The Shining in her Eyes

I've been in this position once before
Probably somewhere between the last Peace and the next World War
I saw someone beautiful coming up to my front door
And I sat thinking why does this always seem
like it's just another hazardous dream?
'Cause there's a solid pounding inside my best ear
I keep looking behind me to see if she's still here
Or over the mountains and through the foothills
And I keep getting chills and circus spills
It's a most welcome surprise
To see the shining in her eyes
To watch the spark between our fingertips
Especially when we're touching lips
And then I'm howling at the far moon
I don't want this dream to end anytime soon
And I'm left wondering if I can keep it going until the following afternoon
While near my bed by the softly glowing light
There's a little piece of candy and I reach it to take a bite
It's milk chocolate sitting on the nightstand
I hold it and it almost melts inside my hand
It has a sweetness and I have to taste it just to understand
I know I can't stay in bed forever
What time this dream ends is anybodies guess and I'm hoping it's never
I've been in this position once before
Probably somewhere between the fat cat and the new dog on the floor
When a million radio stations kept playing a tune which I never heard
I picked up the black book and tried to read each and every word
And one came charging from the pages to hit me in the middle of my nose
I saw it falling and thought, man, I want me one of those
I keep looking behind me to see if it's wearing any clothes.

One sip for the yellow dress

Let me take a quick guess.
Who is that woman in the yellow dress?
She is sitting belly up to the bar;
Under her right eye is a petite scar!
A knife fight or a friendly cat?
I'll sit here and wonder about that.
Oh, another sip of whiskey.
Pretty soon there's nothing more that I can't see:
A buffalo and a blue bird
Whispered but the crowd never heard a word.
A black President and a powdered king
Opened their mouths and started to sing
An anthem, each trumpet shop-worn in the shade.
The music grew louder but nobody stayed.
On the road a BMW threw open its' door
Killed a young man inside a neighborhood store,
Gunning the engine wanting to kill more.
A hummingbird with a ruby-red throat
Sipping sugared water read a new note:
Please bartender won't you draw me a beer
One more for the road.  I can't stand it here.
Dust in the rain drops and chill in the air
Blood on the midway of a county fair.
My crazy uncle rode his wild horse;
He started out normal but soon went off course.
Here is my beer filled to the brim:
One sip for the yellow dress and one sip for him.

The Lost Sign: 04/30/1975

And they all died!
Any further consideration would be postponed
Until tomorrow.
A total of twenty two hundred men lied!
One was big nosed Charles de Gaulle
Who was last seen sipping heaping teaspoons of arrogance along
With ripe strawberries which came from Dalat.
Who else?
The French legions at Dien Bien Phu.
That's who.
The Emperor, Bao Dai, constantly smiled 
But never went wild
when the sneaky Japanese sat eating his rice.
They weren't very nice.
Uncle Ho knew which way to go.
And millions of peasants soon followed.
The Buddhist Group went up in flames
Playing gasoline games
In the public square.
I wasn't there.
Ngo Diem was, however, along with his brother and the
Dragon lady, who wasn't very blue.
Who else knew?
In Saigon, Nguyen Van Thieu,
Continued to work on his resume.
Kennedy and the CIA
On the river's embankment,
Ordered the bogeymen into action.
And the rain might have stopped as suddenly
As it started, but the B-52s
Were just warming up on Guam,
Their cold bomb racks filled with misery for the
Vietnamese on the ground, without qualm.
It became very clear that death could drop from
Thirty thousand feet
And kill a thousand people as they sat down to eat.
Truman had no policy, Eisenhower none, but Johnson
Pulled his pants on like a true Texan.
Nixon was no Texan, but in 1972
He celebrated an early Christmas
With Henry who flew home from Paris
With a secret merry card.
On the cover it mentioned that Hanoi and Haiphong
Would not have a merry time
tonight or for the next several weeks and
Not a single word made a rhyme,
But the men acted as though one did.
Whom did they pretend to kid?
President Ho Chi Minh died in '69.
He was no friend of mine.
The US Embassy lost a sign.
It was carried away by a staffer, who jumped
On the last helicopter leaving for the coast.
Where is it now?
That's what I want to know the most.

The sweater

And when the telephone began to ring
No one was home to answer my call.
The kitchen was empty and down the back hall
The bedroom was perfumed in shades of cool pink.
In the bathroom a brown wig dried in the sink.
A weeks' worth of papers by the studio door,
Each in a wrapper dropped on the floor.
Ends and odds and cigarette butts
Turned and tossed by an obvious klutz;
A note from the laundress pinned on one shirt,
Bloodied it hung from where it would hurt.
Upstairs for ten minutes and no one could speak;
I once sat there dreaming and stayed for a week.
Breaking a fast in my mind with a start:
I wore a frayed sweater with a thread for a heart.

The Party

throbbing with guests,
the intimate deck overlooked an insignificant creek
alongside of which 5 goslings foraged for bugs in the tall grass;
nearby, the gander and his mate seemed ever watchful,
but their enjoyment of the babies was not so obvious.
party music splashing from the small house tumbled over their food search,
eventually reaching the distant courtyard where a collection of expensive cars
and hungry women sat polished and ready for action.
black humor and white pants full of deception hung in the air
inside the house where the gathered men disregarded loyalties,
went swimming to the bar and back, and repeated the same four
letter words over and over again, devaluing their own powers.
one man's huge face leaned to kiss the lips of a waiting woman who had
a nose like a giant morel and the man almost bit her, confusing the
pockmarked mushroom for a tattoo of a striped snake.
another woman in tarnished finery came from the kitchen wearing candy
floss hair and began yelling at the amorous male so he shot her a look
of puzzlement, but his confusion was likely to have been intentional.
a whirlwind of legs and laughter soon went bouncing from the front door
into the lap of all the hungry women wearing caked makeup and began guessing
where they might next celebrate the perfection of a carpenter's square.
the expensive cars were soon relocated, too.

Port Antibes with the Murphys

By the summer of twenty six
Many hotel guests ran out of tricks.
By October  of '28
Those remaining realized dinner was being served late;
Even their dessert put out to sea
Where it sank ignominiously
Like the crumbs of a banquet from the prior week.
Few looked back or cared to speak
When they saw pictures of Mussolini on every wall.
Some memories the Murphy's cared not to recall,
Like the sale of their Weatherbird boat,
Which faded with time and seemed fairly remote
When viewed from the depths of Fifth Avenue in 1942.
The Spanish civil war was over and Picasso spoke
From his studio as the levee broke
for Gerald and Sara, Scott and Zelda, and Hemingway.
In America they would all have their final say
After leaving the twentieth century of Paris in flames.
Picasso remained to continue his games!
First one wife, then two:
Countless ladies but what could a modern master do?
Meanwhile, Sara kept a rose in a tall vase in her New York entrance hall;
it was what Fernand Léger pointed to when he saw
the simplicity and exclaimed "The value of that!"
Everyone agreed and tipped a collective hat
for Gerald, who wanted to go outside to play.
He put down his brushes with nothing more to say.
He painted when he was younger, but not often or much.
He always felt he had a second-rate touch.

the modern movement

wanting to be good
i did the things i thought i should.
wanting to be kind,
i peeled the orange rind
and gave all the sections to you;
it was what i was made to do.
wanting to be brave,
i learned to shave
and shine my shoe;
it was what i was made to do.
wanting to be wise,
i sacrificed the lies
and lived a life of tragic dignity;
it was what i was made to be.

candy from the street

inside your left ear
you only hear what you want to hear
and in a hundred other places
there are a half dozen other people you want to be
some part of our times, some part of history
i used to think you were such a fine mystery
when your face was hard and lovely
but i'm a Sunday driver in my own little corner of the room
a brash young man from the country side of the moon
where the news is eaten cold and dry:
i searched without success for the bottom of your eye
from the comfort of my easy chair
i started from the absolute top and couldn't find it there
no person in the world would have that much more to spare
i threw confetti everywhere!
what a difference between a Champion and an also-ran
i picked up candy from the street with the passing of the band
and found little glances i was never able to understand
one, a heart so milked of compassion
it had no need for immeasurable passion:
now you only want to sip and taste!
but i am the detective on this case
and anything less than a big bite becomes an interesting waste.
inside your left ear
you only hear what you want to hear