it's time to read the Torah

duck
here comes the Donald
he's on a hover board flying at high noon
the new sheriff badge pinned to his inflated chest
duck

he came way too soon
The Doomsday Clock was nervously twitching by the door
Princess Grace kept fondling a loaded gun
duck

she ran for the shore
with two deputies and a member of Delta Force
they loaded the ship of state for the Battle of Midway Island
duck

it's heading off course
where the water is ocean blue and the Pacific sun bright
towards the South China Sea and the coral airfields
duck

it's almost midnight
the Parties of God are partying in downtown Tel Aviv
millions of migrants are hiding beneath flimsy canvas tents
duck

there's no chance to leave
there are slippery piss puddles on the barracks' floor
where the Donald is puzzled by the size of his tiny hands

duck

it's time for Lebanon bologna
it's time for a great war

it's time for bunker busting bombs

it's time for Allah to return

it's time to read the Torah

duck

duck

Donald

duck 

Warhol

Andy Warhol

albino white with his heroin smile

stood mildly happy far from the Steel City

listening to the Velvet Underground

but he still didn't know where he was going

airbrushing modern paints in a rainbow arc flowing

across the pouting lips of Marilyn Monroe

while he faced a kneeling Little Joe

his art opening into a screeching guitar

hearing the downtown dealer fleeing in a mobster's tinted-window car

the Factory party continuing 24 hours long

with sharp needles and hashish smoke blowing

but he still didn't know where he was going.

drinking from your well

Hello Mademoiselle.
i came to buy some butter
but left drinking from your well.

strange things flew in the air!
i grabbed my hat and found a coat
hanging by an empty chair.

i went out and slammed the door,
ran down to a whispering beach,
sat listening on the shore.

an echo exactly at midnight
cried softly in moonlit boots;
it paused at dawn in white.

i saw a top hat riding shotgun
in a Rolls chauffeured by fate
when an immense sun,

rising on the high tide line,
stuck a feather in my cap;
it was not at all by design.

i was left feeling naked and hot
but it's a part i play, wondering
if that's everything lifes' got.

very solemn, straining every nerve
i stood up straight to leave
but fell frantic into a curve

where i peeked across the room
and saw rushing directly at me
the grasping hand of doom:

all those fingers winking
two or maybe three times a second
encouraged me to start thinking

that i were in a fancy show boat.

hanging by an empty chair,

i grabbed my hat and found a coat

someone had left hanging there. 

blood changes the game

blood changes the game.

at the first sound of a bullet

screaming over their heads,

young soldiers forget their own name.

blood changes the game.

forget the hero medals and the parade pomp;

the drill sergeant's foot stomp;

a young girls' thrown kiss,

hoping the bullets miss

body parts.

broken hearts

await any frontline news with anxious hands.

blood changes the game.

a grandfather in his army uniform,

pictured exhausted and torn,

holding a Springfield with an empty clip

disembarking from his crowded troop ship

underneath the Stars and Strips,

no longer dodging the artillery roar

of a distant war.

blood changes the game.

a dad, too, trading in his civilian shoes

for combat black.

there's no holding back

the urge to join in the fun.

so son, here is your gun,

but

blood changes the game.

Tyson

She dressed like a Vassar student
from 1932 with formal tucks, 

a pearl necklace, silver hair,

and her head held high like her esteem.

She would not play the fool,
nor did she like to be entertained with anything
less than the most erudite spoken language
of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. 

She force fed as though we were fledgling baby birds
and she the raptor with wild owl beak and a penetrating
gaze into your forming character.

She would ply that mold by God because
that is what an English teacher did, so suffer little children
and welcome high school Class of 1966, into her domain.

You will never again be the same!

The Maasi

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

the final cry was 'Broken Arrow'

it was once all about Saigon
but now it's gone
the muddy river once slept and burned
and what have we uniformly learned
painting it jet black won't get it back:

the body bags filled with Asian dirt
politicians said it wouldn't hurt
watching the helicopters at the embassy!

a young woman with her crying baby
grabbing the barbed wire wall
dodging shots before the inevitable fall...

and all the President's men
each with a white face
their conference table with expensive pens and frivolous lace
and a perfect powder room
where the happy hour drunks sang delirious songs of doom
in the stone temple.

the gods sat hard and cold
trading places which could be bought and sold
outside the parlors of the free press:
readers were forced to guess
what in the streets of an American city
was real and what was merely witty;

and on the television screen
cigarette smoke filled the stale air.

in Vietnam the midnight sparkle
was a phosphorescent flare,
and young men lived and died there.

while in the Pentagon,
it was once all about Saigon
but now it's gone
when the flesh gave way to marrow
the final cry was 'Broken Arrow'

Le Tricorne (22 July, 1919)

her thin fingers were magnified,
while tiny lines of Russian smiles
were seen dancing on the stage,
waving to the audience from a 
perfectly classical ballet position.

and there was sincere applause for the flesh-and-blood
physicality, but grace and beauty
shared all the jumps and spins and bows.

in the scene-painting studio on Floral Street,
Picasso had mixed light chrome with pure white,
to produce the beauty of old ivory, which added richness
to the sets of Le Tricorne, which needed it especially in London.

Massine played the Miller, speaking with his feet
in a stomping fit of flying sentences, tipping his hat
to the ladies and the admiring men, all thinking
they were watching the future Gene Kelly, while dreaming
of an umbrella and a cup of warm tea.

apparently it was raining,

or soon would be,

but all were warm and dry inside the Alhambra Theatre.

La Boutique Fantasque

La Boutique Fantasque
and the silver pipe beneath the derby hat,

the dandy little guy with his deep sharp eye
his formal tie
black before a bright white light
tied tight
inside a blond French mistress
with a youthful hunger for his cock

his fast brush and his wry smile slide
wide
with practiced pomp past the Russian dancer
into the wilds of Provence

and parade

the woman in tears displayed
on his Spanish canvas
weeps with magnolia memory
pure as a lake bottom

the sun cold with shades of nuance.

closing our book

no turn of the screw

straight ahead i could catch 

the briefest glimpse of you

wearing your favorite red

it wasn't only what you said

that turned me blue

so what had i heard

when you flashed me a smile?

i tried to hear each word

running on fertile ground

it wasn't only what i found

that seemed absurd

you gave me that look

and a toss of your hair

but something else you took

meant more to me than life

i felt the stinging of your knife

closing our book.

drugs floating in the air

Jack said there was a dog in the tree,

howling at the moon;

but when i looked it wasn't there,

although i saw a haiku

hanging from a hanging branch:

if it fades away,

how will i know what it meant?

i can't see in the dark.

but Allen said he saw the dog,

who was barking like a hipster:

he said it was wearing a French-style beret,

reading a poem called Howl,

occasionally sounding like a mad man.

what was it about?

there was a lot of applause.

i had much to learn.

then Burroughs said there should be

intoxicating drugs floating freely in the air,

so he traveled to Tangiers

with his net and a tourist guide book,

looking for an African ass to drive home his point:

he often had sex at night,

and in the morning felt fine.

his breakfast was fish.

he tried to eat like a native, he said,

between bites of flesh.

Joseph Heller

what exactly did he mean by the phrase

CATCH-22?
from my lips directly to you:
a Willie Mays center fielder's running grab?
a discovery in the National Institute of Mental Health lab?

Joe avoided a violent military death
wrote a best selling book many years before he drew his last breath
a long, slow, measured exhale
but he got to chase the girls successfully for more than one piece of tail

his B-25, a fine airplane
coming in low and fast, weaving through heavy enemy flack totally insane:
it was very sane to want to stay inside an Air Force canvas tent
crazy to fly in formation if that's what he really meant

during WWII, the thin man and the fat
the bald guy and the clown who never removed his hat
the wop and the Jew
who on Sunday morning didn't know how to act or what to do
the black aviator and the brave Mexican from San Diego
neither wanted a tag from graves registration tied to their big toe
and the freckled kid from cold Minnesota
drinking a warm coca cola
between briefings and the next flight
they all felt deep down inside their guts an incredible fright
and wondered more than once if they'd get out in one piece
to become whole again and be discovered by a lover and live in peace

Yossarian.  Major Major.  CATCH-22?
it's what they did heroically and awkwardly still continue to do.

Kennedy and the CIA

And they all died!

Any further consideration would be postponed
Until tomorrow.
A total of twenty two hundred men lied!
One was big nosed Charles de Gaulle
Who was last seen sipping heaping teaspoons of arrogance along
With ripe strawberries which came from Dalat.
Who else?
The French legions at Dien Bien Phu.
That's who.
The Emperor, Bao Dai, constantly smiled 
But never went wild
when the sneaky Japanese sat eating his rice.
They weren't very nice.
Uncle Ho knew which way to go.
And millions of peasants soon followed.
The Buddhist Group went up in flames
Playing gasoline games
In the public square.
I wasn't there.
Ngo Diem was, however, along with his brother and the
Dragon lady, who wasn't very blue.
Who else knew?
In Saigon, Nguyen Van Thieu,
Continued to work on his resume.
Kennedy and the CIA
On the river's embankment,
Ordered the bogeymen into action.
And the rain might have stopped as suddenly
As it started, but the B-52s
Were just warming up on Guam,
Their cold bomb racks filled with misery for the
Vietnamese on the ground, without qualm.
It became very clear that death could drop from
Thirty thousand feet
And kill a thousand people as they sat down to eat.
Truman had no policy, Eisenhower none, but Johnson
Pulled his pants on like a true Texan.
Nixon was no Texan, but in 1972
He celebrated an early Christmas
With Henry who flew home from Paris
With a secret merry card.
On the cover it mentioned that Hanoi and Haiphong
Would not have a merry time
tonight or for the next several weeks and
Not a single word made a rhyme,
But the men acted as though one did.
Whom did they pretend to kid?
President Ho Chi Minh died in '69.
He was no friend of mine.
The US Embassy lost a sign.
It was carried away by a staffer, who jumped
On the last helicopter leaving for the coast.
Where is it now?
That's what I want to know the most.

looking for Sonny

the ice was dull

but my blades were sharp
the water underneath a bottle of Perrier
floated the classical woman on her Viennese harp

the thin man on his Fender bass
kept bringing another cold case
for poor Sonny
who died when his head hit a tree
like an arrow splitting a knee:

it was in the dead of winter
in the American west
but we go on with our lives
imagining they're the best

they could become a dime store novel or a penny
a farthing or a pound 
a fatal fall from every grace
or a trampoline rebound

when lifetime runs down
and the entrance runs on and on
each day after day
and most are willing to pay

the price

is always right

glued to digital visions

a Russian SU or a tank

watching the Ruble wiggle and squirm

as it sank

with an earthquake or volcano

buffalo stampede or a shark

rising oceans, and a waterfront park

filled with happy campers

looking for Sonny

the Mosque wall

in Kashmir

a thoughtful Indian picked up a hefty rock

while i stayed on the sofa 

playing with his Pakistani woman,

but only in my dreams.

it often seems

there's a lingering dawn

before the fateful rising sun:

the actual sound ringing in my ear

is of a car explosion!

i see people

running past the Mosque wall,

many bleeding upright while others crawl.

this is definitely not a dream,

it would seem,

as i see soldiers with the Star of David,

hear them shouting commands

above the clamor and the swirling dust.

i must

remember how this unfolds in reality time

so i might use my rhyme

to describe the madness and the genocide.

there is no where to hide,

the innocence.

i must

remember to heat water for another cup of tea,

watching civilization flee.

on my tv

there's currently a bulletin coming from the Red Sea

about a missile strike on a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker

and another drone shot down,

having been launched from an historic Yemeni town

now curiously devoid of hungry tourists.

thousands of actors are rehearsing their lines

but no one is paying their fines:

it's overdue, the settlement cost.

much is lost!

during an intermission,

i must

remember the thuggish warlords

and the frightened underdogs,

both eating everything they can dig their teeth into,

as they drink

and sink

like hard noodles into their own fragrant broth.

the Golden Gate Bridge

but
her breasts keep getting in the way

so i couldn't sleep worth a damn
and the music was too loud
even if it was Kashmir
each heavy note came tumbling bouncing off the entrance door
i saw the stenciled sign splashed in hurried paint i hurried in
drizzled colors piled onto a dirty glass canvas announcing
Harmony Bar & Restaurant but i wasn't buying it
none of it none at all

her white shirt remained unbuttoned
while i fumbled 
i dropped the ball but had a ball played the game
went into extra innings 
she felt cold hot luke warm hot again
her nipples got the beat
each one
inclined swayed winked and nodded as i smoked
waiting on my park bench wearing a French beret
met a photographer who soon became a painter
read the newspaper headlines about the disturbance
waited until she touched me touched herself
i became erect & stayed that way

i couldn't sleep worth a damn
had a stiff one had a drink had a dream
i remembered Joseph Alioto and the bomb
his prostate cancer a bitch a hole in the invincibility wall
the streets of San Francisco pulsing up and down
round and round the Transamerica pyramid wild-eyed
his grave and everywhere parades of kids and more shadows
looking for the mafia but finding hills and bags of pills
and the Pacific Ocean and suicides
the Golden Gate Bridge the perfect foil
where inspired hippies danced by the incoming tide
outgoing too and in tune with their war
their camouflaged faces and Indochinese histories
black cats and panthers sitting on ice listening sweating the draft
their inner city jazz coming undercover coming underground
to Dizzy and Miles getting a fix on things some very good things
with sharp wit and sharper needles all at the appropriate time no less

i couldn't sleep worth a damn
living in my crummy flat by the fire department
on Haight-Ashbury with a famous singer
i can't recall his name his face just doesn't appear to me anymore
he played the drums in a white band not well but
only for a short while before dropping his sticks 
into the depths into the drug culture into the abyss
ringing my bell at all hours on each every almost any floor
at the window
by the stairs
on the road
tugging at my brains spilling my guts onto the cop's desk by his answering machine
questioning me and digging for deeper mysteries that no man should ever want to know
most any time the elevators to the 13th floor sit waiting for the middle finger
and i started to write in a cold sweat typing a combination of words
emphasizing color, light, and the need for a change of pace a change of direction
i felt i needed a job needed a push a muse a mother a mouth a moment of genuine solitude
but no flawed insight please no three piece suit please no college campus guidebook
in plain view on a polished dining room table, no stained glass front door, no father knows best
no the prevailing mood wasn't enough no crowd control no ten commandments
no zeitgeist no leitmotif no full monty to unwrap the final vision to explain everything
in one big yellow star-bursting fireworks explosion so we can all just go to hell! 
& so it goes for general motors general electric and the general population
all the crazy politicians jerking off in the planetary house of representatives
doing to us what they're doing to each other over the air waves and over cocktails
and over there and here in their hands a new generation looking for a masterpiece.

but i know where Jefferson once whispered to his black mistress, so maybe that's enough.

but

her breasts keep getting in the way 

the Ohio National Guard

the Lusitania, a passenger ship, was torpedoed by U-20,
a German submarine.
it sank not far from Queenstown, Ireland,
in the spring of 1915,
before Guernica, Spain, was bombed;
before Picasso married Olga,
but after Van Gogh lived briefly in
the south of France with his amazing canvas,
splashing paints, and his injured ear.

in Flanders Fields the flowers bloom.

tombstones there are now growing as tall as fresh spring flowers,
the difference being that the headstones are engraved with names.

i thought about this while walking
my dog on a hard gravel trail
which wanders, deer-like,
through a nearby woods.
it was a hot morning, although not on fire,
when i climbed over fallen logs,
sidestepped the poison ivy,
my legs growing increasingly weary with the
weight of my Army-issue combat boots.

in my head was Dresden, a once beautiful German city, burned to ashes and
jumbled piles of blasted stone
in the spring of 1945,
and very few local people survived the fire storm 
to save their tea pots from the flaming catacombs.

i remembered
the forgotten war 

which was forgotten by the many millions
who didn't fight in Korea.
there were dead bodies on the cold battlefields who are now pieces of thin bone,
small shards of memory, forgotten loves of childhood
lost in the drifting winter snows
on the south bank of the
frozen Chosin Reservoir.

looking ahead,
toward a fenced orchard,
i saw bright ripe sour cherries being harvested by
young men on ladders.
young men, not the present busy ladder men, died
while wearing sweaty uniforms in the oppressive humidity
of the Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam, in the fall of 1965.
Vietnam is a beautiful country
with a rich history and kind people
who are humble and loyal to their ancestors.
their rice is grown locally.

the helicopters didn't notice the rice as they came in
on their speedy Medivac approach to grab the many body bags 

filled with dead and to aid the wounded.

my dog doesn't know about this:

she cavorts with flickering shadows and chases alert chipmunks,

rabbits, running groundhogs.
she's busy with her own interests and oblivious to
the history of man.
she carries no baggage.

the Ohio National Guard has baggage,
having shot to death unarmed college students
who were protesting senseless killing.

you're IT, Kerouac, Jack!

 "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
while contemplating her life on a Colorado Buddhist campus.

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 unshaven face
kept spitting fire even during the heaviest New York rains,
when everyone else went running for shelter?

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

and he said yes.

Any time now, dear

there was a time in California
when i thought i had an extended reach
so i went walking with a musical woman
to an insanely beautiful Pacific beach
where we built a huge fire
and read Russian poetry
while watching the fiery sun
lower itself into the still-glowing sea

i asked her to sing
the Beach Boys who came first to my mind
but she sang Dead Man's Curve
and i didn't want to seem unkind
so i had another quick drink
while she played her B Flat clarinet
like the famous little French bird
who escaped her net

she started to dance like the puppet Pinocchio
wet sand between her toes
i considered heading to San Francisco
to see their variety shows
but the wild surf made a steady roar
Big Sur darkness held me to the floor
and she asked for a foot massage
said both her feet were damp
so i lit a Coleman lamp
and settled into our cozy camp

i found another cold Guinness
but it wasn't just a beer:
she handed me oil and spices
and said "Any time now, dear."

the vast Russian steppes

while the snows fell heavily upon the ground,

the eleventh moon
turned to face Matisse
in his famous studio near Paris.

and the flower seller walked away with his basket full,
his scarlet eyes silent at the end of the day.

a skinny body stared numbly out to sea,
to watch the moon's reflection on the turbulent waters;
her angular arms clasped in the fifth position above her head.

the northern light, a thunderous gray,
showed no glimmer of mercy
when the ballet season ended in a pillar of chalk
carved from the cliffs of Pourville.

in a steady rush of solitude the solitary person
withered and fell on the vast Russian steppes:
the moon slowly rose like a bird in its' cage,
puzzled to discover there was no easy way to fly.

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 moody 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, and their lack of scientific

thought.

encouraged to be inappropriate and morbid,

they fingered whatever they brought.

the Dharma bums

The Dharma bums

over and under

taking it as it comes:

loaded six shooter and dove of peace.

will it keep on raining

or finally cease?

weeping as the levee breaks

while wondering what it takes

to save the flooded land:

writing poetry to help understand

what's the rush to center stage?

sitting by the campfire turning the page,

reading the Sunday news:

sports or entertainment?

it should be easy to choose!

wearing sun shades

polishing the blades

going down

avoiding the center of town

sitting by a mountain lake

avoiding the fake

taking it as it comes

the Dharma bums

playing in the key of G

breathing easily.

multiple shooters

multiple shooters

like dead-of-night owl hooters
stealthy and quiet
on the wings of a riot
holding an AK47
dreaming of a virginal Heaven
inside a shopping mall
watching innocent victims fall
in the new toy aisle.
and when the bloody bodies pile
a sullen smile
breaks underneath a black mask
running for the black SUV
from sea to shining sea.

hanging with your picture

i'm not a known artist, but

i'm still hanging with your picture

it's been another cloudy day
and all the hours have sped away.

is it too late tonight to get a fast bite
by checking out the drive in?

my fast car is smoking its' tires
burning rubber to your outstretched arms:

you're the woman working all her charms!

shifting every gear

but i'm drawing near,

still hanging with your picture

suddenly, i just want to ride my bike
so don't ask me what i really like:

it's a two-wheeler, not a trike.

my motor is running like a power jet
pedaling furiously across your radar net

still hanging with your picture

suddenly, i'm standing tall on my tallest ladder
reaching for a tool to make it matter

is it too late tonight to get a fast bite
or has your fire turned to ashes?

a flirtatious wave of your eye lashes

is all it takes

for me to apply the brakes:

still hanging with your picture