Lady, my friend

i slid my blueberry eye inside her ass
looking for a masterpiece,
and felt relieved that i no longer
had to console myself playing the organ.
i was mainly attracted by her warmth and
wit and charm, but her hands
proved very affectionate and
inspired me to make a drawing of all
her sharply painted nails, for my own pleasure.
she had cut her hair short, and dyed it
bright orange, so i felt the old girl
was ready for a grand dinner-party.
on the strength of that idea, i wove
her a dress of chrome yellow and asked
to watch her wear it.
she was the perfect princess, and i in my
brand new dinner jacket was her lucky escort.
at an exclusive showing arranged in her honor.
with only private guests invited,
she did prove to be a useful companion.
now in the evenings, the room i once shared with
my wife is empty.

Memorial Day, 2012

Mickey Mouse was on the cover
of a 1950's comic book, smiling like a big cheese.
nearby, a new church stood righteously in the background,
surrounded by asphalt roads and cement sidewalks;
a small yard of grass held three empty crosses.
the little blond boy with an egg-shaped head was
holding the comic book, showing it to his mom with a laugh.
the church had no parking lot for the congregation,
but it was known to be easy to walk the few steps to the door.
the yellow-haired kid would play in the grass, sometimes after school
and before Sunday services when the weather was right.
he would only cry if he fell, tearing his skin, or when
his dad beat him for being too much a boy.
his dad would visit the church wearing a suit and tie,
taking the family to any pew where there was open space.
the wife was in her fancy clothes, too.
organ music would attempt to fill each head with religion.
the young boy would sit between his dad and mom, drawing on a piece of
paper with a pencil.  he would draw simple pictures of airplanes and tanks
engaging in combat, using short black dashes to represent the line of bullets
and bombs leaving one weapon and aiming toward another weapon.
he never drew a picture of Mickey Mouse when he was inside the church.

PULSE

it was my pulse,
and it was on exhibit for a friend to see
when we were mixing pleasure with a chilled glass of wine,
as the beau monde was attracted to an art exhibit at
the new location of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
i avoided the retrospective, preferring to hang with the less
distinguished and the less important, who was not interested
in being "among those present" mentioned in a morning review.
so i never saw the diamonds and pearls not yet in pawn, but i knew who
was certain to wear them, all the bottle tanned women with their bare spines
and tight smiles who never disappoint.  nor the fresh champagne and tiny
sandwiches which might have been sniffed and nibbled,
but so unlike the fate of buttered popcorn at the Friday movies in younger hands.
i skipped the late night closing for my own intimate opening.
and the day after the opening, i was back working in my shop, filling my time
with thoughts of a friend who was mixing pleasure
with a chilled glass of wine:  she was nude, i was nude, and the stars were nude.
the wine was never able to extinguish the fire in my belly, and
all day we had the place
entirely to ourselves.

balance beam

if you hoped to feel serene
and joyful when you took
a glimpse at that picture of
happy fruit, like peaches and pears
artfully hanging from the brilliant gallery wall,
remember the balance beam and please
don't forget about the failed poppy crop
in southern Afghanistan or the vicious cannibals
sucking energy from all the little children
still playing freely in my front yard.
these friendly kids are growing weary, tired from
the constant waking under a selfish red sun
where they see our glaciers melt, and suffer
from a nervous exhaustion made even worse
by the running of the Bulls and the Euro crisis.
Carl Gustav Jung disapproved of a fundamental self-
indulgence, which he thought was tragic
and dramatic, but he could offer no permanent cure.
and if you've been to vampire country, you know how
small bites can lead to a crisis of identity.
in sitting with a model in my studio, i'm often
reminded of the balance beam when i place her fruit
alongside my ceramic pitcher, which is full of water.

1928

he had the exploding blue penis tipped with tan
and all the girls went crazy
considering the possibilities,
if it would only come to rest between a pair
of splayed human legs, mainly female and
maybe their own.
but the adulation
and the applause
were less for the man with the head of a horse,
an eagle with a woman's breasts and bull's legs,
and a bird with the head of a girl who was not talking
to a playmate or combing a momentary lover
for another brush with her sexual energy.
so he crouched down on all fours, hoping
to catch the ball an athletic lady was about to throw him.
and expecting a glimpse of her holding the key, he
unlocked his door and caught the ball in his hand.
he squeezed it roughly, and would have her
any way he liked, and one of his favorite ways
was to be naked on a clean, white towel.
acting as her immediate supervisor, he wasted no time
in training her to please him and she was not to laugh.
her hair remained golden on the floor,
mixing with his jealousy and his sperm.

Back in Paris

the grim, gray face
had great dark eyes
waiting for the second World War
from a safe balcony in Paris,
near where an island forms a church.
she was without her Spanish stranger,
but he was holding a young blonde girl
in bondage and was unable to break away,
as her ropes pulled tightly around his past.
and his Russian wife was too skinny to know, and not
well enough to understand that her own misfortunes
had driven him far far away and it would not be gentle.
he now lived inside a hot beach cabana, peeking outside
only when he needed more money.
the young blonde girl quickly became both his obsession and his sister,
as she curled her pubic hairs inside their bathing hut on a
sandy Dinard beach and gave him plenty of pause.
his wife, meanwhile, kept her own hair
cut short, to resemble a current fashion.
and the gray lady in Paris put her hand to photography,
instead of a bust, but it wouldn't make any difference;
the Spaniard would seek her out, eventually.

Polka dots

Marguerite was standing to the right
of the polka dot fireplace
with an envelope in her hand.
Inside it, she had a letter to her husband,
who was playing checkers to the left
of the fireplace.
within the room, there was a strong rush of air,
but no flames were visible and no heat
came between them.
she was seldom very private about her emotions,
but needed to sacrifice openness to reach him,
particularly while he played a game.
he was very formal about his relationships,
and they kept their house meticulously clean,
especially when the weather was gloomy.
that did not mean they were stuck with whitewash
for their walls, since a box of watercolors was
inside a bedroom drawer, a gift from her mother.
but her husband had little creativity and often dismissed
the notion of fresh paint.
in her youth, Marguerite was very gifted.
in his youth, her husband was a businessman.
their initial relationship was full of aspirations, and at first
they had the tools for a wondrous journey.
but after the trip, there was no other big event, so he spent his
time waiting at the post office for the checker board.
one day it arrived and, being a good sport, he invited his
friend to play.  they played as much as they could, in
good times, in times of illness, crisis, or financial straits.
and always in the room with the fireplace, which Marguerite
began to paint with polka dots. 

The Workshop

what is drenched in death
that we can see
when the sky is blue with
a noontime sun and a simple
calm soaks the many bathers
on our beach?  and i wonder
where is the swimming woman
with her prophetic powers
when i need her answer
and her arms.  each time i think
i have it figured out, her mouth and eyes
become colors on my palette, while
the rest of her body flies away in an abstract plane.
my room is empty.  the bay window is open
to a great expanse of sea and laughter, but
i have my back turned and can only guess.
i hear she is slim and has a fine outline,
fully imbued with an indescribable something;
not flawless like a point, but she could make my day
for 24 hours before i die and
i would not feel guilty if i asked her
to be a friend.
and if i act out of place, she might
even see me better.

La Danse

when i put all my blood
and guts
on the clean white sheet
where we once slept,
my arms become bruised
reaching for that night.
i wear no glove on either hand,
so i might directly touch your skin.
my mask is on the floor
by your shoes and socks;
one candle burning.
we need nothing more to walk
together, hand in hand,
but we should dance
before the paint has a chance
to dry.

man in field

little boy playing in the tasseled field
pretending to be a captain or uniformed colonel
without serious thought darkening his nocturnal
no deeper idea about an older living or the younger dead
an all American global blue white and red
carrying his cardboard captain's shield

guaranteed invulnerability to anyone left behind
or under the super moon on a starry night
and all without an urgent sense of fright
just sidewalk ghosts sneaking around
oblivious to the very tender, fertile ground
where all blind people are eventually consigned

there was a crack of the bat and a flying ball
he spun and went over the nearest pile of hay
he simply had nothing of importance left to say
he tried, but it was considered obscene
light years of urgent words and what did it mean?
he's still playing like the happiest boy of all.

on the rue Boissy d'Anglas (1922 and beyond)

behind the black door,
Barbette in drag was a great laugh:
boys and girls
dining and drinking and dancing
the high and low
gens chic and gens louche
often broken lights and leading lights
a thick flood of cafe society
gorgeous young men and women
often free, others at a cost
pouring into Le Boeuf
like refugees from prohibition
and puritanism
with Picasso and Proust
(who would soon be dead),
arriving around eleven o'clock
with a drunken argument and their friends
in white tie and tails
or black like newspaper clippings
in a dinner jacket,
the men with ladies
in Chanel, Lanvin, or Vionnet

the ladies with ladies
watching Doucet, the house pianist,
make the rounds with his Corsican brandy and his keys,
past throngs of the beau monde
fashionably discrete he could hear them
whispering softly for their latest drug score,
or conversing with some unbelievable
pimps and queers before being turned out at 2,
when the bar closed to the Paris streets

and another day began.

Day of the Dead on Garfield Square

i was in the Castro District
on a slanted pacific sidewalk
near a collection of hard-edged
locals who traffic in tourist photos,
trying to keep a lid on my disappointment
and a hand on my wallet, which i had relocated
to one front pocket.  i imagined i was attracting the
notice of too many fine young men by striding
through the busy intersections with both hands on my hips;
but the weather was holding, full of sun and windy, so i relaxed.
it really was a gorgeous day and it wasn't like i was
really lost, so i continued to descend on San Francisco
with an appetite directed for Haight-Ashbury, where i expected
to find a smokey politics with no hint of ocean fog.
yet the uphill walking in the afternoon
was more than i expected and very steep;
i eventually began to shudder with hunger and fatigue.
my vision continued to be fine, it was the map i used
which was confusing:  soldiering on through the breeze,
i found my way often enough to eventually arrive at a
crowded block of streets where i saw Jesus.
He was on a scale considerably larger than life-size.
i knew He was Jesus because He carried a sign, so I had a new mentor.
i asked Him for something to eat and received a piece of bread.
within less than a year of apprenticeship, i had my own bakery.
now, living in the Mission, i attend the Day of the Dead and also
pretend i am Jesus, wearing His crucial sign, smiling with my eyes, and
passing out bread to everyone i meet on Garfield Square.

Anne, admit it!

Anne,
admit it!
this still-life
proved a godsend
for anyone moderately
gifted and we've seen a
few works tastefully done
and widely read, so the idea
of magical power to climb and
cling is alive and well in our old age.

i don't think i've ever heard your voice up close
but i feel your energy and have an appetite for it.

The Bowers Writers House

10 people and
the brick wall was cold
and i sat looking at the empty hole
where a fireplace was permanently stuck
no dry wood was burning, no wet wood either
nothing to steal the chill from our tiny room
no heat or close body warmth and
no hot conversation forming
inside the gray heads or the stranger eyes or
on each cautious lip
whispering into view
soft gossip from an old chin or tongue
rolled onto the large rectangular table
where the student chairs sat squarely
with no visible stain to help identify
a momentary fit of passion, which didn't
exist anyhow or anywhere within sight
there was a nearby shadowed sun room leading
to the grassy rear yard which had no running dog
no dog in fact no cat no caged bird singing no bird
no garden and no gardener bending to the
springtime task of preparing soil or
fondling seed bought during a prior fall sale and
now ready for the one great brown dirt fertility act.
a small kitchen where a crystal bowl mostly full
of jellybeans tempted no one or maybe one
was nearby with a bag of local pretzels
salted & dark and open near the potato chips
no dip no margaritas no strawberry smoothies
the student introductions having been made,
class began with a handout and a reading
of the handout and more handouts and more explanations
and the idea of needing some generic
Viagra to get it up popped into my mind,
but i have a new bicycle saddle which should help.
i heard the teacher introduction explaining
this was to be an introductory study of the
Beat Generation and i knew i would be beaten
when the woman near me said she was stiff from
sitting and at the age of 86, she expected it.
her neighbor said she wasn't stiff and she was
91 and i began to feel nicely stiff like a corpse all made up
in my final box as the few remaining family
members turn away toward their cars, fumbling for a
cigarette or remembering a good place to eat nearby,
while discarded flowers are scattered on the cemetery ground.
i heard a distance fire siren and looked at my watch,
as pictures of a newly-born grandson were handed
around the table for our mutual enjoyment and i thought
you can't beat this, Jack!

Tag, you're IT, Kerouac!

"Straight from the mind to the voice,"
said the mad-eyed man with whiskey
on his lips and cigarette smoke blowing
up his loose-fitting pants where the lovely hand
of a lady journalist from Italy was busy
writing about her life on a Buddhist campus
and she asked him in all earnestness sweetly
if IT was because of the war or because of a need
for change or simply because the dragon tattoo
on the early morning side of his second half
kept spitting fire even during the heaviest New York rains,
when everyone else went running under cover?
while at east 9th and 3rd avenue there was a baby boomer carriage
and he rocked that boat like a titanic wave crashing
through the intersection of his sad generation of brown
shoe wearers looking for a pair of uptight white socks and
Slim playing hot on the nearest radio set high in the
rafters of the famous Harmony Bar and Grill, where
the girl with the unbuttoned blouse kept bouncing her brown hair
into his face and it was the largest crowd he had seen on Harlem
streets in over a week of searching, but it was a Friday night
and their music was jumping into and out of cars and fast trucks,
and hipsters on the road were looking for a good time in no time at all,
shooting around to find something that wasn't perfectly boring,
so they finally asked him to be IT.

an open window

looking at the empty hall
on the open window i saw
my face

next to your smile
and for a short while
all was motionless.

there was no sound;
no one else was around
inside the big house,

only old memories
and the gentle tease
of cooking odors from below

where fresh black coffee
and green tea
would wait for us.

the onion and eggs
arms and legs:
we were both stirred.

the sun also lingers

it's not as simple as it first appears
finger-painting smears
across my face
when i stand in the valley
with my new friend Sally
and her frilly lace.
her foot steps etching sand
a drink in each hand
her music flows
we watch the sun roll around
not making a sound
and it knows
touching skin with fingers
as it lingers
all afternoon long
sweeping the floor
and more
with song.
and when it seems
i have nothing but dreams
out my window
i see through the dark
her smile in my park
and a moon glow.

Room 6 of the Hotel Drouot, 06/13/1921

so i punched the dealer in the head &
would have kicked him more than i did
but was abruptly pulled away, 

in a short-lived fit of loyalty,

by his hysterical brother! 

Leonce was shouting and screaming on the floor
when i kicked him some more

directly in the stomach:
he shrieked again, making me proud of my aim.
we were finally separated by Matisse, 

who said
i was right to beat the poor bastard.
and what a pig!

trying to cheapen cubism with an auction
much too painful to watch. 

"Filthy Pole!"
both Rosenbergs are bastards!!
one was ruining the market for cubism,
while brother Paul connived for a return of classicism,
which he knew he could sell for higher prices.

Pascin's Funeral Day: June 7, 1930

at 36 boulevard de Clichy,
the walls of his studio were sticky red
with an explosion of ultimate sadness
when he drew a final kiss for his mistress,
and drew a final breath
for himself.
on the day of his funeral, she dressed in black.
his wife in black.
waiters and bartenders in black.  

saloons in black.
black was the cloud and black was Paris.
those streets, preoccupied with their special mourning,
allowed only the walkers to follow behind his coffin
to a simple grave site.

their shoes were black. 

their grief was black.
but there, the turned Earth was a fertile brown.  

the near grass brilliant green.

the sky a Matisse blue.  

colorful birds sang and flew 

into the air, a sweetly poetic painted still life. 

windows were flung open.
fragrant wine was poured into buckets of remembrance,
where thoughts like flights of gaiety lifted and blew away as tiny bubbles.
later, his family moved his body to Cimetiere de Montparnasse,
where today he still turns inside that hole.

Picasso never wished Braque away

i heard her voice,
but Gertrude wasn't talking to me.
she didn't even know i was in
an adjacent room, waiting by her front door.
she was saying that Picasso never wished
Braque away, but their rivalry was strong,
reeked of adolescence, and to survive
as great artists, they had to be apart.

i left before she was aware of my presence
and met up with my friend Tom, still wearing
his trademark white suit from the night before.

i complimented him on his recent writing.

he agreed with me that he was a special man who
considered his contemporaries to be literary pretenders.
He was completely vain, and i liked him for that honesty.

in his mind, there was never a doubt about his
writing skills, and any negative critic must be consumed
with jealousy or probably was a registered communist.

i felt comfortable on our walk, and listened to
him ramble on about Whitman and other champions of
a bygone era, when suddenly he told me i was the
wrong person for his confidences, mocking me
for my simple bohemian leanings. 

 he knew I worked in a cold flat, but accused me of not having
The Right Stuff, even though i labored as a reporter.

my feelings were hurt as he abruptly left me on the sidewalk
to go looking for America's future,
hoping to arrive there first, he shouted backwards.

i was about to find a cafe for a drink when i saw Pascin
with two young Parisian girls approaching, and he asked me to join
them for a meal, at his expense, before he fell into a depression.

the two women tried to help him up, swearing in adolescent French,
but he must have been at the end of his rope.

he told one,
Hermine, 

to go home and wait for him in bed,
but he never arrived.

i think Tom would have liked him, had they ever met.

Shave & a Haircut, 2 bits

Not being a devout Catholic
or an Irish whiskey bum,
hell, not even a good Brethren conGREGant
in a luke warm puddle of piss
on the heroin-soaked sidewalk near the Village
Vanguard singing jazz with
Sonny Rollins when he had a reed
stuck between his lips making it
hard for him to sing so he played
the saxophone instead,
i stopped
and began to notice the strange faces
of the strange people walking past.
Face adrift in a camel cigarette smoke screen,
i spent 3 weeks sitting near an alley entrance
with dharma bums saying their Hail Marys
Full of Grace between bites of hot franks and cold beans.
and there was a great buzz at our lunch counter when Pearl
dropped an ear ring in a customer's soup bowl
and the customer refused to give it back, figuring it
was his lucky day.
But she wasn't having none of it and plunged a hand
into the red mess, finding the ear ring before her shift ended.
The barber shop was upstairs where a quick cut and a
stab of wax on the few remaining hairs by my forehead cost
a whole fifty cents, 25 more than the movies but enough
to keep the girls convinced I was a neat one.
but i had no romantic visions unless i was drinking,
and then i was a constant, restless action figure,
sympathetic to a point yet mostly interested in myself and
undisturbed by the growing threat of war.
i should have paid it more mind, 'cause sure enough i was
drafted into the US Army and had my ass shipped in a box
to a foreign land where i saw more strange people with
strange faces but couldn't speak their language even though
they knew mine.  7 years i wandered, in and out of uniform
in and out of trouble and i knew i wanted to find & was
looking for a slice of the pie which wasn't store bought.
so i sat in the bakery booth, waiting for my crowd to gather and hoping
the poets brought some new visions, a couple of tasty insights
to explain the whole Truth your Honor and nothing but the Truth,
wanting to hear them read their work with the passion it deserved,
tossing spit balls at each other, drinking wine and popping pills
if need be to get beyond the cute worry about tragic Self.
i never had a problem with loud voices,
as long as they have an owner, just like a dog
uncovering an old bone and proud of it.

Costa Rica: Osa Peninsula

La Sirena to La Leona.
what?  A tough walk.
19 kilometers, possibly
a little more or less.
the BBC is there filming about
remote spots on the planet.
primordial as well as 2nd growth
forests and palm groves along
the incredible beaches,
salty crocs resting without bathing
suits or dark sun glasses; no Calvin
Klein sightings, unsurprisingly.
the Puma is top of the food chain,
stalking at night when black is black.
Cappuccino monkeys, spider monkeys,
and squirrel monkeys,
run up and down tree trunks and branches
like a bunch of monkeys, flipping their
tails, grabbing a bite, holding a baby
or two or more while the tapir looks on
with slow amusement, without a saddle,
unafraid of man, untamed, uncombed.
and coatimundis, toucans, parrots, and scarlet macaws.
huge, brightly-colored butterflies and
meticulous spiders seemingly unaware of the
scalding sun, the persistent mosquitoes,
the hungry ticks, and the lack of flushing
toilets with perfectly sanitary paper within
an easy reach of a sweaty hand.
but then, the early 19th century explorers had no
modern conveniences, either.
a rain moistens everything.  the birds shake.
noise and silence sleeping together like exhausted lovers,
and the jungle sighs.

Wild side walk

The cynosure of my recent blue-sky hike
was not the luminescent blue-winged butterfly
sipping a wee bit of sweet moist flowered perfume
unlike a neoclassical revivalist on a hurried mission,
but rather in a languid dream-like state;
or the skinny black bear higher on a swaying tree trunk
peering nervously near the ruins of an old mining tank
in eastern central Pennsylvania
where no honest reclamation had taken place;
or the unlucky snake sleeping in his dried skeleton
where no official headstone could be seen.
no, it was the all-important turn;
this unhesitating winding of my trail
around a rugged mountain; a reversal of one gnarly jeep track
of rutted rocky road, just as the late afternoon sun
soured & began to drop & purposeful strides were becoming more
hesitant, less sure of themselves. 
But at the certainty of this wonderful turn,
an alto saxophone immediately wailed with a clever jazzy beat,
the fingers of a great artist snapping me awake, poking my
backside with the concept of a burger and a beer, &
the wild-eyed pink Dogwood were heard barking excitedly, &
choreographed dancers jumped high-stepping from the surrounding woods.
Their infamous stage under house lights flashing was the tall dry grass
where i earlier rested with your juicy orange which i ate,
and my 4 hour walk on undulating ground and up steep & steeper which so
preoccupied my feet...
now and unmistakeably
tilted sharply downward to a still
far-away clear creek, but down down meant my mood was up up.
An amble on the wild side with peaceful intentions and a vow of strings of silence
(no mad helicopters zooming in for a closer look and photo IDs),
i without a topo map and going by old memory with even older notions,
would have a happy ending...
alongside the valleys' swift water always clean & pure.
i could almost touch my car,
and soon i would,
and then a beer.
i would drink to the butterfly and the bear,
while refreshing in your smile.

Native prairie grass

there is little to be learned from this trial by fire
if one is nude and tied to the most important stake
in the overwhelming presence of anxious enemies,
regardless of the time of day and in spite of several
persistent appeals to a hoped-for shared humanity.
not even half-hearted support seeps from the Speaker,
who has an embarrassing hand holding the doomsday gavel.
it doesn't matter if this speaker is masculine or feminine,
as a lusty sex is never part of their equation.
so i heard the deep bass sound of a 1980's Pink Floyd
tune and "I'm all right Jack keep your hands off my stack"
slipped insistently inside my spinning head, bounced me on The Wall.
When I moved closer to a full time job inside a virtual heart of darkness,
the beating roomful of intensity draped a single hood over my eyes
and from that moment i could not see from sea to shining sea.
the coffee chit chat space reminded me of a television reality show,
never to be canceled in spite of woefully low ratings.
outside, our great smoke is still visible, largely caused by fossil fuel burning
and often conjoined at birth by the charred corpse of a terrible irony.
during break time, a few souls volunteered for Yoga class and didn't seem
to mind trying to be mindful without the past or the future interfering.
their proud city high on a hill decked in white in spirit if not in style,
sits tightly connected in a fast 4G network, unconcerned that
the curtain is coming down, even while the audience shifts
uncomfortably in ever smaller seats.  all the house lights becoming dim.
here, ocean fish no longer go to school in abundance, & the glaciers melt.
no buffalo roam over running stretches of a once familiar world once
greenest with wildest native prairie grass, & the untamed Indians are gone.
no soft touch violet round-lobed Hepatica can be found flirting
with it's slender white eyelashes when a simple hiker pauses in search of lasting beauty.
there is much to worry about when the natives dance in circles
and Wednesday is always known as hump day,
even while the island sinks into the bay.