I will admit that “caterwauling” is an ugly word,
But, no matter how joyful the noise,
It’s the only word which fits any sound
That ****** deafening come sunrise on a Sunday morning.
Once again, in song and speech, they were down there,
Loud enough to call all the souls of the just to Glory;
Indeed, the whooping and hollering
Was enough to lead one to suspect
That, just perhaps, they had followed the exhortations of the pastor
And thrown all the wild women, cards and drink
Into the river after all.
It’s not like they do this every **** weekend or anything,
I grumbled (loudly enough to ensure your transition
From the limbo of semi-awake to the real thing,
Part and parcel of ‘til death do we part, in my way of thinking)
But you simply wrapped an arm
A little more tightly around my waist,
Sighing Each to his own, Baby.
Can’t you just celebrate the joys of sleeping in?
I smiled to myself (my back to you, after all)
Ruminating a bit upon the business of revelation
Being a damnably funny thing,
Though I grumped and growled a bit as a matter of principle
How the good book made it a point to mention
That He was not averse to an occasional day off.

Coming
to theatres
near you--"Apocalyspe!"
(its theme tune the mad braying of
an ***.)

He’d been able, after some gentle persistence,
To wheedle his way into the place
(He’d been vaguely recognized by the caretaker,
A certain affable familiarity his stock in trade, after all)
And he had been decidedly deliberate in his search for the shoes,
Though he’d been quite certain where he’d left them,
Simply hoping to drink this all in just one more time
But though the rooms were ostensibly unchanged
(He'd noted the odd knick-knack and piece of bric-a-brac
Had been secreted out, to be preserved or pawned)
They held no fascination for him now,
Simply concoctions of hardwood flooring,
Decorative wall coverings, staid pieces of furniture
(Indeed, the paterfamilias of this whole mélange
Increasingly beyond his recall-- he could hearken back
To a certain hail-fellow-well-met in his demeanor,
And he'd had an affecting smile,
But he was unable to conjure any further details
From the recesses of his memory)
And with nothing else to moor him to these silent rooms,
He'd slipped on the ostensible reasons he'd come in the first place
(Their uppers maintaining their whiteness
Through any number of bleachings,
The soles worn to a near smoothness)
And, nodding perfunctorily to the mansion's steward,
He slipped away, heading to some other party
Carrying on in more or less perpetuity,
The battered bottoms of his shoes
Leaving just the faintest marks as he crossed the dunes,
Soon to be buffed away altogether by the breeze.

Oh, he still mounts up for his seasonal ride
Through Irving’s bucolic corner of the Hudson Valley,
Chasing some suitably harried jogger
On a poster promoting some 5K race,
Or perhaps pictured astride his horse,
Tuxedo-clad, severed visage winking outrageously
In an advertisement for a charity evening
Taking place at some grand former estate
With an equally grand view of the river.
He is less conspicuous in that part of the village
Which is, say, west of Broadway and south of Beekman,
Where the neon signs in the bars tout Corona and Dos Equis,
And the argot on the sidewalks and street corners
Is not the Dutch of the Van Brunts and Van Tassels,
But every bit as Greek to their descendants
Who own the homes with expansive flora and fauna
Mowed and pruned by the denizens of the neighborhood,
Or work in the Mid-town office towers they scrub and shine.
(Not that they come to that part of town anyway, mind you;
They fail to see the rustic charm of the vague fear
Of something or someone hurtling toward them from behind.)

Thing is, Goliath is vulnerable,
And that’s all relative anyhow
(Six-seven and two thirty five plenty big for most folks,
But when every night ‘s just wrestling another six-ten or six-twelve,
All a man can do is grunt and shove best he can
Until the whistle says That’s enough, son.)
Anyway, it all beats you down eventually:
Sometimes it takes decades
(Even if you’re Moses Malone,
And have shoulders like the **** cliffs of Dover)
And sometimes you just land wrong,
Or somebody rolls up on your leg
And you end up as eight-point type in the transactions section.
You tell yourself you can get another camp invite,
Pick up some ten-day deal come New Year,
Maybe head to Italy, be the **** king of spaghetti basketball,
But everyone gets finality at some point,
And sometimes it just explodes on you,
Raining shards from every **** direction,
Leavin’ you nothing to do
Except the turn the ignition switch
And make that particular trip to nowhere in particular,
‘Cause that stone came out of nowhere and hit you flush,
As you never saw the **** thing coming.