Popeye Gets his Ass-Chewed by a Personnel Director

Sit down, Mr. Sailor Man, we need to chat.
That's alright.  No need to take off your hat.
Please though, put that malodorous pipe away.
At King Features here, we mean what we say
When we call ourselves a No Smoking facility.
Certainly you ought to have the ability
To comprehend and respect company rules,
But you choose not to.  Do you take us for fools?
Do you  believe that as King Feature's top name
That you don't have to play by the rules of the game?
I'm awfully sick of your Neanderthal style.
I've watched you demean Alice the Goon for awhile.
She carries a torch for you.  Imagine that?
And she's tries so hard, she bought a pillbox hat,
A string of pearls and a brand new blue dress;
Though what she sees in you, I'll have to confess
I don't.  Your sexist comments will have to cease.
"She's gots more shades of ugly than bilge rats have fleas."
When she heard you say that, it brought her to her knees.
For all you know, she might have the soul of a Venus,
But you're part of a genus that thinks with its penis.
Let's face it, Popeye, you're a chauvinist pig.
Poking fun at Ms. Oyl 'cause her breasts aren't that big,
Then suggesting implants.  That was callous and rude.
You've got to be the most disgusting and crude
Employee that I have to deal with here,
And your atrocious grammar, oh dear!
What an embarrassment you've become to the firm.
I swear, you haven't the faintest of a germ
 Of an idea of proper pronunciation
"I yam what I yam," such vile enunciation.
"Strong to the finich," also grates on the ears.
I could consult with Professor Higgins, but my fears
Are that even he couldn't teach you proper King's speech,
I can already hear him cursing, and shouting with a screech,

"By Jove, this bloody rotter is impossible to teach!"

And your awful "table manners."  I shouldn't have to preach.
Perhaps I ought to cut a former Navy man some slack,
But when you greedily consume your spinach, you lack
The basics in manners. My God!  Straight from the can!
And you devour it in three gulps.  A Cro-Magnon man
Attacks his food with more etiquette and couth.
If you want me to tell you the God-awful truth,
\I'm having a can of your spinach tested as well.
The way it affects you, it's pretty easy to tell
It probably contains a spore or some mind-altering drug
That turns you into such an unacceptable thug
Why can't you be more like Bluto?  He's a decent sort.
He dresses well, is suave, and he knows how to court
A lady,  You could learn from him, he has loads of class.
He's sensitive to the needs and feelings of a lass,
Unlike you.  I don't think you've ever changed your shirt,
And take a bath once in awhile.  What would that hurt?
The one thing in the world that I can't abide
Is a man who denies his feminine side.

About this time the interview came to an end.
Please note the attachment I've also had to send...

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
     Request for Workman's Comp Benefits

Popeye popped a can of spinach and loosed an angry roar.

"I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more!
I've swabbed many a poop deck and know it when I see it,
And when I hear it too, and you'se is spoutin bullshit.".

I began to sense some trouble when his muscles began to swell
But when his fists turned to mallets I knew I was in for hell.
He knocked me down, broke my jaw, then without another thought
Grabbed both my legs and chortled as he tied them in a knot.
I'm on a liquid diet now and have some trouble talking,
And it will be awhile yet before I'll be up and walking.
I've got trouble hearing from when he rapped me on the head,
The shoulder that he pounded on, its nerves may now be dead.
Due to the beating that I took from this despicable jerk,
It might be quite a while before I come back to work.

You ask me if we should sack him.  I've given it some thought.
I'd opt for something severe.  The asshole ought to be shot.

Feral Cats

They arrive after dusk; they're waiting in the morning.
Their pleading eyes anxiously peering through
The deck door window that's smudged with nose prints
Petition me for the blessing of sustenance.
Their faith has become the responsibility,
That my conscience refuses to let me shirk.
They've become my congregation, my pride,
My flock, and I their faithful shepherd.

They come to me in supplication tempered
With fear.  Self-delusion would call it devotion.
I can reach out and sometimes touch them.  At times
One will respond with feline praise; a nudge,
A back arched with pleasure, or a faint purr.
If I reach out to try to pull them closer to me,
Into the warmth, the safety and a haven of a home,
They tense, their claws come out and they shy away.
Their's is a creed steeped in trembling terror.
The God whom they petition is a hulking giant,
Perhaps even a cruel diety.  Certainly one to be feared.

Perhaps this is the frustration that the God of man feels.
They don't understand that I want what's best for them.
They don't understand that mine is the way and the light.
They're too skeptical to make that leap of faith
That will lead them from a nasty, brutish and short life
Of feral fear to the warmth and love of domesticity.

If I were like the God of man I'd resent their free will;
I'd take their rejection as a personal affront,
Loathing them for the sin of feral freedom
That leaves no room for me in their lives.
I'd drive them from the safety of my deck,
I'd cut off their food supply, I'd sentence them
To death by starvation if they wouldn't accept me.

I'm far from being a God though.  Only too human.

Understanding their fear, pitying their need,
Forgiving them their limited comprehension
Rather than resenting their refusal to accept me;
I still only want what's best for them
And will do what I can to make their lives easier.

May some God someday be as benevolent to me.

Poem with an Attitude

I want to be the poem you wouldn't lend
To your younger sister to read,
The poem you wouldn't dare bring home
To introduce to your parents

A punk of a poem with a Mohawk haircut
That sports a dirty gray tank-top that says
"Don't mess with me.  I'm psychotic"
A poem with a pack of cigarettes
Rolled up in its right sleeve.

I want to be the poem that slaps you
Alongside the head and bellows

"SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME!"

I want to be the poem that declares Jihads
Against Kardashians, against the cast of Jersey Shore,
Against Fox News, corporate whore politicians,
And that most persistant of all evils, rhymed verse.

I want to be the poem that drives the fast car
With exhaust manifolds loud enough
To rattle nursing home windows.
I want to be the poem that runs Stop signs,
That won't slow down in school zones,
A poem that knows no speed limits,
The poem that flips off cops as it roars past them.

I'm the poem that doesn't want to work.
I just want to loiter on the street corner,
Smoke cigarettes and leer at women
As they cross the street to avoid me,
Being fearful that I might accost them.

I want to be the poem that sexually harasses you,
The poem that you lock your door against,
That you fear enough to install a chain-bolt lock
To make doubly-sure that I stay out of your life.

I'll find my way in anyway.
I'll rifle through your drawers, lift your diary,
Then sell your secrets to the world.
I'm the poem that will steal your money
Your books, your stereo and flat screen TV,
Forcing you to stay home with only me
Left to read for entertainment.

I'm the poem that longs to lead you astray,
The poem that will persistantly stalk you,
Relentless as an estranged lover,
Obsessively possessive,
A tad bit vengeful.
I want to infect your world like a virus
And swell into the cancerous tumor
That begins to devour you
Until you think of nothing else but me.

I want to be the poem that camps out in your head,
The poem that you'll keep repeating incessantly
When Alzheimers has your mind in thrall,
Droning my lines in a sing-song voice,
Your head bobbing to the rhythm of the verse.

You may have figured it out by now.
This poem is trying to seduce you.
You know you like the bad boys;
Byron, Baudelaire and Bukowski,
Poets with chips on their shoulders
The size of boulders and passions
Hot enough to make your heart smoulder.

I want to be a poem like theirs,
A two-fisted drinker of a poem
That swaggers into a bar and takes
Possession of it by sheer force of personality.

I want to be the poem that drinks Dos Equis.
I want to be the most interesting poem in the world.

I want you to notice me.

I want you to want me.

I want you to love me.

I want to be your poem.

Written After Viewing Another Evening of Armageddon on the History Channel

We’re adrift upon a frail craft on a flat earth,

Listening to the thundering roar of cataracts

That cascade over the rim into a fearful void.

Tis said that a dragon lurks there to feast upon

Crews of ships that plummet over the edge.

We need to cast our grapples toward the stars

Before we turn in a frenzy of madness

Like caged rats to lunge and claw at our neighbors,

But we’re powerless, as our ship

Drifts perilously closer to the rim.

We’re attempting to balance barefoot

On a razorblade edge of disaster,

Fearfully peering up at the rumbling volcano

That intimidates us with its imminent threat

Of engulfing us in fiery immolation.

Mired in impotent frustration,

Insanely groveling to blood-crazed visions

Even our best minds snap under the stress.

Goaded by his God of Chaos, a rooftop sniper

Has a pregnant Mary squarely in his sight.

We’re standing vigil at a death-watch

In a lunatic asylum’s intensive-care unit.

Labored breathing- - -erratic heartbeat- - -

Our life-line monitor is Cable Network News.

We listen, like lemmings, for the siren that signals

The start of our mad dash to outdistance our doom.

We’ve divined our fate from the entrails of vapor

That coil across the sky their message

Of irrevocable nuclear devastation..

Fields of mushroom flowers bloom over our cities.

Swarms of angry missiles sting the shuddering flanks

Of a frightened, fire-scorched earth

That quakes in convulsions of pain.

Splattered upon what few walls still remain

Are only enigmatic figures, shadows of life

That have been extinguished in a fury of fission.

New York- -Moscow- -Beijing- - -obliterated.

“Look on your works, ye mighty, and despair!”

But wait!  From beneath the ash and radioactive soil

From which man once coaxed his gardens,

A loathsome creature wriggles its way out of the death

To face the eerie loneliness of the radium green night.

What evolutionary process does this monster herald?

What cruel gods will it choose to fashion in its own image?

Will this foul beast reign in a world any more brutal

Than the end-times conjured forth by power-mad men?

     *    *    *    *   *   *   *

Cruel Devourer, let me post this poem

On our front door like a mark of Passover crimson,

That my family might be spared the horrors

Of this looming holocaust of annihilation.

Nature's Cathedral

Snowmobiling with a friend Saturday evening;

Two miles to Dubila’s Farm, then

Revving across a field to the Work Farm Trail.

The ice storm of the day before

Bends the boughs of the large pines

That border the path

Until they nestle into each other.

Crystallized moisture serves as mortar

That cements them into graceful arches.

They seize our light and radiate it,

Glistening in their fresh whitewash

Of a powdery new snow.

Those of us who worship nature

Know that she can be a cruel God as well,

Capricious in her moods

Devastating in her anger

Inscrutable

Unfathomable

Tonight though, she’s a gentle deity

Whose magic has transformed the forest

Into the holiest of places;

A cathedral of beauty.

The trunks of the trees become pillars,

The boughs alabaster arches,

The gently falling snowflakes

The light of the Word.

Ron and I shut off our engines.

It seems like a moment to embrace the quiet.

We pass the flask that we’ve brought with us.

The warmth of wine,

The quiet of the woods,

Silent reflection

Communion

Reverence

Softly falling snow

Anoints our cheeks with flecks

Of moisture

Nature’s benediction

Gentle as a lover’s kiss

Welcome as a blessing.

A Lingering Taste of Sadness

When I came to drink from the well of life
It left a lingering taste of sadness
Regrets cling stubbornly to my thoughts
Like lichen does to a dull gray stone.
Rumination upon unattained dreams,
Reflection upon unfufilled ambitions,
Obsessively one-sided infatuation,
Desire that never blossomed into love.
It's taken me too long to realize
That there's no rich vein of gold here,
No coal with its diamond potential,
Just a weathered, pitted, glacier-scarred stone
That's too often taken for granite.

The ancient ones left us strange petroglyphs;
Cryptic messages chiselled into stone,
Undecipherable, irretrievable knowledge.
I feel cheated when I look at their carvings.
There's so much I should understand by now
Given the lessons that I've had to absorb;
So many mistakes I could've learned from.
But when I drank deeply from the well of life
It left me with the bitter disappointment
Of that lingering taste of sadness.

The Spoon Diner Trilogy

Hash-House Annie

Dropped off at an orphanage as an infant,
I never had a real family.
I began work here when I turned sixteen,
Learning to dismiss Lucius Atherton's advances
With a wink, a joke and a smile.
I was holding out for "Mr Right,"
But he never showed up.
Soon I became accepted as "The Waitress;"
The early morning farmers and their hands
Or the noon banker, lawyer and merchant crowd
Felt free to continue talking business
With me hovering over them, pouring coffee,
Bringing their food, clearing their dishes.
Eventually I learned enough about them
To worry about their health, their work
And to follow the lives of their children.
My regulars became the family I never had.
I put on weight over time.  Our food was good.
Forty-six years into my job here,
I sat down to take a load off my feet
And my heart gave out.
The last words I remember hearing were...

"Say Annie  When you're up and moving again
Would you mind freshening up my coffee?"

Fry-Cook George

For years I labored over the grill,
Almost as long as Annie,
My head down, my back turned to you all.
I took some good-natured ribbing about it.

"How come we never get to see your homely face?"

"That's George's way.  He's a just a bit anti-social."

When it came to their breakfast or lunch though
They were content to "Let George do it."
The truth is, every day of my God-cursed life
My mind trembled with the secret dread
That someone who knew me from St. Louis
Would stop here to eat, get a glimpse of my face,
And remember me as that young college student
Who let liquor go to his head one evening,
Flexed his muscles in a bar fight, and fled,
Leaving the body of a friend on the barroom floor.

That's why I always stood at the grill,
My back to you all and my head bowed.
My companions were the fear that held me
In a grip that any constable would envy,
And my ever-present shame.

Gerta Sundvik

I owned the diner where George and Annie worked.
I'd come in and help out during the noon rush,
But for the most part they did a good job for me.
Their labor made us all a good living.
I was lucky enough to get to stay home,
Baking my pies for the noon lunch crowd
Or canning fresh fruit to use during the winter.
I'd work on a quilt for the church bazaar
Or read my Bible during my spare hours.
I prayed for both George and Annie to come to Jesus
But could never talk either into joining me in church.
Annie always said that she was "too tired;"
George just hung his head like he always did
And mumbled that he just didn't belong there.
They were good people though, despite all that.
May our merciful Savior touch them with forgiveness
And open the gates of his Paradise to them.

Beatification of the Stooges

Beatification:  the official act of the Pope whereby
a deceased person is declared to be enjoying the happiness
of heaven, and therefore is a proper subject of religious honor
and public cult in certain places.

Let's not talk of someone's blood shed for my sins,
The bitter solace or the triumphant "I told you so"
Of a Last Judgement.  Let's not talk of Jihad
Or Holy War.  I don't need some downer religion.

Give me a creed that will banish my cares,
That will lighten my oppressed spirit and send me
Out of the Church in side-splitting laughter.

Let us kneel and pay grateful homage to
The Holy Trinity of Larry, Curley and Moe,
Benevolent dieties who spurn eternal punishment.
You do something stupid
Moe thunks you on the head
Or maybe slaps you silly.
Divine retribution comes via knuckle-rap,
A box to the ears or poke in the eyes.
No long range ramifications, no guilt trip;
A little pain and you've done your penance.

And such miracles!  Christ's pale in comparison.
Eye pokes that never cause blindness,
Sledgehammer blows to the head that never
Fracture a skull or cause a concussion.
Talk about loaves and fishes, how about
The never ending supply of pies to be thrown.
Get thee back, Satan.  Evil can be warded off
By the Curley shuffle or a well-timed "duck"
Or thwarted with a hair pull or a conk on the head.

The patron Saints of knuckleheads
Nitwits and numbskulls,
These are dieties who failure never daunts,
Resilient as a pair of suspenders,
Able to bounce back from adversity
Higher than a rubber ball.

All hail these princely puncturers of pomposity.
Let us build them a cathedral of Silly Putty.
Let us glorify their names with the sacred snicker

"Nyuk" Nyuk" Nyuk" Nyuk" Nyuk" "Nyuk."

Sing loud their praise with the holiest of chants

"WooWoo"  "WooWoo" "WooWoo" "WooWoo"

Liz Taylor Died Today

The ad reads "Filmworks, Reel Jobs for L.A."
Below it, in MovieLand's doorway, two young men sleep,
Their coats wrapped like cocoons about them.
They've yet to be touched by Tinker Bell's wand.
The Magic Kingdom has become a Never Land
For these chrysalises of cheap labor.
They're an unsightly blight in this land of flowers,
Film, fantasy and perpetual summer
Where palm trees reach up as if stretching
Their fronds with a yawn to greet the morning sun.

In this land of youth and self-indulgence
It's hell to grow old.  Beauty's a precious asset,
Perhaps the key that can open a Tomorrowland
Of fame, fortune and a pampered life of ease,
A life laden with herbal foot treatments,
Cranberry pomegranate sugar scrubs,
Chocolate Truffle body wraps, waxed eyebrows,
Coffee scrubs, enzyme peels, outdoor cafes,
Ten dollar slices of creme brule cheesecake,
Pricey Italian footwear and fruit and cream baths.

Liz Taylor died today.  From her early teens
Looks defined her fame.  Her eyes were deep pools
Of desire.  How sad that a woman so beautiful
Couldn't find a lasting love.  Eight marriages,
But no relationship secure enough to cling to,
To allow herself to age gracefully,
Secure that she'd be loved for her person rather
Than for beauty that will always fade with time.
The legends such as Harlow and Monroe died young.
They didn't have to make that difficult transition.

The beauty of Butterfield Eight, Raintree County,
Suddenly Last Summer and of Egypt's Queen
Too soon degenerated into a bejeweled
Boozy, pain-killer addicted frump, more believable
As "Martha" in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff,
Cruelly parodied by a young John Belushi
Dressed in drag, choking on a chicken bone.
Toward the end befriending Michael Jackson,
Whose obsession with youth and looks turned him
Into a freak.  Perhaps you understand him, Liz.

As I watch a white Hummer hop the curb
Before settling back onto the street to park,
I reflect upon this land of excess,
This realm of make-believe, where to excel
At entertainment as a gaudy human parrot
Mouthing words and mimicing scripted characters
Is the goal of so many.  What of those who come
Here though who aren't beautiful or lucky enough
To earn an opportunity to open an account
In the Universal Studios Credit Union?

To fail to attain a dream can lead to despair.
I've learned this too well, yet I still dare to dream,
As hopefully do the two young men who sleep
Fitfully in the doorway of MovieLand.
Perhaps an even crueller fate is to find
That after you've caught hold of your dream
That it's got its hold on you, that it defines you,
And that the conditions that are imposed upon you
To sustain it, such as eternal youth and beauty,
Are chains that finally become too heavy to bear.

On Prayer

Too often I've seen friends in pain;
Heard the prayers they mouthed in vain.
He who sees the sparrow fall
Doesn't seem to care at all.

Pagan's Soliloquy

1. Revulsion

I'd turned my back on that day's crucifixions.
The Gods know I've seen enough suffering
Since the Romans commenced their bloody rule.
That day, as the three wooden masts of pain
Anoited the Hillside of the Skull
With their gaunt, black shadows of suffering,
I made my way instead to the sea.

Angry winds had stirred the sea into a tempest.
Waves raced toward the shore like vicious dogs
Baring their whitecapped teeth in fury as they
Leapt up to try to rip into the jagged breakwater.
Retreating, snarling, battered to a bloody brown
With their cargo of loosened red clay,
It seemed as if the sea had become a chalice
That had caught the blood that had been shed
For man, by that strange, insane Jew
Dying in the company of thieves.

I wished for a moment to shatter as a wave,
To dash my doubts against a sea wall of certainty,
Splattering into spindrift the fatty complacency
Of a diet of intellectual sweetmeats.
Leaving them to taint the turbulent water
Rather than having them festering inside me,
Infecting my spirit with cynicism.

2. The Vision

My meandering musings were slain by a shout.
The waves were leaping skyward, dancing
In a wild tempestuous ecstasy.
Tiaras of foam were burnishing their crests.
The dazzling display of light that blinded me
Was as overpowering as the fragrance of roses
That seemed to waft from the sea to my senses.

Rising from an ocean that had suddenly come calm
Was an iridescent scallop shell
Bathed in crimson light.
Burning, passionate red crimson!

Standing on the shell that rose from the water
Was a voluptuous vision of womanly perfection.
Looking glass liquid droplets still clung to her,
Shimmering like tiny lights of illumination.
It was Aphrodite!

She smiled a wan, sad smile.
It was an expression of bitter knowledge;
Of remembrance, of love, of Ares, of Adonis.
It was the knowledge of her impending death;
Telling me that Gods as well as men are mortal.
She slowly slid beneath the waves.
Before I could utter a protest, she was gone;
Disappearing behind a blinding cascade of spray.

3. Revelation

You want despair?  I'll now give you despair.
There was a time when all the trees had names;
Baucis and Philomon were linden and oak.
One could watch Naiads leaping from the rapids
As their river tumbled joyfully over the rocks
On its plunging journey toward the sea.
Dryads floated through the forest's dewy mists.
Even crags and rocks were imbued with spirits.
No more can I hear the faint trills of Pan's flute,
Nature seems bereft of its beauty; soulless, dead.
Little did I know that day that the death
Of that odd man-God would mean the end of mine.
That the gentle deities who shared my world with me
Would be banished by this dark creed of cruelty,
This strange religion of suffering, denial and death.

Final Disposition

Generations of beings have returned to dust
Leaving no deeds worthy of note
Nothing written that we remember
No songs that are still sung

Count me among their number.
Give me no hulking stone
No grieving angel
No pithy epitaph

I've done nothing to deserve
Such immortality

Just dump my ashes
Into the St. Louis River.
Let me drift into Lake Superior
To mingle with her
To become part of her
Immutable beauty

That will be enough

In Pursuit of our Painted Dreams

Nursing the last few dregs of his athletic prowess,
The aging high school phenom sullenly degenerates
Into tavern softball leagues and bar stool reminiscences.
A couple's marraige becomes a charnel house of bliss.
Like ghouls they devour each other in their prison.

On the satin sheets of their minds' voluptuous desires,
They'll embrace that lovely wanton slut of self-delusion,
Looking for reality in mirrors stolen from a fun-house.
There's none of us left with the innocence to tell them
That the Emperor's been sold another suit of new clothes.

If the incensed fists of the vice squad of reality
Could bash their way into our secret whorehouse of desire,
And shine their soul-searing beam of sudden illumination
Upon the stark naked premises of our existance,
We'd push away the painted dreams that we'd embraced.

We'd flee, bereft of our false pride, dignity's garments,
Out into the mocking laughter of a cold, disdainful world.
Our shame would become a matter of public record.
The derisive cackle of that seductive wanton, illusion,
Would echo through the night as she rifles our clothing.

Look at Teddy Roosevelt, that "big stick" wielding jingo.
He collapsed in grief when war's reality touched his soul
With the telegram that informed him of son Quentin's death,
Or Woodrow Wilson, who spent his frail health lusting
After his scantily-clad League of Nations gossamer vision.

They died physically when their illusions were wrest from them.
Most men live on, but they labor under the soul-killing burden
Of acknowledged failure.  What of we who slink away though
To hide and lick our wounds?  Does our bitter defeat quell
The lusts that send us out like dogs to sniff after dreams?

The allure of illusion is a stubborn, pervasive vice.
In the morning we'll rummage again through our mind's closet
And pull out another threadbare cloak of rationalization.
Tomorrow night we'll set out in search of another strumpet
Of self-delusion.  She'll massage our egos, pump up our pride,

And tell us the lies so necessary to our existance.

Pygmalion Revisited

Mikos last saw him embracing Galatea,
A statue brought to life, Aphrodite's answer
To prayers that begged for the stone maiden's love.
Mikos visited them again though, last winter.
Galatea's gotten fat.  She's now a slattern with jowls.
Her breasts are sagging like a thatched roof
In need of repair.  She's got a termagent's tongue
And a temper volatile as an enraged Achilles.
Their six children have the manners and shrill voices
Of a flock of gulls quarrelling over a dead fish.

Cowed, Pygmalion flees to his workshop refuge
And bars the door.  His desperation is tying
His deliverance to yet another creation.
With a fervency he felt only once before,
He beseeches a miracle from Phyxios, the God
Of miraculous escapes as he labors
To shape a lifelike image of winged Pegasus.
With haste he chisels at the sullen, stubborn stone.
Sweat runs down his tired, ruddy face, and his hair,
Thin and hoary, is mottled with flecks of marble.

Mrs. Draper's Christmas Letter

"I might as well get it over with," she sighed.
She was as devoid of inspiration though,
As the brittle trees and snow shrouded landscape
Were of beauty and budding green life.
She bit her lip as she began to write.

"It''s time for the Draper's Christmas Letter.
We've done a lot this year, so guess I'd better
Get started filling you in on the news
While Bill is on the couch, taking a snooze."

Yeah, old Macho-Man growled, "Don't bother me
With any of your Christmas poem bullshit."
I suppose it demeans the dignity
Of his doctorate to wish  "Happy Holidays,"
Or to ascend to the spirit of the season.

"Bill's still with the college, I'm at the bank,
And for our good health we've the Lord to thank.
And as for our youngsters,Janie and Mel,
They're both in high school and both doing well."

I can just hear Bill reading this, a trace
Of sneer in his voice.  Like a well-trained soldier
I'm not supposed to think for myself,
Just follow his lead.  I'm only the wife.
He's the hallowed intellect of the family.

"Janie's a writer, her efforts show it.
She won an award, Bill got to bestow it.
Mel has given us such gridiron thrills;
No one's heart swells any prouder than Bill's."

"Yeah, Bill's got a lot to be proud of," she mused.
Mel is as arrogant as his old man.
I should write about the lovely young girl
Whom Bill bullied into having an abortion
With all his talk of Mel's brilliant future.

"Mel's bound for college and a law career
And of high school Janie's got one more year.
The kids stayed home while we took our vacation
Bill and I made New England our destination."

Sounds like fun on paper, but what a disaster!
At Longfellow's Wayside Inn I watched Bill
Act the jerk, belittling Longfellow's work.
Like he's ever written anything of lasting value.
He's great though, at disparaging other's efforts

"We saw Longfellow's study and Walden Pond
And Concord Bridge where revolution dawned
In America, and then on to Bunker Hill,
Where many redcoats the minutemen did kill."

Yeah, and motel rooms that smelled of Lysol
And leather attache cases.  Those lonely nights
When Bill and I would retire to our room
After supper were filled with heartbreaking silence
As each of us mulled the other's shortcomings.

"From Harvard Common to Cooperstown
We travelled through rustc villages and down
To the ocean.  As we drove up hill, through dell,
We both got to know each other so well."

There were times during out trip when the road map
Would snarl into yarnlike strands of gibberish
And we'd end up lost.  My life's at that point now.
I've come to realize that I'm somewhere else
Than where I'd rather be at this time of my life.

"We'd like to wish friends and family the best
And hope that your homes are the snuggest of nests,
And to those of you that we can't be near,
We wish you much joy this coming New Year."

Yeah, Bill is right.  This stuff is pretty trite,
But in my last stanza I'll set it all right.
Hey, that rhymes too.  I'm thinking in bad verse,
Banal, like most dialogues of marraige.
I've burst from the fetters of parenthood, alone.

"We wish you Merry Christmas, but this is goodbye.
I suppose you're all out there wondering "Why?"
This is the last letter you'll get from the Drapers
Cuz today I'm serving the son of a bitch papers."

The Dream-Piper

He heard it off the island of Naxos
Avered the old sailor, his skin brown as baked earth.
It was a voice, strong as winds presaging a storm,
Yet the sea was calm, with moonlight shimmering upon it.
"Mikos," the voice thundered.  "When you reach land,
 Go proclaim that the Great God Pan is dead."

"Christians have pulled down our temples,"
Gumbled Mikos, "and have replaced them
With their stark lonely image of a mast and pain.
No more are our rivers and forests
Home to fair nymphs and dancing dryads;
No longer can a wanton maiden
Blame her full womb on a God's ravishment."

Mikos had been fooled though. 
The Chritians had transformed Pan
Into a demon with horns, their scapegoat
For their creed of suffering and remorse.
Pan sought his refuge behind the veil of dreams.
Now that puckish deity sounds his pipes
To awaken our subconscious desires.

Our dreams, like frequency waves, roam freely
Beyond the Puritan blackness of night,
Beyond the confines of logic and reason,
Beyond responsibility and time.
The Goat-God's smile is inviting
As he picks up his flute, and with a few notes
Beckons us to enter his nocturnal realm.

There erotic forbidden visions dance
Frenzied revelries of somnambulance.
Satyrs cavort and centaurs prance
To a musical exhortation to romance.
Dryads whisper tales of divine dalliance
To nymphs who long for their own chance
To catch a God's lascivious glance,
While intoxicated lustful Maenads dance
With abandon and wild exuberance.

The delicate gossamer webs of dreams
That I spin in sleep vanish when I wake
As though swept from the ceiling of my mind
With a broom dipped in the river Lethe.
This morning though, I awoke with a longing.
A strange melody of unknown origin
Was raising passionate havoc with my mind,
Drifting in my thoughts, just beyond full recollection,
Were wonderful visions of the Plains of Acardy.

John Bell Hood

When John Bell Hood led men into battle
He was the king of death's angry domain.
He rode like a knight, scorning the rattle
Of gunfire dealing its quick death or pain.
To him bullets were gnats and Yanks cattle
He'd drive before him with righteous disdain.

Back home in Richmond Sally Preston turned
And  banished Hood's name with a haughty glance.
"He's a clumsy bear, he's crude and unlearned.
 I want a man with finesse who can dance."

"Come on boys, we'll make them Yanks skedaddle!"
At Gettysburg Hood's confident voice soared
Above the fray.  Conspicuous in battle
On horseback, with eyes steel hard as his sword,
A shellburst knocked him from his saddle.
A shattered arm became bravery's reward.

"In love with Hood?  Absurd," Sally sighed.
"I'd rather have my heart impaled on a lance
Than choose to become that loud Texan's bride.
I want a rich man who can laugh and dance."

By September Hood was back in the saddle.
His left arm was useless; his good hand gripped
The reins as he led troops into battle,
To Chickamauga, where minie balls stripped
Leaves from the trees, where a surgeon astraddle
A bench, from Hood his mangled leg ripped.

"Engaged to General Hood?  Don't get me riled,"
Sally scolded.  "Poor John, he hasn't a chance.
I'd rather by brutal bluecoats be defiled.
I want a man who will laugh and can dance."

Constantly in pain, strapped to his saddle
Now to help him stay in it, John Bell Hood
Led his men to Atlanta for battle.
He had to stop the Yankees if he could.
Sherman's troops threatened Atlanta, and would
With a victory, sound Dixie's death rattle.

"He's such a brave man," admitted Sally.
"I hope he can stop the Yankee advance.
But he's not the man with whom I would dally,
I'm holding out for a man who can dance."

Hood and his men were too few and too tired
To manage more than to annoy their foe.
On to Nashville, where their last hope was mired.
He rallied his troops for one final blow,
But when the smoke cleared, their hopes had expired;
His army was crushed.  He'd no place to go.

"We'll not be married," said Sal feigning sorrow.
"War's slaughtered so many dreams of romance.
 He's maimed, poor, with no hopes for the morrow,
 And I still want my rich man who can dance."

Divorce Roadkill

The shedding of the skin of attachment
Exposed a new pattern of circumstances
Never envisioned
During the romantic promises of
"Til death do us part."

A marraige now brutally crushed
Like the head of a snake
By a speeding tire,
Poison-spewing fangs driven
Into and broken upon
The brutal hardness of asphalt.

With the severing of bonds
Comes the shadows of wings;
Black-robed ravens
And carrion-feeding lawyers
Flutter down to feast
Upon the corpse.

Soon barflies
And lounge lizards
Will join them
To devour the remains.

At the Gravesite of the Haymarket Martyrs

It's like a scene out of the French Revolution,
A bit unsettling to encounter in Chicago.
Resolute Lady Justice is striding forward,
Drawing her sword to protect the fallen worker
That she's crowned with a wreath of laurel;
A victim of the Pinkertons perhaps
Or of cops paid to intimidate the strikers, or
Of assassins hired by McCormick or Pullman.
Robber barons will pay the minions of the State
To serve them or to overlook their crimes.
Justice has an impossible task ahead of her.
There are so many workers for an icon to protect
That too many people only pay lip service to.

The monument at Forest Home Cemetery
Is rarely visited anymore.
A few old Wobblies come to doff their hats,
Recalling the days they sang "The Internationale,"
When they actually believed that workers could unite,
Triumph, and receive the fruits of their labor.
A few earnest anarchists, idealists and romantics
Who haven't yet had their dreams of a better world
Tasered, maced, smashed by a cop's nightstick
Or compressed into "Free Speech Zones,"
Make their pilgrimage to pay homage,
Not only to the five Haymarket Martyrs
Who were innocent of the crimes they died for,
But to all the labor reformers and "communists"
Who've chosen to be buried near the monument.

Emma Goldman,  Lucy Parsons, Ben Rietman,
Joe Hill, Big Bill Heywood, Voltairine de Cleyre...

Sadly the visitors are far too few
To validate August Spies' prophetic words,
Uttered in a muffled voice from beneath
The stifling hood of black canvas
That the hangman had pulled over his head.

   "The time will come when our silence
     will be more powerful than the voices
      you are throttling today."

The silence of this gathering of the dead
Is broken only by the twittering of birds
And the distant hum of freeway traffic
The labor martyrs who were wrongly condemned
For their beliefs rather than their guilt;
Who gave their lives in the struggle
To win us an eight hour day,
More time to spend with our families,
Some respite from a life of wage slavery,

Rest almost forgotten.

Corporate America has the upper hand again.
There will be new martyrs.

"They who do not study history
  Are condemned to repeat it."






                                                                             Rich Hanson

The Loneliness of Injun Joe

It's time to retreat again,
To scuttle spiderlike back into
The most private recesses
Of cognative reflection.
In these caverns of conscious thought
These are the rooms that I rarely visit.
Here my darkest secrets lay suppressed.

In this netherworld of self-recrimination
I'll seek refuge in the soul salving
Withdrawal into solitude.

Here I tread upon recollection
Crushed into layers of sentiment
As I weave a disillusioned path through
The sedimental strata of my past.

At the end of this labyrinth of memory
My torch illuminates
The experiences that I've examined,
That I've reshaped into a mythology of self.
Chalk, iron powder, charcoal and berries
Crushed to use to create wierd scenes,
A strange tableaux of cave paintings
That quiver to life in the flickering light.

Here I'll dig through the silt of forgetfulness
To unearth images that I've long suppressed,
That I've wrapped and buried like Kachina dolls
In this, the holiest sanctuary of my soul.

This is the place where I hide aspects of self
That I don't wish the world to see.
A refuge from my wife, my son,
My friends and my parents.
I've locked out all humanity.

Is it perverse of me to retreat,
To withdraw deep into myself,
To compartmentalize my life,
To play Bartleby in such a selfish way
When I've got people who love me?

Loneliness is the damp musty smell
Of brackish water, of our despair
As we weave our way, blind as cave-fish
Through the dark stream that we call "life."

When I finally tire of poring through
My pathetic cache of regrets
By the dimming light of this dying candle,
Will I be able to roll away the stone barrier
That seals this entrance to my cave.

Christ, I'm not.

I'm more like Tom Sawyer's Injun Joe;
Trapped in darkness, thirsty and hungry,
Shut away from the mass of mankind,
Condemned to licking moisture
From the damp walls of my cave,
That false promise of liquid solace that
Leaves just sand and grit on one's tongue.

As my last candle gutters into blackness,
I stand alone in this cold musty room
That's become my silent tomb.

As I bellow my frustrated loneliness
At  indifferent walls,
They only echo my impotent anger
Back at me, taunting me
To cut loose with yet another

Primal scream.

Requiem for a Rocking Horse

Dylan's rocking horse grazes at the curb today.
His broken-down nag gets to take its final look
At the blue sky as it waits for the garbage truck;
After the growling crunch of a compactor's jaws
It will be laid to rust in a cemetery of refuse.

Our son always viewed it as his galloping "Horse."
His friend was always there to carry him away.
He'd climb, often sleepy-eyed onto it and rock
Into alertness; tenderly placing a blanket
Over "Horse's" head became a bedtime ritual.

The discarded gown of a graduate of childhood,
"Horse's" shiny brown leather and flowing black mane
Already bore the scars and fraying signs of age
When his possession passed to our son's brand
To be of service to yet another young cowboy.

The snap of a spring soon became a calamity
That could conjure forth a torrent of frantic tears.
Deprived of his means to escape into a world
Of bounding motion, Dylan would panic like an angel
That found itself earthbound, deprived of its wings.

It's now a starving emaciated carcass that bears
Little resemblence to a horse; a skeleton of steel
That's retained its bouncing life of liberating rhythm
From Dylan's first hesitant climb onto its saddle
To his wild, pendulum rides of reckless abandon.

He'd ride his limitless range of imagination.
The green living room rug became the prairie,
The cats mountain lions and the dog a snarling wolf
As Dylan outrode gangs of stuffed animal outlaws
While roping in vocabulary with a lariat mind.

He rode you from stimulation to Sesame Street,
From Big Bird to Smurfs, now to Power Rangers,
Your time is finished.  You've been callously discarded,
Just as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus soon will be
During his inexorable journey toward adulthood.

"Horse," may you gallop forever in his reveries;
As free as the wild stallion that races the wind,
As unfettered as the dreams of our childhood.
I hope that there's a stall for you in Dylan's memories.
I'm certain that you'll always retain a place in mine.