Pull the clutch
**** it, let's see where it takes us
I'm not asking much
Just this once let's fall on trust

We're not going anywhere
If we sit here in neutral
But i guess i don't care,
If the feeling is mutual

Just whatever you do
Don't hit the reverse
The pipes will collapse
And the insides will burst

We'll be covered in flames
But our love will die hot

I'm a cool cat
Who likes to ****
The smooth jazz
That dances off my pen
Compliments
The 'garette I smoke

The dance of pen to pad
The movement
The shake
Rumble
Makes my fingers snap
And my feet tap.

In God We Trust, For He Invented Reasonable Doubt




In Courtroom of the State of New York, Part 62,
where the only decoration extant,
in gold leaf letters,
a magnificent joke,
In God We Trust.

Words so incongruous
to the real time drama,
a poorly acted Law and Order episode
of which I partake,
(as Juror No. 1,
ergo you may address me as
Mr. Jury Foreman),
they stun me into stupefaction
every time we enter and the
Bailiff pronounces with much gravitas,
"Jury Entering"

A potpourri of a dozen Manhattanites,
with wisdom acquired
by the singular virtue of
having attained the robust age of 18,  
noteworthy for being free of
criminal record,
having been nominated
to sit upon the jury that will decide
the fate of one Eric B.,
for what he may have done upon West 11th Street
one Summer night in
June Two Thousand and Eleven,

If adjudged guilty,
New York State can take,
incarcerate him for up to
15 years of his life

Predicate felon by the age of twenty seven,
Eric's resume consists of
four felonies,
two misdemeanors
a wife and two little children,
and a partridge in a pear tree.

Facts turgid and muddy,
Eric tells a story
one juror calls a confection of lies,
no one murmurs
much disagreement in the
tiny, overheated room
we have been sequestered to
replay
the 2012 version of
Twelve Angry Men.

But I am not his peer,
nor am I a seer,
common sense says
if appearances are what they seem to be,
he aided and abetted
in the forcible taking of
a nice Connecticut lady's cell phone
with his brother who just happened to be
released from prison earlier that day

A convoluted tale
ripe with inanities is told,
upshot is our defendant's tale,
his robust defense,
portrays him as the unluckiest man
in the whole world,
a good Samaritan,
{chasing after the thief,
** **, his bro}
against whom events have conspired

In Manhattan can be a harsh place,
where the natives
a tough lot,
tougher than the Indians from whom
they stole it all.

Our bridges we sell to out-of-towers,
all it takes is one to say,
what the heck,
reasonable doubt is
a ***** to overcome
so let him go


Jan, 2012

Composing Hallelujah

Fractious lines crack,
holiday decorate the spirit inferior,
while each note upon the priest's guitar
penetrates the aspirin roughened interior,
face slaps me, daggers and accuses,
you're not composing hallelujah.

So I mislead, big deal,
composing the anti-hallelujah,
yeah, I was ******* with you,
as you sit across from me electronically
pretending, me to you, you to me.

Lie to each other with smiling faces,
you too have reaped,
been emotionally *****,
by what our minds see and sow,
scowls and howls,
we've both grown our own demons.

My secrets, maybe are all there,
maybe, writ loud and clear,
in the songs I choose to share,
and in the unrevealed ones,
buried alive, held in reserve,
but not, for your average, rainy day,
could be today, you have no say.

Are we not all veterans of a kind,
don't we all have ribbons on our chest,
stripes and stars on our khaki blouse,
a record of our own great campaigns,
including the war to end all wars,
the never ending one,
the one the ******-historians renamed,
"The 24/7 Year Conflagration"?

It used to be just my secret, no more
don't need a cartoonist to tell me that's
the enemy is us, and there are moles, traitors,
hidden deep in our intelligence organization,
planting seeds, urges, pushing to
out the identity of our communist friend,

Depression

I don't mean the ordinary, garden variety,
a mere moody blues recession,
when funk is sourced from gray clouds,
served up proper, cold and wet,
then travels on when sun warmth
clarifies temporarily, the aspirin kicking in.

So I misled,
composing the anti-hallelujah,
yeah, I was ******* with you,
sit across from me and lie to me,
lie to each other with smiling faces
we reap what we own,
scowls and howls.

A chorus of harmonious poseurs
inside your own City Center,
vocalize the lyrics of the anti-hallelujah,
a composition of questions directed at
whomever in tonight's audience deserves it,
asking, nerving, to sing too loud, at decibel speed:

Are these verses, curses
about D,
our mutual acquaintance,
or just research notes for further followup,
part two of a pas de deux, and,
did you go this time, too far,
or still not far enough?

-