Maxime de la Falais

the death of Maxime was of natural causes 

at 86 it wasn't considered extreme 

her life was colorful artful in fashion and exquisite 

with really good friends and food 

she fed the Warhol brood 

in her loft apartment 

she lent 

Mapplethorpe encouragement in New York City 

she was a rare English beauty 

and silent lover 

lived her life proudly without unnecessary cover 

worked for Vogue magazine where she was often seen 

writing long lines for columns 

she moved to France to dance 

to write her memoirs in her golden hours 

when she died 

high society sighed 

in Provence, she was buried 

in rhythm and completely unhurried. 

Glory to Hong Kong

Glory to Hong Kong

a wonderful song

banned for listening to

by you know who

sitting on his earthly throne

like a devious gnome

while the 14 who've been in jail

dreaming of their Holy Grail

are being railroaded by a kangaroo court

storming the people's fort

of freedom and democracy:

what has happened to compassion or mercy?

having a voice?

freedom of choice?

Glory to Hong Kong

a wonderful song

which I hum

while I strum

remembering the bravery of the street bands

holding hands

in the face of police brutality.

is this the ultimate finality?

or will the human heart

beat again with a fresh start

and of course it will, with the song

Glory to Hong Kong!!

the Vietnam war ended

baby
maybe
i am not offended
that the Vietnam war ended
as it did because for my part
i gave my heart
i danced, had a drink
fell into the Mekong stink
cried, lied
felt terrified
lost my arms and feet
tasted numbness and defeat
it grabbed me by the hair
forced me into a razor-wire chair
laid me bare
until i sat dreaming
& steaming
in the afternoon breeze
muttering please
save me, honey
but i don't need your fucking money
i don't want your morning kiss
i prefer my worn mattress
and the cigarette burns on my polyester suit:

what a hoot!

north of Tam Ky

The recon platoon

was in the bed
of a nearby creek
and still being led
by Captain Joe
& Sergeant Bill
but they had to stop
on a steeper hill
when they heard noise,
then rifle fire
and decided not
to climb any higher!

an air strike call
had to be made
before advancing
with their base camp raid:

Happy Valley,
north of Tam Ky.

September 15th
Nineteen Seventy.

Vincent van Gogh: Painter (1853–1890)

i took my shovel from the shed,
also the wheelbarrow 

and a garden rake;
i loaded bark mulch in full sun thinking of you
sitting on a cabin porch 

overlooking a secluded lake
one could only reach with a slow drive over a rutted road
deep into the back woods of Maine.

it proved to be a long drive for a quiet time with a special book,
but you had nothing to lose 

and everything to gain.

i cleaned nesting houses for the wood ducks and chickadees,
found a fallen feather from the red-tail hawk by the slow-moving creek;
it repeatedly circled low overhead with broad hunter's wings.
the field mice sensed the danger and seemed too afraid to peek.
you asked me about Vincent van Gogh and i mentioned Theo,
as you drove away packed with gear and a GPS device
plugged into an outlet like it had been the previous summer.

you had the driver's window open for a kiss and i gave one to you twice
and i thought about that when i cut the dead evergreen branches,
scattered the mulch and the dried leaves over dry, bare ground.

there was so much work to do to prepare for a healthy garden!

you would soon hear the wild loons make their most enchanting sound.

i sat alone at my evening table while you made a distant vegetable soup
with zucchini and tomatoes and yellow corn and kale.

i read your most recent letter and would happily accept your offer,
but also knew i didn't know how to blue water sail.

i took a look at the online guides about being a Captain and a mate
and made mental notes about the purpose of each special knot
and how wind could be harnessed to propel our boat when it was in perfect trim.

i wrote you a reply in which i simply said "Yes, why not?"
and thought that together we'd get to read about Vincent and his days in Paris,
which were spent largely with his brother in a tidy apartment along a busy side street:

like he, i worked many days and weeks alone and when asked 

would always or usually say i wanted my art to feel more wholesome and complete.

while i waited for you.

Kingdom of Jordan

He wouldn't listen,

that much was certain.

"Don't you see;

I don't agree!"

he said.

She wailed, and sobbed, and howled, 

tossing a soiled rag,

hitting his head.

"You couldn't have put it better," she hissed.

She was obviously pissed.

He was a skinny man with a thin wisp of chin hair,

very Arab skin, with brilliant chocolate eyes, scholarly, and

the nickname of Flash Gordon.  He tried to be fast!

She was a heavily built, powerful woman with hair on her face

which ran in her family from the Kingdom of Jordan.

She tried to be slow!

"Ah, I see!", she calmly spat,

"I should write your name on toilet paper and toss it away!"

"Of course," he rapidly said,

while re-lighting his cigarette and blowing smoke in her face, adding,

"You live in a world of dreams."

And that much was true, as most who knew her would say:

former marriages, divorces,  old lovers, new lovers, 

ball-and-chain relationships, and sudden infatuations mixed with

the current heresay, but she stayed true to herself.

"At least I'm not lost," she remarked in reply,

"And you're still here, and I can only guess why!"

He tugged at his wisp of chin hair, smiling,

but said nothing.

I and my many Selves

I called myself on the phone:

it was an i phone,

full of apples, mostly, to keep the medical profession

at bay.

and like a leaf in the storm, like a tempest in a teapot,

 I heard myself answer

"to whom do you wish to speak?

it was the assertive me,

but the shy me didn't answer.

for he was in a bedroom, applying lipstick,

while humming a song from 1963.

between songs, like a school tease, 

I grabbed one of several membership cards

and began to whack away at my infidelities:

Whitman, again, in my head but off in a far corner,

and his multitudes yelling,

'Ship Ahoy!'

my wheel was spinning, like a mammoth spider web, it spun and spun.

I yelled, too, with a chorus of voices,

each a different sound.

but now I finally have control until I lose it,

I'm in the fog, I know, but the sky is clear blue and

the winds calm yellow, like that solitary flag in Philadelphia,

high atop a stone building in the middle of William Penn's city.

dreaming, cowering under my bed, I hold onto my blankie and soft monkey toy.

the monkey looks like me when I am being my silly Self,

so I don't take it personally, 

but I do take it with me when I march off wearing combat boots.

my literary Self is nervous about acting childlike

in a war zone, where I think of John Wayne and the tough guys

who spit chewing tobacco juice on the floor without apologizing.

the cleaning lady is watching with her clean white towels.

she could be me or I could be her, as we both push the cart without apologizing.

I am often GI Joe but shop like GI Jayne, looking for bargains in the bins.

and when thinking deeply, I am shallow like a shim of milk over day-old cereal.

acting bravely, I hide like a furry caterpillar inside my newly-spun cocoon.

when I am kicked, I see an angry mule and get angry at those floppy ears.

when I kick in return, I see my anger like a flash of despair over a fragile childhood

spent in puzzled hurt, and

I do wonder if that hurt has completely gone away,

while knowing that it hasn't.

my vulnerabilities can be dunked like a basketball.

I acknowledge the ball rolling across the court of my life,

foul or fair,

as I sit in the second row of the bleachers,

where I am yet a player, but

just wait until I tell mother, I hear my younger sister say.

just wait.

I wait, holding my phone.  the seconds pass and a lifetime, too.

a voice finally answers, and I speak normally,

asking how is the weather where you are?

I age and yet am not old,  so weather is what it is!

I discuss and listen but sometimes don't really hear.

I entreat and hold my hand to be held, while holding my breath,

hoping to be loved,

seeing the flowers among the weeds.

I love, too, and love and love, and more than love,

I and many Selves:

we steer the ships, and man the sails, and tackle the seas,

plotting our charts, 

diagramming our diagrams,

with no particular place to go:

I am the parent and the child,

standing on the shoulders of others who have guided me.

two new best friends

the two new best friends

went marching near the band.

a man holding his rifle watched

as they blew kisses,

fondling the air left hanging between their lips.

a salute without a glass,

yet the glass was half-full somewhere out of sight.

they two were from different countries

but they shared a border and a common enemy,

so it was assumed.

the assumption followed them to the conference table

eventually, to a grand meal:

they digested points of view

they drank in strategies and weapon systems

they regurgitated ideas for world hegemony

they ate lemon meringue pie

they listened to translators

translating

over a fine dinner

with Chinese teacups!

Toasts!!

the hot bravado

was wearing nothing but a bare white chest:

the world listened

ears were bent

sounds fell to the ground quietly

where a damp puddle smothered their good vibrations

and then the dust settled once again.

first day of school

on the first day of school

bits of limestone and raw clay
took my normal shyness away

and i became the baker with his bread
using time and patience and my head

to knead you.

rising from a heated kiln

one piece off the top shelf had cooled
and i was initially fooled

into thinking i could never learn to fire
or to apply thin glazes with a wire

to pot you.

then, even the fresco on the teacher's wall
became damp and started to fall, 

but i watched it take another form
when dried and reapplied warm.

and i was very happy to see 
the complete unity
of my final piece.

Israeli settlers on my porch

Outside on the porch,

overlooking a slow-moving creek,

i see an abundance of spring green,

dotted with large blooms of purple Rhododendron,

and attractive red Azalea.

a busy squirrel is nosing the ground,

soon joined by another,

and they begin wrestling.

i am sipping my hot morning coffee,

while also watching a nearby robin sitting on her nest.

i know the robin is resting on warm, small blue eggs.

her eye are glossy, bright brown, shining with life:

she is alert to every movement and sound!

according to a book i referenced the evening before,

the eggs are due to hatch sometime soon.

the robin must know this, too.

but what she didn't know was that a mob of Israeli settlers

had just blocked a food convoy!

i read this news report between warm sips of my coffee.

it was unsettling, this latest news, but still i had the creek and the green

and the flowers.

the squirrels, too, and the robin with her eggs.

yet my thoughts slipped to a bad place i once visited:

Dachau, near Munich, Germany.

Then, away to the stories of the Warsaw ghetto,

of people being accosted on public streets, beaten.

smashed store front windows.  Raised sticks.  nighttime flames!

And images of skeletal bodies and, of course, those awful eyes,

shrunken, dark and despairing.  Railroad cars.

but the convoy was simply transporting flour and rice and other

needed essentials to a hungry people,

people who were of a different religion from the Israeli settlers.

people who were, according to reports, starving just the same.

this news told of piles of rice and flour that were thrown onto the dirt street,

to the accompaniment of loud cheers and other noises of celebration.

Yes, no food from this particular convoy would be delivered to the hungry mouths,

those waiting with hope just a few miles away.

so i looked again at the robin on her nest.

she was constantly alert!

soon, after hatching, her little babies would bob and weave,

stretching their weak necks skyward,

and their mouths would open cavernously, hugely for so small

a body below, expecting food.

sadly, i sat wondering if an Israeli settler group would block

the mother robin from feeding her babies.

and then my drink turned cold.

The Burial of the Dead

Ford Madox Ford.
Ted Hughes!
his old lady
and her oven shoes
writing in their London flat
where she poetically sat
listening to the news
with Ezra Pound
and Dorothy,
who slipped underground:
he to Venice
stressing clarity
& musical words
absent disparity.
Robert Lowell.
Robert Frost!
at St. Elizabeths
at any cost
at any hour
giving the inmate
a special flower.
James Joyce
had no choice:
he always wore glasses
to see
language and brilliant infinity,
while Marianne Moore,
went quietly approaching her door,
but no one was there.
and it didn't seem fair
that Edna St. Vincent Millay,
who kissed all lips,
had the softest fingertips
to write sonnets
which the modernists hated
and constantly berated.
they loved Eliot, though,
especially the flow
of The Waste Land:
Pound for Pound
despair
and
The Burial of the Dead is there
stirring the air.

a Copper moon

i slept in the Victoria Hotel

down in old Mexico
where i walked on handmade tiles
colored in deep indigo.

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

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

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

my margarita had no salt
but i drank it all the same
to not offend the bartender
who called me by 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 the canyon
so deep it smelled of death,
where spirits wear an empty mask
and 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.

i stopped above the canyon walls
and began the long decent
into darkness at highest noon
i wondered what it meant?

i heard the hidden waterfall
down in these depths of doom,
and supped on endless poetry
beneath a Copper moon.

Bibi, will it be you or me?

Bibi,

will it be you or me?

the man who spilled his own beer on a narrow street,

who couldn't keep his feet,

I called to you and what did you do?

you brought in a few toughies,

mostly the religious roughies,

who began to bluster and boast.

they helped you butter your toast!

meanwhile, a young boy who lived near the coast

faded away since he had nothing to eat;

he, also, couldn't keep his feet.

but unlike you, sir,

he wasn't a self-indulgent minister

with body guards for every sip and bite.

he simply wanted the peaceful life that wasn't in sight.

you wanted to be exonerated for any possible crime,

and didn't want to do jail time.

he only wanted to have a happy meal,

hoping to heal.

Bibi, will it be you or me?

the man who gave it all away to rule for just another day:

you gather many incredulous looks

and will certainly go down in the history books.

the fat lady sing

i drove into the oldest part of my old town
and saw, sitting on an empty window sill,

the woman
with a fancy cigarette hanging from her hand
and inside her mouth a psychedelic pill.

she was the only girl on the entire block
with two legs kicking instead of twenty four,
a wind blowing papers which she wouldn't read
hard up against the bottom of her front door.

some cats played music in the middle of the street,
humming a southern spirituality tune.

one stray dog slept until he was done,
then began howling at the shadow of the moon;
his eyes red and two ears hanging way down low;
he started licking himself where he felt it hurt

and had no where better to go.

another mangy dog, stretching, went looking for his next meal

when a saloon exploded like a house of cards,

scattering Wanted: Dead or Alive Posters into the adjacent yards.

favorite loaded pistols were shooting at whisky bottles wobbling on the bar!

thru it all, nonchalantly sat the woman on an empty window sill,
waiting for me to get out of my damn car.

she was watching an elephant and a brown bear with balls
juggling coins in a game of pure chance.

while far down the old road marched a traveling band,
playing a sweet song of  adolescence romance.

young kids in blue jeans, tattered and with holes in the knees,

sang along without knowing the words,

several boys dangerously swaying from the few nearby trees.

behind the patched circus tent in an alley full of loose string,
a striking fat lady danced her weight inside the big top ring:

a crowd of local drifters were sitting around 

acting spellbound:

they had come to hear the fat lady sing.

no one saw Hemingway

 no one saw Hemingway shit into his green slop bucket 

so fuck it 

he's long dead now 

but i walked on a tour to his former studio 

and people in the know 

think it's cool he was an expat who came from money 

Hadley was his first special honey 

he wrote in a sharp narrative style making himself famous 

winning awards from the House of Lords on a hill near Paris 

i didn't give a damn that he grew depressed 

who could have guessed 

he'd loudly kill himself?

he still quietly lives on many a library shelf: 

the old street is narrow where he walked, drank, talked 

the Paris traffic passed by in its' familiar hurry: 

it did not appear aimless as it sped over ancient cobbles with edges smoothed by dreams 

which have often bled with age.