NO ONE WANTS

No one wants
wants to be a poet
after they die,
ghosts whispering
quatrains and cantos
through the
frayed curtains,
the tea cups
and saucers
rattling
in iambic fury,

The food pantry
free versed
beyond belief
and edibility,
seems most
desire to be
the shakers of chairs,
tappers of hollow walls,

The lead footed
specters traversing
squeaky floorboards,
most would rather
moan like Janis Joplin
in the empty nighttime hallways,
not recite Sappho
from the widow's walk.

Me?

I would rather not die
and keep
my good looks
but, you know
how it goes
tough shit
too bad
no one expects
the grim reaper
and his bony IOUs.

EACH AND EVERY

The prayers
remembered from birth
 are song titles
for the anonymous
of the world
or the first lines
of seeping
through the drapes
of every confessional
found in musky church corners,

 

Each word
unsaid echos
in obvious boxes
of a make believe
philosophy, 

It remains
for you
decide
if you're going to
go back to bed
when there
are no dreams
left on the sleep train
or if you'll
rise and yawn
and get pissed off
because there's
nothing left
of the world
you loved

 

Except an empty
cup and
paper filters
brimming with
damp,
depleted coffee grounds.

 

INSOMNIA

After the meals

and late-night monologues

and before the

insinuation of dreams,

dark birds

of odd piece

slumber on

power lines

and branches

intersecting with

the dance hall glare

of the autumn moon,

they will wake

and sing

or croak

or merely take

immediate flight

into the rising of a sun

that rises

without apology,

but you lie

awake

in the half state of

knowing where

you are and

where you're going,

the shape of the room

morphs

and reassembles

while the

sound of every awake

and moving thing

in the city after dark

seems to pass by your front door

dragging feet and

cumbersome tools

to and fro

in the hall,

sudden sounds

of music,

a helicopter over the shore line,

unhoused lovers in the

laundry room

playing doctor in the dark,

all you

can think about

is how it seems

to be Pearl Harbor every day

until at last

you slide into

the dramas

writ for a stage

propped between

heaven and what

we understand

to be earth.

SUPERHERO FATIGUE

The pull of gravity

and the sound

of leaf blowers

make for manslaughter headaches

in land filled with

citizens feeling

they are owed

much more

than the miracle of knowing

they've come this far

through the

events of their

private superhero movie .

The world has ended

too many times,

the center breaks loose

and road repair guys

lift it from the intersection

and place back on its axis,

so many of our rights

have been violated

when dark satanic forces

put mayonnaise on their

peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

They say bad taste is delicious and

reading is a major cause

of thinking out loud,

I mean

jazz can't make up its mind

what notes to stick with,

poetry drifts from

fond images of picnics

to world war terrors

fast as cars going over

cliff side curves,

architecture is

all pick up sticks

and superglue

gone insane,

I mean

the skyline looks like

cups filled with

sharp pencils

of uneven lengths

reaching to a sky

we can't see anymore,

oh god,

my mood is

darker than

water stains

on black construction paper,

I mean,

what gives?

I am leaving the cape

at the cleaners,

I will wear

my underwear

under my pants,

the initial on my shirt

will be removed

because this is not

a red letter day.

NOSTALGIA

The world 
we worship
is now 
where bad breath
starts the cars
and the stars
in the sky
have less meaning
than chandelier crystals
lost in a small box
inside a larger box
stacked high
in the moving van
and tied down
with cords
that play music 
you never wanted
to hear.

The city

is dark
with sidewalks
that crack
with the rising
of shallow graves
and the roots
of trees
that are patient
and persistent
as they push
aside our 
chatter about God and Destination
and the Rights of Man 
to conquer the earth
with stakes and
flimsy symbols
of power,
the trees
crack the sidewalks and destroy
the water pipes,
and the damn thing is
that we know
the forests
is only just 
getting started.

GREETINGS FROM AN INSUFFERABLE MURK

No one seems to

imagine a time

in their history

when things that

made no sense become

even more so.

Welcome to

the crossword world

designed by Beckett

and Artaud.

Greetings from

an insufferable murk.

The whiskey warehouses

are full of empty barrels

while the beer trucks

are overturned on

expressways and interstates.

More than cups

runneth over,

pedestrians are

stranded on

America's traffic islands

nationwide because

the traffic signals

are as confused

as we are.

Did we come this far

over all this time

just to bury

things that made sense

and made our lives

hum and rhyme with

purpose with occasional laughter?

SING THESE NOTES

 

Sing these notes you have

from the tablature writ

on the clouds,

It's a sunny day over snow capped

Asian mountains.

Pray at altars

in cathedrals

erected on land

where the sleeping dogmas lay,

Every white bearded sage

we've worshiped

cannot give us rain or relief

from being ourselves.

The love we've taken

and given in resentment

remains on the acres

we lived upon and

traveled among.

Our diaries, scrapbooks,

our pages drifting

in the digital ether

are filled with hillsides,

muddy roads,

bridges over unbreachable chasms,

cats sleeping on sofas,

skylines from Shanghai

to Seattle,

All the sites we might

have said "I am"

and "I am here"

and "And now I bid

you adieu "

Yes, we sing in our sleep

and dream after we wake,

stare across the lake

and imagine who

is sleeping now

in his bunk on

that cargo freighter

on the horizon

and wonder if he

dreams of lovers in ports

sing love songs

in a language

odd and alluring.

As you wonder

and as he might dream,

wakes wash up to

the lake shoreline,

rushes over rocks

and slabs of concrete,

the water runs off

and the smallest

bit of our home

is washed away,

the rest of the world

draws us closer

and nearer

to the heaven that seeks us.

ANGRY POEM

 

I am wringing my hands

until they bleed,

blasting my

stereo

until every ghost

in the city

complains to

the cops,

I am asserting

my right to

not care a speck

about what gets wrecked

or pecked to death

under inspection

as I scream

at the traffic

that passed this

corner a day ago,

large old men

in tights

and bandanas

tear off their tee shirts

on a stage that

is slippery with drool,

suddenly every

kind word is a crime

only the gallows

can forgive.

THE HARDER WE TRY

A shelf full of 

antique clocks 

that have no 

big or little hands.

Day and night 

follow one

another even as

our chatter and

toys take us 

out of the actual

moment we're in.

A drawer full

of empty Scotch tape dispensers,

rubber bands of many colors,

paper clips 

bent out of shape

to retrieve small things

and hold other things together,

many dead batteries,

lots of flip top phones

from a more promising part of the century,

matches from jazz clubs.

The harder 

we try,

the more trying it gets.

Jill, I can hear 

you laughing

as I say these things,

there was nothing

on my keychain

that could start the car,

each key

was to doors

in far away zip codes.

A watch

with no little or big hand

on the dial

will not stop the 

hair from falling out,

the eyesight failing

or the new pains

that emerge each

week , regular as subscriptions.