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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Fast Day 83: January 2 2009 {Gaza Crossing}




Gaza Crossing

Life is good, she said;
crazed old crone
cackling in her soup,
straining it through white hair
and the picket fence
of her lonely teeth.

It's better to be mad than dead,
better to be alive!
And upon the stoney slab to spread
a conjugate of love devised.

The mad men in a bedlam
testosterone bedewed
sheets and shirts
and dixie cups
where swallows live
and petrels brood.

It's better to be mad than dead,
better to be alive!
And upon the stoney slab to spread
a conjugate of love devised.

The sailors upon their ships
upon the silent sea
cannot inhale the saltiness
cannot speak their plea!
Eternity of drowned speech,
and dialect futility.

It's better to be mad than dead,
better to be alive!
And upon the stoney slab to spread
a conjugate of love devised.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Fast Day 82 December 26 2008: Christmas {The Houses}


CHRISTMAS 2008
The Houses


This will be my Susan's house...
but not in Toronto
not ostentatiously and aged
heavily stoned Victorian.
No. A Cape Cod upon a bluff
overlooking our ocean.

This will be my loved one's home...
but it will not be a cold house:
a drunk sipping at Toronto's margaritas
of icy streets with salted rims.
No. Each room a miniature of
Fezziwig's delight and
dancing young memories
apprentice to our love's custom!

This will be my Susan's refuge...
but it will be filled with light
inside as well as out,
and we shall have Christmas trees to tea,
and boughs and garlands
and ships from every land and sea.

Every corner filled with joy, and every
fireplace warms the soul,
and mirrors reflect the infinite delight
and damask curtains turn aside
the cold and draft
until exhausted dreams we fill!

Fast Day 81 December 19 2008 {The Trees}



CHRISTMAS 2008
The Trees

I used to be a tree,
and grew upon a hill;
I used to be arboreal
and deep roots immobile
I thought imprisoned me.
Then from a tangled thicket
I grasped a ring of lapis lazuli,
the joint of 2 bones, and pupil
of the brilliant eye, and was born
my parents most loved fruit
in a storm of heat at
the rising of the Pleiades.
Now...O, now, I see...
and I shall be
soon again a tree,
maenad queen of windswept hills;
pastor triumphant of animals
that flock the virginal
nativity's flash of light!

Fast Day 80 December 12 2008 {A Bank's Foreclosure Lullaby}

A Bank's Foreclosure Lullaby

We sent a notice of intent,
we know your money's almost spent.
there was no response, a lien was filed;
we shall beat you like a naughty child,
that indeed you are, needing
frequent changes and nightly feeding.
Please do not beg upon your knees;
compounding upon all late fees
the balance grows, it may account
for the debt of this incredible amount.
We are the judge, we are the jury;
beware, little man, beware our fury!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Fast Day 79 December 5 2008 {Uttar Pradesh}

On Returning Home From A Passage To India


I would rather flunk my Wasserman test,
than spend a night in Uttar Pradesh.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Fast Day 78 November 29 2008 {Botanical Classification}


Botanical Classification

wild saffron is carthamus, and it is a winged ant;
a calamity to the unwary, and a head rope
of fruity sweat.

the hound's tongue cynoglossum makes for
a giddy drunkard, or a ship reeling full
four sheets out.

ox-eye buys with ready cash, the boupthalmum
brotherhood of evil-eye and fine clothing, dew-laps
of oxen;
the combs of cocks;
the high places of sacrifice...o, I forget!
the meter, the cadence, the marching feet
of botanical madness and desire!

the amianthus is a ring without a stone,
weaver of ropes and weaver of dreams,
nightingale's song.

eglantine is the wild rose, dispersed through meadows far,
vanguard of Assyrians, troop of Darius, heresiarch religion
through Samarkand's paths!

Fast Day 77 November 21 2008 {Ramaad}


Ramaad

charcoal, ashes,
resurrect the glory of
any bright ringed bird!
The most wonderful adornment
is the gold and silver
chased upon my sword!...
and the oceanic inlet
between your breasts!
the tidal basin where life
was create by God alone!
no artifex needed, no engineer...
He sired the Universe!
the universe now
charcoal, ashses,

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Fast Day 76 November 14 2008 {Danta Anansazi Files a Grievance}

Dante Anansazi Files A Grievance



We awoke, and I grunted
up in th'arthritic pain,
while he stretched
one leg, then two,
soon the third and fourth,
like twins, followed by the comely five
then six. Seven held back until leg eight
wandered hung over
along a silkiness redolent of
a sensuality long departed from
old Dante Anansazi,
spider of the winter,
esconced in the terra cotta
planter in the humid room
of baths, dreaming of Caracalla
and Diocletian.
Time's flies, he said, a cuisine swear,
time's flies...where are they?
I would break my fast,
he leered at the frightened mites
and swaggered towards
the fainting chiggers.
"We are having pancakes,", I said.
He growled and muttered
ancient arachno-swears,
as if a spider hex still lived
to vex the two-legged breed.
Grasping the paper, he fumbled with
a feigned uncoordination of the eight
with his cup of java,
spilling it profuse,
a caffeine shower which
I had to clean up.
He does it apurpose
when he is out of moods.
I'm gonna file a grievance, he said.
A big, long grievance,
and I'm gonna ask for back pay and benefits.
"tha's nice," I said, eating my
buckwheat stack sweet of
Quebec's maple harvest...
He looked at me disgust:
a big, burning laser eye of disgust.
Like I care, I thinks alone.
I sez, "What's buzzin', cuzzin?
Which bee is in yer abdomenal
bonnet...spinnet, I mean,
today?
He growls like a wolf,
ya see? tough guy spider...
I wuz supposed to destroy tha Whirled!
Youse guys went and did it!
Deprive me of my work!
He raved on...
But, you know, he is just
like the rest of us...
I mean, he gets lost in a
story forest, or adrift
on the Symbol Sea - a body
of brine just east of
the Los Angeles - and he is
just a little arach,
and wants to be the big cheese
of the spiderhood!
I only put up with tha little
beggar 'cause he holds the
candle fer me when
I write my poems...
my "lasciate ogni..."
that are my stock in trade
forte,
art,
adhab thaqaafee
runs thru my dome
"learned Lit. 101"
He's only a winter spider,
cold and white,
bloodless and far from his terra
cotta nest of miniature
greenery in the tropical
humidity of
my faux marble bath!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Fast Day 75 November 7 2008 {Shooting Film in Baghdad}



Shooting film in Baghdad...
cruising down the Tigris,
pretending to be an exile
in the Babylon of today.
Obama won the election - cool,
Nausicaa, sweet girl.
and Socrates the pimp...
So's I go to drink a cup
in the bar of foreign soldiers
and chat it up
with the blackness of a girl called
nuit noire,
pretty Layla Sawda'
and see a blond
sunrise on my Felluca on the Tigris:
o, delight of my eyes!
dancing obeisant in the court of the sun!
a skillful Lyre who deceives
with enchanting music
like a symbol of bewilderment!
**So, sweet Lesbia, no Tigris flow is this,
but the antique Nile odalisque that
flows beneath us to
our very urgent bidding.
And I am the turgid and fullness Wind
that swoops down in an arc
to kiss the full bosom
of your billowing sail!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Fast Day 74 October 31 2008 {When I Was Episcopalian}

When I was Episcopalian,
and she was young and fair,
I was a very young vicar
who oft fell down the stair.


The elders of the kirk
came to counsel me,
for I was Presbyterian,
as drunk as I could be.

And when I turned to RC,
they had an intervention,
and came to our sitting room,
a reverend convention.

I drank until the liquor
dried up all my tears,
and when I turned to sobriety
they'd stolen all the years.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Fast Day 73 October 24 2008 {Her Erotic Smile}

Her erotic smile
of intense delight
blinded me.

Her jazzed up laugh
of sultry madness
deafened me.

Her fiery breasts
like Catherine's wheel
burned me.

Joyfilled somersault
of the genital moon;
our rapture!

Fast Day 72 October 18 2008 {Culinary Sukkoth}


Culinary Sukkoth

We had a gingerbread sukkah,
resplendent in design;
the gum drops were from Wal-Mart,
the inspiration, mine.

Our harvest was enormous,
of wheat and tares combined;
gathering in by hands full,
hushing them while we bind.

Some we threw in fire,
some we threw in graves;
some we cast on water,
and some in silos save.

Some we kept in sugar,
to keep and crystallize;
to roof it as our skach,
and eat it with our eyes!

Monday, October 6, 2008

Fast Day 71 October 11 2008 {Lake Michigan's Dunes}



Lake Michigan's Dunes

Maple, beech...thinning...
canopy of leaves;
Return forest primeval!

Abandoned pilings,
and empty harbors;
I regret autumn's onset.

Contrary spices:
the sweet and the sour;
high blown dunes and quick descent.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Fast Day 70 October 4 2008 {Young and old Kumar is gone}



Young and Old Kumar

Young and old Kumar is gone,
sent the keys to the bank.
No more Sabah an-nur in the morn.
No more beautiful balcony flowers
like a paradise garden,
like heaven,
like angels.
He left the kitchen window open;
like a gaping mouth,
gulping down the summer rain.
I wish I had a photograph.
I think with my camera.
His three kids, two girls and one other:
He has taken them to Maharashtra
to his friendly days and
his school boy nights.
He did not want them
attending school
here
in the States.
A father is always right when it comes to
the hungry birdlike children.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Fast Day 69 September 26 2008 {Screw Archimedes!}

Screw Archimedes!

There is nothing we can see,
and nothing we can do,
except to live and and breathe and choose
to make a better world.
screw Descartes, let's dance!

There is nothing in their words,
their is nothing in their eyes.
They preach a sermon filled with hate
and bitter ignorance.
screw Plato, let's make love!

The alpha perch upon a roost
and lord it kingly over
slaves cunning in their repose
waiting for their day.
screw Deleuze, let's dance!

The love of God is like
a keen poison in my blood
aphrodisiac titrate drip
I cannot sleep!
screw Maududi, let's shine!

Let our teeth shine
in mutually mad erotica
face to face and mindless of all else
smiling lovers!
screw Engels, let's embrace!

Friday, September 19, 2008

Fast Day 67 September 13 2008 {Sonny Detroit}

Sonny

Sonny Detroit was a singer
and she had a dusky voice
like the first breath of cool evening
after the hot, hot afternoon.
So everyday we would expect
her there with braids.

Sonny don't owe you shit,
however.
Girl is free to do what she will.

Sonny Detroit had a lover
who ran around all day
like the screach of speed amphetamine
and ecstasy's cool breath.
So he would need her there
when day is done.

Sonny don't owe you shit,
however.
Girl needs a man, not a habit.

Sonny said they rob me,
Sonny said they beat me.
They took my stash, they took my soul,
they raped me and delete me.
Sonny came out of jail that day
and sang her tender song.

Sonny don't owe you shit,
however.
The girl has paid her toll.

Fast Day 68 September 19 2008 (The Beast}

The Beast

I was nervous and demonstrative,
I did not know why...
quiet and listen, you! you who are
so little and so small.
You are of no importance!

I wanted to be a prince and princess
when history was jello...
and came to a raspberry stand still;
You must kiss my forces
and all my army corpse.

It is difficult to make you wear greenery,
or make you salad...
or a fruit compote or souffle.
You do not bend to my will
like the chocolate swine of old.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Fast Day 66 September 6, 2008 {Echo Muscoy}

Echo Moscovy


We cop the West;
bored out of gourd, you say?
My english is not so good.
But you will see,
we are like you G8s:
ecstasy and cocaine in the corridors
of power,
drugs for the kids in the hall;
sex within the Marika club,
like molodyozh we dance and trip
over our fallen minds...
gone out of, no?
We joined together in the bathroom stall,
surprised at pleasure of the
proximity of people in
the other stalls...
They were mad at us, for
they had not thought of it;
they were like artists...
of the West,
artists, philosophy,
all girls who powder
their noses in the bathroom
with a puff of coke...
being first in madness
is what they seek, to be seen
as an orgiastik goddess.
Thank goddess!, there is nothing
but pleasure...
nothing but...goods and shopping.
3 cheers for Dialec-
tical Materialism, which
spoke of matter and
became religion
while the West spoke
of religion
but it did not matter.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Fast Day 65 August 30 2008 {Retail}

Retail

There are too many ways to drive a car,
too many ways to look around,
too many grannies chugging shopping carts
behind my trunk,
beneath my tread,
doing the stutter waltz
next to my parking space;
to go or not to go,
I see you. No, I don't.
I'm too old to grab the seatbelt.
My shoulder pains arthriticly.
I used to have a Merc with
a Nissan Enjine
with an auto seatbelt that was a dream.
but they got rid of them
before they were made mandatory...
so we fight for the foolish fabric
and buckle in
to prevent
closed
head
injuries.

I need a Wal-Mart with a lot
with mirrors around the spaces
designed on several axes
to help me see my way.
A Wal-Mart build half-timbered style
and Tudor packing boxes look,
before a baptismal pond with trees!
enshrined in photos
glossy emblems of its virgin birth!
But when I'd finally got out
from my parking cell,
and tooled down by the pond,
the trees were dead,
the algae lived and bred...
and all the photos lied.
I have discovered
my Wal-greeters
are not happy
to see
me
at all.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Fast Day 64 August 24 2008 {Green Poet Died}



Green Poet Died

On the day the poet died
the grass turned brown and wilted
on the sylvan circle where danced
faerie on the nights of quarter'd
moon, waning and waxing,
mullioned light partialed through
the sieve of space and cedar:
the old trees fell uprooted
baring their naked under root
to the eye can see...

Brand new eventides of holiness
before the adytum of the age:
the eve of saint mahmoud, of dan,
the vigil of the insurgency,
the bonfires of the hanged man!
odes of malodorous justice
and committees run amok
with fear and loathly demoiselles
before the green saints and
green knights of our age!


Monday, August 18, 2008

Fast Day 63 August 16, 2008 {Vendituri Te...}




Vendituri Te....

Micro graveyards by the side of the road,
saint ronny of the semi
and saint rhonda of the 'Gator!

Buster wuz kilt by the road,
he pointed up the driveway to
the main thoroughfare,
but me 'n maw planted 'um here.
he nodded to the oaken cross
topped with a plastic crown
and a rude sign beneath
Buster of Brownsville,
king of the hounds;
a pretty blasphemy bringing
a tear to the eye of angels and
quickly forgiven: this strange melange
of love and loss and faith.

saints billy and bobby of the six-pack
and the angel dust cousins.

we went into the garage, into the shade
where the sale items were;
a history of lives disjointed now
like the bones of ancient tribes
back-hoe'd to the light of day
and scattered to the four quarters.
machinery and broken saws,
barbells and weights,
and a tokapi mirror wherein
you saw the image of a sexy ghost
admiring his bulging chest!
and an old fry cook's kettle,
and the smell of WD-40.

we drive on and see
micro graves by the roadside;
saint johnny of the Hog and chain,
saint ahmed of the Focus,
felicia, sweet and innocent,
her memory exposed for all to see!

--
Vendituri te... (salutamus)   we who are about to be sold salute thee!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Fast Day 62 August 8, 2008 {Getting Around the Motor City}




Getting Around The Motor City



Imagine speed, imagine charm;
fastest car to recall,
fastest to the line-
the harsh award of size and speed
a bouquet for Detroit!
Extreme, extreme, unimaginable;
quickest, lucid, lashivous lickerish!
high speed auto, off the line;
and hell with economy!
burn the gas and the breeze
down the highway, the throbbing
highway, the pulsator road!
The ben wa stoplights of delight,
oh, motor city!
oh, international airlines
the neon signs of blood and lust
that chill and fry on 8 Mile
where everything breaks down
and stands on Ozymandias'
broken legs of marble
still standing and...
fending off the desert.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Fast Day 61 August 2, 2008 {A Motorcycle Rider She}



A motorcycle rider she,
blond long hair
and insouciant, empty smile
greedy for a thrill;
firm breasts forward like
an emboss of
Boadicea's breastplate!

New, gleaming, stainless
pipes she rides,
the chopper decanting her
like a an old
bourdeaux chateau certan-de-may
uncertain mix with me,
the wildly gone viking girl.

Like the shrew of Lansey Meadows
she beat her sword
upon her naked breasts,
yelling
that the cowardly men not shirk
to kill skralings;
or me to be her palisade.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Fast Day 60 July 25 2008 {When We Bombed Baghdad}

When we bombed Baghdad
I watched transfixed on the pixel'd
cross, and wept and laughed
for joy at smart bombs.
When we sanctioned the shit
out of them, I shook my head,
amazed at their obstinacy!
When we invaded again,
I watched and goose stepped
in my heart out of sheer loving
admiration for all such missions
yet unaccomplished in this world!
And like innocence children,
we smile and sing:

niemoller, niemoller,
let Hitler come over!
niemals, und niemals,
let's hear from Goebbels!
niemand, je niemand,
hab'ich kein verstand!

Friday, July 18, 2008

Fast Day 59 July 18 2008 {Never Again Shall I Return...}

never again shall I return to this haunted place
of spectral desires and grave lusts,
painted bloodlike upon the gypsum walls.
rather a halcyon to dive within the sea,
off the hook and top dog,
and I run through the blasphemed church
and break every memorious idol of
laughing destruction and exult in their
holy desuetude and impotence!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Fast Day 58 July 10 2008 {Golfing on One's Birthday}

A Desert Oasis
GOLFING ON ONE'S BIRTHDAY


Plans were made for morning golf.
Came next day, and we enrolled
into that strange order of protocol
where each of us obliterates
our intimacy of ball and tee,
creating a vector distance
with smooth and fluid stroke.

Gradually gathering momentum,
we recognize our oasis:
the hedge of trees,
the necklace of aquamarine,
the expanse of sand;
flying hymenoptera
with holographic wings
in and out among the thistles
where we golf.

We come here like our ancestors
who walked from Asia across
the Bering Strait revealed,
stopping on the way to golf
the neo-ice age course;
this migration we gladly trek
from sun-baked streets
to this implacable
and palpable green.
Silence and friendship, sun and water;
and golf is the ephemera bloom.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Fast Day 57 July 4 2008 {Coyote Sat By The Coleman Flame...}

Coyote sat by the Coleman flame,
thinking small bird, small animal;
AH, hunger is...snap at mosquito!...
so horrible, so beautiful!

Coyote saw footprints hours ago;
footprints of saint coyote;
footprints leading off the world
"like all the sweetmeats of my hope..."

Three Tuesdays for the holy coyote,
yet this famished one could not sing
a christmas carol nor talk til dawn
with sandy words in his mouth.

Three the nations and three the kings,
three days dead and hungry;
"tres milagros de ma vida", coyote thinks
hoping to break his fast.

Coyote sat by an open window,
and silently wished for fat,
knowing the prey as he knows himself...
Dawn! hits the optic nerve...

Fast Day 56 June 27 2008 {Cosimi de Medici's Chaplain Sleeps}

Cosimo de Medici's Chaplain Sleeps


At the Council of Basel
I dreamt of your face, thought
I found the smell of your breasts
in a bishop's incense.

Parliament of empty words,
Emperor's anger waxing;
not one cardinal so richly dressed
as you are naked.

Fast Day 55 June 20, 2008 {Rainbow, Belle Iris...}

rainbow, belle iris of the west...
beautiful tho it is,
is a first course to the feast
where you empepper
the pale tongue of dawn.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Fast Day 54 June 13 2008 {Reading Blind Words}

Reading Blind Words

...reading blinded words, the white-out smears
racing the clock, no time to eat,
sun going down, yet no time to sleep;
swamped and perplexed, too many questions,
head spinning in tobacco haze.
I go out to walk in the chill.
The clouds rise up like tantric mountains:
gods of love and icy river's husky breath.
Geese go soaring and seek the sun.
Where could I find a pair of feathered wings
to join you in your flight?

Hurry, hurry, run to the airport;
late or early- flight's delayed.
There is no parking here close by - cold winds!
When did you say that flight's due?
Parking easy in the line of wilting passengers...
crumbling odiferous in the radiant heat.
Dizzy and distraught, too much to do!
Mind in somersault, year 2008 scare!
In a dream's summer night we stand
and watch our girl dancing in the rains!
I could not rest by another's breast!
I cannot breathe without your breath!
Ethel Thayer! Where are those golden wings
I need to plunge into the river?

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Fast Day 53 June 6, 2008 {Kermis-Elephantine}

 Kermis-Elephantine

Kermis-elephantine the leaves come back;

no weed-whacker man may kill them.

Where they had been pushed, pulled, uprooted

and splintered in twain and left for dead in

a cemetery of wooden crosses...

yet they come back in spring, water'd

by the crude runes of acequias and water courses,

filled with sand and silted up, broken down

and breached, a flooded swamp of winter.

They grow now and the water will flow again, wide

pachydermous leaves of shade bearing parasols,

juvenile lady bugs praying at the muezzin's call,

and the queen again will walk through the garden

as ever before, walking through the fragrant flowers,

laughing with her entourage diaphanous fleeting lightly

until the ark of reeds is found again

and all eyes observe

and mankind grows thoughtful once more...

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Fast Day 52 May 30 2008 {Ancient Stories}

Ancient Stories

A tale told in eternity,
more ancient than any existing thing;
and in it there was every being, either for
a purpose wise,
or the beauty that they bring.

The earth had donned its robe of green
with sleeves weighed down with bowers,
and everywhere was thought of you,
...your princess head...
tiara bound with flowers.

Fast Day 51 May 23, 2008 {Oh, limitless beauty of Alexandria!}

Oh, limitless beauty of Alexandria!
The Eros of the ancient time!
When love runs through the clepsydra of days,
and turns us clockwork and lovely fools!

Fast Day 50 May 16, 2008 {Tumult of Flowers}

Tumult of Flowers

A tumult crowd of flowers,
shouting your name
from excited mouths and stoma;
keenly agitate the wind and crush
the red carpet of sedge
laid for your arrival!

Envious blooms! Faces red
from effort and threadbare
leaf and costume jewel
petals; gingerly now they cluster
at the garden gate. Fragrant
paparazzi of their desires!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Fast Day 49 May 10, 2008 {Sibylline Mothers' Day 2008}

The Delphic Sibyl by Michelangelo



Mothers' Day 2008
Sibylline

A wary eye, a link between
the Rembrandt past and now;
sunlit day to th'uncertain dark
mirror of misty future;
prophesy the sibylls.

the eye blinks and she moves
from manticore to mother,
and crosses the wide stars' gulf
on galactic stepping stones
spilling ink upon her books
to save her lovely kids.

Kids of solo Artem
or Apollo's children;
a disturbance in the force,
a magnetic variation,
compass heart bears true
ensuring love's direction.

A glass bridge between
heaven and the earth;
mother daughter link
of gold enwraps our lives
in gilded boxes chocolate
and mystery cream cores.


--

Notes:
1) again, here we use manticore as an amalgam of mantis + kore, meaning a young prophetess.
2) the action is: some force threatens the children of the sibyll, and she speeds from light years away across the galaxies to save them. This is the mother's love - the gamma burst of affection and nurture.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Fast Day 48 May 3,2008 {To My Canine Friends}

To My Canine Friends


A brooding of Hamlets, walking forlornly
about the green spaces and the parks,
walking dogs and standing patient
with scoops and plastic gloves
and keeping time.

dogs with magic medicinal names,
Zoloft of the fierce bark
and Cymbalta of the spirits;
major forces in the canine
cabinet of fame!

King Charles Agadore Spartacus
bears a heavy burden
as he plays about the park
and lifts the burden of pain
from my suffering heart.

All the sweet Hamlets walk in silence
walking the sweeter dogs;
frisky playful metaphors
of innocence of yesteryear;
a glad bag at the ready!


notes:
we call the people walking the dogs "Hamlets" for the reason that my dogs are name Zoloft and Cymbalta, mood medicines. there is no other reason.
I thought that if we had a group of people that had named their dogs after various medicinals and we all showed up in the same park, we would constitute a "brooding" of Hamlets.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Fast Day 47 April 26, 2008 {I am very thankful}

I am very thankful
for self improvement CDs
and one silken line of interest...
written by
Bochenski, Modenov, Einstein and Bose;
dimensions folded
like soda straws-
unfold, unfold!

I am most beholden
to Cable artificial
for their straight and easy path...
spoken by
Streicher, Goebbells, van Leuven and Bork;
blood and water
mixed together-
retro, retro!

I am post incarcerate
of philosophy mundane
and easily deconstructed
to a foam
of muscle, tendons, intestines and skin;
fascist heart
and phalange mind
erupt, erupt!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Fast Day 46 April 18, 2008 {Paranoid Archipelago 1 Our Children}

Paranoid Archipelago 1
Our Children


the claustrophobic land,
paranoid archipelago,
the politics of hate swearing
on the radio and in the homes
the cable tv doom.

she'll forget the fathers day card;
her life is filled with living,
not anchored by black ink
to a pedestrian island
on expressway median.

he'll eat lunch within his car
parked in an asphalt ghost town,
and shukran a yogurt from
Mustafa's Grocery and Gas;
and then a restless nap.

they'll pay the debts we left
and live a modicum of joy
using the rosy glasses
and our inheritance
of acute myopia.

they'll have sweat anointed hair
that follows them from one solitary
to the next confine of their lives.
baptized in the river of cars
and stuck in rush.

I shall get starship Enterprise
and head her nose to Vega,
and all power to the engines!
swerving to break the chain of Time;
and change this Past!


(notes: another somber poem...
shukran: Arabic for "thanks".)

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Fast Day 45 April 11, 2008 {Old Man And Zodiac Good Time}

Old Man And Zodiac Good Time

Say, you be goin' somewhere, honey?
Why you drivin' that old car?
And why are we here in the desert
in the city of sun?
It's very hot here, honey, y muy secco
I hope the rains come soon!

Say, come here an' have a margarita!
Drink a little pulque!
Honey says she does not drink a drop
and pedal to the metal!
She leaves and I fall: from molten city
and a new dream agave.

But Honey is a Bear; I know her well.
She will not assimilate.
Nor live with me by the salty sea
in the limits of trekking feet.
She visits from her celestial house,
and goes before the dawn!

Monday, April 7, 2008

Fast Day 44 April 4, 2008 {To Russia}

To Russia

In Vladivostok once
in the eastern light
we bent our heads into a wint'ry day
and we all did strain mightily
to raise structures
sturdy and strong for Mother Russia.

If Time were as infinite
as it is in Mother Russia,
theotokos, iconic eye of God,
then all the lost would find their way:
the sick would dance
and the mourners rejoice!

To my oil cloth dacha
of the ashen windows
came a brown haired girl so calmly
beautiful; she warmed the day;
she took my eye;
we never returned to the wasteland.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Fast Day 43 March 29,2008 {Our Lady Of Chimayo}

Anna (and her sisters) are coming off a long winter in the land of long winters. Like we have "Indian Summer", once winter has past its prime in Anna's land, winter returns for a brief visit or two, bringing gifts of snow and ice and grey skies.
So we dedicate this poem to them.

notes:
Chimayo is a sanctuary in New Mexico. Starting from Los Alamos where the atomic age was born, descending to the desert into Espanola, the low-rider capital, to the eastern mountains wherein lies Chimayo is about 60 some miles.

Sandia is a mountain.

An acequia is a water-course or aquaduct in the desert.

Chimayo is the locus of miracles, and people who have been cured have left crutches and splints and wheelchairs there.











Our Lady Of Chimayo


He was an acequia
and she a cottonwood tree;
The Lady of the desert placed them
outside the church at Chimayo.

She:
I am rooted in the soil.
What is it to run o'er the earth?
(she looks into the distance)
I see far off within the sky
clouds as big as Sandia,
running faster than a ghost!

He:
I hear your voice in wind and leaf...
I sense small lives upon my course.
From afar, from ridge and mountain top,
I burst free to come to you!

The Lady of Chimayo who stands within
Her holy sanctuary filled with emblems
made from mankind's suffering,
has turned her and him upon Her loom
and wove their souls from cactus fiber,
so that she would not live without his blood,
nor would he flow without her need.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Fast Day 42 March 21, 2008 {Danta Anansazi Hates The World}


(Note: Dante Anansazi is my pet winter spider.)


Dante Anansazi Hates The Whirled

Dante Anansazi sat up one morning
and decided he would destroy the Whirled.
Blond rage danced before his eight eyes
and he grew madder impotently.
As I went to my computer, I saw him
curled trancey-parent wintry spider...
Hey, you got java?
Sure I said. Plenty joe. A cuppa tha black?
Yeah, he answered surly and bewebbed.
So I goes back to the kitchen and grab
an etui that I use fer his coffee,
like a chalice, like an urn
of faience and so p'tit it seems
and so little is Dante A.
Here's yer java, D.A., pal!
I always call him pal, like you know,
ya never know with eight eyed freaks.
Ya put any of the white in here? he ax me
so I say no,no milk; no cream.
We sip our cupl'a cuppas in a silence
and drum our hands upon the tablas
of my patellas broad and hollow.
You guys got it made, Dante sez.
Howzat, sez I. Ya got guns, lotsa guns.
Yeah, I laugh, all god's chillun got guns.
Dante A is quiet for a speckle of time
Ya got nookler guns, too. Nookler rays
that work and kill and maim and leave
lucky little orphans scattered like rice
after a wedding! Man...MAN!
Three legs up and five are down
to emphasize his point of horror:
All the beautiful red is flowing
and running to tha gutters!
Enuff with tha blood, I think, enuff!
He goes quiet and he is thinking.
So I think, hell, man, wha's this crap?
I do not need no eight leg paranoid
goin' Timmy McVeigh on my ass.
So I sez, nookler ain't so hot.
And this get his hairy antenna all atwitter
Sez who? he growls eightfold.
Sez I, I sez. You can control an M-16
but ya cant control them nooks.
Like you nooks, and...blam...all yer
webs and pupae and cocoons...
Here I make a sword-like draw
across my throat, from left to right
my right finger a sharp edged knife,
my neck a bleating calf, and I
the butcher on the limen staring.
Dante Anansazi sez nothing for a while.
Man, he sez at last, getting up to leave,
you humans are some crazy shit!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Fast Day 41 March 14, 2008 {Looking Forward to Easter 2008}

Nero's Domus Aurea or Golden House reconstructed at Building Virtual Rome




Looking Forward To Easter 2008

When archaeologists of old delights
will find the ruins of all our ancient kisses
and delve into the warrens of this age
and see the mazed foundation our lives:
reconstruct the murals
replumb the obelisk;
and roof the halls of Herculaneum,
and place the bodies at table encaustic.

Shall they then find our candled nights of love
that sparkled like the radyant rising sun?
and drape the scenes with purple porphry sheets
lest we old pagans contravene their faith?
free us from this prison,
and we shall fly away!
and going up to Galilee to see
anew the universal pulchritude!





Nero's Domus Aurea at present

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Fast Day 40 March 8, 2008 {Let Me Die With The Philistines!}





Let Me Die With The Philistines!

Samson went down to Sorek to rest
after fighting an army with an ass
his jawbone swung like a Vietnam chopper
God, he laid 'em low!

Samson found a lady there whose face
shone with paparazzi flashes
and the E news asked if this was love
for Sammie and Delilah.

Samson went down to Gaza
when he could no longer see;
he plied a bunker-buster bomb on
all of Philistee-yaa!

Samson died with all the gods of the cities
seven of suburban Palestine;
Delilah scaped the murderous sermon
since she did not go to Temple!

When we go blind to Gaza,
after we've lost our sight,
we harvest eleven hundred silver drams
for each life destroyed delight!

O bind me with a bowstring!
O bind me with 7 ropes!
Weave my hair within the fustian linen
of the world's winding!

I shall not brake for children
in the temple's daycare;
let the limestone temple be
the eating box of flesh!

We stood upon the stylobate and pushed
mightily against the shaft;
welcome murdering architraves that metast
the future all our past.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Fast Day 39 March 1, 2008 {The Tunisian Lady}

It suddenly dawned on me that in a mere 52-39 = 13 posts yet to come, I shall actually have produced a poem, or something vaguely reminiscent of a poem, at a rate of one per week for an entire year.

Indeed, peace must be just around the corner.


The Tunisian Lady

We students chose to eat like Mamelooks,
the kings, that is, the regents regal
of an Egypt of mediaeval time who
ruled the district, the small villages,
the boundaries rural, the hamlets, and
unnamed dusty children swarming.

Like Baybars we laid siege to Al Ameer's
on Warren and Schaefer and lofted
the Greek fire of our hunger made
sharp by the sight of cultured encampments
and domes of tabbouli and humus, gilded
and stuffed with the spices of shawarma.

Nothing was haraam. Our scholarly
friendship took a zest and scattered fruit
throughout our souls. We talked of husbands
and wives, and hopes and dreams...
poetries and acts of love,astrologies,
fortunetelling...things usually forbidden.

And after eating we sauntered out
like drunken soldiers and reeled in
the late afternoon sun which fired
the asphalt parking lot, exchanging gifts
and cutting up, talking, intermittent
and asking whether dessert would do?

So on to Shatila! The great Bakery Damascene!
Where the tales are spun of wheat and gold;
The great orthodox Baker who ruled the
postprandial circumambulations
of his people with a sweet disguise being
strewn amongst their homely haunts!

The eaves dripped honey.
The pillars were pure sugar encrusted,
standing joyfully like the wife of Lot,
this time obedient to the Lord.
The walls were a nectar tessera
mosaic of luxurious history!

Yet as we broke, yet as we part
the sun had gone and it was dark
with only satisfaction to light the way
into a dim crumbling asphalt...
and immigrant winds insinuated
their way into our clothes.

The teacher found a skull by the side
of the road, against a wall, sitting.
And to it was attached a body
with arms and legs thin as
dowels, or the rudely sculpted wood
of a crumbled marionette.

It was a lady from Tunisia, alive
yet it seems. She had an ancient walker
and she had an outboard crutch.
She stood a rag within the wind
and each of us, the Jamaican, the Syrian
and the native born held our breath.

The teacher spoke to her and discovered
that she was pregnant and had come to the
pharmacy for medicine, where her driver
had abandoned her four or five hours
ago, so she collapsed herself against
the sunny wall and waited.

We drove her home to the basement
where she lived in a neighborhood
of roving dogs and high grass
where landlords wore no shirts
and lanterns were pinchpenny of
their bilious light.

A skull used to be placed upon
the festal table to remind
that life was short and death awaited.
Time flies or seize the day is a slogan
to wear on your lapel.
Of what is Life a symbol?

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Fast Day 38 February 22, 2008 {Studying For The Bar Exam}

To My Daughter Studying For The Bar Exam
Old Guitars

In the deepest strength of winter,
you are the fire of sunshine.
Our hearts are like guitars in storage
that have lost their strings;
so weave to us your music
on a loom of your studious solitude!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Fast Day 37 February 15,2008 {Valentine's Day}




Note: Amalthea's Horn was the cornucopia or the horn of plenty.


Valentine's Day


Like a flower of
one thousand crowns,
your love is like
Amalthea's horn:
honey fountains of the plains,
petty cakes with saffron,
lentils boiled and parched,
carrot laden chickpeas broomed
with the hyssop of new dill!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Fast Day 36 February 9,2008 {Winter Haiku}

Winter Haiku

1
The snow falls slowly;
mountain imperceptible;
Quick! My car is stuck!


2
The beard of Santa,
hidden within the closet;
imagination.




( I actually intend to add to these...)

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Fast Day 35 February 2, 2008 {To My Daughter}

It is Groundhog Day and I hope that the film "Groundhog Day" will be showing all day.
I stuck my head out and saw that the War was still going on.
There is an old saying that runs:

"On Candlemas ( or Groundhog Day or February 2 ),

If a durn fool sees bombs a-goin' off, the War will last fer 100 years!

If the durn fool doesn't see bombs a-goin' off, the War will last fer only a century!"


Having thus added to the total amount of Dark Matter in the Universe, I segue into another lost cause: the pursuit of peace through poetry and fasting.


To My Daughter


The sun comes up in the East just where she is.
Which brilliant is the brighter star?
An angel comes to her bearing waxen wings:
Put them on! Put them on!

Eagle by artifice, she flies into the sky.
Joy fills her heart.
She will not come down for many years...
Queen of the Air!

Mother and I, we saw her circling
in the night-time deep
along the sea, along the sand...
long ago before creation.

No visible wings, a mere child then;
footprints in the dark.
She glowed in the soft light of
the front porch lantern.

The sun always comes up now in the East
in golden mimicry
just where she flies.


Sunday, January 27, 2008

Fast Day 34 January 25, 2008 {Bobby Fischer's Dead}



Bobby Fischer's dead...
he was first, the prototype.
others came after.

...never played Big Blue,
but IBM was
Eichmann's CPA.

Bobby Fischer beat
the Russkies at their own game...
symbol of Reagan.

forerunner Reagan
who beat the USSR
and gave the world peace...

pax of Augustus...
tarot dealing and omens
and fortune tellers.

Bush, Clinton, and Bush:
Satyricon of Christians...
Plautus scripted Peace!

Bobby Fischer died.
intemperate memories
like bestial Io!

Driven from Japan,
a man without a country;
Northern asylum!

Bobby Fischer's gone...
symbol of ambiguous
ascent to power.

What we won with sweat
we hand away covetous,
dreaming lost power!

A psychic murder,
spiritual sacrifice;
blooming like adonis!

By beating Spassky
hegemony fades to prozac...
gives way to Karpov!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Fast Day 33 January 18, 2008 {The Days Are Hot, O, Babylon!}





The days are hot, O Babylon!
'tis cool beneath thy cherry trees.
The sun is gone to azimuth
and with him snatched the breeze.
No celebrations will there be
but just the same old same.
And all the homeless lie in state
where no one knows their name.
The convicts act as warden
madmen alienists disguise,
and people show their TV faces
where no one see their eyes.
The days grow cool, O Babylon!
Take scapegoat of the past
and drive him out beyond the hills,
the evil unsurpassed.
We stand upon our last redoubt
where Lee saw rise the sun,
and watch fraternal disarray
to see if war's begun.
The fall of year, the fall of man
and all the sons of Eve
now driven east of Eden are
and all their mothers grieve.

The days grow dark, O Babylon!
and oedipal perverse
of sons who've killed their mothers dear,
alive upon the earth.
Our madness is our vanity;
our truth informs our lies;
our riches form the gilt entrails
of our Lord of Flies!
Let us jump upon the dance
like maddened maenads all,
and bring the flag which we adore
and spread it for our pall!


Saturday, January 5, 2008

Fast Day 32 January 11, 2008 {A Christmas Sonnet}

A Christmas Sonnet
on finding 4 bay leaves pressed within my 1774 edition of "Histoire des Nouvelles Decouvertes Faites dans la Mer du Sud"


When first the color fades from trees whose face
besought by pigments beauty to instill,
we cheer approach of winter’s snowy lace,
entwined like fingers through your mullioned sill

by all the fruits of artificial means
of forcing bed, the ragged robin’s peach;
the waxen gifts of nectar, gardens’ queens!
or sweet frumenty punch with froth of each.

Your eyes two fountains wrapped around by brooks
to all the lore of runs and creeks disposed,
where secreted twixt parchment covered books
epistolary of our love enclosed!

A thousand years of reading as one may,
Finds within empressed four green leaves of bay.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Fast Day 31 January 4 2008 {Iceman Harry]

Evidence has turned up that fasting one day per month is good for what ails you...or what may ail you.

I think that if you combine that physical benefit with a good moral objective, you might come away with a "world's greatest" nomination complete with a small statue with googly eyes.


Iceman Harry

The size of curbs
is what disturbs
me,
ya bum...
cut stone curbs were dif
ferent and purple granite
ya
could see.
not sum harden mud
blinds my old eyes
I
miss her...

I loved tha bitch
ya cant say no,
grifter.
I did.
she had a way
of cleaning and bitchin
that
cleaned up.
I used to see
thru this winder here.
drab
dull dust.

When sun stumples down
the heaven's stairs
breaks
a hip
it falls thru tha winder
like a drunk crusade
and we
sit here
awaiting Saracens in Acre...
cursing tha booze!
no kick
no guts booze.

Tha Moon not seen since
we wuz sober, old acq
uaintance
long time
no see ya! cold and sober
moon, no wonder we sleep
your time
away.
Dunk dionysos beaks in
poppy blood and naked
veils fall
from eyes!