One small gripe dropped
On me over our morning meal
Unusual coming from
Across the breakfast plates

Your grimace
Accentuated what was labeled
A slight beef
To begin the day
About last night
When all of our world
Was supposedly sleeping

Most of the covers
Gathered on my side
Of our sleigh bed
Tucked around me

At least this nitpick
Was something tangible
Unlike the night before
When I danced all night
With your sister
In your dreams
While you were
Left sitting
on the sidelines

Positive thoughts are packaged with depressing discouraging chants in a plastic punnet.
I don’t know how to cope with that...
So to satisfy the thirst of my ever dangling drought of accomplishment,
I jam the thoughts in a blender on top speed.
Wait for the deafening swirl of the blades to stop,
And I lap up the monotonously foul “you are going no where’s”
With the chewy chunks of “you got out of bed, welldone’s”,
Slump back into a rotting pine chair,
And I glide through the emptiness.

It was, as the New York Times all but sniffed
(Even then, a haughty mix of bluenose and black ink)
Further proof the poor, misguided Upstate rubes
Were no more than ample fodder
For any tinhorn, two-bit confidence man to take for a ride.
Fair enough—it was, to the careful eye and unheated psyche
Clear as the azure blue sky that,
Despite the best efforts of acid wash and a year underground,
So obviously a statue as to be absolutely laughable,
And yet the vox populi came in waves,
Not only one-gallus farmers from the fields nearby,
But from the great cities near and far
(Chicago, Philadelphia, and, yes, even New York itself
To throw Hannum a quarter to view his gargantuan grotesquery
Just as described in Genesis itself, he noted solemnly
So many, indeed, that Barnum himself was divinely inspired
Not only to purloin the giant, but its prior owner’s epigram
As to the frequency of the manufacture
Of his too-credible customer base.
While there was (briefly, at least) some mystery surrounding
The origins of the brobdingnagian mass of stone,
It remained (to some, anyway) equally unfathomable
Why scores of folks would careen in unsteady coaches
The full length of the Catskill Turnpike,
With its questionable lodging and uneven roadworthiness,
Or patiently suffer the mosquito-laden flatboats of Clinton’s Ditch
All to spend the cash equivalent of two trips to the county fair
To see a perfectly good hootchie-kootchie show
Simply to gawk at an unevenly carved rock of questionable authenticity,
But that explained quite simply,
As the public always gets what the public wants.

When the snow melted
it took chunks of the road in its thaw.
Potholes sunk
where the water slurpped
away the under-soil.
Silence left with the white
now more venture outside
overstocking supplies
"we'll n'er run out again,"
one swore.
And cats are back spraying,
and dogs barking in confusion.
And the crocus buds to remind me
nothing has really changed
in all this change

I hear it
half in the bag of blankets
with an empty glass of wine
dumped
Between--
the furnace rumbling on
and the cat purring on my lap

"What the hell!"

That foreign sound!--

...of water in the winter
Far too cold for rain
more like a forest stream's refrain
I start to think of birds-- Then it occurs

I have a problem in the basement

Wading into the waters of Lake Laundry
Glancing warily for those snakes of wires
suspended from their rafter's limbs
about to spit and snag me
with their lightning strike

Slamming that ****
to make it go--
away--

Defeat
dripping off
jeans and unders
A clothes line pinned
with curses

Ah yes.
The smell of the Tide ...
going out
on another day

He creates alternative facts
for no good reason
just to be an ***
what the hell for
don't ask me
he thinks someone is listening
to everything he has to say
all the lies he tells
taking pictures of himself
through the microwave
lying through his teeth
about his taxes
throwing mirrors at stones
shattering the truth
roaming his labyrinth
fiddling with his ******
while Rome burns
with little hands all a twitter
making up political speeches
while sitting on the *******
and spitting on the floor
writing surrealist poetry
on the walls and calling
them executive orders.

I took my name off of the *****
donor registry. I don't wish to wish
myself on any-body. I'm a hard man
to live with, you see. You've seen
the way I treat(ed) my liv-er; any way.
Anyway...if you really want a piece
of me take my heart. Cigarettes and
women haven't yet ruined the best part.

Led down from the tower
Head high and hands bound
Blindfold declined against the wall
Black square pinned to his heart
Eyes afire and shining proud
He sang...

He sang of Caruso, Townes Van Zandt
Pavarotti, Bocelli, Mercury,
Carreras, he sang of Antoine,
Of Sinatra, Lennon, Morrison, Redding
He sang and songbirds paused in flight
He sang like them all

He sang a song of himself
Of leaves of grass, of second comings
Of Byron, and Bharti, and Cummings
He sang of Neruda, and Plath, Tagore
Dickinson, Kamala Das and Naidu
Oh, he sang of them all

He sang of art and beauty
Of Mona Lisa and starry nights
Girls in green dresses and pearls
He sang of Van Gogh, of Picasso
Of Rembrandt, da Vinci
He sang of Michelangelo

He sang of sadness, pain
He sang of My Lai, Sand Creek
Of Guernica and Krystallnacht
He cried and sang of Wounded Knee
Of Katyn Forest, Sabra and Shatila
Oh, he wept as he sang

He sang of history and wonders
He sang of Olduvai and pyramids
Machu Picchu, Tikal, and Angkor Wat
He sang of a great wall, the Taj Mahal
Stonehenge, Easter Isle, Mesa Verde
His song took us to them all

He sang of courage
A song of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg
Of the Alamo, Normandy, Stalingrad
Of Lincoln, Guevara and Dr. King
He sang of Bolivar, Bhutto, Ghandi
He shamed us with their song

He sang his song...
As women sighed and peasants cried
He  sang until the rifles fired, he died
Songbirds fell from the sky
Soldiers broke their guns on stones
And marched into the deep blue sea.

r ~ 4/12/14