The news anchor,
with perfectly
formed ripe red

lips, describes
another unsavory
political scandal,

as the leaf blower
loudly propels
autumn’s colorful

debris from the
driveway, while the
iron heats up,

poised to press
the wrinkles out
of the white shirt,

with its faint
brown stain of
forgotten origin.

They ski down-hill
laughing absurdly,
madly, in sepia-tone,

like an old photo.
One says: ? The
other replies: !

They are judges.
The distant court
house looks small,

like a doll house.
A girl is on the
hill top, her eyes

glisten like a
policeman’s raincoat.
But she doesn’t exist

yet. One day she
will look you in
the eye and say: .

The wind-up
clock chimes

from the other
room. On the

wall, a painting
of a landscape

five-thousand
miles away.

The room
illuminated

by lamp-light,
as if it were

the middle of a
long dark night.

The room,
bone white,

painted
freshly,

the clear
glass of

water—
reflected

in the small
oval

mirror
—sitting

on the
well worn

seat of
a chair,

vivid,
illuminating

after-
noon sun.

A newborn
in the shape of
an old man,
an old man
in the shape of
an electro-
magnetic coil,
an electro-
magnetic coil
in the shape of
an empty kayak,
an empty kayak,
in the shape of
a newborn.

Tableau (taˈblō) - a group of
models or motionless figures
representing a scene from
a story or from history.


The poet laureate is—
inexplicably—on his
knees, holding a

jack-o-lantern above
his head and the self-
proclaimed Great Leader

has just stepped behind
the pumpkin, with its
crooked smile, which

obscures his head and
the eclipsed moon—
a blood moon—hangs

over the Fool in his
green and red checked
costume, holding his

recently authored book,
Chaos Theory, The Order
Within Disorder, while he

opens the gate of the
lion’s cage, and behind
them, in the far distance

is the black smoke and
swirling fires of war, and
opposite the war are the

masses of somnambulist
citizens, crashing into
one another like carnival

bumper-cars, and in the
mid-distance is a blur
of a figure—probably the

Mad Scientist—next to his
new invention, the eight-
armed Robotic Chain-saw,

The Federal Model and
nearest to us, hovering in
the gathering darkness are

translucent Celestial Beings
holding a banner that reads
Beginnings Are Endings,

and below them, a journalist
prostrate in the mud, deathly
ill, vomiting a bile black as ink.

He is a
yardstick,
a measure
of something.

He is a
body, something
worn like a
suit of clothes.

He is a
string of words,
a sentence
to be parsed.

He is an
individual,
a myth
that is told.

He is a vast
space,
a screen life
is projected on.

Who is it that sits
on the cushion
on the floor, here
in the twilight,
during the final
hours of spring?

Even though
there is

nothing about
himself that

he likes, he
defends his

image like he
is singing

the final aria
in a tragic

Italian big
time opera.

The drunken clown
breaks his leg as he’s
singing and dancing,

and the bird in the
room sputters, boxed
in, disoriented, as the

brother outside has
his trained ear to the
ground, listening for

their disturbed mother’s
angry mob, coming to
reclaim her lost home.

How to navigate
civilization

in four steps:
Find a chair and

sit quietly.
Then, dismantle

the chair and use
the pieces to

build a ladder, for
a panoramic view.

Return to solid
ground, and

remake the chair.
Sit quietly.

My little boat and I,
tossed like a juggler’s
eggs, then into the sea,

and as I stagger onto
the beach I see her,
June, my next door  

neighbor who is 95
years old, but somehow
now looks 25, reclining

under the blackest night
sky, as she says, You
survived, the last three

folks went under—and
if you’re going to speak
keep it under 100 syllables,

past that it’s just babbling—
so I sit next to her,
she holds my hand,

my mind goes quiet,
and I can’t think of
anything worth saying.

Nine words
scrambled
in the wind.


are

habitable

They

democracy

a

planet.

and

of

ending

The tea
kettle
whistles

in the
kitchen.
Then all
is quiet.

A cloud
moves  
slightly

and the
room is
a little
brighter.

Under the harvest
moon, the farmer
mourns his dead
wife. In his black
suit, sitting on
the white rock,
he looks like
a question mark.

She’s renovating
the old house.

The kids are
making costumes

—he’s a ghost,
she’s Cinderella.

The apple tree,
recently dressed

in red and green, is
now nearly naked.

An ode to
the broken

world, its
stories and

images
stretched

like taffy to
satisfy an

insatiable
sweet tooth.

The pilot is flying the
small white airplane in
circles, for the fun of it,
in the cloudy blue sky,

and below the black dog,
in the red car, is looking
out the window, barking
at nothing in particular,

and across the street
the banker in a gray suit
scurries, preoccupied by
a problem at the office,  

and in the apartment
above, there is only an
awareness, sitting on an
empty chair, breathing.

Fish in
a tub
swimming
in circles.

He can’t help
himself. He

knows his
thoughts are

distorted, but
like a criminal,

he’s compelled
to return to

the scene
of the crime.

The past is a room
with a peculiar door.
I am inside, then
open the door and
exit only to be
back inside again.

A countryside
dirt-road, a black
crow in the blue
sky, a scarecrow
dressed as Jesus,
and trash swirling
in the late
November wind.

The sun illuminating
one side of her face. An

argument with her sister
rattling around in her

head like a baby’s toy.
On the counter, a plastic

bottle whose contour is
like an exaggerated

shape of a woman.
A glass of cool water

in her hot, angry hand.
She stands before the

paper-white wall, her
shadow slowly forming.

Like everyone in
this place, he’s a
cowboy, riding the
digitized horse, writing

his self-styled myth
with spray paint and
gasoline, a fire
breather, and always

off balance as his
head is seven times
too big for his
body, which, for some

reason, he believes can
be compensated for
by talking very loudly
and continuously, he’s

the sheriff of Main
Street, a seer of
the nonexistent, a
near-sighted marksman,

but in reality, like
most of us, he
is just another version
of a rodeo clown.

You are
bathed
at birth.

You are
bathed
at death.

One can
bathe in
every

moment
and shed
the dust

and soot
before it
accumulates.

X is dragging the body of the
dead history professor, a man of
enormous girth and monstrous
height, through the empty

landscape, then the vast ocean
appears and X drops the body
into the water, where a shark
whose ancestry is four hundred

million years old, eats it, as X
recalls the professor’s sleepy
eyes, artificial smile, and
remarkably unreliable memory.

I am in the house and will be
leaving in a few minutes to
take a walk. Not much on my

mind. The sky is clear and
radiantly blue. The world is
in chaos, as usual. I am old

and at some point in the not
too distant future, I will be
dead and gone. It is spring.

A salmon now,
I was a man,
a large brain.

My little boat,  
ninth bottle of
beer, trying to

stand, the sun
oppressive,
blinding then

sinking like
a 40 oz can
of malt liquor.

What was I
going to do
once I stood

*****? During
the pondering
I drowned. Now

swimming
back to my
birth-stream to

lay eggs. I may
see lunch, a
worm or herring

then a hook in
my mouth,
I flop onto the

floor of a boat,
one eye looking
up as the

big knife
swiftly
comes down.

The wind-up chimp
in the swimming pool,
dressed like a sailor,
steering the vessel
shaped like a man’s body,

when a noun dressed as
an exclamation point
falls off its stilts, landing
on the chimp and they
tumble into the water.

The noun floats but the
chimp sinks to the bottom
and as he winds-down,
prays to The Savior
Marionette and in his

mind she dances, in
her tutu, toes barley
touching the surface of
the water, expressionless,
the strings barely visible.

Insight, clear
and precise,
like mathematics
in the hands
of a poet.

She reads the
letter there, by
moonlight, under
the pear tree;
the fruit so ripe
it may fall
at any time.

The drunken shoemaker
falls off his horse late
in the night, and in the
morning awakens to find
all his clothes have been
stolen, except his shoes.

Six objects in
search of a poem:

an overheated planet,
an obsolete

pencil, a burned-
out light bulb, an

overwhelmed young
woman, an unripe

avocado, and a
selfless form of love.

A ***** martini
in the shape of
a Christmas tree,
a Christmas tree
in the shape of
a cup of coffee,
a cup of coffee
in the shape of
a gun, a gun
in the shape of
a man, a man
in the shape of
a ***** martini.

Employ science,
the way a poet
employs words.

Employ belief,
the way a
mathematician  
employs arithmetic.

Or, be the eye
that sees, and be
employed by death,
the way life is
employed by time.

the newspaper
spread out

like a tablecloth
obituaries

on one side
comics on


the other
the dead

smiling the
comics tragic

black white
gray world

made of
fuzzy dots

an obsolete
medium ready

to line the
bottom of

the song
bird’s cage

a nightingale
whose love

call goes
unanswered

a vibrant blue sky
white gulls crying

slowly awaken
naked in

an empty end-
less parking lot

walk past a gray
failed mall onto

a rarely traveled
dirt road at seaside

an old man sitting
perfectly still

in the fading
overcast sun

his wife leads me
to a boat and says

go with the current
it will take you there

the slowly roiling
water gray green

bruise-blue the
sun setting like

a bloodshot
eye closing

I sail into an
unknowable night

as the moon hides
its glowing face

Dried, faded red
carnations on
an electric blue

tabletop, a dark
green avocado
sliced open,

revealing the
ripening inner
canary yellow flesh

and sienna brown
seed, and on the
wall above, a

round clock—with
bold black numbers
on a stark white

background—
that audibly ticks
every second.

A statuette of Durga,
alluring goddess of

divine destruction
and new creation,

in her sky blue and
cloudy white robes,

on a shelf above the
swirling gray smoke of

a burning unfiltered
cigarette in the

sunny orange ashtray
on the kitchen table-

top the color of the
churning stormy sea.

I was the shadow
puppet, a barking
dog. Then became

the vigilant cat, that
apprehended the
ruse. Now I am

the rarely seen
mouse, too swift
even for the cat.

The room is empty
except for an egg,

about to erupt
with life, as it is

sitting on a chair
in the passing sun.

the poet on his
knees holding a

jack-o-lantern
above his head

as the Great
Leader steps

behind it with
its crooked smile

obscuring his
head the eclipsed

blood moon hangs
over the Fool in

green and red
dancer’s tights

holding his book
Chaos Theory—

The Order Within
Disorder and he

opens the gate
of the lion’s cage

and distant
twisting

black smoke
swirling

fires of war
as translucent

Celestial Beings
hold a banner

that reads
Beginnings Are

Endings
below them a

journalist prostrate
in the mud deathly

ill vomiting a
bile black as ink

embattled
masses

somnambulists
foaming at

the mouth
rabid

hallucinating
incurable

and a blurry
figure a

mad scientist
next to his

invention
stainless

steel
automated

animosity as
the thick black

smoke of war
begins to

obscure the
scene a few

yearn to
awaken some

dance the
sacred

kookamunga
some say

the save-me
prayer a scant

few ascend
translucent

eye-ball
shaped the

color of the
sky at sunrise

The verbs are living in
caves on mountain tops.

You can only call your-
self on the telephone.

The nouns are wearing costumes
to look like you, or the place

where you live, or the thing
that you bought recently.

Your mail is being spell-
checked by smiling burglars

who ply their trade by
strolling through the front door.

Adjectives have a dress code;
blue suit, white shirt, red tie.

Everywhere you sit there
is a whoopee cushion

that makes a long
repetitive mechanical laugh.

The calliope plays
its jaunty tune.

A cow is on
fire. A drunken

entrepreneur shoots
an apple off the

head of a child.
A young woman

in the audience
is having a

****** fantasy.
A monkey juggles

beakers of volatile
chemicals. Soon this

carnival will be
bankrupt, but for

them another way of
life is unimaginable.

that's the beauty of attention.

empty dirt vista
I turn to her
she asks how did

we get here? I say
I think I’m asleep
dreaming she says

she thought that
too then a fierce
wind all is gray

dust the monkey
yells cut! he tells
the camera-man

they have captured
reality truly next
thing I know I’m

here face down in
the water washing
ashore on a sand-

bar she is fetal
naked the monkey
kneels over camera-

man’s corpse like an
alter-boy weeping
she yells shut-up

you ***** little ape!
the monkey howls
bites her leg she

crawls to one end
of the ******* I
to the other all is

water the monkey—
television actor now
director of acclaimed

historical dramas
lamenting camera-
man was the Da Vinci

of modernity I’m
thinking Da Vinci?
yeah the guy who

never finished
anything I ask how
did we get here?

she says she must
be asleep dreaming
I’m thinking yes that

must be all there
is to it—simply
asleep dreaming

The sunrise looks like
something ******

the cat coughed up.
Having not done his

homework all year he
is failing algebra class.

He wakes up in bed,
then falls back asleep.

He’s in the front yard
and can’t find his pants.

The school building is
like a jigsaw puzzle that

is impossible to solve.
The sunrise looks like

something ******.
He wakes up in bed,

then falls back asleep.
Of course he doesn’t

know that he is asleep.
He’s forgotten how to

balance the equation.
The edifice is a puzzle.

he’s a man
with his coffee

he’s a ghost
watching him-

self an actor in
a play a

****** mystery
also a slave

toiling in the
fields teaching

himself to read
a woman

murdered the
actor says

I have seen
the large beast

the slave escapes
journeys to the

shimmering sea
pursued by

bounty hunters
the ghost watches

himself wash out
his coffee cup

begins his
day as usual

All day she tends the garden behind

the house. Every morning she lines up

clear jars on the kitchen counter,

like rows of pacifist soldiers. In the

evening they are filled with fresh

yogurt. Some evenings we sit by the

fire and she reads Haiku poetry aloud.

Nothing expository there, she says,

then winks and laughs like a church bell.

One night as I was passing by the

drive-in movie theater, I saw her

up on the screen, playing a spy

disguised as a goat. Last night she

sat in the meadow, in the moon light,

wearing the robes of a Buddhist monk.

In the morning I asked if she was

rehearsing for another movie role.

Oh no, sir, she replied, I can assure

you I am entirely the real thing.

Then she crowed, exactly like

a rooster at morning’s first light.