looking out the window

young and alive

nearing 25

with a clear head

remembering what was said

all night

it was all right

the jeune fille

slept well

& i heard tell

two bottles of fine wine were sipped

tongued and lipped

slowly swallowed

then next morning she followed

me home

where my large canvas currently sits

her black sweater and black fingertips

constantly brushing my face

with the taste

of promise

i began to paint her sigh

artfully she questioned me why

her breath escaping her lips

subtly squeezing her hips

it made no sense

so i said i'd draw her tomorrow

dressing her in sorrow

with a favorite pencil

and a bit of broken chalk

but she wanted to talk

like a Javanese toy

acting coy

so i took her in my studio

while she kept looking out the window.

i watched Hamlet!

i watched Hamlet!

before his death he wondered how to be or not to be! 

Claudius killed Hamlet's father, but 

then he married the widowed mother, ex-wife of his brother. 

and i wondered if there were no other plot possible for Shakespeare,

or did all these events appear clearly delineated as he was walking,

deep in thought, alongside the Avon river?

later, i watched the Dali Lama announce he would resign, to

take up writing stage plays in a well-worn orange robe with his baby smile.

he wondered aloud if he could lock himself away in his private room for days on end,

crafting a human interest fable about his family heirloom table?

he had an idea about a maid named Mable who wears a small white apron, serves a human skull on a small white tray for her employer who was named Hamlet but on their very first rehearsal day,

Hamlet would die tragically after a brief sword fight.

the maid eventually serves herself and washes the supper dishes while the Dali Lama runs for President, once chasing several feral dogs around the Lincoln Memorial during a brief campaign stop.

he hears the dogs of war crying Havoc! 

and something more but before he can make sense of it all, an old gravedigger drops a noisy shovel while burying Ophelia in nearby Arlington National Cemetery.

everyone nearby of course stops to pray,

but i couldn't hear the eulogy or what they might have to say or not to say,

at the service,

far from the Avon river.

i highly recommend the play.

The 514th Batallion

The 514th Battalion was used as bait
and their ruse worked, for a government informer
noticed the marching soldiers and took notes.

His report reached 7th Division
headquarters and a sortie was pressed rapidly
into operation, mainly due to the recommendation of
an American major who insisted to his
ARVN counterpart that action be immediate.

The troops of President Diem came in on choppers
early the next morning, without music, expecting to
conduct a quick two hamlet sweep.

An American Captain and his fellow Lieutenant 
unslung their AR-15s and joined the Vietnamese officers.

They scanned the terrain, immediately noticing that
the small huts to their front appeared empty.

What they could see were several old women and young children,
paddies, and fields.  It seemed unnaturally quiet.

They decided to rest before proceeding.

Even under the shade of a clump of coconut palms, 
sweat began to form in the increasing heat.

A rank animal odor familiar to the Mekong delta
came into their nose.

Without discussion, the Vietnamese captain wanted to curtail the operation
and withdraw.  After all, he concluded, going forward could be dangerous.

The first hamlet might be deserted, or it could be the site of an ambush.

At that instant, a Viet Cong wrapped his finger
around the metal trigger of a Thompson machine gun.

He waited for a decision.

His gun had been captured, oiled, and lovingly cared for.

It was only a matter of time.

death's an old joke

death's an old joke

but it comes fresh to everyone

subtracting from the sum:

one less garden for the flower

one less minute on the hour

one less falcon flying home

one less question left to roam.

as i feel sure of what to say,

i love you more each passing day.

i love you now irrevocably,

pulling you closer to comfort me,

confiding intimacy

bolder & more daring

more tranquil & more caring,

our beautiful hands enfolding,

soft yet firmly holding:

side-by-side we admire the tree.

i love you now irrevocably,

pulling you closer to comfort me.

death's an old joke

but it comes fresh to everyone

subtracting from the sum.

 

sweet Sam

sweet Sam

from your high rise window
standing on the top most floor
can you see me in my uniform
marching off to war?

can you see my tiny fingers 
with youthful polished nails
flipping silver treasure coins
calling heads or tails?

i'm not sure how to choose
as you're pointing down this road
i keep looking for the question
which no answer ever showed.

sweet Sam

what is this foreign floor?
i can see it far below,
but go faster is all you shouted
and just enjoy the show.

can you see me quake and tremble?
i'm in black smoke and loud noise
resting like a baby now
with fragile childhood toys.

remember when i gave it all?
marching to triumphant songs
i still felt strangely missing
having righted all the wrongs.

so, remember when you see the shore
that sparkle is my eye
and if you're feeling puzzlement,
i'm somewhere in the sky.

and the song which plays an endless loop

which everybody knows,

the lovely little melody of
roses and yellow bows.

i sang that once before
when i was marching off to war.

sweet Sam

to sleep in your arms

when i came to sleep in your arms
your door was closed but your heart was still open

i went to find the key
it could have been in an adjacent room
instead of across a raging sea
where i found myself tied to the turning mast
and my ears were full of woe

i heard you give your sage advice
but wasn't sure which way to go:

honey i was your mariner
and i braved the steel-eyed storm
i led the way across a battlefield
and saw the sad forlorn

i hiked to the nearby mountain top and grabbed a lightening strike,
mixed it into a rainbow that i thought that you might like

i stood in the middle of the highway
and braved a thousand stares

and made a fancy salad with crumbly cheese and pears

i traveled to the ends of the Earth and listened to the tides
tried to find the answer but all it does is hides

and all along the twisty path i kept looking high and low

i heard you give your sage advice
and now knew where to go.

John Lee, the awful bearer of the future as history

John Lee,

what is your morning song?

you're doing everything wrong,

by the way.

do you even hear what the citizens say?

damn, simply sad for Hong Kong!

once so free; 

busy with promise and prosperity;

the fresh sea breezes

wherein nothing ever freezes.

John Lee,

your future is now history.

but here is simply me

telling you what to do

with your newly enacted Article 23.

a man is not a tree

willing to be trimmed and cut,

but

I am now become your external interference

you are so worried about:

I wish you would hear the people's shout!

those self-motivated, sneering men in control who boss you around,

they won't hear (heed) the sound,

so why ought you?

right, I see what moves you around.

well, people will not be diminished

by your paper and your desperate pen scrawl

like graffiti on a midnight bathroom wall:

look, the lights of Hong Kong are growing dark.

flowers are dying in your Central Park!

what are YOU afraid of?

peace and love?

John Lee,

the awful bearer of the future as history:

black hearted man,

unable to take a stand

in support of freedom, peace and love.

John Lee, a grotesque example of MANKIND are you,

like rubbish stuck to the bottom of my dancing shoe.

folding you to my soul

it wasn't an illusion, after all

your ass shining like the shimmering sea
under the harvest moon
yellow under my firm grasp

all your beauty
was shaking like a little girl
spooning her soft raspberry jello
before her philosophical studies began

i thought i could take you!

you drove me senseless somehow
into the clouds where a phantom
with invisible arms
asked me my name
and i gave him yours instead

my hands were not the mirage
as they held to the pleasures of your body

what went and came out and in

here and there and slowly
folding you to my soul
was much more than a musical note

which a little boy plays in his sleep.

I am tasting the Holy Ghost

i would tell you
not to dust me, nor dance me
on the fine sharp brittle edge
of a darling dead poet!

i am wrapped in wrinkled leather
and famously stuffed inside
my fatal gas oven,

screaming Daddy words
like chiseling pieces of
hard dust, literary dust,
hallucinogenic personal dust:
dust like piercing shards of Hell
which do not fly gently.

in the adjacent children's room,
where they sleep under cover,
under blankets of soft candle glow
more dust settles
and falls and sifts like a splendid flour,

quietly.

their pillow seems wrapped
inside the dust of mother's love.

i see the dust fill their eyes
and watch it take away tiny smiles.

i feel the dust settle onto
my tongue as it whispers:

i am tasting the Holy Ghost.

i hear an anvil brightly ring
while the fire still burns,
white sparks and gray smoke,
the hammer and the forge,
hot coals and fine ash,
like dust rising into the warming air,

into the jet stream current
of an old and dusty Earth,
into the brief minute it spins
with no seconds to spare.

and ghosts on a midnight train
always speeding into their dark dusty night,
without a map, without a hint, without a hope,
without a conductor waving the baton
which tunes the note:

into the bones of a family grave yard.

arms and legs and bodies of dust,
headstones of dust, obituaries of dust,
young and old, triumphant and worn,
the great elephant seal of dust,

this roaring locomotive tossing me
with tracks across my head.

my feet and hands into blood,
into the chambers of a beating heart,
into the water with a virgin birth,
and when i hear talk of dust,

i wonder why no angel

gave me wings. 

a lot has been destroyed

yes, I am an American.

more than most, I also am an avid reader.

as many know, when I go shopping at any grocery store,

I'm always able to find cold milk.

other food items are also in abundance.

we only stand in line to make our purchases,

even when the self check-out is available.

our dreams can be simple when our bellies are filled,

and as Americans, we love to eat,

inside or outside.

at home, many Americans watch their TVs;

they find solace, sitting mesmerized.

the Truth can't be found on TVs,

a fact that doesn't seem to be upsetting.

but what pisses people off is when the electric

power dies:

a weather event often causes this temporary blackout.

when the TVs stop working,

a light flickers and minds fade even deeper into dullness.

Americans see war on their TVs.

The adults find it entertaining,

but the children go to their mobile devices to play games.

a lot has been destroyed in this world,

while here in America,

the winds blow warm and steady,

and early flowers bloom;

everybody assumes that life is good!

but so much reality is missed,

sometimes even the flowers cry,

 over  their own cold milk.

A Fitzgerald moment

Isadora Duncan,
with her purple hair,
sat dining at the Colombe d'Or
wearing dark aviator glasses.

Scott rushed to her side,
fell to her fancy feet without his famous book
or his crazy wife,
and pulled out his sword.

"My centurion," she said
as she played with his head.

Zelda, watching from nearby, rushed from her chair,
which had recently been used by a Riviera celebrity,
and flung herself off a nearby parapet.

Her drink remained untouched on her table,
but when she miraculously reappeared,

famously alive,
she downed it in one gulp.

Her hands were blood-smeared and left
red streaks on the polished crystal.

Isadora smiled at Scott.

He leaped up and danced across the floor,

ignoring his wife, who continued to bleed.

His dancing was nothing to write home about,

but later he told Hemingway it was great.

Absolutely go to Singapore!

Absolutely go to Singapore!

it's not just a slow place to spend special time,

it's the Swift place.

The great pandemic seems to have run its' course,

so now the show can go on,

from dusk to dawn.

boosting tourism is fine,

but spend a dime or more:

Absolutely go to Singapore!

the parks are lovely;

the vehicular traffic is slim.

don't simply procrastinate:

visit on a whim.

never once feel disappointed,

rather feel anointed,

like a king or queen;

older or a teen,

eat, drink, and be merry;

take a ferry!

Absolutely go to Singapore!

a failure to communicate!

so the kindly old man isn't deemed cool!!

he's being tossed into a neglected swimming pool

even though his eventual substitute

is almost as old, wearing a fat man's suit,

with a claim to fame of being a heartless brute.

no, it doesn't seem fair 

that a nasty man with thinning orange hair

could captivate American voters with his tiny hands,

enthralling those minions sitting in the bleacher stands,

watching his con.

they know him as The Don.

well, the weekdays and the weekend,

like fine fabrics in need of a mend,

are unraveling before my eyes,

and to be honest it's a cruel surprise

that the recent opinion poll cries:

it's the huckster!  he's winning!  the medicine man is on the loose!

he's fingering the rope, counting the strands of the noose

he hopes to wrap around the neck

of a country he keeps referring to as a terrible wreck.

will there be no sweet melody

or remedy

for the home of the brave and the land of the free

when the doors completely close and the lights go dark?

will no flowers grow in the public park?

this country might eventually be filled with hate!

a failure to communicate!

no second opinions or debate!

will it really be too late?

is that the fate,

written on the western wall

before the fall?