Put on the old LPs tonight, Alex,
from a time long before you were born.
Top of the queue was Petula Clark
belting out Don't Give Up,
defiant as an alley cat in a street fight.

Remembered how in her heyday,
she'd been forced to conceal
the fact that she was married ---
all performers being mysteriously
virginal in those days.

Thoughts segue several years
to my time in the service and
a female lieutenant who was my OIC.
Served a 20 year career,
but never knew a finer officer.

She realized leadership was saying
the things that made you want to follow.
Just after making captain,
due to pregnancy, she was forced
to terminate her service career.

Today, women routinely travel in space,
perform extreme surgeries,
design skyscrappers;
one just might become president.

And somewhere in the tenements of NYC
a young poet spins metaphor
straight from the streets and the cosmos,
constructing a world in lines
we'd all wish to enter.

i found them
while i was
digging
through old boxes
covered in dust
hidden
in the shadows
beneath my bed

i'd been searching for LPs
Lost in the Sound of
Separation on vinyl
record
its sentimental value
binding memories of
my favorite band
countless shows
a myriad of friends

it was there that i
found exactly what
it was i wasn't
looking for

who knows
maybe i hid them
because they
reminded me of things
best left forgotten

the blue sticky note
read in purple ink
"my favorite prints
for my favorite person.
thanks for believing
in my work."

in every photograph was a
little bit of you
dead friends
broken homes
dark rooms with
hardly any light
a child looking for love
the beach palms
skateboards and surfboards

in every photograph was a
little bit of you
shot in black
and white
refined in their
aesthetic but
only one photo actually
had you in it

three windows
light filtering through
closed blinds
an air vent in the bottom
right-hand corner

you stand in the center
and it is evident that
you are shirtless as you
look over your shoulder
at the camera suspended
in the room

what thoughts crossed your
mind when the shutter
shuddered shut

in every photograph was a
little bit of you
and if we’re being honest
there was a little of
me too

The second poem in the series by my alter ego, Count Orlok the wicked Vampyr*

O how the moon peeps out gaily from behind a pink cloud,
Its light shining wanly on the grave of my fat neighbour,
That ugly old ****, Bert Higgenbottom, follower of silly old Jesus,
As my vampyr fangs glisten in the ***** moonlight.

Ding! ****! The midnight bell tolls like the clappers
And I rise fully ***** to begin the horrid task
Which I have been putting off for months:
The ritual defilement of his mouldy corpse.

What a shock to discover his nightdress-clad body
Lying next to his collection of Doris Day LPs;
Thus I turn the putrid plump corpse over carefully
Before sodomising it with my mighty circumcised ****.

Yucch! It's a grim job but someone's got to do it.

Lizbeth stood in front
of the tall mirror
inside her mother's wardrobe  

she was wearing
a short black dress
her hair was tied
in a bun at the back

I stood watching her
uncertain why
we were in her parents' bedroom
and why she was *******
her mother’s clothes
hanging on hangers inside

I looked around the room
a big bed made tidily
a chest of drawers  
a built in cupboard
a picture on the wall
opposite the bed
of some country scene
and above the bed
a huge crucifix
made from wood
with a plaster Christ

look at this one
Lizbeth said

I looked at her hand
taking out a long red dress
she held it up
then put in front of herself
and turned to face me

what do you think?

it's a bit gaudy
I said

shall I try it on?

no I can see
what it would
look like on you
I said

she sniffed it
she must bathe
in **** scent
Lizbeth said

she did a spin
holding the dress
against her
how do I look in it?

she's taller than you
it'll fit her better
I said

not so sure
Lizbeth said
hold this

I held the dress in my hand
she unzipped her black dress
at the back
and pulled the black dress
over her head
and stood there
in a white bra and *******

give it here
she said
and taking the dress
she put it on
her own black dress
was on the floor
here zip me up
at the back
she said

I zipped her up
at the back
watching the straps
of the white bra disappear
as I zipped her up

she turned on the spot
and looked at herself
in the tall mirror

well? how do I look now?

well at least
it's longer
than your own black dress
I said

it came to her ankles
she looked down at it
yes too ****** long
she said
unzip me Benny
she said

I unzipped her
seeing the strap
of the white bra
come back into view

she pulled the dress
over her head
and put it back
on the hanger

she stood there
in bra and *******
how do I look now?

undressed
I said

do you like me
like this?

I feel kind of
uncomfortable
you standing like that
I said

why do you feel
uncomfortable?

what if your parents
come home now
and see you like this
and me here with you
and you in your underclothes?

she smiled
guess they'll feel
uncomfortable then
she said

I picked up her black dress
best out it on
I said

now?

yes now

my parent's bed is over there
all made up and fresh
and waiting for us
she said sexily

I stood holding
the black dress in my hand
where are your parents?

out some place

when will they be back?

don't know

best get your dress on
and out of their room
I said

what about my room?
the bed's smaller
and unmade
and the room's untidy
but we can still
do it there?

I heard voices from downstairs
is that them back?
I said in a low voice

Lizbeth pulled a face
**** me yes
let's get to my room
and so she put
the red dress back
in the wardrobe
and shut it up

and we rushed across
the landing to her room
and shut the door
behind us

I looked around her room
it was as she said
untidy
the bed unmade
books
LPs
soiled washing
over the floor
and the curtains unopened

that was kind of close
she said

yes
I said

downstairs the voices
were loud
and a row seemed
to be going on
but Lizbeth seemed unconcerned
standing there
in her white *******
and bra
holding the black dress
gazing towards
the unmade bed

but I had other problems
swimming around
inside my teenage head.

The papers are wet with ink.
Russia is losing it's war.
North Korea is swamped with the Covid.
Tucker is backpedaling his replacement theory.
Finland and Sweden are enrolling.
Armament shipments are making a difference.
The Pope is apologizing.
That needs repeating: The Pope is apologizing.
(But why stop with the Aboriginals. Consider the Jews and Irish).
Fossil fuels are on the decline.
(plastic microchips are in our fat)
I can still buy Roundup.
Tobacco is banned in most public places here.
*** is not.
There are more drunks, and more behind bars, and in front.
We have safe injection sites.
I have robots asking me if I'm a robot.
There are more tv stations selections.
TV is not worth watching.
LPs are making a comeback.
Right to Life is Wrong for Many.
... and on... and on

Just love those
Sunday afternoons.
A time with nothing to do,
no place to go,
no people to see.
Time for delicious laziness
and carefree leisure.
I search on Youtube,
our collective memory vault,
fishing for songs from the 70s.
Music of the Eagles,
Carol King and Bread.
Turn up the volume,
let the music flow.
Easy listening on Sunday afternoon
is a family tradition.
dating back to childhood.
A sacred weekend ritual
of lying on the window sill,
listening to Father’s LPs,
while I savored the scent
of Mom’s home cooking.
All the while soaking in the sun.
Content like a cat.

It was a Saturday morning
And you were 19

and you were racing along
Victoria Street having just left

Victoria Railway Station
on your way to Dobell’s

Jazz Record Shop
moving quickly

through the sea
of humanity

thinking of jazz
and what record

you were going to buy
at the shop that day

imaging yourself
******* through LP sleeves

taking a mental note
of which one

you might buy
a John Coltrane or Miles Davis

an Art Blakey or maybe
a Dizzy Gillespie

a jazz record being played
over the loudspeakers

in the shop
you mingling with others

in the crowded place
when this hobo stopped you

taking hold of your jacket gently
and said

have you got some small change
for a sandwich?

no
you replied

I haven’t
and rushed on

through the crowd
******* in your pocket

loose change
silvery coins

and his voice
in your head  

as you raced along
and your conscience

nagging you
maybe the voice

of the believed in Christ
so you stopped

and turned around
and made your journey back

through the people
passing by

your fingers taking hold
of the coins

the silvery loose change
and there he was

the hobo asking others
the same question

and they too went by
shaking their heads

or saying
no sorry no change

and you took his hand
and put in the loose silver

into his open palm
and said

here go buy yourself
a sandwich or whatever

and you turned
and left looking over

your shoulder
and he stood there

staring at his palm
and the coins shining

in the morning sun
and then you looked ahead

thinking of the record shop
and the LPs and the jazz music

being played
but deep down

in some other part of you
you knew you’d given

to one who maybe
was hungry

and had unconsciously
prayed.

All alone
in the dark
listening to old Martin Denny LPs

I drain my last bottle of bourbon,
extinguish a cigarette that tastes nothing

A single tear falls gently from my left eye

I blow my nose in my left sock
and fall asleep on the sofa

I
                                          listen when i-
                                        n many moods
                                      bec-                 ­ a-
                                     use-                  it
                                     he-                  lps
                                      to­               clear
                                       m-       y mind.
                                        music alway-
                                   s makes thin-
                               gs better. I-
                        t lets me e-   s-
                 cape my t-           o-
             rtured r-                   e-
          ality. T-                       he calm it br-
        ings                    makes me feel safe, and t-
        he st-              rength          i-             t gives
         me h-            elps                m-              e to st-
           and               tall.               It               helps
              me                   ke-             e-            p my
                    hea-                               d         held
                             high, even when my h-
                                    eart is breaking.
                                                       ­      It
                                  it                          ­ai-
                           ds me in e-                   x-
                        pressing my-                 se-
                         lf. It                          ke-
                              eps­ me sane. Music
                                      is my safe
                                          place.

How this little misses causes me to misses
Her sweet little cheek kisses, so much I’ll never really know
And if I could have the whole world right now,
All I’d take is one day with you tunneling through mounds of snow.

Toys, toys, ouch I stepped on more toys.
I guess I’ll take LPS construction over a hundred boys
Causes me and Jaron are the only two for you
It took at four years but now you always say I love you too.

I wanted to meet you
outside the National
Gallery, Julie says, but
the doctors weren't keen,

said I ****** up my drug
medication, and not let
me out for days. She
was a drug dependent,

on the cure, or so she said.
And waiting you went
to Dobells's record shop,
listened to few jazz LPs,

had a beer, sat and smoked,
thought about ***, the having
and not so. Then she shows,
her dark hair neat, pony-tailed,

her tight figure in the clothes
she wears, **** almost touchable.
Let's skip the old stuff, she says,
let's keep to the modern ****,

save time, energy, then after
a drink and chat. So you go
in the Gallery, take in all those
moderns, the stuff she likes,

the portraits, the brush skills
involved, who painted whom,
buy a few postcards, look
at books. Then off for a coffee

and chat, you go to some place
in Leicester Square, sit at a table,
take out the cigarettes, wait
for the order, take in her features

as she speaks, her eyes, her lips,
the way her hair is brushed
and kept, her tight top, those
pressing out of ****. I liked

the Picasso, she says, his stuff
really gets to me, makes other
works boring as last year's *****.
You notice how she holds her

cigarette, the fingers not yet
browny yellow, hold it just so,
not tight or loose, but gently,
like it was some baby kid instead

of tobacco filled paper deadly drug.
The coffees come, neat small cups,
tiny handles, froth and such. I feel
the need, she says,all the time that

need to hit the veins or tongue. You
hear her words, out there, fragile things,
taking flight, like doomed black birds.

Ice melted and the lemon soaked up the
deep plush juices of cranberries.
The smell of you was newly showered,
damp and warm
still looking slightly *****.

Water bottles, made of plastic
were slowly shifted in an Eastern ocean.
The separateness of their position from land
reminded me of us.

Dark brown ceramic ash trays smoked.
Lounging, we read the backs of LPS and
talked thoughtlessly about genius.
Jean shorts sagged and lost their body,
but still we felt pretty.

A really loving melody, Joni Mitchell,
played from downstairs.
Upstairs, a pillow between my legs and
background semi-trucks on the turnpike.
And picking up the smell of you, faraway and happy.

You never know what you will find.
The eyeball of a cow. Weeping condoms.
Deserted televisions lacking flat screens,
no longer desirable, abandoned, forlorn.
A pair of torn, lacy,black *******
in an alley; must be a story there.
A cat with one eye and three legs,
devouring a vole. Scattered books awash.
A depressed, deflated hemorrhoid donut.
Soaked album of ruined wedding pictures.
Forever mute, broken, vinyl LPs.
Three shotgun shells but no shotgun.
Not a sign of the splattered victim.
Almost everything you can't imagine.
The devious flotsam and jetsam of life.
The ordinary stuff of nightmares and poems.
All the world's magnificent mysteries,
strewn like tears on streets and alleys,
waiting to be rediscovered, again,
like dangerous, lost New Worlds,
yours for the simple effort of walking.

Ten years ago when
I got divorced, I
owned 6,000 books,
a riding mower,
a house on an acre
and enough other stuff
to supply a Syrian
family for a  year.

Now I live in a three
room shotgun apartment.

A year ago I embarked
on a minimalist frenzy.

Out went the LPs,
the vintage stereo
equipment and radios,
the remaining books
(a Kindle is a
minimalist's best
friend), most of the
furniture (no one visits
here), boxes of magazines,
all the clothes not
worn in the past year,
all of my gadgets
and, best of all, my
wretched teaching job.

I wanted to pare my life
down to the essentials
and see what remained.

Now I live on practically
nothing with practically
nothing. I give my
occupation (when asked)
as Poet. That gets
wonderfully baffled looks.

I am eccentric to the
extreme and love it.

The cat and I, an old
anarchist and mute feline,

make the perfect minimalist
family living out the dregs
of an obscure, minimal life.

We are what we are, free
from the tyranny of things,
content to quietly
careen into whatever bit
of future remains to us

enjoying the minutes,
ignoring the years.

   ~mce

She'll do.
She's a rough approximation of you
without the sense of humor.
She'll do
and she did.

Rough drafts come through
the window.
A woman like that will only let you
get away with her for so long.
Every time she left
I was paranoid she wasn't coming back.
I'm turning into John Cusack
with my LPs in a stack.
She's never coming back.

I write my ****** heart out for you.

Manipulated the masses
through media.
Clear the air
for an explosion of silence
before the first acoustics
pierce through the ears
to the spongy minds
of the adolescence.
Close your eyes and
imagine the edited sounds
of the juxtaposition,
clashing the rhythms and melodies
mixed with the reprised chorus of
repugnant magnitude,
meaningless crybaby lyrics
and off-key utterance
with agonizing commercialism.
Corporate record companies
hide behind thick black velvet curtains
and produce highly profitable garbage,
so bad that it sounds like a
dead baby being slapped
against an untuned violin.
Pulling the strings on
radio stations like marionettes
to spread these undesirable
golden oldies like wildfire.
Using and abusing music television
to overplay videos repeatedly
until it nauseates your innards.
These puppet masters reel
the uneducated into the
blackest tar pits and capture
their gray matter for eternity
to what they believe to be
is acceptable music.
Unknowledgeable and unaware
of anything else in existence.
In a world that makes haste,
we don't take the time anymore
to appreciate what we listen to
that actually fulfills and pleases
our soul, body and mind.
Generation after generation
declining into the sludge and slop
of objectifying and degrading compositions.

Record stores hold sanctuary.

Providing hidden gems and treasures
for explorations.
Rummaging through the LPs and EPs
and scrutiny of 45s and 7 inches
to find the pearl in the oyster
concealed under piles of
flotsam and jetsam,
thrift store throwaways.
Music lovers are like
archaeologists and scuba divers
rediscovering obscure rarities
in old crates of the deepest,
darkest depths of
mildew basement cellars.
One moment before the next,
in the highest fidelity
as the needle drops on the licorice pizza
and off the twang comes
the lovely wax statics
of the most ******* reverberations.
All the little hairs stand upright
and tingle the back of your neck
and arms as the notes
flow off your fingertips
and you fall into a
complete state of euphoria,
like a Buddhist that's reached
Nirvana.
Gritty Maestros of the underworld
construct celestial symphonies,
so soothing they can tame
the wildest beasts and
orchestrate the most
diabolical spazz noid cacophonies
as the high frequencies skirmish
through cracked speakers.
Music can summon the demons
inside you while reaching
therapeutic climaxes
simultaneously.

sprinting hand in hand down narrow streets
running around unsuspecting bystanders and passerbyers
laughs echoing off the skyscrapers, louder than all the taxi cabs and mixed up conversations of the city
chasing the pink sunset that reflects in golden hues off of the concrete jungle

walking hand in hand around the edges of the lakes in central park
dancing on subway platforms to street performers unique melodies
falling into attraction in between musty lps in dimly lit record shops hidden away in greenwich
falling in love in vacant coffee shops or on apartment building rooftops

the city is where nostalgia takes a form of reality and where chaos disguises itself as a form of surreal serenity

and it rings, and rings,
each shrill chirrup like a triumph;
your defeat, multiplied.

This is my own unanswerable riposte. A month,
almost, has passed. I know it’s you.
Once, accidentally, in a frantic, slapstick
dash from the bath, I made the blunder
and your voice slipped into my ear.
Your pitiable way of saying it was a mistake.
I presented you silence, gift-wrapped for free,
dripped back to the tub, each wet glyph
another step away from our despicable was.

Still, it rings.
I imagine them as punches to you,
not soft blows but great, leaden thumps,
a ricochet of knuckles on cheeks,
of these rings off from the walls
I deliberately, deliciously ignore.

Every quarter hour, a jolt,
a quick think of is this childish.
After all, at this hour and age,
must I resort to letting this black reptile
hark for my attention, coffees
gone cold, the LPs supermarket-queued
on the table we bought
with your mother's vouchers.

But yes. It rings, again,
I have lost count now the times.
I know it’s you.
The hour hand
pokes ten, the dog twitches
in its pool of sleep.
Still, darling, I provide my answer.