Day 397 October 17 2015 Venetian Blinds

Venetian Blinds

If the eyes be the window to the soul,
then Venetian blinds my emotions,
blurring another Earth outside,
mandolin of light

When I open them white prisoner bars,
they clatter like the bones of saint death,
I jump - they list - like sinking ships,
Lusitania light

Hate cleaning all them individ'l slats,
dust and nicotine... remember man
yer made from dust and nicotine,
O, let there be light!

My tattoos are stained and polished tendons
like blinds with an equalizer cord,
tasselled with gold, yet indifferent
to my needs for light.


--

Day 396 October 10 2015 Reading The News

Reading The News

Piles of cinders and ash!
burning laptop cauldron;
pouring forth bitumen and sulphurous fumes
like vehemence upon a desolate shore!

Vomit of drones and bombs!
burning seas off Aden;
Beirut and Paris swept into Etna's maw -
like pyroclastic clouds of evening news!

Day 395 October 3 2015 Disposable Smokes (Cigares Jetables)

Disposable Smokes

Les cigares jetables de 400 souffles...
myriad de bars a cigare,
couleurs illimitées,
sumptueux, verts, grises, rouges,
etc.
pour que vous choisissiez...

Choisissez s'il vous plaît;
O, que vous choisissiez!
avant la fin du monde,
avant fin de la vie,
etc.
la prière d'enfer est tou'c'qui reste...

Day 394 September 26 2015 Derecho Rain

Derecho Rain

This is the year the neighbor's tree came down;
the wind and rain was like derecho
a sinister derecho
like I never seen before...
and then a crash!
like Kapellmeister Bach slamming fast down
upon his primeval Himmelsburg
frightening his twelve obbligato woodwinds!
 
So I called my neighbor 
and he did not know me,
and asked if I wished to clean it up
and I said I did not have a chain saw anywheres
near that big, I mean, by Santa Muerte
and Lord Death...
I have not the mortal mean Scythe
to cut, to chop!
To thin out the surplus population!

We've closed up for the winter
and the fence rails where it fell
and still broke and splintered,
but I imagine I can still see the full foliage
of its first fall! when the leaves
filled our back yard full fifty
feet from its trunk!

And even now my vision is obscured by
that fallen crown of leaves,
just as I still see the long gone rock garden
and the wisteria alley with its swings,
and outhouses pushed over on Halloween!
I see through cataracts of the past.

--

Day 393 September 19 2015 Fall Festival

Moon and Sand  (Photo: Russ Bishop)

Fall Festival


When Isis was but the name of goddess love,
Aphrodite, Venus, Ishtar –
the city walls were virgin pearl,
and books were ivory.

Our love grew like the kudzu of desire,
beneath the bright scratches of shooting stars!
the bed sheets were magician’s charms,
our eyes were like gazelles.

Now in a world seduced by war and disease,
the over-ripe perfumes of ghosts!
we can yet bear witness:
no victory but of love!

--

Day 392 September 12 2015 Noon

Noon


The gardens have no tears left to water them;
the mowing madness of gasoline
engine-hordes have run through the ecumene...

All solar schizophrenia lay out
around the thunder-struck Jerusalem
bush, red now in this leech time of autumn.

The grass is dead like selfie-bleeding
celebrities awaiting the compost
cenotaph of  fame.

--

Day 391 September 5 2015 Matins

Matins


Matins are mid-morning.
I throw prayers at gods like piles
and bundles of laundry heaped
in dusty unused corners of my room.

I sweep the blessings
indifferent from the dust and dirt
that layer dark my floors
but scatter diamonds of light while falling.

--

Day 390 August 30 2015 Dawn

Dawn

Dawn is a yawning rose,
dripping scarlet liquor,
thrown at my naked thigh
by the lusty nymph of morning;
I use it later as a paint brush
to paint the gardens of life
and blur the borders
that limit my skin.