Suddenly, the movement stops
and with a hiss and clang
the doors pull open
and light
sears across your face
and cool air
fills your lungs
and thoughts of food
dance about.

 

Isn’t this how all journeys
should be?
Such expectation of arrival
and desire – just to get off?

 

Only its death that’s
here to greet you.
And each dog’s bark
seems to say,
“Hurry up, you’ve arrived!”

 

History wishes to embrace you.

She still believes in love

for she is young

and too, carries the white

all women must:

Never having asked

How the rabbit got in the hat.

Her stories all end

in happily ever after

and the only pain she knows

comes in the remembrance

of once upon a time

the weeds of her imagination.

And I

always calling

a spade a spade

(because I’m afraid),

will not tell her

about the bodies

I’ve carried

stuffed in bags,

their eyes reminding me

of the marbles

as a youngster

I once desired and thumbed,

their stiff limbs

tangled like

gathered forest undergrowith

waiting for the match.

I will not tell her

how the sound

of a smashed infant’s skull

cracks in much the same way

as her knuckles do

and that the smell

of burnt flesh

can too be perfume.

No, not tonight anyways.

Her unwrinkled skin

a canvas yet painted

by these hands so human

they’ve forgotten

how many they’ve hung

condemned or caressed.

I will let this grass

always believe it will

be green

and let her eyes light

fires to lead me away

from myself.

Atleast for tonight.

I stuff the rabbits

back into my hat

and try to smooth

my spoilt skin

with this tongue

that is always

in search of soup.

Living can’t wait.

There are always tomorrows for the truth.

They’d make love and that’d be it

a cup of coffee

and on to the next piece of tit.

They’d round off bills and borrowing

into but money

words into something only to call your honey

(oops! I forgot – this shouldn’t be funny!)

They’d make grown men, slaves

government ad ministered

the rest well-behaved, ready to wave

the mental patients off

(Heil happiness! Without a sputter or cough!)

They’d make wars but

interventions

strikes and protests but

conventions

“Want another cuppa?”

They’d make memory but

a few well timed tears

celebrations celbratory,

the only way to keep the tables clear.

“Drink up – Cheers!”

They’d make being young but

a time before your older

fashion, a follow me

hey, there’s not much to shoulder!

They’d make ignorance a virtue

but call it by another name

they’d make it a law that

there’s always another to blame.

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

They’d dam up all the rivers

(only they’d know how it figures)

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

They’d clear up all our livers.

They’d give hell a better name

sprinkle out to all, 15 minutes of fame

hey, look at him!

they’d even bring back shame.

They’d make trees grow but straight

in public, unlawful to hate

(but my how the tongues strain, they can’t wait)

They’d nail down logic into it’s proper place

give every mirror a proper face

(my head must be screwed on wrong – what a waste!)

They’d move back the dawn

an hour or two

tell you all that’s wrong with you

they’d outlaw all foul language

I swear,

but hey! who’d give a f**k (read, care).

Everybody’d have to want to own a house

have 1.3 children, be quiet as a laboratory mouse

and replace their old doodad with a doohickey

at least once a year (or when bankruptcy is near).

They’d research for endless years

so that onions wouldn’t make your eyes cry

(they’d even give bawling babies a sigh)

they’d always make sure to remind you,

it’s not proper to ask why

(why, is it only me that’s not shy?)

They’d try to make the weather

the same every day

(but then, what would they talk about anyway?)

even, extract from the seasons

all their seasoning

(but I can follow their reasoning).

They’d make all the answers

come none too soon

they’ve even succeeded in de-mystifying the moon.

They’d turn water into wine

and turn a profit too

but they won’t sell you much

fish and bread will have to do,

but don’t ask how it’s done

it might be the end of you.

They’d stuff all hope into

a lottery ball

Let the world pay just

to watch ’em fall.

They’d make intelligence, just knowing

(my can’t you hear their noses blowing!)

and all comings a going

nothing left on the table but Spam

and little jars of freckled jam.

They’d take us all for fools

and that’s how they’d rule

(but aren’t we …. stroke that – it’s cruel)

They’d live unleaking, then expire

like a fat firm tire

unburped by a bump

never roughing the road

just spinning around a point of nothing

to nowhere, god knows I suppose.

They’d move beauty back to center

make every unliving thing better

(but our eyes keep getting wetter).

They’d refer over and over to rights

(what you can get away with is right)

and article 249BS.3 (d)

have the whole world energetically flying kites

thinking they were free

(but having to ask to go and pee).

Yes, it’s done like a deal!

(can’t you hear Orwell and the pigs squeal?)

what we don’t know, we have and they

intend to steal

and they know who they are

(I can only see them cuz I’m so far….)

In the high branches of the tree

baboons howl

while below lions saunter about

with a scowl.

The zoo keepers are getting paid

cashing in

(they know how to put the knife in)

Cuz, they know who they are

and that

the jail bars are ours.

For you I would

Paint red, faded fall sky

and tie early morning rainbow

around your brazen young neck,

choking you into sensibility.

For you I would

pull angels down from heaven

and threaten them with

clipped wings

if they did not reveal their secrets.

For you I would

build a fence around the moon

or sentence the sun to

the electric chair.

For you I would

fall in a heap to the ground

doing penance for just being born,

watching passively as

young children stone away my life.

For you I would be

a lost Russian Jew

bifocaled, bearded, bored

selling antique lampshades

to American intellectuals

along Rodeo Drive.

For you I would be

a sleepy eyed prophet

eating honey and locust

in some new age eatery

on the lower east side.

For you I would be

an intoxicated terrorist

making deals in blood and butter

aboard an empty airliner

destined for the ocean floor.

For you I would be

a victim of apartheid

black with anger

spitting out quarters

at passing armored cars.

For you I would

do anything, even

copy a Leonard Cohen poem.

I would be anything, even

a fallible god.

“After Aushwitz there is no more poetry”

— Adorno

These are hard times.

The land frozen under the weight

of a white littered from above

The rivers holding their breath

blue and still in patient repose

The oceans as always watch in retreat

to the depths where death is unknown

Man has tamed nature by distempered dance

unhinged from himself, the mirror holds his story.

What left to do?

Pen to paper

paper to fire

a little light

a shadow cast,

so we may know

we are still there

and can be

scared of ourselves.

 

I study

your pendulous breasts

two suns buoyant

pointing to fertile orb below.

 

I enter

through vallied loins

both phallus and heart

magnetized by sensual expectancy.

 

I leave

through tangled limbs

quiet in relief

washed by the breath of life.

 

I study

your twisted reclined mass

wondering if,

Joseph Mengele would see the same.

 

 

From where did your beauty come

before it was your own?

It must be archetypical

such beauty could not arise alone,

born on just any face.

Perhaps it was the same beauty

that did cast a thousand ships,

or maybe it was the beauty

some sought to contain in ancient crypts.

It could be the beauty

of an Eden far, far away,

set to life by angels

trumpeting its blessing, your birthday.

This  could be the beauty

that made the first man blush,

that first primal beauty

the beat to which all winds rush.

Perhaps it is the bauty

which to the gods did solely belong,

until stolen by your innocence

while they sat passively, enchanted by your song.

Much I know not

but I do know this beauty was not before,

rising not from earthly mud

but made of timeless bud, pure to the core.

Uncle Jacob

Forty years kneading dough

After the war,

Told me he had found only

Two ways of making bread;

The slow bake of philosophy

the luxury of the rich or high minded,

for the rest, the quick snatch of wonder

between the long steady strokes of the whip.

Then sternly, his strong hand on my shoulder

He said,

“Son, always be on the other end of the whip,

for there they eat not bread but cake.

Living is an affair for those who turn on the ovens.