by Martin H. Levinson

I’d rather read the Sunday papers
than write this poem, for I can’t think
of anything to say and the yard needs
mowing, the car needs washing,

the tub needs scrubbing and I think
I’ll make myself a cup of coffee,
have a bit of the raisin scone I bought
this morning at Briermere Farms, fresh

from the oven and the finish of a
two-mile stroll along the banks of the
Peconic where I watched a vesper sparrow
circle lazy in the sky, a cumulus cloud

hang low on the horizon, an alice blue
kayak sail slowly past a McDonald’s
parking lot that abuts the water upon
which floated a white plastic coffee lid

and two cigarette stubs that seemed
horribly out of place in a place where
fluke, flounder, and striped bass hail from
and swans, geese, and Carolina ducks

also call home.

Creativity and ambition is real
And the feeling of risk and intelligence
Are asking for damnation please, placidly
Birds among many things that chirp around your soul that wakes up the dead
Cheering up the party with the talk of apartheid, black and white
Competition is the last word, and talk of lost causes and intellectuality
Est mir leid
I'm up in my knees with Bukowski, they call me old-school Burroughs, the Kerouac rings in the philosophical Barry Manilow
Barry Levinson, please don't make my death bed, you're plot points make sense ambivalently too in case I touch upon Bacchus
The dichotomy of the bridling ***, I suppose you switched with the surface of the country full of dunes and locusts
The swamp of the divorcee storm saves it for the orgie and the promiscuous dollar ride and melee