Cold Summer Day
Charles Bernstein
The boys in the park shine shoes, while nearby
Old men eat cheese sandwiches
As the cops give out tickets
And the tourists photograph everything in sight
Button-Pushers
Charles Bernstein
We were born to revolution
Invisible traces of lives gone wrong
Work is a jerk, laughing out loud
Pushing buttons behind closed doors
A gambler picking his own pocket
this poem centered:
Charles Bernstein
Diamond
Mother Nature’s answer
To every girl’s best friend
Of diamond ring to show on finger
And showing bride will wed
Sweet wedded bliss
Diamond
Myth Of A Dream Omitted From A Good Humor Truck
Charles Bernstein
Coldness,
Icycles foam from your mouth
Sleeping heavily five months or so
Warm shudders fill your truck, now idling in the alley
Dream of happy thought
Distribution of ice cream pops, to the little kids every spring and summer
And each season you went around, the children grew up faster than you ever did
Those same children gave their children, money for ice cream, pockets crammed with nickels and dimes
Little Stevie was the first customer there, he knew exactly when you chimed
Oh yes, those were the days of Frosty Malts, Dixie Cups and blue & white trucks
You no longer idle in the alley
Mass marketing has made your life miserable
And the children, like the dream have melted
Into a puddle of blue, white, and red
Moloch The Watchman
Charles Bernstein
I am in the middle of a room laughing with idiots
Fondly feeling a breeze
Rope of words slowly slithers down your throat
Hangs you by dawn, into dusk in midnight
Red faced smile sours blue
Oh thee downtrodden shall rise again
Mad wind of confederacy blowing
Making love in empty fields
Cold wind whistles through my spine
City strange city
Always expect the worst, hoping not to find my soul in the rundown grocery
Next to the Laundromat
Moloch eyes me like a sleeping watchman
Listening to me sigh
Listening to me sigh
Rehearsal Poem Number 5
Charles Bernstein
Fudge numbers
For the next ten years on your income taxes
Tell a sentencing judge,
“I was only in it for the money.”
Raindrops
Charles Bernstein
“You’re ugly,” he shouted in the rain to me.
I glanced back & said, “You’re ugly too.”
“You bastard,” he screamed with his eyes.
I walked away.
Harbored
Charles Bernstein
Jazz juke joints join arms of scrawny men
Wilted buildings without pause
Coffee hops of farmer’s pride
Dunk donuts in the morn while ruffled feathers in stone-face logic
Tare and oppose opposites with dreadful scorn
At The Lake
Charles Bernstein
Holding hands,
We abandon sorrowing tales of woe
Twisted New York suburbanized terrorism at its best
Raw egg faces glistening like rat teeth in your dreams
Holes disappear overnight
You are safe for the moment, safe here tonight
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