The Cynic

I try to keep my cynic in a cage

I guild each bar so she stays

her mouth is foaming with the lies

fed by silver spoons gleaming like war planes

in the sky

Sometimes her mind is buzzing

like multitudes of preachers and popes on Sunday morning

muttering and shouting and searching

like a distant click clack of a train car

humming like a motor, a truck, or powerlines

Other times it is quiet and dark

as black as the inside of a coffin

of a small child killed by an American bomb.

Sometimes she lays there not knowing what to do

sometimes the sadness is so heavy

it's not the weight of the world 

but the difference between worlds

that has her down.

Then she awakes in the morning like a bird

but doesn't sing.

She's mad but it's not the mad hatter mad

from being stoned on the lead of American boredom.

It's a sinking mad, feeling the weight

of the darkness of the caves in Afghanistan.

She rattles the cage. If she wasn't in the cage,

we might not hear her at all.

She trembles the bars

reverberating to the heart of those who have lost

too much.

Hangs in the air like the stare of a young child looking

at the space where his arm used to be,

grunting to do daily tasks,

always thinking of land mines

in the back of his mind.

Even in this one grunt I hear

a whole coughing dissonant symphony of 

foreign policy. Foreign...policy?

Kink the hose of infinity.

The Devil's Palate

It was not red paint but the light of the fire 

which splashed when the embers moved.

The Devil himself sometimes makes appearances.

Stoking the fire brings him out of the coals.

Stirring the salt and pepper of the ashes

one loose stream of light ventured forth

disappearing into the air as he swallowed it.

Half Way There

Eighteen minutes left before we leave.

Didn't you set the car keys where I would remember them?

The earth is moving and I can't see the sun.

Not with these sunglasses on.

Where is your other ear?

Did you hear what I was saying?

This window is not going to go down.

I had it fixed last week.

Are you kidding me?

We're halfway there.

Are you going to get the keys or did you leave them by the gas pump?

Didn't you believe me when I told you?

No I wouldn't have known.

How would I have known that you need shades to see?

No, this isn't a time to argue.

But I heard you say...

One chance to go down to New Mexico in black leather jackets high on the night air, fixing to die on torn blue jeans that hug our knees like the riddles of ancient days. Slapping our thighs in time to jazz, wondering if our feet are too loud as we tap morse code lullabies in time to the pounding piano, heaving and sighing like a whale thrown onto a beach while the ocean roars out with its clattering sticks and snare drums, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog, it never stops and it's not going to. We will have to head out the door whether we are ready or not.

We have no time left.

Joy and Mud

Joy is not muddy. It is a vibrant river, fresh from the mountain tops. When you're feeling cold, could you be my snow? All I ask is that you melt and run to me, wearing down every haggard rock in my brain until it is fine sand. Let's walk on the beach, shall we? Take my hand. Let's skip stones and talk of old times. I will pick up a stick and we will draw in the sand. Dragging it closer to the water, the sand becomes mud-like. The stick drags, and each new design is erased, as quickly as it is drawn, by the constant lapping of the waters. What then? Will you look at me with wide searching eyes, and say I told you so?

1,000 Tuesdays

The pigeons and I under the viaduct

see the faded colors of the mural

I touch my hands to the paint

The trains don't come here anymore,

the last train to pass here

was 1,000 Tuesdays ago.

It raced there on the way to a black coffee boardroom

I was commuting in blue jeans

to the last creative ramp to board the arc

not realizing I was a unicorn

and that there are often free tickets to the Titanic.

It's hard to explain if it was a sense of ambition

or just a sense of purpose which drove me then

but I know it's something else now.

The color is deeper, even the black of the mural

although faded, is more opaque

than the coffee ever was.

Moving Through Time

(3)

Flip a dime, the world itself is a gamble.

It took decades to meet you 

now that you're here I hardly know you.

Let us talk over tea, my consciousness and I.

I will wager that the wheel is round

and you will say just wait, you'll come around.

(2)

Flip a dime, you're bound to win.

It took decades to meet you again

now that you're here I hardly know you.

Let us meet again, as if for tea,

I can talk with you, and you with me.

Let the sunshine fall into the window

and give us the stillness of the day

you, my consciousness and I.

(1)

Basking in the warm glow of the unknown

betting my last dollars that wheels were indeed round

and all I had to do was spin.

The minimum wager was the whole of existence

and the funny part is that once you're in

you're bound to win.

It took decades to meet you again

now that you're here I hardly know you.

Let us meet again, as if for tea,

I can talk with you, and you with me.

Let the sunshine fall into the window

and give us the stillness of the day

me, my consciousness and I

moving through time.

Cupid's Cello

When cupid begins to play the cello

and art becomes a sky of rising suns

clouds of color soft as feather pillows

stretch up like fingers reaching for a drum

The humming of the birds and crickets too

join in this joyful melody we sing

The steady hands begin to strum the lute

and Cupid's bow goes deep into the strings

Composer's notes, nah, he doesn't bring it

He follows closely the rise of each kiss

What sheet music does Cupid use for this?

None I've ever seen, I think he wings it.

Exodus Street

I live on Exodus Street. Things are always moving. Last night I saw the Northern Lights richocheting off of the lamposts and hovering silently above the clouds, their rainbow fireshow heaving glowing darts higher than the sky could hold. The light seemed not to run out, but to simply go towards infinity. We were in the tenement buildings, pasted to the walls were the cut-out pictures of fashion girls and stock market reports which we had painstakingly removed from the magazines and newspapers with the sharp, tart taste of temptation and then cut with the dull scissors of addiction. The office boys had circled the word "Sell" in red pen, and we had picked up all the extras in the mail room, back when messages reached their destinations and when radios had knobs and rock stars had hair and--what? Where are you going? Not you, too? It seems things had just been waiting to fall off the ledge. The lemmings were out, the zoos were full of politicians and their tiny feet were creating dust storms as they ran closer and closer to the cliff. It seems everyone was running from a bum deal, getting the "bums rush." He had been on the park bench for too long, with all of his things, and the. Falling, falling, falling. 

Train Wreck in Kansas

I read a poem that made me think, I cannot write a poem at all.

It made my words just birds ramming into windows,

it made my ideas just fists busting into walls.

No, seriously, it was quite good.

It was thought out in metaphor and each piece lead to the next

I realized I have a far way to go

to lift the sideways steam engine

from the Kansas plains

and remove the debris from the prairie 

and find beaty in the

sundrenched metal

and find soul in the

tipped over coal

in this 

train wreck.

The Way of Things

Basking in the glow, the ember rolls and falls

into the cool water and goes out.

I suppose that this is the way of things.

Which One

Skirting the issue, sifting through tissues, tamping the coffee grounds before making cappucino.

Sucking the life out of the balloon, mangling the mud before the monsoon.

Crimping the hair before the big dance, stamping the letter and taking the chance.

Her odd choice of clothes echo and fold, she is wearing the mask on her head.

Why not put it on her face? Instead she lifted the sheath of papers, stuck between the pages of the books she was constantly rubbing the ink talking about how it smelled. I wonder if in her mind is a series of bells, hanging on strings, and she never knows which one to pull.

Cafe Lighting

At the cafe, all the corners of the napkin were upside down. A girl with orange hair placed a steaming cup of tea on the table while above me I heard a bird rustling, then taking flight. Later, in the dark, almost asleep, my mind was counting the shadows and the thieves.

When I read a book in private later, on the train, the musty smell of the bookstore rushed into my nostrils. The clerk laughed, which stirred his short beard, when I asked if the book was fiction or non-fiction. The letters on the side of it read "Titian."

I wrote my number on the napkin, in ballpoint pen, next to the incense. Love was a 10-sided dice. I hoped he would call, yet I didn't want to talk. I wanted to hear the radio frequency in the bookstore again, to undress my intellect and bathe in the static of a thousand minds humming on the shelves. With the pictures stored in my mind, even with my eyes closed, I could write an entire novel on a napkin, if the light was right.

No More Sirens

The tender time to test my fate has come

The pirate ship has sunk and I'm adrift

The jug of rum is unstuck from my thumb

the world still wiggles underneath my ship

The Earth in all her curves looks flat to me

Perhaps I've spent too much time on the sea

Looking at the far-off curved horizon

Each slip and swell taking me ever near...

yet I can't reach what I have my eyes on

The harbor of my home she will miss

She's in Hades with her cape of chaos

The monks in saphron robes are not so far

eyes glisten as I listen to the stars

my elbows perched on the crow's nest up high

I almost hear the Heavens start to sigh

So close am I when tunderstorms let go

torrential rains then chill us to the bone

we are safe just by the skin of our teeth

when skies clear and sunlight offer relief

yet the moment I feel like I'm alive

is when I listen and I hear the storm.

Her and I speak through some ancient channel

A conch shell to the ear the static calls

Mysteries of the sirens and stone gods

The blue-black ooze of her blood now runs cold

All I see, a constellation shattered

Romance in the stars that never matttered.

True North?

I wandered on the sea foam sprays.

Posiedon's trident driven in her heart.

Her madness echoes into the coral

My sadness comes out through the darkest cave

The lips she once kissed have become

her rage.

The Calendar for the Meek

The meek will inherit the Earth. 

The sleek and slender fashion model will inherit the stares, when she is tilted on the magazine rack as I am buying brass tacks. 

I speak like a fish out of water, bubbling to the surface I argue with the cashier about coupons.

Capitalism lives to see another day.

Keep me posted when the ruthless don't win.

Keep me posted when your postcards show flowers and not strange fruit.

Keep me up to date, I want to see the world that is behind the sunglasses

of the blind piano player.

Bird of Paradise

The bird of paradise stopped on a tree, hung out on a branch, then flew away from me.

I watched him as he flew, and disappeared into the sky.

I wonder if that is paradise, whatever is out there.

Wherever he is flying to.

College

They said to read Shakespeare, Milton and Freud, 

and for life I would be better prepared.

I could go into Accounting or Law,

and slay boredom with a sword made of glass.

My friends were dressed in black and sulked a lot,

they were hip to the culture of changes.

I was caught in a dream of Cubism,

on the edge of perspective, awaiting hue.

LIFE

 

Sometimes I grab an egg that I think is hard boiled, and it's not.

BENT METAL

Bent metal rusted scraped the blacktop with a fist

Busking for the coins I dropped inside the well

Did I blow my fortune just to trade it for a kiss?

Only time knows and only time will tell.

The rats in the alley are smashed under wheels of trucks

Their bones completely flat they end up like

bear skin rugs underneath my shoes

Am I roadkill on your alley boots?

Why Do Stars Fall?

(2) Stars are tiny shards of glass, thrown from the windows of a tall building in the sky. Many stars together make up a window, and there are many windows in this giant black skyscraper we know as space. The word skyscraper is ironic as it doesn't scrape the sky, it covers the sky, and bends with the arc of the universe to cover it entirely. 

What is more is that each window glows with an office light. There are many many beings who make up the workings of the Universe, and they work here. Each window of stars, or galaxy, has an office behind it. Beings works there, on their computer, drinking moon coffee, for Infinity Corp. 

We can't see them during the day becuase of the blue curtain with the clouds on it. This is where the beings work, making the meaning behind the curtain. During what we call night, they take a rest and sleep, yet the office lights are on. The cleaning crew is there, running the vaccuums, which sounds like thunder. Once in a while, the vaccuumers see the light bulbs are burning out. They change the bulb and have nowhere to put it, so they throw it out the window. It is just glass, but it catches the light, just for a moment, as it falls. We see the falling star, and we say "make a wish."

(1) Why do stars fall? They are tiny shards of glass, thrown from a tall building. The stars are actually windows, to a giant skyscraper which is black. It is so tall that it covers the sky, and bends too. Each window is an office light. Each light or sparkle has an office behind it. Someone works there, on their computer, drinking moon coffee, all during the day. We can't see them then becuase of the blue curtain with the clouds on it. This is where the people work, making the meaning for all of the universe behind the curtain. At night, they take a rest, and are sleeping, but we can see the office lights are on. The cleaning crew is there, running the vaccuums, which sounds like thunder. Once in a while, the vaccuumers see the light bulbs are burning out. They change the bulb and have nowhere to put it, so they throw it out the window. It is just glass, but it catches the light, just for a moment, as it falls. We see the falling star, and we say "make a wish."

When the Stranger

When the stranger looks at you strangely, for he is a stranger, as he passes, you catch a spark of light. The shield on his blue-eyed cornea, the concave lens, brimming at his eyeball's edge, glistening.

It was just a sideways glance but now your mind is choking like a bent garden hose, then a faucet runs clean, and there is an undercurrent of thought rivers, polluted by his sympathy.

You feel a pull as the ego magnet is multiplying, a sunrise above a lake, the sliver blossoms into the fat sun of fire then dips down like a roller coaster into an ember when he looks away.

When was that moment, when you thought he knew you?

HEROICS

There's no standard handbook for heroics.

You climb the building and sit on the ledge,

looking out over the land below. 

Simmering butterflies line your stomach.

Calm your nerves with nicotine, when they start to fray...

No one wants to clean up this crazy mess.

"Jumping is not an option!" the birds say, the clouds mutter, "put your heart back in your chest."

Sew up your sternum and just sit, for no war was ever won in one day.

Justice seems to move, but move just a little bit, like when the clouds move over the sun, 

the day is grey but who notices? Your vision is behind your closed eyelids. You see sun spots.

You stand on the ledge, stoic. Up here, your feet are as planted and firm

as if they were on the earth.

PLASTIC MARJORIE

Plastic Marjorie, you live your life in a jelly jar

never looking at the stars you're always in the cupboard laying bare

Plastic Marjorie you are destined to be full of vinegar at 

inopportune times

and say the wrong thing at cocktail parties.

Plastic Marjorie, won't you let me take you to the dance, one more time?

Let your black dresses flow, your silk hats taper into the windstorm

up on Broadway street where the rats and the tapdancers step in time

to gravel 

Hurtle across my space time, ok Marjorie?

Put your hair in curlers, trip out while staring at the wall

many dinosaurs died to make you even...plausible.

The Rim of the Cup

The smooth circle has haunted men since Leonardo's time

as they tried to draw it and divide it and make it square inside

How will I believe the sun is merely an echo

of the top of my coffee cup?

This circular line, the orbit of us all.

Did you feel the heat of the sun today, cascading down your back?

Burning your skin with its piercing, as if jealous of you

down here on Earth while she is stuck in the sky

hanging there like a chandelier, burning for all time,

do you ever think of how SHE feels?

No I just crept into the shade

to dream and inhale the darkness

The corners were all so sharp there

the sidewalk, the curb, the edge of the buildings

The power lines, now those were a mess

strewn up on the pole like my Aunt Jenny's jet black hair

as she piled it up with giant sea shell clips

How did electricity ever get through that yarnball

to power the refrigerators and the washers

or start the day when someone plugs in a toaster?

It comes down from the pole in a straight line.