PUBLIC NOTICE

I am Sixty-Three

I just started drawing a check

and need a good-looking Mexican woman

to boss me around.

I can dance.

Please advise.

Inventory of Her Hand

Inventory of Her Hand

The soft brown hand I’ve never held
contains more wonders than I know:
fourteen small bones, precisely linked—
I doubt I’ll ever kiss it, though.

Seventeen cords of golden thread
that move with grace I’ve never matched—
some named for surgeons, proud and sure,
who never knew what hands were for.

Five metacarpals hold the line,
eight cobbled carpals stack like bricks.
They flutter sweetly when she types,
a hundred thoughts in clever clicks.

The thumb commands her private staff:
opponens, abductor, and flexor sly—
they lift her cup, they make her laugh,
they tie her hair or swat a fly.

Her blood flows in a braided stream,
radial, ulnar, joined in arc—
a soft cathedral, half in dream
beneath her palm where pulses spark.

Her skin smells faintly—clove and cream,
a cracked old bottle in her tote.
Each fingerprint, a secret scheme,
a maze, a spiral, and a note.

I’d kiss it if she’d let me near,
but she just folds it like a wing,
then disappears—without a tear—
and leaves me holding... everything.

BOOT CAMP POEM/FORT GORDON GEORGIA 

Drill sergeant said 

Stay off Broad Street 

But they went on down 

That Saturday past 

Tattoo parlors 

Massage parlors 

Pizza parlors 

To a bar with 

Cheap beer, met 

Up with these two 

Fine gals who said 

Let's ride out to 

Our place in the country- 

Side for fun, took 'em 

Way out of town 

Robbed 'em both 

Left 'em on the road- 

Side in their BVDs

 

And turned out 

They weren't really 

Even girls at all. 

Not that there's anything 

Wrong with that.

NEW ORLEANS UPPER NINTH WARD 2007

If I could fly back thru time
I might hang on a little longer
To that cute young hooker
With the leopard skin panties
Who sneaked back in my place
When my wife came down to
Talk me into moving home
And stole her purse and all
Her credit cards and $40
And all I could say was 
Wow Honey crime sure is bad
Around these parts! Her name
Was Amber. She was a country girl.

MEXICO CITY POEM

I flew away disgraced that day, 
December/cold

My ruined jeep crushed
In Dad's front yard which

He took with poor grace
Rolled in a ditch by

This young gal I was
Teaching how to drive my stick

So I hiked out on foot
At first daylight down

The Hwy 71S to the runway
Where my flight took off

At eight, and half an hour
Before the big jet hit the

Upper drafts, tear-eyed
And worried sick, my mom

Showed up with sandwiches
In a sack in her mother's way

And so I fled the snow and deep dismay

POEM FOR TEXAS BLONDE

Inside your Vagina lies Freedom:
Freedom from Boredom, Security,
Deadlines, Responsibility, Jurisprudence,
Wisdom, Rationality, Equilibrium,
Placidity & Basic Common Sense --
Like, as a wise man once said,
Riding a psychotic horse toward
A burning stable; but still
I miss you from time to time,
My little chickadee.

Hot Afternoon

 HOT AFTERNOON

If you take an empty
Forty-two oz bottle of Olde
English “800” malt liquor
Cap it and sit cross-legged
Up to your chest naked in
An old school swimming hole
Surrounded by placid murk (cold)
Jade green water dragonflies
And pissed-off squirrels up the
Hill the hot round rocks on the
Bank beyond your shade and
If you pull that empty bottle
All the way down and let it go
It will shoot up as high as
Three feet in the air, or
So I'm told

 MERCURY DIMES

O God, O Venus, O Mercury, 
Patron of thieves, give me in
Due time, I beseech you,
A million bucks. A cruise to
Old Atlantis. A sunny wife
With wings and perfect pitch.
A car with fins. Good boots.
Homer Simpson's actual battered
Copy of the I-Ching, notes and all.
A tattoo of the 1968 cover of
"Indian War Whoop" by the 
Holy Modal Rounders. Good teeth.
A double date with Betty AND Veronica.
Sea monkeys that endure. World Peace.
O God, O Venus, O Mercury,
Be the loose change you want
To see in this wicked weary world:
Brother can you spare a dime?

 

MANITOBA SONNET

My beautiful militant lesbian 
Feminist pal from Manitoba
Was couch-surfing thru Arkansas
And stayed a few days with
An old gal at a commune over
Near Brashhears, said they
Were making dinner and her
Host was trying to open a jar
 
Of home-made salsa but
It refused to budge so she
Finally looked at it in disgust
And said, “Fucking men,”
And put it back on the shelf
And they had store-bought instead.

 

HOW I MET YOUR MOM

 

I used to know this girl

Would let you suck her toes

For a pack of Marlboro Lite 100's in the Box

 

Nineteen year old girls

Smell like Hope, for sure

She did and when she'd

 

Hit a pause in talk

She'd shout, "I'm telling Mom!"

Which knocked me down

 

On the floor laughing--

She went to Oregon

Last I heard. Wotta doll.

CANTERBURY MOON

When the time of the bramble

Was too fast, I courted hard

'pon Delta Marsh Meadows

But never could find a key

Into her mossy furrows

Not unlike, she said,

The pond upon which

Grass and hedge and stump

Rest, and you 'pon me

If it were to be that way with us

But not so, and here

I sit, a man

Upon his chair,

A photo of a pretty girl

Dark-haired and vixen-eyed,

In winter, lest it was

The Merrie month of May,

Outside at night, and

Ringed about by Chaucerian

Greenblack groves, her face

An oval in the pale moon light

ONE WIFE MAY HIDE ANOTHER (after Kenneth Koch)

One girl may hide a different girl

As one costume may hide a

Different costume come Halloween

Or as one love may hide

A second love, which you

Do not see because you cannot

See behind things like love

Then one finds the second love

Hiding behind the other,

Served in secret, just as

One wife may hide another wife,

One who lingers there waiting,

Waiting for the wife to slip,

To give her then a helpful push,

To see how long she falls and falls

Before you hear her bounce.

CAT WAR MANIFESTO

It seems Mr Pickles

Loves blue cheese,

Loves it like a gun loves murder

 

Loves it like that Dobbs Ferry Rat,

That bastard his day will come

Hard and fast he keeps at

 

Our cheese our bowl

Laid out late of night

By Mr Big House Man

 

For us, not for that

Damned Dobbs Ferry Rat

Our crunchy feast 

 

Nor Old Possum Jones

Who's Mr Guts and plays dead

When caught mouth full

 

Of our grub, our crunchy bowl

Ours not theirs, ours,

Our blue cheese:

 

Kill kill kill!

I see things from

The under side now.

Poem For Hawaii (in the style of Don Blanding)

 

In the land where the trade winds gently kiss, Where waves and skies weave nature's perfect bliss, A tempest of fire, fierce and wild, Innocence and beauty tragically defiled.

Amidst the palms and hibiscus blooms, The flames did dance, dispelling nature's tunes, But even as destruction sought its way, Resilient spirits rise to greet the day.

For Hawaii's heart beats strong and true, From Mauna Kea to oceans of brilliant blue, In unity, they mend what was torn, Rebuilding the land where aloha is born.

Through tears that fall like gentle rain, Aloha 'aina, love for land, shall remain, With hope renewed, from ashes it springs, Hawaii's spirit soars on phoenix wings.

SLEEP OVER

I love it when
You tug my beard
That look you give

Your elbow nudge

At four a.m.
I punch your pillow

Shift and turn
You snort and kick

Your breath is hot

Upon my throat
Your cat descends

Upon my face

I'm in his spot
He knows his place.
And mine.

KARMA

For every hour you spend
Atop an Aztec pyramid
At Teotihuacan, far above
The arid landscape,
The Pyramid of the Moon
In the near distance,
You must spend exactly one month
In county lock-up back home,
Surrounded by fellow fuck-ups,
Drinking “calf formula” and
Eating bologna sandwiches
On white bread and
Learning 3 different ways to make meth,
As far out of your own orbit
There as you were high up
Looking down at the stone jaguars
And tiny human ants ascending
The steps to your summit far below.

Antler Dan's Rule:

 Always pass to the left.

Sonnet For My Grandmother

Death, where are thy 10,000 stings?

My father knows, leaning down to speak.

My son (11), standing by her bed

At one end of the span

Smiles widely for my grandmother

Who's at the other, her thoughts

Always on her face.

Dark water rushes underneath.

She herself waiting for that doorway

Into that perfect cloudless moonlit night

Where my grandfather waits,

Wrinkles sweetly smoothed by hand,

Feeds the hens & chickens,

Wonders what's keeping her so long.

xilitla

a green mountain like

a young girl's breast

hangs over tin roof'd xilitla

 

thru the mist green parrots

the unpaved road with chickens

the singing girls inside the school

 

descent to the bottom

where the children played ball

and stared at me gape-mouthed

 

washed shirts would not dry

on the line overnight

in the sierra gorda

 

the tethered goat sways

on the roadside in the grass

La Silleta, the mountain, looms above

Oz

Someplace Munchkins toil their fields,

Ghillikins pick fruit in their orchards,

Quadlings herd their tiny cows to market

 

Ozma sits serenely on her throne

The sun in the sky looks down & says,

Ho Ho