When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in
        Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother
        96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sister-
        in-law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters
        their grandchildren,
companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--
Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche,
        there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting
        America, Satchitananda Swami
Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche,
        Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms
Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau
        Roshis, Lama Tarchen --
Then, most important, lovers over half-century
Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich
young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each
        other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories
"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousand
        day retreat --"
"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he
        loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly
        arms round each other"
"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my
        skivvies would be on the floor"
"Japanese, always wanted take it up my *** with a master"
"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then
        sleep in his captain's bed."
"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"
"I was lonely never in bed **** with anyone before, he was so gentle my
        stomach
shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen ****** to hips-- "
"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth
        & fingers along my waist"
"He gave great head"
So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commin-
        gling with flesh and youthful blood of 1997
and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"
"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me."
"I forgot whether I was straight gay queer or funny, was myself, tender
        and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head,
my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly. on my *****,
        tickled with his tongue my behind"
"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged
        chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a
        pillow --"
Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear
"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his
        walk-up flat,
seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him
        again never wanted to... "
"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man." "He made
        sure I came first"
This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--
Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock
        star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical con-
        ductors, unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trum-
        peters, bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger
        fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-
        harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India,
        Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman *****-
        chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty
        sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American
        provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-
        philes, *** liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either ***
"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved
        him anyway, true artist"
"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me
        from suicide hospitals"
"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my
        studio guest a week in Budapest"
Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"
"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "
"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas
        City"
"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"
"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"
"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized
        others like me out there"
Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures
Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photo-
        graphy aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural
        historians come to witness the historic funeral
Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autograph-
        hunters, distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers
Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased
who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive

                                                February 22, 1997

Pulsating honor doth corroded hearts impound
A blustery breeze echoes cries from each, preceding battleground
A recurring, eager parade of reporters, gawkers freely roam distant mound
Below, fatigued, tidy mass of steeled infantry; to death's throes bound
Neighing horses conditioned to mayhem the pageantry doth confound
On opposite ridges, mounted turrets prepared hell's fury to expound
On signal, a synchronized, concussive chorus doth its dark melody propound
Scraps of metal shards initiate; commencing another, toilsome round
After lengthy barrage, wits collected a more lethal volley to stound
Familiar, urgent order to charge christens hallowed ground
With youthful ardor a wide-eyed bugler doth the bridled expanse unbound
Shrieking rancor from recoiling rifles; a familiar anthem doth resound
Recurring cacophonous medley, weathered nerves drowned
Once more, a mass of flesh surges into the abyss with mortal hopes crowned
Anon, shattered limbs; gory wounds misery's cache compound

We play with the past,
us gawkers
laugh out louders
and marry the fun. Or
purchase t-shirts to remember

The Thinker plopped upon a porcelain throne
Rodin in the bowl
a powerful internal struggle
philosophy flushed for comedic blue cleanser
carved beautifully

The Vitruvian Man in full windmill
Townshend style
over strings in sextuplicate with limbs to match.
Perfection at eight heads high and
these amps go to eleven

The Persistence of Memory in any variation
so long as we don't have to consult our own dreams
Or Dali's

We shake the dust from our
feet and smile, forgetting things like The Thinker
was originally named The Poet
because that's not funny
and we're cleverer (more clever?) cleverer than that

Call us perverted,
But read on first,
Then, by the end,
After our verse,
Call us your worst:
***** old men, gutter snipes,
Lecherous gawkers,
Cause we gaze in wonder and awe
At girls from eighteen to ninety-five.
Don't step back and feign aghast,
Whisper covert tsks, and gasp,
What? Oh such ***** old men!
But we are most the same.

We don't ogle or use a scope
Waiting behind a bush at night,
Til the lights go on
Through windows known to be undrawn.

We don't visit public pools
With goggles and a snorkel,
That's just sick, that's not us,
Our admiration's not so twisted,
We grew up to respect the sisters.

We wonder at the parade of beauty,
So pleasing to our eyes,
They dress to allure
Younger looks,
They swagger, tilt and sashay past
With legs as long as trees,
No VPL to interrupt
The curving imagination.
Compare it to one window-shopping,
Admiring wares and worth;
But please, read every line I wrote
Before bellowing, Pervert.

If we were eighteen years again,
We're lads out plowing fields,
Sowing wild grains,
Reaping refrains of They're boys just being boys.

We had our ancient pleasures,
Still comparable to now;
The lushness of the ripened fruit
Hanging on the bough,
Is for younger hands, not ours.

The columned temples of runway models
With flying buttress thighs,
And the bull-frog fronts and volleyball stunts
Please, but we don't pry.

          (We're not a ***** grabbing lot,
          That's not how we usually talk,
          In fact I haven't shared these thoughts,
          I'm reluctant to do so now).

You know you can't blame us
For what a blind man sees;
The cleavage, high-slits and commando style,
The augmentations meant to beguile
Has caught us in crossfire.

The soft unbleached skin,
The ***** and the neck,
The falling, twirling tresses,
Grace the backs of backless dresses.
Wear grotesques to dissuade us,
To disapprove our ageless looks.

Our eyes don't linger on the bust,
We don't display old men's lust,
In fact we're rather obsequious,
To the point where we're air,
You'd not notice that we're there.
But we are, and we look;
And I remember what it took
To be young and on the hunt
For the Yeti, Loch Ness, or alien jump.

Don't tell your friends we're perverted,
Scurrilous id-focused men;
We're neither. We're average fellows
Watching from the stands.

Yes, our daughters are older than
The babes seen on the screens,
But that has naught to do with us,
We still think like eighteen.

We watch re-runs of Mary Tyler Moore,
Drink tepid tea with toast and jam
To the credits of The Golden Girls;
But when the grandkids come to visit,
We take them for ice-cream,
Or if I take poodle to walk,
They pool like thirsty fleas.
It isn't my intent to bait, but I have eyes to see,
Those girls somewhat eighteen,
Like to please by teasing:
     I really like your wire rims.
Their eyes grip, the wind flips,
Their hands soft and supple...
I'm at a loss-
What's a man to do-
Between forty and forever?

This reaper's aged,
The harvest's in.
The grain that bowed the straw
Has now been threshed,
And milled to flour.
Add heat to rise again.

I ran back
down to Piccadilly Square
just to get a closer look
at that doll baby.

She rambled by so quickly in
striped red & white stockings,
her lemon yellow
draped her shoulders,
bouncing like springs,
like her gorgeous *******
& that sweet ****-tune.

She had vibrant graffiti
sprayed on her arms,
wore come-do-me ruby stilettos
as she glided like a storm trooper
along the promenade.

Her blackened full lips puckered,
with slanted paparazzi shades,
leaving a wake of open-mouthed
wide-eyed gawkers speechless.

Man, she was tough,
a rare cool bird,
struttin' her pretty
hot stuff,
it left me breathless.

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.

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.

You peek from under
the prettiest head of hair,
thick like your accent,
heads twist,
almost break,
when you willow by
the gawkers gulping java.

You have the rare magic
to stop the wind
wanting to pass through
your lady-essence.
Stardust trails your way,
such luscious curves
memorizing those behind,
you have them trying
to read your mind
with your kind
radiant-eyes.

And me,
I wait with anticipation
as you float right for me,
opening the door to
your workplace,
wishing it was your heart
instead.

Time slips backward over little slivers
Of love and broken lives,
Gathering them up, using the soft mess
Of once-blessed feeling mixed with
Grand passion,
Until it knits together the pieces of
Hate and love like a potion:
Unseemly, neither black nor white...
And we refuse to see it.

Time rolls forward as we ignore it,
Over hurt as well as joy,
For we have taught ourselves to lie,
To say that nothing matters in
The “grand scheme of things”...
And so our life passes us by.

Until, one day, we discover
We are alone even as we stand
Beside those we love.
And we know them not.
Where love resides,
There loathing and resentment
Peek from amidst the ruinous
Muddle, which we created,
Simply unaware.

We two may stare into each others’ eyes,
As if two strangers,
Wary of false hopes and lies.
Stale passion bonded to forgotten vows
Leave us helpless, caught in a patterned
Web of half-truths and hidden threat.

Soon we are reduced to stiff civility,
“Sly apologies and polite regrets”.
Love dies more slowly than the ability
To end the dance or forget.
We settle in, like corpses in a crypt,
To the slow departure of ourselves.

As the mind rises up above the scene,
We take it in, gawkers on a highway,
Aghast yet unable to refrain
From still more self-flagellation.
Another empty day drags by
And in our lonely, separate prisons…we stay.


Rediscovered on January 20, 2019

Dark and dankly dripping,
It groans out its low bellied cry,
Not heeding
Stop or stare of rubbernecked
Gawkers with gaping lips, ears, eyes;

Thence echoes a ventriloquy of sound--
From that great yawning throat
To dumb puppet mouths
Of men who stand transfixed by such awful
Lamentations of the Earth’s cold flesh.

Today was the first day of class.
You should have seen all the people.

Everyone couldn’t have had class, some of them must
have been gawkers, the types that slow to watch
flat tire changings and car wrecks.

Some were carrying maps - freshmen.
Like student drivers they clogged the paths,
drawing a few looks.

They gaggle together like geese,
Jeeezus - shut UP and get ON with it, freshies! I thought.
Not ungenerously - I remember being lost - back in the day.

I have class, myself - in both the intrinsic sense - of style -
and in the “research for credit” ‘check in on the first day,’ kind.

Still, we’re parading, and I’ve always loved parades.
My one regret is that there are no mimes or elephants.

ok.. poetry..
Stress is somewhere in my propinquity.
See, it’s known to stalk this vicinity.

I’m not a freshman, so it hasn’t struck yet,
but when it does, and it will, you can bet,
that initially, it will shake my tranquility
and end our start-of-year festivities.

It will creepily creep, destroying my sleep,
until I prove my scholastic resiliency.
.
.
Songs for this:
Violently Happy by Björk
Schoolin' Life by Beyoncé

If the land is giving
then we are finished
all we really need
is self control...... control ourselves

All that we really feel
                                      Is strain
all that we really know
                                      Is marching

Burn the piggys
We'll hold the tower steady
everyone stay focused
We'll hold the tower steady

Until birth
we will never know
Life will progressively flourish
and the gawkers will learn
That there is not much time....... maybe
I hope....... maybe?

Sunday sewn on Saturdays seams and dreaming freedoms stitched in black and white,
night light salad greens and where sleep used to lay grows a new day.
Tea,at most a slice of toast,the morning views,who's in and out and what's news is this?
kiss the crumbs of toast goodbye,licking lips,another dry day in the dock,pock marks on the hoarding,lording advertisers selling premium this and other things and the Baptist church brings pamphlets to a table set before the door,selling the hereinafter before we've been before.
It's City Sunday when the marketmen come sell their wares down in the lanes and trains are full of gawkers gawking at the hawkers and the good Samaritans which are few and far between are seen along the dusty tracks collecting tax from income earned,where nothing's taught we never learned the basics of how to live a life of ease.
I please myself as to when and where and who I share my hard times with,just give an inch and some take the whole **** mile
but it's Sunday for a while and so we let the dogs at bay go on our way as if it's Sunday everyday and nothing's new,
Sunday sews a string of beads around the neck of late last night and pulls it tight and we might decide that Sundays are alright or not.
Spot on spit upon my hand and shake it well,agreed that Sundays ****** Grand a day of rest and love to test and takes the best of all we've got.
I like this day an awful lot and there's not a lot I like no more and tomorrow's Monday,what a blinking bore.

Hair trigger-by me. . . .   an explosions coming, the media is buzzing with news destructive to young minds! old,deaf,blind. Awake your inner sense, remorse will be lit at torches, your libertied statue will crumble to rich mens sinful imaginations. For whats your relationship you talkers an gawkers? you do nothing about the violence! your streets will flow of red wined blood. Martyrs turned ****! Awaken you american dictators, murderers and haters! the seas will split as mountain peaks will pop to thine own hell youve unloosed. For heres thy noose to tangle upon thine own necks! all love turned dissrespect! Your dollar will be your downfall oh dire innocent! or are you an innocent after all? The flames you have lifted upon your own streets will singe your every day class citizen! your towers shall fall, have you seen what i saw? Oh bountiful land? A callus you have been made, for its to late to turn the page, the prophecies have already been written. No thanksgiving anytime soon! You make bars and saloons your god and dope your bible, cant you smile? can you hear me you deaf an breathless mess! For the suns darkening is bound by gods artistic hands. . . .  .

I dream a dream of skill,
I gather pictures of best practice
(methods best enacted off the couch.)
I house,
crisp corners, soaring beams and posts
where gawkers marvel, ‘cos
the high is feeling good. I see
the woods
and watch the owners.
(What good grip they have! enough to claim
what they could never care for-
let the lessers sing their lives!)
I drive a drive
not fast enough for fastness-makers,
flaunting logos, polished chrome,
I drive a loan.

None say it, none will ever hear
these soft confessions to
the “here” I hold right now
in its un-good. I slip
a “should” on, halfway,
dumping it for snacks and cons -
I run for miles
to lose it on the lawn.

And as I break, I pause to
watch a bit to see how not to fail.
I land in jail. The wardens
never speak to me,
the only copy of the key
described in stories, but
they’ve scattered every page.
And every day I fail
to reconstruct it out of naught,
I age.

the whales
have started to come
gliding past with a wave
or tail breach.
occasionally they breach
thier entire bodies in the air
even if only for a moment

we are blasè about it
joking about the tourist boats
that race to be near the tails and fins
but really when the season is running
on a good day you can see three or more
so many more than when I first came here
then I kept a log of fins tails and breachings
now it is like when you see your neighbor
mowing the lawn you smile to acknowledge it
but still continue on with your day

and on some level I think the whale prefer that
cause when you think about it, would you want
some group of gawkers chasing you down
when you went up the coast for a romantic holiday

I’m a furry guy
Even when I’m fully clothed
I’m a furry guy
How were you to know?

I’ve never been into manscaping
Instead, I’m fully grown
Leaves from off the furry tree
Are completely overblown

It is my prerogative
It’s my choice to choose
I’m hairy from the top of my head
Right down to my shoes

If I were ever at a **** beach
The gawkers would just stare
They’d be looking at my hairy bush
And I would‘t even care

It’s my body after all
Your opinion matters not
It’s my body after all
There is no secret plot

No, there is no reason,
Why I should be ashamed
I’m a furry person
You’d best recognize my game

Espaliered vines hang like convicts,
strung out in the vineyards as portent
to passers by.

But the tasting rooms are open with cheeses,
retribution and grim justice -
verdicts of wine.

I see them, the tasters, the gawkers,
giddy on the road for sips of vengeance
and sublimation.

I see them, glued to the glass,
glued to the crushing of grapes,
calling it justified.

Bruce Jenner's cranium houses the brain of a woman with knockers
too ****** cherry for old, run-of-the-mill Y.W.C.A. city gym lockers
Brucey's knobs will tease recently-paroled-******-fondling gawkers
while his white ******* entice court-adjudicated-****-mad hawkers
who pursue comancheros armed with acrylic-caulk-loaded caulkers
to shoot down echelon flyers & birds-of-a-feather-flocking flockers
that mimic portly picnickers, sticky sticklers and mawkish mockers
chalking corpses of forensic coroners who're Cyril Wecht's chalkers
and stiffer in girly resolve than the twin **** that are Betty Crocker's
joy as Monsanto aerosolates Hawaii with airborne, toxical shockers

From here I saw her bathing stun the view,
Where there a vessel floats across the main,
As I preside this kingly able Cain
Nakedly framed for beauty blessed new.
I down my guard to let her close and through
The suspect gawkers guessing at the gain
For any name related to my reign
Accepting of the spirit proving true.
Flesh to tame and taste for the tempting fill  
Of satisfied suits set but to obey
Finally the song of one crown and line.
I stand forever first accused of skill
To proximate where and how front today
Is laughed behind- to mock these stones by mine.