Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Coot-Mended


saying it outloud
Double-crested American Coot
in a snowstorm
on a frozen lake
is like all is
good and suffering
is on the mend

saying it
soothes the wounds
of whatever
unsaid unsayables
thus keep on
saying it
repeat it
louder and again
Double-crested American Coot
Double-crested American Coot
Double-crested American Coot
in a snowstorm
on a frozen lake so good to be

mended
by a Double-crested
American Coot in
an American snowstorm
on a frozen American lake
in a cold
Double-crested America

keep pronouncing it
outloud clear as ice
Double-crested American Coot
on a frozen lake
in a snowstorm
if you know what’s good for you

say it once twice a hundred times
say it until you’re blue
until spring unfreezes
Double-crested American Coot
Double-crested American Coot
Double-crested American Coot

saves me
whenever


Sunday, December 2, 2018

a white anti-anthem

WHITEY CRACKER

(two cord anthem with
one more for the refrain,
capitalization in first three
stanzas as a clue to the
melody or its lack)

I’m WHItey CRAcker
My DADdy had a KNACK
Killed off the RED man
And chained up all the BLACK

My kid’s an ANgel
LEADer of the PACK
We CALL him MessIAH
Sneaking out the BACK

I’m WHITey cracker
Got NOTHing but a SACK
Fillin’ it with WHAT I find
Ain’t givin’ nothin’ BACK

Whatever I see, it belongs to me
Whatever I do, I’ll be doing to you
Wherever I go, I’ll be laying it low
                I’m whitey cracker on the move

I’m whitey cracker
I’m a nation-hijacker
Hang your daddy on a nail
Lock your brother in my jail

Put your mama in my kitchen
And your sister in my bed
I’m whitey cracker
And it’s all in my head

I’m the man of the house
Mighty mouse in a hole
I am king of my castle
Got a drawbridge soul

I’m a lionized zero
A weepy-eyed hero
Selling my goo-goo gaga
To keep it all a go-go

I’m whitey cracker
I got nothing but a sack
Filling it with what I find
Ain’t given nothing back

Whatever I see, it belongs to me
Whatever I do, I’ll be doing to you
Wherever I go, I’ll be laying it low
I’m whitey cracker on the move
.
I’m whitey cracker
Ain’t givin nothing back
I got all kinds of things
Like my US liberty

As long as it means
I’m the one who’s free
I’m whitey cracker
And I control the space

Ain’t nobody better
In the human race
I’m whitey cracker
Smokin’ in the teepee

To get the bigger piece
And talking sweetly
Winning was a breeze
All them on their knees

I’m whitey cracker
Imperial lord
High on my horsey
With my daddy’s sword

Whatever I see, it belongs to me
Whatever I do,  I’ll be doing to you
Wherever I go,  I’ll be laying it low
I’m whitey cracker on the go

I’m just a missile-boy
Prince of the cheapshot
Hunting down darkies
With my snipereye robot

I’m whitey cracker
Slacker and a whacker
And the money don’t flow
Unless I let it go

I’m whitey the best
Whitey the fine
Whitey master
And the planet is mine

If you ain’t white
And on your knees
Don’t start crying
If I don’t say please

When I steal your shit
And your bitches too
And kill your kids
With smackshot flu

I’ll put you to work
In my factories of pain
Feed you the crumbs
Feed you the blame

For losing the game
For losing the game
I’m whitey cracker
Whip-snappin’ hacker

Got to beat you down
Just to hold my ground
And keep the goodies
Your granddaddy gave

I’m whitey cracker
A builder and a sacker
I do while you think
So my kind don’t shrink

I’m whitey cracker
Afraid of going down
When a new sun rises
Above the old town

And all my daddy’s sins
Come collect their rent
I’m whitey cracker
And it’s all been spent

Friday, November 2, 2018

Conditional

If the body is a temple
with stain-glass eyes 

for sun and moon to light
up a story to help the body

die, then what should I care
of the flying buttresses

the steeple’s needle at the top 
of the spiral staircase 

why should it matter
what is there if what isn’t

is what was always where
you should have been?

Monday, October 22, 2018

Natural Politics

I have no agonies about gay marriage
or equal pay for equal work
or tax revenues or laws
going this way and that way
zigzagging with the times
I don't cry over police brutality
or surveillance machinery
looking into my deepest being
where reside millions
of cute cats acting like cats
to lift me up, a standing
ovation of the doomed
I don't obsess about corporate
scandals or violence how
much it costs to build
a new plane new tank new super-
sonic death-arrow since tens
of thousands of subsonics
await deployment
and I don't care at all
what politicians have to say
since they say what pays
and know less about my life
than the barber or waitress 
who always smiles 
when she pours the coffee
their only advantage, 
a pristine cowardice
I don't really care for things
like that since I lost 
the point unless 
this confronting that
in a ring where the fix is in
makes you feel alive
makes you feel
like you’re winning something
just by losing, victory
in the loss of it all
I don’t want any of that
since I can do nothing
but what I can do to me
prefering to sit it out 
quietly out back 
amid the hazelnut
and fruit trees
and wait wait wait
for the family of deer 
to arrive they come 
four, five at a time
to nose in the surplus
sweet desserts lazily 
pawing in the deep grass
beneath an old tree they know 
there’s no hunt in me

Monday, October 8, 2018

Involuntary Suicide Poem


even though experts say
my son or his will burn up
and melt like a candle

and the oceans will rise 
so much it will set us off

one against the other

in a violent scramble
for survival, and though 

they say it’s nearly impossible

to avoid it, quite impossible
to reverse the trend, to go 

back to our clueless selves 

of senses and loves, way back 
when we were children
of earth and sky; 

even though life feels already 
long gone, I have to write
this poem so my son 

has reason to forgive me

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Poem


Everyone 
is a story

with misery

in it. Even


Rockefellers

lose loved ones


too early.

Everyone


is a pain

inside. Why


tell me

please 

how is that
so difficult


to see?

Everyone


is a story

to stand under, 

to hold up

for all to see

as another
possible me.

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Carpe Diem


Okay history,
You can shovel it.
We’ve had it with you.
Enough fortune
cookies for one life.
If anything you
ever said made sense
we wouldn’t be

trying to save our asses
on the only planet 
there is, whose fate was sealed

by millions, billions,

trillions of carpe diems, 
all those dominion 
domination 
fantasies. I’m sick

of that schtick. Kills me
with loathing.

I feel as if I'm about to puke up my mother.

about to shit out my dad.

Piss grandpa away and chuck 
grandma in a ditch.
Makes me want to hasten the general demise.

Ridding the world of such
should be the only carpe diem;
what’s more carpe
than the diem
of unending holocausts?


Given charge of the realm,

you dropped the ball,

all the time

singing your own glory 
in landing the gig, how you
did the best you could.

I blame your dad, God!

Irresponsible dolt,

Handing the child the keys!

Let him try to imagine 
being stuck on this firma,

wingless

in a monkey suit!

Cruel God!

We’ll get you back for this!

We’ll carpe diem this 
place until it’s too, you know,
to live on. Two
can play that game.

Monday, March 26, 2018

Blah Blah Eternity

1

I’m in hot water: lodestone
malfunction, throbbing
ocean on my back.

My shell’s beauty –
hardened by time – I 
meant to master. Eyes,

but the blind kind, ears 
not to hear, nose
full of sweat

one should love.
Incrementally is best
says mercy.

Lull into dream
does the trick.
To be a hot cloud,

pink when I set.
But what of the steamy wrath 
I became?

Engraved surrender,
body of low words
like the gods once were.

2

I AM, that's true, 
religion of one, miracle
Of timing, timepiece

of the divine no
genius can ever solve,
hallowed be my name –   

I knelt at the figure
of that lovely man
in a simple robe

of earth, spread-eagled
eyes on the jumbled
throng, on me, my song

nailed to itself,
flesh to spirit,
spirit as flesh,

earth and sky
nailed to the prayer
that repeats after me

like a kid says 
over and over “Dad, 
listen to me, please?”

3

Delved into it
on all sides going back
generations,

and it’s doom & gloom
looks like. Screwed
if it bears fruit.

The great-great-greats
fell in pain
where they lived,

uncles and aunts
hammered their hearts,
lots of wheezing.

This is a deathbed
denial: whatever
got done, I meant

something else, or didn’t
do it at all. Acquitted
like all of us

of our alleged crimes
amid the stars.
Bottoms beckon.

4

Meantime, a PC-
coffee-glut, and touchdowns,
the boom boom boom

of victory; koans
serve obituaries. Poor Pres, 
no wading in the palace

fountain, no dipping
for lucky Lincolns
or an FDR;

not enough iodine
for the masses. 
His thinking

cracks like lightning,
conveys death
to non-believers.

Our guys and gals
wear the white hats
to stay cool

in the unforgiving shine.
They fit perfect.
It never sets there.

5

Terrible things happen.
time, space agree
it’s always terrible.

Wonderful things
happen and everyone
is afraid to see.

It’s like a new marriage;
rushing around,
forgetting things

then remembering
what’s best to forget.
A final sweep

of the old terrain.
It ends like one too,
with a falling

on the bed, arms
wide open, big
accomplishment.

Terrible wonder
in measure. And now,
what now?

6

I’d like to know who
will run the upkeep
when the center falls

apart, who will dispose of
the cars, trucks, trains
and who gets to live

in the toll-taker’s booth?
I want to know if 
paradise has gutters of litter,

if it has gutters at all.
I don’t want that old kind of paradise 
with its language in ruins

wherever you listen.
What happens if someone
from somewhere 

moves in? Gives us the boot?
What if other people
want to fly their flag above us?

I collect flags, big ones
and small, because you never know. 
Run one up the pole in a snap.

7

Once upon a time....
spic-n-span like the deck of a ship
bow to stern; barking

from the bridge, the headless
edge of a polar wind—
Once upon a so-so

soiled by too little oxygen,
a hole closes
each step you take

is what drives us mad
in the humid polluted climes
where horizons

have no mercy, endlessly
exhaling
goodnight’s idea. 

Spotlessly –look 
at the universe
I’d like people

to keep it thus,
evading the next
something to cry about.

8

All you see was once
mine, before you arrived.
Everything

you see I was.
Now that you’re here
out of the blue

it belongs to no one
as if found, tripped over
on the way to mass.

Picking it up
makes it yours, even,
think about this, 

please, 
even though
it was once all mine.

I was lord of my domain.
Now I am a domain
resisting its lord.

What splendid times
when it was mine.
Now you, death and you.

9

I didn’t invent me. I didn’t
make a life from nothing
or take anything

or do anything
or say anything
about anything

ever.
I didn’t ask to be here.
You bore me.

Have the decency
to provide
a warm thing.

Have you forgotten
your manners?
Improved them?

Is it honor, and nothing
else, no humility,
no civility

without reward?
I offer my foot to wash.
I offer thirst.

10

I go among them
as if they’d want me
alone

as if they and I
one mind
one charge

as if I were not me
but posing as one
I go among them

without options.
No stake in the outcome,
being for

today a song,
an arrow’s feather-brief
flight, vibrations

through air.
I shoot among them
as if at a target

moving as I do
move when I hear
me coming.

11

I’ll give you everything
ff you promise love
forever

even if I have to war
against those you admire
and the architecture

you love, forever
(or else I can’t
give anything)

until death.
just in case you get too
used to me,

in case you notice
your breath is mine,
mine yours.

Promise me forever
no matter what happens
or die or

let’s just forget it.
Can you live with that?
Neither can I.

12

I’m no apple expert,
just a fan of compromise
if the numbers are right,

if it doesn't linger too long
in my conscience
and wreck

everything else that's there. 
If it takes a daily on the rocks
I say, hey, hello

pour me one.
Think of hot shampoo
dreams for reality’s 

boon coming to myself
in a panic: save me! 
Please! Yes, calm

in the make-believe
I don’t know
on the street, at the table

while my wife
ladles soup and the kid
waves a toy

13

like the flag of home.
Carnival time--
decide: walnut

or plum, wound or pain.
She was uneverything,
unspoiled

enough to love.
I was rich
with poverty

of experience.
We alchemized,
fell victim, shining

in a conspiracy
beyond our knowledge
though believing

love was a dyke-hole
and a fingertip
and stardust 

enough
to fill in the scars.
We got gold, miraculously.

14

I’m always in motion,
a wave in the air, okay,
okay, whatever

you say is me.
I tidy up around here. 
My only

discipline. I am
a stay-at-home warrior
memory-armed

with maps, parking
my least resistance
like residual

highs, clouds
of skies like leaves 
fly in, swirling,

curling goodbyes.
Nothing’s a thing
when I crash

in apathy
on the grass no one
bothers to cut.

15

Garden birds sing
their view. I sit back
like everything

is fine and dandy. 
A drink; the wind
combs the land.

The main leak
is in slow-motion,
wall of a lifetime

below standards.
Technology
will save us,

when my son owns it.
He’ll wink a brand
new roof, blink

the wall to right itself
or a machine
will do it for him.

I have faith.
History is full of faith.
That’s how we got here.

I’m keeping mine
since it so happens
that’s all there’s likely to be.

16

At night in the castle
I imagine voices
moving in the dark

of the people
I know how to love.
I’m always alone,

always just
about to light a smoke
beneath the stars

right on top of me,
a wild country thing
screaming inside

the black trees. 
like Royalty’s henchman:
manager of details,

who, what, when, 
how I’m the one
atop the bomb—

Programmed for love
on a cross
of promises.

17

Always lately
in the alley, in my mind,
bushes that edge

your place. I climb
the tallest tree in the yard
singing whippoorwill

shrill until the sun
breaks on the hill.
I watch papa

and the youngest
hunt for the ball
in the grass,

her teen self
ski-jumping as she 
trots to find it.

In the alley
I search for love
half-eaten in its wrapper

or a safe place
to avoid the ones who hate
signs they’re lost.

18

I go to my job
for money, to have
something to do.

on the road
in contemplation
behind the wheel

with the sun
baking my forehead
through the glass,

tractors, trucks, compacts
with trailers pig-piled
for market, a lady

pushing a carriage
on the dirt shoulder
between towns,

I avoid them all
remembering
between thoughts

not only am I bringing peace 
to myself
but I’m driving.

19

You want it
and don’t know why
and then do, and then don’t

want it at all,
don’t think about it.
You think rather

the answer lives
only to die to live again
in endless thought,

in the meaty deep
lungs where loose
ends contend,

converge
in polyps of yesterday,
branches of hope. 

Lately it makes sense
in the rain
because you can see

from a god’s POV
the dandelion nodding yes,
yes, agreeing to disagree.

20

Nothing but juice—
I have it figured. Remember
how I once imagined

you? And I’d be nothing
without you. Nothing
without us, without me

and others.
Remember the tricks we played,
how I knew where it hurt

and went there
to help kindness take root?
That was real.

But you can’t recall
the reasons or the point
you wished to make

about living that way,
losing your sight
in the glare, what died

mounted to debt.
I bank at church, fill
my account with hymns.

21

Hard knowing.
I say any word
and the chestnut

drops a pincushion
on my head. The birds
sound off

past us.
I can’t wiggle myself
out of it. Hard

being here. Being
there for you,
too. (Can I borrow

a few dollars?)
Maybe there's a breeze
where you are.

At least in the beginning
before here and there
facing each other

look like leaving
and returning from now
on the same.