i couldn't sleep worth a damn

but
her breasts keep getting in the way

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 elevator to the top floor sat 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 talked to his mistress, so maybe that's enough.

but
her breasts keep getting in the way

did you do as well?

in my coloring book, the lines were thin and challenged

me to stay within their confines

did you do as well?  only time will tell!

i slipped but i didn't fall

my blues and reds and greens and yellows

as well as shadow black

proved to me i had a fatal lack

of following directions as i drew

what i knew

was expected.

did you do as well? only time will tell!

when asked to sing in chorus

i had my own song in mind,

and not be be unkind

to myself

i sang what i felt

and the shelf ice didn't melt.

did you do as well?  only time will tell.  

Poetic gratitude

Poetic gratitude:

polishing politeness while canceling the crude

a garden filled with many different, colorful flowers

idling with a friend savoring our peaceful hours 

together with perhaps memories of Apollinaire and his friend Picasso

whispering Surrealistic thoughts before we go

into our private studio

to play her favorite Neil Diamond song  

we're not wrong

about the butterfly and the hummingbird

sipping nectar like a favorite word

wings beating like a fleeting heart

each second arriving for a brand new start

alive the puppy and the kitty with an intensity

shared with winds blowing wildly across the sea

goosebumps in the cold

refusing to be bought or sold

offering aid, a helping hand

leaving temporary footprints in the human sand 

building castles bravely at low tide

resting with a lover side by side

touching finger tips

touching lips

hearing the eternal call of the wild and a laugh

seeing a distant loon and a moose nursing her calf.

the overhead sky seems to be so expansive, so much

but it's always near enough for a simple touch.

rival queen

she was a rival queen

of Frankenstein's time

a touch of softness and a touch of rhyme

but not a pushover by any means

filled with mystery and secret schemes

joy and a blue heron flapping overhead

taking away the sense of dread

a wisp of willow, a whirl of sound

reciting the poetry of Ezra Pound

such was my love, the rival queen,

dressed for fashion in my latest dream. 

with young girls and boys

I've traveled the miles, heard about the Epstein files

hidden from view by the broken light socket

tucked deeply inside a Presidential pocket:

when his spokeswoman said he never got laid

by a preteen who didn't get paid

no naked massage with his little boner gleaming brightly

(was it really unsightly?)

no trolling whenever he went

into the dressing room of a miss whatever beauty pageant

he didn't really grab'em by the (you know!) way down low

where the hidden treats, tasty kumquat and ripe mango

wait for the rich and powerful playboy touch

to do whatever it is they want to do, often and too much

with young girls and boys:

for them, it's been holiday year 'round filled with toys

for the taking

and this isn't inventive or me simply faking

news.

by God, this is the real deal!

you get to choose

who should win or who should lose. 

South Vietnam, once upon a time

General William Westmoreland went south
Looking for his compass
Which he was unable to read;
He hired an aide with glasses
Who couldn't speak the language,
So they signed together with their hands.

In the growing darkness, they looked for a light
At the end of a famous tunnel:
What they found instead
Was a toilet.

They wanted an air conditioned room
On the uppermost floor
Of the Rex Hotel
But none was available,
So they demolished the building.

When the smoke finally faded,
They threw their hands up in exasperation
And claimed victory!

A crowd of astonished onlookers
Gathered their press passes
And headed to the five o'clock follies
Where a final briefing was in progress.
They took notes and stood in line to use the toilet.

Later, everyone gathered at the roof-top bar for a drink.

When they arrived back in the USA the following day,
they expected a parade.
They never found one.

of life and death

knowing something of life and death,
i sat with 20 men,
being just one of the small guys
on an tall bar stool
hoping for a summer of love,
aware that my youth died with the early spring.

i caught a whiff of their fragrant lies
between sips of the darkest beer.

then, playing fast, i watched a slow game of pool,
heard several languages,
and recognized one of them
(having traveled in my earlier days).

a sullen man sat down his hoppy beer
and left quietly through an exit door.

perhaps he had heard everything he needed,
yet was still in need of adventure
and looking for something more,
a double shot of excitement, say,
where mysteries filled the rear parking lot,
he danced on the hoods of cars
and flung himself into outer space

without even leaving the earth.

there was a drunken sailor heading home
with garlic on his breath and tattoos on both arms.

the navy man stopped at his dented car hood and looked on in amazement.

he watched the sullen man dance,
elevate, then enter heaven overhead
without a care for what he was leaving. 

the wine from Portugal

a few questions remain on my chin

like drops of dark cranberry juice

with a neat twist of lemon,

hijacking my tranquil mood

as i'm returning a container of fresh milk

to the kitchen refrigerator:

a woman is speaking on live TV

to a white haired man with a pancake face

and a soft creamy grin, who tries to interrupt

while a house fly is buzzing around his head,

and yet another hurricane is approaching the Gulf of Mexico

with a Greek name and one hundred mile an hour

winds, looking for another city to destroy,

an American city occupied by National Guard members and 

ICE cubes menacing their gin and tonics. 

California wildfires consuming millions of acres of forest in an

attempt to engorge themselves, are eating like obese ants at a climate change

party, waiting for the chocolate cake which never arrives.

Armenia is failing. Azerbaijan is failing.

Putin is a tragedy.

Trump is a presidential disgrace.

Pink Floyd (the band) is playing a British song about mother dropping her bomb

over a dusty New Mexican desert, Trinity in the air.

a border wall is being built from steel plates while a pod

of pilot whales remain stranded on a remote New Zealand beach.

there are children in a prison without lights on at night to make it impossible

for them to find their parents, who are also in a prison without lights on at night.

a public picnic table is empty under the spreading chestnut tree.

the village blacksmith is looking for his food stamp coupons and a hammer for the anvil blow. 

a square-jawed sheriff (white hat on good-guy head) is looking for his shiny badge when the wall clock strikes high noon;

the nearest saloon is filled with lonely drinkers, all eyeing a table holding the ace of spades.

the Earth is spinning like a bikini top playing games as the warm winds blow in

from the southern ice shelf, groaning in a whirling fit of desperation,

while to the far north Santa Claus sits on his snow sled looking inside a big brown bag.

it's empty of gifts for the needy and the lost, but filled with voices singing Mozart's Requiem in D Minor. 

and the wine from Portugal is better than you think, as is heard from the party goers drinking French

champagne at a golf course club house situated along the southern Florida coast.

oh, what we once had!

there's insight here, but it's dim:

there is a dark shore and a dark morning and a man

in black who is not Johnny Cash,

splashing ketchup on the walls

down the length of the White House halls

heedless of the calls for a resemblance of sanity.

It's taking place in the 21st Century

whistling past the Arlington Cemetery

where genuine warriors and heroes repose

and God only knows 

who else...

what's happening is a shit show of epic proportions 

that only those trapped in a menacing China or Russian or Iran

can fathom.

what we have here

is fear

uncommon for such a freedom-loving people

in their own heartland,

but the clown and his circus

are spreading hatred among us.

time now for the good folks

to see thru this con man hoax

by calling out the cruelty, the indifference to open civil society; 

not to take shelter behind veils of piety,

to get really really angered at the power grab.

oh, what we once had! 

America, the beautiful.