Don't Lay Away Your Todays for Tomorrow

Don't lay away your todays for tomorrow.
See Paris when you're young.  Fall in love there.
Rent a gondola on the Grand Canal,
Climb above the clouds to Machu Picchu,
Take time off to find yourself if you need to.
Wander a quiet wood or walk the shore
Of a sun-catching lake on a May day,
Or just sit in a park and feed the squirrels.

The "boss," the punch clock, the unfulfilling tasks
All become shackles that render us "wage slaves."
Working towards those ends may be virtuous
To some, usually the employers who peddle
That line, but most of us who pursue our dreams
Discover that the prize that we've desired
Has eluded our grasp or has been wrested from us,
Rendering our lives  exercises in futility.

When you visit a nursing home, "listen."
Mournful sobs plunge past despair's deepest depth
Into realms of more pitiless sorrow.
Wretched warehoused souls who wait upon death
Can never forget, and most deeply regret, .
Having laid away their yesterdays for today.

The Slaughter Plant

Terrified, the dumb brutes panic at being drive.
They sense and smell the death that lurks beyond the doorway.
Their only escape from the electric shock prod though
Is that ominous exit.  A madness born of the fear of pain
Drives the beasts into the mechanics of slaughter.

The thunderclap of a rifle shot rocks its bovine brain.
The animal drops.  Its hind legs are then tightly shackled
And its body yanked ceilingward so the throat-slitter
Can pierce its jugular vein with barbarian finesse,
His rubber boots sloshing through a morass of blood.

At times the animal reaches the throat-slitter
Still weakly kicking, still clutching at existence
Through a panic of uncomprehending pain.
Its doom has been pre-ordained though at it meets
The remorseless attack of the god with a knife.

Two hundred and eighty-five head of beef an hour
Will be processed with calculated precision.
That's the brutal, inexorable certainty
Beneath the din and the frenzied activity;
The callous constant movement of the chain of death.

The headers, bung-droppers, belly-openers, gut-snatchers,
Kidney-poppers, split-saw operators, shavers, lard pullers,
Hock cutters, skinners, hide-pullers, bone-grinders, luggers,
The blood-dryers, the cookers, the gang in offal pack,
All move in like jackals to devour the corpse.

They all participate in the rendering of life
Into lard, table cuts, boneless trim, fertilizer,
Gelatin and hides.  All are hardened to the horror,
Helmeted like the SS Guards who took a smug pride
In their processing of so many "sub-humans" an hour.

Their scabbards clanging against their bloody chain belts,
The helmeted Kill-Floor crew files out for lunch,
Removing their mesh gloves, their wrist guards, their ear plugs
And their aprons before they wash the blood from their hands.
Fragments of their conversation reverberate through the cafeteria.

They talk of sports.....
"Think the Bucks have a chance against the Bulls tonight?"
They talk of women.....
"I met this gorgeous bitch last night at Callahan's...man"
They talk of money.....
"I put 18 hours of overtime in so far this week."

Apparitions of the men who pulled the gold teeth,
Led victims to the showers, stoked the ovens, took head count
Of the trainloads of frightened humanity being herded into camp;
They gaze upon the lunchroom scene and knowingly smile
With an understanding rooted in their death-camp kinship.

It was thus at Aushwitz, Ravensbruck and Dachau.
Carloads of human cattle were ruthlessly dispatched
With a business Aryan efficiency, as blithely
As we kill now to placate a growling stomach.

So it will be in the next war to come as well.
The mechanics of slaughter that we serve, win or lose,
Will be paid for in souls that have atrophied;
That have shriveled into a hardness that feels no pity,
That grants no mercy; that no longer knows
Or cares anymore about examining their actions;
Men that have forgotten how to love or forgive.

I don't wish to become a man like that.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.”   

If in death we’d have an eternity to dream,
We’d unravel our tangled webs of existence
To follow each strand of life, each minute action
And its ramifications to alternative lives.
Oh, to have an eternity to purge one’s regrets
And to wander down ‘what could have been’ lanes
That we’d peered down briefly, but moved on past.

 It’s a cruel jest of the Gods to let us just sip

From the cup of life and then wrest it from us.
Our lush, green splendor of youth soon turns crimson,
Then fades, withers, turns brittle and flutters to earth.
Our shell of vitality and being, our blood,
Veins, tissue, sinew and bone all surrender to death
That’s bleak as a winter landscape.  All is finished.

Yet sometimes restless spirits glimmer into view.

 What are apparitions but words and deeds

Charged with an emotional intensity
That transcend the physical bonds of time.
If words and deeds survive us, why can’t the mind
As well wander leisurely through corridors of time?
If in death we’d have an eternity to dream,
Given time we could weave tapestries of triumph
From life’s skeins of despair, and confound the Gods.

Dream-Pedlary

Yes, they do have dreams to buy.
I purchased another one today.
Yeah, I realize that lottery tickets
Are the opiate of the unfufilled,
The 401K of rural white rednecks
Too lazy to set up a meth lab,
Just another tax set up by legislators
Who ought to protect us from such scams,
But this two dollar piece of paper
Gives credence to my fantasies.
It's hope that one can actually hold onto,
Something tangible, a wand one can use
To conjure forth images of wealth.

"You can't dream if you don't play."

I've lived an unhealthy share of my life
In the nebulous world of dreams.
No, not the Theatre of the Absurd
That pervades consciousness during sleep,
Those sickly excretions of the bizarre
That too often twist into something frightening,
Like writhing snakes, their coils
Wrapping tighter around me until I wake,
Gripped by fear, gasping for breath.
No, these are nightmares, not dreams.

No, the dreams this ticket buys for me
Sustain a myriad of visions.  Yeah, I know
That winning a lottery is as likely to happen
To me as Staci Keibler walking up
And whispering "I've always wanted you,
Big guy.  To hell with George Clooney."
It's as likely as electing an honest politician,
Discovering the elusive Fountain of Youth
Or bringing a peace accord to the Middle East.
Still, this ticket will fuel my dreams.

I see myself paying off our son's college loans,
Relocating to a region of my choice, such as
History rich and beautiful Vermont or Virginia,
Buying my wife and me a home in the country
Along a little stream just wide enough to plunk
Pebbles into as we sit idly upon its bank,
My mind weaving nets to catch new reveries.
I see a rare book store, I'm perusing a volume
Of " Death's Jest Book" signed by Beddoes
That the owner has set aside for me.  I read.
I write.  I've finally time to shape my thoughts
Images and experiences into poems and tales.

Yeah, you can say that I'm wasting my money,
But a couple bucks is a cheap price for daydreams.
Your dreams don't have a prayer of coming true
If you scorn them and refuse to pay.

"You can't dream if you don't play."

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.

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.

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.

HOLLYWOODLAND

(A poem for Peg Entwistle)

Who's to say when enough was enough.
Was it the disappointment of the many days
Getting all dolled up for casting calls that left you
Standing against the wall, like an eager girl
At a formal dance who's never asked to;
Waiting by the phone for a studio to call
Like some girl stuck home on a Saturday night;
Watching with dismay as most of your scenes
From the one movie you landed a part in
Ended up as trash on the cutting room floor.

When Bette Davis watched you play Ibsen's Hedvig,
She credited her youthful admiration of you
In that role to her desire to become an actress.
Movies though, were where the real glamour was.
Dazzling fireworks of exploding flashbulbs,
Leading ladies in their body-hugging gowns
Emerging from limos, savoring the red carpet
Excitement of their movie premieres.
Grand epics of romance filmed on backlots
Of plywood facades, kingdoms of illusion.

Every girl dreams of becoming a princess,
Or a Star.  The ones with talent and the look
Need luck as well.  Elizabeth Short had none,
Achieving fame only in her gruesome death,
As did Virginia Rappe, Arbuckle's victim.
Their tragedies churned headlines, as did yours.
Your disillusion drove you to climb to the top
Of a landmark letter on the Tinseltown hillside,
From which you jumped, unaware of the offer
Of a lead role that had been mailed to you.

Your body lay shattered at the base of the "H,"
A lifeless blonde-haired, blue-eyed doll
Without a name, just the initials "P. E."
On the note that finally led your uncle to you.
Hollywoodland is a cruel town still, Peg.
Casting couch lizards seduce with promises,
Booze and drugs, then abandon you for fresh prey.
Innocence hardens to toughness too quickly.
Perhaps you let go of your dream too soon, Peg,
But what of we who've clung to ours for too long?

Those of us who jealously hug our dreams
Should erect a monument on your unmarked grave,
Perhaps a kneeling angel with drooping wings,
Its anguished face gazing up at the sky
As if to question God, or implore his forgiveness.
Let your gravesite become the place of pilgrimage
Where we can bring our unattainable goals,
Unaccomplished deeds and unfufilled desires,
Those wilted bouquets that flowered in our youth,
To lay them down before you as we let go of them.