it was warm
for a winters eve
unusually warm
but damp very damp
birthing a persistent
midnight mist that
crawled over everything

avenging
halogen angels
flitted down from
streetlight perches
skidding through
bare limb bars
of broken trees
roped in by sagging
telephone wires

skulking
seraphs
joined
ebullient
neon auroras
laughingly
brake dancing,
jittering away on the
pock marked rims
of hip hop streets

the fine drizzle
descending from the
black urban heavens
splayed holy water
over the bodies
of anything
that moved; and
layered mounds
of transparent beads
on all inert things
chiding those yolked
to weighty burdens
to seek relief of
a much needed
breaking point

our
slouching city
mired in a cycle
of a prolonged
historical rut
beavers away
to lift the lid
on tomorrows
tipping point
in a desperate
labor to stop
tripping over
itself...

a dinged up
Sentra’s
flashing spinners
twisted round
our dark corner
nearly clipping
our troop

inside the
yakking low-riders
scuttled along,
their hidden ***** eyes
cruising the stoops
and cyclone alleys
scoping opportunities
for the next
jolly hustle
to feed
a growing
angry fix

tonight
Mother Nature was
running a *****
to the wall third shift,
manufacturing a
stationary low
of gagging precip
churning volumes
of Vulcan smoke
conjuring
convective spirits
from all the
dim places

emanations lit
the balmy January air
rising from
stubborn gray patches
of despoiled snow
and rancid ponds
organic gutter water
composting
in distilled pools
awaiting leakage
through flotsam
clogged sewage grids

Paterson’s
litter police
could close the
city’s budget deficit
if all infractions
were properly cited
and paid in this
neighborhood

this queer elixir of
rising vapors from
evaporating snow
escaping the cracks
lining the bowels of
mordant streets
joining descending
screens of billowing mists
blurs boundaries of light,
diffusing temporal time

people and things
lose precise definition
reducing sentient beings
to moving silhouettes of gray
photographic negatives
framed in dribbling palettes
of pastel hues

our
5th Ward mission
planted in the
hub of a neighborhood
still holding on...

Old WASP’s
of St. Paul’s
long ago
winged away
from this
princely
Episcopate
principality

the abandoned
conical nest, its
chambers filled with
the mud of 50 dead rectors
precariously clings
to its shivering
boulevard corner

its endowment depleted
its earthly treasure rusting
grandiose Tiffany windows
remain the last legacy of an
opulent faith now
shamefully rattling away
in moth eaten frames

once icons of
adulatory reverence
the final sparkling asset
of a distressed religion
begs to be monetized
by flummoxed vestrymen
yearning to extend
a stewardship
over a dissipating
ESL flock

distress in the hood
parades down Broadway
in all directions

a few blocks east
a shuttered
Barnert Hospital
transfigured into an
urban enterprise zone
for health-care privateers
working overtime to
extract federal
corporate welfare
rent subsidies
dutifully fulfilling
fine print obligations of
Obamacare legislation

Old Mayor Barnert’s
namesake synagogue
once hard by
City Hall
is long gone
its absent footprint
now centered by
a thriving
White Castle

near Broadway’s end
on the outskirts
of Eastside Park
Art Deco Emanuel Temple
the last anchor
for the city’s Judaism
lies vacant
awaiting a renewed
purpose

fraught with irony
a thriving Islamic Center
stands juxtaposed
across the street
from the old
Hebrew Temple

we wonder what
will emerge
from the
hallowed chrysalis
of decommissioned
Emanuel?

rumors of a
Great Falls Art Center
trickle like a leaking faucet
failure to secure a mortgage
in the post credit
bubble pop economy
dams the possibly
of a new centers
coming to fruition

will
the city’s
changing
demography of
reverent Muslim’s
genuflecting
across the street
take time away
from prayer to
patronize a venue
offering decadent
bourgeois jazz and
risqué reviews
of retro Borscht Belt
vaudeville?

when Constantinople
became Istanbul they
converted the Christian
churches into mosques

when the Inquisitioners
drove the Moors from
Granada they converted
the Grand Mosque to
the Cathedral of the
Incarnation

what incarnations
will this city’s
twilight bring?

As Byzantine
begets
Constantinople
begets
Istanbul
the links
in the Silk Road
spanned west
to the new world
of mechanized looms
powered by
Great Falls
raceway water
and a distribution
and procurement
chain anchored
by the Morris Canal

Capitalist
modernity
begets
our Silk City
it also bespeaks
its demise

in the courtyard
of St. Paul’s
a muffled chorus
trawls the thick air

a posse of pimps
done wrangling
their stables
of $5 ******
sing reveries to
the evening haul

midnight lullabies
of corner crooners
lift a Capella hosannas
from the dark armpit
of an alley behind
the Autozone

“i said
you say
what can make
me feel this way
my girl”

juiced pimps
cashin in
livin large on
a skanks
50 cent haul

the trade in flesh
of distressed
human capital
remains a
growth industry

Music Selection:  
Temptations, My Girl

jbm
3/1/13
Oakland

Like the back of a cart during the bubonic plague,
I’d have to say a dead mans story is long,
But very vague,
As we learn little from the lessons of history,
We treat is as an obsolete and unsaid sort of mystery.


The difference between black and white,
A bird in seat or flight,
A tense and dangerous human right,
As if as much as we can see,
Is the boundary of our site;


If we treat each other as we would like to be treated;
Why does a teacher tell us to remain seated?
They don’t say sit back and relax in any context,
Instead they emphasize not to use bad words or obscene text.

Am I not allowed to tell you to sit down?
Tell you I owe you nothing but a respectable frown?
I owe you nothing but decency,
Not a mind filled with verbs in which I hope others translate boundlessly.

To say I sleep with a pillow,
Is like saying I steep tea like I reap benefits from the luxuries,
Of today’s modern cars and inventions.

To assume I immorally influence a young child in growth,
Is like assuming I don’t walk the sidewalk to remain safe,
From the wind of wild traffic to my left and to my right,
Or to say we don’t disobey ancient conventions,
In which mankind is barred from flight.

Between SpaceX and NASDAQ,
And the jealous old man named NASA,
“Good Wall Street” ain’t looked at,
As the media keeps its mind where its eyes remain fixed;
On the flaws and the findings,
The wars and the signings,
The fear of dead children whose pics we find blinding.

The new Rules of Engagement,
Angers militaristics in danger,
Of bullets and shrapnel they volunteered to go face;
They are angry at the awareness created by J. Assange,
When ****** was collateral damage, to which they are fond;
It’s strange, as truth is now treason,
And a man needs a reason,
To liberate information we deserved in the first place,
Yet our apathy, indifference, and anger at ourselves,
Commits us to a stage of denial within book-shelves,
Inside which we fear ‘it,’
We fear ‘them,’
And ‘their’ ****,
Yet we hallow the ground in our mind in which we hide action;
For we fear that we’ll be charged for our thinking’s infractions.

Please reassure me that I’m free,
And that I am my own faction.

The love i give to her. Once again i think of her
If only she of thought of me, I wonder if she thinks of me?
More than bruised by my past, cut deep. Tho, I know this love is placed deeper within her.
I envision her not just in my future, but happily living with her until the end that’s forever.
Finding myself presently wishing she was present with me. Or that her presence was abundant in present day and time.
Previously my days were spent wishing i had more time with the girl I was previously with.
Feelings for that girl were prevalent in my heart, but they didn't help the mend cracks at all.
Tho, she looked past the fractures and fought to find how to mend my broken heart.
Ripping past infractions and infringements pitting me against her clean out of me.
How these thoughts of her entreat me, tho, I won't let myself be defeated.
Time strives to lead me away from her to break my devotion to her.
I will not abdicate my rights to her, so I endeavor and think of her.
If only time would past so I could meet her and forget my past.
Meet my future so I can my abandon my past.
I know if I meet her this love will last.

I am an open book
So take a look
Maybe you'll like what you see

Or, maybe you'll ignore the message
And only see the typos, the grammar infractions
The mistakes I made along the way
In my little novel of a life
Because the book isn't about the order or meaning of the words right?
It's whether or not they are done "correctly"

You could read me so easily
I don't try to conceal it
For the most part
Sometimes
Occasionally
But that doesn't matter
Read the material I've provided you with
Even if it doesn't tell the whole story

My heart is on my sleeve
Look at it, anyone could tell I've been in love
By the scars in its flesh
You can tell it's been broken
But that's alright
You can also tell that someone has mended it

I make my intentions clear
I'm not here to hurt anyone
But myself
But that isn't intentional
For the most part
Sometimes
Occasionally
But that doesn't matter
I'm here for you
Talk to me, I'll listen
I want to help

Do you think of me?
I think of you
Yes, you
You who are reading this right now
I might not have ever met you
But I can guarantee that you have crossed my mind
Mentioned in my prayers
'Cause I'm thoughtful like that

One of these days, someone is gonna read this book
And be spellbound
Glued to the pages
Can't wait to find out what happens next
Desperately wanting to be a part of the story
At least, that's what I hope
And I'll be happy to include them
You don't have to watch from behind a glass pane
It won't hurt you
For the most part
Sometimes
Occasionally
But that doesn't matter

Just, don't burn the only known copy before it's even done
I don't want to disappear in a puff of smoke
Not just yet

Read me
Tell me what you see
Because when it comes to myself
I am tragically illiterate
The illiterate author
Of a tragedy

A dark cloud has been storming around me,
the wants and needs over-portioned and mounted-
Why the war of pain and wonder wanders to see
where no one feels the love or is lost but founded?
There is a light- the light is so far away,
but I can still see the embellishing distractions
that are so brightly extraneous and willing to stay,
but the storm, so undeserving and strong infractions.

The storm passes by the deepest depths of the earth.
the blackness of perception now gone from you;
the perceptions of poor judgment in the burning hearth
suckling of pure judgment within the heart anew.
The cloud hovering over me, now descends
to the east a rainbow ascends.
The troubles once afflicting your soul,
now are gone from you, and you are whole.

(Possible Chorus):
Light of Day made a new
with courage, strength, and love
one can stand firm- this one is you.
The free spirit of the dove,
provides what's inside the light of day.
For you are the light of day.

I am the red flag
sprawled across your trembling limbs
when the world reminds you
that winter is also a season.

I am a reminder
that perfection exist
only in flawed visions
of how we see others
but refuse to see ourselves.

I'm the one you vent about
but refuse to listen to
because red flags
aren't viewed as imperfections
but as infractions;
Violations of laws
that neither of us agreed to
but live by.

Do you not see your own flags
boldly waving in the wind?
The way I stumble
beneath your force
or cringe
beneath your voice.

Do you talk about the way your flag
clings to it's pole?
Refusing to be pulled down?
Refusing to be burned?