NO MORE WAR(A BEAT POEM)

No more war,
we called out for an end
to their mad machines
in the Sixties
at the screaming yellow press
that their fellow tabloids back
to depress and oppress,
and feed their populace
in a thousand words
with popular Kultur
a paper made for the birds
with news of infighting
for we choose to be open
in the quiet light
of the people's dreams
as I'm quietly reading
about the Kurds
in the newspaper, Freiheit.

DREAMS

Seems

that there is

a stranger

in these dreams

which turns over

in blankets

of a manger

or a stage manager

who hears me,

directs 

and closely listens

near the light

around the Evergreens.

THE LINES

The shopping lines
telephone lines
waiting lines
voting lines
party lines
secret lines
headlines
deadlines
we face so many
every day.

A SWEDISH HERO

Today we know
Wallenberg is dead
my hands breathe
in the blood of snows
Raul you helped to save
Jewish souls
that would have been lost
to Hitler's Holocaust
we honor you,
small children
scientists,
artists,
so many on the lists
of fascists.

A BEAT POET

A Beat poet
in a frenzy blinding
of a ragged edge
in 1950's jazz
at intervals of riffs
troubling our vision
as a city lights up
in language
at a San Francisco club
and drops slam words
in primordial space
from verses opening
in a kind of perpetual
motion,
here in the abyss
from time bombs
and a metamorphosis
flashing out
at an unexpected traveler
by storming out
at life's wrongs
at this podium
in a sentence at our humanity
from a one sided
condition with echoes
of a sentient transparency
alive with Picasso paintings
of impulsive colors
from a visionary
in a surrealism of songs.

TOWARDS NOON

Guessing the last day
of October
will admit the horseflies
up here at the barn
in Vermont,
of course
we want our skis
to go cross country
near the farm
they are harvesting apples
and ginseng Chinese tea
as my aunt bakes
spinach and cheese croissants
when she cooks very early
and continually
with a hurting arm
reminding me
of nana Mendes
with her hurting arm
in her Spanish country kitchen
of steak, pancakes and eggs
by her open corridors
doing her priorities
her food tasting like manna
from a fed heaven
for the small multitude
hung out
with her early priorities
as she vanishes toward noon
by her bed and breakfast nook
as my city companions awake
I'm consuming a memory
of my translated poetry
in a book
now in seven tongues
with a savant's attitude,
and then on my knees
as an in -door servant
reciting the beatitudes.

CLIO

My memory
opens up to Clio
in the mythology
at a scene of history
a Muse
across the waters,
a daughter
of Mnemosyne
who is in antiquities.

NOT A BREATH

Not a breath
of warmth
in Jonah
near the big fish
on his way to Nineveh
yet this Jewish saint
does not faint
from his task
he merely asks
like his countrymen
to live.

LIFE LENGTHENS

Life lengthens
to give me strength
in the icy woods
of daylight
off the Maine Coast
the ashen branches
stand like a rocky crevice
in a boasting rain from
the windy forest
near the birches
which whips
the helpless snow showers
along the hills
into a line of dragon flies.

A THRUSH

A thrush tries
this Thursday
to make sounds
as if he is human
rises up
at the blueberry farm
where I play my sax
while helping out
with an armful of chores
watching the manes
of riding ponies and horses
here in Vermont
unshaven in my mysticism
a brown bear suddenly jumps up
in the woods
by a listening fountain
while I protect the children
eating their croissants.

THE WAITING ROOM

The waiting room
has a dark entrance
of deadly and shy
occupation
no one has an invitation
to visit
only a Jewish poet
fresh from the last war
survives the sweat
of his last bet
at poker
and he will out live
the joker.

WARSAW WALLS

Warsaw walls
need light
for Andrei Wajda to direct
his films
needing a lantern
in a cortege truck of sound
opening the underground
of sewer and pipe line
to transform the earth
as an eagle
from the burning red sky
joins the movie crew
as a sign of life from above
and a handsome Jew
has a clear vision
from his hiding out
for three years.

AT WOODS HOLE

On the Cape's bogs
gathering blueberries
at Wood's Hole
draped in my old Fogg
rain coat
as we notice a frog
being dissected
by a teen scientist
outside Wood's Hole
he's also drinking
Russian rye kvass
with Nabokov by his side
and from my eye
we direct a ruddy horse rider
with an injured stallion
on the open fields
to the stud farm nearby
in Hamblin near Falmouth
relaxing now by the mud
near a carefree Evergreen
at a standstill dawn for me
as I'm playing my soprano sax
trying to relax
by playing riffs of jazz
with a wriggling garden snake
awakening a tadpole
rustling on the dewy grass.

A DREAM VISION

Prophets and poets
expect incidental dreams
or monumental visions,
not unlike Byron ,Shelley, Keats
today we call it enlightenment
when its entity is of the mind
and sent brain waves
depositing ideas to an Einstein
or an Eisenstein
rather than of a better pure spirit
yet we endure
by receiving our lover's letter
depositing winding gifts
for instance a kiss on target
or by chance a metamorphosis
at the sunny soccer meet
here with my undercover jacket
hiding from a slew of bees
under a scarf of Fall leaves
feeling abandoned
when I  notice
by a lonely Evergreen
a Japanese actor in green sleeves
doing Kabuki
believing even in my despair
acting out or
a reciting few psalms
are offering to promise me
even a doubting Thomas
facing the faithless enemy
or  having Yeats  walk with me
experiencing cabin fever
at the Isle of Innisfree
or Heine or Celan
feeling prejudice in Germany,
thinking there was no one here
to pray ,smile or rejoice with me
yet her open air performance
on the grass
lifted up my day
and made life all clear
as the melancholy passes away.

THE SWAN BOAT

At the public garden
under the sun
near the Boston Common
the swan boats
have been anchored
until the spring
now the floating sky birds
have gone South
we are lulled
by a wintry
singing bird's sleep
of the Fall's bygone's
and taking leave
of a red vintage wine
near a river bed
leaving a living memory
of Concord and Lexington
and to rest deeply
near a nest's mouth
of an eagle's wing.

THE TROUT

Eating the trout
on my Friday fish day
then placing on
my  plate
and dish
a lemon sherbet
for dessert
while listening
to "The Trout"
a quintet of Schubert
in A Major of this score
on a turn table before me
then taking
this open boat
out to the Azores
as the late morning tide rips
its waves at high tide
transporting me about
and skips by the shore.

HEY, JAZZ POET

Hey, jazz poet
playing a hundred riffs
lending your Van Gogh ear
as if to carry the sound
of your tenor sax
though this gig's
long corridors
engaged with the voice
of a relaxed smooth warmth
in my instrument's choice
from an underground venue
of angel Ariel's song
of melody
or a funereal monody
embracing through us
touching our wounds
and words on the rebound
in our love found monitors
from our stormy chasms
and fathomless memory
that kick starts
former addicts of pop art
like Roy Lichtenstein
or Andy Warhol
playing us like Braque
or Picasso
with two part inventions
as in a organ toccata
or a cantata of Bach
beyond all music dreams,
phosphorescent viola sonatas
in a numinous rapture
of dilated relaxed concertos
as in a rapid stream Bax
for us
from an English chorus
during our culture's
ominous time
on earth's luminous
home planet
at a critic's rhyme
or a teaching time
of tribulation
reaching out
to hear a Russian symphony
or a piano sonata
of Scriabin
practiced from
over a spacious
and scrupulous introspection
deciphered by composers
from their unfinished notes
sharing with us
in Paris overlooking
a popular chorus line
not to be embarrassed
with augmented quotes
at a French music hall
from the bench of Offenbach
or at a flatly diminished ball
with Strauss' arty articulation
of a once voluminous
waltz cycle
now the avant-guard
is featured in part
from the philosopher - bard
with affirmations mirrored
from the faint words
on the corridors
of Saint Michael
in Bach, Mozart or Kierkegaard.

WE ASK

We ask for perspicacity
and wisdom's fanfare
from our audacity
for a hidden freedom
in masks to share
a credibility
on Halloween's
home brew
we take an acrid view.

TUNING UP

Tuning up
my violin strings,
Dario
while pruning
and flowering my garden
here in Vermont
with last spring's planting
now all set for my vegetables
of bean, spinach and corn
for our croissants
with my aunt' pleasant laughter
as she is putting flowers
on the table of life
newly attached to earth,
now reborn and after reasoning
and believing
that this Fall season
will have a good harvest
of our miracle first fruits also
gathering pomegranates,
lemons, apples
for our feast of Tabernacles
will survive in their roots
before the first snow
is seen over the Green Mountains
and our guest Malvolio arrives
as an antagonist
at a pleasant time to build
pardon, rejoice and sing
from my portfolio
to make us feel alive
and blessed.

RAIN

Rain lodges 

in a pulsed clumsiness

over the green hills
near a drinking fountain
for her cat

as this wanderer, Eloise,

with a lone guitar

is singing her narrative

a country western tune

(she made up in melody
and words

under her breath)

as the yearning stars

open the third heavens
for her until dawn

Eloise is a runaway
and trailblazer

who has returned

from a Texas cool spa

to visit her cowboy dad
in Arizona

miles from her home

where she left school

as she heard radio waves
on a quiet A.M.dawn

as voices give her
a dream to be a pop star

relentlessly giving out tunes

which she transcribes

on her strings

as she goes to her mail box

to finds her thank you

and bank notes

as gifts for her Sweet Sixteenth

even from her mom

as she has struck the keyboard

she realizes a time bomb

is waiting for her

to barnstorm the world

realizing it's not dot. com

that life affords
and describes in her song

that it's time to wake her up

advising what is heated
and sizing up
what's wrong

in all her minor chords
and that she will not
be defeated
but rewarded.

A SPIDER

A spider
hid inside the vine
by the last summer roses
which entwines her
posing as an outsider
by imposing my picture
of her as I draw her
in the dark of slumber
here at the last of October
numbering snapshots
in a catologue
of my own
by my miniature camera
at my own composure
which will hide her posture
on the park's hedges
at the edge of the lake
wondering if she leaves me
as a poseur on the ledges
with a mark on my shirt sleeves
which I will discover
or uncover
at my coffee break.

A LIFE

A life is often a masquerade
with make up on the face
under a mirror in the corridor
displaying an actor's charade
offering a brief dance,
bow and fiddle
in a wonder's Scheherazade
wishing to know the soft answer
of its unspoken riddle
from Ovid's Metamorphosis
with a joker card in tact
expecting a riff from a jazz band
at the first kiss at the dance
by killing the lights
in the last act
of a forbidden engaged tiff
at an unwilling hand
or hidden bliss at midnight.

DO NOT REPLY OR ASK

Do not reply or ask
as your voice is silent
of questions or answers
preferring to hear and watch
the music of Russian dancers
in their silky white masks
vanishing in the matinee light
then my favorite ballerina
squints at me from
her dark eye lashed eyes
as Galina hints of a tete a tete
with a late lunch omelette
of crepe and egg suzette
sounds like a quiet paradise.

HERE AT THE RIVER

Here at the Charles river
my orange kayak lands
on the sponge of waves
by the sunny luminous shore
anchored on the Evergreen tree
where my rubbed out initials
were written when I was five
is still to be seen by the pond
of the almond salamanders
as twigs fall by crimson leaves
the sea breeze embraces us
through the October wind
as I play a thousand riffs
with my notes of smooth jazz
making nature alive
as I relax on the sand.

THE COST

The cost for love
when given away free
is now in the shame
which has no name
in this upper country
but is eaten
as a mistaken
misfortune cookie
on the plate
of the lost supper.

OCTOBER 31st.

In the cold country street
by the photographed October 31st
through broken mirrors
of the cursed unspoken
silent horror movie
my students have taken down
into the home room corridors
when the snowy doors open
suddenly opening to
the cellar's dark room
blacked out by the sun
it all seems to meet
with stellar charades
in motion at the sleepy
Gothic doom's day
at the last limestone
gloomy caves playing out
in a hollow dramatic
gas lighted volcanic scene
of a midnight picnic
as blasphemous
and vexed
ex monkish ghosts
float in grey shades
by the graves tomb,
what shrill boasts follow
the narrow shades
of the blackened shadows
at the cracked windows
where thickly ashen
and sponged greenish
orange and black costumes
are worn in a titanic Ulalume
on Halloween
where the poet
Edgar Allen Poe wishes
he had never been.

AUDITION

Evading and shading

in her first audition

of my script
from my newest one act play

Monique is reprimanded

several times

by the art director,

as the actor shyly asks him
this day if she will get
the part
after the half hour interview
as her lips tremble

(she barely laughs on cue)

as every hair is put in place
by the dressing room

knowing how important it is
that the unique nuances

reach each powerful line
is her romantic task
to be on time
in her three masks

knowing Monique's face
must change its facade

for the unique first scene

using only the right accent

and choice of language

left over from our examination
of her part

from the limited range
of her space at her collapse
at a recorded rendition

of where she has been,

whether her voice of art

is genuine or fake

as we arranged for her

on this hour on stage

where no one gets a break.

KNOWING

Knowing how you slide
by these swings
on this snowy dawn
in the airy playground
up here in Vermont
where bird nests open
by the fountain's glen
when the kindergarten opens
to let out my cousin's children
who bring their lunch
of my aunt's cheese croissants
to munch on
as we walk
to the Green Mountains
as these crimson leaves
fall from Maple trees
as the sunshine rays pose
in their shadows
here by the country vines
of the last summer roses.

WATCHING

Watching a kite festival

by the island's river quays

though it is cold in the mist

and we start to shiver
in a nature's hunger
I'm wearing a angel-winged scarf
on a white shirt

in a Henry James sort of way

here by the finery of Manhattan
of a once Dutch New Amsterdam

near the brownstone ice pond

of my younger dangerous days

yet laughing
as we all resist leaving

because the suspended sun

is now out and so you begin

to play touch football
supporting strangers now friends

passing by the shouting crowd
but without any brawl at sports

in a proud Fall pattern of sorts

hearing the chilled voice

of my partner who is an orderly
who gives me a passing ball
with his amends to me
for a kicking injury
on the pinewood lawn
as I hear Hans's icy glass

giving me a friend's Daiquiri.

SHY LANGUAGE

Afraid to speak up
in class
Juan a student tells
me he feels as an alien
not speaking a perfect
English,
I tell the boy not to be shy
for he has a contribution
to make in any language
it was as if the ice broke
on the pond outside
as he slowly began to speak,
knowing any indifference to joy
or any interference
of prejudice was not right
and all expressions,
nightmare words
or glances of cruelty,
busy body behavior
or making fun
would now be gone
and after class
Juan was seen ice skating
and laughing on the pond
with the rest of the class
true to our Savior.

WITH THE SCENT

With the scent
of poetry
here in the woodland
of my familiar routes
as a marathon runner
hearing the murmur
of the fleeing sky birds
heading for the warmth
of the South for winter
it starts to violently rain
as memories pass me by
here in the hinterland
at Vermont's hunting season,
admitting that this dawn
(in German of "sturm and drang")
makes me afraid
by clearly hearing
a dark mouthing storm
in a knife sounding whistles
of hunter horns which rang
with their fierce dogs
on the ground
made me a little forlorn
for the newly born,
anesthetized by sadness
a poet continues to jog
wanting no animals
to lose their life
and wanting a dialogue
without a rogue madness
of any strife.

WATCHING THE OPERA

Watching the opera "Thais"
by Massenet
while playing the violin solo
in the orchestra as a teenager
when engaged classical music
was fixed in my D.N.A.
without catching any bias
of my mixed range of choice
not being a critical stranger
to the Romantic era
"Thais" changed my solo mind
about the voice of a saint
for soprano or an alto instrument
of the faintly divined.

BEHIND POSTERS

Behind a selection
of election posters
through corridors
and auditors
of pater nosters
on this October day
I walk by Winthrop beach
carrying my poems
of Elizabeth Bishop
and send my lemon kite
up to the sky.

BENEATH THE SUNSHINE

In range
of my being
beneath the sunshine
seeing the possibility
of a change
in the weather
from an avalanche
of showers
as the roses,
mums and geraniums
by the vine's flowers
still shine
as a bird's feather
falls from the mountain
and I drink a glass of wine.

THE CAT

The cat Louise purrs
and whispers in patience
from a touching sleepy face
as she wakes me up
and motions to me
in a pitty- pat grin
from the blinds
of the draped jalousie window
near the Scandinavian
blond furniture
with her gentle grace glowing
to relax in the shadows
by the piano
from an unselfish
baritone tremor of the wind
from the partly opened doors
which races over me
thinking of this poem
at a circle of leisure
on my sofa
as my riffs gesture
to her from my tenor sax
having the pink
and red salmon fish
and herring
from the Cape's river
and pond beds
prepared, delivered
and placed in her cover dish
water in her love cup
as she is fond
of eating in a corner alone
and drinking by the hallways
of my den's corridor
as is always her pleasure.

THE TIMED HOPE

The timed hope
as we excavate
and look at
the old city
for lonely artifacts
and book backs of history
of the holy people of the Book
around the corner
and corridors
by the enemies
of David, Samuel and Saul,
facing here in Jerusalem
a new chapter
of the walled city
is now being written
by university scholars,
critics, ministers
and priests in white collars
returning to seize
the branches of tabernacles
of a miracle people
who survive
only by God's grace.

REMEMBER

Remember this October
of red and crimson leaves
falling in the crevices
of the football field
spilling out
as the children
out shout
the visiting crowds
reflecting their practice
all week
while I watch
from the gallery
unable to play
because my uncle says
I could be injured
before my first
string recital.

SITTING AT TABLE

Sitting at an open table
up here in Vermont
catching a cable series
of 20th century
French comedies
broadcast from Montreal
munching on croissants
as my aunt bakes with ease
from her bed of recipes
in a large breakfast nook
offering me small crunchy
white marble cakes
after a steak and eggs
she cooks up
in a souffle pancake
of her own delicious food
then begs to demand
that I play a Chopin etude
on her baby grande.

LOVE

Love instructed me
to cultivate my rose garden
hours before the promenade guest
arrives at our prom
with her nosegay of flowers,
to write her love letters
of pardon and grace
with a dot com,
to construct a scheherazade float
decorated under a canope
for her of twigs and leaves
from a precious magic tree
and pour out my sentiments
in an avant garde note
and to finally face
the music finality
from this a pruner of romance
with a fine tuner
in a tenor sax
then relax in the corner
on a back bench baroque sofa
with dignity
to take my chance at parcheesi.

TIGER SHARK

A tiger shark
in the darkness
appears in Scotland
off the British boat
here at Lochness
in tranquil waters
floating above us
wrapped in mystery
of a vast sea
in a body cavity
deeply fathomless.

PLAYING A FOUR HAND

Playing a four hand sonata
with my favorite Bach sonata
on the recital program
wounds me to the quick
as in my chosen poetry's music
hearing a vital thunderous
applause from the audience
reacting to my atmospheric tone
as a jazz poet's spirit pauses
among the riffs of panegyrics
as if from a faintly anarchic night
with Spanish love songs
featured and playing
to enlighten and disclose
with a lightening -split for us
in the language sung
from a loving choir on stage
and an outstanding chorus
here at the All Saints church
with young proteges and clerics
from the Boston music school
searching by staves and staffs
standing by my audience
as my melancholic eyes
are now drawn
into metamorphic silence
on this paragraph's page
of my intense graphic memoir
and epitaph
among the wise cadenzas
composed for tonight.

DO NOT ASK ME

Do not ask me
again to play the piano
chords of smooth jazz
here at my gig
or to recite
my disarmed poems
inhaling from my breath
getting in touch
with my four hands
as I watch the cups
of Bordeaux wine being served,
I want to play jazz riffs
all night for the muses
here in a Vermont cafe
eating cheese croissants,
outside it is raining
from a midnight storm
yet love is my fervid
warm wish hidden
in my pea jacket sleeves,
we are by the park bench
watching the full moon
wanting always to ride with you
on my motorcycle
as the red and crimson leaves
fall near the river beds
as a nearly blind snow flake
by my favorite birch tree
near the open highway
is inscribed with my initials
love's mark is on my cheek
from a misty dynamite hug
of a hide and seek malaise
this French kiss from twilight
will be at my hallways
with my poetic praise.

THIS IS THE HOUSE

This is the house,
look in with me
cast your eyes
at my aunt's cooking
from her French kitchen nook
with its bread and breakfast
who quickly makes us
from her recipe bench
fresh crepes, pancakes
with cups of apple cider
and spinach croissants
up here in Vermont
as her guests plan
to cross country ski
and to take me
up to the Green Mountains.

IN THE CLEARING

In the clearing

in late afternoon

catching the departure

in a nightfall flight

of black birds

going south

while on my bicycle

these words for this poem

appear in my mind

under my head band

while I am on the far side

of the White Mountains

near the green hills

with my telescope

poised on the stars

and full moon

there is no noise

and time is at a stand still.

ANSWERING LETTERS

Over the summer
letting letters pile up
from former friends,
foreign students, poets
those on fields
both sports
or in the service
others needing consolation
from faded love affairs,
not making
any unfair promises
even for their reports
of doubting St. Thomas'.

OPENING MY EYES

Opening my eyes
on a new dawn
the tiny sea birds
are along the ocean
to exchange their shadows
into a song of voices
endlessly motioning for us
along the home harbor beach
by a cathedral of sounds
from the night silence
in my cloister
reaching out
to the rescue dog
on islands of Cape Cod
where echoes of squirrels
are running up on green hills
by husks of noisy acorns
as a jazz poet
of the underground
deposits his new born poetry
and riffs
from his sax play out
breathing in the first
snowy elements
of the the third heavens
in a reign of my words
though verbal expressions
as crimson leaves fall
on grainy crevices
over greensward hills
as sparrows are entangled
in branches by the waters
awaiting the fur hats
of Russian ice fishermen
who awake in the morning
in a saving first light
washing away their memory
from breaths of Arctic air
in a wintry season last year
walking in the same paths
of brown bears
when my eyes close
children are watching oysters
within reach of tall dunes
nature discloses an ocean of gills
among the sea washed rocks
making a swath for God.

THE TWO TATE'S

Allen,
we read you at university
of your agrarian history
ablaze with the Civil War
Confederate dead
for Lowell loved
your poetry
in his own curiosity
about lineage
and the language of ancestry
which may have contributed
to his own virtuosity;
James,
whom I heard read
at Amherst
is now gone
with his open wounds
and splendid words
manifest
as a passing swan.

TAKING THAT POSTURE

Taking that posture
from the gym
going up on the ropes
and rings
hoping Johnnie
this jumping rocker
will be tough and solid
to roll in the rough
as time takes
its torrid toll
as we both catch our breath
wrestling on the floor
for many years
as in a Zorro wrestling match
of three musketeers.

AS YOU  NOW KNOW
(for Charles Bukowski)

As you  now know
after your going out
for another beer
from a sluice
of night air
running out of
at a bar fight
Bukowski's parachutes
to chat in laughter about
his missing connections
in a take-off of flight
as you feel the hand
of unwritten creativity
turning this juiced up poet
into a hissing jazz shadow
of an intoxicated man.

BY THE BAR

By the sandbar
of justice ,red wine
and ice
packs me in
on the ocean sand
by my Beat poems
on scraps of paper
I write on this script
on this slam poetry night
as long hours rise up
to die and resurrect
from my water song
of a  hip metamorphosis.

TODAY

Today the rain and wind
lifted the red and orange leaves
near the river bed
sponges my footprints
feeling the urchin curiosity
of being helpless
as an oyster
with bacchanal traces
of my aimless dream visions
an artist waits in his sea cloister
of a kayak
by the Charles River bench
back to drawing in landscapes
and shaping French portraits
from phantoms and bones
and doing a sculpture
out of shells, pebbles, stones.

STUDYING

Studying linguistics
without argument
as words offer me a direction
smooth jazz music plays
from my tenor sax
and a beat poet will relax
from a donor's beach chair
reaching for a brush of paint
giving an artistic perfection
when words,sounds or colors
unite in wonder for selections
to play out in my verse
in an underground universe
to complement each other today
from an enigmatic suspense
from tenses of a periphrastic way.

AUTUMN DAYS

Hiding my wounds
from soccer practice
knowing anything
may happen in sports
by human hands and feet
into sea worlds of my ocean
inhabiting all my words
from a planet verse rocker
of poetry in motion,
who is a part time athlete
of sorts
and a full time aesthete
who watches out
to rescue
the turtles and birds
and with God's love
makes my life complete.

OPPORTUNITY

Today has an opportunity
for me to read
the bard Mallarme
in French
after I pray for grace
on my lips
at the back bench
of the church
saying,"Lord search my heart"
as I 'm always confessing sins
on my knees
watching the relics
of the Apocalypse,
then from the faint windows
of my hallway I witness
an arrest of druggies
in a shadowy withdrawal
from their delirium,
as I head for my kayak
to check on the anchor,
then feed the birds
hidden in the open fields
quoting the words in the prayer
of the poet saint Francis,
there is an increase of first light
along the Cape's country way
as if I'm in Ovid's Metamorphosis
under the cathedral ceiling
as lofty shadows embrace me
and I will play
from my ''Peace Quartet"
revealing the notes
of a thousand riffs on the sand
with smooth jazz on my sax,
then relax in my backyard
amid the flow of the river
as the steady sun rises
above me in my attic
by my sound proof studio loft
where I practice my music
in my aesthetic holy grail,
soon the early luminous
soft rains wash by me
along the bluish shore
as Northeast winds
blush with geometric shapes
as I'm setting sail again
sighting a humpback whale
with Goody a scientist
from Woods Hole Observation
taking its forensics,
then at my windows
meeting Eddie the postman
originally from Haiti
to share a morning menu
of green tea and leaven
knowing that every diversity
has a purpose under heaven
from Whitman's sons
and Emily Dickinson's daughters
written in my daily narrative,
then at noon being jostled
by heavy magnetic waves
and the sea's symmetrical
high tide
curving in ts waters
and lively squalls,
I'm engraving my words
as bz initials
on my own Maple tree
in an enigmatic way,
listening to a Bach cantata
near the tall dunes,
as the spirit of a poet
has set me free
on this day of opportunity.

FALL SHADOWS

Fall shadows sway
as a witness to wake me up
to my glancing kisses
over apples and honey cake
with a cup of wine
as squirrels rise on trees
by my ivy covered veranda
as I listen to a Bach cantata
at a friend's house
soon a Woody Allen movie
taped for me
will appear on the screen
as thrushes and black birds
seem lost at the edge
of the sea
we're wondering who will
win the last
of the baseball games.

BOUNDARIES

The leafy boundaries
by the river beds
alongside stray boxes
had a large number
of red strawberries left
on the dead end
country road
for the poor family
next door to the poet
who deposits them over
with a potpourri
of fresh sour cream
to his farm neighbor
as God reveals to him
to bring it
in a gracious dish
of strong horse radish,
which cures and heals
all that would disarm
or harm us
during the winter days
and this family
knows when it wins its cause
better than any pill
to be purchased at
the local drugstore
for with these vitamins
in the plant horseradish cup
has within it the Lord's skill
more of  out respect
for survival
to perfect and restore
as the farm family looked up
and surely lived on
because the poet's arrival.

UNDER THE SUN

Under the late day sun
of this wishful thinking hour
ringing up student
who urgently e mailed me
that there is a poem in her
that has to come out
when she reveals to me
it a really a baby
from the star football player's
daddy seed that haunts her
own reality 24- 7
she has not told her parents
of any emergency plan
as Lena wakes up
with morning sickness
knowing she must tell
someone or she will
become a runaway
and display her hourly grief
and disbelief
in the window
of home room
where others will perceive
her grief and unbelief
telling her she must not
hurt herself in any way
that her new born
will be loved ,even so young
without too much delay
and suddenly she reads
to me out loud
her poem
which sings out
from her tongue.

YES, I RECALL

Yes I recall
the  young man
who played piano
with a blue beret
hidden in his cellar
during the war years
afraid to come out
and see the March stars
of his own liberation.

ACCEPT ME

Accept me
in my rock garden
as I'm planted in a terrain
by rhododendrons
in the dizziness of the sun
pardon me
as first light at daybreak
opens in its luminous horizon
as birds fly over the poplars
and my words praise
the Evergreen and Maple
waking in Autumn's shadows
by a trace of wild roses
in a murmur of my riffs
of smooth jazz.

RETURN TO REALITY

A dawn wakes me
from my sleep
showing me his covenant
from a deep first light sun,

I'm already on my knees
on the Oriental rug

reciting Psalm ninety one

as orange and red leaves fall
over my lawn
outside the Cape window

from veiled Elm tree shadows

preparing for snow showers

on this breezy jazz Monday
Bach's  cantata
consoles me
and after I play my sax riffs
on these early cool hours

as Edith my neighbor is relaxing
on vast sheets by my cat

hovering over
my cabin fevered bed
knitting me a woolen sweater

telling her I'm planning to go 

cross country skiing in vacation
this coming starry winter
thriving in the cleft of woods
of a far mountain area
somewhere in Canada's hinterland
sharing my professor's letters
of praise of my lectures with her

which I left at my aunt's house
in Montpelier Vermont

after my last college reading

of a vast poetry collection
now housed in the library.

IN BLANKETS

In blankets of pure love
of blank verse we survive
this first semester month
of September
at my city reading rooms
up here in Vermont
expecting a touch of snow
beyond the railroad tracks
I'm still alive on my motorcycle
though a few teen age thieves
with snap muscles and ego
tried to steal my hub caps
and hide among the Elm trees
the forest ranger named Hugo
rescues them for me,
we are both are eyewitnesses
to holy misunderstood believers
who hang out in these woods
searching for mushrooms
and wear martyred hair shirts
who stare out at me
by brown bears,
mountain lions and deers
as this once hip poet
transported from Boston
is here for a college reading
he,like St. Francis
is feeding the birds
in this countryside
there are a few citizens
who ignore my Beat words
and unexpected language,
I'm still terrified to hear me
referred to
as a hippie or son
of a wild flower child
all I need
is a catered metamorphosis
like Ovid
or King David experienced
with the private indifference
and intelligence
of the degraded public
sworn to quote the pin heads
of the 24 hour news media cycle
in all their warmed up hysteria,
for my embedded solitude
enslaves no one
though my phrases may hurt
those in authority
who behave in only
in what the state decrees
for them to hear or repeat
verbatim,
hoping my words
may slowly share to explain
and expand their minds
as in that pitiable
Montpelier weird clerk
named Kane
who needs a test for sobriety
along with a beard and brain
in a bureaucrat's return
to work on a blue Monday
who now wants to be cool cat
sitting behind his obelisk
in his grim school expression
along his functionary's desk
reading a bz poem.

A RESTLESS SOUL

In the passing pale
of sun shined words
from a tenor sax
speaking into a new rhapsody
as I relax
pledging to advance
the prudent modernist bodies
of modern music
in those student souls of mine
who enjoy picking up the sounds
of Pound, Lowell and Auden
with a new language's invention
recorded in this hung out gig
against convention
abandoned by squares,
fakes and frauds
reading by snowy
midnight firing squads
at sky hours beyond time
as love reigns again
by listening to Judy Garland
at the Punch Bowl
a night club
in the South End of Boston
now am abandoned
by parental storms
having the silences
of cool modulation
waking up, now open eyed
to yellows and down by reds
walking by the tall grassy dunes
along the Charles river beds
by watery Fall leaves
and fearing the poison Ivy
of the academic fellows
in their dark bacchanals
by the victory gardens
near Fine Arts Museum
losing our fraternal heads
by Fenway Park
as a soft rain dismays
my copy of Proust,
admitting I was once
a celestial revisionist
loosed with my telescope nearby
aiming to conquer the stars
enslaved by lovers' invasions
from Uranus, Jupiter or Mars
now you follow a Quaker Jesus
seeking to be a peacemaker
and drive motorcycles and cars.

A BEAT MOMENT

No muted adolescent
but with connections
at my first urban read
when Allen Ginsberg
embraced me on my neck
from over libertine shoulders
carrying a pirated green guitar
with his sitar of passion
in a refuge vice and voice
of evolving sound
shaping my adolescence
near the tall microphone
as an underground of hip
sets me up
for a night of riffs
this poet reads in French
from Lamartine's anthology
with innocence at the Big Apple
bench wondrously filled
with opus ventures
cherishing our back bench need
to speak out against war
and indifference from crucibles
of tough love's viscera
from a soap opera world
that was insanely bleached
from a winter pea jacket
dyed again by many colors
and sold out at Coney Island's
pawn shop of obscure loves
among sea exiled voices
of Whitman and Hart Crane
without the blueprint
of mystical sin
or contradicting myself
when my courage consoles
the stubborn twice born
smooth jazz brother of angels
of heavy metal souls
besieged at a revolutionary hour
when all Manhattan
and San Frisco Beats
welcomed me
into their third eye sockets
with love letters of welcome
from Dylan, Joplin and Baez
arising out dry bones
as St. Simian says
that our bold soul winners
(once sinners or Cinnas'
from Caesar's household)
in a threshold of our homes
will arise as poets deposit
the truth as stars of the ages
from the beards of all tomes
and the gall of our languages.

STOPPING THIS DAY

In a real situation
stopping this day
at Greenwich village
mean time
as a bully
tries to mummify
me at my gig
as I start to play tenor sax
and am up with my riffs
as he starts to put me down
still trying to keep score
in a war of skilled words
but under my breath
speak in tongues
as brother Adrian
taught us in Brazil
that even in a jazz club
we are in God's house.

SAMUEL BECKETT'S "GODOT"

I played you "Godot"
for two seasons
in my mind
with a genius halo
at the pain at life
issuing decrees
from his reasoned words
only open in the land
of the living
by memory's ripe glow
with long suffering ribs
pressuring to open up
my cribbing notes
in my bones to speak out
from my quote's dialogue
as actor and art director
under the lighting on stage
will not forget his verses
of pilgrimages language
in the whelp's forgiving wonder
of a suppressed poet's cry
shrieking at unanswered
writing intelligence rooms
in a rap of doomed questions
about an initial existence
and at a two faced laugh
resting in the safe sound
of his featured epitaph
from an underground strife
and forced as a visionary guest
after a contrary act
of an existential collapse.

ELYTIS'S JOURNEY

Nature's second birth
in the blue flashed sea
under clouds and sky
squaring the day's rain
by wet fronds
looming as fire signs
in drifts of new life
from a pillar of landscapes
of a hundred possibilities
in the palms of your hands
by nameless sacred stones
a bird floats at a distance
dances in the horizon
drinks in the fountains
as Elytis chants in the sunset.

UP TO VERMONT

We came home
at night to Vermont
to visit my aunt's
bed and breakfast
having a java
and a cheese croissant
looking at the sky
which was bright red
at the edge of the sky
among the light clouds
as I'm preparing my lecture
on Frost,Lowell and Plath
as heaven's starry colors
burn my eye in its path.

W.P.KINSELLA IS GONE

In Canada
came the news
that W.P.Kinsella
of "Shoeless Joe" fame
that inspired baseball lovers
over home plates
all over the world
in "Field of Dreams"
has gone to the bleachers
by his own volition,
he had a great writing skill
it will be hard
to find a pitcher, player
poet or a prayer warrior
with the Lord's permission
to replace or reward him
in the line up.

COFFEE BREAK

A cup of Turkish coffee
with a slice of raisin bread
is to dream twice daily
as we awake
in this Sephardic cafe
for a coffee break
in the Autumn countryside
off the beaten path
with delightful Susanna
seems a wonderful revelation
for a day dream's price
with a bardic mortal's invitation
concealing my being
wishfully jealous
of the first ice fishing
even if this Beat poet
is feeling strange,
hungry,even a bit mangy
at a train stop's station
with his feet up
in Boston's Esplanade
thinking about a portal
and canopy of roses
in a vetting
on our wedding anniversary
posing by the camera
and intensely in love
having been saved from war
in Asia
drinking Chinese green tea
with these chocolate
fortune cookies
taking from my back pocket
a lace handkerchief
along with a heartened locket
geometrically shaped for her
in the enigmatic dawn's reality
in the belief that one is not alone
staring at each other
with equal vitality
and forgetting e mail
and the ringing of the telephone
soon mother nature will really
offer us a space
for the rain's hour delay
on this empowered afternoon
under the dark Evergreen
and flowered pavilions
with a metamorphosis of laughter
as blackbirds vanish
from the park bench
we are brushing gold dust
from our enfolded coats
and black hats off
speaking of Spanish poetry
in a depth of November's cool air
and reading to each other
Rimbaud,Verlaine
and remembering the words
in the chosen irony
of the French Baudelaire
when here on the Common
among nymphs, maenads
and mad school of mermen
when we sadly glimpse
several nameless swan boats
which float by our reflections
offering up hope of a glad day
in a frozen siren of time.

KEROUAC'S OFF THE ROAD

Not even recounting
your days off the beaten road
for seven smokes
and cups of hashish
eating you up
as you are mounting
as motorcycle ride
up and down
with the hip folks
over the Pacific highway
up to a heaven's kingdom
of a Beat poet freedom
not seen since Blake
in his panegyrics and lyrics
awakes us from our sacristy
in the lilac doorways
Jack puts up his feet
on shimmering sun whitened
stones, seaweed, shells
and whale bones
along the California shore,
his wind song has a verse harem
of Whitman's universe
on a day's ink dream
at November's first light
reciting from his hiding
of Dharma Bums
after mountaineering
near the Sierras'
based on a thinking character
of the drama drumming poet
Gary Snyder
taking on the unanswered
questions in the carbon
and ribbon of Kerouac's
typewriter as editor
from a Buddha's end run.

SOME DAYS

Some days I think
we are all jumbled
together in a Scheherazade
yet I'm determined to play solo
in my own sax serenade
not expecting to be humbled
in memory of a hit parade
nor ever suspecting the advice
of inspecting clever knowledge
at our own relaxed ages
through subterranean passages
of outstanding language
in context of our secrets
to presage the prestige
of our own philosophies
in a labyrinth of the compass
of our geometric passing
stages at our enigmatic time
of complex alphabets
over a seasonal watchtower
of powerful reason
and trespassing rhyme.

WHAT A SURPRISE

Man, what a surprise
for literature
as Bob Dylan
was awarded
the Nobel prize
a musical lyrical exercise
he railed against
the obstinate vultures of war
with new lyrics for peace
in a brotherly love of culture
as another Picasso dove
out of heaven
has been released.

DANCE MUSIC

Dance music
moves on my feet
kicking off my shoes
I become a poet
who is also a Beat
with a riddle of romance
and a chance fiddle plays
under the stars in the dark
where the spark of love
assembles to revive
in psalms ,poems and proverbs
as King David once
played the harp
while eating spices and herbs
singing the Hebrew scriptures
in his neighborhood
chanted and orchestrated
from ancient pictures
I've seen taken at the Wall
and heard with good news.

THERE IS A MOTH

There is a moth
in my living room
who flies by
night and day
near my lantern
and light
so I begin to pray
as his breezy shadow
is near my kitchen window
he obeys his nature
to be out in the air
when he finally leaves me
and daringly escapes
by my linen drapes
for the boughs of trees,
in waiting for him to go
outside my hallways,
I draw his picture
in a miniature extension
at my primitive art of painting
by the tall pines
and Evergreen
like Emily Dickinson
always caring to be free
from the sloth of sin
that with my prayer cloth
and cross
in my discipline
the moth will be lost again.

STEP OUT

Step out
in the night
and see who controls
the great and mighty forces
of the earth,
the fortress of the media
and wisdom of the encyclopedia
from lexicon and dictionaries
with their collection agencies
even our mechanics
possess the keys of graft
the fix is in the business
of the party machines
or as Stalin said ,
it is not how many votes
are recorded
but who counts the votes
are rewarded
so the retainers remain
in power forever
from the hands
of clever politicians,
yet we poets
who love language the most
in the beauty of His Word
and tower in His Holy Spirit
are like the early Christians
in lands of Jerusalem and Rome
above all Mount Zion
hide in the catacomb
or are thrown to the lion.

BY PROVIDENCE,R.I.

Nothing is alien
in these boxes of inscriptions
found by Providence
wading in the deepest part
of the half- blind sea
off Rhode Island
touching the water
under a sleeping cloud
in a shroud of fog
as gold coins swell
in the waves of treasure
from a pirate raid
as the old hulk slips away.

IN MY KAYAK

The wind carries us
for miles by a hospital ship
of rescued turtles,mammals
and assorted dogs
when gutted by so many flames
along the shore off the Cape
near dead Elm trees and boughs
washing out in the blackened
breezy ocean of mirrored bodies
this anarchic poet in my kayak
draped in
my old dark lumberjack jacket
offering my human hands
as we sail close to the accident
thinking of the Jewish prophet
Jonah swimming in Nineveh
also on a mission
and Herman Melville
writing in his log
by a slew of dolphins
and one wounded
humpback whale.

THE LATE DARIO FO

You mocked information
once considered locked into
our gallows humor
in rumors of sophistication
from a playwright's reality
was itself a fraud and crime
at our time in society
which he exposed
during his comedy shows
only for the business
of his verse's function
was mostly from satire
in a variety hour
for our piteous situation
in our universe,
as he created a stand up poetry
of tremendous wit and will
in the public's need for laughter
fit with knowledge to fulfill,
recall and install life
to our theater's selfish rapture
when Dario Fo will kill off
all those reactionary ways
to make us giggle
and capture us with his skill
in our own fiddled neighborhood
after we hear his manifold verses
with sharp comic notes
by his quoting
all former contrary malformation
on a host of stoned politicians
whom we momentarily devour
in our mysterious equilibrium
with his power
of summoning up imagination
and discussing
the unbalanced regions
in our country's sovereign
religions and foreign legions
from an underground personality
and to challenge
the sounds of government agents
with good wishes to Christians
for all our patience.

THE TAPE KING AND QUEEN

They make everything
their scene
the tape king and queen
and everyone
swaying back and forth
from the South
to the North
with a Havana cigar
in their gloomy car seat
they work to ride off
in the sunset
without any qualms
but without charms
or cozy regret
trying to locate secrets
in the obscure rooms
as a tyrant or cheat
recording any gossip
of a bride or groom
these live to record
until others are doomed!

LOSING IT

Losing it
in your motorcycle
as rain from Mathew
the hurricane falls
in many counties
of Florida
and the Carolina states
as the wayside clouds
combine along
the telephone wires
from horizons of trees
of membranes shaking
with souls praying
on rooftops
just to live.

THOSE GOBLINS

Those little curious goblins
who invade your doors
asking for treats or tricks
as we offer them stores
of goods
all in their various masks
from many neighborhoods
bobbing for apples
we pop corn or offer pop art
with my verse's panegyrics.

SOMETHING ELSE

Vincent,
there is something else
about you,
without explanation
but with an invitation
to paint a landscape
of a Dutch snow
which winds about
the unseen impressions
of Van Gogh in villages
over red roofed quarters
in an observed urgent time
with floated clouds
above carpets of the sky
nearby the mountains
with trees shrouded
in unnerved vapors
along the woods of Arles.

REHEARSAL

The sun reaps
its rays
by a beard
who speaks rapturously
her lines for my new play
"The Watch,"
the brow of the understudy
moves curiously
in a brush up way
by the dress rehearsal hours
with my four stars
lined up as constellations
on the floor
in hide and seek moments
flushed with excitement
who will transmute
rings of laughter and tears
uttered by the attained words
bruised for truths
divided by syllables
trapped in the underground
dance music and shadows
of voices on stage.

ON CAMBRIDGE STREET

We met when I'm up
for a cup of Java
early on Cambridge St.
you were down and hurt
Professor Robert Lowell
but there was poetry
on your confessor's tongue
you enjoyed
the tender flower child
in her motley Garbo way,
a runaway from Soho
who bought us menus
and hung around
to hear you read
in the cold greenish kitchen
full of ham and eggs
you enjoyed my poem
for the opened hearty day
your voice still echoes
in a familiar wayside inn
and begs a question
from a master of words.

ANDRZEJ WAJDA PASSES

We remember your films
"Ashes and Diamonds"
"Kanal," "A Generation"
"Danton," "Man of Marble"
and more;
we will not forget
your historic movies,
nor the patriotism
of a life affirmed
in a ragtag century
of Auschwitz and the Gulag,
that poetry will choose life
in spite of the Nazis,
and the Communism of the Soviets;
we will plant red poppies
on the solitary grave
of a Resistance fighter,
wishing a solidarity of peace
for a new generation,
with your films still shown
to our own underground.

GEOFFREY HILL PASSES

We met to chat in the sun
about poetry and literature
ten minutes from
Boston University's
Sherman Union
cultural center years ago
when the flashing lights shone
on the Charles River
in the early Fall snow
your wife Alice asks us
to pray for his exiled soul
having an after life in Jesus
and to light a candle for him
who was a believer,
as the Elm trees shiver
on the campus
where you read and lectured
with understanding compassion
for the holocaust victims
those interval of thoughts
are not lost
in your poet's compassion
at the itinerant wars over
Biafra or Ruanda
or the Catholic martyrs
like the championed poets
Robert Southwell
or Edmund Campion
for you knowing the cost
of being a Christian
and those who
merely use religion
only as in a politician's fashion,
goodbye my friend, Geoffrey
except for your words
as as I see three blue birds
over the Atlantic surge
to the third heaven.

ONE ACT

Despite your smile
of a starlet in
this dressing hall mirror
the way your wrinkle creams
line your Roman face
your dancing hands sparkle
as your blue green eyes move
and flutter in my portrait
of you in this mud room
your laughing lips
move the resonance
into a metamorphosis
of the dreams of Hollywood
and all my awaiting hopes
for your formless freedom
when you receive an Oscar
and stardom rest
in a yearning apocalypse
with my one act play.

THE CAMERA:MARILYN

The camera loved
her images
in an accordant pool
of Italian carrara marble
in West Hollywood
meshing into lines in her flesh
now with an urgent emergency
of being on time
at the bus stop
there she is painting her lips
in her mirror
from her satin handbag
here is Marilyn Monroe
going for an audition
as a well dressed showgirl
giving off confidence
from her intricate sense
of acting ability
from her mirrored eyes
in the dressing room
of her breathless distress.

IT'S A NEW DAY FOR JUDY

It's a new Fall day
for Judy Garland
the stars have faded
like the yellow leaves
to shed tears by a skyline
of first light
as I open up the car window
and clear out phrases
from my Beat crazy life
while taking away shadows
for my pop art by painting
the town red,
while eagerly waiting
Judy Garland
always late to the set
introduced to me by Sonny
my uncle and a publicity agent
on this movie set
under bright strobe lights
which will soon blush
at midnight
on global cups of bottled red,
I am innocent of complaints
in Judy's mind's eye
after her shadows are fainting
instead of waiting
for her for hours
knowing she will need me
to brush up
on her lines of dyed makeup
in the laughter
of dark hallways
while forgetting back home
those parental storms
in Kansas, the Big Apple or Boston
leaving everything as regrets
for the incoming film scenes,
suddenly I am forgetting
to pick up
my Fall yard leaves instead,
as I have to fix
my anchored kayak tied
to a tree at the hub's river bed
my memory is delivering us back
to those late hours
at the night clubs,
to pause over story tellers
of a convicted good cause
even as a cowardly lion
will pass by our fellows
with his thick hands and jaws
near the stuffed straw man
somewhere over the rainbow
of my loving conviction's cause
together with a prediction
of those wild stories
coming alive
in Judy Garland's
morning glory days
on the yellow brick road
as we go by the stars,
onward to Oz!

ONE DAY AT A TIME

One day at a time
as my poet lines fall
under the piano legs
of my baby grande
in times which renege
by playing a Beethoven sonata
with my notes at nightfall
slipping into my shoes
by footsteps of a slow
disintegrated tedium
of universal memory riffs
vibrating in my transparency
illuminated by city gas lamps
of a nearly disconnected Beat
in the silence of  jazz's infinity
from my living sound proof
studio with starry chimes
with an indifferent drummer
high on his own compositions
in my private lights and landscape
from a dazzling free association
interwoven by meanings
of an educated distraction.

SEVEN WOUNDS:A bz FILM

Seven wounds on my chest
received in the house of a friend
while making this film
during Octoberfest, 1993
in our Sunday best
with a guest searching
for a way to be blessed
by giving out
our street poetry
behind rival maritime lines
in our secret correspondence
as Allies by secretly recording
a new short film in German
from a decoded spy glass
disguised from their beers
off Normandy swells
pretending to be
fishing by French coastal sea
rewarded in a world
without end
we living poets
are wishing for survival
to exhibit our art of bravery
and make over our rivals
as we are asked to take off
all our eyed hidden masks
by umbrellas
of the sixth fleet's arrival
off of the last of Germany's
U boats at 8 bells
we managed to escape
and at least to pretend
to be free of the Nazi
beast in the swells
of the Rhenish falls
by disproving the enemy
over the hellish walls
for our love will win out
over a forbidden fascist infamy
hidden in their blasphemy
by listening to the call above
we will float over history
into a democratic port
to be refueled in Manhattan
where a renewed Walt
Whitman awaits us all
near Emma Lazarus' statue
with an iconic American family
into a faultless
patterned renewal.

OCTOBER SURPRISE

Sketching my eternity
in my qualms of a new play
looming over my memory
entering the skin of wit
of this existential poet
as the early dusk falls
on the sandy tall dunes
this Evergreen tree
still reminds me
of my bz initials
put on by my own island trees
by student signatures
as my palms bare witness
with my bread and psalms
at communion
to sing out praise
from my roadside altar
raised near the iron docks
of Iberian fishermen
who offer me a salmon lunch.

ON MY STORM WINDOW

On my storm window
along the dunes of the Cape
rain pelts during my dream
by starts and fits of waves
recognizing myself
with a trace of my kayak
now anchored for a season
in the shadow of the Bay
by an ice fishing barge
air lifted birds fly over
going South
on the surging docks
I'm wishing for a shadow
of sunshine to accent
my subterranean passages
of my rock ribbed
dream visions and mimes
embracing the Coastline leaves
shed by Evergreen and Pines.

ON THE SAND

On the cabin fevered sand
my poetry images
have a way to kiss love
goodbye and circle the wind
by a beach bum's
mirror of language
now your sailor eyes are closed
by the sea's running tide
but your lips are open
reminding me of Hart Crane
as a Beat's pad opens
for those lost at sea
holding up a metaphor's likeness
to the ray's wide sunshine
as a rain shower leads us
to reach out
when all of love' shadows
bury my Autumnal memory
from holding up worry beads
of my nana praying the rosary.

EMERGING AS HART CRANE

Emerging early from 

October's bed covers
at the bread and breakfast

concealing my eyes
at the likeness
of Hart Crane
lost in Hurricane Andrew
at sea in Florida

in this morning's half-light

knowing this face toward me
has the light of a miracle

from a sky angel fulfilling
and revealing a prophesy
of a Brazilian priest ,Adrien
saying to me, at eleven
"bz,bless the lost"
and urging me to go on
at the Cross roads of life

"that a poet has a spirit
to make it to heaven"

when a mirror of slumber

awakes my alarm clock 

and my night by the docks
spreads out ocean bird sounds

to reveal my Beat
underground words

out of darkness
into the morning glory light

soon hearing the herons

as the sea motions and roars

about the Cape's bird lovers
with a million waves sent to me

on these Fall foliage days.

AT THE INN

We checked out
at the Vermont inn
after a cup of java
and a spinach croissant
putting my motorcycle
in the vagrant parking lot
when a sunken eyed poet
who has heard me read
the night before
acting out of sight
asks me if he can cab share
and sleep on my attic floor
I wonder if this Greek Byron
who is a twink
a twenty something bar fly
who showed up in midnight
asking me for a match
but acting high as a kite
who tried to catch
a ride with me
told me he knew my aunt
from nearby
who always came though
when he needed money
or a place to stay
or for more drinks
but that he had a bar fight
as we said goodbye
and have twenty winks.

IN THE FULL MOON

Last night's mad sky
I had a one-eyed gaze
at the full moon crossing
along my joggers path
yet today at the college
I'm delivering as a guest
a literature lecture
on Bishop, Lowell and Plath
when I hear the sigh of a fawn
along the marathon track
this dawn is transparent
in the deserted forest shadows
the sun shines through rays
my footsteps do not disturb
anyone is in a metamorphosis
to boast of a ghost as s person
or demon who is in sight
near my anchored kayak
way back on the shore
I'm picking up strawberries
in the landscaped green hills
and newly harvested fields
praying for peace
over the country road
searching for mushrooms
in afternoon hours to fill
your arms with an increase
of swaying jonquil flowers.

FALL COLORS

Fall colors my day
conquers my nature walk
captivates my travelogue
signs in my poet's notebook
kisses me from an orange paint job
and red Mondrian mask
shaping the sharp tones
of my soprano sax riffs
unhinging the stone
in the print of Giacometti
covering my studio wall
the strong October wind
bends my limbs near the tree
with my initials on it,
a football lands
on my exercise board
near my anchored kayak
on the Cape's wild shore
Fall rolls a smoke on leaves
of  my subterranean speech
eats up my last love letter
in grey scattered ashes
wishes me a good new year
the mad swirling wind
sweeps me away in my kayak
folds me in my deepest bed
replies to me by Elm Hill
reaches my poet spirit
of my rubbed out initials.

ROY LICHTENSTEIN'S ART

My free ticket to the loft
for a party
is waiting for me
in the attic
of my old studio
in upper Manhattan
excited by my invitation
for an exhibition
of Roy's pop art
knowing his surprise
of his birthday celebration
soon to be
at this Autumn night
as the soft leaves fall
by chestnut vendors
in corridors familiar patterns
taking the underground,
my riffs breathing aloud
inside my mind
getting off at the right stop
as the doors open
at this green light
along the Red Apple station
traversing the hour's watch
at the big city's charm
by brownstones
on this rainy journey
and meeting a friend
with an armful of flowers
who speaks to me
of my poetry on Coltrane.

BECKETT'S TOUCH

Much has been made
of a  numbing comparison
from my plays and poetry
to Beckett
by French critics
at our melancholic furtive ways
of putting dramatic grave words
on humanity's headstones
as we both are born free
hating fascism's dictatorship
and sated scurrilous censorship
known as a spilled out memory
in Germany and Italy
renouncing a hated tyranny
under our eyelids
of a hidden idolatry
and ideology that makes
for a human traffic of slavery
Samuel and I will not succumb
to a charismatic world
now guided by
the deaf and dumb.

PABLO NERUDA'S JUSTICE

Pablo Neruda's voice of justice
rises as tall greensward grass
in Santiago
with moving and embracing love
you pass by the trees
now with the rubbed out initials
and names of the Resistance
after writing a correspondence
of poems, letters, essays
in your voting out
the reactionary choice
of politicians
with your contrary cry
for the miners
and workers rights
from the strikes of a poet
splitting the nails
of the crucified
with the spikes
of an invention's interference
in free speech
wanting a a space on earth
for the poor
with a hopeful tomorrow
for those who are ignored
inscribed on your lips
from revolutionary words
not to be silent slaves
of any feared system
even called Christian
when words flame
into an apocalypse
which borrows from
indifference
when state fascism
carries us through
the nights
of the disappeared.

INNOVATION

Letters relocated
close to my cellar
my poetry is
in a defense mechanism mode
from a Thursday arrival
of a stellar honor code
in an eye glass prism
from an invitation of an ode
ready to be read
in my bz short film
"Innovation"
for local lovers of poetry
from underground covers
of our metaphors
inscribed by my fans
many signatures.

LERMONTOV'S DAY
Oct.3

When in love
we turn to Lermontov
a charismatic poet
and authentic critic
here we remember you
by the laughing cliffs
by the Volga or Neva river
as constant waves roll by
we play a zenith
of jazz riffs
in an American way
this metaphoric afternoon
by three sprays of leaves
the winds on our ships
in a burning Autumn sun
of exiles who overshadow us
and make us believe
in our dramatic soon return.

PETER ORESICK IS GONE
Sept 3

Peter Oresick an icon maker
poet and painter
from the working class
of steel and iron and glass
background in Pittsburgh
sounding over bailiwicks
of a dramatic universal appeal
from the Charles to the Neva
has passed as a swan
into first light
on the Public Gardens
drawing in Marina Tsvetayeva
Milosz , Sterne, Adrienne Rich
with innate knowledge
privately without fanfare
and in a charismatic way
translated more than
a few letters of learned words
to better share with us
recently had his last meal,
had studied in Boston
at Emerson College
where we commiserated
as many an iconic
language wrapped itself
around our glue and pitch.

WALLACE STEVENS' DAY
OCT.2

How you kept those days
to yourself in luminosity
wrapped around shelters
from the wind and rain sounds
in the silent shades
from the warmth of words
in a fathomless memoir
of effigy and memory
hidden in lexicons
of reading gouged language
in a potent  healing space
from a compassing occupation
circling its venerable watch
in time of fresh engagement
discovering a twilight
and solitude on a park bench
audited by secret voices
in bird echoes of inhaled hours
of nature's translated words
in unrequited French syntax
by a faraway sculpture
created from stone
by a rustle of first light
on a visionary hour
in a philosopher's gesture
of waiting room verse.