I love birthday cake
especially cake with thick
vanilla icing
but a German chocolate cake
would be a great one too.
I like it with ice cream
and icing colored designs on it.
Incidentally being sweetened
wedding cake turns me on too.
I hate it when you get a thin slice
of birthday cake due to being
a diabetic.
I love it to see people eating
their cake with forks
I love how some motherly cooks
come up with a chocolate
icing cake with really
funny waking candles on it.
I like to blow out candles.
I like it when you're old
and the just have one candle
because there wouldn't be enough room
for all the candles as old as you are
somehow I think I already
wrote a song about this subject
but that was a while back.

p.s. You may wonder how I
can go on about trivia like
the essence of birthday cake
but I do.

I daydream that the
recruiters go out of their way
not to promise dates and even
marriage with **** Nordic blond
beautiful co-eds for the players.
I daydream that they the recruiter bring
in local so-called cool jet set
types to add spice to the recruiting
process.
I daydream that the recruiters
take notice of whether the local
layout of the campus is ideal for the players
and that they show 'em around
the campus and in the city or town (including
"campus town") of the respective schools.
I daydream that they definitely
don't promise under the table money
and everything is on the up and up.
I daydream that they
emphasize the liberal arts programs
of the respective colleges
and suggest to the players that the
combination of a good liberal arts education
and skills learned in sports could lead to a good position later on.
I daydream that they emphasize
the building up of what I call
the two key faces of college football
and basketball programs - depth
and balance of the players.
I daydream that they emphasize
that the players obey conduct rules.
I daydream that they emphasize
the well-roundedness of their
respective programs.

They have
cute Latina noses,
bewitching eyes,
lush lips,
with a look of coy amusement,
nice dark hair,
and nifty builds.
They both seem
very lady-like for their age
and modest too
about their engaging *** appeal.
I loved to go out -
We'd have fun, what with their infectious
spontaneity
and their nice female Latina sophistication
as well as my interests
in all kinds of women
and their accompanying
good points
(and watch me ignore any flaws
that might pop up).

Ahmad Jamal and his classic tune Poincianno provided a backdrop
where I could relax and relate the poignant beauty
of the peace and madness back then surrounding
the Kennedy assassination.
Oscar Peterson churns out the notes
in a definitive yet light way
that would qualify as easy listening jazz
to some jazz buff in their weaker moments.
Eroll Gainer with his classic misty
haunts one with his
simple singularity of musical
paroxysms and leads into a fine repertoire.
George Shearing with his liltingness relaxed me
back then when I was recovering from the whole thing
And Camsey Lewis with his lightly penetrating rendition of
"The In Crowd" sustained my sense of humor and
helped me with my appreciation of mainstream jazz.
Cela, jazzmasters all to me
and yes like that light jazz
as opposed to poboy like Miles Davis
except for Charlie Parks
and yet I got into a Goth pianist Jack
then Thelonius Monk who was sorta jazzy
I acquired a mediocre taste for.

I like a tough steak at a regular steak house
(I'm one of those people that doesn't have to have everything tender)
Filet Mignon the spaced out king
pricey Prime Rib
a juicy T-Bone
steak kabobs
a decent well-done steak sandwich,
the non-fatty round steak that
mother used to make
a real rare piece of steak
a cooked by me steak at a
real nice steak house
where the gimmick is cook your own
except for their steak kabob
same with Mister Steak,
that and Outback Steak House in general
Longhorn's will do for something like that!

Road Runner is my all-time favorite- I like the song by Junior Walker too.

He, Road Runner, that is , reminds me of mentally ******* friends of mine who always strut around in a huff.

"It"'s a scream.

Bugs Bunny and Mel Blanc (Mel, one of Jack Benny's sidekicks) voice for him - Bugs was frothy with my kind of sarcasm.

Mickey Mouse I thought of as a kind of a put-on for guys that look like that a little who were always cutting up.

I used to get that song Hey Mickie by Toni Basil read piped in loud in my mind, it seemed when it played on the jukebox at that sports bar I used to hang out at.

Yosemite Sam is like some of the severely mentally ill guys on my geriatric psych ward who are really abrupt, loud, and whose bark is bigger than their bite.

McGruff - I wrote a piece about him - he's not of course from a cartoon - but from my yesteryear, who was under the weather, hence the crime wave.

Just like Smokey the Bear, he was a lovable character.
I like King of the Hill and Family Guy at night for yukks.

On Sat morn back in the day I guess when I had enough time I used to get a bit of a kick out of Fat Albert cartoons and the Jackson Five stuff on lonely, for me, Saturday morning to perk me up for the rest of the day.

Back in the old days, they reminded me of figures I knew like them in real life.

Sylvester the Cat, Felix the Cat, Hekyll and Jekyll, Daffty Duck, and Might Mouse tickled my little boy sense of humor.

In comic Books, I was impressed with the sense of humor of Little LuLu.

In the newspaper, Hagar the Barbarian and Beetle Bailey tickled my funny bone a little.

That's all, Folks.

The old ones seem haunted
even with ole Presidents
making their whistle-stop
campaigns.
Blacks on their exodus from the south,
streaming into them, one can visualize
with their souls and
spirits accompanying them as they seek
a decent life.
Imagine the shoeshine stands with their shoeshine “boys” and black attendants in the restrooms
which was probably as far as some of
them got.
The newsstands with their variety of
newspapers and sundries alerted
the lonely travelers to Wall Street
and elsewhere, businessmen
who would stream in with a sophistication
the common traveler feared.
The smells of leather baggage,
the cleanser that porters used
to keep the coaches clean wafted in.
The smell of cigars and wrinkles
of old men’s skin let us know
that the porters would be appearing
with a bevy of special guests.
History speaks in these stations
as well as some bus stations
around the country with their
dangerous drifters who would serial ****,
and the ambitious young talents off
to the big city to seek success who we would
later never hear of.
The local Union Station in Champaign has been
turned into businesses, but I can
just see Abe Lincoln arriving
speaking from the caboose and making
his way to a horse and buggy
outside to go to the local county courthouse.
Long live ghost-filled train stations
everywhere, and don’t let us forget
the homeless and destitute street people
who need to use their restrooms and
sit down in the waiting area seats
to take a needed load off.
They’re that important in the general
pictures of things, at least to me.

The first kind of carnival I encountered besides at the county fair was a huge one on the far outer reaches of the North Bronx on the way to Yonkers and White Plains call Freedomland.

I remember Disneyland and the black licorice drops there at the old time confectionary store.  I hope to go to Disney World in my lifetime.

AS far as a regular circus I went to one when I was on a locked ward (we were let out under supervision) at the Lyons New Jersey UAMC.  I was so desperately feeling like a failure due to confinement, and felt such hopelessness, that I contemplated joining the circus as a roustabout, but it seemed futile in the big picture, after all, I felt because I'd just be going from the frying pan into the fire success or lack thereof wise.

I think I noticed a certain clown looking at me out of the corner of his eyes and reading my mind there and letting me know I'd mad e the fright decision, and seeing a choice female acrobat stride by that reminded me that I wanted to start a family someday and stars of circuses are probably kept separate from the roustabouts.

I can remember going to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus with my mother as a kid and being thrilled at the taste of the cotton candy, the lion tamer doing his thing , the smell of the sawdust, and the ringmaster of that 3 ring circus and his whip.  I was in awe.

In the meantime I was going to local carnivals and trying my hand with the pellet gun shooting sitting ducks that passed by in front of the king in the hall of mirrors, and going on the roller coasters and the Ferris wheel.

Later I went to the Barnum and Bailey circus as an adult and the trapeze artist, especially the female ones and , for example the parade of the Arabian horsed, thrilled me too.

I also took my foster son to a carnival and the sorta juvenile delinquent erstwhile deprived kid-he was, I though.  I got a thrill out of him seeming impressed.

Enough of this, not that it's syrupy sentimentality, which I find enough in my poetry to have a sense of failure there but maybe kind of exercise in senility.

The Flying Illini again
Nichols, Morgan, Tinks, Black,
go up and sometimes come down with it -
Will Groce's job be saved?
Even Lucas, Hill, Abrams, and TCL at guard
can get up there.
Rebounding has definitely
improved for the Illini
over the years
and means so much
It even seems to me to help their free throwing.
The Illini have long been a ******
in rebounding
not so this year
Hear ye, hear ye
The Illinois big men will be.

Brrr
As the ice drops drop
from gutters,
as I make my way
along
on my missions.
It's so cold
sometimes;
I just don't know how
to bundle up right
how I got the chills
especially
when I don't know
what to do or where to go
when I first get the shivers
from the brrr cold.
There are all sorts or nuances
to being out in the cold
that drive me to
frustration,
drive me batty really,
like how the temperature
drops suddenly at duck and rises barely at dawn
how little drops people
in behavior
are spawned
how you just can't even yawn
and wait to see
on the road a fawn
Oh well that's
probably not scratching
the surface
in everything
apparently
but that's life
best I can do
on how to deal with the cold.

I say it's tarnished because it's been through the ugliness of the sixties, what with the divisiveness the Vietnam War caused.

I have an acquaintance who has a t-shirt that says "these colors don't bleed" and then shows the American flag.

I say they're bleeding now because of the unnecessary blood shed by our boys in Vietnam mixing perhaps with the red blood of America as symbolized by the red stripes on the flag. All because there were these chicken-**** draft dodgers, at least in my own opinion, who with their squawking about serving seemed to egg the war on and on and the unnecessary bloodshed it caused.

I do respect the symbolic nature of the beauty of the American flag and can recall when I was still rather patriotic suggesting to my father, a retired West Point combat army colonel, to get a flag pole in our front yard at one of the houses we lived in the Champaign-Urbana area and fly the flag every day long before it was done even in other parts of the country.

I could be wrong there. Anyway there was an article in the local paper about it that near as I can remember implied that or else it was at least a first for Champaign-Urbana according to what they said.

I think I'm getting patriotic enough again to definitely want the flag to not be burned, etc.

Yeah, me and the flag these days

A beast is me
At least I'm me.
Beauty petrifies
me,
saddens me greatly
except for beautiful women
and imagining them wanting me.
Hence beauty and a beast.
There's no feast
in store
for me
I bet
as I get set
to eat the meat
off my bones
just to hook that beautiful woman
I'm such a beast.
We shall see
what we shall see
about
"the beast"
as some black guys
who've been
in prison
say I'm called here.
I heard why I am the beast.
I'm oversexed
domineering,
licentious,
in people's scope.
I even break the heavy
and I'm ultra
unpopular
near as I can tell!

My mother told me when she was living
that i had "black blood", was
related to Heidi Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia at that time,
and heir to his throne.
As I've said a musical therapist here said that
because I had A positive blood I had all bloodlines.
My mother also said the Sturies were
Scottish, Lithuanian, regular German,
and I got a phone call- maybe I've already mentioned this- back in the eighties
when I was rooming with a black family that I was
part South American.
My mother also told me that I was
heit to the throne of Lithuania at that time
and that the Sturies are high German
which mean we're sorta preppy compared to everybody else
and that we're related to the likes of
Plato, Christ, ******, Von Steuben, and Metternick.
Interesting.
At least it didn't lead to me disintegrating.
I also read on the internet that the Sturies have a little Cherokee in them.
That's about all I know right now.
For more about my bloodlines
except that we're related to Hugh Hefner (it said on the internet)
that a friend of mine told me the Sturies are
distantly related to Daniel Boone.
So turn on your heatline
Neil Diamond
and reach out to me
when my father, bless his heart
comes back from
beyond the sea.

*Charles Sturies

The predictability of certain females
**** blossoms, ins and outs.
State social climbing potential woman -
lying obnoxious males - the types of women
they go ******* over
Certain people in the helping professions
who seem prone to be cliche uttering
Hardhats even though they might have
gotten their degrees from a liberal university
or whatever.
Sensing which people especially females
if you're a guy who might be interested
in you before you have had your first big talk
to, in most cases, and break the ice
since once is usually interested in them back.
Sensing who back scratched (you "do" me, I'll "do" you)
A-kissers, apple polishers and so on are if you're at all
military, or come from a military family
where you're really exposed to that member of the military.
Suspecting sudden outbursts of grief
coming on from a relative who doesn't appreciate
anything tragic whatsoever
but I'm saying maybe is
sensing the angry last man syndrome in
certain males
Knowing when to say "Well, don't get all hostile,"
with your arms outstretched
when somebody is about to scold you about something
starts within you.

Drea De Mattea
Kathy Matea
See they're both in entertainment
Michael Jordan
Morton Downey
Get it both of their opinions are respected
Seymour Gross the decadent businessman with his two sons -
Greg and Seymour, Jr. Get it - Seymour
Someone put of Mad Magazine's Greg
and Ex-Chicago Cubs player- (He got famous at it.)
decadence, I mean, and Junior Gross -
We're all getting really tired of real decadent types
like his father and Greg. - I'm just being facetious about
the bloodline connection. What, are they both adopted and just
copies of it?
And Seymour's morals are especially refreshing
compared to his faults.
Loretta Lynn
Brenda Lee
Two gifted singers
Eisenhower and MacArthur
2 great West painters
etc., etc.,
You get the picture.

Sandt Amaro and Karl Spooner on the old Brooklyn Dodgers.

My 2 all-time favorite players of my favorite team the Yankees are
an putfielder acquired in a transaction Vernon Webb
and the Rookie of the Year for, I believe, 1957
an outfielder first baseman Norm Cisbern.

My 2 favorite all-time Illinois basketball players were sixth men Ed Perez and Joseph Bertrand.

My 2 favorite all-time Detroit Lions are Bobby Cayne and Pork Walker with Ces Bingaman a nice third.

My favorite all-time Cleveland Browns are Otto Graham and Frank Gatsby.

My all-time 2 favorite Chicago Bulls are Michael Jordan and Dave Corzine.

Mordern-day-wise, I like Parig of the LA Dodgers, Steven Aren who last I saw was with the Washington Nationals, and in modern Illini football I loved Monty Wilson. He hit so hard and the sound of a prize recruit who never got in on a game. D'Angelo McGary and I liked the sound of the name. Duane Brantley who was a large for the time offensive lineman out of Chicago wo dropped out before he had a chance to play.

This is just scratching the surface, I guess, since I'm not into the star system per se.

Don't you just love
to see the new polka dot
dresses
for young ladies
that are coming into fashion?
The reminds
me
of a clown in a polka dot outfit,
a female sports mascot dressed in
polka dot overalls,
Howdy Doody and the polka dots
of the freckles if his face,
a new sweetheart
and me imagining her in that
itsy bitsy yellow polka dot bikini,
a suave male friend dressed in
a satin bold polka dot shirt
that's earrings at the sleeve cuffs,
polka dots
On the wrapper of a new kind
of sucker and decorating the sucker itself
hell yeah the polkas themselves -
the sky's the limit!

I'm looking forward
to getting more CD's
cozy, nice Christmas gifts,
Illinois basketball is blooming
a batch of my poetry
typed up by one of my caregivers for me to read
Rejoicing in the social aspects of Christmas
as some Muslims do
Reading a couple of easy read books
Enjoying the cold weather
(I like it cold rather than hot)
Doing some rewarding activities here in the hospital
Sending out Christmas cards to old friends
Pertinent emails to and from family
Timely phone calls from them and back
and the signing of Illinois football recruits
and the Yankee hot glove league
December is my favorite month
mainly because that's when
Illinois can win some ballgames in basketball,
mainly non-conference

I like to read
and write
and contemplate drinking an
extra glass of water since
I get so thirsty on liquid restriction
Sometimes I do drink one
but just one cup
I also like to daydream about
smoking again- I thought
it was so much fun.
If I'm going off grounds
with one of my caregivers
I like to buy
a juicy CD or two,
pick up a Hip Hop Weekly,
and go to a really action movie
like Vin Diesel or
Liam Neeson stuff
or else go to a nice
restaurant in my opinion
and have a nice
full meal for me.
In spite of being
a bit portly I'm
only a nibbler.
If it's Saturday
I like to get back on
the ward to watch
Fredrick Whitfield on CNN
and an Illinois basketball
or football game or a Yankee game
If it's a weekday
and since I don't
particularly like
weekday daytime TV
except for the Harry Connick Jr
show a little and the
musical segment on
Ellen DeGeneres
I'll listen to the "fresh"
CD or CDs,
Change into more comfortable clothes
(I do this usually after I go out)
and relax for snack time
I like to do things on a
lazy day just for what I
find as a peaceful contrast
otherwise it's napping,
listening to CDs and
watching CNN with sound
off as I can hear CDs
and watch pro football
if it's a fall Sunday

*Charles Sturies

Like right after a meal when I can't get the bits and pieces out from between my teeth with a used toothpick I just happen to have in my tote bag so I write about it.

Not being able to get my pants and underwear adjusted right so my ding-a-ling will be comfortable right when we're off rushing to dinner or something, and I just can't get it right.

When my favorite teams in sporting events are losing in a discouraging fashion that gives off an air of foreboding to their staining for success for the year in general.

Watching CNN and getting the same story over an over again.

Not getting comfortable lying in my bed.

Constant sleep in my eyes, especially since some nurse said to me, Yes, that's a sign that one is dying.

Listening to a CD and wanting to finish it up when I'm in a hurry, or getting stopped at the important break also, and have the frock group usually go on with the cut forever.

There, there's a sampling of frustrating time (or more pet peeves, I guess) for me.

From Beyonce's blood that flows
to Brandy's flush face that glows
to J. Lo's fresh flesh
to Joy Bryant's, for example, self-dignity
that talk about the pulse
that refreshes
that same fountain
of Reality's Child
and a "cool chick"
reeks of a blood type
dealing in chocolate code
of the mind
and cherry coke of the ***
such that
Lana Turner
would turn over in her grave
if she knew of
a new breed of female *** symbols
harking back to her, Gable,
Heyworth, Bacall, and Hepburn.

Diamond Dibs
Eccentric to the Chili Peppers
Birdseed Stains on Rock of Gold
Hard Headed Boston Mama
Glass Stains on a Rough-Hewn Mistress
Holy Tomati and Sauce
Westward **
All About "Chuck"
I'll Name You
How Dare You
Icy Breeze on Static Type
It's Hot in Here
and finally
Ghost of a Chance Too

Cheer up, Cupid,
Cheer up, Cherub,
You may think you're a perfect angel,
but you're just a stupid cupid.

Microcosms
of one day ventured
2 days gained
the scientific leap of faith
involved in the test tube generation
distills any desire
certain people have
for a little spirituality
in their life.
Although science's progress marches on.
The thirst for something intangible
become more intense in some of us
and more ignored by certain slightly plastic academicians.
Let's don't dehumanize ourselves anymore
by things a frying ourselves though as I call it
****-lysis, (at the ***-sembly hall, for example)
and making a mockery of mankind.
Otherwise another Christ will emerge
There'll be another ***** and Gomorrah
and the hands of time will
be set back 2000 years

*Charles Sturies

Sanchez and Frazier sound like keys
Tate and Judge got me on my knees
Though
They know so much about Torre’s blow
Five ‘o clock high
And Greg Bird is hitting one
into the sky
This spring training
what with late afternoon day games,
not reminding me of veteran
remains
and even Mason Williams
could be used
even if Aaron Hicks
blows a fuse,
there.
All is fair . . .

There he was all alone
Fighting on the billboard
His relevance shown
It came with a flow
Spiderman is a teenage boy
that flies around
and lands like a toy
on the ground.
He has an African-American girlfriend
in high school
that he has to stand up
to go on a mission to fight a fool
played expertly by Michael Keaton
Spiderman doesn't have too a boyfriend
He seems "clean" to me and on
the up,
not that I would hate him
if he was for example a bisexual
They're surely not fishing
with looks like Tiny Tim
and even a *******.
They seem not fishy too
He fights mission after mission
fighting grandiose figures
seething repression
On and on the action goes
Spiderman is the hit of the show.

When-when-I-fall-in-love.
I'm in love now
exclamation point
this is a kinda jazz song-poem
could take over for a
and turn into a country song
I wrote called I'm In Love Now.
When-when-I-fall-in-love
it-it-will-be-forever.
(Maybe Mel Torme would sing it if he's
still alive.)
Now and again
I'll subscribe to Jazz Time
and Diane Scherer will sing
forever
when
when
when you smile at me

It's time for cleansing
by writing
the mechanics of which
seem immaterial.
But my frustration
with man's inhumanity to man
The ineptness it leads to, doesn't,
and the ludicrousness that
I feel in my own self
as I see myself
mirrored in them
tells me
there's a bottomless
pit
of criticisms
lying within me
such that
I'm a typical bellyacher.
I wish I'd cut it out
and after that not look for
flaws in others
especially cruelty to dogs,
children, and elderly women.
I'm as guilty as the next guy.
In other words, life
is fascinating.
Why not the adventure
of it lead to you
question from
that which you pay.

Contreras
Delacroix
Tegnaroa
Monique –
All hands on deck as you wrap your
piece in a handkerchief and
give it to the little black boy in the ghetto,
and hope to pray or Saturday night it won’t
be as unique.
Hey what’s a matter with your sign.
Hail hail rock ‘n roll.

from “School Days” by Chuck Berry

Tell us where the chair is.
Tell us of idleness.
Tell us the real difference
between long term goals
and short term ones
so we can mete out our life.
Your lips speak softly
of the raw red lipstick
******* a kiss
cutie,
but let's let true sinners
indulge themselves
while we try to express ourselves

Amy Adams,
Arctic Animals,
Sai sea animals
from the anals of Troy,
to dawn's early burn
comes letters from Burns1
and the tip of a candle
to Alfred North
and Norma Jean
Jog on , Rafer

******* rainy days and rainy nights
get me down.
I love a rainy night.
I love a rainy day.

*Charles Sturies

Sun a long
Sun a watch, you see.
Those ******* berries
will give you a charge
even though your name might not be Cary
or you think you're Larry
or you have nothing left
to do but tarry.
So this isn't scary
Practically everybody
secretly prays to the ****** Mary
or whose cary
and tarry?
What is Cris?1
Some monster gin phizz.

Yes I know I make
trite lists about what
I think are my dislikes
and for revenge other people make lists
of my kinds of
halitosis and BO,
etc!

The baseball pennant races are in
full bloom,
the good feelings of the 4th are there,
not that the disappointment involved
with dissident elements doesn’t put
a damper on it for me.
Yeah the wonder of the U.S. to
some people like me.
Yeah the anticipation of Labor Day.
Yeah the feeling that another
summer was confidently enjoyed.
Also I like the beginning of the U of I
fall football practice
I also like being able to come to grips
with the terrible terrorist problem
in this country
I also enjoy the air conditioning,
some of the new movie releases
and anticipating some
of the new TV shows.
These are some of my
midsummer highs.

Design it.
but refine it.
From drafting class
in junior high with the protractor
I have always
longed for progress
in architecture.
A harking back to medieval styles
(along with an old fashioned look in big cars)
in the seventies depressed me
but how I know
that Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. is
still respected
and the STate Farm Center
is a marvel.
There has been progress
just as much as individual success
so that the Parthenon
and the Colosseum
and the Agricole
and Agraharam
deposit on us
a new found lust
for the glory that was Greece
and that grandeur that was Rome.

*Charles Sturies

Splotchy lipstick
from there at the piano,
I know you're not a
"rooch" as they say, and a *****, of course
but high class
But I cant' help but call myself a
male "rooch"
and a male *****
and you're obviously
not a *****
You look kinda daring and come hither
in the face a little sometimes.
What I'm saying is
Young Lady
Opposites sometimes
do attract
and I love your voice
Let's get together
in the tether
and wax heavier
and heavier
and write letters
and know what it means
to be "more better"

Doctor my eyes by Jackson Browne.
Mom and child reunion by Paul Simon,
Quiet violence by Arthur Lymon,
Heaven bust be missing an angel by
Tavares
Theme from A Summer Place by the
Percy Faith archestive
Island in the sun by The Sandpipers,
Love power by the Sandpipers,
The horse by Cliff Nobles & Co,
Only the strong survive by Jerry Butler
Moonlight feels right by Starbuck,
Expressway to your heart by the Soul Survivors,
Shotgun by Junior Walker
Afternoon delight by The Strand
Vocal Band
We live in Brooklyn Baby by Roy Ayers
And Dance with
Me by Orleans.

Gallman
Baunan
Leann Taliaferrus?
(promised Tolliver, Taliaferro, i.e.)

My beautiful women in pictures.
It’s making me feel like
I am about to have a seizure,
They even make me feel
like this is my harem
And I’m a man of leisure
They might carom
they don’t even remind me
of Buster Narum
and with a crayon
I could tell how they’d
feel in rayon.

The old ones seem haunted
even with ole Presidents
making their whistle-stop campaigns.
Blacks on their exodus from the south,
streaming into them, one can visualize
with their souls and
spirits accompanying them as they seek
a decent life.
Imagine the shoeshine stands with their shoeshine “boys” and black attendants in the restrooms
which was probably as far as some of
them got.
The newsstands with their variety of
newspapers and sundries alerted
the lonely travelers to Wall Street
and elsewhere, businessmen
who would stream in with a sophistication
the common traveler feared.
The smells of leather baggage,
the cleanser that porters used
to keep the coaches clean wafted in.
The smell of cigars and wrinkles
of old men’s skin let us know
that the porters would be appearing
with a bevy of special guests.
History speaks in these stations
as well as some bus stations
around the country with their
dangerous drifters who would serial ****,
and the ambitious young talents off
to the big city to seek success who we would
later never hear of.
The local Union Station in Champaign has been
turned into businesses, but I can
just see Abe Lincoln arriving
speaking from the caboose and making
his way to a horse and buggy
outside to go to the local county courthouse.
Long live ghost-filled train stations
everywhere, and don’t let us forget
the homeless and destitute street people
who need to use their restrooms and
sit down in the waiting area seats
to take a needed load off.
They’re that important in the general
pictures of things, at least to me.

Hidden money,
Hidden Cigarettes,
***** sweat socks,
Neat articles of clothing
You didn't know you had,
Shoes you had forgotten about,
Especially bedroom surprises,
Books you've been putting off reading,
Wadded up colored funny papers
From old Sunday papers and their Sunday
Papers right there, some rotting
You name it, you can find it
Including ***** plates with spoiled food
And ants collecting all about them
Or even a dead mouse, stuffed from
The spoiled food.

I would have sworn I could see
him out in the boonies of Vietnam toting a rifle
not worrying about a trifle
or pushing a broom and working
nigh custodial work
Not all the above, it's just the sense of
"regular man"
He wouldn't get a ten
in looks
but his weather beaten skin shows he knows
too about the blind man on the New York subway
pushing a tin
as in cup
just to get a little sup
and now maybe
it's not Agent Orange,
the "regular man"'s
ruddy skin
but he's working in a field just to get a tan
You know
he's got what
would be called a weird sense of humor -
nothing like guffaws
in the Harvard Tumor,
I believe that's what one of their funny newspapers is called
and this "regular man" is worried about being tall -
just so he survives with a nice-tasting cigarette
danglign from his lips
and holding a nice beer in his hand
from which he wants to take a sip
I like to think
I know where he;s coming from
and that he's not ****.

*Charles Sturies

Bird
Mr.T
Cool Breeze
Li'l Shorty
Li'l Jeez
Comrade Punk
Grand Central Junction
Hammer Me
Bledso
Li'l Tarzana
Li'l P.Cool
Let It Bleed Confunction
Gingerbread
That's about all my imagination can gather
without going into
something about Dan Rather
and thinking I'm
badder
than the mystic
in any of the rappers
It'll be up the ladder
to the roof
the next time
I'm in the hood
probably though

*Charles Sturies

Oh the freight train is here
Call me dear.
Pass me another beer,
There's a beer man here.
Nothing to fear.
March Madness is sadness
to me,
just like the predilections
are at the ballpark.
Oh waking up to a
train changing tracks.
All the hype.
That's my gripe.
Nothing to fight
or take light.
The madness sadness
changes to gladness
The predilections
change to a hark.
The tracks are a die
that's cast
and everything is reconciled.

And then there's Don Riddles,
Clint Eastwood,
"A-Rod",
Rod Sterling, if he's still alive
and James Brown of course did
Usually they're dark
but blondes like Carrie Underwood
do and Mamie Van Buren did
Eve Arbor did
Johnny Carson did
and of course Casey Stengel did.

*Charles Sturies

Or was it the fourth.
my thirst to be an artist was
upended there
but I still try to do pure impressionistic,
faintly descriptive sketches
and still want to do watercolor landscapes
I was, though, in my element 5 or so years ago
doing sketches of famous people
and writing a small poem next to them on the same page
on the suggestion of my sister Nancy.
Great art dumbfounds me, it's so majestic
and especially complicated next to mine.
I still want to work with clay
and always wanted to be a sculpture
The French impressionists are my favorite
followed by classical great architecture
and the renaissance art.
I do like detail when it's somebody else doing it
but not when it's me
at least lately.
With my kind of glossing over things,
I'll never be remembered.
For sure Andy Warhol will.

*Charles Sturies

Marvin, have you heard
Gato Barbieri's Latin Lady?
The other Marvin I like to think
was a friend of mine, even.
Gato Barbieri's Latin Lady reminds me
of the futile melancholy of Dylan's Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.
The first thing I can think of to
satisfy my thirst for the Latin woman
is to get Asterid Gilbert's Greatest Hits
J. Lo on Shades of Blue - Sunday Night
yes intrigues me in spite of negative
publicity her love life seems to get her
as if she's suddenly plastic
Zero Vibes Little Latin Lupe Lupe get on
star quality and quantity of
recorded music but oh those Latin women -
to be continued maybe in my memoirs no less -
in I might have a son Charles Cobert, Jr
I fathered by a priceless to me
Puerto Rican women in a Times Square
brothel although I might never know for sure.
Little Latin Lupe Lupe
I bet the unisex was founded down there.

Misty, Misty
the sea of your saucy Sausalito
beauty and grace
make me take haste
no to waste
a moment
without your great figure,
success,
health and I bet
wealth.

The line - I never promised you a rose garden
and with me finishing it I added "at all"
The line - I'm here for the party - and me even
though they didn't put under my name in the high
school yearbook, "Where's the party" like a
hoody dropout buddy of mine got!
The line - Take her she's all I got - I added
"she's more than enough"
The line - I'm just an Okie from Muskogee with
my addition "obviously"
The line - Jambalaya crawfish pie - my addition
"sounds good to me even"
The line - Smoky Mountain Rain - I add on
"when it rains, it pours, of course, but when
I'm around it comes down in torrents."
The line - When my baby loves me -my add on
"when, though, I think".
That's all for now.