ambush

in an ambush
22 men dead
my green shirt red
all the buttons lost
i called to Joe
who fell nearby
i heard him cry
he had no buttons, either
and we were young
when the jungle flies came
they didn't stop to ask
us our name
their tiny legs
working their way near.
but mothers listen
we are still here

celestial blue

the new guy in town
underneath a movie marquee
waited for romantic reruns
because they were free.
he was hanging with Lola
who was inspecting her hand
hoping to sing
in a street fighting band.
when she couldn't remember
the words to a song
she started her lyrics
and they quickly went wrong.
they watched a TV
which sat on the floor,
explaining life
as it sped by their door.
his wall clock kept ticking
with seconds to spare;
her chair still kept rocking
but no one was there.
the little kitten,
celestial blue,
looked in their mirror
and saw her way through.
she couldn't be certain
what she saw with her eyes;
she thought it was earth-bound,
but reached for the skies.

Self-Portrait

i watched a raconteur
and his lower lip
speaking with a generous heart
upside down and back to front.
he proposed to offer me a new head start.
i asked him for a different angle,
not a simple circle or a square;
even the confident critics wondered:
will anything important ever be found there?
but i was determined to stay
because most of my friends were already away,
and once as a very young man
i sang soprano in my Sunday choir
with everyone God-like no one a liar.
often trying to wheedle my way
to the front of every unpainted line,
i was in a hurry not wholly by design,
eating flat bread and sipping wine.
i didn't have much intellectual integrity;
was heavily wounded in a war.
when asked to kill wondered what the hell for?
listening to the famous bugles call,
there was more to dying than what i saw:
the saxophones performing in toxic smoke;
and song birds hitting high C as they choke
on a very rough patch of desert sand.
i heard him once say this was the Promised Land!
while others might find that hard to understand;
the only clue i have is my name
on the bottom right-side of a stretched canvas
where my thumb plays a hide and seek game
with the palette by always changing colors
or do they simply stay the same?

the Hessian Trench (1778)

we saw that the snake vine had
overwhelmed the slender tree
like a father Superior who had spanked a child
bound and gagged by his bedside.
we were far from a narrow gravel road and the stream we crossed,
looking for the ghosts of Hessian soldiers and their trench.
walking like genial dwarfs through the woods,
we kept trying to follow a faint trail of leaves,
descending and sidestepping and stopping; it was
after twelve noon but before one when a weak sun
tried to loosen us up with some warmth.
we came close to other vines, ducked and jumped,
continued past brambles, got stuck, got unstuck, stepped over fallen logs,
and occasionally would hear a whispering pine.
we found no other hikers, no one else out to explore,
no deer, no bandits, no dead red fox, no soldiers.
we climbed a huge rock, slipping our way to the summit and
our embrace more emotional than rational.  Like lookouts,
we peered into the forest for a clue, steady in the breeze.
the Hessian trench must be somewhere, and the ghosts,
while waiting, are still hiding in their dungeon.

Chapter 25

you didn't care what happened to me
when i fell down on the floor
drunken and musical
looking for my piano
i was dressed on the fringes of the world
holding on but with no where to go
simply making notches in my headboard
looking for those thrown overboard
tallying my numerous lovers
i saw everyone naked under empty covers
while you kept making jokes at my expense
from the other side of your busy fence
one story about a cancer ward when i died
finished elegantly and completely by Chapter 25
i was lonely but still alive
and then buried with my pet mouse,
almost falling victim to a suicide
by gassing myself inside your house
you once drank an entire bottle of Anis del Mono
and dropped to the floor whimpering and sad
about all the misfortunes you've ever had
life was so good before it turned bad
dressing for the ball with your jar of paint
unsure if you would become the Devil or a Saint
you left me to join the Trojan war
and i left you to check the water level in my glass
but it was nearly empty and i wanted more.

Louise de Coligny-Châtillon (1914)

before we began smoking opium
i was already your devoted slave
unafraid as any other former jailbird might be
to feel your whip strike approvingly on my ass
you've forcefully sodomized me with your love poems
filling my orifices with your urgent singing
opening the gates to my body without difficulty
while i've spread myself wide to your intense advances
i remain the recruiting office deliriously hungry
for your enlistment: there are no obligations!
the application merely asks for your most sincere depravity
and my madness is fully guaranteed
if we prove to be a combustible couple,
of course this relationship cannot last, so
i'm going to give you a very good tip:
i burn for your disdain.

the strange thing

i was sitting on my large canvas
and a war was soon to come
i drew the Portrait of Mistress Mills
sucking on her wounded thumb

with a face as flat as gravity
one finger pointing neither left or right
while a soldier with his hurried face
set out to take a bite

he was reaching for his mustache
when he heard three men at the bar
spinning outrageous stories
of old searches for a star

a flipperlike arm began poking me
inspiring my gigantic shout
while the boys continued with their stories
but i was racked by doubt:

i was sitting near an animal
and the woods were soon to close
there was a palpable urine fragrance
and i tried to hold my nose

it appeared to hover overhead
like a fine mystery in a box
and when opened it wasn't too difficult
to see the strange thing was a fox.

hat pin and needle

i saw two trees
and a woman with a pear.
she held onto her fruit basket
refusing to share,
brushing watercolors,
smearing her eyes;
she read a hand-written message
scribbled in lies.
i wore a hat pin and needle
and started to dance.
it felt like compulsion,
like singing in France.
my guitar strings were wooden;
my bottle brown beer;
when i called to the lady,
she refused to come near.

Eva Gouel (1885-1915)

she should never fall ill
so long as she keeps taking her pill
and her drinking continued all day long
while he kept singing his own selfish song
and she thought it was all for fun
but he treated her like a tangible pun
mocking and socking like a busy seamstress
and she could only ever guess
that he liked whatever he did
sometimes he acted like a man, sometimes a kid
a case in point when he split the joint
he hid her away in a box
turned her into a pair of pretty socks
into a still life of a ham
or tossed her with a Spanish thank you ma'am
when their busy life produced a lull
he painted her head into a skull
since he evidently couldn't change his theme
and cancer took her away from the scene
all her lingerie stayed on the floor
he painted her into a chair once before
and now he'd do it again
his psyche was his only Zen

watching your lips move

walking in the woods at night
looking at your bedroom window
when i saw the light
and i was just fooling around
watching your lips move, never hearing a sound
my feet firmly planted on the ground
but you never knew i was there
as thin as a breath of fresh air
the guy you said was better than most
floated past memories like a forgotten ghost
and he had the wind at his back
carrying lonely tears in a heavy sack
and i've seen them slipping away
like shadows you'll never know what they say
but i can still hear them cry
whispering like a shooting star in a moon-lit sky
walking in the woods at night
looking at your bedroom window
when i saw the light
and i was just fooling around
watching your lips move, never hearing a sound
keeping my feet firmly planted on the ground
but you never knew i was there
as thin as a breath of fresh air

but i haven't counted

don't be upset if i don't write you
more often
i've been very worried about my knee
and also what they say about
bark beetles killing the aspen tree
take the bourgeois,
for example,
and give them an opportunity
for a subversive spin
they'll want to know what the odds are
they'll win
so i'm trying to rescue myself,
jumping from shelf to shelf
struggling to get rid of this fever
and if your suggestion has merit, of course
i'll pull the casino lever
pumping up my possibilities
but cancer, quiet simply
is life-threatening
it conducts a tall black hat battle
with my body
as though i were a broken baby rattle
shaken carelessly and fatally tossed
beyond the wall
can you hear my plaintiff call?
i'm still standing, trying not to fall
into another room with old martyrs
wearing blue velvet garters
LBJ said to know war is to know there is
still madness in this world
i'm under my perfect blanket, wondering aloud if i'll be stuffed and mounted?
my heart looks remarkably like little bullet holes
and oddly there could be thousands, but i haven't counted.

cloud cover and the owl

i can't keep watching the cloud cover
falling thickly over time and my muddy boots, but
the wettest weather did not bother my dog.
she had a remarkably good time in the woods, fragrant
though they were with deer turds and rotting
leaves.  she appreciated the owl, watching it
as the crows and grackles hurled intense vocal anger
at it.  the owl made several short flights to nearby
trees after a crow, brainless or heedless, dove in an
attempt to swat the large intruder from a branch high
above my observation spot.  at one point, i counted
9 distressed birds pissed at the owl, who hooted his disdain several times
before finally rising in a stately manner to dust himself off, and
plowing past his adversaries with a certain aplomb, fly away.
they gave a token chase, but without any final commitment, they slowed.
and now that the local cacophony had ended, my dog and i followed
an obvious forest trail to wherever it might lead, fully satisfied.
yet the cloud cover remained.

a rustic wedding

sitting for hours
thinking about a rustic wedding
and i'm hearing mistral winds blowing
but didn't know which way they were heading
or which way i should be going
i couldn't find a compass point showing
the easy way out
no one to tell me what dreams were about
simply towns with lonely lover lanes
broken hearts and broken window panes
long walks at midnight with no rest in sight
a chill in the air and no comfort waiting there
i'm wondering if i should just fade away
like that cowboy and western on a show yesterday:
i heard a soft voice, saw light in her eyes
her smile an illusion for solitary guys
she offered her hand and i gave her my hand
she offered a grin and i asked for the cat
sipping warm milk and i sure wanted that
petting the puppy was just the first act
into the bedroom, out the back door
sitting for hours
but it felt like more
sitting for hours
sweetly discreet
watching carefully the hustling street
i took the staircase up to her floor
we were together for seconds
but it felt like more

waiting by a tree

i saw a squirrel
after eight or ten days
of walking in the summer woods
and i was very alone.
once, just as i was about to rest,
i saw a knife mark on a birch tree.
it was your name alongside an engraved date, but
no other message was apparent.
and it was a very old tree, and tall.
standing there, i heard a fleeing deer and glimpsed it's white tail bouncing
through nearby brush.
it did not return my look,
but it might have been near the birch tree before i arrived.
then i sat for hours where the brown grass was flat, waiting for my lover.
instead, a Siamese cat, too fat for a painting, came increasingly closer.
i guessed the cat was hungry and somehow knew i was hungry, too.
i like to sit outdoors.

The Futurist

once the man had found himself
there was nothing more to say
walking into my room one dawn
he said he couldn't stay.

a bit naive i read his book
admired the way he spoke
his empty words so big or small
they hit my floor and broke.

eventually he reached a point
when pipe smoke filled the air
which made it hard to clearly see
no answers floating there.

i've no problem working hard
and soon would have to dress;
he told me he was busy, too,
and drinking so much less.

afraid of age and toothless voice
surviving in the streets,
he was his best at questioning
the misfortunes that he meets.

a gift, he said, but not a fool,
at various times undone
by vagaries from his early days
which kept him on the run.

blue sky

i never wanted to be a champion
and that was a good thing.
i would be frantic with worry, but
there have been friends lifting my head,
a dead weight especially in the morning,
and their arms never seem to tire.
i occasionally test them for their resolve,
but never intentionally.
to many people, and myself in particular,
the world seems to have turned a corner.
there, it found an interesting alley.
on that blind street, i held tortuous arguments with a few
light poles still glowing at night, and was determined to
be pitiless.  why?
i refused to believe their entirety synthetic
panorama of an urban utopia, and they cheat
by talking about mountains, valleys, clouds and
blue sky, workers and wheat.
i got the hell out of there.

and now i had 4

almost overnight i had become famous
simply by changing my name from Rudolf to Amos
i heard the pounding of a helicopter swooping in low
and asked the pilot which way should i go?
he said he'd look but didn't really know:
if my future was obvious it shouldn't need aid,
but no one would help me without first being paid
so i pulled a flask and drank fine whiskey
it might not save him but i hoped it would me
the next thing i knew my reputation grew:
i found myself on the ball room floor
when a Friday night crowd started asking for more!
i opened my eyes to an even bigger surprise:
went dancing with one girl and now i had four!

Salon cubists v. Picasso

i'm sitting in Room 41
polishing and cleaning my gun;
i hear the copy cat blokes

as they're scorning my music hall jokes.
but with no worries i'm out of their loop,
just spending time eating my soup

of the finest kettle of fish.

i'm framing my painting school dish:
it's a masterpiece of the new
with blue leather instead of a shoe.

Landscape at Ceret: Summer of 1911

The pet monkey had two noble balls
and his companion was a Spaniard
who admired himself in and out of a heat wave.
Havilands large house impressively brave
held a studio with three fans stirring air;
even Braque promised to spend time there
since his hat had already arrived
by parcel at a quarter to five
and Picasso wore one to the Grand Cafe
with a false mustache and side-whiskers applied
if identified, he simply lied
and laughed but what language he spoke
he danced the sardana for an inside joke
the girls in the middle of town
watched him draw their windows round
and square all through the night
his areas of transparent blackness full of light
like a poet or a peasant
something fine and equally pleasant
slipped from equilibrium and poise:
his visceral drive made quite the attractive noise!
It shouted boldly from the mountain ledge
a line both sharp and full of edge.

The Hat

when i wore your hat
it never fit me well
sometimes i would disappear
into a hole if i fell
once i did not know
who i resembled
people passing on the street
cried and trembled
with a finger or two
they kept pointing at you
but it was actually me
who they happened to see
i wore it all day long
listening to a lonely lover's song
and i wore it at night
when it gave me a fright
i often tried to give it away
but it was out of date
i took it to a nearby station
but arrived too late
i spent many a day
with newspapers and wine
trying to get it to fit:
i could never make it mine.

looking for something

on an ocean voyage
to a distant harbor i came
looking for something
yet everything seemed the same
i tried to stay but couldn't remain
i saw mountain peaks
and heard the thunder roar
felt the weight of a lifetime
crushing me to the floor
adding nothing new
more grey blackness and blue
but when i thought of you, wings grew
on my feet, i sailed dancing into the street
thinking "This is pretty neat!"
i laughed with everyone i'd meet
so i thought of you more than twice
rolled you over like a gambler's pair of dice
and found a winning number
woke up from my single slumber
on an ocean voyage
into a distant harbor i came
looking for something
yet everything seemed the same
i tried to stay but couldn't remain

i saw mountain peaks
and heard the thunder roar
felt the weight of a lifetime
crushing me to the floor
but when i thought of you, wings grew
on my feet, i sailed dancing into the street
thinking "This is pretty neat!"

big balls

in my head a bee is talking
and soon the moon will rise
nine billion people walking
to a bottle for their lies.
and with lights growing dimmer
inflated balls will lose their air
may find hope but not a glimmer
will remain when i get there.

Max Jacob (1876-1944)

Max was in his ill-lit room
making fetishes for his friends:
little things with strange hieroglyphs
given for money or as treasured gifts.
his poetic air was patiently dark,
with drugs and rough house sex
enjoyed at a Monday evening get-together
held inside regardless of the weather.
lurking in corners smoking away,
his menacing friends wore white gloves
while watching amateur guests from afar
in an atmosphere most totally bizarre.
they would laugh at all their excesses,
their lack of scientific thought;
and encouraged to be inappropriate and morbid,
they did whatever it was they did!

designed to tease

there was a blue door
behind which
people ran zigzagging across the floor
where i saw your likeness
like never before
and you turned out to be a bore.
at the same time i struggled to stay abreast
of the famously handsome
Mr. Jones and his invited guests
when he promised me money
if i could standardize a test:
but everything seemed a mess.
shaken to my knees
by what i thought i knew
i attended a million parties
to watch the beautiful people
designed perfectly to tease
using words meant simply to appease:
"If I can be of assistance, just say please!"