Attendance

         I.

We stood in circles
round grandfather tree,
old and withered
gnarled round eyes
which searched
the ground for faces
he could still call names.
But how the names they raced,
running round the place
like children at restaurants,
scraps of dirty memory
cluttered round the floor
for some poor sop
with a grandson's name
to sweep into another room.

                II.           


Death is a secret
the dead keep,
huddled hordes
lining the eaves
all in black
talking of things,
things unknown,
things unseen,
things unheard,
movie-goers
trying to make mystic
when called
to the occasion.
And the rain
tries to touch them,
leaping from puddles
just to lick them,
tugging at their heels
just so that they
might be noticed.
And the air fills
with the hum
of voices
across the street,
amongst other eaves
and other dimfull
visions of things
projected, perhaps,
between the theaters.
And the drum
of choices,
the splatter
of tires throwing
devil-may-care
indifferences
that lead you
to seek such
minimal shelter.

            III.

At my grandfather's viewing
I thought I saw his chest move
up and down, up and down,
thought I saw a lip curl
round the inside of a joke,
thought that in a moment
he would rise and laugh
the deathness from his clothes,
stretch and ask for attendance.

Cannibalism is a Condition

My mind wanders so much at times
     that when it finally deems it necessary to return,
           as if just to say with some proof that it does,
                         in fact, reside there,
         I am scarcely able to recognize it as my own...

                               ...from out of the cold
                                  my thoughts come shivering in,
                                     taking off coats,
                                                        hats,
                                                         mittens
                                                           scarves,
                                                                shoes,
                                                         thermal underwear,
                                           till naked they stand there,
                                                completely unaware of my presence.
                                                            Am I the intruder?
                                           

Perhaps                  
               I swallowed
                    some unfortunate twin brother
                                   in my mother's womb,
                                       gobbling up fingers,
                                                                  toes,
                                                                     hands,
                                                                           feet,
                                                                             arms,
                                                                                 legs,
                                        but his mind was left somewhere
                             implanted behind recesses in my skull.
                                    No, I did not eat all of him.
                 This, then, is my greatest fear,
                        to have been born a cannibal,
                           or at best, a body-snatcher,
                                 because the only place
                                                       he is ever found
                                       is somewhere far off
                                                                  and secret.

The Formulas of Physics

Forget what the loveless and luckless
       say about love and luck.
They haven't the vision.
    Beauty is Lady Luck
leaning over a billiard table,
  radiated for a fleeting moment
in the incandescent light
   of a smoky country-western
       bar and laundromat.
In the sublimity of unplanned games
    we learn how to bounce and play,
and perhaps we scratch,
    but one moment transitions
seamlessly into the next
   with the ensuing encounters
of ricochet rendezvous
    and colliding chance.
So forget again
  what the corrupt
      and disingenuous
say about innocence
    and sincerity.
They haven't the heart.
Purity is Lady Luck
    taking a wild shot
with a sly, knowing grin,
    a feather dangling from her hair
and a mischevous twinkling
     behind her eyes
as the formulas of physics
   we do not understand
        or premeditate
set beauty
                 and purity
  in motion once again.

Rubber Snakes

I almost died that night,
    cat screeching in sync
        with skidding tires
while blown-out speakers
         play my dirge in mp.3.
I almost wrapped around that tree--
    mixing blood and iron
       in that mud-grass
          just past the underpass.
Cars passed,
      dancing their headlights
 in the refracted glass-rain,
    like the tunnel-light
        that never came.
But still the radio crackles,
    singing,
       "the good times are killing me"
and I have to agree,
                                you see,
I almost died that night.
Eyeballing that handfull of bliss
    because happiness had thus far
come in pill form,
   prescribed by the bartenders
      with degrees,
         who can't listen
to drunken sailors
    with all these wind-up monkeys
clanging their clanking gongs,
    playing over the quiet music of the ditch,
where life so tenderly takes its leave of us,
        like so many coiled rubber snakes
in God's forgotten toy-box,
    each one hissing,
      "I almossssssssst
                       lived."

The Ballad of Senor Shucks Pigknuckles, Professional Consultant Extraordinaire

...and I still have a song in my throat
and a prayer between each hand,
           but my teeth,
     my teeth I keep dug in
              real deep,
    so that these days
       my tongue seems shorter.
'Cause I've sung
     too many unheard hymns
 to really sing anymore,
and I've prayed to
      too many faithless gods
to really pray anymore.
    I think I was a child
when I lost faith in myself,
        a youth when God left,
but yesterday,
        yesterday humanity was lost.
Yesterday is the blood in my eye,
       the tear on my sleeve
   so I'll wipe
             the blood off your face
      but me,
          me I swallow mine
    and dig in deeper.

Motion and Rest

The water is always stillest at night,

where there are no tugboats pulling,

no swill-bearded captains swearing,

no heart-cold calculators calculating,

telling it to hurry up and get along.

It likes to twist and turn as it will,

peeking in on the little thinking ants

who like to pull, swear, and count--

it admires the beauty of steel anthills.

They like to build things bigger, better,

and this makes the languid liquid laugh;

the ants, they want to want to be full,

they build only so that they can destroy.

The softly singing black velvet-water

catches the giddy glimmering starlight

of smoky black-lunged chemical plants,

reflecting it back in its forgiving mirror.

Rivers stare back wearing the ants' faces,

glossing over their precious imperfections,

mercifully accepting even the unmerciful,

for they always judge themselves worst.

It would cry if it weren't made of tears;

it still remembers a beautiful Grecian ant

who knew the secret of staring at water,

that the way of ascent was in the descent.

They can't see the god in the murky mask

staring at the god looking from without,

they've grown deaf to the still-water song

and no longer dance to the river's tune

of always going to where you already are.

Wonderland

Roughneck, beetnick

big dick and his bitch

all caged in a line--

just one in a big number

we call

the honey hustle and dime...

bags of dreams

cut down in their prime

for lack of the fire

to burn them.

Jimminy Crickett, man,

he's on our shoulders and singin'

sweet tunes of freedom

while Pinnochio's lookin' sad,

staring at his cut strings

trying to do the robot

and feeling heavy for the first time.

Cause Mickey Mouse

been danglin' that carrot

in our faces so long we forgot

it's just one end

of the same stick,

and he's been sayin'

"GET IT BOY, GET IT!

GET IT GET IT GET IT

GET IT BOY!

(Oh, you got a nibble,

but look how much is left!)

GET IT BOY GET IT BOY

GET IT GET IT GET IT

NOW FETCH, BITCH!"

(Oh, don't wish upon a star

if it isn't yours).

But for that dream of liberty

of having that power

to live impotently,

that cricket'd lie,

he'd kill,

he'd fuck your wife

just to keep ya dreamin.

Dreamin of truth,

dreamin of peace

dreamin of love

and dreamin dreamin dreamin

dreamin of hoping to hope to hope

for a better hope than the hope

you've been giiiiven...

'cause we all just want a bigger,

juicier slice of the pie

god in his checkered apron

left on earth's windowsill

for us to smell but never

no

never taste.

But for a penny he'd cut you,

and for a quarter he'd quarter you,

and for the cost of shipping 

send you to the four poles

where you'd be drawn,

yeah,

drawn.

Drawn in cartoonish lines till the ink....bled.....

                                                                             ....out.