Shiny Cars

we were buried at sea
in an old neighborhood.
she had been homesick for it;
i didn't think it would do any good
eating cans of soup on the front porch
with sweet potato chips.
the good lady forgave me my youthful pranks,
kissed me on the lips.
watching shiny cars passing on the street,
an unexpected crash!
i had no intention of behaving myself;
got thrown out with the trash,
became more unstable than ever,
hitting the ceiling and the booze,
swimming like a happy duck
couldn't choose
until foreboding overcame me
and i ran out of luck.
put down roots on the wrong side
often for laughter;
other times out of fatalism:
died sometime before noon or shortly thereafter
but still returned by nine o'clock
like a schoolboy crawling to his retreat
on the porch i sat with acting ambitions
watching shiny cars passing on the street.

Naked Footprints

it might have looked like a tree
but it was me
taking a massive dose
the universe is a process of digestion
from the east to the west coast
there's gangsters in our midst
playing cards with their schemes
slamming aces on the table
making holes in our dreams
and all i can do is groan
sinking to the bottom
and all i can do is moan
as i lay with open eyes
staring at your open thighs
at times thinking i was hypnotized
contemplating all that was sacred
on the fingers of my left hand
and it might have been marvelous
if only i could understand
naked footprints on the shifting sand
forcing my legs to work
as if it were midnight on the city street
and the fountains were silent
and i couldn't sleep
down like a dog across the doorway
staring at my crocodile
pursuing my own vision
against the Gods for another mile
and all i can do is groan
sinking to the bottom
and all i can do is moan
as i lay with open eyes
staring at your open thighs

Living is a Magic Art

a verbal thrust
and a counter-thrust
on the stage with an actress
beginning to raise her voice
with perfect diction,
like a heroine for all the fair wise ladies.
a golden lotus with a tortoise on her tongue,
slowly singing,
she looked thin and young;
more than 50 years before her death,
she had the unusual quirk
of possessing a talented smirk
which many in the audience abhorred
yet i adored!
struck as i was with the demon of a late love,
she held me on a string
like a fish struggling in the net
before being taken to the shop window.
on the way, i kissed her on the mouth
and the back of her neck,
taking advantage of everything i could get.

Saint-Tropez

give me back my fine cigar
on Saint-Tropez
beneath a shining star
a boy with so much more to do
can't write a single letter
without the color blue
and he had the gall to want it all
sold several lives in packs of fives
found misfortune selling on the beach
where everything was within his reach
took a healthy puff, filled a lung
couldn't hold it in, was much too young
beneath a shining star
give me back my fine cigar
on Saint-Tropez
inside a speeding car
a girl with so much more to do
can't find a way to walk away
without her silver shoe
and she had the gall to want it all
sold several lives in packs of fives
found misfortune selling on the beach
where everything was within her reach
took a healthy puff, filled a lung
couldn't hold it in, was much too young
beneath a shining star
on Saint-Tropez
that's what the fortune teller says.

The Trayvon Martin verdict

i have two new pieces in mauve
with frames made of old oak,
full of character lines reminding me
of a face etched in heavy sorrow instead of a smile.
after Trayvon there isn't a whole lot to cheer for,
but come this fall there will be pigskins wrapped around
air bladders and stadiums filled with crazed fans waiting for more action
and less talk, while hot dog relish and sipped beer stain their academic shirts.
These passing moments will run on, like a hurried sentence,
as giant scoreboards blink excitedly in an epileptic fit of commercial exuberance.
in America, a tight end is both a blocker and the way she wears her jeans.
yet there is a silence at night, once the lights are turned out.
and there is a darkness before dawn which can blind the most sharp-eyed
hunter, but only the early walker can see the early bird.
from here, a close planet casts its reflected light on the waters of a nearby free-flowing river.
in my basement, a well-used, hooded sweatshirt
filled with tears and burn holes from a day working as a welder
said more about my past than the Wall Street Journal
has ever said about the future of America, which a party guest said
would come to an end around the year 2050.
i was intrigued, but our discussion was brief.
between puffs on a cigarette, she spoke in hushed
Mandarin Chinese, learned in elementary school partly as a result of
globalization, but also in an attempt to study if a bilingual brain is better at reasoning.
i reasoned she was pretty smart and we shared predictions:
what i predicted was that, in 2050,
there will still be handguns for sale from my local dealer, especially the Beretta,
Sig Saur, Smith & Wesson, and Heckler & Koch models.
by that time, Trayvon will have been dead for 38 years,
deprived of any future opportunity to learn a different language,
and without his own two new pieces in mauve.

Cat in the Hat

promises on the evening news
pointers from the left and right,
leaving it up to me to choose:
are there too many angry reds
or impossible blues?
but i don't want a fight
and i don't need to discover
secrets hiding underneath a deep dark cover!
inside the mouth of a favorite lover
the flowers still bloom!
winds coming through an open window
of my second floor bedroom...
papers scattered on the lonely floor
and i can't read them anymore!
but i don't want to bitch.
tell me if you know which is which
or what it really means when NOW is where it's at.
hey, look, there's a corporate cat in the hat
half-way between walking tall and party fat
even Doctor Seuss could tell you that!
you've got to give me something before bed,
much more than mommy and daddy ever said
when they kissed my head
they closed the door.
i heard their footsteps disappearing
and never saw them any more!
will someone please turn on the overhead light?
it's the one with a big green power switch.
but i don't want to bitch.
tell me if you know which is which
or what it really means when NOW is where it's at.
hey, look, there's a corporate cat in the hat
half-way between walking tall and party fat
even Doctor Seuss could tell you that!

Black Bread

my friend said,
"The world i knew is a long time dead
and it won't be coming back!
Black bread
is what is left!"
i felt he was not quite normal,
wearing his lucky charm, acting formal
in spite of the civil wars in Syria and Egypt.
tears kept flooding his eyes;
maybe he clearly saw the lies
blindingly bright in an atomic stupor,
for he kept swatting at his ghost
as it tried offering him a toast
of the finest South American wine:
he thought it was made lousy by design.
i knew our star was in decline
and the glory days were gone forever,
but it all happened in such a short while
when oil refused to flow,
and crops would no longer grow.
to his young boy he solemnly wrote
"The sun gradually consumed the ice..."
but he, of course, was being nice.

Stephen Hawking

with the sun filling his eyes,
Stephen knew it would be impossible to talk
in a half-hearted way and so he perceptively
continued exploring the universe which was found
spinning on his left shoulder.
i understood it was his universe, and i kept looking at my own shoulders
by shifting my eyes left and right.
i discovered there was little to be learned by watching his face,
or listening to the inflections in his curiously new
artificial voice, but he was brilliant in the manner of Cousteau.
in his overwhelming presence, i often found myself
reaching for a well-read book which he added to
his collection in just the last moment and i learned that all last moments stretched
into eternity, bursting like exploding stars from any room he happened to be in.
when he talked about eternity, he was able to smile with his words dancing on
faint breaths of air, and as those moist nouns and verbs raced over the hard towers of
Stonehenge, i kept reaching out to motion with my hands, rearranging pebbles.
sometimes when i stretched, i found my own voice, although i never saw a Deity, even
though
i saw
Stephen sleeping in his chair, hair unkempt.