Beautiful Sunshine

My posture they say is like Cagney’s in White Heat,

and I have a tendency to explain it all like Edward G

Robinson, or any schmuck from New York, smooth, fast

as a missed deadline; someone even thinks I look like

Clint, when he squints to cut the glare of Tuscany’s sun,

hand on his gun, working a cigar between the hinges

of his mouth. It’s easy to imagine one’s life hinges

on how pretty you are, how you carry yourself in the heat

of one's complexes: like a dumb moth to the sun

no bigger than a nitelite. If I enter the bank in my G-

string homewear, will security  reach for his pistol like

you see cops do when they get an inkling things are fast

coming undone? Will she, at the teller window, a fast

and happy counter of coin, refuse to serve me? It hinges

on how I bear myself, since my finger like

an appendage of nose would be uncouth, even in the heat

of my living room, and especially were I wearing a G-

Man's holster at my heart, gun at my nipple, the sun

shining where the sun was meant to shine, a new sun

to fire up the inner life of molecules, so small, so fast

you can’t see them at night. I viewed their ugliness; Gee,

I said, you mean we’re nothing but these hinges

swinging in time on the lovely gooeyness in heat?

They squiggled, thoughtless, fevered snot-like

in their puddle. Doors unhinged become roofs like

toads in the garden crawl under to escape the sun

our learned claim will create the kind of lethal heat

that all life is threatened, and we'll have to act fast

if we want to breathe like our forebears did. So much hinges

on our definition of beautiful: how many strands of ge-

nomes have met their demise? Some say, adapt: G

is for Garden; new technology! It will save us! Like

help us survive. I love tooling that manufactures hinges

so perfect, you know, they make no sound. Let the sun

do what it does! Some say, "nature doesn't work fast,

there's time to think of a cooler word than “heat."

If the heat gets out of hand, as dizzying as the G-

force of a rolling jet, we'll just have to fast a lot, like

not eat. It all hinges on us; let's not blame a blinding sun.

Bad News

The boss has nothing but total respect for you

She says so with a smile even a hand on your shoulder

She has never not cherished your commitment

Your infectious energy offered as devotion to her

Really let’s be honest not the corporation itself

The good boss who talks with you and understands

When you’re having a day or someone you love

Is in a particular way that simply interferes so

Long as it’s not long-term or utterly sapping

Since and you know this without any ambiguity

Our firm is not a charity nor a slave-driving enterprise

But like any normal concern in the business of business

We seek solely to make a profit while giving
Generously to the many groups dedicated to the less

Lucky we certainly cannot abide employees who fail

In separating the personal from the professional

Which HR views as a form of extreme selfishness

As many others depend on that one employee

To fit perfectly into the machinery of commerce

Or like any system with gears and sprockets

One dubious part slows the whole operation

And puts a burden on the others not to mention

On the boss who only wants to keep smiling
With her hand on your shoulder when you tell her
How it happened that you’ll miss the deadline
Even though you’re deeply sorry to bear the bad
News at the most inopportune time but sadly
And sorry to say your kid got run over

And you’re likely to need at least a day or two

Bosses Think They’re Gardeners

All my bosses had bosses

Who had bosses or were

The boss of bosses, and all

My flowers are for the boss

Just up from me, since he

Provides opportunities that

Squeeze my time of its being
Poem-maker, The Boss,

And not without mad dreams

Devious plots to unseat him

As if my only were to evaporate

All day without thinking

About what the boss thinks

Of sailboats and sunshine

From my coworkers and I who

Keep the clocks in the corner

Of our eyes our ears attuned

To the bootsteps synched

To our motions-cum-brand

For what the topmost skims

Buying it up as far from us

As not to suffer himself

Our impossible dreams full

Of the real awakenings

As if to give nature a say

As with colors brightest by day

In the aura of their equations

And sums that fail to include

Where one stands on the ladder

Against what the ladder leans

Who is up and who is down who

Is condemned to turn a frown

Since that is what grows in soil

Cultivated so mercilessly well

Seeking that glow at the top

Rising thin and crooked reaching

Amid others pruned by the boss

Trimmed and trained to shape

What pleases him since he’s

The one doing all the watering is

How he puts it when you push back

Scratch your line in the dirt

Not a goddamned fucking inch

More means nothing to him

So what now what will you do

Uproot walk off into hunger

Rob the local branch jump

Into a volcano

How will you pay the bill

Repair the breach where your line

Crossed you out

Exposed your will at the service

Of the boss’s dirty work

You’re the dirt to be removed

New saplings incubating

To be squeezed of their vitals

A jungle load of new saplings

Younger than you better

Than you will ever be better

You start fixing things

Mending and patching and stitching

Things back together if you

Want a blanket when you sleep

If you want more than onion

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

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

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?

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

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