Poetry

Works of verse

Making Movies

These are the shots of life

that we see translated to vision:

those dramatic slow motion turn-abouts

or artsy fade-outs with unreal light.

 

Though we cannot feel

voyeurism with public on our body,

we can identify the moments

of distinction

with a flat sigh,

or a cry,

or a gasp

as one of six billion.

 

And we fall into a

1st-person digital narrative

with nothing to save us

from life,

unless we should be swallowed

in the mouth of madness

and see ourselves as the way we would

be seen

by our own absent minds.

Edumacation

Muse, O Muse, edumacate

me, so I can write a poem:

Maybe those dead gods from across the sea can inspire me.

Set can set me up

With Isis in the back seat, and Osiris in the trunk,

Then I can learn me the arts of erotion.

And with Minerva I can cloak the emotion

In erudition and write like Pound.

Anubis can teach me to write like Plath,

Or maybe Byron in a bad mood.

Old Tlaloc can bathe me in blood, but he’s from Mexico

And all that’s come out of there is One Trillion Years of Aloneitude, or

something.

Maybe Si Wang-mu, Royal Mother of the West, can teach me to create like Li Po,

But he’s a little dry for my taste: only the wind of the immortals and

bones of the Tao.

No meat on him.

Hey, there’s a god who’s worth looking to: Thor.

He can smash stuff…

…Well, maybe he’s not such a poet after all.

Visnu could come to me, and I could be Arjuna,

Or I might end up like his uncles.

Those Hindu gods are poets, but mean.

I think I’ll stay away from them.

Gilgamesh was ⅓ god, but couldn’t stay awake to catch infinity.

Utnapishtim judged him right:

He would probably fall asleep in the middle of inspiring me.

Dead Cthulhu, sleeping in his house at R’yleh,

Now there’s a god worth volumes of poems:

He gets in your head and drains your sanity.

Maybe Dutch Schultz was an aquaintance of his,

But I rather like the order I impose on the universe.

The Bear of old Rus might give me some rhymes,

But I hear he’s in cahoots with a witch.

Lament, O ye masses:

The Gods are dead!

And the Orisises ain’t risin’.

I Almost Married Opportunity

Opportunity, so beautiful,

Appeared to me one day.

I viewed and contemplated her

But turned the other way.

 

So Opportunity left me,

Searched across the land.

And in a nicer place

She found a better man.

 

Now joy is he and great success,

With Opportunity by his side.

While sitting, I, in cardboard house,

Have nothing left to try.

 

If Opportunity returned to me,

I’m sure of what I’d do.

I’d likely turn my back again,

And off she’d run with you.

The Other Side of Lee

Trumpet:

Weaving across the floor,

Slipping out of reach

Elusive, cunning,

A fox outfoxing, hip with hot hips,

She sizzles and twists

Sax:

C’mon baeeee-by! C’mon baby please!

C’mon baby, c’mon baby dance with me!

C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon!

C’mon baby dance with me!

 

Piano:

She: slip, slide, slither, glide.

He: groove and prance and strut.

They sidestep into each other.

 

Bass:

You see there’s this chick…

She can’t be caught…

You see there’s this chick…

Dances with any cat…

This chick dances and hypnotizes…

Now, you see this chick…

The Sidewinder…

You close your eyes…

She’s gone…

Weaving back across the smoky room.

Holy War

Holy Land, holy war,

and the Saturday morning prayer

pecked

with pops of bullets.

Each “Amen” is punctuated by a firm “crack.”

 

Holy Land, holy war,

and the scent of baking Shabbat

bread as it twists into the acrid odor of blood—

only a block away.

 

The taste of peace fills my mouth, bulging my cheeks

in all of its addictive,

intoxicating,

saccharine flavor.

Then there is the taste of revenge.

Like water, it is flavorless… ordorless.

It boils, scalding my mouth—

leaving my taste buds buzzing

and the pink flesh of my inner cheek

stinging.

 

Holy hopes, holy war,

and the feel of my father’s fingers,

coarse and worn,

wrinkled like his thick camouflage suit.

I know the valleys of his hands like I know the rough creases

of his uniform.

Here I’ve leaned my head,

innumerable times.

 

He’s been gone so long.

All that I remember are his hands.

In our final moment together, his left hand held a gun

and his right the skullcap of his youth.

He held it fast on his head as he placed an army hat

atop his kippah.

Then he tucked the Torah into his gun sack

for Friday night readings in the trenches of a war.

 

This work received a Gold Award in The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards of 2002.

A Bunch of Nonsense

I am a super hero!
I am the lingerie loving,
Plum dancing,
Popcorn serving,
Potato eating,
Viggo Aspiring,
Moviegoer,

I am…

The Last General of the forgotten creed,
The laughing Grand Mage of forgetfulness,
The Ranger of the play grounds,
The Arch Duke of the melancholy collaborators,
The Poet who talks to little hairy fat naked Fay…

                They
say to me,
                            He
shall be knighted,
                                  He
shall propose,
   He shall kiss the earth and be blessed,
 He shall cry when his children are born,
            He shall
rise and be recognized…

But in my mind I see,
                     You
curling up in the covers,
                        While
I make breakfast,
   &nbsp      And I’ll wake you with
the smell of fresh orange juice.
                  After
I move your hair from your eyes,
                    We
lay…
                                In
a half daze till our children come barreling in…

Because I say happiness is a long winded poem,
being read by an overconfident, Lord
of the
Rings maniac, with a little too much time on his hands… And
a whole lot of nonsense to share
with the world…

Complex Fruit

Men are like kiwi

Women are like pineapple

Thus the complexity of fruit

St. Francis’s Program for Gifted Children

Janie, what is love?

Love is a flower, sir.

Hmm. Quite. And, Randy, what is hate?

Hate, sir?

That’s what I said.

It’s, er, a fire, sir.

Excellent. Brandy, define fear.

Fear is a report card, sir.

Ah. Hah-ha-ahem. Certainly. And—oh, are we to Byron?

Yes, sir.

Mm. Of course. Very well, then. Byron, do keep it shorter this time, won’t you?

Yes, sir.

If you please, what is anger?

Sir, anger is a falling star that blazes white, yellow, then red and drops from the sky in brilliant despair. It falls into my house, where it quavers, flickers, and stands still, with mere ashes surrounding its deathly glare. Sir.

Masquerade

The first note strikes to

the tune of deception,

The second note sung by deceit,

The musicians play on, a harmony of lies

As we rise to dance in the fraud,

Our steps—quick and light as evasion—

Echo with hollowness when set to the floor,

Waltzes of guile, forgery, falsehood,

Sweeping the room with polished distortion

When under the weight of our own self-destruction,

As the delicate melody draws to an end,

the dance floor beneath us crumbles and shatters.

Piercing egos in the stillness

 

This work received a Gold Award in The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards of 2002.

Paranoia

I knew a man once who was

so suffocated by his own skin that

one day he just started running and

never stopped but

he ran so fast that

when he finally stood for a moment to

catch his breath he was

back where he started.

gasping for air.

 

This work received a Gold Award in The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards of 2002.