Cotopaxi, Ecuador (summer 2012)

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Lorraine motel (Memphis)

i had a vision of a dirty bomb
tear my head completely apart in Vietnam.
i saw the mushroom cloud explode in ’45,
Trinity was born!  i was barely alive,
fed a steady diet of black & white
watching John Glenn take his historic sub-orbital flight
into near space on a rocket ship;
he nearly died but i didn't know it,
hiding under the classroom seats
with Peggy Sue and her forbidden treats
so near to touch but i'd have to wait

 for a more appropriate time to have a date:

i saw Kennedy get blown away
in his black limo on a late November day.
watched the flowers that people held
growing old until they smelled
like thousands of dead bodies in a distant Cambodian field.
i saw them & felt chilled
when Martin Luther was struck down
on a balcony near my hometown.
he was hit with a thud and bled and bled,
but it didn't matter what anyone said:
The Dream still lives, the body gone,
remembering the Selma bridge
hoping to see the promised land over heartbreak ridge.
and i heard Nixon really got pissed!
he put countless enemies on his list
& his White House was infiltrated by crooks
who to this day in countless history books
have an amazingly large asterisk by their name
believing Honor was just a fool's game;
it didn't matter that people died;
they still cocktail partied and lied and lied and lied,
believing until the end that God was on their side!
and i indeed saw their God walking across my rice paddy water
leading His sheep to another senseless slaughter
while i cleaned my gun under the afternoon sun

and waited.   

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Thich Quang Duc, Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk

it was simply time for HIM to begin:
the flames on his skin
were fire
and serenity shooting higher
into the guilty air aimed at Diem
before formal talks begin somewhere
in the late afternoon
hopefully conducted soon, very soon
his calm eyes were wide in dry morning pain
in focus and perfectly, lucidly sane
no cell phone ringing
no chorus line singing
no appointments to be made
no debt willingly unpaid
no thoughts of shopping for an automobile
no deal to seal
nothing apparently left behind
perhaps a glimmer of hope for mankind
i saw the orange robe on a Saigon street
i saw his charred feet
in 1963
when the monk looked directly at me
with burned hands and shaved head
i knew he was dead
but i had wrestling practice in an hour
and a banana to eat and a cut flower
to buy for a blond girl and a kiss
that i surely didn't want to miss
then a late bottle to share with smooth Jake
under the tiled roof of a pavilion by his uncle's lake
i couldn't be expected to miss these chances,
these fleeting moments like high school romances
but i knew he was dead,
as i already said, 
but his memory will never die.

Thursday, February 20, 2025

save us from this killing beast!

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin,
Potsdam, Yalta, Tokyo and Berlin 
South Korea and Mao and for the other guys somehow 
this is important 
without the atomic bomb but with the Marshall Plan 
and the German wall
before the fall 
Seoul overrun by Kim with a quick plan for victory to Pusan 
foiled
& the Great March forward somehow spoiled 
by stiff US resistance and blood and guts and honor
and then Truman, McArthur and the Yalu 
long after Nagasaki but who really knew 
what Eisenhower was about to reveal?
yes, the military industrial complex was designed to steal 
what even the CIA didn't understand 
or the KGB as they used to say 
back in the Cold War day 
alongside Fidel Castro (but he's now dead, too) as is the Shah
and Ayatollah Khomeini,
who didn't understand containment so said let the revolution begin 
with Iran 
and Venezuela and Hezbollah 
the oil flows spelled mister moolah in a brave new world 
with Huxley golf courses in the sky and 
the fervent Taliban who hate women, 
who want control more than sex 
Man as the new T-Rex!
not the woman in flames or whatever else remains 
beyond Marines in central Baghdad or the Chinese in Senegal 
they're unlucky enough to want it all: 
prayer flags flutter in a Himalayan wind.
the soul of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, without a bed
in his native-born country said, 
Peace on Earth (at the very least) 
save us from this killing beast!

and now the orange monkey and Putin,
rip roaring with their guns out shooting
Greenland overtaken and Ukraine
Taiwan a chip in the poker game
robots working the factory floor
Orwell's vision of a constant war
has overcome the hopes for lasting Peace:

save us from this killing beast! 

Friday, February 14, 2025

a happy dog and her and i

it's been a long time since
walking in the distant primordial woods

morels and deer...leafy trees and an absence of fear:  peace!

looking for a place outdoors to take a leak

exploring with youthful curiosity the nearby creek

 i'm bemused, too, and puzzled by the latest news 


 remembering hours of watching middle school girls stroke their hair
me, polishing cheap leather shoes

 remembering how the day comes undone
watching the setting sun
dropping through the soft and steady rain

now, heavy clouds hanging low
i'm forgetting the mayonnaise
forgetting where to eventually go

a happy dog and i sitting on a fallen log

peering through the lifting fog
feeling restful with extra love to give
 together also with my lady and our fuller life to live
holding her hand
she holding mine
we're sipping wine
red in the nighttime and white during the day
remembering what else we might say
looking for adventure in whatever comes our way

 and dawning, there are shadows on the high stone wall
the wild ravens float and circle and caw

the great men of old once so thoughtful and bold

in peril of being forgotten and sold. 

musing,  i'm wondering about lost arts:
valentine candies eaten like tiny hearts
 my Halloween top hat and low-rent landlord cries
valued friends and great-grandmother's fresh-baked pies
an RCA transistor radio playing scratchy sounds of American trash
i've lost 

in the middle of the Eisenhower Tunnel
looking for Mega Millions of jackpot cash
reciting Shakespeare and his thoughtful English verse
stuck in both forward gear and reverse

 speeding on a northern boulevard
the world in my rear view mirror with traffic noise
remembering second grade recess and rowdy boys
a price tag hanging around our playground necks

saying NO CASH!  please include only checks

 Louis Armstrong and his band keeping the beat
shadows on an empty small town street
looking for my dreams in a black & white cab, which i eventually grab,

and notice once and for all time:

the world is too beautiful! 

i'm standing tall

by my ringing anvil, hammer in hand, working the hot piece of glowing mild steel into a magic spoon,

having started at nine and finished up by noon. 

 here, i offer this word song as my spiritual tune.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

the white rose is on our nose

i am always in my arm chair
or perhaps a comfortable chaise lounge,
sometimes watering my flowers,
but only if i can reach them.


otherwise i read, and often feel seduced by a book,
embarking on a secret affair with each beautiful page
as i finger its' edge.


when the air is dry as in a drought,
my flowers pen a quiet note for water,
and i spill the contents of a moist cup,

aiming for all and especially the white rose

near my hand, looking to solve actual mysteries.


what i find most clearly in reading is that
i am inspired by central figures, those larger-than-life
cubist personalities always at ease in traffic,
steering toward facts rather than faith, coloring outside their lines.


if it's summer, a fragrant scent will be painted
on my nose and the only evidence it might be from a

healthy rose is the soft writing inside my mouth.

roses do that to me, signing their autographs with love,

like a cubist personality.


and when it's winter, the nearby beach is closed, with many of the swimmers
waiting anxiously at home after reading the sign that says "NO SWIMMING!"


if a life guard is still on duty, it's to ensure there is no nudity.

but i can be nude in my arm chair,

or my comfortable chaise lounge. 

i write while i'm thinking of you, watching your smile become an undressed white petal.

the whole white rose i imagine is freshly fallen snow or perhaps a distant star or the circling moon and sometimes,
it simply is a rose.


like a watercolor, i can make it become what i want,
splashing like liquid white color in winter or summer, running, sledding, sitting, writing,

designing my rose into a heart shape to win your love.


and before it is gone, i sign and date the basket of white fruit
and present it to you while we sit watching the circling moon.

this moon is writing inside our mouth as we kiss, and the white rose is on our nose.

Monday, February 10, 2025

Dresden, February 13-15, 1945

 he saw dead people
seated awkwardly in their streetcar,
unused destination tickets folded in laps,
forever lost in thought.

there were no secret military codes
littering the basement floor
where more burnt bodies were found
in early February, 1945.

an apartment bedroom became a tomb
when the old stone walls of a cultural center
without glass windows
collapsed under the defenseless German clouds.

it wasn't Slaughter House 5
where most human remains were seen
by those who went looking for answers,
but found only mountains of debris.

at an empty church near a smoking pile of books
where Vonnegut was told to load a small wagon
with a broken-down piano,
he heard a military plane flying low overhead.

nearby, a small group of hungry and frightened people wanted to shout,
but remained speechless, gazing skyward.

soon, they began to weep.

Saturday, February 8, 2025

the safety of the child

my left hip has fallen towards my knee

much as a loose boulder slides to the distant stream

heedless of any obstacle or imagined pain

disregarding the bombs

the thorns, dirt roads

the seasons and the daily orbit of the Earth

around the burning sun

heedless of the madness spreading like a violent plague,

a pandemic,

a rat infection spreading from the agony of the gutters,

the sewers,

the oligarchs with their fine coconut cupcakes

heedless of my wishes,

unaware of my existence, my humanness,

my left hip reminding me of what i could do

tonight,

if i were able to wave the magic wand, 

but the wand would not be for me or my hip,

it would be for the safety of the child and to bury the guns,

a bomb defused:

the wand waving in the fine breeze,

seeking a cure,

to quiet the fanatic salutes,

to stop the rocks from falling to the stream.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

someone please pray

oh yes
there are bones
skeletons of dogs
and sheep,

signs of neanderthals!

 and yet the one impression that i keep
inside my favorite foundry mold
is of a long tall tale of being old
in an age of superlatives:
deadliest mass shooting
most post-hurricane looting

fires and piles of burning tires

a cancelled trip to the ruined Gaza strip


and i have a lot of others, sisters and brothers
because i'm working on the history of Man.
i see him crawling away from his trash can
artificially built up by reputation,
dreaming of a prolonged retirement vacation
with a modern holiday look

found between the pages of an advertisement book
claiming to know how all the marked cards are dealt

 i watch his party ice melt
and his furrowed forehead become warm

the hungry locusts swarm
underneath fingerprints of a transient god
who had been modeled originally in clay
oh yes
someone please pray

for the tasteless party tray

where he's snacking and fracking and coughing and hacking

all the way to the poor house without a scheme

to achieve a globally inclusive dream 

before the history of Man is over once and for all,

and my work takes a final curtain call.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Paradise Valley

 Paradise Valley:
the turquoise waters
rising temperatures and soft light
hard granite rock glittering in white
precious gold
meadow flowers unfold
in the early summer sun
frolicking frisky and fresh
Yosemite Fall
roaring echoing teasing it all
with clouds of screaming blue spray
greening the eye
the eternal Ansel sky
a prolonged hush
whispering silence
quieting the rush
where lady bugs swarm
flying spinning sighing
red and yellow and wings
these are some of the many, many things
orange and purple colored in awe
it's not just what i saw
it's what i felt
as the Zen masters teach
while eyeing the peach.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Awe!!

 Awe!!
ah, shucks
slapping slippery hockey pucks
for the winning points
getting free smokes in all the best hippie joints
while lounging under American skies
eating warm grandma apple pies

 just about everywhere in the great prairie spaces
playing high stakes poker holding all four aces
watching forest trees dance
in an imaginative hallucinogenic trance

 well, don't you know
from tip of head to toe
everything tingles
listening on the am radio to Wild Bill Hickok and his partner Jingles
getting lucky on a date
definitely has to rate
pretty high up there
where the rarefied air
is filled with exquisitely scented flowers
counting the seconds, minutes, and the elusive hours

 sipping rich wine with a mouth full of poetry
anywhere from sea to shining sea
and much more such,
like a lovely skin to skin sensual touch
on a soft pillow made of comforting breast
give me this and i'll be tempted to give you the rest!

 on the point of a needle our brief life pauses
immersing in irony and meaningful causes:
hundreds of millions of years gone by
and still we stand and wonder why.

 well, something never to miss:
a soft, warm, lingering kiss;
an exhale and an inhale and an exposure to bliss.
and then this:
deep in the dark woods getting lost,
one toe stepping timidly and touching frost.

 a deep breath yearning to be free
of the pressing weight of modernity.
Whitman’s wild children fully awake,
singing in the open air by a deep-water mountain lake.

 Awe!!

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Idyllic summer at Juan-les-Pins, France, 1920

the Two Nudes were magnificently
conceived as life-sized torsos
with astonishingly perfect breasts
schoolgirl toes
volumetric classicism
imagined at a school in Holland
in 1905
with a corpulent rear end
on both
arm in arm
a full painting
not made for alarm
but to hint at Sapphic sex
to polish a classic subject
in a modern shine
and yet
one wonders
who was inside the glass?
was this a picture of Gertrude Stein
and Alice Toklas?

or random beach-goers who attracted his special eye?

Monday, January 13, 2025

beneath a Copper moon

i slept in the Victoria Hotel
down in old Mexico
and walked on handmade tiles
colored in deep indigo.

Eliot wasn't on my floor
nor was he at the bar
listening to the young gringo
strumming on an old guitar.

i heard he was swimming
in a pool without a sound
with a handful of wasteland dust
i remembered he once found.

he was wearing a huge sombrero
pulled tightly against his cheek
with a slip knot fully made
still showing the receipt.

my margarita had no salt
but i drank it all the same
to not offend the bartender
who asked me for my name.

a Spanish lady with the melons
she was proposing to sell
approached the nervous tourist
ringing the front desk bell.

i came to walk Copper canyon
so deep it smelled of death
where spirits wore historic masks

to take away your breath.

a train would leave the station
soon maybe the next day
and though tempted by those melons
i knew i shouldn't stay.

my coach was full of writers
down on their luck & drunk
on mescal which they all consumed
until their voices shrunk.

we stopped above the canyon walls
& began the long decent
into darkness at highest noon:
i wondered what it meant!

i heard the hidden waterfall
a primitive, lovely tune
and supped on poetry endless
beneath a Copper moon.

Saturday, January 11, 2025

the White Witch in the White House

i saw little Red Riding Hood
sitting on a mushroom cap
looking like a caterpillar
simply taking her final nap.

The Tin Men surrounded her
each holding an Atomic bomb
while Captain Kirk went boasting
that he discovered Major Tom
who was lying flat on a city street
where a Mother would hear him cry:

fake news reporters flew into a rage
but no one asked them why.

And behind the door to nowhere
the White Witch drove his train;
he held the throttle open wide
to see what he might gain.

on her bouncing floor Miss Dorothy
kept piling yellow bricks,
so Alice called the Queen outside
and blinded her with tricks.

a space ship called Apollo
on a mission to the moon
found David Bowie singing
with his Ziggy Stardust spoon:

he pleaded for a bathroom break
as two riders came his way,
but Neil Armstrong told him "Negative":
we ALL were here to stay.

then a ghostly sound like sirens
came echoing down the hall
but Vonnegut in Cat's Cradle
used Ice-Nine to end the call.

the operator was intrepid,
ran outside and threw a fist:
he thought he'd remain anonymous,
but she found him on her list.

meanwhile, the White Witch in the White House

proved he didn't know the score,

but even when he was winning, he always wanted MORE!

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

in Hiroshima,
it's a quiet evening
with a fiery red sun,
sitting stoically above the tall mountains
far to the east.

there are Japanese ghosts nearby
who quietly move in the deepening shadows.

a few years from now,
from my front porch,
looking up,
there will be fewer stars visible
in the night sky
because of persistent light pollution.

populations are expanding globally,
bringing cares and concerns and cities.

i'd rather see numerous stars than
sudden fear in any child's eyes.

there was certainly fear in the eyes of Japanese children
from Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
once.

do the adults they have become see the stars in the night sky?

these two cities have been re-born.

the children?  there are stories.

i must acknowledge Edison, perhaps,
or Tesla,
because there's darkness
beyond the nearest strip mall,
some welcome and some not so much,
but the shopping centers are fully alive with
artificial light.

it's still possible to find an absence of light,
but outside of the cities.

how far?

in parts of the Mekong delta,
for instance,
water buffalo still roam
without headlamps or streetlights,
stepping into fertile mud,
raising rice,
raising their heads with huge horns.

the Viet Minh have buried their dead
in that land,
along with their black sandals
and black shirts and black teeth.

they claimed a victory
over US Marines who came ashore at Da Nang,
splashing onto China beach like confident predators,
while keeping a watchful eye at dragon clouds
swirling atop Monkey Mountain.

the American troops were to protect innocent
civilians and corrupt Vietnamese generals
by force of arms and
with accurate shooting,
if possible with an unreliable M16.

but a Marine sharpshooter, living in the World,
sat high atop a campus clock tower
in Austin, Texas
shooting at people
far below who were
not Viet Cong
but were waiting for the Texas Oklahoma game to begin
or going about their morning business.

he might have been in Da Nang,
where killing was expected.

Iwo Jima, in the Pacific,
also had a pretend Marine,
John Wayne, a hollywood actor,
who got his feet wet in the black volcanic sand.

but he
didn't climb a clock tower to kill friends
or strangers,

even though he was said to grow a flower from a seed.

the Duke faded away, holding a stiff deck of cards,
a stiff drink,
and a smoking cigarette,
anxious to begin his shuffle toward a new beginning,
where he could act without killing,
without pretending to be someone he wasn't.

and the war to end all wars might have come and gone,
but it failed to end the madness.

the predators often eat their assigned prey,
sometimes wearing a type of uniform.

and sometimes they eat each other,
naked ambition dripping off chins like cooking grease.

i don't remember if there were any predators
at my high school back in the 1960's,
but once, at a post-prom party,
i wanted to read
The Stranger by Camus.

i was told
by a blond cheerleader i was kissing
to quit acting absurd,
and i thought that was funny!

when i met Picasso, a Spanish painter,
he told me at that exact moment,
blond was his favorite color.

the conclusion of our conversation
was a discussion about war:
we both agreed it was a sexual thing.

he liked hiding in French beach cabanas but i'd go anywhere.

the following summer i returned,
anxious to look for him.

i found that he was busy growing the nail on his little finger
while avoiding the subject of the German invasion of France,
though he did mention an earlier bombing of Guernica.

it was only after Salvador Dali
died that i took a renewed vow of sobriety,
excepting for, of course,
the better French wines which i couldn't afford.

i had seen too many ticking clocks melt into distorted shapes
like the faces of small children who
were once seen at play in the narrow streets
of Nagasaki, Japan one surprising morning
while a silver predator flew silently far, far overhead.

i read about Dresden, Germany
and that ugly fire bombing
and got sick, really sick,
as i had many times in the past
while reading about wars.

i've now been in bed writing for over a month,
give or take,
and will soon go outside for an evening walk,
hoping to find at least one
hungry stray cat,
which might once have been a tiger,
or a dog
which once upon a time was a wolf,
a type of predator,
and yet wants to be by my side
under a conspicuously starry sky.

we'll both start howling to the moon

Saturday, December 14, 2024

it's what he did (and we, too)

you (Bush #43) were caught in the deeper shadows held between two lines
blinded by the crowd applause and couldn't read the signs

with arrows to infinity and a moon rise outside your door
you told a waiting nation that you'd lead them straight to war

decrying fresh aluminum tubes and biologic threats
with yellow cake uranium as secret as it gets

in Poland and Iran or was it Brussels and Milan?
smirking as the words emerged al la Cosa Nostra con

the bastards at the Pentagon had hoped you knew the score
with little donny rumsfeld sucking madly as your whore
he whittled down the numbers and sent US Marines ahead
in a lightening strike surprise attack to minimize their dead

it was cheney and mr chalibi who lied about the scope
of opposition in Iraq to give reluctant liberals hope:

yet no crowds of people were throwing flowers onto the road
as M1A1 tanks and troops in Baghdad finally showed

it's good to declare victory on an aircraft carrier deck
& then retire to Texas with a lone star on your neck:

but what's the carnage and what's the cost

when nations die and people cry for everything they've lost?

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

the Red Block of Saydnaya Prison

the Red Block

known also as Death Chambers,

a huge slaughterhouse for us humans,

sport no safe spots,

no friendly playgrounds,

no smiling children gossiping,

no lovers softly eyeing each other,

no fresh air,

no clean water,

and no football pitch for wildly cheering fans:

here,

underground with minimal light,

minimal sanitation,

minimal hope,

maximal cruelty.

here,

words unspoken,

blood soaked the dirt

after years of torment,

thousands of bodies crushed,

souls discarded,

where fathers sigh their final farewell

for a wife never to be held again,

for a cup of strong Arak never to be sipped

once more by the lips of a free man,

where hope is shackled

and tortured 

until the final moments of darkness.

Monday, December 9, 2024

Assad is now in Moscow drinking

nothing here about GOD
or evangelicals or even a Mormon polygamist
in southern Utah with a child bride

no,
nothing to hide
behind or conceal
as i age while attempting to heal

Assad is now in Moscow drinking:
what is he thinking?
as he looks constantly over his back
for the assassin who's job is to track
this criminal tyrant to his grave

this is not meant to be a blog
where i'm preaching about myself
or nature or Earth
it may in fact have no worth
& i'm okay with that having already fought one war
in South Vietnam a long day ago
which now feels like a distant shadow

before the twin towers fell and ground zero cast a spell
deep into the mountains of eastern Afghanistan
when i didn't understand
the CIA 
or wall street executive pay

no, this isn't about food or being intentionally rude
& not about global warming
or locusts swarming
or how mankind has finally found
freely & unbound
his soul and his Redeemer

i am not the schemer

nor will i use sleight of hand
to lead a lonely hearts club band
into my small white town

Damascus has fallen down

and the most venerated Mosque tower is now calling
the faithful to prayer

is there a horn of plenty for all the Middle Eastern people to share?

but there is nothing intentionally here about GOD

OR maybe there is?

and it's everywhere,
which in retrospect only seems fair

after the many many years of terror and bloodshed

Thursday, December 5, 2024

from mainland China!

once upon a time the apes drank clean water from a wildly flowing river,

a small mountain lake, a pond, or a meadow stream;
no predatory tenderness or self-indulgent dream.

or maybe from a leaf collecting its' early morning moisture,
but never from the turning on of a kitchen tap
like a modern feckless business sap
who receives the two thousand mile Caesar's salad
and shirt made in Bangladesh
which are daily flown-in and freshly pressed
like a ripe avocado shipped all the way from mainland China!

once upon a time the apes did everything by hand:
love and communication they could easily understand.

once upon a time the apes joined up around evening campfires
without using FaceTime or the Internet:
at slower tribal speeds there simply was no disconnect;
there was nothing illusory or remote or overly complex;
no derivatives or obsession with balances and checks.

once upon a time there was thriving life on the fertile plains of Africa,
before the modern revolutions in agriculture and industry
made it ever more difficult to explain the expanse of human history.

and once upon a time the planet Earth was spinning freely
without an urban landscape of portfolios and fears.

before the flinging of the supersonic spears,
there were no technicians or aristocrats

for millions and millions of years.

Monday, December 2, 2024

to trouble the world

a loyal friend said,
"The world i knew is now dead
and it won't be coming back!
Black bread
is what remains!"

i decided he was not thinking normally,
wearing his lucky charm while acting too formally,
in spite of the civil war re-igniting in Syria.

tears were flooding his eyes!

maybe he understood the terrible lies?

he kept swatting at a persistent ghost
who was offering him a toast
of the finest Iranian wine:

he knew it was made lousy by design.

of course the news could be better,

reading more like a passionate love letter,

but he had a point!  too many factions and leaders to anoint

and each armed group has a consuming anger and a dream,

keeping them awake at night as they scheme

to trouble the world.

Saturday, November 30, 2024

an unconventional art lover

he lived in a large house
in a large garden
with flowers,
where a great many hours
were spent with spring time showers
and a lazy dog
with psychic powers,
licking a friendly kitty

not far from the nearest city

where in the end,
there was little
other than another cat fight,

although plenty nearby people were uptight!


a fading social light,
despite bouts of manic drinking
and attempted thinking,
he was a busted
but trusted
college grad,
at times both happy and sad;
who cleaned the litter box;
washed socks;
searched the sky for Venus;
played with Mister Penis;
confessed too much in autobiographical writings,
his entire face covered in stainless steel,
exactly how he wanted to feel
many an early morning
without warning
when he had to get back down to earth,
hoping to find out precisely what he was worth:


dancing to ragtime;
Louis Armstrong!
what more could go wrong?
he had the lucky number seven;
thought he'd try to live in heaven
with black tiled floors;
minimal chores;
cafe chairs;
an abundance of greying hairs;
phone calls not returned;
piles of seasoned wood unburned
until an alfresco dinner one winter eve
with nothing hidden up his sleeve,
he became a passing rumor
of black humor
and was found sitting comfortably by the fire,


a woman on his lap,
considering a nap
after giving him a French kiss,

which he didn't want to miss.


one he especially liked to taste;
her lips wrapped around his waist.

he could hear her sighs,
those soothing vaginal eyes,
sparkling like a unconventional art lover.

Monday, November 25, 2024

remember your manners

 oh,

it's only a simple song
that came along
well before
the once upon a time
i fought in an ancient Asian war
wearing a proud hat and a big brown bag
over my head
that might not have been the proper size
but i was already too young to realize
what the news frequently said
that, yes, i was already quite dead

and the man
sitting in his big white house
joked that i was just another little white mouse
serving at his discretion serving my time
looking for my street seller
selling a dime
like a poor broke little Jackie Horner
hustling on a busy American corner
his long beard asking me "What's up?"

and I 
taking an unsteady drink from the communal cup
was seen rushing for home
which was no longer there
just like my childhood Sampson hair
falling from the small town barbershop chair
where
for twenty five cents
we smoked our cheap cigarettes inside army tents
cleaning our christian souls
of all the loose women and immoral black holes

I'm Waiting for the Man and memories of childhood

Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee
being swept out to a raging sea
on a raft of bamboo spikes and the salty 8 track
never to be found again and never coming back
like Frank Lloyd Wright and his famous prairie cans

the truth in the American desert is the unrelentingly dry sands
and the perpetual thirst:
i still don't know the answer to the question,
"Who's on first?"
but might eventually know
which television game show
i need to see
before being spanked on the Catholic Bishop's horny knee
as i sit and smile and laugh and shower

i count my days in cotton bales each passing hour
and there's a decision to be made about Columbus and his sailing crew:
did they do what they were supposed to do?

on the islands sinking
what were they thinking
wearing Spanish leather boots while walking on the steamy shore?

those native huts of Hispaniola never needed a door
but the vaults at Fort Knox are built of bones and blood
and southern shacks of sharpened sticks and mud
saw tall men in their plantation suits carry away the keys

so,
remember your manners and always say please.

Sunday, November 17, 2024

brave protesters in Hong Kong

The Yellow River

with its' mighty brown flood,

and the Yangtze

with potent dragon's blood:

millions of buried ghosts,

tears dead and alive!

brave protesters in Hong Kong

finding it hard to thrive

inside Mao's little Red Book,

raising their heads for a gambler's quick look.

See!  there's the Great Wall:

a Terracotta army of the first Emperor

holding swords and shields, standing tall.

Dynasties leading deeply into the historical past,

with echos of great tragedies

which last and last.

fields of plenty and loss

almost too far to walk across;

sprawling cities on the expansive coastal plains;

thunder over the mountains followed by torrential rains,

arriving early or leaving too late,

keen eyes sipping pearl milk tea from a special China dinner plate,

too proud to kneel

for another expensive Western meal! 

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Federico Garcia Lorca (Generation of '27)

i decided to attend a movie preview
and it was a total flop:
the film,
not my being there.
it was simply beyond lackluster!
later, i heard the producer would henceforth
abandon cinema and
that's a good thing.
the money backers fell into a panic
when they saw actual stones being thrown
from the audience.
yes, it was that bad!
the opening scene might have been of a razor
slicing into an eyeball,
but no,
not even as memorable
and thus history was deprived
of possibly another surprising moment.
the most interesting person in the audience
was Federico Garcia Lorca and not only because
he had once been an erotic friend of Dali,
who was now living with Gala.
Lorca was the highly esteemed Spanish poet who imagined
himself a literary critic, 
but who knew little of imaginative painting,
which was Dali's great strength.
Gala was good for Dali, too, or so he said.
And Dali knew he needed to distance himself
from his ex-lover, so he refused to attend the preview.
Picasso also kept out of sight.
He was busy elsewhere with his private auditions of a young blonde.
she would get the part.
Picasso's wife would get the dog.
Lorca would eventually eat a Nationalist militia bullet.

he's still being looked for. 

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

on top

the winds stir the chimes regardless of the times it's the evening breeze blowing thru the fall trees while i'm in my bed remembering words left unsaid but the soft musical notes like a dream that floats soothe my restless heart i wish we could make a new start and become lovers underneath these covers or on top and never stop.

Jessica in Madrid, Spring 2006

Jessica in Madrid, Spring 2006
daughter is empowering herself