The fog crept in on giant monster claws,
Surely no itty-bitty feline foots, I pray:
“Feets don’t fail me now,”
A line that will live in infamy,
Way back in a vaudeville when,
A minstrel Chitlin Circuit then,
Was an actor known as the
"Laziest man in the world,"
A character designed to stick to a
Collective white consciousness,
Stick like Tar-Baby, that negative
Image of African-American men--
I speak of The Brothers--
Who for over a century, have been
Struggling to live down a pernicious,
Most persistently demeaning,
Hollywood trope.
Tribute is due to the black actor born:
Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry.
Oh, Mr. Perry, & yes, you were the
First black actor to receive
Screen credit in a film.
Well, I guess that puts you right up there,
With Jackie Robinson & Sidney Poitier,
Carver or Tubman, or any of those
Countless northern abolitionists--
With no personal stake in slavery,
Or emancipation, but fervent nonetheless--
Color-barrier breakers &
Household saints a-coming &
A-marching in, in that number . . .
You paid a big price, Mr. Perry:
The indignity & débauche,
By abject surrender to the Boss Man,
Tribute, recognition is due for
Feats of humility & self-abasement,
Entailing total superhuman surrender,
Capitulation to the dismal, prevailing
State of American race relations at the time.
Stepin Fetchit: a name & a persona,
Not just painfully racist, but
Downright subversive.

Robot Kills Man at Volkswagen Plant in Germany**

"BERLIN — Automaker Volkswagen says a robot has killed a contractor at one of its production plants in Germany. A spokesman for VW says the man died Monday at the plant in Baunatal, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Frankfurt. Heiko Hillwig said Wednesday the 22-year-old was part of a team that was setting up the robot when it grabbed and crushed him against a metal plate." (source MSN, 7/2/15)

It begins . . .

I speak of fear, sheer limbic,
Reptilian fear, and there’s the rub:
Obliterate thought and all that’s left is fear,
And fear’s known associates & cronies:
Hunger, Thirst, *** & everything else
Triggering our amygdale nether brains,
Each synapse a single primal scream,
Rich Reichian fodder and sacrificial yawp,
Whitman’s bleating syllable, straight bedrock,
Down low on the Hierarchy of Human Needs.
Abraham Maslow: another shrewd Jew from
Brooklyn, New York. Atta boy Abe:
Adrenaline pure and simple,
An instinct for survival.
I suppose my only regret in life,
Was that I was not old enough to be
A victim of the Holocaust.
I mean nothing facetious or disrespectful by this.
(Like Jesus, I was born a Jew.)
All I mean is that a stint at Auschwitz or
Bergen-Belsen, might have done wonders for me,
Saving me much time, given the number of books
I’ve read on the subject, just trying to get my heart &
Mind around the throat of evil.
My story is truth, not science fiction.
Yet, I confess to having some difficulty
Discerning the difference lately.
Perhaps this is why my mind wanders.
That’s probably what I love best about Stanley Kubrick—
Another insightful New York Jew.
His vision of space, namely the shrewd perception,
That after 5,000 years of recorded human history,
It was going to be difficult.
It would be a challenging enterprise,
Noodging the human race to choose,
A more cerebral path;
A state of mind & brilliant grace,
Embrace a kinder, fearless self and future.
Kubrick understood he must first take us to Odulvai,
Our primal anthropological killing fields,
Then he could transport us to outer space.
Only then, could we evolve,
Adapt to cooperation and tolerance,
Shift our future focus,
Our natural and spiritual resources,
Our potential.
Collaboration not competition.
2001: A Space Odyssey: released
A year before the Apollo program
Put a man on the moon, five years
Before the space station Skylab.
Kubrick’s gift to mankind was a clear new perspective:
Man in space looking back at a very small holistic Earth,
And an infant self, both diminished,
Made insignificant in a vast cosmic context.
Other forces were at work, of course,
Lying in wait as always, global forces
Co-opting the vision, drowning it in an old
Unabashedly mercantile reality.
That Darwinian old world order,
Again, reducing human existence
To an economic absurdity.
Globalism: the scariest Bond villain yet.

Niagara Falls . . .
"Slowly I turned,
Step by step,
Inch by inch . . ."
I am Lou Costello
Stuck in a jail cell
With some ****** lunatic.
Getting the **** beat out of me.
Every time.

When a woman says: she likes
The man to take the initiative;
What she is really saying is:
“Yes, I will *******, just ask.”
As I write these words,
I rent The Eugene O’Neill Theater,
Located between Broadway &
8th Ave, on West 49th Street,
No shabby venue, I might add.
Then I stage & cast the play,
Choosing for the role of me,
Myself:  Queequeg.
Ishmael’s Crypto-Gay,
New Bedford, Mass bedmate,
A large, well-toned, muscled
Man of much ink & few words,
Just short pigeon-English phrases,
Utterances such as: “I likee.”
That’s right, playing me is
Melville’s freaky, tattooed,
Polynesian harpooner,
Right out of Moby ****.
And should the ****** imagery &
Metaphor of me—yours truly—
Packing a harpoon in my trousers,
Prove a trifle too scrumptiously
Potent for you, consider please the
****** potential of a three-way with
*Chingachgook.

He swooshes down the mountain
Carving a series of humongous S letters,
Gracefully, brilliantly,
Gliding down the pure white *****.
Admittedly, the snow is hallucinogenic, an
Alphabet soup & smorgasbord;
A diabolic concoction I find irresistible.
He snaps to a dead halt before me, with
Flair & flourish like an Argentine tango dancer.
He is wearing a bright red Mad Bomber Hat . . .
(Mad Bomber Hat...$39.95  ‎Adwww.llbeanbusiness.com/‎1-855-371- 2754. Outerwear & Fleece-Top Gifts & Incentives - 20% Off Volume Discounts)
Forgive the poet, a simple refusnik, refusing to die in the gutter. Forgive me for making poetry pay, for once. $Ka-ching! $Ka-ching!
One had to have a shitload of
Self-confidence to wear a hat like that, my
Va-jay-jay getting creamy,
His smile fluttering my clitoral funny bone.
Confidence & humor: for me always a
Lethal combination.
Back in Providence they call me a
Rhode Island Pizza Queen; a
Certified cat litter-box for cads & scoundrels.
The Mad Bomber squats:
He is 50% Rhett Butler, 30% Joey Gallo,
& the other 40%, Cosmo Kramer, (duh?)
Adding up to a deadly duo that gets me every time:
Confidence & Humor snags my guinea ***.
First it’s coffee & Sambuca at the Lodge.
Two hours later I blow him in the shower
At The Green Mountain Inn.
The next morning, we say goodbye in the parking lot.
He promises to call me from Boston, but
Of course, I never hear from him again.
That sums up my MO with men,
Explains how I **** up when picking men.
Every time, again & again, like a
Third generation imbecile, deranged & demented,
Doing the same thing over & over, yet
Expecting a different outcome.
Woe is ******* me!
Another neurotic, myopic, ganglia misfire;
A behaviorist might point out there must be some kind of
Reinforcement going on, seeing I keep
Coming back, going back for more,
Like a lab rat still pushing the lever
Long after the food pellets are gone.
Oh yes! Call me Angie the
Out of control downhill racer.
It’s bipolar moguls & roller coasters,
Another Six Flags ski weekend,
A Stowe, Vermont Coney Island of the Mind for
Angelina Delvecchio, shimmy,
Shimmy Cocoa Pops.

Bengal Lancers.
Bengal Tigers.
Bengali in a sombrero?
Bengal Pradip:
Priceless.