Why I turned out the way I am

It’s for your own good

my father belted.

My mother did the same but

at the dinner table with peas.

Mr. Drury in Grade 7 had me

write lines of PPPPPPPs

“It’s for your own good”, he opined.

Cigarettes are now 10 bucks a pack

and casinos $1,000 plane rides away.

“It’s for your own good”, they say.

Seat belts, sanitoriums and saints

always a safe, sane step away.

My wife, my ever, always wife

books me monthly to see a doctor

as much a dunce as a doc can be.

All he offers are pills and pleasantries.

Both saying, “It’s good for you!”

Wars, weddings, sprayed green lawns

papal proclamations and government edicts ….

It’s all for your own good

they declare when asked.

I am, my life now nearly done

I have yet to truly taste what

we call – free.

I followed footsteps and danced

for my own good, like I was told.

Thinking back I now know how

I came to be who I am

this man, here and now

finally at home in the world

on edge, now so aware

of what really is good for me,

my flusher broke.

It’s like one day you wake up

And realize there ain’t no jello tree

and the gingerbread man has

run out of your dreams or

you find out the dictionary

was written by a dyslexic pedophile

and you head out the door to

write your own.

Antigua, Guatemala

October, 2014

Stolen Elegy

Oh the end game of i

to have bounced from country to country

or danced among the silent letters of time

to have been part of Marseille, of Seoul, of Carlsbad

of Canada and of the Alps

to have returned at the time of tin terror

to this earthy, giving land

to Antigua, to Guatemala and to those places

where the Mayans met the Spanish and they mixed their blood,

to have sauntered through the mist and mystery of early morning Prague

to have survived this house of mirrors, this life

to have sought in vain, the always in the eyes of one woman

to have questioned old wisdom, new wisdom, this empty modern

to have seen things as they are

death, the clear morning, the forever sky and the tender blooms of spring

and to have seen the horror, the always deep end

except for that moment, the old lady in Kiev handing me a pen

a face that does not want you to forget it.

Oh the end game of i

perhaps no more, no less that u.

October, 2014

Just In Case

Just in case

you hear of my demise

perhaps

a piano caught me under it

by surprise or

a measly microbe

cut me down mid-stride or

if lucky

I never woke up from

a better dream or

even luckier

I bid adieu

by the wave of my own hand.

Just in case,

you get that phone call or email or

read of it in the back pages

of the local paper,

this is just to say

I’m fine with it.

Lachez tout

Drop everything

even your hat

even the money

you didn’t give,

even the rabbit

you didn’t pull out,

even the thoughts

you wish you never had.

Drop everything.

The day is coming

where levity will

be in demand.

You can’t push over

what isn’t attached.

Drop everything

and ring like a bell

against itself

and sing like a song

to no one in particular

and run without destination

over the hardened ground.

Drop everything

even the happiness

you’ve never considered,

even the soft bed

you’ve sunk into,

even the freedom in flesh

you’ve found.

Drop everything

even the sound

that silently

swings in your head.

Drop everything!

The day is coming

when the suitcases

will be piled high at the door

when the flesh

will waste away on

its rusting pedestal,

when thirst

will dry up no more.

The day is coming

when all will be

counted only once.

Drop everything!

Come!

Lachez tout!

Cheers!

I am here

this is enough

like the last seed pushes

through the rougher rough.

Want, desire, need

abstract things I

no longer bleed.

This apple now in my mouth.

I am here.

Piss, shit, breath and spit.

I lounge and loafe.

There is no longer any

getting on with it.

For others there

the buzz of progress, nicer hair.

I lift my glass.

I walk not there.

I am here.

This is enough.

Like the glistening tired ant pulls

the large leaf through the rough.

It Doesn’t Matter

It doesn’t matter if

the air con is kaput

the car got scratched

or the wine ain’t chilled.

It doesn’t matter.

Don’t matter if

the dog went on the carpet

or the DOW’s up or down.

Don’t matter if

there’s an earthquake

or you won the Super 7.

It doesn’t matter.

No worries about

missing that 9am meeting

drinking too much

drinking too little

no mayo in the fridge

a bad back

a better world.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter if

the bus is late or

Sunnis are killing Shias

Shias are killing Sunnis

Israelis exterminating Gazans

Justin Bieber is doing time.

Don’t matter if

you are this or aren’t that

don’t matter

if the dog got your cat

or the cat got your tongue.

It doesn’t matter

if your mother-in-law

hates your guts

or the plane’s delayed.

Don’t matter if

your bank balance is $.1.15

or the remote is broke.

Doesn’t matter if

you don’t finish this poem

or even do.

It doesn’t matter.

Why?

It doesn’t matter.

So Many Fish In The Sea

I tried to take pleasure

my hands about her tiny waist

but from time to time

I had to look at her face.

A face not even

liquor, love or money could erase.

As my fish friendly father

once confessed,

half sauced

still on the rocking boat,

“The deeper you put in your line

the uglier you’ll bring up

but the eating’s all the same.”

50 years on

Ah! The ravages of age

The turning of a page

by a hand

we know not

I Love You Madly (Miluju Te K Zblazneni)

“In the midst of great love

everything is conceived

and everything is meaningless — but very holy.”

— Jaroslav Iwaszkewicz, Song for a dead woman

I love you madly

like a deer

jumps in the forest

filled with the strength of spring

and the crazy always

of the sun’s invisible haze

cursing through life, the incredible maze

lost we are I say …..

I love you madly

a brick through a window

a madman ringing bells

a foam at the mouth angel

wandering, singing, through many hells.

I love you madly

idea and essence, a fire unlit

waiting for the match

as a writer waits

a white page perfect as it sits

and others gather moss

the velour of their minds.

I love you madly

against the dead flotsdam

this unromantic age.

I love you madly

a monkey in a cage

squealing the jungle’s fear

the beast in man so near!

I love you madly

as all love must

love now, forever, beyond

the graveyard’s honest trust.

I love you madly

a ghost embracing your pale skin

fearless, floating beside you

an eternal moment, forever to begin.

I love you madly

despite the aloneness heavy

we carry in our bones

the sadness, I frenzied poet

in silence bleed alone.

I love you madly

twisted by rage, angry at mediocrity

that dares to step before you

monied, gathering only wage.

I love you madly

a tremor through these bones

it dances with the time

that would make them old.

I love you madly

in a heightened and bloated way

sure, unmoving rock

I slowly sway

and spread the world, the word

the news, the necessity of my craze.

I love you madly like a tear

so truly, gravitas

slides down the face

swiped by hand, licked

returning,

it nurtures without a trace.

I love you madly as a cloud

so lightly fills the sky

image after image it turns

never asking, needing a why.

I love you madly

a sound whispered passionately in the ear

a sign, a secret

a world our own we only hear.

Miluju te k zblazneni

here in this square of stone

cold empathy

the huss of hawkers gutting

a colder German to see their wares,

old buildings with secrets offering frigid stares.

I love you with the crazed humanity

that fills this square’s past —

the butchery the clock has seen

I give you to cast

a spell so the future may be.

Milute se pravdy kazdemu prejte

these words cry out behind so it may.

I do and for you forever sway

singing a song …… I love you madly.

I love you madly

lost in the crowd.

I love you madly

more, more, all that I’m allowed.

I love you madly

deep into the heart’s hurried blood

turning I turn

everywhere I hear you hum

the song that sprites your eyes

gives me madness, a thousand sighs.

I love you madly

to death and beyond

in love with you, I’m fire

and fire is / was the first dawn.

I love you madly

though you’ll never know enough

how this world so strange,

gold everything I touch

with love of you so much

surreal, a beggar’s magical crutch.

Miluju te k zblazneni

through the few, the much, the any

the numbers this age only believes

though I believe the one is the many.

I love you madly

blistered lips, tattered clothes I am

the infernal greets the eternal

I run and hold up the flaying emblem of love

I am I scream, I am.

Who are you I madly love?

Is it qualities alone

that push you above

the everyday lust, the ashes waiting to be

the mindless flesh begetting so slovenly?

No. No qualities alone do you possess.

None greets my grazing eye

but alone, purpose you hold

and stretch it over me to hide

as you build the future, a lifetime wide.

You are a person, but most, idea.

Complete,

an image gracing the picture of life

the ending, unknowing death we fear

as the pigeons fly away

— where I ask, where come night do they stay?

Young love I’ve built this madness upon

the uselessness of all

down onto I fall,

it is all done crazed in your name.

What’s absurd I’ve seen

cowering before you as you played

the game all beauty must

a game of being, collected shining dust.

You are my shadow

every sin, every forget.

I rage and rage each day

each day, I howl at the sunset

and pray for more following.

Love, I love you madly

gladly, I’d hold up this heavy earth

just so you could live its meager seconds

and give, all else, a drop of worth.

Love don’t forget my mad howl

knocking down as I do

wall after wall,

just to let this too sane, same world

know the praise I pray for, for after all

you are my love for which I fall

and love madly here in the dream

the read I’ve hinted in this scrawl

that tells only I love you madly

whatever may befall

the deer that leaps past spring’s

green, growing sprawl.

– May 24 1997, 7pm

Stare Namesti, Prague

Wild Is Love

Love as a tag alder

spreads free.

God’s fingers

stretching for

the heat of sun

or flesh.

The pulse of all existence

and

the hidden wilderness in all.