closing our book

no turn of the screw

straight ahead i could catch 

the briefest glimpse of you

wearing your favorite red

it wasn't only what you said

that turned me blue

so what had i heard

when you flashed me a smile?

i tried to hear each word

running on fertile ground

it wasn't only what i found

that seemed absurd

you gave me that look

and a toss of your hair

but something else you took

meant more to me than life

i felt the stinging of your knife

closing our book.

drugs floating in the air

Jack said there was a dog in the tree,

howling at the moon;

but when i looked it wasn't there,

although i saw a haiku

hanging from a hanging branch:

if it fades away,

how will i know what it meant?

i can't see in the dark.

but Allen said he saw the dog,

who was barking like a hipster:

he said it was wearing a French-style beret,

reading a poem called Howl,

occasionally sounding like a mad man.

what was it about?

there was a lot of applause.

i had much to learn.

then Burroughs said there should be

intoxicating drugs floating freely in the air,

so he traveled to Tangiers

with his net and a tourist guide book,

looking for an African ass to drive home his point:

he often had sex at night,

and in the morning felt fine.

his breakfast was fish.

he tried to eat like a native, he said,

between bites of flesh.

Joseph Heller

what exactly did he mean by the phrase

CATCH-22?
from my lips directly to you:
a Willie Mays center fielder's running grab?
a discovery in the National Institute of Mental Health lab?

Joe avoided a violent military death
wrote a best selling book many years before he drew his last breath
a long, slow, measured exhale
but he got to chase the girls successfully for more than one piece of tail

his B-25, a fine airplane
coming in low and fast, weaving through heavy enemy flack totally insane:
it was very sane to want to stay inside an Air Force canvas tent
crazy to fly in formation if that's what he really meant

during WWII, the thin man and the fat
the bald guy and the clown who never removed his hat
the wop and the Jew
who on Sunday morning didn't know how to act or what to do
the black aviator and the brave Mexican from San Diego
neither wanted a tag from graves registration tied to their big toe
and the freckled kid from cold Minnesota
drinking a warm coca cola
between briefings and the next flight
they all felt deep down inside their guts an incredible fright
and wondered more than once if they'd get out in one piece
to become whole again and be discovered by a lover and live in peace

Yossarian.  Major Major.  CATCH-22?
it's what they did heroically and awkwardly still continue to do.

Kennedy and the CIA

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.

looking for Sonny

the ice was dull

but my blades were sharp
the water underneath a bottle of Perrier
floated the classical woman on her Viennese harp

the thin man on his Fender bass
kept bringing another cold case
for poor Sonny
who died when his head hit a tree
like an arrow splitting a knee:

it was in the dead of winter
in the American west
but we go on with our lives
imagining they're the best

they could become a dime store novel or a penny
a farthing or a pound 
a fatal fall from every grace
or a trampoline rebound

when lifetime runs down
and the entrance runs on and on
each day after day
and most are willing to pay

the price

is always right

glued to digital visions

a Russian SU or a tank

watching the Ruble wiggle and squirm

as it sank

with an earthquake or volcano

buffalo stampede or a shark

rising oceans, and a waterfront park

filled with happy campers

looking for Sonny

the Mosque wall

in Kashmir

a thoughtful Indian picked up a hefty rock

while i stayed on the sofa 

playing with his Pakistani woman,

but only in my dreams.

it often seems

there's a lingering dawn

before the fateful rising sun:

the actual sound ringing in my ear

is of a car explosion!

i see people

running past the Mosque wall,

many bleeding upright while others crawl.

this is definitely not a dream,

it would seem,

as i see soldiers with the Star of David,

hear them shouting commands

above the clamor and the swirling dust.

i must

remember how this unfolds in reality time

so i might use my rhyme

to describe the madness and the genocide.

there is no where to hide,

the innocence.

i must

remember to heat water for another cup of tea,

watching civilization flee.

on my tv

there's currently a bulletin coming from the Red Sea

about a missile strike on a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker

and another drone shot down,

having been launched from an historic Yemeni town

now curiously devoid of hungry tourists.

thousands of actors are rehearsing their lines

but no one is paying their fines:

it's overdue, the settlement cost.

much is lost!

during an intermission,

i must

remember the thuggish warlords

and the frightened underdogs,

both eating everything they can dig their teeth into,

as they drink

and sink

like hard noodles into their own fragrant broth.

the Golden Gate Bridge

but
her breasts keep getting in the way

so i couldn't sleep worth a damn
and the music was too loud
even if it was Kashmir
each heavy note came tumbling bouncing off the entrance door
i saw the stenciled sign splashed in hurried paint i hurried in
drizzled colors piled onto a dirty glass canvas announcing
Harmony Bar & Restaurant but i wasn't buying it
none of it none at all

her white shirt remained unbuttoned
while i fumbled 
i dropped the ball but had a ball played the game
went into extra innings 
she felt cold hot luke warm hot again
her nipples got the beat
each one
inclined swayed winked and nodded as i smoked
waiting on my park bench wearing a French beret
met a photographer who soon became a painter
read the newspaper headlines about the disturbance
waited until she touched me touched herself
i became erect & stayed that way

i couldn't sleep worth a damn
had a stiff one had a drink had a dream
i remembered Joseph Alioto and the bomb
his prostate cancer a bitch a hole in the invincibility wall
the streets of San Francisco pulsing up and down
round and round the Transamerica pyramid wild-eyed
his grave and everywhere parades of kids and more shadows
looking for the mafia but finding hills and bags of pills
and the Pacific Ocean and suicides
the Golden Gate Bridge the perfect foil
where inspired hippies danced by the incoming tide
outgoing too and in tune with their war
their camouflaged faces and Indochinese histories
black cats and panthers sitting on ice listening sweating the draft
their inner city jazz coming undercover coming underground
to Dizzy and Miles getting a fix on things some very good things
with sharp wit and sharper needles all at the appropriate time no less

i couldn't sleep worth a damn
living in my crummy flat by the fire department
on Haight-Ashbury with a famous singer
i can't recall his name his face just doesn't appear to me anymore
he played the drums in a white band not well but
only for a short while before dropping his sticks 
into the depths into the drug culture into the abyss
ringing my bell at all hours on each every almost any floor
at the window
by the stairs
on the road
tugging at my brains spilling my guts onto the cop's desk by his answering machine
questioning me and digging for deeper mysteries that no man should ever want to know
most any time the elevators to the 13th floor sit waiting for the middle finger
and i started to write in a cold sweat typing a combination of words
emphasizing color, light, and the need for a change of pace a change of direction
i felt i needed a job needed a push a muse a mother a mouth a moment of genuine solitude
but no flawed insight please no three piece suit please no college campus guidebook
in plain view on a polished dining room table, no stained glass front door, no father knows best
no the prevailing mood wasn't enough no crowd control no ten commandments
no zeitgeist no leitmotif no full monty to unwrap the final vision to explain everything
in one big yellow star-bursting fireworks explosion so we can all just go to hell! 
& so it goes for general motors general electric and the general population
all the crazy politicians jerking off in the planetary house of representatives
doing to us what they're doing to each other over the air waves and over cocktails
and over there and here in their hands a new generation looking for a masterpiece.

but i know where Jefferson once whispered to his black mistress, so maybe that's enough.

but

her breasts keep getting in the way 

the Ohio National Guard

the Lusitania, a passenger ship, was torpedoed by U-20,
a German submarine.
it sank not far from Queenstown, Ireland,
in the spring of 1915,
before Guernica, Spain, was bombed;
before Picasso married Olga,
but after Van Gogh lived briefly in
the south of France with his amazing canvas,
splashing paints, and his injured ear.

in Flanders Fields the flowers bloom.

tombstones there are now growing as tall as fresh spring flowers,
the difference being that the headstones are engraved with names.

i thought about this while walking
my dog on a hard gravel trail
which wanders, deer-like,
through a nearby woods.
it was a hot morning, although not on fire,
when i climbed over fallen logs,
sidestepped the poison ivy,
my legs growing increasingly weary with the
weight of my Army-issue combat boots.

in my head was Dresden, a once beautiful German city, burned to ashes and
jumbled piles of blasted stone
in the spring of 1945,
and very few local people survived the fire storm 
to save their tea pots from the flaming catacombs.

i remembered
the forgotten war 

which was forgotten by the many millions
who didn't fight in Korea.
there were dead bodies on the cold battlefields who are now pieces of thin bone,
small shards of memory, forgotten loves of childhood
lost in the drifting winter snows
on the south bank of the
frozen Chosin Reservoir.

looking ahead,
toward a fenced orchard,
i saw bright ripe sour cherries being harvested by
young men on ladders.
young men, not the present busy ladder men, died
while wearing sweaty uniforms in the oppressive humidity
of the Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam, in the fall of 1965.
Vietnam is a beautiful country
with a rich history and kind people
who are humble and loyal to their ancestors.
their rice is grown locally.

the helicopters didn't notice the rice as they came in
on their speedy Medivac approach to grab the many body bags 

filled with dead and to aid the wounded.

my dog doesn't know about this:

she cavorts with flickering shadows and chases alert chipmunks,

rabbits, running groundhogs.
she's busy with her own interests and oblivious to
the history of man.
she carries no baggage.

the Ohio National Guard has baggage,
having shot to death unarmed college students
who were protesting senseless killing.

you're IT, Kerouac, Jack!

 "Straight from the mind to the voice,"

said the mad-eyed man with whiskey
on his lips and cigarette smoke blowing
up his loose-fitting pants where the lovely hand
of a lady journalist from Italy was busy
while contemplating her life on a Colorado Buddhist campus.

she asked him in all earnestness sweetly
if IT was because of the war or because of a need
for change or simply because the dragon tattoo
on the early morning side of his unshaven face
kept spitting fire even during the heaviest New York rains,
when everyone else went running for shelter?

while at East 9th and 3rd Avenue there was a baby boomer carriage
and he rocked that boat like a titanic wave crashing 
through the intersection of his sad generation of brown
shoe wearers' looking for a pair of uptight white socks and
Slim playing hot on the nearest radio set high in the
rafters of the famous Harmony Bar and Grill, where
the girl with the unbuttoned blouse kept bouncing her brown hair
into his face and it was the largest crowd he had seen on Harlem
streets in over a week of searching, but it was a Friday night
and their music was jumping into and out of cars and fast trucks,
and hipsters on the road were looking for a good time in no time at all,
shooting around to find something that wasn't perfectly boring,
so they finally asked him to be IT

and he said yes.