Narcissist Not Worth A Plugged Nickel

For what it’s worth, 
Here’s my two cents: 

If you can’t stop yourself 
From saying what you’re made of, 
Bite the bullet, shoot your mouth
Off as usual and tell us 
What you aren’t. 

That'll Be The Day At The Old Poets' Home

Your most serious fault, old chum, 
And one that’ll more than likely be 
The death of you is pretending 

You’ve finally found that grave 
New world of poetry you have 
Been searching for so long— 

On the other hand, if you have 
Truly discovered it, please 
Do us one last favor and stop 

Your traipsing back and forth 
Before that dumb old looking glass 
Looking oh so gleefully glum. 

Wintry Consolation

One gray, one white, both 
Faded, the weathered 
Plastic chairs keep 
Each other close 

Company under the torn pale 
Blue flapping porch 
Awning of the lately 
Dearly departed 

Couple. 

Haiku U. Poetry Workshop 101 Prize Specimen

                        narcissus 

You don’t need to use 
Beautiful in this haiku— 
Jonquils are in bloom. 

Photographer X In Action, Hanoi, 2016

The dog in the photograph caught 
Jumping in mid-air does not 

See its elongated shadow 
Being cast on the asphalt 

Some five or six yards 
Behind it, nor that the other 

Shadow next to it belongs 
To a girl sitting in the road 

Looking in the opposite direction 
Behind the dog and now readying 

To take a different photo, nor 
That this girl sees no shadows 

At all, not even those two long 
Oozing tar-like strips from the rear 

Of the black-and-white shoes 
Of the two women directly behind her, 

Who are busy framing 
A different shot 

Of an indifferent dog curiously 
Arrested in mid-air. 


 

Axioms Of A Third Kind

You there, 
You with the stars 
In your eyes, living 
In another world— 

One is the 
Number of the never- 
Ending dream next 
To zero, 

Zero is the 
Number of the 
Stillborn dream next 
To one, consequently 

Still-to-be-born 
Zero and one, 
And one and zero are 
Still one in the end— 

Count your blessings 
On this earth 
While you can, 
My friends. 

On a Phrase Of Randall Jarrell's--From His Introduction To The Selected Poems Of William Carlos Williams

“Nothing is more important than the way it looks” 

If we are to concur with Jarrell’s premise, 
We must take it one step further 
And admit that looks are everything, 

And if so, we must also ask ourselves
What’s to be said of nothing--
That it looks like nothing? 

The Quandary

Nesting inside 
A healthy beast 

Lies another less 
Healthy beast 

Inside another 
Less healthy one 

And so it goes— 
Somewhere therein 

Lies the key 
To the puzzle 

No healthy beast wants 
To solve. 

Fate of a Graphically Novel Nondescript Porno Poet

he knew all 
too well 
his fab femmes fatales 

musings would find him 
graphically broken 
at the end 

of one mushy anticlimactic 
line after another, 
and where 

nothing he laid down 
before them in vain- 
glorious color could stop them 

from coming 
sheathed in plain 
black-and-white 

fictions again and again. 

Murderous Mindset

That fleeting image you thought 
You’d captured and which
You were planning to use 
When next faced with another 

Downer dead end has just turned 
The corner and is now hurtling down 
That old familiar highway headed 
For the next mind-blowing bend—

Throttle it before it too goes off 
The deep end. 

Almost Ultimate Haiku

That image running 
Through your mind could be your last— 
Try to make it last. 

On Revolutionary Pre-Texts

Put down one bloody 
Revolting word 
At a time in the body, 
And the others killing 

Time in the margins 
Of the pedestrian 
Mind will turn round 
Squarely and finish you 

Off in no time. 

Once-in-a-lifetime Gift

—for Eleni, again 


When I at last reach out 
For something desperately 

Wanting all these years, 
I want that 

Gift to be offered 
By one so well- 

Versed in the artless 
Art of giving that 

The act itself, freely 
Given, leaves nothing 

Wanting in return. 

Ongoing Adult Education Is

Observing your six-year-old 
Granddaughter learning how to 
Form her first letters, discovering 
She made a mistake and then

Watching her erasing it carefully 
Before writing it as it should be, 
Never once asking you to help her 
Write it right again. 

Derailed

Coming from the wrong side 
Of the tracks, we knew straightaway 
What felt right for us was balancing 
For as long as we could on rails 
We thought would lead us away— 
What sidetracked us was that bright 
Shiny penny that blindsided us 
From the right and led us astray. 

Prospective Basket Case #45POTUS

The worst is yet to come scenario 
Runs through the entire thread 
Of his talk and boy how we wish 
He’d hurry up and unravel before
The whole shebang blows up
Under the circumstances, leaving
Us gratefully dead in the head. 

Mushroom Recognition Scene

---for Joseph Hutchison, who first alerted me 

Heads up--just as you boisterously
Catch sight of something precious, 

In the same moment you are 
Already poised to see others 

Massing underground, jostling 
For a view of you, now nodding 

Just ahead, just above 
The silent downy mosses.

DOA Supply Command Post, 2199

Do you read me? 

commandeering 
commanding 
view 

of carrion 
after carnage over 
GMO battlefields, 

gigantic live- 
wired radio- 
active trans- 
mogrified crows 

on 
top 
of 
still 
standing 
tele- 
communications 
silo 

keep 
crowing 
on 

commanding ever so 
increasing demand for 
commodity futures, 

over.

If Confucius Were Alive Today

I bet he’d strike us all 
Dumb with something like 
Women with tongues that smart 
Say ‘Men do not need sleep 
At night because they sleep 
Standing up during the day’. 

Suddenly It Dawns On One In Transylvania

One more day.
The grey flaking

Hostel shutters flap open 

In a relentless wind, 
There’s no one

Strong enough to keep 
The dead in. 

Missive To John Levy In Tucson

Hi, brother— 

Since you asked about Rita 
In your last letter, last I heard 
Your foraging hunchback dwarf 
With the unflagging energy 
And beautiful bouquets 
Of overwhelmingly sweet 
Smelling narcissi who kept 
Coming back to your door 
On her little red bike in 1984 
After you’d already bought four 
Of them and placed one 
In each of your house’s 
Three small rooms plus 
Bringing one to my mother 
As a name day gift is now 
Where her siblings put her— 
In an old folks’ home 
In Kalamata—that’s all 
I know for sure for now,
But thinking back on how 
Fiercely she fought and persevered 
Against the ugliness of people 
Surrounding her, I also like 
To think her new surroundings 
Are chock full of plenty pretty
Flowers like the ones 
You bought from her, too. 


All the best 
From your brother in the boondocks 
Of the southern Peloponnese 

Autumnal Ritual

Centenarian plane tree 
Waving goodbye 

To golden leaves, black- 
Garbed old woman 

Meticulously sweeping 
House walkway clean.