sea of dreams

your sweet lips
underneath my fingertips
taste this westerly world of mine
sipping skin sipping wine
on the softest summer bed
restful now to calm my head
roll me on this sea of dreams
life is more than what it seems
your sweet touch
underneath my need so much
dance with me beyond our star
holding close holding far
in the darkness of this night
satisfied by candlelight
hear me once more i love you
on our mountain top for two

more than matter

Nova should have taught everyone
there's more to Universe than math
& while religions scheme to monopolize
there's always more than one path
to enlightenment & ecstasy
the history of philosophy
& thought is a curious book
collecting soft dust yet a second look
would reveal the story of our creative arts
which emerges boldly from human hearts
and impaling minds with splatter
makes all existence more than matter

the lorraine motel

i had a vision of a dirty bomb
tear my head completely apart in Vietnam;
i saw the mushroom cloud explode in '45
Trinity was born!  i was barely alive,
fed a steady diet of black & white
watching John Glenn take his historic sub-orbital flight
into near space on a rocket ship.
he nearly died but i didn't know it,
hiding under the classroom seats
with Peggy Sue and her forbidden treats,
so near to touch but i'd have to wait.
i saw Kennedy get blown away
in his black limo on a late November day.
watched the flowers that people held
growing old until they smelled
like thousands of dead bodies in a distant Cambodian field.
i saw them & felt chilled
when Martin Luther was struck down
on a balcony near my hometown.
he was hit with a thud and bled and bled,
but it didn't matter what anyone said:
The Dream still lives, the body gone,
remembering the Selma bridge
hoping to see the promised land over heartbreak ridge.
and i heard Nixon really got pissed!
he put countless enemies on his list
& his White House was infiltrated by crooks
who to this day in countless history books
have an amazingly large asterisk by their name
believing Honor was just a fool's game;
it didn't matter that people died;
they still cocktail partied and lied and lied and lied,
believing until the end that God was on their side!
and i indeed saw their God walking across my rice paddy water
leading His sheep to another senseless slaughter,
while i cleaned my gun under the afternoon sun
and waited.

Black Mountain Fever

An autumn rust fell on a man's eye &
blinking with color, he wondered why
he felt so fundamentally certain
soon would appear a winter curtain
of three Earth leaves on a fine line
suspended in balance like soulful wine
which grows wildly in a wild ferment
of pebbles, shells, feathers all Heaven sent
to become the ying & yang and yellow Heart
renewing our journey from virginal start:
stranded in sand the planet cries
as the great horned owl sings & dies
a nocturnal dancer true to form
circling our world inside the storm.

comment

if you won't comment
NOW or then
as i sit like an ass on a spongy toilet seat
contemplating ZEN
in this room freshly painted
with odors of s(hit)
PRAY TELL ME
how do we GET OUT OF IT?
i need your ANSWER
HONEST or in disguise
give it to me shamelessly
& give it to me wise
where have you been hiding
as my discomfort becomes an ache
inside my heart and spreading
like little ripples across my lake

Ginsberg

Ginsberg saw the punch of heavenly insanity
through glassy homosexual eyes
across oceans of distance & nearing death
He wrote from his head the trade wind Howl
of demon smokestacks and collapsed cities
screwing a Buddha universe of astronomic atoms
where lived man who spit blood and broke heart
among hard machines made by harder machines
on a hard rock surface called a world
pregnant with firearms & hypodermic needles
in need of cash and the warm hot fix
of a thousand squirming angels in a passionate frenzy

Ginsberg felt this madness of America
& the naked copy world of cruise ships
underneath their starry night
with cots full of spent sperm and false hips
and wigs with plastic faces before He died
beyond a prison wall with His tender man
confessing eternal love within a soft earth womb
powdered dry like the Sahara desert
without relief from quick suicide or happy June weddings
with happy cake & wall street traders
pumping for their gymnasium memberships
when the dancing couple fell into a bloody hole
& found a habit without a flying nun attached
near the Harvard yard of peak nothingness

Ginsberg danced on strings of his own inspiration
with Beating poets studying the crowded beer hall
of ashcan lids craftily blown across the lonely street
to where the Brooklyn Dodgers once had played
before an admiring crowd of immortal souls:

on Ebbets Field the memories grow like Hell

B flat

little cindy was shopping on a friday afternoon
looking for a new mirror
with a border for her room
friend joey went to lend a guiding hand
and took along his friends
members of his high school marching band
dressed in blue uniforms and white boots
meant to generate lots of laughter
for shits & giggles & hoots
but their mothers never knew
ever though all mothers should know
what was really false & really true
where genuine love was genuinely found
no matter how hard the rains fell
or how slippery the ground
little cindy smoking pot with her tv
friend joey playing with his clarinet
in B flat for free
on a covered porch by a wooden door
where busy paths converge
wondering if there was more

BenBully

i missed my mother at the picnic
'cause she stayed in church too long
and my father tried to harmonize
but he didn't know this song
while brother Jakie played his mandolin
in a bluegrass band of five
near the railroad tracks in our county jail
but he's coming out alive.
His prison cell is an old hard time
with tobacco in his cheek
he once killed a man on Labor day
to prove he wasn't weak

he was a mountain man & he's coming home
a good woman by his side
prayed for his MA, prayed for his PA
& the man he shot who died
he was a mountain man & he's coming home
a good woman by his side
spent twenty years for his lone mistake
and every night he cried

At a moonshine pub he pulled a gun
when BenBully came around
& grabbed his girl around her neck
she couldn't make a sound
if looks could talk and ask for help
she was calling for her Lord
her life grew faint and darkness
she was quickly headed toward
Jakie fired his gun and screaming
BenBully hit the dirt
& the crowd came back to wonder
dead man's blood upon his shirt.

goodbye girl

i will love you again
with the mad blood stirring
and you'll voice a sound
like a heated cat purring
your ribald comments soft
at the corner of my lip
beyond the hard tomorrow
of a painted fingertip
that you colored in your youth
and yet it seems to be
there is no conversation
with your mind far out to sea
i will have you tomorrow
without a conjunctive noise
no pause for sermonizing
on your chest box full of toys

What is IT?

i listened to Al Jolson last night with his voice snappy & gay 

he sang a depression tune of men without employment or pay as their line of heads hanging low shuffled feet near the free kitchen door 

hot soup for all who would show the multitude haggard & poor 

but Clara Bow was the one who had IT:  a real jazz baby in movies & print 

without talk her mouth was a dancer and smiling delivered the hint 

the 20's were F Scott Fitzgerald and Cooper (who'd soon be a silent pictures star) 

driving a chrome-adorned American car.

the chestnut tree

The chestnut tree took my weight
that morning I went up high
under the sun near you
bending a limb to try
to snatch a prickly little green husk
well before dusk
we were not robbers stealing life
in nature such as ours
we are the lovers & explorers
searching our heart for hours
on a simple gravel path
of loose stones and hard dirt in tandem
uphill we stately strolled
looking at random
bits of scat or poop, berries & ivy
the tree of Heaven still on Earth
where mother deer and fawn
scampered without mirth
fully determined to be reunited
on the near horizon sighted

see the moon

you tell me i can't see the moon
but i'm watching from my darkened room
and holding on & won't let go
so easily from what i know
it bothers me you've shut our door
inside my head and said no more
i'm crying on a bed of flowers
missing you like this for hours
passing time and passing out
crazy with my lonely shout
wondering where you might've gone
without me till the break of dawn
and i remember how you smell
and taste and feel, life's hell
knowing that you've gone away
left me with this empty day
i'm crying on a bed of flowers
missing you like this for hours

Zelda was insane!

Zelda was insane!

she saved the last waltz for me
on her Turkish rug

while dreaming by
the Mediterranean sea
of a life beyond the doldrums

which pinch & heat & chill,

which can torment a sailors' Spirit
and break the strongest will.

but her finest point 

still spinning

surrounds my beating heart;

her secret jazz age dances

tear my stage apart.

Zelda was beautiful!

the Hawkeye shine was in her eye:

it could capture moments swiftly
as sharp talons from the sky!

it held tight & flew forever
over solid and imagery.

and i heard her bravest whisper
when she saved the waltz for me.

still dead

i saw a dead man's balls
sticking out of his head
after he pissed his pants
which were full of lead
from a claymore mine
resting in the mud
of South Vietnam
no, it wasn't a dud
it was a real man killer
but it never asked who
the hot metal bearings
would be ripping into
this hot summer day
in a cold body bag
on a foreign highway
for an imperial flag.
so where are you punk?
with your tidy white shirt
your pedigree stamp
smooth face in a smirk
just another adventure
to a rice paddy hell
pointed cute politicians
thought they knew it so well
but they didn't know shit
as it sat on their ass
while a down arrow pointed
to the fucked working class
who didn't know shit
yet they ate it all day
from their first morning coffee
to a late night souffle.

a woodland trail

a woodland trail
single track
ascending past paw paw trees
then turning back
when the bald eagle flew
along the river's edge
& i sat to marvel
on my leafy ledge
the brisk wind blow
of a thunderstorm
by a far horizon
the sky was torn
and the river danced
with a liquid light
while i walked away
before the coming night.

a woodland trail
blazed in blue
a natural place
to spend time with you.

i will see you again, Pascin

i will see you again but not yet a friend whispered several years after we'd met and i was dead not he or they or all else who came to play the many artists and hangers-on drinking and eating and loving till the early dawn they might say it was madness in my blood i wrote but i merely slit my wrists & hung by throat threw a bloody testament on the nearby wall before the solo show about Cecile and my downfall i knew triumph & color & whores with fine lines and wit or maybe duller but if you slept i was alert at Montmartre always the flirt never the serious painter as i wanted to be known so i fade, become fainter & wonder when between bottles of wine i will see you again

sonata, Moonlight

soft
& softer
with the moon
the stars deeply in tune
as tender lovers swoon
& clouds with drifting light
marry everyone in our sight
& gravity momentarily suspends
the music still floating here
far from any anchored pier
this sonota tenderly
wings the heart
& sets it free
to be
me

two halves

it's a lazy summer afternoon
and i'm midway between
two halves of desperately hungry
hoping that i'll get to see you soon
BUT
from my dream to the nearby bar
i won't have to travel very far
to kiss your luscious lips
& watch your moving hips
sense the appetite of my anxious fingertips
touch the sweaty smile of body heat
Yes, it won't be long before we meet

it's a lazy summer afternoon
and i'm midway between
two halves of desperately hungry
hoping that i'll get to see you soon
BUT
when you left me at the corner store
told me you'd be coming back for more
was it a lie you spoke?
some kind of silly joke?
should i just lay here until my body's broke?
i'm the loner crying in the street
Yes, it won't be long before we meet

Pictures at an Exhibition

i saw the pictures at an exhibition: 

no price was charged 

or admission ticket required

no stub 

or membership rules posted! 

i felt a moving mystery. 

it gathered all the straining ear

along a horned path 

with strings 

and played the famous Mussorgsky song in four parts 

an ethereal alien air grew louder 

but then soft; 

a tidal sweeping water spray of sound

& a flair for the flamboyant 

the kettle drum and french horn 

keys with flute attached 

the trombone blast and some elfish piccolos 

a large section of bass 

incessant rock knock and pound 

The Kingdom of finest woven lace weaving notes

of orchestral tempest 

escaping notes 

fleeing from excellent instruments 

& fingers of humankind grandly being toyed.

write & more

if you happen to live long enough
there's a chance of writing some pretty
good stuff
or die unsung
& much too young
without reporting anything of note
are you the goat
with a voice
stuck in your throat
no sound at all
& then the fall
to distant depths unknown
not shown
on any human map?
so, write
& write more, more
to stop a war
inhale a breath
comfort a baby
before death
whatever reason
or without one
proclaim yourself
it can be fun!

Gertrude Stein

her straight dark hair cut short & tight 

leaned closer toward me,

asking for a light. 

she smoked my name,

exhaling from the promising start.

she tapped her ashes directly into my heart. 

we were sitting warm at the best cafe 

on a Paris terrace.

 

we had clear words to say.

we heard a Piaf song flying slowly from the nearby boulevard. 

i scribbled je t'aime on a French notecard!

by the Eiffel Tower,

i sipped a small glass of chilled champagne 

underneath her watchful eyes and 

a soft afternoon rain.

i remembered a fine Cezanne 

yet couldn't explain 

why it was hung inside a fancy wooden frame.

and on the Rue de Fleurus 

drinking white wine, 

we saw approaching Gertrude Stein,

and she would certainly provide the answer.

On The Waterfront

come with me kid & give it to me straight 

Karl Malden said from his dinner plate 

his priest grew angry at the crowd  

stevedores loading down in the pit manly loud 

where Irish whisky killed an honest man 

& Johnny Friendly cried from his witness stand 

"i could have had class!" but, alas. 

Buddy Brando said to brother Steiner in their cab

"i could've been a contender!"

spoke tender Terry Malloy who wouldn't have to surrender 

his conscience for success 

they laid odds he wouldn't get up but he passed that crucial test.

a broken heart

the shortest sound is too long
no voice can help me sing this song
the blackest night i can not bear
i'm looking for you everywhere

my eyes hang heavy i can not sleep
i didn't want to be in this deep
no one near can feel my ache
it's almost more than i can take

i died a thousand times today
yet still my lover shied away
i'm lonely when i'm left alone
not knowing, but i should have known

how can i cure a broken heart
how to rewind it from the start
how can i prove that i love you
if you're not willing to be true?
i'm just another i o u
set drifting dear without a clue.

whiskey bride

She grabbed the whiskey bottle by the neck
With a red-nailed fist
& poured herself a stiff one
While the piano player kissed
The beer she set aside
He took it all in stride
Had played this scene before
as she strummed her plaintive voice
above the bar room floor
her breath like soft Jack Daniels
with sunshine in her eyes
she sang such lusty stories
& swore they were not lies
She left a hungry trail around his neck
with a red-tipped tongue
& whispered into his ear
for the song he hadn't sung
a simple prelude to another piece
the quick embrace that wouldn't cease
His fingers on the ivory keys
his focal point surrendering
her fingers on his mouth & face
both lips just now remembering

come & be my whiskey bride
forever time we'll set aside
come & tell me what to be
for you and then for me