99%

I'm a wounded veteran,
ninety nine percent disabled,
at the mercy of the softest blow.
i keep my head held low
just like any honest politician,
if one can be found.
and my cellar is full of lies
dressed in suits and ties,
yawning, stretching, and preparing
for another daily hike
or a low blow to the belly
outside of my neighborhood deli.
towards devout young sinners,
i had no other choice but to go.
"We'll have a party," i thought,
"and look what all I've bought!"
it's not as complicated as it seems:
it's like catching a cold or an airplane,
just a question of times
and unsophisticated rhymes
or simply good connections.
business is business, so I've heard.
and that's what astonishes me:
I've had a hundred chances to be free
yet remain around the dining room table
protesting loudly or not.
like you, my little reader under light,
I'll ham it up with you tonight!
with handcuffs and old revolvers
or pink shrimp and Russian caviar;
our whistles echoing in the street
like steam engines full of heat.

A Plate of Radishes

i had a laugh at myself when i saw how fat she was!
she had her eye on me like a frog on a butterfly,
and i pulled a wing out of my pocket to fly away.
i didn't know what was in her mind, but her hair
turned on her head with the wind,
and what does she do, but begin towards me with a big
smile and a drink in one hand.
so we drank to my health at the curb and talked about the
salamis she smoothly unhooked from her bra, as she had trained for it many
times before.
her technique is perfected and the meat,
it never fails to taste pretty good, as i later learned.
as i said, i wanted to break free or trip her up just to get her goat,
but she was stubborn and her big secret is that she would smear me
with blood if she didn't get her way, so i don't put up a fight, but ask
her for another drink, which i drain in a gulp.  the only trouble is that
its almost noon and other women are running in circles nearby,
bawling and beating their fists in the air, making a hullabaloo, and
i can't hold my glass for the next toast.  i'm all tensed up when i make
my wild dash for freedom, but the plump lady, who had no right to
lay a hand on me, reached out like i was a plate of radishes, and worked
me over.  it never fails, stem and all were eaten.

Shiny Cars

we were buried at sea
in an old neighborhood.
she had been homesick for it;
i didn't think it would do any good
eating cans of soup on the front porch
with sweet potato chips.
the good lady forgave me my youthful pranks,
kissed me on the lips.
watching shiny cars passing on the street,
an unexpected crash!
i had no intention of behaving myself;
got thrown out with the trash,
became more unstable than ever,
hitting the ceiling and the booze,
swimming like a happy duck
couldn't choose
until foreboding overcame me
and i ran out of luck.
put down roots on the wrong side
often for laughter;
other times out of fatalism:
died sometime before noon or shortly thereafter
but still returned by nine o'clock
like a schoolboy crawling to his retreat
on the porch i sat with acting ambitions
watching shiny cars passing on the street.

Naked Footprints

it might have looked like a tree
but it was me
taking a massive dose
the universe is a process of digestion
from the east to the west coast
there's gangsters in our midst
playing cards with their schemes
slamming aces on the table
making holes in our dreams
and all i can do is groan
sinking to the bottom
and all i can do is moan
as i lay with open eyes
staring at your open thighs
at times thinking i was hypnotized
contemplating all that was sacred
on the fingers of my left hand
and it might have been marvelous
if only i could understand
naked footprints on the shifting sand
forcing my legs to work
as if it were midnight on the city street
and the fountains were silent
and i couldn't sleep
down like a dog across the doorway
staring at my crocodile
pursuing my own vision
against the Gods for another mile
and all i can do is groan
sinking to the bottom
and all i can do is moan
as i lay with open eyes
staring at your open thighs

Living is a Magic Art

a verbal thrust
and a counter-thrust
on the stage with an actress
beginning to raise her voice
with perfect diction,
like a heroine for all the fair wise ladies.
a golden lotus with a tortoise on her tongue,
slowly singing,
she looked thin and young;
more than 50 years before her death,
she had the unusual quirk
of possessing a talented smirk
which many in the audience abhorred
yet i adored!
struck as i was with the demon of a late love,
she held me on a string
like a fish struggling in the net
before being taken to the shop window.
on the way, i kissed her on the mouth
and the back of her neck,
taking advantage of everything i could get.

Saint-Tropez

give me back my fine cigar
on Saint-Tropez
beneath a shining star
a boy with so much more to do
can't write a single letter
without the color blue
and he had the gall to want it all
sold several lives in packs of fives
found misfortune selling on the beach
where everything was within his reach
took a healthy puff, filled a lung
couldn't hold it in, was much too young
beneath a shining star
give me back my fine cigar
on Saint-Tropez
inside a speeding car
a girl with so much more to do
can't find a way to walk away
without her silver shoe
and she had the gall to want it all
sold several lives in packs of fives
found misfortune selling on the beach
where everything was within her reach
took a healthy puff, filled a lung
couldn't hold it in, was much too young
beneath a shining star
on Saint-Tropez
that's what the fortune teller says.

The Trayvon Martin verdict

i have two new pieces in mauve
with frames made of old oak,
full of character lines reminding me
of a face etched in heavy sorrow instead of a smile.
after Trayvon there isn't a whole lot to cheer for,
but come this fall there will be pigskins wrapped around
air bladders and stadiums filled with crazed fans waiting for more action
and less talk, while hot dog relish and sipped beer stain their academic shirts.
These passing moments will run on, like a hurried sentence,
as giant scoreboards blink excitedly in an epileptic fit of commercial exuberance.
in America, a tight end is both a blocker and the way she wears her jeans.
yet there is a silence at night, once the lights are turned out.
and there is a darkness before dawn which can blind the most sharp-eyed
hunter, but only the early walker can see the early bird.
from here, a close planet casts its reflected light on the waters of a nearby free-flowing river.
in my basement, a well-used, hooded sweatshirt
filled with tears and burn holes from a day working as a welder
said more about my past than the Wall Street Journal
has ever said about the future of America, which a party guest said
would come to an end around the year 2050.
i was intrigued, but our discussion was brief.
between puffs on a cigarette, she spoke in hushed
Mandarin Chinese, learned in elementary school partly as a result of
globalization, but also in an attempt to study if a bilingual brain is better at reasoning.
i reasoned she was pretty smart and we shared predictions:
what i predicted was that, in 2050,
there will still be handguns for sale from my local dealer, especially the Beretta,
Sig Saur, Smith & Wesson, and Heckler & Koch models.
by that time, Trayvon will have been dead for 38 years,
deprived of any future opportunity to learn a different language,
and without his own two new pieces in mauve.

Cat in the Hat

promises on the evening news
pointers from the left and right,
leaving it up to me to choose:
are there too many angry reds
or impossible blues?
but i don't want a fight
and i don't need to discover
secrets hiding underneath a deep dark cover!
inside the mouth of a favorite lover
the flowers still bloom!
winds coming through an open window
of my second floor bedroom...
papers scattered on the lonely floor
and i can't read them anymore!
but i don't want to bitch.
tell me if you know which is which
or what it really means when NOW is where it's at.
hey, look, there's a corporate cat in the hat
half-way between walking tall and party fat
even Doctor Seuss could tell you that!
you've got to give me something before bed,
much more than mommy and daddy ever said
when they kissed my head
they closed the door.
i heard their footsteps disappearing
and never saw them any more!
will someone please turn on the overhead light?
it's the one with a big green power switch.
but i don't want to bitch.
tell me if you know which is which
or what it really means when NOW is where it's at.
hey, look, there's a corporate cat in the hat
half-way between walking tall and party fat
even Doctor Seuss could tell you that!

Black Bread

my friend said,
"The world i knew is a long time dead
and it won't be coming back!
Black bread
is what is left!"
i felt he was not quite normal,
wearing his lucky charm, acting formal
in spite of the civil wars in Syria and Egypt.
tears kept flooding his eyes;
maybe he clearly saw the lies
blindingly bright in an atomic stupor,
for he kept swatting at his ghost
as it tried offering him a toast
of the finest South American wine:
he thought it was made lousy by design.
i knew our star was in decline
and the glory days were gone forever,
but it all happened in such a short while
when oil refused to flow,
and crops would no longer grow.
to his young boy he solemnly wrote
"The sun gradually consumed the ice..."
but he, of course, was being nice.

Stephen Hawking

with the sun filling his eyes,
Stephen knew it would be impossible to talk
in a half-hearted way and so he perceptively
continued exploring the universe which was found
spinning on his left shoulder.
i understood it was his universe, and i kept looking at my own shoulders
by shifting my eyes left and right.
i discovered there was little to be learned by watching his face,
or listening to the inflections in his curiously new
artificial voice, but he was brilliant in the manner of Cousteau.
in his overwhelming presence, i often found myself
reaching for a well-read book which he added to
his collection in just the last moment and i learned that all last moments stretched
into eternity, bursting like exploding stars from any room he happened to be in.
when he talked about eternity, he was able to smile with his words dancing on
faint breaths of air, and as those moist nouns and verbs raced over the hard towers of
Stonehenge, i kept reaching out to motion with my hands, rearranging pebbles.
sometimes when i stretched, i found my own voice, although i never saw a Deity, even
though
i saw
Stephen sleeping in his chair, hair unkempt.

little Jack Horner and Molly

Three Musicians and Two Nudes
all of them Castro Street dudes
dealt with life on their San Francisco street
near a corner where little Jack Horner sat watching his thumb
as he pulled in a trick
and pulled out a plum
everyone in the crowd thought he was dumb
eating his Christmas pie and listening to jazz
he took a ferry to Alcatraz
he made his way back home
and gave five guys a happy wave;
they thought they were saved
but he gave them the bone!
on the subject of Chinatown
he juggled balls inside his pants like a circus clown
near the popular Anchor Oyster Bar
one shot would soon become twenty-nine
he said he felt very fine
he made his way slowly over to Pioneer Park
and fell asleep in the dark
everyone in the crowd thought he was a cheat
when he reappeared like a Jesus on Lombard Street
and he wore his pants baggy like a dwarf
panhandling tourists down on Fisherman's wharf
in the heat of the day or up really late
he often camped out near the Golden Gate
with his California date
a sweet thing named Molly
who came in on the F trolley.

Tinsel Town

We're going down to Tinsel Town
'cause seriously we're sucking blue
but I've got the fix
standing right in front of you
a brown coat with shoulders slumped
young ass happily humped and humped
over the park bench at two am
asking you repeatedly to get it up again
but your appetite was getting old
what once was hot now turning cold
bottled booze still much too weak
we haven't been this fucked up
for nearly half a week
and man, the railroad stars coming out tonight
each one of them looking to get a bite
with you sitting on a cushioned chair
feeling cool, almost debonair
a silent rider with tickets to the show
you wanted to attend,
but couldn't go
i found the carpet stained with cigarette butts
and little drops of sweet honey
i tried to laugh but it wasn't funny
we're going down to Tinsel Town
and man, we'll be spending all our money
'cause seriously we're sucking blue
but I've got the fix
standing right in front of you

eating my cake

in the absence of a belligerent dadaist,
i drove to the gravel lot with Pink Floyd
playing Time rather than keeping it under
the mattress where i normally sleep,
under wraps which i frequently toss when
i jump up, shouting Vive Dada! each morning,
mostly just to piss off some people i know.
when i parked over loose stones, a storm was brewing nearby.
i was able to hear the claps of thunder much like an
agitated audience waiting for the music or some words
to have a certain predictability, when,
with the house lights low, they shamelessly caused a scandal by yelling,
stomping their feet, holding obscene signs,
mostly just to piss off some people i know.
and it soon began to rain in an unsophisticated fashion,
like a fuse of an iconoclastic stick of dynamite having been lit,
then finding packed gunpowder in a fizz of explosive spite.
i stayed inside my car and missed the wetness of it,
eating my cake,
mostly just to piss off some people i know.
when my lunch was finished i somehow or other made a fuss
with a persuasive lady who offered me an explanation, and i would
have stood up had i been able, but i was worn to a pulp by
worries and sirens and traffic carried here from another city.
so i sat undeterred as the bourgeoisie became the intelligentsia,
leaving my car only when the rain stopped,
mostly just to piss off some people i know.
and when i did, i saw more of myself than before.

The Old Lady and her Shoe

today she weeps in such a way
there are no tears ever found upon her dress,
on the cheeks below her eyes,
or on the hardwood floor.
according to accounts, she once drove a car
far into the night, into the early morning hours
they even said.
at her side was a favored pocketbook she could use
for shopping, if a store's lights might appear at 3 am
on any lonely rural road.
they never did, even as she neared the gulf coast
out of gas, drifting to a standstill.
according to accounts, on another trip she veered off the asphalt
and hit a fence, taking out a telephone pole, smashing
her Honda Accord so that it was deemed a total wreck.
she suffered a slight knee injury which, according to accounts,
required a few small stitches and anti-biotic.
contrary to her widespread belief, she could no longer play the
card game Bridge, or even Blitz.
her family decided to confiscate her license.
soon it was said she lived in a place without color, but her fingernails
remained powerfully red.
inside her new room were placed many family photographs, but she struggled to
identify the faces, naming only a few.
imagine her satisfaction when an idea came to her!
she looked comfortable in her wheelchair, in the new
room which was decorated to resemble an old room from her former life.
these days, according to accounts, she remembers her own name
and not much else.
although she has plenty of shoes, her left foot is swollen, sensitive,
and usually wrapped in a thick blue sock.
her right foot wears the shoe, usually a sneaker.
and she is finally living a modest existence, one she never dreamed of
as a young girl.

dog bones and the river

the cat was in the fat!
i can tell you that
but not much else
the dogs were into bones!
i still hear their groans
and contented sighs
the damn radio lies
so i try my best to ignore it
shit!
the river was more beautiful today
than i remember
weren't we floating happily just last November
when the wind grew intense
since then, we've been building a fence
which is newly grown
i offer you my moan
sitting with you at the outside table
our busy waitress was efficiently Mabel
i saw the name tag over her small left breast
the vegetable wrap sandwich was the best
you've ever eaten, you said
you saw the scab on my head
i watched the water flow, it's always downstream
where i followed my dream
like a galloping pig
i offered you my fig
but you said you prefer to wrestle
we ended up at an English bar
where sailors drank from a whisky jar
couples were dancing everywhere
tossing feathers into the air
masses of whores and bad champagne
we left before it began to rain.

the smile

your ebony hair,
like a shadow without the moon,
fell fashionably across the sky
and landed loosely on my head.
i watched your rosy cheeks
and nowhere have i found
a more gratifying smile.
your coral lips and pearly teeth
always came knowing when to talk
and where to eat,
and when we were alone,
i showed you a ripe strawberry:
its' juice ran down your throat.
you were smart enough to know
where you were going,
and in the end,
followed in my footsteps,
even if i was mad.

Doors

i thought i must be deranged
when the good doctor said it was basal-cell
carcinoma, but don't panic, it's small,
something like a centimeter in both directions.
sure, nature fascinated me, yet my interest
did not extend to admiring any form of cancer,
much less an ugly welt growing on my own sun-stained neck,
refusing to heal by tossing that unwanted small scab to
grow new, healthy skin over an existing resistant red hole.
i could reach it with my fingers and have my
way with it, touching and picking in some delightful
effort to convince myself it was simply a game, but
since the medical man stood by his opinion, i would
soon need to visit an experienced dermatologist to
have my unwanted friend removed before i fell in love with him
or her?  wait; does a cancerous growth have a sex?
within seconds of leaving the doctor's office, i saw my
reflection in a swinging glass door (the one next to two
fat men studying a painting of trees which seemed
to my eye to be unfinished) and my hair was combed perfectly
and wonderfully blond.  a young boys' suit fitted around my
shoulders, pants perfectly creased down to the ankles, and with
a smile which would turn out to be genuine, the image,
in our brief moment together, privately told me
"This will be the year of doors."

Apples and Gypsy earrings

"How about them apples,"
the girl with the Gypsy earrings
was heard to say in a common language
all too familiar to men of a certain charm.
being the apple of her eye, i claimed to be familiar with
all the varieties she kept hidden underneath her piano.
in fact, i loved her apples and often thought of decorating them
with shiny cloth and sequins to suggest the sparkle of
wet lips about to take a hasty bite, or maybe, possibly,
the stems should be adorned with fringes, and the skins
with Spanish tassels, for a more progressive
mark on taste than that left by dull orchard growers.
once, bobbing for apples toward the end of a Halloween party,
i kept tactfully quiet when asked if i wanted the red one.
almost from the start, the color never was important.
and thinking about an apple a day has kept me healthy,
especially when i look onto my tree-shaded garden and,
nearby, see the Gypsy girl dancing against the sunlit sky.

Something silly in Philly

i sent her a photograph
before the war
but that's in the past
where i can't go anymore
one day i got a big surprise
when my unbelieving eyes
saw her in an appliance store
near the boardwalk on the Atlantic shore.
her hair cut short,
she was pushing a nice intelligent man
into a plastic garbage can.
i didn't just avoid her, i ran.
i heard she married him
and like charcoal and ink on paper
spent two years working
his head into a fine black taper.
he went no farther than St. John's Wood
before he became a former lover,
like modern art toiling mostly undercover.
her next affair lasted only so long:
she played the viola and wrote a song
for a lively Russian officer
who was an admirer of Andy Warhol's
screen printing of Marilyn Monroe.
he perfected an alcoholic drink with some potato
and called it Vodka before he became hooked on drugs
and threw himself under a train in Spain.
her bereavement was essentially without pain.
she's now rumored to live in Philly
or in a suburb nearby
and for the life of me i have no idea why
i'd even think of her again.
it's silly.

Saint-Martin's-in-the-Fields

in an alien madhouse
nineteen frogs and a tiny field mouse
danced as if possessed on the altar steps
of Saint-Martin's-in-the-Fields,
the great Anglican church in Trafalgar Square.
the fact that they used the score to
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony
for their musical accompaniment
was one of the more fashionable touches
during the afternoon performance.
another was the red shoes each frog wore,
which had been expertly hand sewn and fitted;
the field mouse wore his elegant military cape.
they looked forward to buying new clothes
before they left London, but preferred the
anonymity of plain suits when not on stage.
unfortunately, they were certified insane
by jealous competitors, admitted to an asylum
where they were forced to remove all their jewelry
and had their final air of mystery confiscated.
once that happened, their show was postponed.

a sacred fire

simply wearing modern dress
no better time to confess
i know nothing about costume
sitting style less inside my weekly room
spraying the walls with ten dollar perfume

once i was a self-made man
who talked better than he ran
with a keen eye for the frivolous
who boasted of knowing what he could only guess
looking for more i came away with less

methodically still writing
with perfect nails for biting
i would gather fresh material for a feast
but was never able to slay the beast
who expected much but found in me the least

ashes of a sacred fire
when burning hot could inspire:
a nervous little gypsy smile
followed me for a day and a welcome mile
so i stopped to kiss it for a while

scattered seed corn under a shadow

in a conventional but relaxed way
i sat at my desk in my bedroom
flipping through pages of disorder,
looking for grains of dust.
there were piles of old Atlantic magazines,
rumpled socks, and album covers stacked
knee high with an Elton John record at the top.
Rubber Soul was like my evening shirt, starched
and out of sight in the middle of the pile.
that one, I didn't see.
but Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was nearest,
and being within reach when i leaned backward,
i thought sometime i'd give it a suitable play for
my friends while i wore some incredible costume
with long sideburns and designer glasses.
but my current book, Neptune's Inferno, would have to be finished first,
and in it i had just landed on Guadalcanal with the US marines,
certain that Japanese soldiers were watching from the
nearby jungle, as i deepened a taste for adventure on an
island in the south Pacific no one really seemed to want,
but soon too many would die defending to the last man.
Shelley had already written a line in his "Adonais":
"He has outsoared the shadow of our night."
Shelley knew the honored glory of the combat dead, and i heard
his hymns in my head, but soon my ancient AM/FM radio,
catching the light from the rising sun, chimed in with a
hissing We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel, the piano
man, who was to become a friend of Elton,
although he never wore an awkward outfit.
by the time the Guadalcanal campaign ended in early 1943,
Billy was not yet born in real life.  when he did become famous,
he never started a fire or knew that a day would come when not
a single participant in the epic of World War II would remain alive
to tell his tale.  i quickly grew tired of thinking about Jamaica Jerk Off
and turned down the volume on the music so i could hear
my own breathing.  in the predawn, all i could see were
men in individual foxholes scattered like seed corn.
and i finally found my lost wristwatch in a pants pocket, but
decided at the last second to leave it there, unmarked by a date of birth.

unicorn blood and magic

We stood in the middle of the dirt road
radiating hostility,
trying to make sense of the latest threat
flying from the white saloon in downtown Tehran.
a tyrannical and mean-spirited religious
man had been making wild charges and
it was our intent to call him out.
but he didn't show at high noon, as we had been led to
believe: one old man looking like Gary Cooper passed by, but
he was wearing a black cowboy hat.
the Iranian's main advantage over us was the fact that
millions of the faithful believed him when he
said that watching Harry Potter movies would
create an urge to drink unicorn blood.
we love unicorns and never want to see them harmed!
the Potter movies were entertaining, too.
horses and movies are fun, so we needed to give this
stone-thrower a great big bitch slap.
we're willing to wager he's never seen a live unicorn or
spent a single day in intellectual surroundings;
it's magic that he even has a voice.

hide and seek

smiles escaping her lips
soft spoken messages swivel her hips
my favorite glass of Jim Beam
still full of little sips
if you know what i mean

in late afternoon
a private song but it ended too soon
i never really stood a chance
to sing the entire tune
of the fateful romance

exhausting supply
waiting for morning and another lie
it kept adding to my grief
in crazy costume i
slipped away like a thief

now to disappear
it would be so easy to reappear
and my favorite game of  hide and seek
i'd rather be near
than turn the other cheek