looking out the window

young and alive

nearing 25

with a clear head

remembering what was said

all night

it was all right

the jeune fille

slept well

& i heard tell

two bottles of fine wine were sipped

tongued and lipped

slowly swallowed

then next morning she followed

me home

where my large canvas currently sits

her black sweater and black fingertips

constantly brushing my face

with the taste

of promise

i began to paint her sigh

artfully she questioned me why

her breath escaping her lips

subtly squeezing her hips

it made no sense

so i said i'd draw her tomorrow

dressing her in sorrow

with a favorite pencil

and a bit of broken chalk

but she wanted to talk

like a Javanese toy

acting coy

so i took her in my studio

while she kept looking out the window.

i watched Hamlet!

i watched Hamlet!

before his death he wondered how to be or not to be! 

Claudius killed Hamlet's father, but 

then he married the widowed mother, ex-wife of his brother. 

and i wondered if there were no other plot possible for Shakespeare,

or did all these events appear clearly delineated as he was walking,

deep in thought, alongside the Avon river?

later, i watched the Dali Lama announce he would resign, to

take up writing stage plays in a well-worn orange robe with his baby smile.

he wondered aloud if he could lock himself away in his private room for days on end,

crafting a human interest fable about his family heirloom table?

he had an idea about a maid named Mable who wears a small white apron, serves a human skull on a small white tray for her employer who was named Hamlet but on their very first rehearsal day,

Hamlet would die tragically after a brief sword fight.

the maid eventually serves herself and washes the supper dishes while the Dali Lama runs for President, once chasing several feral dogs around the Lincoln Memorial during a brief campaign stop.

he hears the dogs of war crying Havoc! 

and something more but before he can make sense of it all, an old gravedigger drops a noisy shovel while burying Ophelia in nearby Arlington National Cemetery.

everyone nearby of course stops to pray,

but i couldn't hear the eulogy or what they might have to say or not to say,

at the service,

far from the Avon river.

i highly recommend the play.

The 514th Batallion

The 514th Battalion was used as bait
and their ruse worked, for a government informer
noticed the marching soldiers and took notes.

His report reached 7th Division
headquarters and a sortie was pressed rapidly
into operation, mainly due to the recommendation of
an American major who insisted to his
ARVN counterpart that action be immediate.

The troops of President Diem came in on choppers
early the next morning, without music, expecting to
conduct a quick two hamlet sweep.

An American Captain and his fellow Lieutenant 
unslung their AR-15s and joined the Vietnamese officers.

They scanned the terrain, immediately noticing that
the small huts to their front appeared empty.

What they could see were several old women and young children,
paddies, and fields.  It seemed unnaturally quiet.

They decided to rest before proceeding.

Even under the shade of a clump of coconut palms, 
sweat began to form in the increasing heat.

A rank animal odor familiar to the Mekong delta
came into their nose.

Without discussion, the Vietnamese captain wanted to curtail the operation
and withdraw.  After all, he concluded, going forward could be dangerous.

The first hamlet might be deserted, or it could be the site of an ambush.

At that instant, a Viet Cong wrapped his finger
around the metal trigger of a Thompson machine gun.

He waited for a decision.

His gun had been captured, oiled, and lovingly cared for.

It was only a matter of time.

death's an old joke

death's an old joke

but it comes fresh to everyone

subtracting from the sum:

one less garden for the flower

one less minute on the hour

one less falcon flying home

one less question left to roam.

as i feel sure of what to say,

i love you more each passing day.

i love you now irrevocably,

pulling you closer to comfort me,

confiding intimacy

bolder & more daring

more tranquil & more caring,

our beautiful hands enfolding,

soft yet firmly holding:

side-by-side we admire the tree.

i love you now irrevocably,

pulling you closer to comfort me.

death's an old joke

but it comes fresh to everyone

subtracting from the sum.

 

sweet Sam

sweet Sam

from your high rise window
standing on the top most floor
can you see me in my uniform
marching off to war?

can you see my tiny fingers 
with youthful polished nails
flipping silver treasure coins
calling heads or tails?

i'm not sure how to choose
as you're pointing down this road
i keep looking for the question
which no answer ever showed.

sweet Sam

what is this foreign floor?
i can see it far below,
but go faster is all you shouted
and just enjoy the show.

can you see me quake and tremble?
i'm in black smoke and loud noise
resting like a baby now
with fragile childhood toys.

remember when i gave it all?
marching to triumphant songs
i still felt strangely missing
having righted all the wrongs.

so, remember when you see the shore
that sparkle is my eye
and if you're feeling puzzlement,
i'm somewhere in the sky.

and the song which plays an endless loop

which everybody knows,

the lovely little melody of
roses and yellow bows.

i sang that once before
when i was marching off to war.

sweet Sam

to sleep in your arms

when i came to sleep in your arms
your door was closed but your heart was still open

i went to find the key
it could have been in an adjacent room
instead of across a raging sea
where i found myself tied to the turning mast
and my ears were full of woe

i heard you give your sage advice
but wasn't sure which way to go:

honey i was your mariner
and i braved the steel-eyed storm
i led the way across a battlefield
and saw the sad forlorn

i hiked to the nearby mountain top and grabbed a lightening strike,
mixed it into a rainbow that i thought that you might like

i stood in the middle of the highway
and braved a thousand stares

and made a fancy salad with crumbly cheese and pears

i traveled to the ends of the Earth and listened to the tides
tried to find the answer but all it does is hides

and all along the twisty path i kept looking high and low

i heard you give your sage advice
and now knew where to go.

John Lee, the awful bearer of the future as history

John Lee,

what is your morning song?

you're doing everything wrong,

by the way.

do you even hear what the citizens say?

damn, simply sad for Hong Kong!

once so free; 

busy with promise and prosperity;

the fresh sea breezes

wherein nothing ever freezes.

John Lee,

your future is now history.

but here is simply me

telling you what to do

with your newly enacted Article 23.

a man is not a tree

willing to be trimmed and cut,

but

I am now become your external interference

you are so worried about:

I wish you would hear the people's shout!

those self-motivated, sneering men in control who boss you around,

they won't hear (heed) the sound,

so why ought you?

right, I see what moves you around.

well, people will not be diminished

by your paper and your desperate pen scrawl

like graffiti on a midnight bathroom wall:

look, the lights of Hong Kong are growing dark.

flowers are dying in your Central Park!

what are YOU afraid of?

peace and love?

John Lee,

the awful bearer of the future as history:

black hearted man,

unable to take a stand

in support of freedom, peace and love.

John Lee, a grotesque example of MANKIND are you,

like rubbish stuck to the bottom of my dancing shoe.

folding you to my soul

it wasn't an illusion, after all

your ass shining like the shimmering sea
under the harvest moon
yellow under my firm grasp

all your beauty
was shaking like a little girl
spooning her soft raspberry jello
before her philosophical studies began

i thought i could take you!

you drove me senseless somehow
into the clouds where a phantom
with invisible arms
asked me my name
and i gave him yours instead

my hands were not the mirage
as they held to the pleasures of your body

what went and came out and in

here and there and slowly
folding you to my soul
was much more than a musical note

which a little boy plays in his sleep.

I am tasting the Holy Ghost

i would tell you
not to dust me, nor dance me
on the fine sharp brittle edge
of a darling dead poet!

i am wrapped in wrinkled leather
and famously stuffed inside
my fatal gas oven,

screaming Daddy words
like chiseling pieces of
hard dust, literary dust,
hallucinogenic personal dust:
dust like piercing shards of Hell
which do not fly gently.

in the adjacent children's room,
where they sleep under cover,
under blankets of soft candle glow
more dust settles
and falls and sifts like a splendid flour,

quietly.

their pillow seems wrapped
inside the dust of mother's love.

i see the dust fill their eyes
and watch it take away tiny smiles.

i feel the dust settle onto
my tongue as it whispers:

i am tasting the Holy Ghost.

i hear an anvil brightly ring
while the fire still burns,
white sparks and gray smoke,
the hammer and the forge,
hot coals and fine ash,
like dust rising into the warming air,

into the jet stream current
of an old and dusty Earth,
into the brief minute it spins
with no seconds to spare.

and ghosts on a midnight train
always speeding into their dark dusty night,
without a map, without a hint, without a hope,
without a conductor waving the baton
which tunes the note:

into the bones of a family grave yard.

arms and legs and bodies of dust,
headstones of dust, obituaries of dust,
young and old, triumphant and worn,
the great elephant seal of dust,

this roaring locomotive tossing me
with tracks across my head.

my feet and hands into blood,
into the chambers of a beating heart,
into the water with a virgin birth,
and when i hear talk of dust,

i wonder why no angel

gave me wings. 

a lot has been destroyed

yes, I am an American.

more than most, I also am an avid reader.

as many know, when I go shopping at any grocery store,

I'm always able to find cold milk.

other food items are also in abundance.

we only stand in line to make our purchases,

even when the self check-out is available.

our dreams can be simple when our bellies are filled,

and as Americans, we love to eat,

inside or outside.

at home, many Americans watch their TVs;

they find solace, sitting mesmerized.

the Truth can't be found on TVs,

a fact that doesn't seem to be upsetting.

but what pisses people off is when the electric

power dies:

a weather event often causes this temporary blackout.

when the TVs stop working,

a light flickers and minds fade even deeper into dullness.

Americans see war on their TVs.

The adults find it entertaining,

but the children go to their mobile devices to play games.

a lot has been destroyed in this world,

while here in America,

the winds blow warm and steady,

and early flowers bloom;

everybody assumes that life is good!

but so much reality is missed,

sometimes even the flowers cry,

 over  their own cold milk.

A Fitzgerald moment

Isadora Duncan,
with her purple hair,
sat dining at the Colombe d'Or
wearing dark aviator glasses.

Scott rushed to her side,
fell to her fancy feet without his famous book
or his crazy wife,
and pulled out his sword.

"My centurion," she said
as she played with his head.

Zelda, watching from nearby, rushed from her chair,
which had recently been used by a Riviera celebrity,
and flung herself off a nearby parapet.

Her drink remained untouched on her table,
but when she miraculously reappeared,

famously alive,
she downed it in one gulp.

Her hands were blood-smeared and left
red streaks on the polished crystal.

Isadora smiled at Scott.

He leaped up and danced across the floor,

ignoring his wife, who continued to bleed.

His dancing was nothing to write home about,

but later he told Hemingway it was great.

Absolutely go to Singapore!

Absolutely go to Singapore!

it's not just a slow place to spend special time,

it's the Swift place.

The great pandemic seems to have run its' course,

so now the show can go on,

from dusk to dawn.

boosting tourism is fine,

but spend a dime or more:

Absolutely go to Singapore!

the parks are lovely;

the vehicular traffic is slim.

don't simply procrastinate:

visit on a whim.

never once feel disappointed,

rather feel anointed,

like a king or queen;

older or a teen,

eat, drink, and be merry;

take a ferry!

Absolutely go to Singapore!

a failure to communicate!

so the kindly old man isn't deemed cool!!

he's being tossed into a neglected swimming pool

even though his eventual substitute

is almost as old, wearing a fat man's suit,

with a claim to fame of being a heartless brute.

no, it doesn't seem fair 

that a nasty man with thinning orange hair

could captivate American voters with his tiny hands,

enthralling those minions sitting in the bleacher stands,

watching his con.

they know him as The Don.

well, the weekdays and the weekend,

like fine fabrics in need of a mend,

are unraveling before my eyes,

and to be honest it's a cruel surprise

that the recent opinion poll cries:

it's the huckster!  he's winning!  the medicine man is on the loose!

he's fingering the rope, counting the strands of the noose

he hopes to wrap around the neck

of a country he keeps referring to as a terrible wreck.

will there be no sweet melody

or remedy

for the home of the brave and the land of the free

when the doors completely close and the lights go dark?

will no flowers grow in the public park?

this country might eventually be filled with hate!

a failure to communicate!

no second opinions or debate!

will it really be too late?

is that the fate,

written on the western wall

before the fall?

Picasso's little cubes

Pablo Picasso died on the field of battle,
a bottle of Spanish wine in his hand,

he went laughing his head off:
a bull on a long one nights' stand.

he often painted his Paris canvas,
made a clown inside a monkey's head:

his party rate was higher than a cloud.
he said Monet was dead!

while up in the main saloon,
he took a running jump.

his friends watched from their mountain top:
Pablo said it was a dump.

Olga was his aristocrat;
a Russian princess of the stage.

he rehearsed love with forty women:
but kept her in a cage.

when he inhaled, he sketched two breasts;
exhaled them both firm and dark.

he confidently brushed with a mix of paints,
his little cubes became a work of art.

the last one stood before he sat,
waves washed over his blue wall.

his Spanish heart had a vision
to describe what he imagined he saw.

abstractly dancing on Mediterranean sand,
or in bed with his latest girl on top,

caressing life was what he loved:
he said he'd never stop.

a man called Confucius

 There was a bombing in the Basilica,

but fortunately no one was injured.

the media coughed up the story for a week,

like a house cat with a huge hair ball

stuck in its' throat.

Finally, the news shifted to Hong Kong!

The BBC along with many other international media,

breathlessly proclaimed that a street protest,

which started at the intersection of 

Yee Wo Street

and Hennessy Road,

grew like an old Confucian beard.

The throngs of people were heard singing,

it was reported,

with many carrying placards which

spoke of humaneness.

Uniformed police were reported to have been

shoving everyone within their reach.

Undercover agents were actively taking pictures.

Of course, police behavior was not appropriate,

as many protest organizers were quick to say.

Propriety, it was noted, was important;

sufficiently important, the BBC wrote, to galvanize the protesters.

The assembled people appealed for wisdom from their elected leaders!

Yes, this proved to be big news!!

But the upper levels of Hong Kong's political elites

proved to be less than trustworthy.

Within days, they capitulated to the wishes of

the mainland Chinese leadership's interests.

These interests, it was known, were not about

the 5 pillars!

Thus, the old Confucian beard was trimmed.

The majority of Hong Kong people had hopes and hearts

surgically removed, like an arthritic hip,

without anesthesia.

Finally, the news, (BBC included) shifted to an Indonesian earthquake

and the subsequent tsunami.

Yet, historically, there once was a man called Confucius.

The Dora Maar affair

The brown rabbit with thin ears sat upon a blue circle and took a curiously surrealist look around, finding several orange crates and a pink stamp stuck onto a small corner of the neighborhood bar. There, the minotaur grabbed his fine glass and took an extremely long pull, swallowing his pride with his famous bull on a hard chair inside the Deux Minots cafe on the famed Left Bank of Paris where Madam Figaro threw her bleeding knife between the fingers of her shutter hand. Her brightly-colored nails were trimmed and lady-like as she cleaned the white tablecloth with her anxious sighs. North of the Louvre in the 8th arrondissement sat this private moment of two artistic minds with French red wines between an overcoat and a scarf. His thick layer of oil paint on the clear glass etched a deep thought and with an easy laugh, it became a negative and a muse was born.

World History: Shahid #4

The tin soldier grew bold, stood tall;
his loosely laced shoes worn only for a laugh.

A girl, Mandy, tugged his pants,
and held his hand for a while.

His black eyes, crossed
in front of empty space, 

lost focus for a considerable time.

I was
the newest statue in this room,
a substitute for a particular lady
who had escaped on her teacher broom.

I read
the history instructions she provided:

A map of our world, their home planet,
damn it, damn it, damn it,
not an insignificant map; not poison gas
or a strange path to an essay museum.

There's Vietnam, I pointed out,

and Mao's mainland China,

and Formosa,

which I mentioned in reference to

a Mr. Peanut 

who was angrily tossed at the blackboard,

fell to the floor,

then crossed a narrow strait to his island.

I leaned on the blue podium which reeked of tedium
but it held my weight 

while
the tin soldier killed me with his lame jokes.

He was missing a prominent front tooth.

A lopsided smile, mostly.

But his classmates saw him as a stud;

a teacher denier!

He held their attention.

They ignored the map.

Their voices like lead balloons,
crashed into insignificance,

while I grasped at straws.

Their future was a warning bell soon to ring,

It rang!!  They quickly emptied the room.

and That's All Folks!

Paris in the spring

no, it doesn't get better
even if you visit Paris in the spring

it never meant a thing
you skinny little bitch
doing coke-a-cola in a junkie ditch

yeah, i wanna know whos' smoke
is hanging between your lips
hungry to please your hips

but you're cold

looking for some heat
taking everyone new you meet
but leaving them for dead

well, i ain't going down
into that coal black town

i'm looking for a piece of air
and i won't find it there

so sorry there's a needle in your head
but it's not my stick

you're making me sick
lashing whip on a hard afternoon
coming again but way too soon

no, it doesn't get better
even if you visit Paris in the spring

it never meant a thing
you skinny little bitch
doing coke-a-cola in a junkie ditch

kicking a habit out the door

thinking nevermore

yeah, i wanna know whos' tattoo
is on your ass smeared in blue

their name outlined in red
and i wonder what was said

and i wonder how you felt
as you watched his rocket melt?

did you crawl away with the score
or turn around to ask for more?

so sorry you've lost track of time
you once were a friend of mine

but i couldn't change your tune

anytime late or soon

no, it doesn't get better
even if you visit Paris in the spring

you can't remember anything

Inno di Mameli

in the morning,
over worn stone steps,
the Italian artisans walked inside.

the lady of the house was hiding her head under the covers,
a fresco recently made of her ass;

it was like an tasty island rimmed with collector's red lipstick,
freshly painted on the nearby marble ceiling.

waving her arms
in the eighteenth-century manner,
she rose from her bed.

while eyeing an ample supply of caviar,
she headed to the bathroom.

as she walked down the wide hall,

the artisans stopped smoking their opium.

no man whistled or thought of a pick up on the street,

even though one of them was a Turk!

an artificial lake in the porcelain bowl,
like a small grotto in a nearby park,
held her false teeth from the night before.

when she finished with her makeup application,

she reached for her sunglasses and put them on.

it was almost evening before she set about
assembling a breakfast from ripe olives, tobacco, and red wine.

a crowd of visitors were already
in her kitchen.

while they watched her eat,

they tossed barbed messages among themselves.

she was very, very cool, chewing slowly.

when she finally finished her last sip of fine Piedmont wine,
everyone came to attention and saluted.

one woman soon played a snare drum and 

a small dwarf grabbed his acoustic guitar.

the crowd began to sing Inno di Mameli.

but i wouldn't see her again until the following year,

by which time the artisans would be finished with their tasks.

to map Hell

Bullet has muzzle velocity, so great:

1,235 feet per second

and 1.2 seconds after being fired,

it meets steel helmet,

who held up as well he might.

But bullet's force was great,

and He was melting and vaporizing and

spritzing out tiny droplets of lead

as helmet surrendered,

gave inward, bulged the steel,

and onward rushed bullet

1.204 seconds after leaving muzzle,

jagged outer edges of  helmet now behind Him, He met

hair

who held Him up nowise

in His journey.

Skin gave way to mushroomed bullet and

bones deformed at His will,

671 feet per second forward He went as He tore

into vessels too shocked to bleed,

and nosed through soft gray-white-crimson

stuff

hardly hard as warm butter.

First, He cut through the memory of Mother,

then thru a small dog, eyes shining upward;

through a first kiss, a used car, a classmate's smile,

but what the Hell it ran amok through a huge area of

scraped knees and pulled pigtails,

then a small amount of fear-about this and that-

about bullets,

then through a respected Father,

and next the warm, inviting skin touch of a girl,

and plans for a house-someday-and tears,

a smell of acrid wine first tasted,

the remembrance of raucous birds calling

in the foggy gray dawns of winter;

of food cooking, the aromas tasty and pungent;

of sex, and school, and sandwiches, and sorrows.

Then bullet was through it all, that brief map of life,

and out the other side easy as punch,

flicking helmet's edge,

continuing on,

erratic now,

partly flattened, traveling 662 feet per second, slowing until 853 feet 

beyond the tipping helmet,

He rested Himself in the bark of a standing tree,

still bewildered by His path,

duty done, 

to map Hell

where paradise once had been.

America in Iraq

Under cover of darkness,
the Assassins' Gate
displayed a terrible eye
and a commanding presence.

The watchtowers
and concrete blast walls
eyed nervous travelers
coming in and going out to kill
or to be killed with black-smeared faces,

some wearing helmets and others armored vests

or both,

In the first few hours
of our visit,
the atmosphere was physically cool, but
it soon became intolerably hot, particularly
between the hours of ten and six.

The fear was hot, too.

During the day, an intense sunlight grew into this vivid,
shimmering yellow ,
which often washed away any sounds of happy life.

Soccer balls still bounced, but they made a heavy thud.

Laughter was hollow, uncertain, seeking permission

from people far away.

During the night, few slept peacefully.

Inside the Green Zone,
along the west bank of the Tigris River,
paper shredders sat ready while
Truth and Madness
grew fat wearing aviator glasses,
playing cards and drinking warm American beer.

Dreams of normal life became an intrusion,
as extraordinary happenings felt normal or
nothing would happen at all, also normal.

24 hours were never enough for a single day.

We heard a bearded schoolteacher talk reverently
about his God, while watching a solitary man who was missing
his right arm stare at me as he shuffled past, unsmiling.

The niceties of conventional life largely absent, no one
seemed to know where they were or how to escape.

Frequently, an AK-47 would appear, carried on the wind with dust and
dirt and the call to prayer, oiled, fully-automatic, angry and vengeful.

Nearby, there was an obviously dead Iraqi visible,
fallen flat in the faint shadows of the Baghdad zoo.

It was a man, his clothes soiled, matching the dirt on which he sprawled.

Other animals not yet dead
seemed to dream of suicide or living through yet another day.

Which was which?

Violence slept on many beds,
out in the streets, near the mosques, or on small beaches south of Basra
where modern tides experienced a steady flood of doubt.

No one wore makeup to be beautiful.

What should we do?

The Sacred Heart by Dali (1929)

Salvador Dali
came into perfect view
flirting with you
but painting me.

walking toward a Spanish horizon
approaching the southern sea
he found a vast stash 

of cash
and his model sailboat.

he stopped suddenly
and asked politely for his winter coat
but it turned out to be too small

or maybe he had recently grown too tall?

he cruised around the Barcelona block
where he found a melting alarm clock
and a bleeding red eye.

it didn't particularly appeal to him,

so i
rescued him from the intense cold.

he was growing sensitive and acting old!

he began shouting to a nearby friend
playing with perspective
and tickling time 

which he would twist and bend
into a happy birthday cake!

well, for Heaven's sake
some things are not what they appear to be:
he kept painting me

because i was not averse to reciting verse
or running from a disappearing leaf.

his social scene began like a moving film
of pleasurable mischief;

1931 records of New Orleans jazz
is what he has

playing often.

there seemed no time to spare!

i asked him for his secret but he wouldn't share.

i subsequently made him my mistress
but somehow that didn't feel right:

he became a famous artist and i an unemployed tailor
dressed in my best uniform of a crucified sailor
escaping an abusive dad;
it wasn't my only destiny but it was all that i had.

i worked very hard and grew a faint smile;
the mustached Dali was intrigued and asked me to stay awhile,
and during the course of our future cruises,
i noticed he had blasphemous wins but occasional losses
while playing spades.

but with a talent like The Sacred Heart

his printmaking had a decent chance to start.

our lives kept intruding

then finally pulled us apart
when he used India ink to spit on his mother
whom he often truly adored.

i tried to curry favor with my brother
as we sat together on a comfortable perch;

Dali ascended from his bench and attacked the church!

he never called me again even when i heard times seemed good.
our story ended with a rough outline as it ultimately should

have.

never visited Singapore

Ho Ching,

some say quietly,

is powerful enough

to earn the trust

of a country's leader,

and she is beautiful, too,

with her strong face and bright eyes.

Jenny Lee,

who shares with my sister

her first name,

is wealthy and gorgeous,

and so so young.

She has no interest in being

with any leader.

Jenny Hoover, my sister, was younger than me

by 3 years,

and never visited Singapore,

much to her dying regret,

and was never rich!

She was married to Mike,

a Fed Mart clerk.

He was not interested in being with

any leader, either,

but he had my sister for 50 years.

Lucky guy.

Something money can't buy!

a last supper

Where have we gone wrong, America?

the tide has come up too high

and all aboard are about to die

sand castles wash away

beachgoers in stunning disarray

a banner fluttering in the sky

spelling out words LONG GOODBYE.

the taste of salt on all the tongues

makes it way to all the lungs;

a last supper served on the plate

and no one wants to be too late.