I -- A Pleasant Afternoon

                for Michael Brownstein and **** Gallup

One day 3 poets and 60 ears sat under a green-striped Chau-
        tauqua tent in Aurora
listening to Black spirituals, tapping their feet, appreciating
        words singing by in mountain winds
on a pleasant sunny day of rest -- the wild wind blew thru
        blue Heavens
filled with fluffy clouds stretched from Central City to Rocky
        Flats, Plutonium sizzled in its secret bed,
hot dogs sizzled in the Lion's Club lunchwagon microwave
        mouth, orangeade bubbled over in waxen cups
Traffic moved along Colefax, meditators silent in the Diamond
        Castle shrine-room at Boulder followed the breath going
        out of their nostrils,
Nobody could remember anything, spirits flew out of mouths
        & noses, out of the sky, across Colorado plains & the
        tent flapped happily open spacious & didn't fall down.
        

                                                        June 18, 1978

II -- Peace Protest

Cumulus clouds float across blue sky
        over the white-walled Rockwell Corporation factory
                                        -- am I going to stop that?

                                

Rocky Mountains rising behind us
        Denver shining in morning light
-- Led away from the crowd by police and photographers

                                

Middleaged Ginsberg and Ellsberg taken down the road
        to the greyhaired Sheriff's van --
But what about Einstein? What about Einstein? Hey, Einstein
                                Come back!

III -- Golden Courthouse

Waiting for the Judge, breathing silent
        Prisoners, witnesses, Police --
the stenographer yawns into her palms.

                                        August 9, 1978

IV -- Everybody's Fantasy

I walked outside & the bomb'd
        dropped lots of plutonium
        all over the Lower East Side
There weren't any buildings left just
        iron skeletons
groceries burned, potholes open to
        stinking sewer waters

There were people starving and crawling
        across the desert
the Martian UFOs with blue
        Light destroyer rays
passed over and dried up all the
        waters

Charred Amazon palmtrees for
        hundreds of miles on both sides
        of the river

                                August 10, 1978

V -- Waiting Room at the Rocky Flats Plutonium Plant

"Give us the weapons we need to protect ourselves!"
        the bareheaded guard lifts his flyswatter above the desk
                                                -- whap!

                                *

A green-letter'd shield on the pressboard wall!
        "Life is fragile.  Handle with care" --
My Goodness! here's where they make the nuclear bomb
                                  triggers.

                                        August 17, 1978

VI -- Numbers in Red Notebook

2,000,000 killed in Vietnam
13,000,000 refugees in Indochina 1972
200,000,000 years for the Galaxy to revolve on its core
24,000 the Babylonian Great Year
24,000 half life of plutonium
2,000 the most I ever got for a poetry reading
80,000 dolphins killed in the dragnet
4,000,000,000 years earth been born

                                                Summer 1978

I couldn't believe that it took fireworks.

Red fire, consuming my oxygen
and my thoughts.
And the tones of your voice
like booming thunder
filling my ears with a ringing
that I could hear even after
you left me.

You entered amidst a black sea of other people.

The room was dark, shrouded
in black lace and prayers.
But somehow you appeared to me
clearer and brighter
than any disco ball
or compact fluorescent could ever manage.

The soot soon smothered us all.

The flames licking bright new brick
and threatening to swallow us
piece by piece
taking with it our pressboard furniture,
just so that the interior matched our skin -
covered in shining, charcoal burns.

I couldn't believe that it took fireworks.

Red fire, of my creation
consuming every part of you.
And as if the spectacle wasn't enough
the first time,
an encore seemed fitting,
doused in gasoline.

wood-grain finish, extra varnish
tarnished button tipped to the right.
fighting urges surging through blue
undoing years of misdirection
unprotected table top dulled sits dusty
rusted nails protruding slightly
nightly visits from the drunken
stunk up pressboard with cigar and beer
nearly every inch a memory
chemistry to delivery
eating so many family meals
dealing cards and outlining plans
landing strip for wayward model airplanes
painfully, I carry it out to the burn pile
smiling slightly as a piece of history
mysteriously drifts away as smoke –

****** is a tough thing to digest, it
Haunts the deepest pit of your stomach,
Steeling food swallowed,
A perpetual hunger.

It crawls on all fours
At midnight
Up the throat.
It's a slow process.
Burning pink, beating flesh
With acid coated paws.
You feel it as a chip not fully chewed,
A pill taken in absence of water,
A greasy grilled cheese.

When I feel it beginning
To swell in my throat
I brace myself
On the kitchen sink,
Notice my distorted, clammy cheeks
In the stainless steel warped metal,
Fingers digging into the pressboard cupboards.
I don't have anything but time
To cool the flame under my tongue,
Inside my teeth.