Birthday Cake

Melancholy is an ailment,
As common as the cough.
Though we take our medicine,
It remains, tough,
Rooted in our deepest days.

I always wanted a simple cake,
With blue lettering and white frosting.
But for years
My parents bought a fruitcake
For my birthday.

I always wanted the white cake;
All the other children got white cake.
How I cursed my lot,
Fated as it was for fruitcake.

But I failed to see the fruitcake
For what it was -
For the color of my parents' minds,
For the memories, hard to find,
After the cakes, and everyone else,
Are gone.

Now in the days of no cake
I see what is at stake.
To water the tree of my days
Is the best medicine to take,
And to hope, from beneath its shady leaves,
To take, from the burden of years, a brief reprieve.

Independence: A Meditation

We gained our independence from the faraway king,
Only to grow dependent on this new land of dark forests
And mysterious savages.

We gained independence from the wild frontier,
And the fetters of an early death,
Only to grow dependent on television, automobiles, airplanes,
Computers, and other machines of convenience.

We gained independence from God,
Only to grow dependent upon The Next Big Truth.

The myths we celebrate are not our fate;
Independence is merely a date on a calendar,
A folk tale wandered far
From the stare of our impassive future.

America, like Janus, has two faces:
Independence looks to the past;
Dependence looks to the future.

Empires have come and empires have gone.
And after the deeds of history are done
Only the ruins remain and the myths are remembered.

We have too many emails to write,
Too many cupcakes to bite,
Too many flavors to try,
Too many handbags to buy,
Too many bills left to pay,
Or rushed appointments to stay,
Too many miles left to travel,
Or business deals will unravel.

Too many machines of convenience
To remember the birthdays.

Happy Birthday, America!
And as we celebrate your myths,
Perhaps new gods will be born, and walk the land,
Out of the mists, from sea to shining sea,
A new version of the Trinity,
Of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Of Independence, Dependence,
And Interdependence.

And, America, the boon I wish for you the most:
The vision to see as clear as the moon;
Into the mirror of the Next Big Truth -
That you have become the faraway king,
That we are all gone much too soon,
And that kindness is the thing,
Through which empires must pass
For their greatness to last.

Social Security

I pulled my car up
To the toll booth;
The attendant smiled
As she took my dollar.
 
She was 70 years old,
White hair pulled back.
The lines on her face tracked,
Days when she had sold
Her childhood gold
To eat.
 
Future bleak
While skies are blue -
There is nothing I can do.
So I drive away
And hear her say,
“Thank you.”
 
Thank you, America
For your long, lonely roads
Lined with many a toll booth
That mask the sad truth:
What seems a consolation -
The endless work -
Is truly there to soothe
The careless youth
Whose only true sensation
Is of cars that speed til dark.

Easter Sunday

When in the morning I awoke,
the silent dread within me spoke.

The rock had rolled, the tomb ajar,
the corpse already wandered far.

Where has he gone, my inner guide,
that little voice fixed by my side?

When I was young, I did believe,
that God’s own son for me did grieve.

He died for me, I had been told,
so that my days I may live bold.

He died in pain, then rose above,
that pain turned into magic love.

And magical my days did seem,
but now those days appear as dreams.

For here I stand, an older man,
seeing shadows cross the land.

They took my faith, those shadows did,
and now my conscience, too, has hid.

What was to me the son of God,
was just a corpse, an earthen clod.

To my surprise this corpse had fled
and did a thing beyond the dead.

My inner voice the corpse did wrest
and placed within the shadow’s nest.

To find my voice then I must follow
the dead into the midst of shadow.

The truth that finds us on this earth,
the truth so hid from us at birth:

Our mortal nature is divine,
tested in darkness and in time.

Winter’s End

The last week of winter -
Weak winds wafting from the north
Bring the morning chill and the flowers forth.

Whence this strength
To slip from the grasp
Of the season of death?

The flowers scarcely wait
Their appointed hour.
A week early, beneath the moon,
After a night shower spring the blooms.

Still, wrapped in hat and coat I note
How on tender shoots death seems to gloat.
Rain flecked petals in the morning wind
Tell that flowers, too, come to an end.

Though spring comes early and winter fades,
All things, from their beginning,
Show their end of days.

Northern Valentine

The world is frozen
On a northern Valentine’s Day.
The clouds have broken:
Moonlight on lovers gone astray.
They carry tokens,
Yet passion’s warmth has blown away.

The world can lend no aid.
Small creatures dream
In the burrows they have made;
Tree branches gleam
In the wind and give no shade;
And the sun’s pale beams
Offer warmth that quickly fades.

In the cold noontime at the park,
The young man awaits his lover,
Guarding dreams against the dark,
With frozen chocolates and flowers.

He will wait another hour.
Such is its power -
That love will almost never die
Underneath a winter sky.

Love American Style

First we have to negotiate the sexism.
Then we have to negotiate the racism,
Then the homophobia.

We negotiate God
And the places of worship,
Selecting a God for the children.
And then we buy the matching outfits.

We forget about politics.
Maybe we remember
After the drinks, theater, dinner,
airline tickets, and the rest.

We forget about death, too.
But there's no time to remember
After the condoms, abuse, lawsuit,
Abortion, and the rest.

I remember you standing,
Before all the negotiations,
In the bookstore smiling,
And felt those queer sensations
When we said we'd write a new chapter
In the travel book you were holding.

Impression at Dusk

The sun had set without notice.
The winter dusk wrapped the street corner in purple dust.
At the bus stop, four people stood, swayed, waited,
Different shapes and colors, all wrapped in long coats,
In the noise of passing blue sedans and brown taxis
Rushing past the green light.
At the red light, the thrum of tense engines,
Waiting 60 seconds, then rushing,
Transporting drivers away,
To torments and delights,
Real and imagined.
.
.
What can I know?
What ought I to do?
For what may I hope?
.
.
The patter of expensive leather shoes
On the leaf-strewn, dusty pavement
Is scarcely heard
Before the rumble, screech, and gasp of the city bus,
Full of torpid, wool-covered strangers.
The bus blasts off, like an ugly starship
Into the gathering darkness.
Destination: the muzzled, muffled
Thoughts of aliens.

When the dust cloud settles,
A thin plume of exhaust curls around the empty bus stop,
A brief moment of silence - the sweetest sound - unnoticed,
Like the sunset,
And the sinking moral ground,
And the sense that we are bound
To see meaning in sound and color,
And in human horror,
After the bus has gone around
The bend.

Toothbrush

In the dead of winter,
Time to change my toothbrush.
In the garish supermarket light,
The colors of the brushes chatter,

And the clatter of voices, pressed tight,
In the detergent isle burst in bright
Laughter, passing, white.

Pick a brush, any one.
You're not getting any younger.
The clock has nearly gone.
And the line is getting longer.

In the bathroom mirror, my skin too white;
The toothbrush, pale blue in its package,
I stow from sight - a guest might stay one night
And need a toothbrush.

Laughter again, this time mine.
Deep in the mirror lies the wreckage,
A graveyard of brushes scattered like mines.

No one will brave that terrain.
Before I see a new house guest
I'll change my toothbrush again.

Privacy

The American notion of privacy
Is a bizarre, surprising thing -
A kind of lunacy -
In other places in the world,

Like a joke made of sobs.

No thought of privacy where,
On the floor mattress by you,
Your father on top of your mother
Wrapped in blankets,
Trace a cocoon of mystery.

You think that is her head,
Turned back, staring up
At the black wall in the darkness.

And there are soft grunts
Every few minutes, and rustling
Of wool blankets, and your mother
Sucks her breath through her teeth.

Months later you lay the wreath
Of brittle leaves upon her mound,
Without thought, without sound.
She had gone to the wood one day
And not come home

While you walked alone
By the shores of the stream,
Listening to your mind flow,
Like the sound of dream.
There in the moving water
Your shadow face is seen
Wondering if you matter -

A strange notion,
New, pristine.

Lost

We go on, we go on,
From darkness until dawn,
For an hour or two of bliss.
And is there more than this?

At last our eyes we close
And into dreams we doze:
The arms of the lover
That nobody knows.

We go on, we go on,
Until again we wake,
When to the road we take,
Past the refuse and debris,
Of the love we failed to see.

Window Seat

The clouds, little and round,
Mostly white with tints of rose,
Like seagulls without sound,
Moving in regular rows,
Go gliding past the window.

Their peace a kind of joy,
Like the grinning dolphin leaping
In the orb of sea and sky,
Is the peace all men are seeking,
Beyond grasp of you and I.

I sense the troubling doubts,
From this side of the pane,
That the serenity of clouds
We men could ever gain.

Far below my window seat,
In lands the clouds do darken,
Drums of war the tribes still beat,
To which most men still harken.

Yet behind my window seat
A child's weak wail I hear,
A clamor for his mother's teat,
A sound she must hold dear.

Clouds their quiet realms will keep
As the suckling babe reminds me.
Men know only peace in sleep;
Their cries the call of destiny.

Nightfall

Walking home alone,
The people all around chatter
Like the birds in the trees at nightfall.
Faces I don't see
Cast shifting neon shadows.
Neon storefronts say the same things
At night as in the day, only louder.
And the mannequins’ outfits still don’t fit me.
I notice my tie, as if for the first time,
Black with white squares, too long,
Though it has hung round my neck all day long.
The moving escalator,
All night long, hums and clacks.
My shoes feel the hum - it is like the hum
Of passersby rushing down the moving steps.
I notice my shoes.
I need new shoes.
And then the escalator screeches,
The loudest noise in the world,
That empties out into the long, wide corridor.
Walking alone at first but soon
The big posters on the walls, they greet me;
They whisper movies, museums, perfumes,
Airlines, and police hot lines.
To respond is pointless, for they only hear
Money and fear.
When the train doors close, the sound comforts -
The humming and clacking of going home.
The faces I notice, as if for the first time,
Some quiet like mannequins,
Some chatter like birds.
Walking home alone,
Something pains my stomach.
But then I stare at the pavement in streetlight;
The cracks in the stone bring me home,
Safe, quiet.

Chardonnay

Western civilization might be a good idea.

The restaurants
Have marvelous menus:
Beef bourguignon,
Chicken cordon bleu,
Spaghetti Bolognese and
Fisherman’s stew.

And to accompany one might
Select the house white,
A brilliant chardonnay,
Or if you prefer, the house red
Will do instead.

Rivers of red flowed from the houses,
The sighs of the dead never heard, never felt,
For the air had filled
With the engine screams of bombs
Falling on all alike:
The terrorist,
The freedom fighter,
The schoolboy,
And the wife,
Falling like a red rain on life.

And how is your chardonnay, sir?
It is fine, you say,
Fine like a light rain in late winter
That waters the ground
With the promise of spring;
Fine enough to wash down
The guilt in every morsel on your plate,
Every morsel savored, chewed, and swallowed
While far away the bodies lay
Scattered on ground unhallowed.

Every morsel you savor, chew, and swallow
Until there is nothing on your plate,
Except the question:
Do I dare, oh, do I dare?
Do I dare to brave the kitchen?
For you expect the corpses there.

But why sully the air?
Raising the glass, you stare
At the clear chardonnay
And your troubles, by the glass,
Travel miles and miles away.

Storm Brewing

The train station lay empty
At that hour
Before the storm's arrival -
Outside a passing shower.

In all the fuss over survival
No one remained to serve me tea.

The people of the world had reached their home,
The train stations of the world great, empty spaces.
Those without destination thread their way alone,
Seeking the solace of tea in solitary faces.

The Beast

A peasant
From the age of superstition,
Days of pestilence and hunger
And nights of endless dark,
Would see a horror far more stark -
And dangers far more strange -
In our present modern age.

From every mouth pours forth a rage,
From which the ancient devils cower,
In mad desire we gorge our flesh,
Slaves to a modern, bestial power.

It thrives upon our constant needs,
And upon our sickly fear it feeds;
Taking cloudy shape from seeds
Within our ever-grasping greed.

We see the monster in the mirror,
Faces that fancy beating death,
Yet still our last day draws nearer -

Even as our voices launch
Forever and far
Into the stars -

We are gone with out last breath.

Shepherd's Task

The words could drop and land
In intricate patterns,
Like the first rain drops
On a hot pavement,
Tracing intricate patterns
With obscure historical allusions,
Novel grammatical intrusions,
Terraced on a page -
All angles of confusion.

But why bother?

Time was when a man
Would seek to understand
A message as it ran
Across a page,
Finding in the words
Nothing strange,
Their straightforward motions
Tracing a man's notions
Of truth and beauty
Of god and time,
In simple rhyme.

A poet should know enough
To come in from the rain.
An unlikely leader of men,
He is called to lead again,
To lift our modern apprehension
And bring mysteries
Of the world and mind
Within man's comprehension.

Compassion

Every day somewhere in the world
Someone dies who understood
Compassion – a song in the wood
Sung by a bird
Few had heard
Or understood.

If one day the birds were all to die,
The wood would scarce be silent.
Creatures beneath the canopy sky,
Their hunger lifting fitful cries,
Not fit for song,
Or baleful rhyme –

Their alien sounds, in passing time,
Nest in the empty clearing
Of our silent hearts.

The Fly

Moral absolutism
Is dashed on the rocks
Of cultural relativism
By winds of ethnocentrism.

In the air-conditioned
Clinical room,
The scientist positioned,
A housefly
Under a lens that envisioned,
Its eyes like diamond blooms.

How like a god
He sets to make incisions,
To go behind the eyes,
Into the mystery beyond the visions
Of the tribal prophets
Beneath their desert starry skies.

But the fly has far more eyes,
And will see in more directions,
Than any man who walks the earth,
Its thousand-eyed reflections
Pierced in tribal songs
Of the world before man’s birth.

Kentucky Derby

Let us be thankful to the gods
For the bacchanalia,
For the fruits and for the wine.
So went the refrain in ancient times.

But the Lord was present in those days,
In the faces of fledgling Christians
Thrown naked into the arenas
Holding starving lions.

From those anguished faces
Wringing shackled hands
The Lord’s message rang out:
Repent! For the end is near!

But who would want to hear?
The thought of ending the party!
Really! Bring on the thrills!

The transmogrification of the Lord continued:
As a bull in a Spanish arena,
Pricked by a starving bullfighter;
As a horse in the Kentucky Derby,
Goaded by a starving jockey;
As a football player in the Super Bowl,
Cheered by a starving public.

In the lands of endless bounty,
From Rome to present day,
The rich starve in every country,
While the poor are toys for play.
All are racing to the finish,
For what prize no one can say.
In the crowd’s roar after victory,
The horse’s groans are swept away.

Location

Silly black man!
Did you think
That you could smoke that blunt,
Bluntly blowing your pain away,
On a corner of that stricken,
Despair-ridden ghetto?

Hell, no!
Calamitous location
Is your situation.

Look here, black man.
Take your smoking on down
To the university town.
Will that professor's frown
Force the smokers
(Young and white) to lay low?

Hell, no!
Your situation
Is a pox on your location.

Listen here, black man.
That smoking is just fine
In places where the sun don't shine.
Deep inside the gated homes
(Old and white) smoke roams
From room to room;
And no police anytime soon.

Our location is Us.
Your location is Them.
Look for those white gates
And watch the rates
Of arrest disappear -
But never the fear
Of them;
No, never the fear
Of them.

Winter Hill

The winter, with its white,
Blinds our sight:
Everything is sleeping, not dead.

What is not sleeping lies quite still,
Or barely moves:
Our heavy coats keep out the chill
But we move more slowly,
As our boots trudge up
The snow covered hill.

There on that silent summit –
If you are brave, if you are patient –
You can see with winter eyes
And you can hear with winter ears.

The red holly berry,
Amid brown bushes and gray earth,
Leaps brightly like a star in dark night.
A clump of snow, softly, quietly,
Slides from a branch to the ground, all white.

A crow, high above, cries out in the stillness,
But it does not speak to you,
The crow, like the deer and the mice,
Has its own business.

And all around the strangely silent hill,
The city stretches, just as strangely still.
It is the power of winter to hear the sound of nothing
That muffles the shopping, the driving,
The fussing and the striving.

The towering trees, with their bare branches,
Reveal a sky that lays hidden in summer.
The trees do not speak to you, but they let you listen,
As their hands, covered in ice that glistens,
Beseech the great sky above.

Stars that hang like a thousand points of ice
Receive that silent winter prayer of love.
The prayer includes you but is not to you.
Having witnessed, you will return home
Where you will join the world in sleeping.

Cold Hands

On this long winter’s night,
The cold instills fright
On all small creatures hid from sight;

The barren earth,
And the cobblestones on the earth,
As hard and cold as granite.

The trunks of trees pale gray, wearing masks of death,
Hold up naked branches, supplicant fingers, outstretched,
Against a sky that says nothing, beyond grasp, beyond breath.

And the cold descends upon everything,
Reaching up, gripping legs like fingers of the dead,
The unremembered, beyond comfort, beyond breath.

As I hurry on, icy breath lost to the sky,
My gloved fingers clutch the chest, press my coat tight.
The other huddled passersby, silent, scurry on,
Minds shut against the indifference of the night.

All are intent on the hearths and fires
In solid homes where the circles of light
Caress their faces, their tired smiles.
But they don’t think; no one thinks,
Their minds shrink from sight.

Outside the icy sky, expectant, stares down upon me, pressing,
Cold probing, trying to find that place in the mind,
Where thoughts lay breathing,
Brave though quiet, dreaming:

All the small creatures lie in their holes, dark and warm.
But what of the women and men without home or fire?
Where do they go? Where do they hide in a world so dire?
My God, what if it’s me with no home in the world?
What if it’s me that the world forgets?
Who will I see with an outstretched hand?

Alone I stand and stare at the night.
The cruelty of winter makes no noise, hid from sight.
And though the warm fire of my home still awaits me,
Long will I feel the cold, hard touch of a world
That one day may forsake me.

Solitary Pine

With no one to befriend me,
With no one to know who I am,
A stranger I shall remain
On the day of my last stand.

So near me they pass –
Lovers who laugh, lovers who quarrel –
Yet my mirth I can only share
With the indifferent little squirrel.

Upon me the people confide
Their fragile human sorrows;
Today regale me with plans and pride,
But abandon me tomorrow.

No one has asked me the questions
One friend would ask another:
To what end do you grow?
How does it feel to be covered in snow?
Whatever became of your brothers?
When this forest is cleared like the others,
Which way will you go?

If my voice the wind through the miles could carry
To the people who live with their picnics and parties,
To them I’d declare all the wisdom of my days
Of a life spent on a cliff, above a windy, rocky bay.

Standing still, time slows its pace,
So I live longer, though we share the same small space.
Reflecting alone, my thoughts and world I own,
So I stand stronger, while others scatter, by the winds blown.
Dreaming alone, though I share not these dreams,
Makes life more joyful than my lonely days would seem.

And yet, like the air above the cliff always beyond grasp,
Lives the tender touch of friends, as they pass around a glass.
You, through your friends, will be remembered beyond your years,
While I, when I am gone, will have the winter rain for tears.

Candelabra

Candelabra burning bright,
Chase the shadows into night.
Shine upon the crowd that gathers
To forget important matters.

Candelabra, if you could see
How the revelers dance with glee,
And consume their little cakes
With exotic kinds of teas.

Candelabra, if you could hear
How the music fills their ears,
As they laugh and cluck and crow;
Their party forms a jolly show.

Candelabra, if you could turn
To the crystal window sights,
You would be suprised to learn
How the others spend their nights.

Candelabra, stoop to see
Dirty children running free
A promised meal they run to follow
Promised by a crooked shadow.

Candelabra, bend to hear
How the mothers sob in fear
Their children gone from feeble sight
To form the armies of the night.

Candelabra, guard your flame,
For throngs are whispering your name.
They gather at the gates of hell,
Your festival in mind to quell.

Candelabra, pray aloud
That God may calm this angry crowd.
Be not surprised if you should see
This night repeat like history.

Down the ages, through the years,
Said the sages amid jeers:
A prince his hoard will fail to keep
When the poor fight hunger in their sleep.

Moonwater

On the paths that you may take,
With no choices left to make,
You can always get water from the moon.
So said a father to his son
On a sunny afternoon
In the childhood day of life.

The years brought strife,
And paths to take,
And choices to make.
But still the skies refrained from rain
On the nights the moon hung bright.

Then the son turned man, one evening as he ran,
Turned a corner in the night
And the path became an alley,
A darkened, rustling end.

The rustling in the darkness
Made a sound, a weighing sadness:
You are alone,
Though still surrounded.
Your life is mean,
By lies all bounded.
You are the prey
By demons hounded.

And though the women come and go in the room,
Sipping softly, talking low,
Beneath the candelabra moon,
You cannot move, you are not seen,
Your life a demon’s passing dream.

There is water on the moon, said the son turned man.
This he repeated, like a prayer, like a talisman in sand.
Down fell the water from the moon
Like the rain of glassy night
That washed the sadness from the land.

Not far from the dead end alley,
Where the lamps had pierced the dark,
Lay a quiet, leafy park.
There a fountain played its music
While the birds slept on the branches,
With the water from the moon
Falling lightly on the benches.

And the son turned man that night
Beheld an extraordinary sight:
Figures on the benches sprang
From the bright moonwater rain.
To him they beckoned,
Sit and talk a while with us,
While in the night the fountain sang.

These are the people of the world:
Reading their papers,
Watching the birds,
Some appear dapper,
And others absurd.

In them all moonwaters run,
So the son turned man had learned.
In them all his father’s love,
Like the shining moon,
Had burned.

New Year's Eve

December is the cruelest month
When the old folks, impatient
For their children's plane to land,
Wrap themselves in cloaks of memories
And sink into the dead land;

When I examine my intentions
By the weakened winter light -
What was a January hope
In the embers fades from sight.

What I could have done
But I never did,
As the year has come to end,
I carry to the new year still
Like a sack with my back bent.

But it is true, that we two
Did walk that summer night.
Hand in hand, we took our stand
Against time's relentless might.

For you and I gazed at the sky,
At the twinkling light of dead stars,
We our hallowed moment vowed to keep
Bright like our beating young hearts.

Though you have gone
At year's cold end,
The memories I take with me.
Into the future new hopes I send
That you may yet await me.

Last Letter

I shall not write again.
For you turned out in the end
To be far from any friend
Whose hand he’d fairly lend,
My hurts and slights to mend.

But, instead, like all cruel men,
Who into open hearts they wend
By smiles and words that blend
Messages and acts that send
A naïve soul round the bend

Into the garden of love run foul with briars –
You stood revealed, a hissing liar.

Your kissing desires, surpassing sweet,
In a moment expire, and abandon
My soul to the wind in the street.

No more wasteful ink to spill,
No more grieving heart to bleed;
For any word you seek from me
You shall have the stars to read.

Quantum Dream

Bonds
Are mutually
Reinforcing.

But the opposite holds true.

Distance
And neglect build
An ever yawning chasm.

The games
That children play
Draw them closer.

But the opposite holds true.

Wars force
Nations apart
As the children's bodies pile.

Kiss the mirror
And grow nearer
To the other world
Where things still whirl,
Just the opposite way.

If I had my way,
I would spend my days
In a field at play
With the children,

Playing Molecule Ball
When each child can call
Where the ball will fly
And what it becomes
When it lands with a sigh:

A friend bearing ice cream,
A blue and white kite,
Balloons on a long string,
A dog that won't bite -

The waking world follows
A magical logic that leads to the gallows.
What the world needs
Is the science of dreams
Where the children lead and every man follows.

Labor Day

And what should we say remains
Of the workers in the days of trains?
And what should we say
Of your grandfathers
And your grandmothers
And the world they sought to claim?

Only the murals remain for us to see
Of men in soiled shirts straining to free
A generation from American serfdom
Through telegraph poles, railways,
And onward to freedom.

Down in a lost town, a lonely post office sits,
Its mural of men as giants on tractors and combines;
While the giant women fed the workers in long lines.

Now, those sculpted workers that stared into the future,
Their eyes grave, their jaws set, their brows furrowed,
Look on a present day no one had thought would follow.

For the government halls are empty of the spirit of the common good,
And the death song has long been sung of the union’s brotherhood,
And the silence that was heard before the strike at last was called
Is buried by the laugh of the rich men and their lawmakers in thrall.

What shall we say of Labor Day
That will carry any meaning
To your sons and daughters
Who, one fine day,
Will want to work with faces beaming?

Forgotten workers are lives in vain
Unless we, too, united strain
To ease the modern worker’s sorry plight –
Democracy dies without a fight.

The Stranger

Blind, brutal sex with the stranger –
It pleases the body
But not the soul.

Quietly,
In the darkness of the midnight bed,
The soul cries itself to sleep;
It is the sleep of the little death
That comes with the dream of remembering.

Yet soon enough,
Oh, soon enough,
Comes the hour of forgetting
With the rising of the sun.

Soon enough
It is another clear, mirror day
When nobody sees and nobody stares
At the hole in the soul
Carelessly placed there
By the sighs of the stranger.

Dessert

I was born into a trap,
Not of my making,
From which there is no escape –

Centuries of ancestors
Threw their wiles into the fires,
Their passion, their power,
Their mad ambitions,
And their terrible beauty,

To forge this cunning cage.

There is no point to rage
Against these bars I cannot bend,
This lock I cannot open:
No escape until the end.

How you – and the world – stare
At this prisoner on a stage,
At these sinews under tight, smooth skin,
At these dark eyes that draw you into sin,
At these full lips that

Hide the tongues of fire
Within the steel trap of a smile.

I want to explain the origin of the universe to you;
I want to shout the intelligence of generations –
How is this and that and why not now or then
But perhaps one day somewhere.

And all this to save you from your own traps, and
The millions of traps that walk the cities of this world
With stealthy strides and hide in plain sight and
In the corners of the night.

But these full lips you simply bite
In the last dark hour, as I pour out my power,
Robbing you of sight and hearing;
From me no explanation – just a moan, searing –
Our cold sweat sealing
The doom of the prophets who died in the deserts.

Toward the Sea

The eggs in the sand, lining the shore,
Luminescent orbs, alien in the soft moonlight,
Signal the beginning of life with purpose.

Blindly the newborn beaks press against the shells;
Life emerges in unison, choreographed by the stars,
And faces the sound of the unseen ocean of destiny.

Alone in the universe, each blind turtle struggles;
Escaping the eggshell prison, silently padding ahead,
The silver ocean beckoning, like beacon and siren of souls.

And so all souls heed their essence
And turn towards their unseen seas.

But I am turned around this night, the moonlight shining
On a grove of trees, leaves shimmering in an unseen wind;
And, blindly, I make my way though the branches creak and tease.

The road beyond that greets me is darker than my silver sea;
And though in my blood runs the need of the stars for union with you,
I plunge down the black road, my solace the dance of moonlit shadows.

Citizens United

On that bright summer day,
When you yelled at the Grand Canyon,
Your voice came gliding back
Across the chasm of a million years

Like when

On that balmy Sunday afternoon
Your voice came jumping back
At the children's zoo
When Marley the Parrot said,
Hello, stupid!
Pleased to meet you.
I like butter on my bread!

The ghosts of our childhood past
Cannot be heard over the constant din
Of the cash registers in the Modern World,
Nor seen over the constant grin
Of the shopkeepers
As they laugh and whirl.

The money you spend on the things you buy
Comes back to you -
Not by gliding, not by jumping -
But, softly, by turns slow and sly.

Pans and pots,
Cars and stocks,
Eggs and fish,
And a serving dish,
Belts and phones,
And rugs for homes,
Wine and blouses,
Leather purses,
Magazines
And gasoline,
TV sets and radios,
Chicken and tomatoes,
Toilet paper,
Office paper,
Soap and salt,
And modern art,
Shiny shoes,
And your club dues,
Dolls, shampoo,
And toothpaste, too -
All come slowly back to you

Like when

Your brothers lose their modest jobs;
The plant shutters, headed overseas;

Your friends lose their modest houses
And the banks decline their quiet pleas;

Your son can't see the doctor
Until the premium is received;

And your father sadly counts
More cars on roads than there are trees.

The voice that cried across the hills
And made fun of little parrots
For a simple childhood thrill
Is now fallen mute and still.

Money is the modern voice.
So decree your childhood ghosts:
Those without it make no noise,
And those that have it laugh the most.

The Banality of Letters

Tap, tap, tap . . .

Hey man
Hows it goin :-)

Tap, tap, tap . . .

Fine, man.
How’s it going with you?

Tap, tap, tap . . .

OK man
Just chillin ;-)

Tap, tap, tap . . .

Just chillin’? Cool.
And how’s that? The chillin’.

Tap, tap, tap . . .

Jus kickn back
Here with some buds :-p

Tap, tap, tap . . .

OK, cool. Man.

Tap, tap, tap . . .

So whats up with you ;-)

Tap, tap, tap . . .

Oh, you know. Not much.
And you?

Tap, tap, tap . . .

Not much too. Laid back
Looking for good times :-p
You man

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap . . .

I’m cool, man, real cool –
But not dead.
A few seething thoughts, though,
In my head
Make me hot.

What have we got?
With all our keyboards, screens,
Endless machines,

Living on eighty dollars a day

While billions of other faceless souls
Live on less than a dollar a day –

It looks like you forgot,
Though I remember,
A sentence ends with a dot.

But your words resemble
A TV jingle, not a sentence,
Letters strung along in space
Whose only hollow pretense
Is to pass for human warmth.

Hot is the sun whose indifferent warmth
Bakes the backs of the faceless who toil
In a faraway country for a dollar a day
Burying computers and screens in their soil –
The grave where machines and meaning decay.