poetry

Listening in Braille

How do I know if I am different, if I can only be me
Maybe you too have fallen and still
Can’t find the bottom
Maybe you too, actually, if the truth be known....jumped
And still can’t admit to yourself
That you are more self destructive than stupid
Maybe your bizzaro Mel Brooks behavior
Is just your version of wrapping one arm around your own throat,
Pointing a cocked finger at your own head and snarling
“Nobody move or the moron gets it”
While the crowd collectively shakes its head and murmurs,
“We might as well move on, it doesn’t look like this one is ever going to get it...”
I climbed the mountain and I still don’t know what the yogi was talking about,
When I went down on the field with the Billy Graham volunteer to meet God ,
They just tried to sell me books (apparently about someone who actually had), ditto
For the El Ron devotee on the streets of Portland and ditto
For Cal State Fullerton but bless the US Army for
They turned me on to film, first
How to clean my rifle then
How they straightened out the Mighty Mississippi and
My favorite, a love story about a broken hearted German Sheppard
Who loved a naked girl who loved her pet eel more... after which,
They turned me loose in Bangkok, hungry for culture; penicillin, to name names and,
I have loved theater ever since
So what? The jokes on me? That’s supposed to be funny?
Are we to forget the values and institutions that I have stood in awe of since birth
Does the specter of America, bathed in the golden glow of the sunshine pouring from the heart of Jesus
(Particularly stunning on velvet, I must say)
Exist only to set up the simple minded for the most important life lesson of all
You had best do unto others, before they do unto you......
Thank you Uncle Sammy, I knew I could count on you, are we done here
Mind if I jump now, or would you prefer that I appear to stumble...

The Morning After An Auto Accident

The proper middle classes have a home,
Pay their taxes, vote republican,
Believe that psychotherapists
And cops are on the level,
Go to church as regular
As going to the toilet,
Make princesses and princes of
Their children, own a van.
When they have an accident
They telephone their agent,
And think it’s very funny
If the accident’s their fault.

Americans

Americans want nothing except sex
(The seven second substitute for god)
And rap and drugs and violence and Jesus.
The middle aged and old have no tattoos.
The young have no allegiance and no art.
All of which is none of my affair
Providing it has no effect on me.
I want only poetry and cash.
Poetry, a substitute for life.
Money, necessary happiness.
Dead, give me an isolated cloud
Where no one comes, some paper and a pen.

The Teasing Glow of the Abyss

Taylor and I
Statuettes on the unmade bed.
We don’t speak,
We don’t need to.
We just stare submissively
Into computer screens,
Into pictures of old lovers,
Of gleaming mistakes,
And fates indifference,
As we speak through the silence of regret.
We stare into the screen,
And the eyes stare back into us.
The trumpet of retreat
Echoes in the whirling ceiling fan,
Dissecting storm clouds of smoke.
We pour more whiskey into the thermos,
Because the world
Has failed us both.

Business as usual

Business as usual,
screwing our neighbor’s wives &
taking his property as
Newt has three wives while screwing

everything that moves & lying
to conservatives that he’s more
conservative than Mitt &
more moral because he’s not a

Mormon, & if he were he
could have even more than his
three wives & not have to cheat on
them with good Christian ladies/ that

Newt’s an out & out crook that
doesn’t matter any more now than
when Harding was president who
not only screwed the country but

probably even more women than Newt.
Obama even cares about poor people, &
that makes him a commie like Jesoo who
came from the poor & formed a religion for

the poor/ Jesoo would never have
approved of tax cuts for the rich, which is
why the Republicans crucified him &
followed Newt into whore houses of

poor women spreading their legs for Newt &
his bunch of lascivious greed mongers/ Saladin &
his Muslim gang then had to kick the
syphiletic Christian ass to keep the

Republican disease from killing us all/ Saladin then
hands the reins to Obama to complete the
jackass revolt in the virtuous cry of
HEE HAW ...

!

The cross around my neck twists

The cross around my neck twists
& gives me a big German squeeze.
I am the German vermin, Herman

Goering would be proud goose stepping
on my swastika honk honking to the
honk of a different Nazi drummer,

driving Schwartznigger’s hummer/ a
total bummer on every front with
Eva Braun his #1 cunt/ O my

skinhead of the class beating up Turks
& sundry other non-Aryan jerks
on my neck in a rope.

Where is my faith, where’s my hope?
Where’s Ali’s rope-a-dope?
In the Vatican with the pope?

Burn the Reichstag, burn the Jew.
Burn every Gypsy too.
See my smoke?
Another victory for the pope ...

!

Survival of the Fittest

I must bundle up, go out and check
if a day of unseasonable April snow
has extinguished white and violet
flames of crocuses along the walk.

Even as I pull on boots and coat,
I know better. Yet having read
countless books to a happy end,
I still reread them with foreboding.

Yesterday, some children ambled by
on the homeward trek from school.
One big boy smacked a smaller one
with a hard snowball, causing tears.

If I see such bullying again, I may
intervene—but that could backfire
on the victim later. Maybe it’s best
to let him confront it his own way;

be stronger for it. In November
we give thanks for what survived.
So the Pilgrims did, to marvelous
Providence—the half that lived.

On the Lack of Response

My day job is not that of poet/professor,
and I posted some spectacular video
of a large incident on that job
And the silence of a thousand poet/professors was profound,
not the stunned silence of deep awe
but the dismissiveness of deep indifference
I know that matters of life and death can’t compare
with the travails of grading papers,
but still, I expected better

What Prison Teaches

I don’t trust anybody
Who is nice to me.
People aren’t nice
Unless they want
Something from you
You don’t want to give them.
The most adept predators
Know that
Velvet glove over steel fist
Often gets the best result.

You’re Wasting the Hot Water

Oh, but it feels too good.
It falls over me like warm, soft hands.
Grazing my hair, so soothing down my back,
Smoothing over my curves, dripping between my legs,
Falling so gently at my feet, then whirling ‘round the drain.

Steam rises, capturing us together in its thick haze.
Now I can’t leave. The air outside the curtain,
It just doesn’t understand. It crawls over my skin,
Raising bumps across my arms like painful pricks.

Oh, but now it fades to cold.
The warmth washed away, so quickly.
I come to consciousness, so abruptly.
Just as I woke earlier, to the sounding alarm.

I turn its knobs to end the stream.
It’s over. I’m soaked and stripped.
And yes, I’ve wasted the hot water,
But it felt oh so good, you see.

The Seven Deadly Colors: Red

Leroy is big and black and ugly
uncultured and definitely homosexual
but he’s never made a pass at me
in the two weeks I’ve been in here.
He’s not really a bad sort but thank god
I’m not a pervert like him.

I tried to explain it all
how I was driven to follow my star
till it led me to the holy grail
the perfect innocence and love
but why did I think he’d understand
when nobody understands?

He pulled a knife from under his mattress
homemade shiny wicked.
Make love to this, you son of a bitch
any day now.

My first loves were sixteen
but they were a disappointment
too long in the world still beautiful
but innocence all gone.

Through an extensive test program
I established that the ideal age is two
completely uncorrupted
innocent but oh so aware!

My last love was not yet two
a shiny angel face golden curls
and in her last minute
like the others
she really loved me.

from the series “The Seven Deadly Colors”; a series of seven poems originally published in The Lamp-Post.