Fallen Leaves Redux

Eve? Plain as day— 

Something about her 

Nature made me want 

To swirl round her ankles 

So she could sweep me away. 

Up the Down Staircase on the Stairway to Heaven

There I was in the back of a tiny delicatessen in an aisle jammed between racks of Italian pasta when the front door opened and an old man went up to the counter where the owner greeted him with a Hiya buddy, what’ll you have? The old man asked Where’re the stairs? What stairs, buddy? Why, the ones that go upstairs, the old man answered indignantly. There’s no upstairs, Pop, there’s only this one floor, the owner shot back condescendingly, then turned his back on the old man, who though standing motionless, now looked like he was descending some great unfathomable abyss. 

NB: Edited notebook entry, Seattle 1976.

Autopsy

Bones, 

Not enough evidence here, I’m afraid 

We’ll have to go back to where 

We last saw our bodies 

Alive and kicking. 

Ceremony of Succesion

Before the celebrated 

Rape scene, Mammon dressed 

As a swan, proceeds 

To preen his feathers 

Before offering all 

His overweening pride 

To his coming, 

Gilded offspring— 

Let us toast the occasion. 

Crickets in Bluegrass Country, 1959

Oh, I got that bug about colors— 

Blue’s one of my sweeties, 

Green too and I love hearing them 

Rocking and rolling 

On my back on the grass 

On my way to school—so 

No ding-dong bell for me,

Buddy, I’m gonna be cool 

Just like you.