I am a poor man
sitting on the corner of
Your Conscious
and Your Reality.
All day everyday
I sit in that spot and
beg for change.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to water my feeble hope, thorny rose
rooted in concrete hatred.
Roots, like my fingers,
too feeble to hold anything
but this patch of dirt to remind
me, I exist.
ALMS! ALMS! ALMS for the poor of heart!
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to wash away the muck kicked in my face.
A cup of change
to cleanse the wounds made
by verbal bullets shot out of nine millimeter mouths
wielded carelessly by boys society has deemed as men.
I sit in this spot and fester,
like a dream deferred.
My skin, cracked and brittle
like aged parchment, hangs over my frame
like sheets over antiqued furniture.
I sit in this spot with
arms open wide, heart open wide, eyes open wide
BEGGING FOR CHANGE!
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to strip the lies and propaganda
from the decrepit facades of your ideas,
storefront workshops left from the age of enlightenment.
My body yearns for nourishment
but I can't afford your lies.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
Now I'm not asking for a Jesus on Galilee moment,
just a cup of change to feed what's left of my soul.
But who am I to ask for anything?
I am just the poor man
sitting on the corner of
Your Conscious
and Your Reality.
All day everyday
I sit in that spot and
beg for change.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.

Time is whatever you manage to make,
Day in day out, we learn from that which takes it,

To silence the fears that make us,
Feel the hatred that takes us,

Continue, in vain,
Like gestures and coins,
Tossed in the great beyond,

Dimes and platelets of greener days,
Rendered the vision of maximum guilt,
Fortrusions for gone the desert a piece

Watching a classic
Casablanca Class I Fix
Trix cereal for adults
Goddess sundress
The class act you need to guess
Her fit* no-one would
know vibrant
Getting the OJ of the miracle
Sunbathing at the
     *Pinnacle

His skin news of the
Chronicle
The fix-up finale deeply
in her classic smile
Sunflowers of the sunray  
Tropicana class act deviant play

Quickdraw Gunfire
Her hot tango steps in action
Copacabana
Diamonds no chips
Big tips at the Gentleman
OH! Boy the cabana detention
Class I comes with affection
Kiss is not a kiss without a real scene

In action to miss a classic movie hit
Adventure Trips  flipping homes
In the classified newspaper middle section

She is the Classic with an illuminating passion

I the Classic one and he is
surfing the internet
So fit to be tied but casual love
She the same person wearing her
flip flops
******* off *Root beer float tops
The root of all evil
That She-devil Sire
Not the ordinary campfire

It takes a certain Class, I can fix peoples
problems  like great ***** of fire
We are not signs or perhaps it's in the signs
Emblems
Where you came from no problems
Take action get more satisfaction
Army grenade we are all
fighting in action
Action speaks louder than words
One of a kind the rare find
A classification of her mind
Understand each other
do the hiring
  Trump in action job firing

What drives us and gives us
gratification
We need to love what is above
our minds
I believe sometimes you don't have to be where the action is

The Rainman Rainforest Vacation
You are the I phone off
with the ringer
Classic type Class I
Our computer all rules
codes and passwords
The religious Pope up front
He's the  Marlon Brando waterfront
You have the polka dot bikini

Panera Sandwich Panini
Orange you glad its cantaloupe
He wants to elope
your classic smile
Exclamation point
At Times Square you could
lift her for miles

Whether we look modern
The technology is always out of reach foreign
Or wearing your heart in his heart
Your wiggle walk
The classic style to talk
Fifties **** smoke
Born to be wildlife everything
is on Castaway
Or layaway on hold

And he is athlete runner so hype
Everyone is busy on
Twitter or Skype
The Facebook and photos

Dorothy loves wizardly Oz and Toto
Were all together like
a congregation, not a citation
Living in the city paying rent
Another wicked concert event

How many times did you get that notification?
The auction house in action the bid five times
Those hot leads of crimes
Playing for a nickel heads up dimes
Class act Quarterback
Elephant treasure trunk
ten commandment
Class, I lady leading the way
Class, I fix the parliament
Her classic fifty style army dress in action
Her bullet lips caught quite an attraction

Feeling the comfort food
Mac and Cheese
Silly names those 
 Canadian A&W
ATM Class I
The French fries do or dies
Skinny He's the Ham Mac
You're the spicy Cajun
on the speaker Mic
What classifies everything in
our life
High stunts action cliff taking a dive
**** Bill he kills me all the time

That Buffalo Bill Chicken Mac
Bombastic not the
forever love classic
With a whole list dark Raven
Crystal rock Haven

Everything lately goes so fast
Getting in Saint Anthony fire
She is the livewire
The gunfire or the cease her fire
Out of money  honey bee
******* mansion multiplier
Everything you're
near his or hers
Wineglass stir me
like an amplifier
What happens to your
responsibilities running
racing your own time
The  Coffee man suitor
My Godly dictator
The saltwater taffy-like lava
Comic Disney Pixstar meet Daffy Duck
Or you overqualified being lied too
Oh! Chuck

Like a candle in the wind its in
the science hot steamy
romance engagement
What awaits things to come
getting blown away
It just like any other day

Later at the same address
A storm of words reaches flood stage
A couch is bobbing in the currents
towards its mangled ruin-nexus
of matchsticks in cyclonic flow
among the renegade
trash
hanging
from the limbs like tinsel

Meanwhile
chair heaved through her door
Like the river
I am not above my rage
at this stage
of more than enough....
Clever daughter's got my goat
Turns my words on dimes
Lays into me
her score of blame
Each blow to drop me further

presses all my buttons at one time
despite the flashing
Warning! Warning!

“Fine! Fine!”

She blows-out through the afternoon
right past me
in a torrent of curses
A stubborn perfect storm
of words
has taken out parental dam
and blown out toward the Bay of Freedom
to the sorrows of her day

The river may crack its whip
But its got nothing on her

nothing is left standing
in her way

EVERYBODY got ‘em a cell phone
pissant with not a nickel to pay his rent got him one
i ain’t got one or the quarter to use this pay phone
sittin’ there behind me waitin' for me to feed it
and hear that jingle like some slot machine that always pays out
temptin’ me like some shiny new toy
but i got two pennies and i ain’t even rubbin' them together
back then, back when nobody had no cell phone
i filed pennies down on the street to make them the size of dimes
when one of them dimes could by me a marshmallow pie
from a vendin’ machine at the bowlin’ alley
that ain’t there no more
but some cell phone store is
but that don’t matter
i don’t want no cell phone
i would like me one of them marshmallow pies
and an extra quarter to give this hungry phone
yesterday, some lady give me three quarters
and i give two of them to Jose to call his mama and sister
he gave me two smiles
i kept that other quarter to make a call
but couldn’t think of no number
or no soul
want to hear my voice
so i give that quarter to a little boy
who was all alone
and didn’t have no cell phone

Down in the ghetto, real
****** stand together
Me and my 2nd in charge had an
alibi that breezed us on through
Sued the NY Times and their racist news
for they had no clue about us
The judge winked us both off and
later was paid what he was due
Corrupt, corrupt judiciary
The reasons for this are mostly monetary
No questions ... it’s just customary

While the Judges, Lawyers, Popo’s, too
Lookin’ for a way to make a few extra dimes
They were askin’ ‘bout, tryin’ to cash in, all da time
What judge or man wouldn’t agree ‘bout raisin’
a little bread on da side
No questions ... it’s just customary

I then asked a judge, why doesn’t the NY Times
take a bribe, so they don’t need to report all da crimes
I listened with intrigue and right away I saw the signs
Then my eyes closed tighter, as I hear what he describes
Judiciary started callin’ and Popo’s started fallin’
Shhhush . . . it’s just customary

While the Judges, Lawyers, Popo’s, too
Lookin’ for a way to make a few extra dimes
They were askin’ ‘bout tryin’ to cash in, all da time
What judge or man wouldn’t agree ‘bout raisin’
a little bread on da side
No questions ... it’s just customary

Well the New York Times is owned by the Irish
and not by a wealthy enclave of Jews
I think I just made my very last mistake
He fired a pistol from under his robe
and shot me to da ground
And I heard him sayin’ “Never **** with da men in da gown”
Corrupt, corrupt judiciary
The reasons for this are mostly monetary
I’d asked to many questions ... it’s just customary

While the Judges, Lawyers, Popo’s, too
Lookin’ for a way to make a few extra dimes
They were askin’ ‘bout tryin’ to cash in, all da time
What judge or man wouldn’t agree ‘bout raisin’
a little bread on da side
No questions ... it’s just customary.

Walking and saying
Things our wellbeing
The soul needing love possessions
Have absolutely no meaning

Playing and praying
Overstaying and Under-paying
Rising sun and Symphonic searching

" Is this the way it is?" Tis the season

But the tightness no business like
searching business
  She is combined and mixed like a song
fully lined both with keynotes somehow
we declined
The feeling that you cannot breathe
or  trust both of us
 we can  bearly **** it all in
My music playing just click my belt buckle
Will start to begin

The soul is not a crime or just a rhyme
I barely cannot breathe
I am in a chuckle, you see his
smile raising up his dimple

Ms. Thumbelina cobblestone
narrow-minded street your
in the tightrope symphonic beat

But its dark outside your ringlets
Waved him on got excitedly mesmerized
His Goblet of wine she curls up in
his body heat brilliantly dazzled
The sky to your dreams he is
reaching your
soft side skin
whats actually within
our souls

So  hooked into your ride not to slide
better grades and goals
The awesomeness symphonic hatter
Victorian divineness
Her paper cut out hearts as real
as they come
The Eastside Symphonic tip of his
Heavenly Bliss private Quarters
What becomes of the broken hearted
Heads or dimes not landing on her stone
Floor heart
The Duke of all trades of the hat he's smart

Cool running ******
Addictions to the mind so fanatic
What a good soul sometimes
He overexaggerates about
love and fate darkness drives him demonic
What are you kidding me
She doesn't rest her heart on his
soul for the burning desires of food
for thought
She keeps piling his poems like any sport
He's her everything she learns to be taught

Searching lips pricing
Red bloodshot eyes of crying onions
She is so fierce controlling
Musically like a Tiger roaring
He is like a design of graphics tattoo
The earring piecing the sweetest taboo

More soul searching
She's the snake purse
to his snake eyes fancy,
he took a ride
Upper-false teeth
The upper west side
have some prideThe dark side
became her thing
The wildflower not to stand to
bloom and bang like her band

Westside sounds came deep
his pride and joy like a parade
and wickedly dark his charade

It was  sneaking up on her backside
And the other side was just hiding
and smiling
She definitely saw the light lamp post how
the smells came stronger the darkness of desire
she was famished not to have vanished

Feeling like a *** roast love continued
She had a gift for her lover, not the
toast who would brag to boost
Two ****** British what
divine glasses at a cost
The symphonic soul
captured them like the
Dark-Knight of words
Symphonic sounds came
hearing names
soulful hummingbirds buzz-net

And there weren't any more
words there was silence
Eating shepherds pie table was set

Taking over another soul that's a lie
just like magic searching for a love
so long ago became tragic
You need more perseverance
Her true love gave her
an incredible sixth sense
of deliverance
The top seat at the concert
classical wicked taste of music
candescent erotically sonic

She had this certain quality
He was a symphonic love bounty
Her lips moved so fitting fantastically
The flower shops caught her eye
She couldn't sense what was real or a lie
The fast pace of the people all worked up.
What a soulful smell music sounds
she faintly known

To her ear wanted to hear only him shown

Besides the faintly illuminated
shapes evergreens were
heartily trimmed
She stood out bright as the ground
She was turning gray losing reality
not to be found or heard
So soulful her lips speak
she was walking with her head up
in the air fancy dancey
How those men could speak.
You could smell all the ethnic
flavors of foods
She felt the search for something
of a Saint, she was trying to
hard to be good
What a Haydn, his wife
was the mad hair driving

Miss Daisy soul of hers crazy curled
inside her book
She's the lady-like curler
How he played through her hair
Hunchback of Notre Dame who was to blame?
How his eyes wondered playing
and observing
But she was holding his stare

like a womanizer and his eyes flew
what a haunting moon
But Samatha the harp shady tree
He said, my fair lady,
He's stringing something together

What! creepypasta but sometimes her powers were weak
The symphonic love potent every other week

Some Gothic man symphonic music started
Playing Rossini Opera he could stand on his head.
She was pinned to his eyes
Pinterest such interest
she was all bloomed like a fly

By witches, flower came he passed her and he knew exactly who she was as is but wait not his?
The pleading the beg humbug far from her tunes of the ladybug

Razzamatazz all body of Jazz jitterbug
He winked she-devil
summoned him on
What a binding spell
She wiped the sweat off her face
She was beautiful with pale
porcelain skin
So alluring walking
with her parasol

I was walking in
that old betrayer,
rain.
I was soaked to the gills,
and my wingtips were
sloshing on every
broken sidewalk.
The wind took my last
match, so smoking was out.
I'd give my liver for
a lighter and two
dimes to rub together.
I think I'll join the
carnival, get on that
tunnel of love and never
get off.

There are times in life
when a man needs change,
And I don't mean,
dimes and quarters.

Remember when you
were just sixteen,
Driving all alone, solo,
in your old man's Buick?
All the windows down,
radio music blaring,
Your bare arm draped
out over the side of the door.
to better exhibit your bicep.

Hell mister, no doubt,
you were ten feet tall,
the king of the road.
Ever wish you had,
that feeling back again?

Cars were always my thing.
I owned some Detroit
Muscle, Full blown Chevy,
Firebird 400, Chrysler Hemi.
Smoked some tires and
went to Court a time or two.
Of course all that was long
ago in my fitter youth.

When I became a Yuppie
I acquired a Poodle Puppy,
a Porsche and a MGB.

But the ***** does turn.
and so then, did I,
And my road got,
a little bumpy.

Along came marriage,
then a baby carriage.
And a big house
In the Burbs.

Then came a progression
Of Volvo Station Wagons,
to Soccer Dad Mini Vans,
to large SUV's.
All for hauling,
any number of things.
Kids and dogs, strollers,
bikes, kites and scooters,
Fellow car poolers,

And less we forget,
"Pulling" things too.
Boats, RV's, Utility trailers,
and all nature of landscape,
gardening, and general
shopping paraphernalia.
Little League Teams,
Drooling big dogs,
Papier Mache Volcanos.
Home Coming Floats,
Once even a Goat
You name it, I hauled it,
Or pulled it!

Years rolled by,
eventually the Kids
flew the nest, got married.
And low and behold,
The wife and I split,
Each going our separate way.
No one's fault, just grew apart.
The thinly veiled allegorical
Previous Patriarchal
arrangement became,
A whole new start,
A workable self allegiance
to just one.

Soon once more, I was the MAN.
I ran out, bought a **** boat
But not having the kids around,
Soon sold it, having found out,
that alone, I was not a water sport.

I caroused around, dated women,
got my pockets picked,
learned a few lessons.
Fell in love, fell out again,
Took a few pretty good blows,
Right on the chin,
Even some down lower.

Round about then,
An Epiphany kicked in.
Remembered my most,
ennobling, happy events,
behind the wheel,
driving Dad's Buick.

As I stepped on the lot.
There was never doubt,
There was only one choice,
I just had to have that,
Little VW Bug Red Racer.

Nothing like your Mother's
Beetle, the engine's up front,
Not stuck in the trunk,
And man it produces over,
200 Big Time Horsepower
Not to mention,
Lays rubber in three,
Of six gears.
Getting all the while,
33 miles per gallon.

Receiving additional help,
from a sweet Turbo Booster,
Just like a big, Indy Track Bruiser.

There's 19 inch racing
tires and alloy wheels,
They look so cool,
Spinning in motion.

Dual stainless steel exhausts,
And best of all,
a cool collapsible,
Convertible top.

Rack and Pinion steering,
Handles like a sports car,
Yet still offers a backseat
To take my Grandkids,
out for a spin.

Dude, it's got,
All the bows
and whistles!

Top Down Driving is such a thrill,
Makes me feel sixteen again.
The open road, the sky above,
The wind blowing thru my hair,
what there is left of it.

Perhaps the only thing that
Could possibly make this
Driving experience greater,
Would be to speed down,
The road, going eighty,
Behind the wheel of my
Little Red Racer,
Completely **** naked,
And of course all the while,
Feel the wind in my hair.

I don't know, I'm too old,
To call this a mid life crisis.
But on the other hand,
Maybe the acquiring of
This little red sporty car,
Has something to do with,
Those Testosterone shots I'm taking.
I'm even thinking, of dying my hair,
naw, lets not get crazy!

When I look at you,
I remember my last Summer.
When I spend a day in Rome,
that day was so hot,
I was wearing stripes tee and Adidas cap,
Not a cute outfit, I admit.
Under the Sun, I walked by the crowd.
it was Fontana di Trevi
throw your dimes into the fountain, they said.
one dime, then you will go back to Italy.
two dimes, then you will find your true love.
Well, I've been always a fan of this superstitious thing,
Whenever I find a wishing well, or anything that will grant you a wish,
I'm on it.
So I turned my back to the fountain, and I threw two dimes behind my shoulder.
All at once.

And this Autumn, *I have you.

in a way time is like a dime,
tails for passing,
heads for gaining,
because time is so limited,
a dime is limited,
so think it as this,
collecting all the dimes may gain you so much time,
but you'll be wasting the dimes,
because you never use them.

At the mailbox, again:
“Who loves me, baby?”
Well, let’s see: there’s a flyer from Mercury Insurance,
Reminding me that most middle-income customers
Save an average of $4 million smackaroons when they switch too.
The Penny Saver USA.com is here,
Thank God, almighty!
So now I know that Thomas Roofing & Paving
Is having a special on 20-year leak-free flat roofs;
"All work guaranteed & insured.
No job too big or small.
Free estimates/Emergency services/License # I8U-69."
And thank you, Jesus,
For another $4.99 Farmer Boys 3-Egg Breakfast
Combo with Coffee coupon, and that
Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready, $5.00 cheese or pepperoni,
Mae-West-“why-don’t-you-come up and see me sometime?”—mailer. And, of course, another technology Siren’s song:
Verizon FiOS delivers entertainment this big,
Dish me up some dish NETWORK, $19.99 a month . . .
Are you ******* me?
For 12 ******* months?
AT&T;: whack me off on 120 channels.
DIRECTV.com - DIRECTV® Official Site‎
Worry-free 99.9%  . . . cue Joe E. Brown,
"Some Like It Hot“ Osgood:
"Well, nobody’s perfect!"
Time Warner/Sprint/T-Mobile;
And ******* Leather, Polk Street, San Francisco.
******* leather?
Must be for my neighbor: that ***** ****!
And here’s the weekly 8-page color fold-out from Stater Bros:
Lowering prices every day, large cantaloupes
(Jessica Lange, are you back?)
10 for $10.00, 32 oz. Gatorade
Or 24 oz Propel in 30 assorted varieties @ 79 cents
+ CRV: California Redemption Value?
Nice euphemistic cover-up for a TAX.
Nice, nice, very nice, CA elected state officials;
Nicely done, Sacramento.
Everywhere else in the country you get real money—
A fixed number of pennies, nickels, or dimes—
For your plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
But in California, the licensed recyclers
Get to pull the market price out of their *** each morning.
California Redemption Value?
What ******* genius government kleptocrat thought that one up? Conspiracy Alert: who gets all that CRV money?
And what are they doing with it?
Feeling plain, Jane?
Marinello Schools of Beauty, want you,
Offer you hands-on training in cosmetology,
Skin care esthetics, manicuring and vaginal deodorizing—
Just kidding, Babaloo.
Food tip for the Third World:
Never try to write poetry on an empty stomach.
Sizzler 6 oz juicy & succulent.
RENEGADE DEAL:
El Pollo Loco guacamole chicken sandwich,
Coupon free, small drink and small chips,
When you purchase a guacamole or jalapeno sandwich,
includes pepper jack cheese and a southwest sauce.
Gardenas sandia con semilla, 7 lbs 99 cents.
GARDENAS: “en precios, servicio y calidad, nadie nos iguaia.”
Bud Gordon’s Quality NISSAN:
One at this price after a $1500 factory rebate.
TERMINIX: get them before they get you!
The Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta
Bug up my *** again.
And a form letter from the VA
Asking me to please update my whereabouts.
And a form letter from the VA asking me
To please update my whereabouts.
And miles to go before I sleep.
Bite me, Mr. Frost!

An outing, at last.
I am going for a walk around the inside of my gates.
I live in one of those gated over-55 lunatic asylums.
There are gates. It is gated. Get it?
GATED! We feel safe here.
Probably a good thing at our age:
Self-imposed institutionalization,
Putting oneself in an asylum to ferment and die.
The fact that so many of us
Need it so bad at only 55
Says something itself about the current state of
Baby Boomer metal-fatigue.
I am now standing at the far end of the golf course.
I wait at the far end of the 18th Hole.
A ball bounces past my head and
Rolls off past the green into the far rough.
The 18th Hole is perched atop a small plateau,
Out of sight, far above the horizon for anyone teeing off.
I am Puck, invisible and impish.
I pluck the ball up.
I scamper to the green.
I pop the ball into the hole.
Which is better than popping a hole in the ball,
Surely, kind of a drag,
As we were once fond of saying.
Deflated Ball.
Deflator Maus.
OPERA can be ****.
Bodice-ripping corsets, whorehouses and naked ******!
Hardly what you might expect from
A night with the Welsh National Opera,
But they found their way into this production of "Die Fledermaus."
Ripe language, contemporary jokes and
Toilet humor thrown in, adding immensely
To the pleasures of Strauss’s operetta.
"Die Fledermaus," or The Bat’s Revenge,
Is all about drunkenness and adultery.
Despite being written in the 1870s,
It remains equally pertinent to today’s pub culture of excess.
Daring; Colorful; ****: PGA golf.
I steal a golf ball on the far end of the 18th Hole.
I pick up the Titleist and stick it in the hole
(Steady Jessica, not yours.
I hide behind your bush.
(Cue up PSA, First Lady Bird Johnson’s 1960s
Nationwide Beautification Campaign:
“I want everyone in America to plant a tree,
A sherrrr-rub, or a booosh.”)
The golfer now searching frantically:
Why is the cup always the last place they look?
Then, wham, bam, he looks:
A legend is born.
A hole in one,
His name forever immortalized
On a plaque over the bar, the proverbial 19th Hole.

As you know, I speak for all mediocrities,
Safe in my 55+ gated-community.
I go next to the Club House,
"The Lodge" as it’s called.
Each afternoon, the usual suspects
Claiming first come/first serve tiered mini-theater seats
Where Netflix matinee gems are screened.
It is two minutes to DVD show time.
I walk to the front of the room.
I stare at my audience.
I count the house slowly,
Making meaningful eye contact with each wrinkled face.
I cup my hands behind my back and speak:
“I assume you are all here for my lecture on Kierkegaard.”
No one reacts.
I turn to leave but do a double-take and smile.
One old woman in the top right corner of the amphitheater laughs, Perhaps the one other human being within the gates
Who has also smoked a joint today.
For an instant, I am overwhelmed with paranoia,
Perhaps I’ve gone too far over the line:
No longer “oh-he’s-a-character;”
I am now “that creep is ******* nuts.”
Is it time for someone to approach my family,
My next of kin, my “who-to-contact-in-event-of-emergency” number? Who will make the call on behalf of the HOA—
The Homeowner’s Association—
The Tsars, the Duma, the Supreme Soviet in these parts?
They are the power inside the gates;
Those who determine the state’s enemies,
Who govern its community norms.
Power within the gates.
Law within the asylum.
Little Hitlers one and all.
Hopefully they reach my sister first.
She’s been briefed.
KEY POINT IN THE NARRATIVE:
The new narrative is non-linear.
We can no longer sustain a narrative understanding of ourselves;
We are each an individual stream of consciousness,
All of us random, non-linear and disconnected.
We grow more and more disconnected from others.
We may be neighbors in space and time,
But we remain deprived of any significant human contact;
Any spiritually significant human contact.
Our social circle narrows to what can fit in The Telescreen;
We become more intimate with a legion . . .
Did someone say a legion? SPQR:
Am I having some sort of genetic-linguistic seizure here?
Am I channeling Benito Mussolini again?
Il Duce speaks to me from the grave,
Still blowing smoke up my Hopi-Jew-*** ***,
Filling in my insecurities,
Plugging the holes in my character
With delusions of classical Roman grandeur, glory and empire. Hmmmm? Quite an appetizing pitch for the average *****,
A message so completely, so ethnocentrically slick,
Olive oily, and so seductive.
A non-Italian would have thought
American Legion or Legionnaire’s disease,
Or The Foreign Legion, The French Foreign Legion.
The French: a virulent, promiscuous people.
Do you want fries with that, Simone?
No, I don’t get out much.
Only an occasional brisk walk around the asylum,
In and around the golf course, around but inside the gates. (LINKS) Bill Gates. Daryl Gates. Billy Bathgate’s Gates? Ghiberti’s Gates? The Hot Gates? Thermopylae? 300 Spartans/700 Thespians:
“The noun causing idiots to think of
Two girls sloppily eating each other’s mighty vaginas,
When they hear mention of someone being an actor.” http://www.urbandictionary.com
Not even close.
No, I rarely venture out.
This is Hemetucky.
There are methamphetamine-stoked
Teenage zombies at the gate.
Note to costume control:
Perhaps camouflage clothing is the safe choice?
No loud red Hawaiian.
No garish Indonesian batik.
Fleet of feet are these Hemet tweakers,
These cranked up Riverside County teenage barbarians,
These Huns & Visigoths,
These amped up, ravenous jackals.
And why stop there?
These Vandals & Vandellas.
A Motown flashback:
“Nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide.”
With or without Martha—
They remain dangerously lethal.
Yes, let it be camo clothes for me.
Those **** heads may be young.
They may be fast.
They may be able to run me down
On a dry grass dog-legged fairway savannah,
Tearing the meat from my carcass.
But the sons-a-******* have to see me first.
Besides, we know who are real friends are.
Hooray for our media peeps!
We become more intimate with a legion
Of television personalities on 125 different channels.
Most of these we know by name and context.
We know their families, their friends,
Their histories, their tragedies,
Their favored hyperbole and manner of speech.
Sometimes we establish intimacy with celebrities
Strictly on the basis of universal body language.
At times–in the absence of any other
Empathetic facility of identification–
We connect on instinct alone.
Instinct: perhaps animal at its core,
An animal kingdom affinity group,
Connecting on a bio-linguistic level,
Particularly when the Korean, or Spanish,
Mandarin, or Arabic,
Japanese, or even Hebrew language version is broadcast.
All languages cryptically alien,
A dense boundary, a barrio border wall,
Undecipherable, impenetrable concrete.
But we’ve never spoken to our neighbors,
Nor do we know their names.
Celebrities are the neighbors we know best;
Although the intimacy is an illusion,
Permission to invade their privacy presumed,
Tacit in the relationship between celebrities and their fans.
I am an independent contractor now,
An outside consultant to the NSA.
Try as I might I cannot crack the enigma,
Kim Kardashian remains far beyond my code-breaking prowess.
I repeat myself:
We can no longer sustain a narrative understanding of ourselves;
We are each an individual stream of consciousness,
All of us random, non-linear and disconnected.
We are more and more disconnected from others.
We may be neighbors in space and time,
But we remain deprived of any significant human contact;
Any spiritually significant human contact.
Our social circle narrows to what can fit in The Telescreen; we become more intimate with a legion . . .
Back to you, David Ulin:
“Sometime late last year—I don’t remember when, exactly—I noticed I was having trouble sitting down to read. That’s a problem if you do what I do, but it’s an even bigger problem if you’re the kind of person I am. Since I discovered reading, I have always been surrounded by stacks of books. I read my way through camp, school, nights, and weekends; when my girlfriend and I backpacked through Europe after college graduation, I had to buy a suitcase to accommodate the books I picked up along the way.”
Thank you, David L. Ulin.
I cannot help myself.
I grow more eccentric each day.
My eyeballs glued to that flat screen!

Cosmo Kramer: "The bus is outta control.
So I grab him by the collar, I take him out of the seat,
I get behind the wheel, and now I’m driving the bus."
Jerry: "Wow!"
George Costanza: "You’re Batman."
Cosmo Kramer: "Yeah, yeah, I am Batman.
Then the mugger, he comes to and he starts choking me.
So I’m fighting him off with one hand,
And I kept driving the bus with the other, ya know.
Then I managed to open up the door,
And I kicked him out the door, ya know,
With my foot, ya know, at the next stop."
Jerry: "You kept making all the stops?"
Cosmo Kramer: "Well, people kept ringing the bell!"
(Share this moment with a stranger.)

I speak for all mediocrities.
I am their champion, their patron saint.
Boom Chaka Laka. Boom Chaka Laka.
Boom Chaka Laka. BOOM!
Isn’t it time Salieri tempted Constanze–
Frau Mozart–with a plateful of Capezzoli di Venere:
“******* of Venus.”
You had me at hello, Kidman.
I know you too well, Nicole.
I knew you from before,
Way before Tom’s Oprah couch freak show.
Listen to me, Nicole:
We are face to face
With the most profound question in American literature:
"What is the grass?
The flag of my surrender?
The flag of my disposition?"
I resort to Socratic maxims: Know yourself;
The un-****** life is not worth living.
Is it stress? Is it lack of conviction?
Everything Jeff Lebowski neither wants nor needs in his life?
I watched you *** in "Eyes Wide Shut," Nicole.
Now I know you with my eyes and your legs wide open.
Thank you, Sidney Pollack.
Sidney knew.
Sidney dealt us cards
From his Hollywood Tarot deck.
We are intimate, Nicole.
I watched you squat.

beauty is in the heart
freedom is within the mind
and peace is found
when we unbind

from our earthly attachments

reconciling, that sparse is our time
there will come a day
where youth will pass away
convictions, less in the sense of values but crime
you'll have wished you spent your earlier years
with a nose fixed to the grind
wouldn't that have been grand
in the latter part of your life
to have no worries on the mind
no cares, but for
time time time

The feds are making headway
(generously passing out their treats!)
while the whistle blower
and his boon companion
hit the 22nd floor
fiscal plans
are tidily falling into place
and the suits are all busy
chasing their dimes
dancing around the spire
full of wine and cheer
(seems the demand side imbalance
has got everyone doing the same old shimmy!)

they’re all studying their bollinger bands
MACD's, and treasuries
just like the good old days
santali would say
while capitol hill is busy
with its own pleasantries;
repatriate that currency
hold those rates
bring the boys back home!
the affirmations are robust
and filled with glee!

conspiracy thinkers
are busy in their own back rooms
initiating the trade
and building their counter claims
as pork bellies
and soybeans
continue to soar
(looks like eddy and the margin men
are at it again!)

what happened to that bear masquerade anyways?
they really were a band of brothers
colourful clowns
with big painted smiles
ready to lead in any parade
but they met with the resistance
a horned wall
satan’s horsemen riding high
with bags hung heavy
under dark squinting eyes

are we near an end?
the undertakers will say
it's only a blink of an eye
to the thin red line
where risk takers and front men
all jump ship
debt addiction is crippling
and hell breaks loose
when entitlements are out
and towels are thrown in

there’s a center piece here
those pugnacious statesmen
with invigorating tales
have had their place
time to clip them at the limbs
and pull the punch from the bowl
(sobriety has its merits you know!)
let’s head to the commission
and throw darts to the board ~
seems the moral blueprints are fading

she held me close and cooed and preened me
and held me safe from the night
from the large and troubling world
that my tiny brain could not comprehend.
those ancient hands
had seen many decades,
the raging waters sought the
liverspotted skin like a flame
seeks a moth to burn
by shining so **** bright.
She gave me dinosaurs
and quarters and
nickels and dimes,
she told me stories
and memories and
the dusty images of long abandoned time.
I sat and sat and listened and sat and
retreated into the shelter of
those far too weathered hands.
though the world was
largely storm clouds
and the incessant shouting of the thunder,
she held me closer,
covered me in her mass and
held me quickly against the oncoming storm of time.
those ancient
weathered hands

Dear Perfect Girl,

Grounded in the real world

Taking care of herself like you’re rooted in a material one

Your eyes and smile never cease to amaze

But it’s your ambitions that set my heart ablaze

Your laugh puts a smile on my face

That seems to erase and replace

The negative and repetitive

If only for a second

I love our similarities

But our differences make it worthwile

From your taste in music to your sense of style

Because a venn diagram without differences is a circle

And I’d rather go the extra five-thousand two-hundred and eighty feet

To be close to you

Than to already understand most of you

By understanding myself

Dear Perfect Girl,

There are dimes that will do anything for a nickel

And nickels out making dimes

But I want your two cents

And though I may laugh at it

I take it to heart sometimes

Because like a game of monopoly

I don’t want to find myself back at the start

And I don’t really watch chick flicks

But I saw 500 Days of Summer

And you’re my Autumn

To which I’ll be sprung for in the winter

I wear no mask for you

Because I’ve divulged my past to you

For you are presently in my future

And though you may be a feminist I’ll try and be a perfect suitor

Dear Perfect Girl,

You say you’re OCD about some things

But it’s your imperfections that are great for me

And though I’m not sure I’ve met you yet

I dare you to wait for me

Because every day I improve myself

In preparation for thee

And a relationship you won’t forget

I’ll wear knee pads and a helmet

For when the day comes that I’m head over heels

I’ll be able to get up in time to catch you

When you fall in love

Disney taught me to wish on the stars above

And I’ve wished on every star

Thrown a penny in every fountain

And spent every 11:11

Wishing for you

Perfect Girl

This is a three-part, longer narrative poem, seen
as old photographs that follow the main character, My Aunt, Lillian Goldrick, across two decades.  It was written 30 years ago*
______

“Hey Kid!”     Part I

Photographs aren’t fair
stopping the soul where it’s not
in rectangular guffaws
surrounded by serrated edges, pickets, teeth?
to fence and stab in yellow, soft-covered booklets
with designated floppy phrase
“Your memories”

Happier than she could ever be...

A black and white day at Salisbury Beach, NH
hung over his hammock
Private pin-up girl
tilts her head against silver sheen of shoulder
Hair, dark chignon
except for a few wispy curls about her face
freed by wind
bleached by sun

Stopped

...for three decades
Legs slightly bent—long extended
that could stop trains, stop traffic

Stopped

Modest bathing suit, probably peach
cannot hide (not that she would)
the undeniable
And if there were question left
you could look at her smile—and love her
posed by he message scrawled in sand:

“Hey Kid!”

What kid? Where?
In the foreground?
In the camera’s eye?

In the background—
a Ferris wheel, a billboard
and  r-i-g-h-t  there—Can’t you see it?
Look again—behind her eyes
You can barely see it, but it’s there.
Remember?

The Depression
Only ten years before
It was April
Stroke, heart attack
Both of them gone, a year apart!
The priest came
Last Rites for mortally stricken
Candles, crucifix, the Catholic containment
of holy water that dams the tears

Kneeling around the bed
they said the Rosary

——————————

After VJ Day he came
to the house on the corner
of Commonwealth Ave.
She knew he was coming
but she could not be ready today
nor tomorrow
nor next week—or ever...

“Lill! Will ya come to the door?
She’ll be ready in a minute.
Hey Lill! Hurry up, will ya!
They’re waitin’ fer us!”

Upstairs in the dark hallway
her door clicks shut....
________


"Hey Kid"    Part II


The clock at Joe Rianni’s read 20 minutes to 12...

Crowd from the Phillip’s Theater—gone
though laughter lingers
in a Friday mood
in high-backed booths
where only an hour ago swinging free
were high-heeled shoes
legs crossed at knees....

Now on tables abandoned
deserted fields of French
fries lie cold in salt flurries

Only female straws wear lipstick
as do Luckys bent in ashtrays
Males, uniformly flattened
as powder burned, as mortar might
shells, casings—the evidence of war
Among explosions of tickled giggles
one was taken broadside...

listing     toward      stars
_______

...The clock read 20 minutes to 12

when she walked in--
And Rhea stopped swabbing black mica counters
long enough to absorb late-customer hate
and envy that such beauty can arouse
In voice hoarse and weighted like a trucker’s

“Whadaya have, Lill?”

“coffee”

The small answer settled at the soda fountain
and slowly struck a match...
She was falling from the slant
of her black felt hat
dripping off the point of pheasant feather
Gray gabardine suit
tailored from angle of shoulder
to dart diagonally
toward such a waist!
Turned to skirt hips
that arched and dove toward slit—
then seams that run the round of calf

that seem to flow
to ankles of naught—
...and all that seems

Black     high-heeled     above it

Coffee— cold, stale
Gray glassed-in stare
searches air and random walls
of coat hooks, menus, mirrors...
while lips ****** exiled words— replies

Dragging a demon from her Camel
slowly     purposefully
she exhaled a burly arm of smoke
that rose and laid its hand
against the ceiled atmosphere of embossed tin
Then leaning over her shoulder
in roiling emission of shrugs and sneers—

“Lill—There’s no way outa here!”
________


“Hey Kid!”    Part III

After kneeling backwards on their chairs
after nuns, catechism recited
After—
Five of them scuffed through leaves and litter
along the curbing
spotting cars that counted—
Bugs, beach wagons, flying bathtubs
A slower way home of hunting
shiny chestnuts and muddy finds
rare match book covers
and bottle caps that win ya things!

One breaks from bunch
and trials off to where
dimes turn to candies!
...at a dingy luncheonette...Joe Rianni’s
____

Here—behind smeary wall of glass
pleasure leers while holding back
those grimy fingers, lips that long
for jelly fish, gum drops, lollies
holding back the company
of Baby Ruth, and Mary Jane
O Henry or Bazooka Joe!
For less money but the same salivation
there were colored dots to chew and ****
from strips of paper that last forever!
For a little more, plus the sweet struggle
of desire denied
a kid could be proud owner
of a pea shooter or trading cards!
While in the mouth
were golden imaginings—
the chocolate foil of coins
and the candied pretense of cigarette adulthood
_____

Rhea didn’t see her in the line...

Only grownups with wallets and purses
Only grownups get waited on...
...because Rhea was a Gypsy!
Kids could tell!
by her big red lips and hair to match
by the nasty way she chased them out—
“****** kids!”
Only grownups get waited on....
_______

And the clock read 20 minutes to 12

While a child waits—
time stirs in a ceiling fan
   There’s a drift in attention
      along deepening endless walls
         toward a line of sleepy booths
              carved with

“I was here—in such and such a year”

Her aunt—at the last stool—like always
Their names too close
Confused too often

A little girl wonders
about the sight behind the sightless stare
loafers, ankle socks, the ‘40s hair
the gathered skirt that gathers ashes
as they fall from cigarette
held in yellowed fingertips
Tremors crimp the smoke that climbs—

              ...a strobing pillar

“Whataya want, girly?”

              ...the only movement

“Hey! What’s it gonna be!”

              ...in a shot—

“HEY KID!”

              Snapped

The leaves fall in September, during the festivals. They dissipate, reintegrate into vivid little vespers that bob and levitate on gusts of wind that leave one bristling. The ferris wheel looks like an electric celestial ferry, set ablaze and bound for distant dimensions, man with mutated mohawk green, eyes wretched, livid and obscene, was the maniacal who manned it. Glow stick ghouls, with faces smeared americana snow cone red and blue haunt the parking lot, purple precipitate that hisses as it hits the pavement the product of their incessant chanting, pulling fuzz-lined warmth from my marrow. Under the stadium lights, women tighten their scarves as tiny, cerulean seahorses shimmer and dance with the ebb and flow of their jewel studded breath, retreating, giggling like immortal birds fallen from the nest.
Love is paper mache; a pop culture artifact. Like a stuffed hare that seems to have lost its ability to come to life after one loses their virginity. It has long legs and keen ears. It's very fast and would be quite handsome as well if it wasn't so **** helpless. It has been bred into the fibers of contact, the filter we set on lust, the way recycled cans make castles on lily pads and dead skin makes dust. We are swirling around in its whirlpool, if it wasn't drowning us we would be dead by now, same goes for the mad, mangy men who will count their teeth with their dimes and pick at their scabs, finger their sores, the retired professor who was too clever to have ever been faithful, the mockingbird that sings on my windowsill every morning in French, the mailmen and the dogs who bark at them in Quebec. An obsessive complex affords one the privilege of straightening the line, counting in time and putting the rabbit en route.
If it is the case that detachment follows from distance then I am one cactus length away (average, or medium sized cactus of course) from destroying the moon's mezzanine, housing all of the dreams behind ethereal, Egyptian, colored crystal that a pagan god stole from a black hole, never intended for you or me.

yes, it did.
Just now

right now,
the now that was a moment ago and left a mark.

Beastly meme-ish mark, a consonant glyph or a ligature,

an umph!

Right between the eyes.

right between the --- fit any jective noise ---ooof!
Umphh
ouch

eyes.

no cursem
no sworn revenge, mere wind knocked
from my sail

a seen monster blocking my sail with the shadow of his storm

Float, still as a pond on the Albatross killer's sea of green.

there never was a yellow submarine,
The one Krasner sunk in central park was fake. That was in '68.

March, maybe, ides of March keep signaling meanings
I never knew were clues.

This just happened.
I was telling a friend about the effect of seeing my first man die,
as I set the scene, March, '68…

tellin' him, it was the next day,  the next day after
we met in a chow-line at Camp Freznell Jones,

You axed, whatchewdoin here? I rolled my eyes.

You were a medic, you said if I needed
hope, you had dope…
(we had first met on the first day of first grade.)

I had shot him in the belly with a bb gun, when we were twelve.
He slugged me in the mouth for Alice Jones, when we were fifteen.
(there's a story, but it angles away from what just happened.)

We remembered a time.

March 1968, about a week after My Lai,
we were
nineteen year olds, schooled together  in good citizenship,
since we were six,
in the year 1954. when
President Eisenhauer,

personally, we heard,

had added two words,
under and God,
to the good citizen allegiance pledge
all first grade good-citizens-to-be
were learning again,

because the new pledge meant more than the old pledge had.
That had needed to be done.

Or the commies were going to get a cobalt bomb
and blow the whole world to heck.
Per Boy's Life, the scouting mag.

This was explained by the fact that there were no escapes
from prisoner of war camps in Korea,
the commies were at
war against God,

that was explained when a captured secret brainwashing plan revealed:

the lack of knowing why America was worth dying for in Korea, among
the U.N. G.I.  little brothers and younger cousins

of the greatest generation's victorious G.I.
warrior heroes, every one,
so steeped in esprit dee corp,
the ones who could would march in Parades for fifty years.

But
Those
tweener losers twixt the survivors of first
wave greatest generation warriors and  us
(Talkin' bout my generation, we didn't die before we got old),

those guys nee-cess-it-ated,

Purely from lack of knowing, never having been taught

the Uniform Code of Military Justice and that our
allegiance is and was pledged to a nation under God.

Both which were new information
maybe our moms and dads didn't know yet,
we could teach them for homework
the new pledge and ask for dimes
for the march of dimes
at the same time.

Echo
The boom of babes
just beginning citizenship training for the war
they would fight, but right,
they would know,
because the commies,
could not infiltrate our schools and teach lies…

The boom of babes
just beginning citizenship training for the war
they would fight, but right,

like all the men in town who served and survived the real war,
the world war,
not a Po-lease action,
and who,
if they were shot down (no fault of their own, ****** Red Baron)
they escaped
in movie quality dramatic ways
from prisoner of war camps in Germany,

(Not many escapes from Japanese
prisoner of war camps,
but Islands account for much of that. Sharks.)

Echo
the boom of babes
just beginning citizenship training for the war
they would fight, but right,
that boom of fresh new cannon fodder for the future,

we needed to know
we were pledging, promising to pay with our life, no lie,

I pledged, we all pledged knowing, no mistake,
God is on our side,
we are, as a nation, as a citizen of this nation,
under god.
From now on.

We all stand.

--- that was all flash back---
What just happened was Doc Musgrove stopped my tale,
my telling of the first death
I watched

He remembered
He was a medic
He cleaned the mess I watched that left this stain.
He carried the bodies.

I walked away.
Then fifty years later, I figured it wouldn't hurt to tell.
But it does.
You, generations after ours, remember war
does not make better people of good citizens who know

allegiance means allied with, not ruled by.

Liege lords are things of the past. That's why the statues always fall.

We are free because truth, when known, makes us free.
Wars make no man free.

If you can't love your enemy, that's no excuse.
Set a standard, high as you can imagine,
based on the good you know is good,

{no this is not preaching it is sharing, so you don't suffer from lack of knowing and say nobody shared what he learned after becoming the definition of a heretic.}

exercise your self, discipline your self
become a disciple of good
for goodness sake
do what you know is good
as if it were being done to you

and enemies become others who maybe
you could see things like, if

you looked from a higher plane.

Yes, I dare, I was dared. An Indian kid dared me to prove
I inherited the wind.

Now, I'm here to tell a story
Bout some lessons learned shawty
I got me a tough crew, know what um sayin
We played da diss game, slaydum
Not one a da crew, brought da game shame

First, I dubbed myself Kang
I'm good, true! But didn't mean a thang
Then coughed ma gural Sumpim
She got da club thumpin
Put her own style in da game, bra
We still thuggin? Na!
She first coughed a little gural princess
Kicked in the castle, copped the Queen's dress
Took the crown, made her own success
Her rhymes get the heart pumpim
Much respect to me gural Somthin

Next, little siss picked up the mike
Jumped on the tandem, started peddlin the bike
Shawty's rhymes hit dem in da face
She rhymed like a ****, dresses in satin an lace
Mad props out  to my siss, Madison grace

I was alone,  like a stand  a timber
****! Forest on fire with Diein Ember
Laid down rhymes so tight
He'd have my back in any fight
I gotta thank ma boyyy
Gangstan whichu was a flippin joy

Otta nowhere swaggs a tru Gansta chick
Bustin rhymes en droppin dimes like she was Slick Rick
Wedyan be da real trick! Thanks gural slick

Finally, swooped the dark Raven
Rollin on 22's gatz a blazzin
Loyall to da shawtys
Flyin like a bomber on sorties
Droppin posers to der knees
Makin succaass  beg, brotha please

To all ya all I got ta tell ya
Would I do it again, hell ya
Um movin on to a new gig
Pull off my crown, plop on a wig
To ya readers out dare got some advice
Giv it a spit, it's Gangsta's Paradise!!!

He fought a war and came back alive,
not quite right in body or mind.
Years spent alone on the streets,
scrounging for nickels and dimes.

A kindly veteran passer-by gave
him a Ten dollar bill and a smile,
much to the elated man's surprise.
Where upon he bought a jug of wine,
two cans of soup, and on a whim a
scratch off lottery ticket too.

It snowed that night freezing temps
blanketed the city. Two days later
under a bridge he was found dead
in his tent by an aid worker.
Three empty jugs of cheap wine
beside his frozen body. A roll of
brand new fifty dollar bills in his
pocket, along with a two day old
Bank deposit slip noting an opening
balance of Twenty thousand dollars.

And so one overlooked, forgotten
man died all alone, no longer needing
to panhandle for nickels and dimes.

A lot is on my mind, I can't sleep sometimes.
The grind of life, and love so blind, I go insane from all these dimes.
I searched myself, trying to find a reason to be kind.
Like an old book on the shelf, the mystery of my design, I'm waiting for someone to comprehend my rhyme.
But I'll never see anything turn into fruition.
No one will open that old book.
It'll sit there forever never opened again.
No one will take the time to look.

It was the midsummer of the 50’s and my girls and I went out for a bite. Jimmy’s Burgers was a block away and boy were we hungry! We could eat a cow for all we know. Jimmy’s jukebox can play music day in and day out.

My girls and I parked our blue Thunderbird Convertible, and hopped on in Jimmy’s. That place is always filled with younglings like us. You can smell the fresh potato cut fries fryin’ up in the greasers. The burgers are always my fave! I would beg to just get a bite out of those succulent, juicy ground babies.

Everyone in this joint always seems to be dancing their little feet off, the girls with their casual oxfords and pastel loose skirts; the guys wearing leather, pompadours, and their high-wasted pants. I love to crank that jukebox with only my quarters and dimes I have left in my purse. The girls and I sat on down in one of the red booths. A young waiter came over with bottles of coke with his pen and paper.

“May I take ya’ll lovely ladies’ order?” He was chewing on that mint gum.

Boy was he handsome! That sweet southern twine had me going bonkers. He looked all fancy in his all white uniform; his apron had ice cream stains and fry grease. His sandy brown hair was cascading behind his ears. I loved his paper hat too. His big brown eyes were looking into mine as he was getting our orders. I couldn’t help but stare back. He gave us our cokes and gave me a little wink behind his thick black glasses. I really didn’t care bout’ those pimples, his face made a girl melt like Texas asphalt on a hot beach afternoon!

I made myself look sweeter than a peach. I fluffed my hair and fancied my outfit, hoping for that rascal to come on back. The jukebox was still kicking tunes in the back, that’s when the cute waiter came back.  His tall, slender, perfect body walked on over and sat our tray of burgers down. My face was red hot like the time I first took a bite out of a chili pepper. The waiter got close to my ear and whispered,

“You wouldn’t mind if I take your sweet self on the dance floor for a second would you?”

Wasn’t that boy supposed to be working? I didn’t care. That rascal waiter grabbed my hand and swung my little waist on the dance floor. We twist, kicked, and shimmied. I was having the time of my life! I didn’t know my girls were staring at me, cheering on. Too bad the cutie had to go back to work. I walked over and sat back in the booth.

My girls were giving me the, you’re his sugar girl look. Not my fault he was sweeter than maple syrup!
The girls and I were finished at Jimmy’s Burgers, so we started to head out. Before I even opened the door, that waiter grabbed me by the waist and said,

“Hey sweet thing, leaving too soon? I didn’t catch your name?”

I looked into those eyes again; I felt my heart skip a beat like the jukebox when there’s a bug in it. His southern twine again,

“My name’s Robert James, but you can call me RJ.”

He kissed my hand and gave me that wink again. I gave him a smile and went outside. My face was peachy like a baby’s bottom! I didn’t even tell him my name, dog-gon shame.  From now on, I’m hittin’ Jimmy’s Burgers just so I can see that waiter.

skyscraper man on seattle time
looms in the corner of swan lake and fry
untouchable denim untouchable blueblack plaid jacket
     he's put together with clothespins
     he's put together with stipends
     he's crammed between taxi cab book ends
skyscraper man on seattle time
stoic as the jet engines roar by
all his friends are magazines all his friends currentbrief
     he's got a little future
     he's got a few dimes
     he's got no father to call out the lies
skyscraper man on seattle time
watches smog children kick ***** on concrete
vulnerable under trees writes his novels in purpleink
     he's married once before
     he's read crucifixion lore
     he's returned his money to the store
skyscraper man on seattle time
looking through spectacles of ***** and brine
the rain falls hard the breeze sweet on the leaves
     he's emptying the soul of modern rock n' roll
     he's emptying the tray of ashed thought
     he's emptying the bank account cold
skyscraper man on seattle time
sheds crinkled skinmemory like the cicada
a twin-sized deathbed deathbed in apt. 203
     he's nothing.
     he's ever.
     he's happened.
skyscraper man on seattle time
carbon copied and eternal as saltwater as rust
invisible and tapping at the runrain window
     he's nothing.
     he's ever.
     he's happened.
skyscraper man on seattle time
climbs himself to the cosmos lightheaded perfection
ethereal visions of fullbloom love and legacy with measure
     he's nothing.
     he's ever.
     he's happened.

This one time,

12. or 13, when me
And a bunch of other kids
From a different neighborhood
Played. Outside. From about sunup
To 9:00 at night. I dimly remember
(This light-bulb memory is the barest bit of energy
In an ancient filament of thought:)

It was a nightmare come to life.
There was this one kid across the River
(Rock Island)
They found him naked and dead,
In a discarded pile of coal.
His life brutally taken from him.
But that was the only time
I'd ever heard of something so horrible. Happening.
It was as commonplace as school shootings.
Which is to say, it didn’t happen in the
World that was ‘As Far As I Knew’.
Outside, everywhere, as far as I knew;
Was just where you went. No matter what.
It’s just what we did. And we did a LOT.

We played. On a job application, I would have
Written that. “Player”. As in: “Hey, I’m a kid.
I mess around. I’m unhygienic and smelly and
My hair is long and arms sunburned and sweaty
And tired and about as happy as any kid
Could be in 1975.

This one time,
I go in this dumpster and grab a
Sandwich the Mgr. of the 7-11 mistakenly threw out
It smelled. Badly. I pretended to take a gigantic
Bite out of it. My buddies weren’t ROTFL.
That stupid phrase was pre-born.
They laughed so hard they fell off their bikes.
Probably painfully so.
I worshiped this praise. Ate it like
Seinfeld eats applause.
They were rolling
On hot Iowa summer pavement, laughing fit to split.
On top of that dumpster, that day, in that single moment,
I was the King of Whatever

The manager heard some kind of ruckus.
The sandwich was in my hand, a cheesy spoiled grenade.
Which I promptly threw at him. ‘Cause he was the Adult
And I obviously wasn't Victor Mature.
He waddled back inside and called the Cops.
Not amazingly,
They were literally right around the corner.
My buddies took off like scalded dogs
I got on my homemade trail bike, laughing so
Hard I pedaled into a sticker-tree.

I didn't know what "irony" was back then.
Back then, I was so inherently goofy, that funny
Hilarious crap was somehow attracted to me.
Ironically, when I tried being funny on purpose...
Fill in the blank. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
I'm pretty sure.

We met at that French word I still can't spell.
Ron Day View.
Cackling like
Loony loons. We laughed out little butts off.

And we rode bikes EVERYWHERE.
Through the trails. There were bike
Trails trailing everywhere, short-cuts from point
Hay to Tree. And oh yeah, I climbed trees.
Constantly. And ate apples and plums from
That mean lady’s yard. She stood in her
Kitchen and glared through cat-eyed glasses,
Daring us. Daring me.
GO AHEAD. PICK JUST ONE SINGLE PLUM.
THEN I'LL CALL YOUR MOTHER!
(Interestingly, we didn't hang out with the
plums which didn't fall too far from Mrs. Tree)

Ate whatever was edible. Wild clover.
Yeah. Grass. And
Crab-apples that held the promise of
Painful bowel movements squirting out of
Your ****. Not ‘***’ because cussing wasn’t
All that big of a deal. You heard it in R movies.
But it hadn’t permeated the marrow of
Our entire culture. Not yet. It wasn’t all over
TV after, say, 8:45.

Nothing about ***. Absolutely Nuttin' Honey.
'Cause I'd be making stuff up in 1975,
When I was 12. Kissing was just...
You know.

We messed around, got into and out of trouble.
We laughed. The future hung over us like
Those mean-sounding thunderclouds,
Miles away, but moving from the North-East,
Because severe weather in Iowa always came
In the same direction.

It’s what we did. It’s just about
All we did as kids. Man, we were crazy, and had
Crazy fun.

We built bikes out of spare parts. They were low-
Slung and cool. Mine was always breaking.
I did a lot of stupid things, and somehow,
Somehow I got away with doing a lot of
Stupid things.

I believe in God. Now.
Way back then, I was Catholic. I don’t
Know if that sufficiently explains it
Or not. We ate fishsticks on Fridays during
Lent. We went to church sometimes
On Wednesday nights, the Guitar Mass,
And on Sundays. The Mass felt like it
Lasted 93 minutes, like our services do
Now. But it seemed to go on forever.
It as about 45 minutes, and we would always
“Leave Early” which meant, we’d take
Our Communion, solemnly, eyes
Downcast and humble, but I would slow,
Then stop, lost in the visage:
I looked up at the Man on the Cross and
Wondered when the Priest would ever
Get around to explaining why He
Died for my sins.
Someone would wake me from my
Reverie, and whisper, “Please move ahead.”
Shamefaced, I would say, truthfully,
“I’m sorry, Ma’am.” Because, in 1975,
When I was 12, I really was.
Sorry.

Then an hour
Later I was dressed in
Salvation Army rags (today)
And I would jump in the creek with my
Jean-shorts and off-color shirt on.
Sometimes, the bikes weren’t in the picture.
So we hiked. Never ‘walked’ but “hiked” which
Was moving with a greater purpose.
Great distances. The distances weren’t the great
Part. I forget what the great part was, because
This was when I was a kid. When I was 12.

The things you did
As a kid
You store them in a secret kid-locker
In your heart
And your heart, it grows, along with the rest of
You, like a quarter pounded into the meat of
A young tree. The tree envelops the quarter,
Taking it in to itself, swallowing time
That you only try to clumsily relive
(Like I’m trying right now)

It used to be cold, icy, and snowy in Iowa.
I know this; I was out in it most of the time.
Does anyone sled anymore? Toboggan?
Round-saucer spinning uncontrollably at
About 12 mph? Metal sleds with runners
And power steering? Down crazy-steep
Barreling down frozen white hills, crashing
Into copses of thin pliable young trees.
You only see this kind of stuff on Youtube
In somebody’s ‘All-time Epic Fail List
The failure is epic, alright. We’ve moved on.
And not necessarily to a bigger, brighter future.

Ice! I skated on long-bladed racer skates.
I could stop on a dollar’s worth of
Dimes.

And this one time
I
Fell right on my knee hard enough to
Grind a hole in my jeans. It looked like a ******
Meteor crater. A pretty girl named Tina
Felt sorry for me and sat right next to me
She wore pink pom-poms and I fell in
Puppy with her for about three hours.
Then she smiled and hugged me and
I was more frozen than the ice outside
And she left, her Mom picking her up
And eying me balefully as I stood
Pink-faced and flushed and utterly
Confused about the randomness of
What had just happened to me.
Girls from my town all knew
More about myself than myself knew
About me. They had me PEGGED, brothers
And sisters. But not this girl. She was from
The next town over.
That was a good day, if I’m remembering
It correctly. If. I’m pretty sure I am.
Or, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter.

We played a game called ‘Blackman’
Like a tag game in Gym, where
One kid is “IT” and a mass of skaters
Goes from one end of the ice pond
To the other, and the people you capture
(I couldn’t catch an old man in front-wheel
Drive figure skates and I got so frustrated
I gave up to jeers and yells and found the
Trees were good listeners to kids
Who couldn’t skate as coordinated as
They wanted to.

So ten minutes later
I would go into the Warming House, and
Listen to am radio. All the Hits! KSTT! Davenport,
Iowa. On ******* Blvd., which was really
River Drive, because the Hostess Plant stood
Sentinel on top of the hill, pushing out
Sponge-cake filling and HoHos and Cupcakes
And those awful coconut snowballs, and
This one time, in high school, I shoved one
Inside my mouth and tried to swallow it
And about choked to death.

I walked to Mark Twain Elementary School
And ran home for lunch, and was usually
Late because I was easily distracted
And when the school day ended,
I walked or ran home, hurrying, because
Captain Ernie and Bugs Bunny Cartoons were on,
And then Gilligan’s Island from about 4:00 to
5:30, when the news would come on,
And then Dinner,
And I couldn’t stand to sit still
To save my life. I have ADD. I
Know this now. I didn’t know it
(Nobody knew what it was)
I knew something was wrong with me
Or not-right. It was just the way
The World Turned.

Back then. I had no sense of ‘self’.
I was a changeling. I tried to fit into
Whatever people expected of me, which
Was very often extremely difficult, because
These people I emulated and thought were
So **** cool were just as messed up
As I was, maybe more; But I
Didn’t have the emotional maturity
(Or I couldn’t face the awful responsibility
That went with that awful truth)
To deal with it, so under the rug it went.

I was moody and happy and singing
One moment and crying in the shower
The next.

This one time, I was stuck
In the borderlands of childhood
And the beginning of a man
It was safe, for awhile
This one time.

No one calls me by name anymore
I'm the Poppy Man to most
At least that's how most folks know me

I've been selling poppies for the legion
Since 1946
Let's see...yep...it was 46
Went over in 43 at 17 years of age
Home in 45, and yep...46
Same spot too.
There's been two owners here at Danny's. Funny thing though....
neither was called Danny. Turns out Danny was the brother of the original owner, got shot down over Germany, so they named the place after him.
I guess that's why they let me come here and sell poppies every year.

Good thing.
Now, I'm getting up there, they let me sit inside the door. Have a nice little table for myself, and they keep my cup full.
I start selling November 1st, at precisely 11 o'clock. That's just the way it should be....11 o'clock.

Over the years, I've put up with wind, rain, snow and I've always held my post. Lost a few poppies in the wind one time, and the funny thing was...people came and paid me for them afterwards. Told me they found them blowing up the street, figured they were mine. Funny things that people do.

I'll tell you 'bout the name The Poppy Man. It started in 1952. A young mother and her daughter were inside having lunch, and I heard the daughter going on about saving change for the Poppy Man. I guess, I was the Poppy Man.
One of the waitresses put a sign up by the register saying "don't forget to save your change for The Poppy Man"....and it's kinda stuck.
That little girl came back every day with her mother, dropped her pennies in and saluted. You know the way kids do...hand open and all. I guess I owe the name to her.
I've collected lots of memories over the years, most of which I can only smile about now. If I start talking about them, I'd just tear up and you wouldn't get the whole story...so, I'll keep them to myself.
I'm a bit of a celebrity in these parts I guess.
Teachers bring their classes to me, every year to get their poppies. They always send me nice letters too, saying thanks Poppy Man. Cute little drawings, and big printing. Nowadays, I appreciate the big printing more and more.
Over the years, I've collected pennies, dimes, nickels, the usual suspects, bus tickets, candy wrappers, subway tokens, whatever someone had in their pocket at the time. I've seen it all in my tin.
The last few years, I guess since about 1997 or so, the cadets send someone down to stand with me for a while during my stint here.
Good kids mostly, dedicated, and with the same determined look I think we all had back in 43 when I went over.
Most of us didn't make it back, I'm one of the lucky ones. Some who did, never came back right if you know what I mean. But, that's all I'm gonna say about that.
There's only 5 of us left now from the old regiment. I can still see their faces when I shut my eyes....young, virile, strong. I miss them all.
I guess that's why I do it. Sell the poppies every year. It's for them. And for the new kids. New soldiers, new wars, it never changes in that way...just a different style of fighting.
Every now and then though, you know I hear that old bugler tuning up his bugle, and I think "not yet...I'm not ready to have The Last Post played for me"...."not yet".
So, that's about it for me, The Poppy Man....everyone knows me, and I'm easy to find ....just head to Danny's, I'll be at the table at the front.
Don't forget now....save your change for the poppy man.

With mechanical portals known to be doors
That either lead to different worlds or take you home,
These cabled vehicles like tunnels on wheels fastened on a railroad track
Stretch to both ends of the universe under a single route.
And as you get in for closure,
You put your trust on the obscure.

Just say the magic words;
It will take you anywhere you wish to be.
Even though magic always comes with a prize,
The only cost are countable units of your time
And also a few dimes,
In return for the travel of your life.

Across the carpeted walkway of reaching out,
Through the glass windows of visible silver lining,
Behind the blank and arid faces that lure the soul to sink in deep wonder,
The lights and skyscrapers, and mist silhouetting the scenery,
All appear in bokeh, all blend in your eyes;
Your eyes that glow brighter than fire on ice.

The coldness lashing perennially on your skin
And shaking your bones to its final breakage,
Couldn't beat the absolute zero amity between these strangers.
But your fascination has enough radiation
To melt the tip of the iceberg
And shine over what's behind their opaque walls.

Settled on the plastic seats that serve as time machines,
They nestle between unfamiliar bodies;
Static, in a state of inertia.
Blocking out force, resisting change;
Like cars stuck on parking mode,
Couldn't bring themselves to unload.

Grasping on loose handles
With a grip more secure than seat-belts,
Some tend to pull away despite of the constant push.
Like engines on reverse, they take time to backtrack.
For all we know, for every action,
Is an equal and opposite reaction.

The brakes hit; there goes a screeching sound.
But when it comes to a break, we don't really hang back
Or fall to a complete stop;
We only slide forward.
For we must keep moving ahead,
In order to keep our balance.

The portals once again unlock to let you out to the open galaxy
And let in another for the same adventure.
You've reached the end of the trip,
But not the end of the road; nor the destination.
For the journey is infinite; you know you are going to ride again and again,
Until you've run out of wishes of where you want to be where.

We pass the
walled incline
of Barbour Park

during the day
a foreboding
patch…an open
air market for
the slave merchants
hustling crack and
**** drippin ****
that's been stepped
on so many times
its a wonder the cut
can still chide a high
out of a wrangled soul

the park’s
modest elevation
is an advantageous
lookout for
runners dealing
dimes while
petty ante
gangstas
daydream
gun blazing glories
of their next big job

not long ago
the park was
refurbed with
an industrial
strength plastic
Jungle Jim,
soon after
the park was
condemned
as a no go
zone for kids,
the litter of
hypodermic
needles and
mounds of
lead spiked
soil, deemed
a public health
risk for youth...
quickly
repurposed
as a crib
for ballers…

back in the
day, the shady
pocket park
lifted Paterson’s
citizenry off
the heated
pavements of
a bustling
thoroughfare

a respite from
the pulsing
tensions of urbanity,
a secular sanctuary,
balancing the urgent
industry of commerce
with the propriety of
residential life

compacting a
brief escape
from the clanging
metronome with
a viewing stand
offering elevation...
a heightened
perspective on
life’s parade
marching
up and down
Broadway…

this urban
oasis planted
at the center
of Silk City’s
grandiloquent
boulevard,
occupies
the most
democratic
equidistant
transit point
between opulent
Eastside mansions
of livin large tycoons
at one end….
and the
industrial district of
The Great Falls,
rising at Broadway’s
western terminus,
assiduously
manufacturing
dollars for the darlings
of fortune and
subsistence for
workers yearning to taste
the crumbs of
prosperity that may fall
from the tables of
opportunity

the park once a
pleasant face of
the landlocked
4th Ward filled
with homage to
a nation's greatest
citizens, Hamilton,
Rosa Parks,
Lafayette,
Madison, Fulton,
Montgomery and
Franklin has
denounced the
virtuous pursuit of
their aspirational
yearnings

now playas
feast on
the mead
of sustenance
harvested from
emaciated streets

commerce has taken
up full residency...
the wards cottage industry
cannibalizing
homes, hoods and
homeboys

as the
4th Ward
grows ugly,
the healthy
matrix of
bustling
street life
breaks down
the peeps
weakened
lay prostate
offer veins
to blood *******
predators
roaming
distressed
going south
neighborhoods

wise guy
knuckleheads,
get busy
gaming
the system
short changing
themselves and
hustling game
to get by
in the sweet bye
and buy of life

at night
a back lit
Barbour Park
floods with the
yellow haze of
blinking Fair St.
lamp posts
and the pulsing
halations
crowning the
Baptist's
of St. Luke's

sentient figures
shift between
park benches
flitting among the
black torsos
of skeletal trees
blending into
the faded
complexion
of abandoned
swing sets

I swear I see
Hurricane Carter
shadow boxing
dancing
around a gangling
Elm, jabbing
away, lifting
a sweet uppercut
working combos
of left hooks
and right crosses
hoping to drop an
intractable
presence
banging away
at a body politic
forming the walls
of taunting
inequities

Hurricane stays
busy delivering
body blows
to burst
through the
prison bars
surrounding
Barbour Park

Music selection:
Bob Dylan, Hurricane

Paterson
01/30/13
jbm

A fragment from extended poem Silk City PIT.  
Published today to honor the death of Rubin Hurricane Carter.
May he find the freedom in eternal rest that eluded him during his lifetime.

Together
We play, We eat, We sleep
Forever
the memories I will keep
With or without dimes
we are partner in crimes
Rainier
the name so fine
Artsier
he I can find
With or without dimes
we are partner in crimes
Brothers that are bound
Happiness ye shall found
For with or without dimes
we are partner in crimes

Solve the addiction with a curious puzzle
Cure the remedy with a gracious smile
Grace the presence of a Lord never seen
And see the sun rise by a broken man’s hand.

Snap the twig that bends the senses
Sense the dangerous game of wits
Outwit the gent who’s gummy skin
Stains the tendons, we breath from within.

Staining the tendons cost you your life.
Stain them all you want, they will bleed no less.
Do you see the logic in the ropes I bind you with?
You can’t break luck like you break those dimes.

Wake up tomorrow and face your face, not mine, not theirs, but yours.
I doubt you’ve challenged yourself to this before
Shells have protection, cheese molds with time, forks break and bend and spark
Are you hiding, or is this the mirror you throw at me, whistling through your teeth.
Do you break dimes to scratch protein from under your nails?

I make sense if you look at this not as a riddle
For it’s not, merely lines of interconnecting senseless thought.
But is it really senseless, when in our world of ‘sense’
We hardly ever make any?

Look at your tendons- you’ve stained them yellow
Patterns of the Lord like the church windows I know
Glazed over with skin, hiding the yellow
Biting the yellow in your gummy-*** skin.

Dear, let me tenderize you like meat slap the silliness from heat bubbling bubbling bubbling to a boil.

Dear, let me technically arouse you by letting each word escape like exasperation, a depletion of the senses as every finger or pressure point examines your body from head-to-toe.

Dear, let me be no longer ashamed to touch or hold you close, let our breathing and beating submerge into higher thinking.

Incinerating flames that lick the grate.

Dear, let me dive deep into the crevice of your brain, all mushy grey matter, all the same.

Dear, let me slice it open and **** out all the juices, licking licking licking each curve and crevice,

My supple pink snake-like tongue reaching deeper deeper deeper into your mind.

Dear, let me sink into your reality, bit by bit, and piece by piece until cohesiveness lays its eggs inside the deep hole within you.

Dear, let me scratch the surface, trading dimes for dust and pecs for fluff.

Let me swim in the depths of your hectic personality.

Let me get to know you and all your originality.

Let me breathe in your values and slurp up your mature decisions.

Let me caress your life like two bulbous lights that hang from the existence of time.

Let me illuminate you, serenade you, quiz you while ******* your sense of self-esteem.

Dear, let me dream your dreams.

Dear, let me sink my ***** mind games into your wet social brain.
Don’t let the pressure get to you.

Passion may play a key part in the sway!

Let me suckle your sweet thoughts, play with your deriving initiatives.

Let me hold your ideas in the sweat of my thighs, burning with desire to see myself through cobalt eyes.

Let me feel the hot ***** of your ethical intentions and clear apparitions.

Let me analyze your prerogatives and **** with your distribution methods.

Dear, let me fiddle with your political views, (in the “other room”) and tickle your soft solutions on creating a world of doom.

Let me ****** your sustainability, flirt with your progressive mindset, and squeeze your plump ambitions until they burst!

Dear, let me push gently on your sensitive issues with your parents until they become less apparent.

Let me stroke your disagreements with foreign policy until they shriek with mercy!

Let me take you further and touch your blind senses to a pink paranoia of retentive defensive pretenses.

Let me cuddle and snuggle your sense of self-worth and pleasure your brain with mind-bending words.

Dear, let me dance with your intelligence
until we sink into oblivious mind-*** bliss…….

Do you know how many times my mother coughs so hard in an hour that it still surprises me she hasn’t lost a lung?

I wonder if all the money that she spends at the gas station on that tiny cardboard box was saved instead of spent, if she could manage to pay the bills before the late notice arrived in the mail.

How many times do you think she tries to quiet the change being pushed around the tabletop as she counts out the quarters, the dimes, the nickels, the pennies before she has enough to slide the coins across the counter at the station?

How many times is her anger thrown at me because nicotine is absent from the house?

I can only imagine the color inside her chest, protecting her lungs with a black tar after too many years of flicking a flame to a thin white candlestick stuck between her lips.

The house smells of smoke and the yellow filter lines the walls, around the frames that hang themselves by nails.

I clean the mirror and see the paper towel golden from the lingering tobacco.  My clothes reek of a stench so strong no amount of perfume seems to be enough.

I’m paranoid that every time I’m in a room of people and someone mentions that it smells like smoke, if they know I harbor such a scent that I pour it off second handedly as if I inhale the drug too.

I open the mailbox and the temptation to “lose” the coupon booklet addressed to her grows stronger.

The business cards labeled with a barcode on the back subtracting a dollar off when you buy two packs strengthens the urge to scrabble up the silver coins or summons the question, “do you have five dollars? I’ll pay you back when I get paid on Friday.”

Friday never comes.

I often think about how much longer it will be until all the money spent on tiny cardboard boxes will be split between tobacco and medical bills.

How long can you smoke a pack a day and still be cancer-free?

And I wonder how it’s fair to watch your mother gamble with her life each time she places a thin cigarette between her lips.

Russian roulette with cancer is a game she’s become too good at.

He fly above the same airport
Waiting for a chance to land on the runway
The runway of her heart
Nobody knows how long he waited but the Lord
That airport have only one parking spot and  one runway
And occupied by one aircraft

It's hopeless
To wait for that parked aircraft to take off and gone forever
He began to feel desperate
All his patience, all of his waiting, gave him a mental break

He opens his sectional
Pull out his plotter
Change his heading bug in his heading indicator
He finally said, with a smile
“It’s time to divert”

Waste of fuel and time
Waste of credits and dimes
Too long he was holding
Now it’s time for leaving

He will never know
How does the runway and the taxi light glows
After sunset and before sunrise
He will never feel
The satisfaction for using the service
24 hours everyday and night
He will never see
The runway decorated by green grass, flowers and trees
The beauty of the airport’s sight

But it’s for the best