Tailor-made Moonless Night

Waiting 

To take measure of the dazzling 

Fabric of the universe, 

I wait out 

Beyond the needles of the pines 

For the pinholes to appear; 

Many questions on my mind but 

Only one of any substance— 

How many light years will it take 

For this threadbare body 

To pierce the heavens 

At the appointed hour 

And disappear? 

Blown Away

The heat wave was so 

Stupefying the cicadas 

Exploded taking off 

Our heads the last I heard 

They were high- 

Tailing it, frazzled 

By dodging sparrows 

Pine to pine. 

Lackadaisical

I don’t know about this 

She loves me, she loves me not 

Love-hate business but all this talk 

Of hard work making America 

What it is makes me want 

To lie stark naked 

In a field full of flowers 

And peel off her clothes 

One-by-one till she lies there 

Doing nothing fully 

Exposed too.

After the Fall (for the Zillionth Time)

To start again 

At the beginning 

With the world upright 

And everything just 

As it was 

In the beginning 

That would be how 

To end things anew, 

Another beginning. 

Blaze of Glory, Poet

The lamp 

Of the lady of night has gone out 

But it’s left a flame 

That still licks your wounds. 

Making Do with Less

Whatever I take, I take too much or too little; I do 

not take the exact amount. The exact amount is no use 

to me. 

—Antonio Porchia, Voices 

Antonio, tell you what— 

Today I’m going 

To take more of what 

I didn’t take yesterday— 

The rest I’ll leave 

For tomorrow;

That should pretty well do it. 

Staking out the Usual Suspect

Stick to your MO, gumshoe— 

Stare out the window 

Long enough, no matter what 

The view, you’ll see 

The frame becomes you. 

Hung up on the Goddess

God, I’m a hopeless case— 

Where other mortals see 

Wave after wave of ripples 

Caressing the shore, 

In the foam of my mind I see her 

Multitudinous immortal nipples 

And still thirst for more. 

Calling Card

Where oh where are the cicadas? 

You can hear their quivering 

Insistence in the pines but never 

A sign of their presence in the air— 

Only their empty shells at the end 

Of summer remind you 

They too were there. 

Out to Lunch

And offline until Sunday while I escape to the shores of the Ionian in the company of George Seferis (actually his spirit as revealed through his books, but you knew that).

Coming Up In The World

Where once there was 

An outhouse 

With swatches of news 

Paper nailed to bare brick 

Wall next to a hole, 

Now indoors 

A fine vitreous fixture 

And a roll 

Of soft ass-wipe unwound, 

Touching cool 

Marble floor. 

Achieving Brilliance

Some have to work hard at it, 

Others hardly at all, so 

Before he steps back 

And takes one last hard look 

At what he’s left behind, 

This ragamuffin of a boot- 

Black buffing the shine of the gentleman 

Has to spit on his shoes and snap 

The rag like his life depends on it 

One more time. 

John the Baptist aka The Saint Oregano Man

Gather your oregano while you may after his name day (June 24th) and as long as it has ripened fully and you collect it very early in the morning before the first rays of the sun have touched it. This” slight” detail is essential because only in this way does the oregano acquire magical powers. 

This explains why I got up at 5 o’clock this morning and rode my trusty ancient Yamaha 125cc Enduro motorcycle to our olive grove about 9 km due west of Meligalas and spent the next two hours gathering this holy mountain of oregano, which will be cured in the shade, mind you, (or else it will turn black and spoil) before being sprinkled generously on a variety of salads and meat/fish/poultry dishes, as the Greeks have always used it as a food preservative, and it is probably in this role that the pessimistic phrase “Put some oregano on him” is employed metaphorically when someone’s plans start to go from bad to worse. 

NB: It may sound far-fetched to some but included in oregano's magical powers is its ability to heal wounds; believe me—as The Saint Oregano Man is my witness—this claim is definitely not for the birds. Nor is this poem.

Ambivalence

When night creatures start
To stir in your sleep, their eyes too

Close for comfort.

Descendants of Daedalus

With all due respect, sun 

Please no deviations— 

Just keep waxing pretty

As she goes, I know 

It's a maze but here we are

Doing downright nicely by you

Just as you are. 

Deception Pass

A poem trying to be 

So clear and rarefied, 

Even a fumbler could see 

Right through it.