If everybody were naked
Nobody could make fun of my style
I would never be outdated.
I could go to parties with a smile.

Also when I live naked
Laundry bill can never go high.
I go jump into the shower
Suddenly I am a clean living guy.

Of course your clothing
Never gets sunburned
And nobody laughs at your zipper.
If you are the only
Person who’s naked
You look like a mescaline tripper.

But if everyone got naked
We might do away with all war
Because there would be little
That seems worth arguing for.

With all the women naked
There would be an end to their hose.
And girdles out of the question.
They’d be as natural as a spring rose.

But one must be careful.
A park bench can pinch
And hot car seats can burn.
Living **** has problems
But like everything else
It just more lessons one must learn.

But think about politics naked;
All those liars up on a public stage.
Without their expensive suits
Would they still manage to engage?

Olympians played naked.
Soldiers used to fight naked too.
Not sure what point I am making
But I think it means something, don’t you?

Pusillanimous polecats
Practicing perfidy
Plan parties and
Parse probabilities proudly
Partially putting past
The paltry populace
Pornographic postulations
And potboilers
Pointing poisonous
Proclamations publically
Pitting proper people
To pathetic programs
Promising the penurious
More poverty.
Often posthumously.

Pitiful people plead
Putting need over posture
Putting parents out to pasture
Promising, but passing on
Proper placement of
Propriety and parity
Planting nothing for posterity,
Prizing prosperity
Politicizing with polemics
Post-mortems on politeness
Placing pandering
Higher in practice
By perpetrating
Practical party politics.

There is an ancient woman
In the market near my home
Who walks the timeless amble
Of a battered soul alone.
Her pasted orange tresses
A marmalade cascade
Fall so stiffly down to where
Her hand is always laid
Clutching her treasure bag
She goes her way careless
Ignoring chiding glances
At her faded evening dress.

Her story hides in rumors
Whispered by those who work
In the shops and restaurants
Here near McArthur Park.
They say she was a movie queen
Or an extra in the silent days
And an accident at the studio
Made her bald unto this day.
She refused to remove the wig
She ran out crying, in costume
And now she is still wearing it
Hoping he will find her soon.

The woman at the pharmacy
Said her hair caught on fire
At a movie in the twenties
Her boss calls her a liar;
Says the leading man did it
In a fit of rage and jealousy
When she wouldn't marry him
He set fire to the scenery.
Others heard that she was fired,
But she wouldn't leave the set
So deep inside her mind
She really hasn't left it yet.

Some have tried to talk to her
But she never speaks that much
Except inquiring prices and colors
Of the goods she chances to touch.
To direct questions and advances
She turns sadly away and leaves.
You can tell she is sensitive
You can tell by her face she grieves.
It is easy to see she is living
In some world that is not ours
Her world seems a place of gloom
Of thunderstorms and showers.

She caresses with her fingertips
Along the banisters she passes
And she seldom lets her gaze linger
Behind her smoked sunglasses.
Her satin dress has faded,
Like the color of her hair.
She still lingers in each moment
When she walks down the stair.
She never seems to notice those
Who stop and goggle at her
And they are many, these gawkers
But they just don’t' seem to matter.

She seems to have accepted
What her life has now become.
She has been coming to the park
For decades more than some.
This may be a playground
For popeyed urban gnomes.
But this is where she shops
This decaying place her home.
This park is very much like her
Many ages past its prime.
The vestiges of past glory
Have not been erased by time.

Don’t like waking up in the morning
I like to sleep until at least noon.
Breakfast can be any food at all
I drive home under the moon.
My friends are all complaining
They don’t know when to visit
But that never seems to stop me.
That isn’t very balanced is it?

I’m a swing shifter, it’s true
Even if it’s grating on you.
I’m either cooking or cleaning
Or maybe the one waiting on you
So you have your evenings
Free to go out and have fun.
Someone must be there for you
And baby, I’m the very one.

I never see the evening news
Except on my evenings off.
I’m not caught up on politics
To form an opinion or scoff.
I’m not up on television shows
Don’t know about the stars.
But I know the late night spots
And exactly where they are.

I’m a swing shifter, it’s true
Even if it’s grating on you.
I’m either cooking or cleaning
Or maybe the one waiting on you
So you have your evenings
Free to go out and have fun.
Someone must be there for you
And baby, I’m the very one.

Ziggy was named
By his rock and roll dad
His Mama ran off right away.
Ziggy grew up
Almost on his own
Dad didn’t care what he’d say.
A lady next door
Took pity on Zig and his dad
And sometimes cooked them a meal.
All Ziggy knew
Was this was home life
The stuff on TV wasn’t real.

Ziggy, you’re really a half decent guy
If only you’d look with your heart.
Sometimes you have to say no if you’re asked.
Sometimes you can’t let things start.

Ziggy, don’t run around with those girls
They aren’t a good kind of crowd
They only want you for money and drugs
They’re ****** and awfully loud.
Ziggy don’t go play cards with those guys
They’ll take you for all that you’ve got.
I know you think they are all your good friends.
But, I assure you they’re not.

Ziggy, the world can get to be big
Well before you can cope.
There are uncaring people all over the place
Ready with sweet words and dope.
Ziggy, the people who only like you
When you are not flat broke
Those kinds aren’t worth your concern
Not worth a dime from your poke.

Ziggy, you’re really a half decent guy
If only you’d look with your heart.
Sometimes you have to say no if you’re asked.
Sometimes you can’t let things start.

I wrote poetry tonight of sunsets and ponds,
worthless topics in light of the state of the world.
Just ended a hospital stay...needed to be mellow.
But this godawful earth gives me the heebie jeebies.
Forced confinement that came with cable t.v.
I wallowed in insanity and stupidity that seemed
                  to have no freakin end
We are teetering on so many brinks, but what was on?
A series about a guy makes a chain of hamburgers
on the family name...
Watched them play on a lawn big enough to choke a goat,
swim in their waterfall pool and frolic in designer clothes.
A series about mansions that cost millions of dollars
and could each house the homeless population of this town.
     Freaking carbon combat boot prints.
Worked all my life.
Me and my three cats struggle - disability does not

               buy mansions!

The world in on a precipice so **** scary
God himself can’t tip it back.

Korea, Iran and all those Isis ******* that put
bullets in the heads of six year-old boys.

And they show wanton consumption - reckless regard
for the land - don’t tell me they earned their money
and deserve to have obscene disregard for others.

When the rich have to  pay their fair share...
when life is equitable and no one goes hungry
or sick
or without education...

Then maybe it won’t be so sickening.

She shuffles purposely, eyes down,
seeing only that path her veiny legs mark out.
A broken old toy on a frayed string.

Flesh of her feet squeezed past
the boundaries of her sneakers.
Pitted, marshmallow feet that have traded
high heels and sheer hose for sweat sox.
She wears three pairs...all she has -
trading them each day.

She swims against the tide, determined
to make her way - to remember her destination.
Her green Book of the Month bag is clutched
to the fray of her coat...everything she has
and is - is in that bag.

Her eyes play peek-a-boo with the sun.
Images flit on her retina, frightening her
to jump; some shadow-shape approaches...
she flies apart, afraid and confused,
helpless to regain her route from memory.

The place she goes is not the place
she wants to be, but it is such a long trip home...
if she could remember where home is.

Auntie Ellen was already crazy
The day her brother moved her in.
She was not my relation but
Everyone addressed her like kin.
She was Auntie to everyone
And she got rather hollersome
If you didn’t call her that way;
She’d shout until kingdom come.

Rumor had it she met a fellow
When she did factory work.
He led her on and dumped her.
He was that kind of a ****.
Something snapped inside her
And she was never the same.
About that time, she started in
Telling people her choice of name.

She lived down the block, alone
And you could hear the music playing.
She’d wave when I passed her home;
I couldn’t hear what she was saying.
One time I started to walk closer
So I could hear the words she said
But she got very angry all at once
And chucked a dirt clod at my head.

We all felt sorry for Auntie Ellen
And didn’t think she was a threat.
The occasional dirt clod was not
Something any of us would sweat.
Her brother came around at times
To see how Auntie Ellen was faring.
I don’t think anyone ever understood
Her words to know if she was swearing.

She was sort of our neighborhood’s
Crazy person we kept in the attic.
She looked strange and sounded worse
And her behavior was quite erratic.
But she never harmed anyone here
And her dirt chucking always missed.
So, we just remembered her as
Auntie Ellen who was usually ******.

The man lay upon the city bench, his eyes closed against the day.
Dark aged skin warmed against the bleached and crackled paint.
Shadows of humanity are the only clouds to cross his mood,
a hastened pace helps avert its formless gaze when passing by.
What judgments has the world heaped upon him, or he upon his-self,
that has brought him to this space of civic consideration?
Is he ignorant of the angst he’s caused to be set upon our bliss?
To how disconcerting to the whole, his social presence is?
He is the dying form of a comrade seen through the smoke of the day’s long battle.
The one who is forsaken to preserve our flimsy rationales,
least we be brought low in some vain attempt to save our dignity.
Whose eyes once open might catch us in their noēsis gaze,
and hold us there unable to avert their silent condemnation.
Yet they are closed.
And our troubles stir him not.