Four Vignettes from the Hog Barn

1.
His pigs followed him like household pets
Into the empty livestock trailer,
Trusting the curly-haired young man
Of the kind voice and the gentle touch
Who had always brought them their food.

They followed their boy with doglike faith
From the trailer onto the runway,
Snuffling, fascinated by the myriad smells
As he led them onto the scale.
Then their Judas goat slipped through a gate,
Abandoning his charges to their fate.

After they've been weighed
There's a sudden flurry of shouts
And a barrage of paddle-swats
That drives the panicked beasts
Toward the man with the brand.
After they've been tattooed
They're driven into the wet-down,
The prelude to the chute that leads
To slaughter by asphyxiation.

The curly-haired boy waits patiently
For his payment in the Hog Office;
Hr grins happily as the check is cut.
He knows now that his 4H project
Has brought him in enough money
To buy a new PlayStation.

2.
The fast food chain representatives
Have sent out a "slaughter check" team
To ensure that their standards
Mandating "Humane Slaughter,"
That oxymoron spawned of guilt,
Are being adhered to.

No shouting at the hogs,
No kicking or striking them,
Just gentle nudges and a calm voice.
Sure, they're going to be slaughtered,
But the aim is to make becoming a McRib
Or the sausage in a breakfast biscuit
As stress-free a journey
As a hog can possibly aspire to.

The hog-drivers mask their frustration
As they try to move them under the conditions
Imposed by "Happy Meal" hypocrisy.
By lunch, when the team departed,
The kill total was down three hundred hogs.

That afternoon the chain-speed was cranked up
And it was back to "business as usual,"
As the hogs were treated like swine again.
The kill made up the three hundred hog shortfall
By the end of the shift.

3.
"Christ, he's not doing what I think he is,"
I hoped as I came upon the scene.
Big Ned, a hard worker, yet somewhat slow,
Yet perfect for the monotony of line work,
Where an imagination can be detrimental,
Had ambled out to visit a friend in the hog barn.
He had discovered an electric shock prod
That some trucker had inadvertently left behind.
"Watch this," he said, showing off for his buddy
Who had laughed as he gave a pig a zap in the snout
And had given another one some volts on its ass.
"See that old boar over there.
I'm going to nail him with this right in the nuts."

"Damn it!  I bellowed, 'Put that thing down!"
I explained that although truckers could use it,
Even on the plant premises,
Under this plant's Humane Slaughter program
There are some pretty strict regulations.
Plant employees aren't allowed to use a shock prod.
If they're caught driving a hog with one
They can be suspended,
And tormenting the hogs for sport
Is just begging to be fired.

Big Ned looked as shocked at this caution
As a toddler who had just been told
That playing with his penis "wasn't nice."
Finally, he gave me a searching gaze,
And with disarming sincerity
He asked me, "What's the diffrence
What we do to them now?
They're all going to be
Slaughtered today anyway."

4.
The hogs in the subject pen
Have been culled out by the hog drivers
Or the ante-mortem inspector
For the plant veterinarian to examine.
Unable to move well enough to be driven,
Feverish, shaking, dragging a broken leg,
A ruptured belly or a boken pelvis,
The fourteen hogs lay in the subject pen,
Coping with their anxiety and hurt
By huddling close to one another,
Taking comfort in each other's nearness,

Like people.

Nature Does Not Succumb to Despair

Ensnared in a net of despair,
One looks for comfort anywhere
But finds no solace anywhere,
No reason to care.

A delicate snow rose
Bares its beauty to the frost.
Its perfume wafts fragrantly
Through the frigid winter air.

Mired in a slough of despair,
Shivering branches are bare,
Landscapes loom bleak and bare,
One sees no beauty anywhere.

The first green shoots of spring
Begin their slow ascent to the light.
Despite the storm that's left us more snow,
They've faith in the warmth that will come.

Drowning in a pool of despair,
You may feel that you've nothing to give,
You may feel that you've no reason to live.
You've nothing to share.

A week after that late March snowstorm,
Daffodils poke their diffident leaves
Resolutely out of the still chill soil,
Coaxed upward by the promise of spring.

Life perserveres through half-frozen earth,
Certain that summer and warmth will come.
Love can be the light that leads to our rebirth
As well, allowing us to flower, if we ascend to it.

Nature does not succumb to despair.

Twilight Impressions

A swirling, groping, malevolent mist
Accompanied by dusk's brooding presence
Encased the pine-surrounded lagoon
In an aura of primeval terror.

My campsite was half a mile away,
The moon was full; I could see the trail.
I'm a rational man with no excuse
For my sudden feeling of nervousness.

The fog crept up from the cold lagoon
In fingering wisps of frigid fear.
The ebony-cloaked magician of night
Summoned grotesque goblins out of bushes.

My blood froze in homage to ignorance.
I was now Neanderthal Man against evil,
As nature used my sense of vilnerability
To conjure forth terrifying visions
Of powers that I felt helpless against.

The Lady Slipper

The pungent odor of moist peat;
It stuck to my boots like an ointment,
A thick black unguent of swamp.
I stepped around algae-covered pools
Of brackish, stagnant water.
Moss mottled the misshapen trunks
Of hunchbacked tamarack that wept
Aggrieved tears of needles
When I'd bump up against them.
Dismal scenery casting a depressing
Pall upon a landscape so saturated
That it quivered as I set foot upon it.

Through a bog of brittle reeds
I caught a sudden glimpse of color.
A bird?  Instantly curious, moving
Carefully so as not to scare it,
I moved closer to the feathered life.
No bird.  It was a Moccasin Flower;
This solitary pink orchid dangled
Wet with the weight of morning dew.
Fragile as a spiderweb,
Its delicate petals glistened as sunlight
Caressed them with a loving reverence.
Something beautiful, this "Lady Slipper,"
Transformed the swamp to a place
Of wonder simply by its presence there.

Loveliness encountered unexpectedly
Lingers longest in one's mind.
I think of gorgeous faces glimpsed just once
That I've pressed in the tome of my memory;
The woman who was seated nex to me
During a Peter, Paul and Mary concert,
A check-out girl at Goldfine's Grocery,
The blonde in a car stopped at a red light,
Or a captivating smile passed on the street.
Elusive as wild orchids, these Cinderellas
Have left no footwear behind for this prince
To retrieve to gallantly return to them;
Just visions of loveliness that remain
As vivid, fresh and indelible in my mind
As my only encounter with the "Lady Slipper."

Fort Pillow Trilogy (Three Spoon River Poems)

Caleb the Bartender

You never cared where I'd come from, Spoon River,
Just so long as I kept your glasses full.
As you guzzled your beer or sipped your whiskey
You confided in me, you asked my advice
As though I was your Father Confessor,
More in tune with the Holy than with spirits.
You fools!  You know as little of truth as I did
Before battle laid bare the evil of my soul.
Could you look into my heart and view my sins
As I've had to, you'd recoil from me in horror.
I did so from myself, fleeing  here from Memphis
With a new last name, hoping to run from my past.
It met me at the railroad station though,
And laid the crime of murder at my feet.
It was at that moment that I realized
That there was no earthly place where I could hide
From the shame of what I'd done at Fort Pillow.
I resigned myself to a slow suicide of spirit,
Pouring drinks, dispensing advice, and at night
Returning home to drink myself into a stupor
That drove everything away but my guilt.

Varina Devereaux

I was so proud when my Caleb enlisted.
To ride with Bedford Forrest; how romantic!
My beloved a dashing Southern cavalier,
A warrior poet, my own Sir Phillip Sydney!
What tales he would weave from his adventures!
But when he returned his muse had scorned him.
Her lodgings were now squatted in by shame
And a self-loathing that clung to his spirit
Like Spanish moss dripping from a gnarled oak.
He tried to tell me of a place called "Fort Pillow;"
Of men driven mad by hatred and blood-lust,
Of curses and snarled rage brutally punctuated
With gunshots and thrusts of blood-soaked bayonets.
I tried everything.  I held him in my arms.
I told him that it didn't matter, that the war was over,
That they were only thieving Yankee niggers
Who deserved what they got for invading our land.
Nothing that I could do or say could console him.
I sadly watched as he drifted out of my life
On a sullen dark sea of despair.

Jefferson Brown

For years my mind smouldered with bitterness,
Its hot coals glowing with resentment,
Blazing into anger when someone called me "Nigger."
I'd think of the rebel devils who'd killed my boy,
Shooting him in the head as he lay helpless
Begging for mercy in the name of their God too.
But when Mr. Caleb had hired me to help him
Lug his bulky trunk from the train station
To that lonesome little room that he'd just rented,
We both got to talking some.
When I told him of my son's death at Fort Pillow,
His face paled as though he'd just seen the hoodoo
That folks say makes its home in Jackson's Swamp.
His eyes filled with tears, and he lowered his head
And whispered "I'm sorry," as though he were Jesus
Reaching down to take upon himself the blame
For the sins of Forrest and his pack of animals.
After that, every so often I'd step out
Onto my porch to find a sack of groceries
Or a bottle of whiskey set next to my door.
I don't know what brought you to Spoon River,
Mr. Caleb, but your sympathy and kindness
Severed the bonds of hatred that had bound my soul.
May God bless you, and may he wrap you in
The all-forgiving comfort of his love.

What Lies Beyond

Since I believe that there's no God,
No Satan, no heaven, no hellfire.
Since I believe that when we expire
We need fear no judgement rod.
Why do I cling to every breath?
Why do I still fear death?

Haiku

The condemned meth house
Was loved once.  Tulips gaze up
At boarded windows.

Pigeons tend their young
On the roof of the porn shop
Where love is defiled

Daffodil heralds
Raise golden trumpets to sound
A fanfare to Spring.

Gleaming fairy-eyes
The wanton winks of fireflies
Sparking in the night

Family Secret (Three Spoon River Poems)

Tamara Sinfield

Lizzie Borden's trial goaded me into action.
Victims of incest can always read the signs;
Years of suppressed anger suddenly exploding
Into a rebellion of murderous savagery.
Mother, how could you have ignored the evidence?
Your empty bed, my blood and semen-stained sheets,
The embarrassed silence at the breakfast table
All pointed to the sins of a depraved parent;
His lust-filled eyes that could send me to trembling,
His voice, husky with passion, and his touch,
Repulsive as the feel of a tick on one's leg.

Smarter than Lizzie, I bided my time til
I could slip the sleeping potion into their stew.
A candle tipped onto a can of bacon grease
That had "spilled" onto the hardwood floor.

Fire!

I stayed in the  burning house long as I could,
Then burst through the door, my hair singed,
My lungs rebelling against the acrid smoke.
Everyone exclaimed that my escape was a miracle.
Desire too can be an all-absorbing fire,
Yet it's said Hell's flames burn hotter, Father.
If God hasn't forgiven me I've joined you there.

Sarah Sinfield

Daughter, I wish that I'd confided  in you.
Your father was once a good man, loving and kind,
But after I gave birth to you, Doc Meyers said
That another pregnancy would kill me.
Where can a Man of God go when he's denied
His marraige bed?  I couldn't fufill his needs.

Our shame came upon us gradually, like a storm.
First the forbidden thoughts rolled in,
Menacing thunderheads of carnal desire.
No longer could my daughter sit on her father's lap
Without the light patter of sin beginning to fall;
A leer, a lewd remark, an inappropriate touch,
Then comes the thunderclap of betrayal.
That "Sin that dares not whisper its name."
Then followed a downpour of fear, of hurt, of blame.
My faith in God became the umbrella
That I prayed would protect my family from harm.

It didn't.

Put yourself in my shoes though, dearest daughter.
Your father would've lost his reputation,
His pulpit, and we our home had his secret come out.
My only hope was to pray that the storm would pass.

The Reverend Isaac Sinfield

My congregation erected a beautiful tribute;
A weeping angel kneeling over a granite monument.
"Here Lieth a Man of God" it boldly proclaims.
My helpmate is buried next to me, of course.
She who couldn't lay next to me as a wife
Now rests beside me for an eternity.
What delicious irony.
I beseeched the Lord to pluck away
The desire that had taken root in my mind.
Evidently he never listened to my prayers.
Meanwhile, I preached hellfire sermons against lust,
Loudly proclaimed the virtues of the family,
Taught catechism, visited the sick,
Lauded the dead and consoled the living.
Vestments can cover a multitude of sins.
If I would have been allowed to compose
My own epitaph, I would have indulged
My wit with a nod to life's ambiguities.
"Her Lieth a Man of God no longer."
Read into it what you will.

The Mother Tree Trilogy (Three Spoon River Poems)

Rebecca Parsons

My heartsick parents drove their wagon
Into Lewistown to seek a doctor for me;
But it was no use.  I was six months old
When I died of the whooping cough.
Having no money to pay for a proper headstone,
My mother hesitatingly asked the sexton
If she could plant a tree to mark my grave.
The slender sapling took hold.  Eventually
Its roots embraced the rude wooden coffin
That had become my eternal cradle.
My maple whispers to me of the golden sun,
Nurturing rain and rich back soil.
It reassures me when I hear the crack
Of thunder during fierce summer storms.
I can feel my tree stretch toward the sun
As it sprouts its leaves to welcome Spring.
You were so wise, Mother.
How did you know that the tree that you planted
To mark my final resting place
Would become my teacher, protector and friend?

Rachel Parsons

The small sapling that I planted to mark
My daughter's grave was watered
With my tears as I slipped it into the earth.
I tapped the ground around it tenderly,
Pulling it up against the trunk of the little maple
As I would've my daughter's blanket around her.
I prayed that it would take root and grow
To become my baby Rebecca's protector.
Then I had to move on, following my husband
On a trek that had taken us from Buffalo
To this village of now bitter association,
To what we'd dreamed would be a better life
In Texas.  We did prosper,
But I never could conceive another child.
We were wealthy enough at the time of my death
To allow my husband to honor my last wish.
He sent me back here
To be buried near this now majestic red maple,
Close to my daughter.

Betsy Bannister

As the daughter of the sexton
Who'd recorded burials at Oak Hill Cemetery,
I'd heard the story of the young mother,
Never dreaming that it would pertain to me.
Then the gift of the body that I gave in love
Left me with a faithless man's parting gift.
Ashamed of my gullibility, and fearful
Of what my parents would think of me, and how
This town's narrow-minded prudes would react,
I covered my growing shame in loose dresses.
I resented the seed that had been planted in me
Until in the seclusion of a nearby woods
I gave birth to a stillborn little girl.
Sadness overwhelmed me as I gazed down
At her tiny hands, her delicate body, and her face
Wreathed in the innocence of sinless repose.
During those moments I would've given my life
To have given her the opportunity to breathe.
I thought of that other mother of years past
Who always mourned the loss of her daughter
And begged before death to be buried near her.
That evening I slipped out of the house,
Retrieved the sad little bundle that I'd hidden,
And buried her close to the Mother Tree.

I dare not ask to be buried near her.

Melville in Bondage

"Oh, devilish tantalization of the Gods!"
Fayeaway, the sea and the faraway islands
And spice
Still tugged at the man who labored
At the Custom House desk.
The damnable drudgery was just a bone
Of existance
That had been flung his way
By a contemptuous government.
He!
Who should be leading expeditions
Into the impenatrable
Dogma-shrouded jungle of thought
That had grown to mask
The inscrutable Almighty's intent!
Prometheus-bound by import forms
And cargo manifests
While drums in the darkness
Pound the message of his failure.

Passion-fruit and pineapples
Plucked from a South-Sea paradise.
All had to be recorded
Like one's sins in the Book of Life.
"To produce a mighty book
You must choose a mighty theme."
Here he was
Scratching entries onto a cargo ledger,
Shackled to wage-slave monotony,
Enduring serfdom to "free" himself
From dependence on his wife's family's income.
They assure him that this job will help him
To evade the clutch of madness
That had entered his life once
And had wrested his father from him.
It buys him respect and honor
In the eyes of the world
While his lance lays abandoned
In the inkwell in his study.

He'd hurled it in anger
At an image of a great white whale;
Paradise Lost rebellion
Seasoned with the madness of Lear.
"A book broiled in hellfire."
Ishmael, Ahab, Elijah and Rachel;
Old Testament allusions rained
From his pen like a baptism
Exploding from the coat
Of a vigorously shaking dog.
It had just come bounding in
From a cold New England brook
With a stick of diabolical truth
Clamped tightly in its teeth.
"From hell's heart I stab at thee,"
He growled, unwilling to let go
Of his treasure.  "For hate's sake
I spit my last breath at thee."
He'd railed at the world
And at its architect of injustices.

"Talk not to me of blasphemy, Man!"
He again raged angrily,
Feeling landlocked and deskbound.
"I'd strike at the Sun if it insulted me.!"
And an insult it was too
To have to sullenly endure the curses
Of sea captains.

"Hey Melville! Get off your ass
And check us in!
My boys have been round the Horn
To Hell and back!
Now all we want is to be logged off
This floating coffin!
Hustle over here, dammit!"

Yea, to endure a damp, drizzly
November of the soul in this place,
With a world of adventure,
The seven seas and exotic ports
Beckoning just beyond the horizon
Was just too much to bear.
Was his family worth it?
His wife?
His children?

Was anything?

He wrote "NO!" in thunder,
Then shrugged and bent over his ledger.
He had pretty much made up his mind
To be annihilated.

Algorithm

Have you ever noticed
How the amount of shit
That a wife will put up with
Proportionately increases
In relation to the size
Of her husband's paycheck?

Sickos! All of Us!

Confess it!
All of you.
You'd get a vicarious thrill
Out of walking the Jack the Ripper Tour,
Or spending a trepidatious night
In the O.J. murder mansion,
Or the Lizzie Bordon Bed & Breakfast.

And admit it!
I will.
We've all followed newspaper accounts
With a morbid fascination
As a serial killer's tally mounts.

Monster Truck Bitterness

Cousin Hemmy slams into family gatherings
Angrily, snorting like a powerful monster truck
Entering an arena.  On the blunt, menacing hood
Of her face is painted a savage smile,
Like that of a P-52 Tiger Shark
Diving down upon a Japanese Zero.
She growls like a rotweiller through the mud-pit
Of amenities, aggressive as big tires
Ripping ruts into a wet track, Crunching
Conversations into frowns of dismay,
Confrontational as a game of chicken.

Embarrassed, her mother begs her pardon.
"She's just bitter because of her failed marraige."

Yeah, her husband saw himself about to be crushed
And had the sense to get in his car, step on the gas
And get the hell out of her way.  Now here she comes.
Unfufilled dreams hang on her like the acrid fumes
Of deisel fuel, and the battered fenders
Of her psyche mask scars of even deeper pain.
Now she's a malevolent behemoth
Fueled by her early disillusion with love.
Heartbreak's passion has curdled to emnity's sludge.
An emotion that she's far more at ease with.

Writer-in-Residence

He wears his black beret tilted at a jaunty angle
(So the word is whispered among awe-struck freshmen
Aware of his reputation) in homage to Joyce's genius
And his defiance of staid beef and potatoes morality.
Like Joyce, he dines on the ambrosia of literature.
His beard is scissor-trimmed perfect every morning,
Shaped to cultivate a resemblance to Hemingway.
His attire, a heavy woolen sweater, is just casual enough
To suggest an Artist's contempt for the whims of fashion,
And self-absorption that he hopes they'll mistake for genius.

He sits in the faculty lounge stroking his meerschaum pipe
As though poised on the brink of uttering some profiundity
That can compress all the secrets of the universe
Into a concise, pithy microchip of an utterance
As inspired as the poetry that he wrote twenty years ago.
Now he pays lip service to all the popular causes
And publishes learned monographs on obscure authors
Whose work rarely merits his efforts to resurrect them.
He's up for election to become the head of the department.

He's become adept at quashing the enthusiasm
Of naive and over-fervant literature students
With an intimidating arch of an eyebrow,
Or a cruel, cutting sardonic comment
That springs from the academic veldt to attack students
Who dare overstep their place in the college caste system
To extoll the virtues of some high school favorite.

"Indeed.  You're still reading him...I see..."

"I really don't think that her output addresses issues
That are of any concern to today's enlightened readers."

"Hmmm....He's popular enough.  I guess..."

Then he eases back into the plushness of his chair
Behind a low-hanging fog of Borkun-Riff tobacco smoke,
Studying the students through his serpent slits of eyes.
Study him though.  If you watch him long enough
You'll catch him glancing furtively about the room,
Desperately hoping that no one else will ever discern
That his reputation is nothing now but an empty shell
From which that mollusk, Genius, has fled long ago.

On Jailhouse Conversions

Jesus loves me, this I know
'Cause my lawyer tells me so.
This is what he says to me,
"Praise the Lord and cop a plea."
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
My lawyer says "Say so."

My Vices

I'll cling to my vices,
Thank you.
I hope that my spirit never atrophies
To the point
Where I'd rather spend my time
In a church
Rather than a bar room.

Buonarroti and the Bureaucrats

His guts twisted into a taut knot of frustrated disgust
At human stupidity.  "Sometimes I wonder," he grumbled
To himself, so as not to disturb the two-legged cattle
That plodded dumbly through his studio,
"What demon possessed me to pick up
This God-cursed chisel in the first place.
Jehovah is said to have shaped the universe in six days.
I've spent three years working to wrest an image
Out of this stubborn block of marble."
He paused to use his sleeve to wipe the sweat
From his forehead.  A bitter, thin smile
Creased his face as he consoled himself grimly.
"Of course, it's easier to shape clay
Than it is the unforgiving hardness of stone."

Two young boys were peering in at him, pausing
In mid-play to watch him labor for some moments.
But a sculptor works slowly.
It's as tedious to watch as it is tiring to the artist.
His arms felt as though some strange incantation
Had given their life to the statue
And had turned their sinew to stone.
A soldier's life looked far more exciting.
The boys picked up their wooden swords
And charged off to storm a Venetian breastwork.

Two shepherds straggled into his studio,
Bedraggled fellows who had travelled to Florence
To flee the scent of sheep, to get drunk,
To loose their manhood at "The Carnivale de Amore."
"It looks as big as I was last night," one boasted,
Pointing at the stone penis of the shepherd
Who was beloved of God.
"Bullshit," the other bellowed, poking his companion
A good one in the ribcage.
"It looks a lot more like a horse's cock."
They left in search of more carnal adventure,
Having paid their homage to art.

In swept the mayor with his retinue of sycophants
Following close enough behind him to feel the breeze
When he breaks wind.
"Can't you pick up the pace of this project a bit,
Buonarroti?" he demanded, with that air
Of self-importance that one acquires with an office.
"It would reflect positively on my term as mayor
To have this thing in place before the upcoming election."
As he spoke, his his boot-licking lackeys crooned their chorus
Of agreement.  Michelangelo silenced them with the look
That would someday grace his formidable figure of Moses.

He set his mallet down and reached for his wineskin.
Red liquid trickled down his chin, similar to the rivulets
Of blood that would sometime spring from a cheek
That had been pierced by a small sliver of marble,
Tiny shards that would spring forth to avenge
The assault on their parent stone.
More intruders.  He picked up his maul,
But paused to listen for their reaction.
Two stableboys were swapping rude suggestions
About his figure's slender buttocks.
He restrained his urge to hurl his chisel
In the direction of their laughter.

Earlier this morning a Vatican representative
Had paid him a visit, accompanied
By more disciples than Jesus.
"Just checking to see if your David conforms
To Old Testament details," he wheezed sanctimoniously.
The day before it had been the Florentine Garden Club.
"Flowers live and breathe," its chairman had whined.
"What life can you find in a chunk of rock."
How could he explain to those who would not see
That the rendition of his vision would last ages longer
Than one riotous summer of color.
They were blind to all but their own conception of beauty.

A pompous clearing of a throat "harrumphed" another trial.
Michelangelo turned to face it with his angriest glare.
Now the Department of Transportation had sent him
Two nuisances to try his already departed patience.
They were checking their figures to make certain
That the pedestal that his David would be placed upon
In all his marble majesty, conformed to regulations,
That it wouldn't impede the smooth flow
Of cart traffic, and that it could withstand a collision.
The bald-headed cretin with the double-chin
Was bemoaning the size of the capital outlay.
"It's a lot of money to spend on a rock," he muttered,
Glaring at the artist as if he were to blame.
"A grant from the Medici Foundation's a possibility,"
His aide suggested in a bureaucrat's expressionless monotone.
"Yeah, Lorenzo the Magnificent.  He's a sucker for art projects."
They laughed.  The generous patron was just a cow to be milked,
Another resource to be plundered.

The artist gripped his chisel as though
It was a bureaucrat's neck and struck it hard.
His thoughts were heating to a forge-hot resentment
That his genius could be held hostage by such cloddish
Cliques of literal-minded, regulation-enslaved,
Unimaginative, pot-bellied dolts.
In his mind he became the mighty Samson
As he strained to pull their temple down upon them.

Then he gazed up at his creation
And felt a sudden surge of pride.
Silently, he thanked the God that had given him the mind
That could see the figure imprisoned within the stone
That was begging to be released.
Yes, he guessed that he could put up with the simpletons,
The uncultured rabble and the rude, overbearing bureaucrats
For awhile longer.  He could even forgive
The gaggle of servant girls that had shyly slipped in
To gape at his young warrior's genitals.
Yes, to extract the image of the muscular young David
From that block of discolored stone, was almost
As great a feat as the young shepherd's victory
Over the Philistine giant.
He set down his tools to stare in awe
At the stubborn stone that he'd coaxed to life
With the breath of his creative genius.
Looking at his masterpiece, he had a moment's inkling
Of the exhaustion and pride that God Almighty himself
Must have felt toward the evening of the sixth day.

Let the bureaucrats bask in their petty moments.
He sensed that his name would live on forever.
Long after their names have long been forgotten,
Long after their pious pronouncements
Have ceased to be relevant, and long after
Their vision statements have crumbled into dust.

Winter's Last Patch of Snow

Obstinately resisting Spring
Winter's last patch of snow
Takes refuge under a stand of pines,
Crouching under the boughs
Like a homeless person,
Fearing today that the Sun
Will intrude upon his hiding place
And order him sternly to
"Move along."

Ida Toilwueri

I leafed for my last time through the yellowed envelopes
Adorned by postage stamp visages of dead statesmen.
Familiar faces that now mock me, impudent rebukes
To my once so vivid dreams of immortality.

Seeds of ideas would drift onto the soil of my mind,
Putting down roots into my fertile imagination.
Transplanted into words though, they'd wilt and die.
Images that bloomed in my soul droop lifeless on the page.

My pile of rejection slips grew larger than I'd ever dreamed
My reputation would.  This trunkful of manuscripts remains;
Brittle pressed flowers of visons that seemed to me beautiful,
That I'd nurtured and pruned in my mind until I plucked them.

A bouquet once picked, quickly dies.  Petals fall from stems
And are caught by the wind, fluttering onto the frozen ground,
Or an icy editor's desk.  From there they'll be swept aside,
Often unread, into neat little piles of leaves to be burned.

The grey walls of my mundane existance slowly pressed in
Upon me like the remorseless grip of a tightening vise.
All I'd gleaned from my existance was grey hair, aching bones;
The potter's field beckoning me like a hooded spectre.

The Horatio Alger creed that avers that failure
Can be overcome by dogged persistance is a lie.
Each rejection slip confirmed my worthlessness;
Another manuscript of mine had crawled home to die.

A soul bereft of pride is as ready to be toppled
As a statue of the leader whose regime's been overthrown,
As the fragile house of cards when its base is lightly nudged,
As a castle of sand at the onslaught of high tide.

Each slip hissed its message of failure, as age and despair
Hovered about me like winged demons extending their claws;
Sent by the Prince of Darkness to pull me into his pit,
I'd become ripe fruit for his minions to harvest.

This frail old woman had to finally let go of her dreams.
They've fled the grasp of my arthritic fingers, as do needles now
That I used to thread with such ease.  I guess an old clothesline
Will suffice now to finish the novel that nature had begun.

That bulky trunk, with its Flying Dutchman cargo of ghost
Of penned passion that has blotted stillborn onto paper,
Squats like Satan's black dog at the foot of my bed,
A mute reminder of the failure that has hounded my life.

That trunk could perform a service for me now, though.
I pulled it over to a spot beneath a rafter,
Stepped atop it, slipped a noose around my neck
And leaped
                  To meet whom I hope will be a merciful God.

Performing "Slam" Poetry

Three minutes, huh?  That won't give me much time.
It's not enough time to weave a complex analogy,
It's not enough time to weave an interesting narrative.
It's time for metaphors without direction;
No delving for deeper truths, no paths to knowledge,
But then I'm performing for an audience
With a short attention span, an audience
That's there to hear word-craft being dumbed down.
This is poetry compressed into a few sound bytes,
Into quick, slam-dunk Sports Centre imagery,
Into snide campaign commercial innuendo.
Here style earns more points than substance,
So like "Fed-Ex," you'd better learn to deliver.
Here an "in-your-face" attitude always plays well
With an audience weaned on trash-talking athletes.

I'm a poet, not some goddamned trained seal,
But if you're waiting for me to perform,
Then just toss me the beach ball
And I'll show you what I can do with it.
Maybe I'll perform some crude "put down" sketch
Like this one about a pretentious poet.
Yeah, this one ought to grab this group's attention.

At some of the poetry readings
That I occasionally participate in,
A fortyish woman, with dyed-blonde hair
Introduces herself,
Then adds in a syrupy voice
Dripping with New Age banality,

"My spirit name is "Moon Dancer."

When my turn to read follows hers,
Only my wife's cautionary
"Please don't embarrass me again" look
Prevents me for displaying my contempt
For such saccharine phoniness
By introducing myself,
Then growling in a voice
Drenched in packing house cynicism,

"My spirit name is "Fart Blossom."

Boris & Natasha Learn to Deal With Detente

"Welcome Moose and Squirrel," was hand-painted
In white on a silk sheet, "red" of course,
That was draped to cover a large sign.
Boris' moustache was barbed-wire grey;
Late Joe Stalin, grey as the Siberian sky,
Grey as a concrete prison complex.
Natasha's long hair was a waterfall
Of salt and pepper cascading down her shoulders.

"Ah...Marlboros," she cooed excitedly
As she opened the box that Rocky had given her.
"Real American cigarettes!  Thank you, dahlinks!
And Levis too!  You shouldn't have, Comrades."

"Yes, we're all COMRADES now," Boris intoned
Unctuously as he held the door of his dacha open.
Its plywood panelling looked tacky, but fresh paint
Gave it some color, and mums, a spy's favorite flower,
Nodded their heads from a recently planted garden.

After they were seated, Natasha went to the kitchen
And returned with a sterling silver samovar
Fragrant with the aroma of strong coffee.
Natasha poured Rocky a steaming cup.
While the moose admired the urn's lovely scrollwork
Rocky eyed his cup dubiously, then set it down.

Boris grinned at the squirrel's hesitancy.
"Don't worry," he assured him, "we won't poison you.
I'm a peacenik now.  I'm no longer nogoodnik."
Then in a hurt tone, he added, don't you trust us?"

Rocky still looked at his cup of coffee nervously.
Natasha picked it up and took a sip from it.
"See.  It safe to drink.  I've even kissed it for you."
The leggy Russian held up the samovar proudly.
"A gift from Fearless Leader," she boasted.

"Where is he now?" Rocky wondered.

'He didn't handle detente too well,"
Boris apologized in a sorrowful voice.
"The Politboro finally decided that he was ill.
They shipped him off to a sanitarium. 
The notorious "J" Ward.  He came out diffrent man.
He raises roses now, spoils four cats and owns
A dacha near a resort on the Black Sea."

Rocky gazed about at their bare-bones home,
Cheap panelling and whitewash covered concrete.
The few pieces of furniture looked military functional
Rather than homey.  Boris noticing him eyeing the place,
Spoke quickly.  "Squirrel.  How about trading hats?

It's an old Russian custom," the spy suggested.
Rocky examined the old fedora Boris had handed him
Skeptically. "A gesture of friendship," the spy insisted.
"Glastnost.  Here, I'll even throw in a couple
Order of Lenin medals just to sweeten the pot a bit."

"Well, if it's a gesture of friendship,"
Rocky sighed, looking at the fedora dubiously.
He removed his aviator cap and handed it to the Russian.

"Here,"  Boris said, as he hung a high-tech camera
Around the plucky little squirrel's neck.  "I have no need
For this anymore.  It's my old spy camera."
He looked at it wistfully as he bid it adieu.
"It and I have snuck into a lot of places together."

The conversation turned to which was colder,
Siberia or Frostbite Falls, and to the current
Whereabouts of Captain Peter Peachfuzz.
Rocky had heard that he'd had charge of a tour boat
At Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction,
But that he's lost that job when he'd run his boat aground.
The two ex-spies pledged to return the visit someday.

As squirrel and his moose buddy were leaving,
Natasha smiled sweetly and made a request.
"Would you mind putting on a flying show, Rocky?
Boris and I have always wanted to watch how you do it."
Bullwinkle picked up the game little rodent
In his right hand, ran forward with him, then hurled
Him into the air like a forward pass,
Like Brett Favre throwing a desperate "Hail Mary."

Airborne, Rocky dazzled them with a routine
Of barrel loops and Immelmann turns until,
Exhausted, he levelled out and took in the scene below him.
"Hokey Snoke, Bullwinkle," he gasped in alarm,
"I've been flying over a military base!"

Sirens were blaring and troops were grabbing rifles
And firing shots at the airborne intruder.
A well-aimed round hit the little aviator.  Plummeting
Down, he landed with a "thud," as dead a squirrel
As any you've seen fried by a power transformer.

Bullwinkle stood stunned as he watched angry security
Run up to him and shackle him in handcuffs.  Bewildered,
As the plywood walls were pulled down to reveal
A concrete blockhouse.  When Fearless Leader arrived
He said, "Superb, Badenov.  I liked the Potemkin village bit."

Boris grinned.  "Search the tree rat," he suggested.
"No doubt you'll find pictures of our military base
In that spy camera that you'll see hanging from his neck.
And to think that I trusted him," Boris sighed, padding
The case against them.  "Look.  He even stole my fedora.
You just can't trust anyone," he concluded piously.

"But, but, but,"  the confused  Bullwinkle stammered,
Sounding a lot like Captain Peachfuzz's tiny motorboat.

As the authorities led the squirrel's accomplice,
The shocked and thoroughly befuddled moose, past
A sign that now clearly read ""Military Base,
A No-Fly Zone.  Trespassers will be Shot"
Boris was grinning.  Natasha put her arms around him
And gave him a long, passionate kiss.

"Boris, my love.  You're still a nogoodnik."
Then she smiled suggestively and whispered in his ear.
"One favor, dahlink.  When we go to bed this evening,
Would you mind putting on squirrel's aviator cap?

George Keats

Left England
Seeking opportunity
In America

He settled in Kentucky
Built a flour mill
Built a lumber mill
Amassed a fortune
And built one of the first
Stone dwellings in Louisville

His brother John
Turned his back on
A promising career
As an apothecary
To devote his life
To writing poetry

That didn't sell

He died young

George always considered
John to be
Somewhat of a disappointment

A Portrait in Love's Gallery

Your perfumed vision drifts into my thoughts
Stealthily, like fog's enveloping embrace.
From the ivories of my mind's drawing room
The mellifluous music of desire
Wafts a passionate sonata to my soul.
I drink in your harmonious presence
Hungrily, like parched dry earth soaking up
The welcome moisture of a summer rain.

I respond to you like a plant does to light;
You've given me the impetus to grow.
The bright radiant warmth of your being
Has become the chlorophyll connection
That has coaxed this dull, sullen weed to burst
Its seed of self-absorption, to ascend
From its damp sepulchre of black despair
To dare the blinding bewilderment of love.

If I could paint the ecstacy of life
In love in words, I'd do you a field
Of fragrant clover wet with morning dew,
An emerald carpet of sun-drenched calm
Where rabbits frolic, their fur soft and warm
As your touch.  But my words are lifeless oils
Of inadequacy, doomed never to attain
The passionate eloquence of your kiss.

Innocence

Soft as a white tuft of dandelion puff
That a breeze picks up to examine,
Caress, then set down in delicate balance
Upon a blade of grass, you fled from me,
As quietly as a whisper of regret.

Like that lingering patch of April snow
That's there in the morning, yet gone by night.
Like the dew that glistens in the first light
Of a summer day, then flees before the heat,
You slipped away, along with childhood's wonder.

You didn't slam the door in a white hot rage
Or punctuate your decision to depart
With an explosion of recriminations.
It wasn't a memory milestone moment
Such as the loss of one's virginity.

I looked for you one day and discovered you'd left.
My sand castle of boyish illusions had been levelled
Beneath an all-engulfing tide of experience.
The leaders that I'd trusted to clear my path had
Lined their pockets and let brush devour the trail.

Our Nation's laws that I'd been taught to revere
Have been forged by corrupt black robed judges
Into the chains of greedy sweat-shop overseers.
My God has become a "Bogey-man" tale whose hell
Is used as "muscle" in evangelical shakedowns.

Love proved the cruellest disappointment of all.
The bright flame of reverent adoration
That I tended when I was its worshipful acolyte
Dimmed to cynicism as I saw love sold on sidewalks
Or dangled to peddle items from beer to mouthwash.

So Irretrievable is innocence now
That when I walk the woods to pluck at twigs of solace,
I can hear the frightened heartbeats in the burrows,
Sense the predator, and smell the musty decay of death.
Although I seek it, even Nature offers no solace,
So irretrievable is innocence now.

If God So Loved the World

If God so loved the world as I love you
And I'd his power, I know what I'd do.
I'd rid your world of hunger, death and pain;
I'd bind Mr. Devil in a golden chain,
Putting an end to his sly, wicked reign.
Of evil your world wouldn't have a clue
If God so loved the world as I love you.

If God so loved the world as I love you,
He'd remake the Eden that Eve once knew
For you, and you'd wield your influence well.
His fiercest wrath a smile of yours would quell;
Your tears would pardon the damned from hell.
He'd view his works in a much kindlier hue
If God so loved the world as I love you.

If God so loved the world as I love you,
He'd scan heaven for as beautiful a view
As you, and failing, deem it incomplete.
He'd leave his Angels for one more sweet,
Forsaking his throne to kneel at your feet.
If I had God's power, that's what I'd do
If God so loved the world as I love you.

Heroes

Just a reminder.
It should be actions
That earn one the honor
Of being called "a Hero"

Not just the donning of a uniform

"Operation Iraqi Freedom"

Pity the poor soldiers
Whose deaths are demeaned
By that dubious assertion
Etched on their headstones
For all eternity.

Damn the Administration
That offends all decency
By defacing their dignified
White military markers
With political propaganda.

Saint Francesca of Assisi

"For God's sake don't tell them about the bear,"
I cautioned her.  Gerta Sautalouma looked up
At me with surprised, uncomprehending eyes,
Like those of a puppy that had just been scolded.
Admitting that need had finally vanquished pride,
She'd submitted a plea for help from Social Services.
She'd received a reply.  Two caseworkers were
Coming to her home to assess her situation.

She'd just told me of the bear that she feeds apples to.
It lumbers up to her, tame as one of her dogs.
I'd met her today at the end of her long driveway
That nature was reclaiming with scrubby poplar,
Weeds, and knee-deep grass between the old ruts.
Every week I'd haul a load of bones and suet out to her;
I'd remain to help the gentle, plump-faced Finnish woman,
Who dressed in a flannel shirt and overalls, to load her sled.

"What would the bureaucrats make of her?" I wondered.
Pillars of stacked newspapers and sheet-covered ghosts
Of furniture past have conspired to compress her house
Into a labyrinth of narrows and hands and knees trails.
Gerta Sautalouma had gone without for too long
To let go of anything now.  Latticed with cobwebs.
Cardboard boxes still wait stacked in the living room
For the move that she could never bring herself to make.

A box of toys in a corner and a bat and glove by the door
Conjure up images of her twelve year old boy.
His blonde hair used to glisten in the morning sun
As he would run down the driveway to meet the bus.
The dust-covered smoking stand, the leather easy chair
That oozes a trail of stuffing toward a mouse nest,
The moth-ravaged clothing hanging in an upstairs closet;
To her, these are holy relics of her late husband.

She lives in the woodstove-warmth of her sauna now.
Often, lying awake in the silence of a winter night,
Her memories will limp on back to better times;
Her life before the accident that took her two men from her,
Leaving her to run the family grocery store, alone.
She'd failed, letting it slip through her toil-gnarled hands.
Hard-working and honest herself, she'd dispensed credit
To anyone who'd ask for it.  She trusted folks back then. 

The day her store was auctioned off, she fled in tears.
When people hurt they cope with pain in different ways.
Some coil into a hissing rage of brooding venom
And strike out at anyone who comes near them.
Some can shake hurt from themselves like a dog does the rain
While some flee from those who have hurt them, as did Gerta.
She took refuge in her home, like the battered child
Who hides in a closet to escape drunken blows and curses.

Bones lay scattered about her yard and driveway;
Brittle, bleaching remnants of life, giving her land
The appearance of an ancient battleground.
Last fall Costable Toivo paid her a visit.
Knowing she did without to feed her dogs, he donned the Law
To mask his mercy, and told her "Your dogs were chasing deer."
Ignoring pleas that would've softened Herod's heart,
He gave lead dispatch to all but two of her companions.

Late that winter she was telling me, her ruddy face
Livid with pain, anger and outraged disgust,
Of the heartless bastards that had abandoned
A box of puppies at the end of her driveway
In sub-zero cold.  "Three of them had frozen to death,"
She said mournfully, "but I was able to save the two
That were huddled in the middle."  Less than a year now
Since Toivo's slaughter, and she was back up to ten dogs.

"I just told them to let me be," she explained,
Her voice quavering with indignation.
"I just told them to stick their help up their ass."
The social workers, aghast at the living conditions
That had embraced her existance, had tried to pry her
From her home, but fled when she picked up a pitchfork.
"If I don't ask them for anything anymore," she insisted,
"They can't hurt me.  They'll have to leave me alone."

As she turned from me to pull her sled's burden
Of old bones down a rut of her driveway,
The fiery leaves of early autumn
Framed her bowed, kerchiefed peasant figure
In a blazing panorama of color.
Her canine disciples padded silently alongside her.
She was Saint Francesca of Assisi, surrounded
By the adoration of God's guileless creatures.

The Marble Valise

The stillness in Burlington's Aspen Grove,
That solemn sanctuary of remembrance,
Is remniscent of the quiet of a library.
To stretch this simile to a metaphor,
A cemetery is a card catalogue of granite.
Each life's compressed to vital statistics;
A name first, then a publication date,
Then when that tale of life went out of print.
At most, lives are summarized by epitaphs
That read like blurbs on a book's dust jacket.
Pithy statements, like "Loving Husband,"
"Gentle Wife," or "A Christian Gentleman,"
Or a bible verse, or a rhyming couplet;
Grief expressed in conventional fashion.
That's why the bag captures our attention.

A marble valise rests upon a square base,
As though some drummer had just set it down
For a moment, intending to return.
So out of place, this image of business
Amidst this serenity of silent stone.

"You don't sell a product, you sell yourself."

This maxim is drilled into salemen in training.
If a man takes this assertion to heart though,
Each slammed door, curt rebuff and refusal
Becomes a personal rejection.  This young man
Penned this last note before he took his own life.

"My trip has ended.  Send my samples home."

Chiselled on the base beneath the marble valise,
His words of despair, disillusionment and pain
Are there for us to touch like silent scars,
Fossils of anguish forever encased in stone.

Desire and the Ghosts of Drowned Sailors

Park Point, Duluth, Minnesota

She pauses to gaze out at the undulating blue water,
Breathing in the beauty of the scene, letting it lap
Over her, like waves gently massaging the shore.

The vista that has captured her attention
Has seen its sad sagas of storm and shipwreck,
But she's as oblivious to the lake's history
As she's aware of her looks, her bikini lines,
Her legs and her long cascading blonde hair.

    On June 7th, 1902, the whaleback Thomas Wilson
departed the Duluth harbor with a cargo of iron ore.
The George Hadley, bound for Superior, collided
with her shortly after she entered the open Lake.
Mortally stricken just forward of the aft hatch, the
Wilson sank within three minutes, going down with
9 members of her 23 man crew still trapped within
her hull.

The minds of the apparitions that still linger here
Are still stirred bv the sight of a gorgeous woman.
They can still remember the gentle caress of a hand,
The warmth of an embrace, and the desperate need
That can only be sated by two bodies uniting as one.
Death hasn't diminished their desire...or longing.

     On the afternoon of November 28th, 1905, the
Mataafa approached the Duluth Ship Canal.  Raging
waves and an 80 mile an hour wind gust slammed
the ship against the North Pier and spun the bow
around 270 degrees.  The Mataafa grounded in the
shallow water alongside the pier.  The ship was
pounded by enormous waves for several hours while
the temperature plummeted to below zero.  Thousands
of Duluthians watched as three sailors ran the length
of the ship from the bow to the stern and survival.
They watched one man turnback halfway, intimidated
by the enormous waves crashing upon him.  9 crewmen
froze to death that night while the city looked on
helplessly.

Ghosts gather to pay homage to her beauty.
Hands of dead sailors caress her breast.
Her nipples harden; she blames the breeze
That blows in cold off the lake, and wishes
She would have brought a towel to wrap around her.

A stoker from the Wilson imagines her
In his strong embrace, his whisker stubble
Rubbing raw against her face, then addresses
The futility of his desire with a sigh, and settles
For giving her a pat on her fine firm ass.
She doesn't feel it.  She feels nothing but
A momentary twinge of loneliness, a longing
For something that she just can't put a finger on.

     The night of April 28th, 1914, the grossly
overloaded freighter Benjamin Noble approached
the Duluth harbor during a nasty storm only
to discover that one of the pier lights had been
shattered by a huge wave.  Unable to gauge which
light it was, and remembering what had happened
to the Mataafa when she had met disaster
near the pier.
    Master John Eisenhardt turned his ship
north toward Two Harbors.
    The Noble was never heard from again.

The shade of one of the Noble's young crewmen
Approaches her reverently, then reaches out to
Touch a wisp of hair that the breeze tugs at.
When she reaches up to brush it back into place
He drifts away in a phantasmagoric fluster.
Too shy to approach a woman in life,
Death has left him still as socially inept.

The gorgeous woman turns and resumes her slow
Languorous stroll along the beach.  The ghosts
Of Gitchee Gumee dead step back to let her pass,
Still eying her with desire tempered with reverence.

She's approaching me.  I set down my book
On Lake Superior shipwrecks, and bestow
Upon her my own longing gaze of admiration.
I fail to elicit a response.   I'm as invisible to
And just as intimidated by the sight of
This wondrous Nordic goddess of beauty
As the apparitions of the doomed deckhands.

Where Do They Hide the Ugly Mormons?

Where do they hide the ugly Mormons?

I watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,
Teeth-capped and dazzling white
As snow on an Aspen ski slope,
The robed singers ooze wholesome
Family values through every pore
Of their unblemished complexions.

Even old Mormons age gracefully.
No lined, haggard smoker faces
Or jowls hanging down to one's collar.

The young missionaries that come to our door
With their offer to pray with us
To share their faith with us
To ask God to bless our house
Sport starched white shirts and ties;
They're dressed like the earnest young
Republicans that they are.
Still smiling sunnily
Despite repeated rebuffs.

Where do they hide the ugly Mormons?

It's said that the Spartans,
That warrior state of ancient Greece,
Would abandon their crippled or sickly infants
On the bleak wild of a mountainside
For the wolves to devour.

Could there be some secret slope
In Utah's Wasatch Mountain range
Where the bones of Mormon infants

Deemed "ugly"

Lay bleaching in the sun?

Frightened Little One

 "Let man have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creepeth upon the earth."
                                   Genesis 1:26

"I had to get her away from him
Before he killed her,"
His live-in whispered apologetically
As she handed the squirming little cat
With the black and white face,
Long, matted black hair,
Four white boots
And a crushed front paw
To Sandy at the Animal Shelter.

"How did this happen?" Sandy angrily demanded..

"Please...I don't want any trouble,"
The heavy brunette begged,
Her lined face and tired eyes
Betraying her own despair.
She knew what it was like to be hurt,
To be trapped in a relationship,
To live in fear
Like the little cat that she had just rescued.

"Just find her a good home," she pleaded.

Nancy and I saw two wide frightened eyes
As we peered into the cat carrier.
"Betty" was huddled at the rear of it.

Frightened little one,
Your first instinct has always been to run,
To dodge the hurt,
To flee from the pain,
To find that hiding place
Where you will be safe.

Cruelty is encountered in life
Far more often than kindness.
Love is far rarer than hate.

Trust, like religious faith
Is hard to recover
Once you've lost it.

You've adapted though.
You've learned to move on three legs,
Carrying your injured paw curled inward
Like an indictment of mankind.
Although you've come to trust us,
A stranger in the house,
A dropped pan,
A thunderclap
Or that evil vacuum
Will send you scurrying downstairs
To the safety of a hiding place.

Your first instinct will always be to run,
To dodge the hurt,
To flee from the pain.

I recently read of mountains wrapped in mist
Deep in the New Guinea wild
Surrounded by almost impenetrable jungle.
Deep within their mystery
Scientists discovered
Previously unknown species of monkeys,
Birds of Paradise, bower birds
And ring-tailed kangaroos.
The creatures were so trusting
That a man could approach one slowly
And gently pick it up.

They've yet to experience the cruelty of man.
They'll soon learn reasons to fear him.

Rage of Troubadors

In the days of the Lion Richard, of tournaments,
And honor, in the days of faith and innocence,
Troubadors, those minstrels with the velvet voices
Would roam through the realm cloaked in silken raiment.
In the pastoral splendor of Antiquity
They could touch the hearts of their listeners
With wands of song charged with melodious magic.
They'd weave their reveries into a tapestry
Of wonderous images and romantic rhapsody
That would leave their audiences rapt with emotion.

Chivalry and romance have hardened to asphalt and steel;
Savage, soulless structures that house their inmates
In the bleak grey harshness of urban despair.
We need Revolutionaries now, not sonnets.
We need poets who mirror the rebelliousness of our age.
They ravage their voices with shouts of angry defiance
Punctuated with chords of electric violence.
They claw at their instruments with a frenzied passion,
As though raw brutality could wrest wisdom from them
And translate it into waves of charged pandemonium.

Those screams that you hear are the rage of troubadors
Doomed to live in their grey hell of concrete and steel.

Don Juan

Cloaked in bitterness brought on by a surfeit
Of desire, he made love out of contempt

Of self.

Enraptured only with the romance of the pursuit,
His  lust would cut through the pretentions of love

To wound

The woman who would soon come to despise them both;
The Prize, with her severed pride dripping its blood

Of tears.

Content to be with her tonight, though.  Aroused
By the perfumed warmth of her body, her breasts,

Her touch,

He almost came close to telling her that he loved her.

Almost.

God's Mercy and Justice

Christians boast incessantly
Of their God's mercy and justice,
But if you ask me,
Their Creator's reputation
For jurisprudence is unmerited.

Can you imagine the uproar
If a judge were to sentence a man
To a lifetime in prison
For "Jaywalking?"

How is that any more absurd
Than condemning a man
To an eternity of damnation
For the sins of a lifetime?

For Love Of Aphrodite

Keen-eyed Mikos saw through his mortal guise.
The God was tending a forge in Acardy.
He'd worked a sword into a spade
And a shield into an infant's bathtub
Before his eyes clouded too full of tears
For him to work further.  Sighing like a bellows,
He surrendered to his misery, sat down,
And daubed at his eyes with thick sweaty fingers.

Disconcerting are a God's tears to men.
We view them as beings beyond our pain.
Mikos turned to flee, lest like Actaeon
He'd be punished for viewing the forbidden.
If it was death to watch a Goddess bathe
A God's anguish could augur an awful fate.
Hephaestus looked up and banished his fear
By beckoning him to come sit beside him.

"Ares is with her again," he explained,
His voice quivering with the indignation
And despair of a husband betrayed.
"My thoughts wander in a labyrinth of loneliness
Wherein all the corridors of desire and need
Lead only to her.  But she laughs at my love.
She seeks pleasure instead in the brutal passion
And battle-scarred visage of the God of War."

"Why do you remain with her?" Mikos wondered,
Emboldened by the God's confession.  "If my woman
Left my bed for another's embrace, I'd never take her back."
"My pride tells me I should leave her," the God admitted,
"But to rage at her infidelities
Would cut me off from that radiant beauty
Whom being close to is like basking in Spring warmth
After a lengthy, fog-laden winter of chill.

Her skin is as soft as a good-night caress,
Her lustrous hair as sweet-scented as hyacinth.
Her moist red lips glisten like rose petals
That just beg to be plucked with one's tongue.
Her nearness thickens my brain as fine wine does,
My legs become unsteady, my voice falters,
And my feelings entwine in exaltation and fear
As a warrior's thoughts do before battle.

Now I've got to get back to my work," he sighed.
"I'm going to shape her a delicate brooch
Of sapphire set in silver filagree,
Wrought to portray spindrift and sea-spray
Leaping up from the blue as it collides with the rocks
To snatch at the gold of the sun.  Imagine
The delight in her eyes when I present it to her.
How her smile will light up the room!"

A Villanelle of Unrequited Love

Come my fair lass and lie with me
My need for you I here reveal.
With you is where I long to be.

Let me become your devotee
And with a kiss our love we'll seal.
Come my fair lass and lie with me.

For my heart's lock you've got the key,
My loneliness your love can heal.
With you is where I long to be.

Please listen to my anguished plea,
Before you I abjectly kneel.
Come my fair lass and lie with me.

Don't spurn me with a harsh decree
Or pierce my heart with your spiked heel.
With you is where I long to be.

If need's a crime, hear my appeal.
I'll plea bargain; now here's the deal.
Come my fair lass, just lie to me.
With you is where I long to be.

A "Kinder, Gentler Nation"

The rent's overdue
The car payment's late
"Whose fault has become
A couple's debate.
They swap blame
Til he becomes irate
Angry Words
A SLAP
A FIST
A SHOVE
She glares up at him now
With her eyes filled with hate.

Poverty is the assassin of love.

Seeing the Light for What It Is

Eagerly pulling my hand toward the fairground,
My young son's mind was already lassoed
By its thumping music, the tastebud teasing smells
Of cotton candy, funnel cakes and corn dogs,
And the lights.  his eyes were captivated
By their bright cacaphony of cavorting colors.
My memories of having been conned by carneys;
And of watching one bashing his battered wife
Against their trailer door when I once cut through
A fair's dark parking lot, kept my pace at a walk.

The spinning lights and the soul-snaring rhythm
Of the club scene held me in its grasp for awhile.
How I longed to possess the grace and confidence
To give myself to the music.  The only moves I knew
Though were the clumsy locksteps of loneliness.
How I envied the smooth men their lovely partners.
The times the band would take a break, the lights
Would cease to dazzle, and I'd glimpse on other faces
The same isolation I felt.  We drank to drown shyness
While yearning desperately to belong, to be loved.

Mammon's Temple is ablaze with colored lights.
It's ads say "you can't be a winner if you don't play."
The jangling bells whistles and the thrill of a jackpot
May change your life.  After all, don't you deserve it?
Games of chance use lights to promote instant riches
That beckon seductively as sirens ships to ruin.
The faces of the players are taut with an intensity
That takes hold of them as firmly as sexual desire.
The unbridled greed, the desperate need...to win
Enough to buy status, respect, freedom and love.

"I am the Light and the Lamp of the World,"
Asserts The Christ; yet I've seen how light is used
To seduce, cajole, scam and delude us.  Deceptive
Practices more worthy of the Prince of Darkness.
We come into being in the blindness of the womb;
Lovers slip into the evening shadows to embrace,
Or turn out the lights before they make love...or dream.
We rest and rejuvenate our body in darkness.
We hide our tears at night or use its cloak to dry them.
I've seen the light for what it is.  Draw the shades.

The Squire and the Wizard

Mind-mired in vainglorious dreams
Of moon-lit moors and lonely Lords,
Of slaying savage evil-doers,
Of sighing sirens, singing swords,
I ventured off to Camelot.

Merlin's eyes were mesmerized
By sinister visions of woe,
Singular sagas of sadness
Madness and deaths I'd yet to know.

Steeped in sorcery, Merlin's mind
Seethed with strange Satanic visions,
Searing scenes of funeral fires,
Augeries of fatal decisions.
I soon would enter Camelot.

Maimed by Merlin's maniac gaze,
His meaningless chants and mumbling,
I stammered out my knighthoood ambition;
My confidence though, was crumbling.

Obsessed with morbid mysteries,
He morbidly smiled, as though amused.
His wizened fram mingled macabre
With malignant as I stood confused.
I had arrived at Camelot.

Malicious misanthropy marked
His mood.  He said "Your virtue needs a test."
From his cloak he drew a mirror.
He sneered as he told me of my quest.

"Until the terms of this task you've met
Set no foot near Camelot's door.
Unravel the riddle of self. 
Take this mirror."  He said no more.
I had been banished from Camelot.

Meandering through mazes of madness,
Menaced by minstrels of might,
I doubt I shall solve this riddle of self
On this, or any other night.

But still, I'll retain the mirror,
This strange gift of Merlin's, so precious.
It helps me view myself, I'll keep it near.
Why did Merlin call me "Narcissus?"
I doubt I'll again visit Camelot.

The Used Book

"Look," my wife said, handing me the volume
She'd been reading.  "This book is so old
That someone had to cut its pages apart."

I examined the faded orange binding
That read "Lincoln's Sons" by Ruth Randall.

"I find it comforting," Nancy continued,
To know that someone's read this before me.
It's as if they've cleared a path for me."

I imagined the book's first owner
Painstakingly using a penknife
Or perhaps a silver letter opener
Shaped like a sword to cut through the pages.
His blade scattering the screeching "J's"
As he swats away "B's," ignoring their sting.
Holding at bay with that thin blade of steel
The sneaky "R's" with their legs out to trip one,
And "S's, hissing, rearing, getting ready to SSStrike.
There's "K's" with their lances held at the ready,
The jagged menace of the slashing "Z's,"
And coiled "G's," gnashing their terrible jaws,
Waiting to gobble up the unwary.
There's "T's," their arms reaching out to grab you
And hurl you into the gaping maw of an "O."
It's a conquered empire of evil letters,
Cowed into submission by the Balboa
With the machete that cut through each page,
Blazing a trail for future readers.

The subdued alphabet surrenders to grammar,
Submitting to being ordered into

Words..... Sentences.....Paragraphs

Subject thoughts now, except for the unruly few
That sullenly muster to mutter resistance,
Giving voice to their anger and frustration
With words like 'war,'  ' assassin' and 'bullet.'

At the Gravesite of Richard Mentor Johnson

The marble eagle perched atop the tall white column
With a wreath of laurel clutched firmly in its beak
Is a symbol of the young Nation's gratitude
To you, Colonel Johnson; Vice-President, soldier,
And slayer of the valiant Chief Tecumseh.

Egyptian Pharaohs adorned their dark chamber walls
With scenes of triumph.  You drank a flagon full too, Sir.
You let the victory at the Battle of the Thames
Boost you into Van Buren's Vice-Presidency.
A heartbeat away from the prize, you ran with him again
Against the Whig ticket of Harrison and Tyler.
When the ticket "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" was shouted,
Good Democrats would bellow back "Rumpsey Dumpsey!
Rumpsey Dumpsey!  Colonel Johnson KILLED Tecumsey!"
Yeah, you guys really knew how to address the issues.

If an elaborate marble tribute is a gauge
Of greatness, Colonel, you were a hell of a man.
Homer, Hannibal and Tecumseh have no gravesite
Memorials, but you have a bas-relief of you
On horseback slaying the noble Chief Tecumseh.
From a white man's elevated horseback status
Your pistol triumphs over Red-man's tomahawk,
The Chief's knees buckling like broken boughs, his body
Falling backwards into the lap of autumn frost; this death
Etched in stone is that of the brave Chief Tecumseh.

Tecumseh saw the end coming, Colonel Johnson.
He told Harrison at the great council at Grouseland
"Your great Chief far off won't be injured by war.
He'll sit in town and drink wine while you and I fight it out."
He divined his death in the entrails of change and donned
His war-paint to meet it like a man.  Could've you
Been as fearless Colonel Johnson?  To have outlived
His wits; a slovenly, ill-kept tavern keeper like you,
Age-ravaged and babbling drivel, is a finish
That Tecumseh would have ended rather than endured.

Was this the apex of your career then, Colonel,
That you celebrate in the permanency of stone?
Tying Tecumseh's life like a scalp to your belt
By depicting your role in his death.  How pathetic.
His words and deeds still spark our imagination
While your boastful monument is all that remains
To broadcast your greatness, and its mute testimony
Is slowly giving way to the weathering of time.

I've Got the Monday Morning, I Hate My Fucking Job, I Hate My Life, & I Hate the Whole God Damned World and Everyone in it Blues

(A villanelle)

Mankind may all depart to hell,
That evil, proud, rapacious race.
May I live to hear its funeral knell.

To hear the tolling of that bell
Would bring a smile to my glum face.
Mankind may all depart to hell.

I want to be the one to tell
Of mankind's final fall from grace.
May I live to hear its funeral knell.

May they all end up where demons dwell,
With no one there to plead their case.
Mankind may all depart to hell.

It would suit me so very well
To see it gone without a trace.
May I live to hear its funeral knell.

Only their demise my rage will quell,
That mistake of God's, the earth's disgrace.
Mankind may all depart to hell.
May I live to hear its funeral knell.

The Return of Lady Depression

Depression, my old acquaintance,
Has returned to haunt me again.
She's the slut we all banged in our youth,
As immortal as an Anne Rice vampire;
As necessary a companion to us then
As to those who donned a Byronic pose,
The sensitive languor of an aesthete,
The "Lost Generation's" cynicism,
James Dean's rebellious attitude,
The world-weariness of the Beats, or
Wandered Morrison's wilderness of pain
The world of "grunge" or the darkness of Goth.

She's more than a little embarrassing
To have show up again  in my life.
She knows my deepest secret fears;
She's been a witness to my indiscretions;
I have confided to her my dreams.
She knows how far I've fallen short of them.
She's prodding me with them now,
Playing picador to my pain-maddened bull.

She's the reign of psychological terror
That ravages my psyche's eco-system.
My feral mind is glutted with morose images
That multiply like zebra mussels.
Dark musings breed unchecked,
Running through my mind
Like nutria through Louisiana bayou.
The channels of my ambition are clogged
As though choked with water hyacinth.
She's the lamprey that saps my vitality,
The kudzu that wraps my bleak perspective
In a blanketing growth of thick green despair.
I begin to flagellate myself with regrets
And self-recrimination,
Ripping deep chunks of flesh
From my self-esteem.

Now she's clutching at my arm like a drunk
Craving love and reassurance.
She's slobbering sentimental over me.
Yeah, my old acquaintance has returned.
It looks as though she'll be around for awhile.
She's brought a lot of baggage with her.

I'm thinking
Tonight she wants me to take her

Out drinking

My Wife's Dream Journal

Nancy keeps a journal of her dreams;
Moths that flutter in out of midnight darkness
That she's caught and penned between blue lines
In a spiral notebook, pale butterflies of night
Beckoned by brain neuron light.
She'll release them to dream interpreters,
Who'll share, analyze and classify them.

I hold secret the sacred content of my dreams.
I don't need a Daniel to interpret them, or wish
To bring them to read to a discussion group.
It's just dream-life, something sickly pale,
Excretions of the unconsciousness,
Pus secreted in fantastic rivulets of visions;
The night sweats of a fevered mind.

Yet even in deep sleep I can distinguish dreams
From reality.  It's as if there's a part of my mind
Standing aside from the action, observing,
Yet detached, like Rod Serling as he steps into view,
The smoke curling up from his cigarette
As he submits commentary 'for our consideration'
After an opening scene from The Twilight Zone.

I can always spot some incongruity in my dreams;
Something that stands out like a boundary stake
Or a cairn of stones that's there to remind me
That it is just a dream.  Perhaps it's a friend
I've made recently appearing where I worked
Years ago, or an inflatable Miller Lite chair
Mocking the formal setting of my dining room.

It's a surveyor's marker that's there as an aid,
Like cleats on my boots, or a sturdy walking stick;
Something firm to take hold of, like a handrail;
Something solid to help me keep my balance
On the slippery slope of dream perspective,
A compass to show me where I am, to keep me
From falling prey to nightmare-spawned madness.

On her desk lies my wife's journal of dreams.
Does she dream in color or in black and white?
Does she dream of a beach and a sun-bronzed surfer,
Of cuddling with some country-western singer, or
Is she riding behind some tatooed biker?
Are her dreams as practical as she is?
Is she immersed in her dreams or aloof like me?

Now's my chance to find out.  Her gathered dreams
Rest within easy reach, as enticing a read
As an older sister's steamy diary might be.
Should I violate her trust?  Should I trespass upon
What visions the dream-weaver has woven for her?
No. I value the privacy of my own nocturnal realm
Too highly to feel comfortable with invading hers.

Besides, I might discover in reading her journal
Just how far I've fallen short of her dreams.

Hug Tightly Your Dreams

Hug tightly your dreams.
They bring you comfort and solace
Like the stuffed animal companions
Of your childhood.

When you box them up
And lock them away
In your mind's attic,
You begin to age.

The wine of aspiration
Becomes the vinegar
Of a defeated psyche.

There Ain't Any God for us Working Men

The poem read by Angus McDermott
at the Coaltown Tavern the night before
his pit boss pulled him from the mine to fire him

See that whitewashed church, you working people,
And that sanctimonious asshole in white.
The company owns that church, lock stock and steeple
And has the preacher sewn up just as tight.
If I've told you this twice, I'm saying it again.
There ain't any God for us working men.

Sure, religion's good for our wives and wee folk.
It brings them solace, some comfort to seek out
When they hunger, the baby's dying, or the yoke
Of wage slavery hurts so much you just have to shout.
A working man knows though, that it's all just a joke;
Just company preachers blowing company smoke.

"Labor not for wealth in this life," they smugly say,
"But lay up your treasure for the next."
The company must have found their own way
To interpret this, or reads from a diff'rent text.
They live in brick houses, and drive their fancy cars.
They add to their vast fortunes by short-changing ours.

You can bet that the bible-thumper's sermon
Has been approved by the company brass.
If you think you'll get God's word from those vermin,
You stupid bastards can just kiss my ass.
They tell you, "Be content with your lot in this life,
Work hard, distrust Unions; just go home to the wife."

We tunnel rats sit in back on folding chairs
While the owner's family hogs the front pew.
If we step out of place we get hostile stares
From company spies who watch what we do.
There ain't any God for us working men,
The damn owners have bought him off too.

Had enough of the company store, low wages and lies?
Had enough of their religion?  Join me and unionize!

When Good Yuppies Go Amish

As Stringtown Grocery comes into view
Yuppie daddy points at the black buggies;
Horses tethered to the rail, nodding to each other,
Slightly swinging their necks, snorting impatiently
As though engaged in a wordless conversation.

"Hey Posse!  What goes
Clip Clop Clip Clop Clip Clop

Bang!

Clip Clop Clip Clop Clip Clop?"

Without lifting his eyes from his Gameboy
His son responds with bored indifference.
"What?"

"An Amish drive-by," his old man responds,
Grinning foolishly after delivering the punch line.

His son dignifies his dad's effort with a slight chuckle;
His daughter bristles with haughty embarrassment.
Her dad calls his kids "his posse,"
"His Homeys."
He has no idea how ridiculous he sounds,
Striving to be "cool" and failing in his attempts
As miserably as an air conditioner lacking Freon.
She just wishes that her father would realize
That he's reached that annoying age of dotage
That parents reach when one becomes a teen-ager;
The age where they should be seen, but not heard
And certainly not listened to.

'Aren't you coming in, Gary?" the dad asks.

"I'll just sit here and play my Gameboy."

"Come in with us," his dad cajoles him.
Anxious as Clark Griswold to make this day
A most memorable family outing.
"You might meet some hot Amish chick."

His son grunted the most skeptical of snorts;
Then his mind begins to wander toward
Fantasies of Playboy's Miss April,
He imagines her wearing an Amish bonnet,
Her ample breasts swelling, as if yearning
To burst the restraint of her bodice;
A veritable virginal prairie Venus
Longing for just the right young man
To step out of the pages of a romance novel,
Saunter into the store, make eye contact with her
And maybe ask her out to a forbidden movie.
Inside the theatre she'd remove her bonnet,
Let her long black hair tumble down her shoulders,
And make out passionately with her English lover.

"Yeah, I guess I'll come in with you guys,"
He sighed, putting on a show of acting as resigned
As one of Fox's Martyrs being led to the stake.
A sacrifice to dad's concept of family togetherness.

The earnest-looking bonneted young girl
Behind the grocery check-out counter
Failed to live up to young Gary's vivid imagination.
Plain and simple without a hint of sexy.

Inside the store his parents both began to wallow
In the Amish experience to the point of looking
Ludicrous.  Gary was so mortified.
His dad was kneeling on the floor,
Chatting on his cell phone with one of his golf buddies
About the different kinds of trail mix for sale.

"They have a cranberry nut with yogurt chips,
Mixed dried fruit with little pineapple chunks,
And a mix of raisins, craisins and granola."
People actually had to step around him. 
Gary was sort of hoping someone would give him
A little nudge with their foot.  He certainly would have.

Gary grabbed a couple bags of gummi worms,
Then dropped them into his old man's cart.
He'd have fun grossing his sister out with them later,
Dangling them from his mouth, or from his nose.

Caitlin glared at her mother as she read the labels
Of spices and teas packaged in little plastic tubs.
Mom was enunciating the names annoyingly loud,
Sounding like some grade school kid called upon
To read a portion of a book to her classmates.

"Catnip, Chamomile, Spruce Needle, Fennel,
Echinacea, Rose Hip, Licorice Root, Thistle..."
Yeah, Mom was babbling into her phone as well.

They filled their cart with treats to take home,
A Yuppie hunting-gathering expedition;
Bologna, cheese, ripe tomatoes, homemade fudge,
A caramel roll, pretzel balls, a rhubarb pie;
As if consumerism could lead to contentment,
As if a stuffed stomach could be the answer
To filling that void of spiritual emptiness
That they're sometimes too acutely aware of.
That missing intangible "something"
That perhaps the Amish have found.

Such foolish vanity to expect to comprehend
The nuances of a culture in an afternoon visit.
Everyone lugs their own upbringing, education,
Prejudices and presuppositions with them
Like sets of outdated luggage that contain
Too many experiences to let go of
To pick up and lug around someone elses.
Urban attitudes cling to these folks as stubbornly
As the odor of booze and cigarettes does
Long after one has left a tavern's smoky confines.

As they leave the grocery, the yuppie daddy
Motions toward yet another horse and buggy.

"Hey homeys!
\What goes Clip Clop Clip Clop Clip Clop

Bang!

Clip Clip Clop Clip Clop Clip Clop?"

This time he uses his index finger as a pistol barrel
To punctuate the gunshot in his joke.

Then they climb into their mommy van;
Plastic people with their plastic phones,
Plastic toys and plastic purchasing power;
Their vehicle, lives and mind-sets
As alien to Amishland
As the tattered Wal-Mart bag
Snagged on a branch of a hackberry tree
That reaches out to stretch across the gravel road
That meanders slowly out to the Country Store.

Fading into the Light

Having witnessed the pre-dawn miracle
Of my son's birth, I left the hospital
Raptly clutching the Polaroid image
Of him blanketed in blue swaddling,
His cheeks scratched by tiny fingernails
Clumsily flailing against the brightness,
The light that engulfed him after the slap
And the snip of his umbilical cord.

My Mother-in-Law's kitchen light was on.
My knock intruded upon her Sunday rite
Of communion with coffee and newsprint.
Gazing tenderly at my new son's picture,
She embraced her role shift from a mother
To grandmother, her love eminating
Already toward that image of a child
Who would come to mean so much to her.

The child whose name has now fled her memory.
A strong woman can accept growing old,
Embracing each year like a new grandchild,
Something to be lovingly fussed over.
Louise had never been that strong.  Childlike
In her vanity, she'd been an ornament
On the arm of both husbands she'd outlived.
She was happiest when dressed in fine gowns.

Never so devastated as on that day
When after having caused an accident,
She heard an officer refer to her
Via radio, with "Joe Friday" terseness
As "a confused elderly woman."
"Do I really look that old?" she asked us
Tearfully, as if our denials could help
Turn back the hands of time's ruthless advance.

Now Alzheimers is hastening her decline.
Her memories have lost their focus.
Images flee beyond recollection
Like photgraphs that have been left too long
Upon a desk for the sun's rays to caress,
Sapping them of their detail and color.
Clarity fades into a shroud of indistinct white
That wraps her thoughts in a befuddled haze.

Osteoporosis bends her body forward
Into a question mark that puctuates her
Confusion.  She hears words she no longer
Comprehends, has thoughts she's no longer able
To express.  As death approaches she'll curl up
Into a fetal-position, womb-secure.
When the brightness that spooks a newborn beckons,
She'll head toward the Light and be absorbed in it.

Letting Go of Louise

(A poem written for my wife, Nancy,
 Shortly after the death of her mother, Louise.)

I wish I could weave the language of love
Into a comforter to keep you warm.
I wish you could take my prayers with you
As lanterns to illuminate your path.
I wish that my embrace could hold you back
From your appointment with eternal sleep.
I wish that I could accompany you
For part of your story, like Orpheus,
Who dared Death's dark realm for his beloved.

Like you stood with me my first day of school
As we waited together for the bus;
That big orange Bluebird coming to wrest me
From the security blanket
Of my home's familiar surroundings.
Unlike the old Marvin Rainwater song,
I didn't want to "find me a bluebird" that day,
But you lingered there with me and held my hand.

Now it's your turn to go away.
I've never seen a baby enter this world
Without anguished tears and wails;
It's tiny fists flailing at the indignity
Of being pushed from the comfort of the womb.
I've watched too many friends leave this life
With a final sigh of welcome relief.

Mom, I'll be there to hold your hand
Until the end, but I can't go there with you.
Take my love with you though; like a nightlight
Let it be there to comfort and reassure you.
If there is an afterlife, may yours be
As beautiful as the lake you were named for.

While You Sleep (a Rondo)

While you sleep
A thousand different couples fall in love.
A young man begs "a shrine of hers to keep,"
A lock of hair, perhaps a scented glove.
She smiles, complies and sighs, but soon she'll weep,
While you sleep.

While you sleep
A thousand sordid rendezvous take place.
A wife slips out of bed to lightly creep
A few doors down.  To her shame and disgrace
She finds her love's made vows that he won't keep,
While you sleep.

While you sleep
A frightening cataclysm is unleashed.
A earthquake's shaking terror.  Death will reap
A bumper crop tonight.  The screams soon ceased.
Man's God has slaughtered men as man does sheep,
While you sleep.

While you sleep
A soul ascends her way to heaven.  Soon
A blind, indifferent God will end her sleep.
A callous slap.  A harp that's out of tune;
She starts, awakes, observes.  Proceeds to weep,
While you sleep.

Won't you sleep.
Please.
Only in our dreams
Is disillusionment a stranger.

The Love Song of J. Snidely Whiplash

Let us go Nell, you and I
While the Canadian sunset is splayed out
Across the blood red sky like an otter pelt
Stretched out upon a skinning-board.
Let us walk through pine-scented woods,
Down trails that wander like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent.

What?  You don't trust me?

When I tied you to that railroad track
And you watched that locomotive coming at you,
It's whistle whining, its air brakes screeching;
It was just my obsessive devotion.
If I couldn't have you, then no one should.
If you were my woman I'd never hurt you.

In a room where couples come and go
I'd trump them all with you in tow.

You know, when I lashed you to that log
And turned on the sawmill conveyor that carried you
Ever closer to that deadly whirling blade,
It was just an act of love; showing you symbolically
That I could never share you alive with someone.
If you were my woman I'd never hurt you.

Would it be remiss
To ask for just a kiss?

Curses.  Foiled again.

I should have been a pair of bankers claws
Stacking bills gleaned from a teller's cage.
Someday there may come a time
When I may tire of turning widows and orphans
Out into the Canadian cold.
Already my hair is growing thin;
I'm seeing the start of a double-chin.
I now need more than just a little moustache black
To camouflage the ravages of time.
Otherwise, you know what they say...
There's "No play for Mr. Gray."
There's no love in a single's bar for an aging rogue.

I have measured out my life by foreclosed mortgages.

When I tied you to that other log
And sent you hurtling down that flume
Toward death in an icy, log-jammed river,
It was just a way of stating metaphorically, Love,
That I'd like to take you on a wild ride.
The wide-eyed terror that I witnessed on your face
Was at least an emotion more comely
Than the indifference or scorn you've shown me.
If you were my woman, I'd never hurt you.

In a room where couples come and go
I'd trump them all with you in tow.

Is it the perfume on your dress
That makes me so digress?
Would it be remiss
To ask for just a kiss?

Curses.  Foiled again.

Goodness isn't all it's cracked up to be, Love.
Doesn't the urge to be somewhat naughty prick you
A little bit, like the stays of your corset?
That straight-arrow Boy Scout of a Mountie
With the cleft jaw and the I.Q. of a sea slug,
Won't he become boring after awhile?

Deep-six the ribbons and bonnet, Nell,
And jettison the virtuous look.
I'd like to see you in stiletto heels
And a short black skirt slit up to your hips.
I'd love to see your long golden hair set free
To cascade like a waterfall down your back,
Your smile brightened by whorehouse red lipstick,
Smoke curling seductively from the cigarette
You hold in your slender manicured fingers.

Is it the perfume on your dress
That makes me so digress?

To see you dressed so fetchingly erotic,
My Love, would be a sight enticing enough
To make any man's moustache curl.
You know, my black beaver hat
Isn't the only large possession I take pride in.
Why do you think I wear a loose cape?

Let me be your Alec D'Urberville.
Let me do my damnedest to corrupt you.
I'll bet ther's a sultry vixen
Simmering beneath your muslin skirt.
I've seen you stroking the muzzle
Of that stupid Do-Right's horse,
Like some doped-up burlesque queen
Getting ready to straddle the bologna pony.

Let me take you downriver, Nell,
To dwell in Big Easy decadence.
There we can laughingly stroll past Piety
And choose to live our life on Desire instead.
We'll make love in the languid mornings
And Revel at night with the Dixieland bands.
We'll drink absinthe, and shuck and suck oysters.
You can flash your tits from our balcony, and
I'll help catch the beads that are tossed up to you.
Together we can live a life of lavish excess

Until our sins engulf us and we drown.