My Online Life
BROKEN TROPHY
Grandpa won it for boxing,
when palookas such as
Battling Bernstein, Two Fists D’Angelo, and Shillelagh O’Hara
would swagger to the ring and climb the ropes hoping to rise above the ghetto.
That gold pocket watch was a brilliant accessory for a high-class suit,
but grandpa never could afford to wear one.
I was seven when he called me over and said he would bequeath it to me.
He was always so proud of his fancy words.
He smiled, patted my head and said,
“When the great referee counts ten, when the bell clangs ending the last round.”
Soon after ten was counted with no loud bells to mark the finish.
But he was buried in an upscale suit.
It’s been decades. The watch spills out of the shoebox.
The minute hand sways loosely then falls off the center pin,
and the hour hand quickly follows.
The hands rattle around the circle of time.
The broken trophy is still worth its ounces in gold.
But the price of those ounces varies hourly,
and I have no way to track the hours now, even if I wanted to.
I imagine grandpa’s smile in the blank watch face,
I see my reflection in the crystal cover of the timeless timepiece,
and for a second I’m heedless of minutes and hours,
for no hand points the way.
ART CRITIC
My five-year-old draws with his hands as unsteadily
as a fledgling bird flaps its wings
or a newborn fawn rises on its legs.
Crayon is the medium for his aesthetic expression.
The artist has titled his work DadD y.
A physiological impossibility sprawls across the paper.
My eyes aren’t level.
One ear floats outside my head, and the other is inside it.
My sort of nose is above an upturned crescent moon
that seems to be a smile.
A down-turned arc is my chin.
I’m a shaggy, lightweight lollipop,
for almost all my mass has disappeared
from my stick-frame torso
with that lumpy circle on top
and four lines jutting out,
which most probably are limbs.
My left leg supports my entire body.
My right leg is raised to where my neck theoretically should be.
Neither appendage has feet.
However, my arms have elbows and end in hands,
though there are no palms.
But lots of fingers,
six on one and eight on the other.
Those hands and arms are spread wide
and slope downward
as if they were going to hug someone small–
my little Picasso, of course.
BEARER INSTRUMENT,
only those with too few would put their names on one.
Millionaires have too many and little need to,
for everyone wants to know their names.
These papers easily slip from fingers to oil
the wheels of commerce, making all transactions fluid.
Buying factory seconds, buying diamonds, buying crack,
giving to the Salvation Army,
it's all the same to the legions of Washingtons.
And those unknowns who inscribe their names on the green,
what do they hope for?
Dave Warden proclaimed his name in red
above famous George's face.
I accepted his name, no questions asked,
for that is the purpose of a bearer note;
its tender cancels its history,
except Dave's name,
which carries on through the chain of custody.
Dave, did you want someone to know your name?
You've succeeded.
I've inscribed a solemn oath.
"I won't forget you Dave,"
that's what I wrote in flaming red
behind George's back under, "IN GOD WE TRUST."
I bought a soda with my pledge.
Perhaps the instrument will boomerang
back to Dave and give him a thrill,
for what it's worth.
BAAL-ZEBUB’S VICTORY
Pronounced As: bal-zbb [Heb.,=lord of flies], a deliberate Hebrew distortion of the name of the god of Ekron in 2 Kings. In the Gospels of Mark and Luke, Beelzebul, the Greek form of the epithet Baal-zebul [Baal the Prince], is encountered. See Baal and Satan
The conquest comes in the nip,
and the escape merely a sta-y of execution.
The wound at first seems a mere prickling
like a sleeping leg awakening
and not at all like creeping gangrene.
A nick from a Komodo dragon’s tooth,
a cobra’s fang, a scorpion’s sting,
or laughing Satan’s pitchfork pinch,
and the body is betrayed.
But first there’s the fallacy of a clean getaway
and the delusion of invulnerability
as the venom courses through the veins,
or the infection spreads,
or the subversion of conscience turns less subtle,
while the miasma wafting
from droplets of blood from a sickening soul
draws the so patient Lord of the Flies even closer.
More and more the path meanders in circles
as the faltering prey loses direction,
and the relentless Lord trails ever more erratic footsteps.
Finally the fruition of that slightest break of skin
comes in the buckling of legs as the subverted spirit stumbles
and resolves into a lump of flesh.
Then the decay is ravenously devoured
by every manner of Baal’s vultures.
CROSSROADS
Wasn't supposed to stray past route 9 but I did.
Risky, an icy stare and stay in my room if discovered,
no dessert for a week either.
Went past route 9 to where 12 crosses 5.
There I learned the truth about pock marks on stop signs.
Heard rumors before but never believed,
I a visiting city boy.
But from behind the bushes I saw
a pickup truck stop, a shotgun appear then fire.
The pellets became clappers, the sign a mournful bell.
The rifleman was too young to drive, a little older than me.
He saw me. Cold look in his eyes. I cried.
The double barrel pointed straight at me,
dark bores stared at frightened eyes.
Held my hands up like the bad guys on T.V..
He said he could blow my face away
so far my mom couldn't find it.
He smiled, then pointed his shotgun high and fired.
"Yahoo, Yahoo," and drove on.
The backfire of the truck merged with the gun smoke,
a white choking fog on a country road.
Soiled my underpants, snuck back to the house,
changed my shorts, threw the damning ones out
my bedroom window, but my cousins saw.
They giggled but didn't tell.
At dinner couldn't eat, even dessert.
Said my stomach hurt.
Stayed in bed all of next day.
Cousins blackmailed me out of three of my toys.
They all smiled, smiles like the smile
I saw at the crossroads
above the steel rimmed black eyes that drew a bead on me.
DEAD LETTER DREAMS
Finally he slips one into his pocket.
Legions of lost missives.
A letter to John Doe c/o General Post.
Isn't he a species of John Doe,
filling slots from 9 to 5, overtime on Saturdays?
No return address.
One anonymous being trying to connect to another.
Alphabetical slots, walls of alphabetical slots.
Names are interchangeable.
Jane Doe to John Doe
or John to Jane
or Jane to Jane or John to John.
All the permutations,
the married to their secret lovers,
the obsessed to a lover lost or to one
who never existed.
Every kind of sorrow is addressed here;
none find resolution–
all find their proper slot.
Finally he slips one into his pocket.
Felony and loss of job no longer deter.
He will have company and mystery tonight.
Clues are written, he will expose them.
Or kiss this first envelope---more will follow.
In the world of return to sender, no return address---
he will become the universal addressee.
DISCOVERY
He had seen maggots before, a dead dog, a decapitated cat
white bones exposed like a half-peeled rotten banana,
but here a human form was out of place.
He ran out of the weeds to mom.
He wasn't allowed to reenter the weeds,
though the lot was his second home,
and he had seen maggots before.
Dead transient they said.
He didn't know what a transient was, or why it should be dead.
Mom held him close; the police gave him candy.
He overheard,
"Nightmares for life, poor little kid."
He cried, knowing
the louder he cried the more candy he'd get.
He knew maggots, he had seen them before.
They waited for things that fell and couldn't get up.
When mom once talked about grandma flying to heaven,
he imagined maggots below.
And he remembered the spider he once saw floating in air.
He saw a miracle before his eyes,
until the sun betrayed a silken thread
that tied the bug to a branch,
a branch that he could touch or tear.
Nothing flies skyward without rockets, sails, or wings.
He knew this and he knew maggots.
He held his mother tight, and lost his taste for candy.
Later at bedtime,
he asked mom to read a fairy tale,
so that he could sleep and dream
of last spring when grandma had pushed him on a swing.
A DIVISION OF LABOR
I should have known, even when we were driving home;
the windows were opened, the ocean odors blew in, you asked
if the scent of the familiar would rush
over the antennas and calm our blue-green bug,
and if we might pull over and set it free.
I should have known;
by the time it took you to arrange and rearrange
the pots, pans, butter, spices and spoons,
over and over, that the job would be mine.
With an embarrassed smile you opened your hands.
Like a windup toy its spindly legs jerked forward.
I seized it, up and over into the pot.
And above I held the boiling kettle.
I turned from you to hide my slight wincing,
my face near the rising steam.
A second, two, then directly over the head.
"To kill the brain, the rest is all reflex," I reassured.
Our meal turned as bright red
as the grasshopper I once burnt
when I was one of old King Lear's wanton boys
who picked apart bugs for sport.
Later,
candlelight, soft music on the tape, butter over cracked opened shells,
we scooped the meat and drank wine.
Across from me, a steely look as you vowed,
"Next time by myself, no more squeamish silly girl."
But I thought
if you were silly, then I wish you'd always be silly
in that way.
WRONG NUMBER
Awakened
and half asleep,
having just dreamed of her,
I reached for the phone.
I heard
the whirr and clicks in the receiver
as almost
unconsciously
I started dialing
my girl friend's number.
The ringing, the receiver being lifted,
"Hello I love you," I said.
But
the voice
was my ex-wife's.
I, she were speechless,
and I could hear
the whining of the telephone circuits.
WRECKAGE MAN
Saw him when I was ten,
a geezer, curmudgeon, suzerain over the usual junkyard dog.
Torn undershirt, gray hairs on chest, big muscular arms
can of beer, many cans.
Wasn't really a junkyard, the old man dealt in used auto parts;
salvaged what he could from broken wrecks,
those driven down to scrap or crushed by oncoming traffic.
I snuck through a hole in the fence.
My sneakers were blackened with engine oil.
I navigated through rusty hulks, tetanus perched on every sharp edge,
came out of the maze and was face to face
with the geezer and his dog.
Froze rigor mortis stiff.
The dog reared up and growled.
The junkyard king sat tall on his porch, rocking chair throne.
I awaited, "sic him."
But like a magnanimous Caesar he dismissed his fanged henchman
with a flick of his wrist.
He rose and went through the torn screen door, and out again,
with a bike, a ten-speeder, for me, for keeps.
He said come again but through the front entrance.
I rode away, never having spoken a word.
Found out later from the neighborhood,
that Moe once had a ten-year-old son
who never rode it, rheumatic fever.
Moe had bought the bike and put it by his bed,
to lure him up, to lure him up.
I never returned. And as I rode away I realized,
he was not like a Caesar, his eyes were too sunken and red,
and his voice was too low for such a big man.
Never went through the front gate but often rode by
as the lot filled with beer cans, and beer cans,
till it was all swept away for a shopping mall.
Then I'd dodge cars in the mall parking lot.
I knew then as I swerved my speeding bike left and right,
I never could have been his fantasy son.
Had to, had to
never again go through that gate.
Never thanked him, never can now.
WORK SCHEDULE
What is this unwelcome sight,
a striptease in reverse, a history of civilization,
Eden after the apple,
a microcosm of humanity's supreme melancholy?
The loss of the childlike feral in our bedroom.
Unabashed nakedness becomes opaque
behind wool, cotton and linen.
Hell, I'd sniff her butt like any mammal.
It's right here. But the alarm just rang,
and she's hauling it away from me
as she boldly struts to the window.
Her bare butt moons me and eclipses the sunrise.
Light silhouettes her soft curves.
She tosses her free swinging hair.
She turns,
and for one last moment an ape-woman displays before me,
as she moons the sun rising over the entire world.
Then I lose sight of her, fabric by fabric.
Her panties race up; her breasts jiggle into their cups.
Now she's fit for any public beach.
The rest follows the Monday morning mandate.
Bobby pins discipline her flowing hair, exposing
the sharpness of her cheeks and chin.
Those other cheeks now safely tucked away,
untouchable in the armor of a grey business suit.
Her breasts shielded by a starched shirt, jacket and narrow tie.
A knight of corporate combat clad in the pseudo masculine.
Ape-woman evolved to middle manager,
all by the time morning lost its golden hue.
Her curt farewell,
a peck on the cheek and a I've gotta run.
Door slams.
Off to the profit wars.
Pushed from the primeval to the proper.
WAITING
The only one in white I see
wears no halo or white robe,
is paid in cash off the books, is trying to make ends meet,
is sitting on the sofa in a white uniform that needs washing,
doing her job diligently when called,
and part of her job is sitting and waiting to be called.
In the bedroom the one who once diapered me is now in diapers,
troubled breathing, coughing phlegm, waiting.
No harps, just the radio blaring the same news every twenty minutes.
She and I are like two cocktail party guests,
who've paired off alone but with nothing left to say,
waiting for an excuse to part.
There is much in the heavens,
biblical shafts of light flickering on and off as clouds move,
a most distant vapor trail,
seagulls circling inland waiting for foul weather to pass.
And I, myself, alone
with head turned away from her
waiting for the sky to open revealing its warm blinding light,
but knowing all that will soon happen
is I'll close the blinds to darken the room.
USING MY BATHROOM VANITY
I look in the mirror and see the devil,
that handsome dude is combing his hair and straightening his tie.
I’ve also seen him in many other mirrors.
He’s a transvestite.
Sometimes he wears dresses and fusses with makeup.
If I ever could sneak into a crowded ladies’ room,
the reason for the long lines would be revealed.
In many mirrors
I’d see many incarnations of him dressed in many styles,
accessorizing his myriad faces, especially with lipstick,
but never with a 5 o’clock shadow,
for that I’d need the mirrors in the men’s room.
Right now, however, he’s in my mirror and in my face.
I don’t mind; after all, he’s one good-looking chap.
But there’s an annoying imp jumping up and down behind his shoulder.
Is it a he or she?
I don’t really know, because that midget keeps bobbing up and down too fast.
There’s definitely something circular above its head.
It could be either a halo or the wheel of an Edsel.
I also glimpse what could be the tips of two white wings,
or feather dusters attached to the shoulders by wires.
I could swear that damn bratty shrimp is sticking its tongue out at me.
Just for a moment I wish Mr. Goodlooking would step aside,
so I can tell that hyperactive troll to scram.
Then, with no more distractions, alone and intimate with my mirror,
I can marvel how that handsome devil marvels at what he sees before him.
TRAFFIC JAM
He lay there
right in the middle of the god-damn road.
Used some kind of greasy cloth for a blanket
and folded newspapers for a pillow.
Illuminated
by a line of headlights,
serenaded
by car horns,
and spoken to,
"Move you dirty bastard, outta the road,"
He just lay there.
Finally
he raised his head,
turned stomach-side down,
extended his arms
and pushed himself up.
Then he bent down
picked up a bottle
raised it over his head,
then put it to his mouth
and emptied it in one long gulp,
then threw it down,
splat!
He gave us all the finger
and lay down again
head on newspapers, body under cloth,
behind a barrier of broken glass.
NOT A THESPIAN EMOTING
I’m not an actor reciting other people’s words.
My lines are my own, and my character is not learned by rote.
There are no footlights to blind me to the audience.
No director prompts me to display more feelings or less,
and every one of my ers or ahs is unrehearsed.
I’m not paid to play another’s life;
my fee is that I play myself.
Like the Marx Brothers I’ve thrown the prepared script away
and just ad lib.
I needn’t thumb through the morning paper to read my review,
for I concoct my own notice even if no one notices me.
My performance is always Tony award caliber,
even if in certain scenes I cast myself as an extra.
And when I give my acceptance speech,
I’ll thank my mom and dad and all you lovely people,
even the waiter at the corner greasy spoon,
who gives me free extra coffee each morning
though it’s part of the breakfast special.
And if he ever asks, I’ll give him my autograph
on something other than a credit card receipt.
NOT A BUTTERFLY DREAMING
Am I a butterfly dreaming, or a man who dreamed he was a butterfly?
Chuang-Tzu
Not a butterfly dreaming for I have only a whimsy of flight,
and if I were to alight on a blossom the pollen would make me sneeze.
Besides, I’ve seen my true dreamer,
not as a vast vision among the clouds
but as a smudge on my bathroom wall.
He snores, needs a shave and clean underwear.
I even hear his stomach gurgle,
which explains my constant gas.
I can’t poke him awake, though sometimes I want to,
for I have no substance in his world.
I wish he’d have another wet dream.
Is he God?
If I’m his dream how can he be God?
Furthermore, if he were God
he’d have to dream all of you up also,
and not even Satan deserves such punishment.
No, I’m his dream alone.
Each of us is a creation of his own personal dreamer.
The insane among us walking city streets
scream to wake up their respective dreamers.
The so-called sane hear only the unanswered echoes.
I’m among the mad but I keep quiet.
Last night I glimpsed my dreamer on his dirty SRO cot.
He was the smudge in the mirror behind my reflection.
He was smiling, almost laughing in his sleep.
He always dreams of comedy, and that’s my nightmare.
RUBE GOLDBERG AS GOD
Reuben Lucius Goldberg was a grand designer
of clockwork cosmic complexity.
On paper he arrayed all the gadgets of creation
to shut off an alarm clock or open a dresser drawer:
golf balls, metal tubes, rubber bands, strings,
lots of meshing gears, and for ultimate power
legions of mice on treadmills chasing cheese.
A seamless synchrony of thingamajigs and whatchamacallits
to move widget A to gizmo Z.
But did Rube fool us rubes?
After all, he built no working models.
But engineering schools hold contests in his name,
and students compete to fulfill his divine purposes.
Which were?
Ha! Old Lucius was a cartoonist by profession.
He was also an engineer,
so he knew all the right equations.
Work equals force times distance.
Distance is defined as space between two places.
To go from place A to place B one needs direction.
But everyone gets lost eventually,
so we waste time yearning for automatic backscratchers.
Little work for lots of force
going small distances in every direction.
Like papers mindlessly stacked by an open window,
which are blown by the wind into mad swirls,
then settle on the floor.
Over and over they’re resorted, stacked again–
then whoosh.
SIGNING A SONG
Couldn't really read the signs being made in the bedroom.
Coats strewn over the bed,
behind me were party sounds,
clinking glasses, loud conversation, controlled laughter,
ahead of me a quieter place,
still there were sounds,
soft music from the bedroom stereo,
and in the subdued light
the green volume indicator light rarely moved to red.
And she danced,
not to the rhythm of the music
but to the flickers of the pulsating lights.
She faced me,
her arms were in a liquid flow,
first crossed over her heart, then slowly
down her sides then up high
when the lights briefly sojourned to red.
She closed her eyes, swayed her head,
then opened them, saw me and smiled
and again crossed her heart.
I had been told that she was deaf.
I knew one sign, the crossed arms over heart
which meant love,
though for whom or what I didn't know.
Her smile was universal.
I couldn't translate her lyrics,
nor could she hear the melody,
but we both held out our arms
and slowly danced across the room
moving to our own common rhythm.
CROSSCURRENTS
I curse, cradle him.
How dare he wither to such a state
that the bathroom recedes to light year distances?
That fecal smell, he averts his dimming eyes.
I give him a rare kiss.
"A man's a man," he always said,
but now pain parts the curtains of our proprieties.
"A man's a man," once with one arm
he picked up a seven year old who had scraped his knee,
"A man's a man," he said
and no tears dared come from me.
But now the crumpled bed sheet pinching his back brings groans.
On the back of his hand, five freckled spots
have measured his age with an ever darkening hue.
I link hands and see my inheritance;
his fingers part around the same design
that now faintly dawns in my skin.
I jerk my hand away.
Now mother comes, I yield my place.
Ever tidy, even now, I see her silhouette
against the sterile hospital lamp.
Napkins here, water glass there,
"Damn it woman for thirty years you've never stopped."
Then he winks at me and touches her.
Their arms link to form an L
which half frames the lamp
that now glares much too brightly.
WAITING
The only one in white I see
wears no halo or white robe,
is paid in cash off the books, is trying to make ends meet,
is sitting on the sofa in a white uniform that needs washing,
doing her job diligently when called,
and part of her job is sitting and waiting to be called.
In the bedroom the one who once diapered me is now in diapers,
troubled breathing, coughing phlegm, waiting.
No harps, just the radio blaring the same news every twenty minutes.
She and I are like two cocktail party guests,
who've paired off alone but with nothing left to say,
waiting for an excuse to part.
There is much in the heavens,
biblical shafts of light flickering on and off as clouds move,
a most distant vapor trail,
seagulls circling inland waiting for foul weather to pass.
And I, myself, alone
with head turned away from her
waiting for the sky to open revealing its warm blinding light,
but knowing all that will soon happen
is I'll close the blinds to darken the room.
The Stone Gatherer
"Yet grains of sand and the cosmos of stars are finite.
Eventually there comes an end to counting,
a final sum is reached."
I want to leave but there are no stones here.
Cold stones on cold marbles,
mourners mark headstones with rocks found on the ground.
It is the tradition.
Strangely every headstone is crowned,
the ones still visited by the grieving,
the ancient headstones once mourned
by mourners who, themselves, were mourned and forgotten,
and even the tiny faded and faceless marbles for long-ago infants.
Someone has gathered all the nearby rocks
and placed them as mourners' stones
on all the surrounding headstones.
Someone linked the forgotten headstones with the world of the living;
someone who can keep a distance from so much sorrow.
Who?
A workman passing time,
or perhaps Elijah moving under the moon and myriad stars.
I have to search for a stone.
I must wander far before I find one
and return to my place of private grief.
But when I finally leave and approach the gate,
there are rows of headstones overgrown with weeds,
that are bare, so bare, of mourners' stones,
I find myself gathering rocks.
Somewhere, someone is gathering six million stones,
a cenotaph of stones to remember, to mourn,
to keep ashes together and safe from blowing away.
AT THE FOLLIES
Life is a gum-chewing stripper,
a favorite honky-tonk act.
She wears any costume you want,
or a headdress of bananas.
Ms. Life plays all roles,
from shy schoolgirl
to Mistress Wanda cracking her whip.
But she peels it all off.
She milks each minute---a vaudeville smoothy---
while voyeurs in raincoats swoon
on broken-down chairs.
Comes the time
all secrets are finally exposed.
Behold,
a sweaty g-string tossed around a customer's neck.
Your neck, stupid.
The climax is a prancing, pimply, sagging butt.
End of show.
Well schmuck, what did you expect---
a golden ass?
If you don't like it---leave,
go drop your shorts in your bathroom,
turn your head,
and gawk in the mirror.
And if you liked it,
get the hell out anyway.
One show per customer.
There's a long ticket-holder's line outside.
Outta here---move.
THE CHAMPION RETIRES
Pity Goliath, scarecrow of the Philistines,
wide shield that hid a thousand quaking men.
Baal's champion, he made thunder
on command.
Skin tough as a shark's, dagger teeth, nine feet tall,
he was condemned never to look up at any man
even his king.
Trotted out like a standard before every battle,
he saved the hides of all the warriors
who could wet their pants in secret.
How many times did he answer the call,
"Hey Goliath, front and center?"
Caught in the work-a-day rut of killing,
how many times did he yell
his carefully rehearsed threats?
Never could his knees buckle, never
could anyone see his sword vacillate in his trembling hand.
And that shepherd boy, approaching,
to just inches short of his long shadow, that shepherd boy,
surely Goliath must have seen the stones picked up,
surely he must have seen the sling swung
in deadly circles, surely
he must have heard the rock swooshing like Baal's bad breath,
surely he had a lifetime of shunting spears and arrows
with a flick of his mighty shield,
a shield that became too heavy to lift.
CORONATION
There,
within the cloverleaf,
the wide circling ramp folded
around the grass, seemingly
gathering all the green in sight
against the expressway, which I
had just left,
compelled
to drop my speed
as I veered south,
there
I had to notice
first the profiles, then
closer swinging east,
a face to face view
of the mother
and her daughter's brown hair,
as over her little girl she held a paper crown,
while even my knocking engine went quiet
so I could hear,
"I dub you princess,"
then swinging north,
I saw the daughter's smiling face,
and I stopped
a bit longer at the stop sign
than I really had to.
EIDETIC MEMORIES
It was a whim this ferry ride.
I had called the office and conjured up
a business deal across the bay
to alibi my empty desk.
This morning:
my tie choked me,
my suit became ridiculous in the July heat,
my briefcase weighed me down with pointless papers.
My tie is off now; my neck can feel a cool breeze.
I seek my late father's memories,
those images he held in his mind
for fifty years after he had sailed into this bay.
He told me that
the sky was heavy with broken clouds,
through which sunlight pierced, dappling the bay
and spotlighting the pier,
as if God had pointed the way.
A sailor on a passing ship waved to him.
I am trying to enter my father's memories.
For I am the same age as he was when he died,
and my business suit also squeezes me
as tightly as it squeezed him.
But no sailor waves to me now,
and no biblical shaft of light
points the way to a promised land.
I can't claim his senses as my own
or trespass upon his private memories.
I've paid my fare as he once paid his.
It's my turn to cross on the ferry.
Yet that day at my father's office.
I am twelve; we are eating salami and cheese sandwiches.
Dad is drawing the face of the sailor
who greeted him on his first day here, fifty years before.
I recall the smiles most of all,
on my father's face
and on his drawing of the sailor.
FLIGHTS OF FRIGHTENING COMFORTING FANCY
"And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch. . . .
The name of the star is Wormwood.
A third of the waters became Wormwood,
and many died from the water,
because it was made bitter."
REVELATION 8:10,11
I think about what I might think
if this plane plunged into the sea,
with all of us reduced to a fiery Wormwood searing the sky,
with sunset to the West, gathering darkness to the East
and the fast approaching blue below.
No mindless panic, no soiled pants
rather I'd practice a Zen-like focus
on memories, on actions flowering from memories.
I'd recall two days ago when we screamed divorce.
But then I'd remember this morning's parting kiss
and her saying that she'll miss me,
our recent anger an inconvenient memory.
As I, as all my fellow travelers, fall
I'd rise above myself
keeping still amid the panicky Hail Marys.
I'd smile at the oxymoron of a downward ascent,
a heavenly, hellish release of soul from body.
But most of all there'd be the paradox of the parting kiss,
not a Judas kiss but a seal of loyalty,
as the plane cracked
and the ocean rushed in salty as tears.
CETACEAN CREED
Imagine our fantasies about them are true,
that they really had refined their songs
into a melody of words,
merged their herds into tribes,
invented politics, became aware of death,
and now yearn for a faith.
All their feelings are expressed lyrically
and through the flux of pressure waves.
Comrades swim in tight formation.
Soon a whale messiah, a supreme bard, summons the wayward,
singing that none should swim alone,
each should buoy the other in his slipstream.
In a world of motion,
this messiah's call travels the deepest currents across the oceans,
and all whaledom gathers and sways as he moves,
and is anointed by the gentle touch of his fluke.
The common prayer, a breach into the air.
They feel the winds which, by their creed,
sail upward to the inverted blue sea.
The clouds are worshiped as the sprays of ancestors.
Purgatory is the rocky shore,
the shoals pressed hard against their breasts
in a world where hardness is unknown
except at the end of their lives.
But their bard sees
beyond the dry terrain to the most distant shore
where the heavenly sea curves down to the land.
He sings of their loved ones who have washed ashore,
those ancestors who crawled on earth,
their sins scraped away by sand and stone
till they reach the horizon of the heavenly sea.
There they rise again, swimming upward,
breaching, spouting, filling the air with clouds,
while below those left behind
swim together with their bard.
In their world the living and the eternally living
swim in tandem across parallel seas.
AT THE FOLLIES
Life is a gum-chewing stripper,
a favorite honky-tonk act.
She wears any costume you want,
or a headdress of bananas.
Ms. Life plays all roles,
from shy schoolgirl
to Mistress Wanda cracking her whip.
But she peels it all off.
She milks each minute---a vaudeville smoothy---
while voyeurs in raincoats swoon
on broken-down chairs.
Comes the time
all secrets are finally exposed.
Behold,
a sweaty g-string tossed around a customer's neck.
Your neck, stupid.
The climax is a prancing, pimply, sagging butt.
End of show.
Well schmuck, what did you expect---
a golden ass?
If you don't like it---leave,
go drop your shorts in your bathroom,
turn your head,
and gawk in the mirror.
And if you liked it,
get the hell out anyway.
One show per customer.
There's a long ticket-holder's line outside.
Outta here---move.
THE CHAMPION RETIRES
Pity Goliath, scarecrow of the Philistines,
wide shield that hid a thousand quaking men.
Baal's champion, he made thunder
on command.
Skin tough as a shark's, dagger teeth, nine feet tall,
he was condemned never to look up at any man
even his king.
Trotted out like a standard before every battle,
he saved the hides of all the warriors
who could wet their pants in secret.
How many times did he answer the call,
"Hey Goliath, front and center?"
Caught in the work-a-day rut of killing,
how many times did he yell
his carefully rehearsed threats?
Never could his knees buckle, never
could anyone see his sword vacillate in his trembling hand.
And that shepherd boy, approaching,
to just inches short of his long shadow, that shepherd boy,
surely Goliath must have seen the stones picked up,
surely he must have seen the sling swung
in deadly circles, surely
he must have heard the rock swooshing like Baal's bad breath,
surely he had a lifetime of shunting spears and arrows
with a flick of his mighty shield,
a shield that became too heavy to lift.
CORONATION
There,
within the cloverleaf,
the wide circling ramp folded
around the grass, seemingly
gathering all the green in sight
against the expressway, which I
had just left,
compelled
to drop my speed
as I veered south,
there
I had to notice
first the profiles, then
closer swinging east,
a face to face view
of the mother
and her daughter's brown hair,
as over her little girl she held a paper crown,
while even my knocking engine went quiet
so I could hear,
"I dub you princess,"
then swinging north,
I saw the daughter's smiling face,
and I stopped
a bit longer at the stop sign
than I really had to.
EIDETIC MEMORIES
It was a whim this ferry ride.
I had called the office and conjured up
a business deal across the bay
to alibi my empty desk.
This morning:
my tie choked me,
my suit became ridiculous in the July heat,
my briefcase weighed me down with pointless papers.
My tie is off now; my neck can feel a cool breeze.
I seek my late father's memories,
those images he held in his mind
for fifty years after he had sailed into this bay.
He told me that
the sky was heavy with broken clouds,
through which sunlight pierced, dappling the bay
and spotlighting the pier,
as if God had pointed the way.
A sailor on a passing ship waved to him.
I am trying to enter my father's memories.
For I am the same age as he was when he died,
and my business suit also squeezes me
as tightly as it squeezed him.
But no sailor waves to me now,
and no biblical shaft of light
points the way to a promised land.
I can't claim his senses as my own
or trespass upon his private memories.
I've paid my fare as he once paid his.
It's my turn to cross on the ferry.
Yet that day at my father's office.
I am twelve; we are eating salami and cheese sandwiches.
Dad is drawing the face of the sailor
who greeted him on his first day here, fifty years before.
I recall the smiles most of all,
on my father's face
and on his drawing of the sailor.
FLIGHTS OF FRIGHTENING COMFORTING FANCY
"And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch. . . .
The name of the star is Wormwood.
A third of the waters became Wormwood,
and many died from the water,
because it was made bitter."
REVELATION 8:10,11
I think about what I might think
if this plane plunged into the sea,
with all of us reduced to a fiery Wormwood searing the sky,
with sunset to the West, gathering darkness to the East
and the fast approaching blue below.
No mindless panic, no soiled pants
rather I'd practice a Zen-like focus
on memories, on actions flowering from memories.
I'd recall two days ago when we screamed divorce.
But then I'd remember this morning's parting kiss
and her saying that she'll miss me,
our recent anger an inconvenient memory.
As I, as all my fellow travelers, fall
I'd rise above myself
keeping still amid the panicky Hail Marys.
I'd smile at the oxymoron of a downward ascent,
a heavenly, hellish release of soul from body.
But most of all there'd be the paradox of the parting kiss,
not a Judas kiss but a seal of loyalty,
as the plane cracked
and the ocean rushed in salty as tears.
CETACEAN CREED
Imagine our fantasies about them are true,
that they really had refined their songs
into a melody of words,
merged their herds into tribes,
invented politics, became aware of death,
and now yearn for a faith.
All their feelings are expressed lyrically
and through the flux of pressure waves.
Comrades swim in tight formation.
Soon a whale messiah, a supreme bard, summons the wayward,
singing that none should swim alone,
each should buoy the other in his slipstream.
In a world of motion,
this messiah's call travels the deepest currents across the oceans,
and all whaledom gathers and sways as he moves,
and is anointed by the gentle touch of his fluke.
The common prayer, a breach into the air.
They feel the winds which, by their creed,
sail upward to the inverted blue sea.
The clouds are worshiped as the sprays of ancestors.
Purgatory is the rocky shore,
the shoals pressed hard against their breasts
in a world where hardness is unknown
except at the end of their lives.
But their bard sees
beyond the dry terrain to the most distant shore
where the heavenly sea curves down to the land.
He sings of their loved ones who have washed ashore,
those ancestors who crawled on earth,
their sins scraped away by sand and stone
till they reach the horizon of the heavenly sea.
There they rise again, swimming upward,
breaching, spouting, filling the air with clouds,
while below those left behind
swim together with their bard.
In their world the living and the eternally living
swim in tandem across parallel seas.
SHADOW PATHS
Your shadow has an unfair reputation.
It doesn’t always trail.
It’s not simply a negative of your former self.
It’s not just a glass-jaw boxer sparring with you.
Sometimes a shadow leads.
At sunrise it points to the remaining darkness
if you turn your back on the rising sun.
At sunset it points to the remaining light
if you turn your back on the setting sun.
At high noon it points nowhere,
but there’s enough light for everyone to find their way.
Each day your shadow awaits you,
like a puppy with a leash in its mouth.
Will it lead or follow?
That depends on how and when you choose to face the sun.
ROSEMARIE
I was four or maybe five, that part is vague.
But my memory of Rosemarie isn’t, not now.
My dad’s easy chair was mine at Howdy Doody time,
except when Rosemarie’s mom came over for coffee,
then Rosemarie would always get my chair.
Mom whispered to me that Rosemarie
was, or had, a bad kid three, or kid thee.
I didn’t understand what she meant.
But the chair was supposed to be mine until dad came home,
especially when Howdy danced on the black-and-white TV screen.
Whenever Rosemarie watched they’d move the chair so close
that she seemed nose to nose with the marionette.
I’d throw spitballs at her from behind.
She’d have to pick them out of her hair.
I’d hide behind the towels and blankets being hung up to dry.
She’d never see me though my feet always stuck out.
I thought she was stupid for a six-year old.
Later mom told me that she could hardly see.
I thought it funny that Rosemarie rhymed with hardly see.
All this was before dialysis was perfected.
The chair was mine after my mom told me that Rosemarie went to heaven.
But this morning in my waking haze,
I saw Rosemarie on my easy chair
watching the TV I had left on all night.
A kiddie show was on,
but such shows are no longer in black and white
or star puppets attached to strings that rise up
to somewhere unseen above the screen.
I hid from her under my blanket,
even though I threw no spitballs,
and mother was no longer around to scold me.
OTHER PRIZES
There could be only one winner and only one prize,
if a girl then a Barbie doll, if a boy then GI Joe.
The needle skipped along vinyl grooves
as seven-year-olds marched in a circle.
The first ones left standing simply smiled,
for their hopes were too farfetched.
But the fifth one stamped her foot,
and the sixth one cried,
even though he was a big boy of seven.
The name of the game was musical chairs,
but the same rules apply to any game.
The hopeful contestants dwindle in number
as losers gather on the sidelines.
John and Ann were the final two.
Once more the scratchy music suddenly stopped.
But both made it to that last chair.
A boy and girl, GI Joe and Barbie,
the compromise fitted as snugly
as the winning pair fitted on that chair.
But the game master’s rules were strict, immutable,
and irrevocable–
one prize only, no sharing.
But there are other prizes.
They didn’t budge.
The shrill tune started again,
while the game master danced the two prized dolls before them,
but they still didn’t move.
They sat,
two on that chair for one,
and held each other’s hand tightly,
as if they were holding Barbie or GI Joe.
EDITOR IN CHIEF
God is no highfalutin author at a ritzy writer’s retreat.
Contrary to rumor,
he has never penned a tome titled The Eternal, Immutable Book of Life.
And at today’s hectic pace,
He can no longer put down his pen, lean back,
and solemnly proclaim, “It is finished.”
God is the editor of the Daily Cosmos,
and so never has the luxury of inscribing “The End”
on any of His creations.
In fact, He has no time to inscribe anything;
He only jots down barely legible comments.
He’s underpaid, overworked,
and is always being sued for libel
by self-pitying readers who don’t realize
that He merely prints the news they themselves make.
Since his readership and advertising base expanded,
He has become too busy to dine at any last suppers anymore.
He gulps down egg-salad sandwiches
while furiously editing copy.
The yellow stuff drips on his shirt.
Always under pressure, He’s not perfect.
Typos, misquotes, wrong birthdays, premature or out-of-date obituaries
sometimes escape his blue pencil,
for there’s always that deadline to meet,
if the Cosmos is to hit the newsstands early each morning.
But He never plagiarizes,
because He has only rival to copy from,
the editor of The Subterranean Flame.
Unlike his competition, He allows retractions.
And He actually bothers reading all letters to the editor,
but answers only those questions
that can’t be found by simply reading The Daily Cosmos.
But most letter writers, instead of reading,
put on walkman earphones,
making themselves deaf to the world,
while dancing all alone
to music only they can hear.
