February 2014

Honor Thy Father Not much to show for a life of pain one golden teardrop in the rain Honor thy father as he's climbing the walls withering under catcalls. Took stock in the liberal trade wrote but was never paid honor thy father as he spirals in the web. He showed you the dance taught you as his last chance honor thy father as he dies to make way. Online A hideaway from big league scammers and a minefield of true ugliness they embrace like garbled tie knots tangled spiders of flesh. Amusement here is a shadow of blood cast over the sunken eyes of twisted tongues the number of times they've defeated me ranks in the thousands. As the sun set on Chinatown I'd watch these disgraceful arachnids dirtying up their pornographic cameras like dangerous commies manhandling their wives. They've broken me of both love and lust by their terrible incessance. They left flickering blisters of surreal chimeras on my soul. Yet somehow I often feel it is ignoble not to thank them for trivializing isolation and playing to a fool. Valentine I didn't think you loved me now I know you never will to lose a girl so glistening is such a bitter pill If only I had courage and a little faith my life would be fulfillment and my heart would never break. Worst of all is just the thought I could have had it made if I had shown by steady work my worth to you, my babe. I watch you as you leave me for a different man Don't think it as misleading I'm still your biggest fan. If just your wings would open heaven's glory in full reign my soul would be in tempest and desire filled with pain. The only hope to change it would be that you be mine that is too much to hope, my dear but thank you for the valentine. The Ward The unbanishable tapping of you know whos gave me a bouquet of forget me nots I was stitched like a ragdoll without a mouth voiceless I made no sense as I tried to talk but no one was listening enough to care as I smashed on the altar of an agnostic world where our meaningless lives abominate over the cataclysm of death the gang sat playing spades. Did I mention outer space as snowflakes fell like rain? Childhood Memories The bird carries a worm to its nest like a childhood memory returns to a poet. The memory spreads its wing floating down, down the stairs. Waking up when the blue phantom reaches the floor. Listening to the noises in my pillow and hiding a tooth underneath my tooth fairy mother would sneak in with a quarter as I dreamed of floating down the stairs. If a poet is excitable like a chirping robin cracking from the egg momma bird will bring another worm another memory of childhood. The Barber Story Bombs fell, hair grew. I made a vow ten years no barber. Mother put a bowl on my head and complained of split ends Still laughs how I opened my shirt at the checkout in a grocery store when the clerk commented on her pretty daughter My stupid stepmother insisted my thin gold hair was thick and brought out thinning shears. Oi vey. By age fifteen it reached my waist. My friend Meg in the record store told me not to put a feathered earring in my right ear. I looked awful cute. As a lad Pap had taken me to Webster Hall and they would shine me up nice he called me a regular little man. In a way after the chaos of the anti-war struggle seeing it again was very like finding evidence of a past life. Throughout my upbringing Bruno's daughter lay in wait She wanted as a consequence of giving up her virginity a confrontation with her father. I waited until the razor was at my throat and said I love Rosa. But the Delilah of my story was by some strange habit of perversity in the laws of heaven and earth a married Vietnamese woman named Law whose marriage survived I suspect only because psychiatrists had tampered with my erection confirming the adultery laws. We'd meet in secret, prayed to the buddha she'd caress me with her breasts while shaving my neck, hand on my pulse. I told her she'd made me the devil when she made me look just awful and year after year that blond hair turned gray until it lay like a shot dog on her Chinatown floor. War The adrenal hyperhydrosis of Bruce Springsteen playing beer belly godhead on a tavern-light stage doesn't do it. There is still too much that is too much in the silent betrayal, shock and despair of half-incinerated children for any song but war pigs. I can't imagine even Imagine having any effect and most rock stars are glamorizing war deceitfully through their stardust puppet protests. War to me is a teardrop that lands on your foot and turns into plague. It is the lie told as a kiss to a the face whose jaw gets broken. War simply isn't a song. Not unless it's the Russian lullaby a freezing woman sang in the Stalingrad trenches to calm her men. Scribbles How contradiction revels in a smudge how revealing They are the fingerprints of ordinary sages lost in a bin. The cast away moments long hours of reverie the sad mutations of melancholy. On this margin are printed doubts the amendments of promises made. Scribbles, what churning banks of cognitive dissonance do you show for a brief copious moment of gloom before the wads of crumpled paper swallow you up? Scribbles, do I read too deeply into thee? Are you really what you pretend the mere stray traces of shedded hair? You are the Sun You Are The Sun: Blazing flames, blazing flames, blazing flames of love. I wasn't expecting this but it has really gone to my head. No is just a word meaning yes when I speak of you. You are the sun, blazing. You are the sun, listening, you are the sun. This cup of mine can only be shared with one. This sweet cup of mine. Someone told me this would happen that fate held for me the perfect girl. I never believed. It has really gone to my head. You are the sun. The sun blazes the sun listens, just like you, the sun answers you are the sun I don't deserve you but you really lit my fire. With any luck it will be my pyre. Because this is how it should end with you sitting on my desk as my loved one and my best friend. This cup of mine can only be shared with one. This sweet cup of mine. The sun cries blazing flames blazing flames blazing flames of love. You are the sun. The sun listens just like you. Blazing flames blazing flames blazing flames of love. You are the Sun. The moment I set eyes on you you were my lover. No is just a word meaning yes when I speak of you. This cup of mine this sweet cup of mine should be shared with you. Someone told me it would happen this way that fate had the perfect girl I never believed but now that I've found you it has really gone to my head. Love, love you are the sun, You are the sun blazing, You are the sun listening, You are the sun answering, blazing flames blazing flames blazing flames of love. I'm engulfed I'm drawn down, down It has really gone to my head. I wasn't expecting this you are the sun. You are the sun. Blazing flames, blazing flames, blazing flames of love. Out of Reach Maybe clarvoyance could bring trust if you knew my soul I wouldn't always get there after the door closed. Everything is falling over the side of flat worlds you glance away. I step across the invisible line the lady disappears it seems to follow the script of my fears every time. Close enough to love but still out of reach. It seems I dropped something and can't keep up searching the ground for some kind of key. Sometimes I lock my door, too. I can see the way it is how the world looks out from inside of you. Close enough to empathize close enough to care close enough to love close enough to touch but still so out of reach. Dream Frollick Every time I look into your eyes I see the haughty fire of a woman whose boyfriends as a girl made me their punching bag for making her smile so much, and she never defended me, nor liked me much after that. When I dream of you I see you come to the door a little wet and wrapped in a towel letting me right into your womb knowing what I want. I'm not kidding. I wish you loved me back. I wish you had a place in your heart for the intellectual hippy. I wish that making you tea and bringing you flowers turned you on. But there's something a little perverse about the dog-eared howl of a sickly banshee strumming his banjo over the dead, dead moon. Long after you made clear that you hated me for being so bold you were my dream frollick. Do You Still Love Me? Do you still love me knowing I am torn? Do you still love me like the day I was born? I see your smile in every tree. I dream of you do you dream of me? Everyone calls me old man my death I can see in the sand how I reach out is it ruled out? If I let go of someone I love to make room in my world for you will you let go of me, too? I guess we're never too old for games. Whatever you may call me by namewise. I guess we're never too old for games. The Tree of Two Old Spinsters It looked as big as a playground it's climbing branches an urn into which to crawl up, up into its crib. They'd come to the window spying making moody faces at the children the older children told stories about them as if they were goblins. but i felt safe in my tree laughing. Mail Order Bride No one ever wants to admit they cried when they destroy something beautiful. They always laugh and that is a pain worse than tears more crippling. She'll hang me she said for plucking her desire to come to America from her sensuous words with rejection. I've seen your kind before, we both said with our eyes. This isn't the first time I was married overnight. The Atheist Nun The Atheist Nun didn't believe in God but she believed in manners and for this the church seemed the best school. She was of course a defeated person, but she loved the mansion and the old clock the visits from children, laughed at perverse things with her other sisters, studied the Bible with the diligence of a scholar and never questioned why she went the road of Jesus. Delusions by Mac Crary "We weren't talking about you," the parochial savage said with bloodless innuendo as the clock struck four and a klukker thief was at my door. For the rush of a scared crescendo I fiddled with old momentos he spat again, "We weren't talking about you." Admittedly the peon they described only passingly resembled me as I saw him squint my way reassembling. His pigment was but a figment his poison was paranoia and to trust Dr. Goblin he never existed. "You want responsibility for this," he yelled, "I pour it on your steaming." and welts formed all over my torso. My stomach spilled out on the floor, but is this true? Quoth Dr. Goblin, "it is your mind and nothing more." They asked me if I believe in God before splattering the school with photos of my aborted son contracted for in a fraternity ruse. "The Dead Kennedys," they laughed, "have been done." But no web was spun. Quoth Dr. Goblin, "It is your mind and nothing more." I finally shrieked, "This is patient-bashing and I'll break every bone in your face!" They laughed at me and brought in chains to add to my disgrace. The Bricklayer The keys in his hands he enters the site of a collapsed house and wonders that they want it restored, his kizmet a copywig tribute to the klavern throne of beefeaters. Yet this is his London. He was born to this shackle. You can find him drinking safely and smiling abashedly to tourists navel-gazing at this diehard like a war museum in his dungarees. They call him a brick. She saunters to his side What makes us so different from the nazis she purrs and he shrugs keeping his eyes on his scotch. Everyone wants the keys to his job. He knows this as surely as he shrugs. The bricklayer has no trouble being friendly with those who envy his stubborn life. Object Lesson It's not a bullet it's a paperweight it looks like a bullet. The Coroner scowled. They took my water gun and called it psychological evidence... ...routine construction of a persona. Without a Trace I live a great reluctance some things can never be but nothing comes so easy as to nurse your love for me I do not want to own you I want to set you free if only you could find it while still in love with me. You are so hot I'm dizzy at the thought of such a tryst you make me seem King Arthur appearing in the mist. The truth is such that I cannot encourage such a game I'm deaf, I'm old and I am sick in short I'm pretty lame, but every picture you have sent has left my love enflamed. You blew a kiss I caught it here I'm sure it's just in fun but if you sought to satisfy the battle has been won. Throughout the day I think of you a maid of honor true and it wounds me to the spirit that I am not for you. Let no woman reckon that she could keep apace the way my heart's set beating by the sight of you in lace. Your eyes are heaven's pinholes and God shines in your face I blow a kiss to you my love and leave without a trace. On the Importance of Unrequited Love You and you alone have found a hermit's love: in my crystal ball The heavens unfold like a wish come true; A trillion beginnings are a stellar ordeal heaving in birth, pride, tragedy, redemption. You and I live again insatiable. Our discovery of God by tears of joy; Among the peasant Queens we are bounteous no one (yet all) understands. From good China, how fair, how holy. Yes, I love you. My darling, wonderful Amanda, how I kiss you, how I adore you, how I love you. Free my life of everything and feed my love with your kisses. Hold my hand and marry me and free my doubts with your wishes; my cause I know is lost Confused by a lover's pang. A hard life of heartbreak leaves me in noise again. Your letter in my hands I fell down before God and wept how can this be? Just to see you, I wait a lifetime as you sleep, I rock-a-bye your darling weary head on the pillow of our passion. My love for you so new and dear it is as if you are very near. ...although we've been together now the lives of a billions suns always apart. I'll wait another lifetime to be united... Free my life of everything and feed my lips with your kisses. Hold my hand and marry me and end my doubts with your blesses, I confess bewilderment, giving you no peace, Confused by a lover's pang. I'll let you go. I'll let you go. I'll let you go, my baby. Just let me catch my breath, okay? Confused by a lover's pang. My bride of honor if you flee already I've forgiven you. Your picture is gold your letters an eternal fire, my most priceless treasure your mission my joy. Free my life of everything and feed my lips with your kisses, hold my hand like a diamond ring confused by a lover's pang. No woman should ever face the sunset in fear no woman should ever find God only by her tears. She should not find a leer instead of a smile on the lips of her husband. She should not have to pray for his love. You will never have to pray for my love. I love you. I love you. How I love you. Kneeling down before God to thank the heavens for your love I know how swiftly it can be taken away that is why I kiss the sky that I have begun another day. Free my life of everything and thrill my lips with your kisses. Confused by a lover's pang. What have I not said except that I live to say it all again? Free my life, free my life of everything and feed my love with your kisses. Hold my hand like a diamond ring confused by lover's pang. I love you, my darling, Amanda, I love you. I'll let you go. Just tell me, care nothing for my tears, care nothing for my suffering, care nothing for my pain, I'll let you go and I will still love you forever. Derelicts Dereliction, in these parts, is thought of as style. Jealous zombies hammering nails into their two by fours in their garages of paint thinner smells, they make up a creepy army. All life is profound some exceedingly less so than others. These lowlives learn lapping before arithmetic. For them being declared a burnout is like getting a Ph.D for their sisters sex is a transaction of noise a plan of information about who to run down in front of their friends.