going home

2012 the Mayan bull
a fancy fad
more wool to pull
in a cinema
on November 12
then collecting dust
on a back lot shelve
while i walk the beach
with a friend of mine
in imagination
on sand so fine
the grains polish skin
rolling out then in
like fine wine softy
on a thirsty tongue
while the song is sung
one footprint before the other
as the wave comes crashing
a single walker dashing
to Oz and the wizard job
a long hard ride away
into a sun easterly
before the end of day
not the end of time

seasons

the seasons change
with a color in the sky
the foghorn blast
a lonely iceberg cry
and heavy mist
which shrouds the eye
the seasons change
with hard music overhead
the drum roll shake
an angry sound instead
of easy pause
& gentle dead
the seasons change
with a feeling in the air
the long goodbye
a lingering Hi there
which slows the day
suggests i care
the seasons change

zodiac signs

i can't find you
looking in gardens and trash
full of hurt & pain
empty of cash
& sun & rain
i want to have eyes
reflecting me
in honest side streets
and fancy free
sexy treats
i want to feel love
in a tomorrow kiss
or later tonight
with happiness
without the cat fight
listening to songs
between the lines
i'm looking for you
but finding zodiac signs
color me blue
i can't find you

The Maasi

The Maasi saw
from Kenya's land
their river falling
couldn't understand
the wildebeest
or the hippo
would die in this heat
with nowhere to go
without water
without a voice
dead indifference
leaving them no choice
great migration
sadly ended
while African tribes
in smoke decended
forests were cut
charcoal was made
cattle were grazing
without ancient shade
in an old land
with a new pain
without much food
without much rain

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
was being made
before advancing
with their base camp raid:

Happy Valley,
north of Tam Ky.

September 15th
Nineteen Seventy

J

Janice came from the government
one day uninvited
watched for movement undercover
didn't know what she sighted
people right and people left
before the party started
laughed at all her silly games
and fully felt lighthearted
while the champagne flowed with kindness
into a natural cup
the hosts were in a screaming mood
and couldn't drink it up
their Ritz was at capacity
so full the graveyard choked
as floods of refugees came past
& everyone got soaked.

Angel

you are the perfect angel
& i found you on a walk
when i was feeling loneliness
& didn't need to talk
my heart still needed mending
so i tried to find a pace
to slowly gather in your smile
& focus on your face
your eyes were like a fortune
in a treasure chest of dreams
i felt you whisper to my soul
it's everything it seems

Hanadi Jaradat

Oh God, give me a new death
let this be my final breath
as i pull this lonely pin
i've worn from my home in Janin
into Maxim's restaurant
so i won't die old & gaunt
in poverty and without a son
i'll be the 6th female to die undone
in my hijab for martyrdom.

October 4, 2003
on a jetty by the sea
Jewish Sabbath Jewish Blood
interrupted by a flood
of Arab hair & wicked sound
the 22 dead soon being found
children scattered among debris
cute, innocent, & free
never knowing killer Hanadi.

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