I have no choice but to breath this air
or do I? I can speak and I can write
something about anything,
I can witness the hows the whys
pro and cons of the daily agenda
freedom has a local flavour
idealogy a bitter taste

discrete pockets of life disjointed
I meet them on the streets
the social body this rags when
policemen rebel against the truth
doctors against health
teachers against compassion
politicians against duty
a slaughter house the mind in action

we look the other way with a laugh
not to see the epidemic of helplessness
political physiology gone awry
oppression cemented in our deeper minds
we carry it in our shoulders like
a gun machine waiting to happen
the collective focus a borderline land
the air itself suffocated by the
politics creating despair so that
minds have no more sceneries
to dream the world into existence
or do they?

Speculation holds the sway
On this, avuncularly, flavoured day
Where clouds mass, massivly, in sky
And cerebral doubt flits, squarely, bye.
Furrowed brow, maligns the face
And worried eyes, immersing space.
For all is not, as should be, here
There's anguish...and a certain fear.
Shortcomings tarnish hard, the day
Where Bishop,s Knight, delays my play,
Where consequences bridge the call...
Obliterating options, all?

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

7 men walk into Deep Pool
an outlaw motorcycle club
the man in the red leather jacket
stood with his back against the wall
and every once in a while
for reasons
unknown
he'd yell,
"just nobody touch, Toad."

i push past Toad
on my way to the men's room
and as i'm *******
i think about Ron

he trapped rats in corners
then let them go

slapped angels in the face
and ihe craziest things he'd say
like
"the smartest rats
always get out of the maze first,"

he'd give you a knowing nod
throw down a shot
and walk away

but like a miracle
he had you wondering

ron dreamed of the angels
who stand under vapor street lights
at 4 a.m.
or sit on barstools til closing

but love is never
what it ought to be
and he lived his life
like a circus high wire walker
wandering back and forth
day after day

and one day
he disappeared
like the rabbit in magicians hat

now,
Ron was a warrior
he drew to the inside straight
to sunlight fading

and outside the 7-11
where his x-wife worked
with a pair of her nylon stockings
he hung himself

molly
the waitress
at Town diner

wants to be a model
or a nun,
tells me she's a poet

we're sitting on
a couch in her apartment.
molly takes a poem from
a foot high stack
on the end table,
hands me a poem,
"FIRST BRA," by Molly C.
it's about buying
her first bra at 12.
"i was big.
i needed a bra at 11,"
she smiles.

now
she doesn't wear bras.

she tells me
rod mckuen
is the most read
poet
in America.

"what about walt,
plath,
hughes?" i asked.

"no
no,"
she says,
"mckuen is the MOST
popular poet
in American history,
no,
really
the greatest American poet."

molly loves rod mckuen.

i love molly.

"if the public loves
rod mckuen,"
i tell her,
you've got a shot.
you could be the  female version
of rod mckuen."

molly smiles
takes me by the hand
and leads
me up the stairs
to the loft.

she takes the ribbon
from her hair.

i lay her down
on the bed

and bang the hell
out of
the next
most read
American poet

two of you,
on my green turf, at play
this sun-drenched day

squirrels courting? or plotting to gnaw on my trim
on a whim, it seems, since my trees have left you
ample acorns and plentiful pecans to fat your bellies,
sharpen your teeth

my neighbor has trapped and drowned a score of you  
a dreadful thing to do, many would contend--though I cannot pretend, I’ve not called about a trap

but alas,
I could not watch you writhe wildly
and gasp for breath, without recalling the ancient paddies
and those in my sights whose play I ended, with the fast flick of a switch and easy pull of the trigger, on another sunny day