my ink drawing
or my statue turns into a fawn's head
by a pavilion with pigeons
resting here at the river bed
in the early hour of morning
under a flower awning by the shade
likened to a prisoner's door
at my den devoted solely to thinking
in a library's language corridor
hearing music's contrary cadences
of images,rhythms, mirages
amid sequins, prints,sequences
of sharing my poet lore's way
in perpetual apocalypse of motion
along wellspring delivering barges
nature offering me deliverance
here by a kingfishers gathering
of salamander in the swimming harbors
amid the surging waves of ocean
from spring to summer arbors
delivering us to salvage
motioning salmon, cod by jelly wings,
those fish in higher waters
with a behaving divining rod
sighting a huge bird
flying in the ocean air
embracing an albatross's wings
like Coleridge's or Baudelaire's
knowledge of bench work words
in an embarrassing amanuensis
of practicing on my French love letter
in this praxis and parenthesis
with good wishes out to Paris
by signing in as a witness
of romance as a son of Ovid
sings out his metamorphosis.

CENDRARS TIME

Dos Passos called him
"the son of Homer"
for everyone knows this Swiss bard
was morphing into his misnomer
of a Paris visitor and dynamic author
kissing his listeners on a boulevard
by loving dada in surreal French
who passes us his drawing card
in the park by the river Seine
to make room on our workbench
with his iconic business delivering
a metamorphoses of the avant-garde
in a poetry of reigning success,
Cedrars discloses after the Great War
he is a pacifist,having seen the darkness
amid the stress for a spiritual man
increases as a wonder in promotion
of fueled creative gravity under stars
as in a meteor ring around Mars
from a scene of commotion
in all of Satan's fantastic notions
on foreign fascistic fields
in his vernacular of language,
wishes us a transformation
with arranging human shields
as if a charismatic talisman leaks
words from his own cheeky charm
urging man to finally disarm
in descant of transcendence
for his future cultural descendants
as a charismatic poet in sequences
speaks in a life's parenthesis
searching for truth in dialectical
and pivotal consequences
before a heathen firing squad
with a benchmark to God
penned by in Russia
as"the Legend of Novgorod"
greeting you as a renaissance man
by an old library shelf
he became my friend in residence
putting on an international fragrance
on me in his inventive personality
from an inventive classical history
in stories of chance adventure
with a part in world culture
in your story of Resistance
as an art partisan in war or peace
from a poet lore veneration for us
in this encomium and panegyric
to a gracious poetic glory
this tenacious genius sings
in his vocal twentieth century
seeking a dream story to enchant us
back to King Jesus as hero
beyond Dante's ninth labyrinth
to bring us from a scene of the Inferno
with a Homeric Greek chorus.

REMEMBERING GREENWICH VILLAGE

Charlie Parker at "The Open Door"
audible in rushing shadows
on the Big Apple's fresh air's edge
of moving moonlight riffs
by the last gig's tinted windows
on the first floor
talking past Jackson Pollock
whose finishing fingers
touch my life in drawing me
into the Beat of O'Hara
from young company players
actors on off off Broadway
discussed between my lines
on the first stage of memory
passing into vitality in the Village
summons a desired fired up
shift of companion languages
nearly outdone by pictures cast
by abstract expressionists
whose spark never goes out
in the dark alleys of our alto sax
or at an art pavilion
by a shout out in the absence of time
when in the course of night
on the piano's music left hand
is embraced by the timeless ashcan
turned over by graffiti walls
from the New York school
poetry never ages to give ourselves
away to Manhattan's new arrivals
of cleverly born exiles
by Ellis Island or Sing Sing
tuned onto the light spring rain
over in Flushing Meadows.

NOT FOR WAR
(For Robert Lowell
in memory)

Not for the armies of war
after being in a mental hospital
confined in arrested positions
for his humanity's protest
and for liberty of his vocation
a poet with personality swirls
this Thursday spring morning
having a series
of balmy hallucinations
like a gallery of mating birds
visiting an Evergreen tree
on Cambridge Common
he dreams of a memory
wrestling for inner peace
or a drink of wine
and not dreading to think
in a college class concentration
waiting in the faculty
with an intimacy of a bard
racked from distress
which he faces at college daily,
his mind constantly races
on this Charles River bed
as chased honey bees in a yard
not forgetting his medication
over a hedge at Harvard
he immediately chases
for cultural knowledge
of his old French quatrain
not to live on a ledge
like Socrates dismissively
as students rally around
his outside bench
but that every word be read
as he paces the lecture room
in a breathless chagrin
from so many panic attacks
hoping the gloom of medicine
will bring words to a stop
and set him on track
forgetting the offended pain
of his breathless god on the rack
now still in a black valley
of melancholy reigning doom
settling for a close friend
like Elizabeth Bishop instead
now in Brazil, to be back soon.

RANT AT INTERVIEW

Ron carries in his valise
long notebooks of injustice
on fish hooks of metaphors
over a Vermont library corridor
apparently wishing on his video
to have an alternative literary
vision of a contrary poetry lore
from the hidden mirror
of his own selfish narcissism
in a meticulous print out
constantly spouting
his own morphing dictionary
in a mindful but cautionary tale
of his personal business
without success as a writer
Ron is cursed with a warring
unsigned nursing busy ego
he hinted to me out the door
that he always rants at interviews
from his reconstructed third estate
in which does not want to be ignored
granted Ron thinks he is a stud
and has a fire in his confession
like a revealing Errol Flynn
with a steel sword's impression
as in the movie Captain Blood
with a miraculous effluence
as he wants me to review
the feigned yet secretly inspired
lives of authors
and understand their influence,
to make everything once hidden
to be new for his beneficiaries
no matter the data or distance
of many understated inventions
with him you cannot win
in any arbitrary scattered argument
amid disorderly habits of chance
with freely constructed words
he strictly instructed me in
showing to me the press releases
of own adrenaline concision
as he smiles to stone wall me
down the country road
I adjusted to tell him
my own literary path
from my own load of study
by the wheelhouses of influence
in the wiles of invention
and reasonable obligation
with fairly good impression
of Heaney, Frost, Merton,Plath
who have not been understood,
now we watch a flock of birds
flying by a pigeon on rocks
at the public park's water
near the Green mountain express
in its Bennington slovenly bath
at the park water fountain
by the deer in the woods
as we remain for an hour
at a pavilion French cafe
for croissants and cheese
asking me honorable questions
on various authors behavior
with no fabled consideration
after several available rants
knowing the laughing hysteria
of an interviewer's shout out
is not any poet's savior
in these mercenary discussions
confesses to me by the clock
his own known drugged testimony
as he briefly passes out
upon his dry dead bones
lying on his own read epitaph
of a staff writer's mental block.

ON JERUSALEM ROAD
(Cohasset, MA)

My palms were dusty
and numbed
from my rosin case
playing in a profusion
of Bach notes interlaced
at an afternoon recital
hearing heavenly chords
later eating by the roadside
talking to these humming birds
amid the vitality of my thumb
from my musical score
by myself serving a half loaf
of French cheese bread slices
and more soda ices
this May gazebo
under the white table covers
to dine in Tanglewood at Lenox
a waiter offers us a bagel and lox
with  a bland red wine
which every music lovers digests
as a fine Boston cultured critic
aged with white hair
suggests adventurous fun
of hearing a violinist play
a Spanish sarabande
under the vanishing sunshine.

WHERE WORDS

Where words always
address the moon
and end up as butterflies
by the dark water's edge
in the fountain's wellspring
near the white birches
across a misty river of bones
where my Dutch uncle
and a cherished Resistance hero
is buried by a canal's mangrove
yet still rises in a landscape
in my post war memory
embedded in the park
near a life drawing
of Van Gogh
which could define the ashes
of a generation of eye opened
untangled wounds
in a lacquered shape
with the shadow of language
of liberation day suspended
by neon lighted injuries
feeling abandoned
like a stray cat in the snow
yet knowing the skipped rope
of my cousin Lisa
still kisses the marble ground
of her late father Kim
by contorted canals
flooded by a lasting name
in the winter's gorse light
soon a white incarnation
in a lotus blossom
of a technicolor sunshine
from a ghost still at my mouth
captured by the evil doers
hiding in hallways by his pals
and taken into custody
in the South
was wounded as a freedom fighter
trying to save a fringed refugee
will always arrive blindfolded
in our fingerprinted sadness
taking an overlooked taxi
in Amsterdam alleys.

A DADA DREAM

A night journey
of a dada dream
sleeps in my eyes
sprouts from vineyards
of a bard's darkness
when a crescent moon
passes over
covering a deep silence
stolen from a wayside
of fallen sandbags
emerging in another world
that felt like a hint of paradise
entangled the last light
of the lunar sky
by the curtained pastimes
in the depth of a hard rain
watering a Paris park shade
by the river Seine
along suburban birch branches
away from the city graffiti walls
where song birds rise
from pastel wet leaves
too embarrassed
in the ninth circle
of geometric designs
reminding me of Mondrian
from a labyrinth of squares
flickering in candles
of my dark lashes
from a gossamer of smoke
extended to a dead end street
in the rain of pungent nature
dazzling by pale green grass
leaving me a river current
of rushing waterfalls captured
by the brush of an artist
in a grove of potted plants
near the expressionist canvas
of another generation.

SAMUEL JOHNSON"S LIFE

Poet of a different time
tormented, with tears shed
for your dictionary to be read
Samuel Johnson
by the whole world
selfishly in an English bed
with a piece of bread and drink
to get others in a lexicon
to dream and to think
by a chain and padlock
unless you go mad
for your literary goal
we turn to you at night
or turn back the clock
in our contrary mood
that we ourselves
not frightened by knoll,
hill or good nature's toll
in city,town or wood
will be with wonder
in your thrilling story
from Boswell's diary
as we read your verse
will enlighten a lamp
under your universe
and have some one person
perhaps in another age
summoned to be understood
and to assuage your soul.

MAY MADRIGALS

Hearing the gulls chorus
and birds on the branches
searching in the sun spots
as a swan and swallow kites
appear in the atmosphere
as friends share
with me on my radio voice
I'm heard
to play an oratorio
by William Byrd
after the slight avalanche
while at cross country
on a Vermont ski lift
in dawn's miracle litany
wanting a gift of words
here in the laughing forest
on an afternoon of a fawn
rejoicing by drawing in
a painting to share
resembling the poetry
while enjoying
a Blake blue plate special
inside the church.

MAY MADRIGALS 2

By the church
painting from the sky
under the last branch
of a searching miracle
from my canticle
and candle burning
in a litany
yearning for words
after a cross ski
as branches fall
in an avalanche.

MAY MADRIGALS

Composing what glorifies
the blue paintings of the sky
in my musical poem
from a litany of words
of an eye lashed miracle
to be alive by the river's church
while searching the sun's dust
when mountains gives way
on cross country skis
by the Vermont birds branches
delivers us to safety
to survive
from an unwanted avalanche.

SPRING RESCUE

The weather was fair
on the enfolded waves
as a friend takes off the tape
from my anchored kayak
under an extended bright sun
we notice one leather back turtle
who needs to be set free
with the same story of last
year' s record cold in the Fall
on the distant part of Cape
all horrifically entangled
and strangled by balls of plastics
twisted knots ,unbalanced rope
as discarded things motion us
from picnics and addicts
in the deepest haze of ocean tide
found along with prozac, razor wire,
pill bottles of narcotic items near
flavors of tiny liquors by a mirror
near a packet of volcanic fire crackers
and a gem of cryptic love letters
in a small trunk cover
nearly drowned in the eiditic mire,
as a nearly drunken sailor
reminiscent of a manic scene
on the operatic lips of La Gioconda
locates a pirate's Spanish tunic
becomes excited for his treasure
hauled from an old ship
as if all tectonic plates vanish
he boasts of his secret find
in his vacillated leisure
yet not forgetting
the impounded leather back turtle
immediately calls
into Woods Hole observatory
whose brave scientists
with a quick arrival
plan a a terrific rescue
from the shadowy Bay team
who save us a testimony
from a hundred to one chance
and give us hope for a turtle
for survival in the ambulance.

CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON'S LIFE
(1926-2015)

You left us a year ago
remembering your lectures
in the library hall
when I could not sleep
so amazed at your culture
that circled our minds's
that I now recall
you connected to me
so deeply with a precise
understanding of poets
on a contrary generation's past
that in my adolescent sense
deposited your writ and wit
as you captured my verse's pun
in the shade of my spirit
now you too in memory's glue
have been translated
to another heaven for the few
critics who directed us
in an understated task
we will not forget you,
good Christopher Middleton
if you would could ask
there are no secret regrets
from the land of the dead.

ASK YOURSELF

Ask yourself
as you take off
with my poems
off the shelf
in the open mirror
of our exposure
when life has spun
and my sax rips
in a corridor of verse
in enfolded parenthesis
of stored up thought
in prayers of St. Francis
as witnesses to love souls
from the strife of a time
of lost and found prophecy
from Genesis to the Apocalypse
when war crimes were fought
for your promises of peace
to heal us in the breach
never overwrought by words
by "Doubting Thomas"
a sailboat of my neighbor
living in a cape by the back
as waves sound near my anchor
with a rope with knots
distraught of news on my kayak
in reaching our closure of loss
by the backs of so many sailors
during the heavy storms at sea
as Picasso's mourning doves
from wintry white covers
on once snowy birch branches
by rain drops
covering Elm and Evergreen trees
call to us over this Maypole day
as birds across the beach
will sing again on the Bay
to each soul who can hear
the showers of each spring's rain
from this hour's first daylight
are suddenly released
as my Vermont neighbor, Nicole
who speaks to me in Montreal's
delightful French-Acadian accent
invited me to a one time
Canadian poetry slam
brings over a croissant brunch
with with her home-made jam
and a bunch of crocus flowers
over to my work board bench
wants me to play a favorite riff
on my sax for her son Clifford
who labors with an infirmity
of an impediment of speech
whispers to bz
that only my warm tone
of love will reach.

A DREAMER

You want to be a dreamer
here in Vermont
among the ice peaks
once wishing to learn
to country ski on these cliffs
yet knowing there is mystery
for everything is by faith
in my history
but here in the sun spots
has only one redeemer of nature
dazzled in first light
strands of thoughts
open as my jazz riffs
in my music offering
I'm wishing to understand
how so much of life strands us
to believe and peek
on these mountains
with insight sight here all week
whispering of a rainy spring
down by Maypole hours
by the wellspring fountains
in my walk down green hills
being taught on familiar grounds
by hearing the shrill of egrets
hawks, and other birds
after so many storms
and knowing my diary words
still recalls wintry snows
there will be flowers
on window sills
declaring laughter again
on whispering graffiti walls
in the warmth of shadows.

THE FRANCISCO BEAT
(In memory, Daniel Berrigan)
(Passed away May 2016)

Check it out
said the Beat
not on Wall Street
but in a shout out
on nameless avenues
when you remember
the peace marches
by St. Francis chapel
back on Boston Common
for us in enlisting Jesus
as a populist partisan
in honor of the God -man
of bonded resistance
during the war of Vietnam
remembering you this May
with a red rose of Sharon
by the Fenway's river bed
thinking also of Dorothy Day
with a delivering smile
as Fr. Berrigan has gone
to hear a heavenly song
in the Marian month of grace
we will remember you every May
for drinking from a cup
wellspring's pacifism and peace
when you told us the good news
that peace will be welcomed
some day soon
when even sectarian reviews
realized that war is wrong
thinking of our century
when proletarians were in poverty
and the toll of life in fascism
from wars of strife increased
in these cash wars of words
when a revenue of liberty
and freedom is decreased
when Picasso's doves are released
under the sun's bright rays
adding up the posterity summary
of the titanic resource of love
waging inside your wondrous spirit
and of Ted your brother- poet
we remember always
the cost of human life
in a wooden cross
no property has significance
as long as the eternal
poetry's song of children lasts
which gives us miracles
at the lights of canticles
when candles do not go out
from your ashes remembrance
do not age like cash deposits
offering us on earth
no moneyed insurance policy
will bring us to heaven
we ask a seven fold tolerance
for a legacy that will outlast
the King- Messiah's grace for us
a life not barren but are on course
in the prosperity of language
which we desire
will graciously live on.

THE YACHT RACE

At Marblehead it's time
for the annual yacht race,
away from the city
north of Boston
and I am here under the shed
with the critics at Tanglewood
as my uncle Linwood took us
by the sands off the ocean shore
after he gave me on Saturday
my harmony, solfeggio,
violin and conducting lesson
for my upcoming debut
of a Bach solo
knowing with his intellectual wit
his nephew would be put out
on the musical carpet
remembering the boats passing
and the motioning hands
of the extended university crew
speaking of my music's curiosity
with " The Swan" echo
of Saints- Saens sounding
as the winds blew on this dawn
and sails float and sing
with notes solace stirring
at my string's virtuosity
my mind over the laughing waters
in a grimaced luminosity
tracing along my fading memory
leaning on garden grounds
waiting for a faceless spring
to disappear on a horizon
and pardon winter's everything.

VALEDICTION TO DESNOS

You held out for life
when the Nazis brought
a passing dark cloud to Paris
when believers of all kind
were embarrassed by
their Vichy watered down
shameful strife in capitulation
but I offer a pure song
of miracle for liberation
from your poetry's loving words
at a cafe bench
for a post-war rebirth
in your vocation
remembering your words
on the burning sand and sea
watching Zuydcoote's wings
of a thousand birds
once fallen from blue skies
as jet planes on the Atlantic
quickly set to fly
at the dawn or at twilight
to rescue partisans in the forest
like my cousin Mendes at Lyon
hiding on the over night earth
the Allies call Dunkirk
hold up my one red rose
at first light's implication
by the woken up river bed
forever frozen in memory
in your name Desnos
to deliver your valediction
that God may deliver you
in English and French
wishing for saplings
near branches of gulls
over the million skulls
killed in animosity
by sheds of a spring garden
where you died at Terezin
to keep all poets, children
and the knowing citizenry free.

FEELINGS

You feel things
so deeply this spring
as a  jazz pose with a sax
in a photo of Paris
by the Seine
with personal riffs
in a poet's parenthesis
waiting by a museum gate
on Saturday it starts to rain
where there is no access
in the moving eye space
you are demanding
to witness Dali's Narcissus
hanging from the light of
of his Metamorphoses
by the Fine Arts window pane
you step into cold silence
by the drawings of Degas
as a child ballet star dances
it must be Mardi Gras
as you are called alone
to stand by Mathais Grunewald
on the stone altar
you are hushed in a whisper
thinking of life's original sin
as if you were crushed
under the stoning by the Cross
in a miracle where you begin
to leave the scene on the wall
and run into gorgeous tapestries
of Andy Warhol guiding me
across the first light
as your shadow will freeze
on this wondrous happening
over a building sign saying
"Do not touch or interfere"
by the 17th century
Dutch painter Jan Vermeer
and by chance a shaping wish
of silence astonishes me
suddenly remembering
the honorable drawing of
"Syndics of the Drapers
Merchants Guild"
enabled and granting me
to stand near the landscapes
of Rembrandt.

ON REMOTE

On remote feeling insecure
not emoting fearsome coercion
being with a besotted T.V. crew
of lettered coated college students
in their sorority and fraternity
from a local university
who arrive early on the movie set
in their own jotted down fantasy
promoted by uncorked wine glasses
and spinach and cheese croissants
speaking in a fine Montreal French
who are making a necessary preview
featuring a small village
here at the bench and gate
on a poetry documentary mission
with their own insurgent film
knotted in a black and white
from an all seeing teleprompter
freely run by a library assistant
a former New York debutante
and intelligently cooperative too
as a confident language developer
very imprudent and framed
with a T.V. camera or two
and mass media references
is welcomed to my company
for an innocent engagement
in the internet lexicon
with a contrary granting ambition
they are asking me knowledge
at my own half century immersion
in study of Robert Frost's poetry
or about Sylvia Plath's estrangement
within a range of high privilege
as a creature on the snow
here in Bennington, Vermont
out from her arranged limo
ringing in
at a morning's stationary time
for a leisurely diversion and chat
wanting to pet my cat Amos
scattering across
his own path of fame
and success at climbing
on a ski loft earlier with me
under the enlightened sun
who is a person to recognize
in her own right to matter
will not have left me nameless
in my diary of daily erasure
near this icy glacier lake
curling here all day
and caresses me to be filmed
awakening tonight now famous.

BROTHER LAWRENCE

Stripped and clipped leaves
of wintry cold
would give wide sway
as new bare trees enfold
allowed him to believe
that  new fruits and green
would give him to yearn
a good chance to discern outside
standing outside the monastery
leaning in his boots of Auvergne
of his remembrance of a day
that brings spring to return,
this happened to me in glory
when away for a season
in adolescence of my history
suited me to have a belief
as new saplings gave me
a relief of his presence
and brother Lawrence
accompanied me to Salem
Jerusalem and Florence.