The markets up, the Markets down
For weeks it just meanders.
Alas, my stocks are always down
Each time I take a gander.

GM, Lehman, Citicorp
My broker bought for me-
And you can guess the net result-
IHe bought a yacht, not me.

Those friends who don’t avoid me
Say I’ve reversed Midas’ touch.
I don’t turn things I touch to gold
I turn gold into rust.

I’d heard dart tossing Simians
Can best the S & P
So I went to the Zoo this March
to consult a Chimpanzee.

He took the chartt, he threw the dart
And picked a stock for me-
And now I’m getting margin calls
because I bought BP.

He seemed the sage of Omaha
before he ruined me.
I should have tried Orangutans
And paid their higher fee.

They wanted five bananas
My monkey worked for three.
But now I’m bust because I used
the discount Chimpanzee.

There is nothing I can give to you that is not past or future.
When my both selves fight, they throw insults at each other like an unhappy couple.
    “You are already gone!” the one says,
    “You are never here” says the other.

And I sing then. I never let any note slip away into silence. Songs in which I’m a magician,
right before the grand finale,
the last vanishing act.
I close my eyes and slowly slice away layers of skin,
so I can become less and less,
so I can sail away on the river without an end,
it’s flow imposing my soul with the authoritative demand to move forward.

There is no river.
I am pitifully human so there is no alchemy that transforms loss into beauty.
Ihe things I have built, I built myself. Like this house of memories
with it’s sole window. The moon shines through it every night.
What an unperfect image,
what my heart endures everytime I reach out only to feel
solance turning into a hell-flamed sky.
The darkness is gone like I will be gone
like everything has gone forever.

There is also no house.
Only the pale waves of a grey-winter sea,
        dualism of being and not-being
a perfect symmetry,
a beautiful fragile balance.

I hit her again last night, it just happened, I didn't think about it, I just did it,

I watched her body bounce off the stove and her head just missed the granite countertop,

she watched us from between the doorway and I didn't have a clue she was there

watching her mom crumple on the floor while blood streamed from her nose.

I looked at her lay on the ground out cold, and wondered if I'd really killed her this time.

I knew some part of her was dead, but that was a long time ago ....

I guess I had just regained physical control.

~

Is that all it really is when we think about the physical abuse of another,

are we fighting for control in the only sickest manner that we know?

Why else such evil outcome upon the one we love,

what makes it right to hurt the closest part of our lives

to strike down upon that soul that we seem to count upon.

Is that really using them for the support they were first meant to be?

What about them? In all the callous delivery of pain and suffering,

why do the victims have to remain the most confused,

or are they really, perhaps they're not, perhaps they are simply

the victims they are meant to be, and society clouds that reality

by placing labels upon reasons and judgments upon excuse.

~

Yet still all the advertisements plead for the protection of the abused,

they ask us to open our eyes, to think again, to seek help,

they plead for the end to ihe injustice, and suggest the conversation

begin, rather than the blank stare of rage without any rationale within.

How do we explain damaging the vulnerable nature of the one we love;

where do we depend upon the solace of beating up our children?

~

I was 18 the day I was struck down by my brother's fist

because I had openly verbally abused my parents and he chose

to put me on the ground in a lesson he would later admit to me.

I remember at the time being shocked but understanding

he was protecting my parents from my own ignorance,

but the difference in him and our abusive society,

the distinction of his actions that shocking afternoon,

is he had no other choice, I had removed all options.

I needed to be slapped down like the dog I was at that moment.

~

But we are not a society of dogs, animals of lower intelligence.

We are human children whose values are gained by the closed fist

we are the confused that are  drawn to believe we are wrong

for whatever other reason would we be so physically slammed

by the ones we love, or those that once loved us as they suggested.

Perhaps that is the real confusion when that love seems to be lost.

It is not the needed moment of physical authority, far different than

the veiled angry, usurped result of inner turmoil and hypocrisy.

~

The public service announcements asking us to listen are not enough

Instead we really need to breathe in the beauty and elegance of those

whose lives we choose to stunt based upon our own inability to reason,

for otherwise their rules are designed to be read aloud by our closed fists alone.

7 men walk into Deep Pool
an outlaw motorcycle club
the man in the red leather jacket
stood with his back against the wall
and every once in a while
for reasons
unknown
he'd yell,
"just nobody touch, Toad."

i push past Toad
on my way to the men's room
and as i'm *******
i think about Ron

he trapped rats in corners
then let them go

slapped angels in the face
and ihe craziest things he'd say
like
"the smartest rats
always get out of the maze first,"

he'd give you a knowing nod
throw down a shot
and walk away

but like a miracle
he had you wondering

ron dreamed of the angels
who stand under vapor street lights
at 4 a.m.
or sit on barstools til closing

but love is never
what it ought to be
and he lived his life
like a circus high wire walker
wandering back and forth
day after day

and one day
he disappeared
like the rabbit in magicians hat

now,
Ron was a warrior
he drew to the inside straight
to sunlight fading

and outside the 7-11
where his x-wife worked
with a pair of her nylon stockings
he hung himself

The boy in the drain

A boy of five years played in a field
noticed a hole in the ground worth exploring
a hiding place to show other children.
He fell and fell like forever before the falling stopped.
It was dark and cold he wanted to go was home.
The boy cried out they would come and save him
I must stay strong; he was strong falling asleep
and waking up, stay strong, stay strong.
five days is a long time for a boy of five.
So, easy to succumb to the long sweet dream.
The evening of the fifth day, the rescuers
reached him, but it was too late.
Morocco is mourning.
For many of us, it was as hope for the future
had vanished words do not cover our despair.

There is a leaning tree with two
remaining red apples hanging
side by side like a pair of testicles.

Just below is a branch, hosting
a pegged out clothes line where
occasionally our robin perches.

Sometimes, Cyriol, the vocal blind
she'ep butts ihe trunk by accident
and prematurely sheds its foliage.

She’s last to the manger at night,
chick- hens are the other side of
the pen, so she has no role models.

Late sun up and a superfluous
rooster makes the morning as
indistinguishable as evening.

Adding to all of that, she’s black,
and ostracised by the local white
white community..

First knell of the village bell is a
six am, she tunes into the sound
waves like a homing pigeon. then


Baa Baa ---------------------