Lady, my friend

i slid my blueberry eye inside her ass
looking for a masterpiece,
and felt relieved that i no longer
had to console myself playing the organ.
i was mainly attracted by her warmth and
wit and charm, but her hands
proved very affectionate and
inspired me to make a drawing of all
her sharply painted nails, for my own pleasure.
she had cut her hair short, and dyed it
bright orange, so i felt the old girl
was ready for a grand dinner-party.
on the strength of that idea, i wove
her a dress of chrome yellow and asked
to watch her wear it.
she was the perfect princess, and i in my
brand new dinner jacket was her lucky escort.
at an exclusive showing arranged in her honor.
with only private guests invited,
she did prove to be a useful companion.
now in the evenings, the room i once shared with
my wife is empty.

Memorial Day, 2012

Mickey Mouse was on the cover
of a 1950's comic book, smiling like a big cheese.
nearby, a new church stood righteously in the background,
surrounded by asphalt roads and cement sidewalks;
a small yard of grass held three empty crosses.
the little blond boy with an egg-shaped head was
holding the comic book, showing it to his mom with a laugh.
the church had no parking lot for the congregation,
but it was known to be easy to walk the few steps to the door.
the yellow-haired kid would play in the grass, sometimes after school
and before Sunday services when the weather was right.
he would only cry if he fell, tearing his skin, or when
his dad beat him for being too much a boy.
his dad would visit the church wearing a suit and tie,
taking the family to any pew where there was open space.
the wife was in her fancy clothes, too.
organ music would attempt to fill each head with religion.
the young boy would sit between his dad and mom, drawing on a piece of
paper with a pencil.  he would draw simple pictures of airplanes and tanks
engaging in combat, using short black dashes to represent the line of bullets
and bombs leaving one weapon and aiming toward another weapon.
he never drew a picture of Mickey Mouse when he was inside the church.

PULSE

it was my pulse,
and it was on exhibit for a friend to see
when we were mixing pleasure with a chilled glass of wine,
as the beau monde was attracted to an art exhibit at
the new location of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
i avoided the retrospective, preferring to hang with the less
distinguished and the less important, who was not interested
in being "among those present" mentioned in a morning review.
so i never saw the diamonds and pearls not yet in pawn, but i knew who
was certain to wear them, all the bottle tanned women with their bare spines
and tight smiles who never disappoint.  nor the fresh champagne and tiny
sandwiches which might have been sniffed and nibbled,
but so unlike the fate of buttered popcorn at the Friday movies in younger hands.
i skipped the late night closing for my own intimate opening.
and the day after the opening, i was back working in my shop, filling my time
with thoughts of a friend who was mixing pleasure
with a chilled glass of wine:  she was nude, i was nude, and the stars were nude.
the wine was never able to extinguish the fire in my belly, and
all day we had the place
entirely to ourselves.

balance beam

if you hoped to feel serene
and joyful when you took
a glimpse at that picture of
happy fruit, like peaches and pears
artfully hanging from the brilliant gallery wall,
remember the balance beam and please
don't forget about the failed poppy crop
in southern Afghanistan or the vicious cannibals
sucking energy from all the little children
still playing freely in my front yard.
these friendly kids are growing weary, tired from
the constant waking under a selfish red sun
where they see our glaciers melt, and suffer
from a nervous exhaustion made even worse
by the running of the Bulls and the Euro crisis.
Carl Gustav Jung disapproved of a fundamental self-
indulgence, which he thought was tragic
and dramatic, but he could offer no permanent cure.
and if you've been to vampire country, you know how
small bites can lead to a crisis of identity.
in sitting with a model in my studio, i'm often
reminded of the balance beam when i place her fruit
alongside my ceramic pitcher, which is full of water.

1928

he had the exploding blue penis tipped with tan
and all the girls went crazy
considering the possibilities,
if it would only come to rest between a pair
of splayed human legs, mainly female and
maybe their own.
but the adulation
and the applause
were less for the man with the head of a horse,
an eagle with a woman's breasts and bull's legs,
and a bird with the head of a girl who was not talking
to a playmate or combing a momentary lover
for another brush with her sexual energy.
so he crouched down on all fours, hoping
to catch the ball an athletic lady was about to throw him.
and expecting a glimpse of her holding the key, he
unlocked his door and caught the ball in his hand.
he squeezed it roughly, and would have her
any way he liked, and one of his favorite ways
was to be naked on a clean, white towel.
acting as her immediate supervisor, he wasted no time
in training her to please him and she was not to laugh.
her hair remained golden on the floor,
mixing with his jealousy and his sperm.

Back in Paris

the grim, gray face
had great dark eyes
waiting for the second World War
from a safe balcony in Paris,
near where an island forms a church.
she was without her Spanish stranger,
but he was holding a young blonde girl
in bondage and was unable to break away,
as her ropes pulled tightly around his past.
and his Russian wife was too skinny to know, and not
well enough to understand that her own misfortunes
had driven him far far away and it would not be gentle.
he now lived inside a hot beach cabana, peeking outside
only when he needed more money.
the young blonde girl quickly became both his obsession and his sister,
as she curled her pubic hairs inside their bathing hut on a
sandy Dinard beach and gave him plenty of pause.
his wife, meanwhile, kept her own hair
cut short, to resemble a current fashion.
and the gray lady in Paris put her hand to photography,
instead of a bust, but it wouldn't make any difference;
the Spaniard would seek her out, eventually.

Polka dots

Marguerite was standing to the right
of the polka dot fireplace
with an envelope in her hand.
Inside it, she had a letter to her husband,
who was playing checkers to the left
of the fireplace.
within the room, there was a strong rush of air,
but no flames were visible and no heat
came between them.
she was seldom very private about her emotions,
but needed to sacrifice openness to reach him,
particularly while he played a game.
he was very formal about his relationships,
and they kept their house meticulously clean,
especially when the weather was gloomy.
that did not mean they were stuck with whitewash
for their walls, since a box of watercolors was
inside a bedroom drawer, a gift from her mother.
but her husband had little creativity and often dismissed
the notion of fresh paint.
in her youth, Marguerite was very gifted.
in his youth, her husband was a businessman.
their initial relationship was full of aspirations, and at first
they had the tools for a wondrous journey.
but after the trip, there was no other big event, so he spent his
time waiting at the post office for the checker board.
one day it arrived and, being a good sport, he invited his
friend to play.  they played as much as they could, in
good times, in times of illness, crisis, or financial straits.
and always in the room with the fireplace, which Marguerite
began to paint with polka dots. 

The Workshop

what is drenched in death
that we can see
when the sky is blue with
a noontime sun and a simple
calm soaks the many bathers
on our beach?  and i wonder
where is the swimming woman
with her prophetic powers
when i need her answer
and her arms.  each time i think
i have it figured out, her mouth and eyes
become colors on my palette, while
the rest of her body flies away in an abstract plane.
my room is empty.  the bay window is open
to a great expanse of sea and laughter, but
i have my back turned and can only guess.
i hear she is slim and has a fine outline,
fully imbued with an indescribable something;
not flawless like a point, but she could make my day
for 24 hours before i die and
i would not feel guilty if i asked her
to be a friend.
and if i act out of place, she might
even see me better.

La Danse

when i put all my blood
and guts
on the clean white sheet
where we once slept,
my arms become bruised
reaching for that night.
i wear no glove on either hand,
so i might directly touch your skin.
my mask is on the floor
by your shoes and socks;
one candle burning.
we need nothing more to walk
together, hand in hand,
but we should dance
before the paint has a chance
to dry.

man in field

little boy playing in the tasseled field
pretending to be a captain or uniformed colonel
without serious thought darkening his nocturnal
no deeper idea about an older living or the younger dead
an all American global blue white and red
carrying his cardboard captain's shield

guaranteed invulnerability to anyone left behind
or under the super moon on a starry night
and all without an urgent sense of fright
just sidewalk ghosts sneaking around
oblivious to the very tender, fertile ground
where all blind people are eventually consigned

there was a crack of the bat and a flying ball
he spun and went over the nearest pile of hay
he simply had nothing of importance left to say
he tried, but it was considered obscene
light years of urgent words and what did it mean?
he's still playing like the happiest boy of all.

on the rue Boissy d'Anglas (1922 and beyond)

behind the black door,
Barbette in drag was a great laugh:
boys and girls
dining and drinking and dancing
the high and low
gens chic and gens louche
often broken lights and leading lights
a thick flood of cafe society
gorgeous young men and women
often free, others at a cost
pouring into Le Boeuf
like refugees from prohibition
and puritanism
with Picasso and Proust
(who would soon be dead),
arriving around eleven o'clock
with a drunken argument and their friends
in white tie and tails
or black like newspaper clippings
in a dinner jacket,
the men with ladies
in Chanel, Lanvin, or Vionnet

the ladies with ladies
watching Doucet, the house pianist,
make the rounds with his Corsican brandy and his keys,
past throngs of the beau monde
fashionably discrete he could hear them
whispering softly for their latest drug score,
or conversing with some unbelievable
pimps and queers before being turned out at 2,
when the bar closed to the Paris streets

and another day began.