Guarding the Gates of 'Murica's Hell

Keep a right dead level head, 
Look alive and stay put 
In your proper place, gentlemen— 

Nothing but a lynch mob 
All these years, you thought 
You’d keep me broken, barking 

Your heads off up the wrong tree. 

Heads in the Clouds

Watch out you 

Strange, down-to-earthlings— 
Stare at us long enough, 

You’ll start seeing things. 

Adieu to Fancy, My Little Pigeon

So long as the eagle- 
Eyed crow flies 
Straight to the bloody 
Heart of the matter, 
One thing is clear, 
Dear—that lovey-dovey 
Pair of ash-grey neophyte 
Doves preening on 
The edge 
Of that buckling, 
Pale red-tiled roof 
Of the derelict, 
Decaying house 
Across the street 
Cooing you-ah-you 
Won’t be preening 
There for long. 

Heralds

angelic                     lights

           approaching

from                       all directions

             darkness           soon

                              imploding

from one still

                     fluttering within.

It Just Dawned on Me

“. . .to hurl the hatchet so far into the depths of the earth that it shall never again be seen in the future."—Reuben Gold Thwaites, Jesuit Relations 

 “Truth has very few friends and those few are suicides.” 
—Antonio Porchia, Voices 


Wish you were here long 
Gone old friend, we could spend all 
Night arguing to no end 
Like we used to, 
And take in the sun- 
Rise if that’s what 
You wanted in the end— 

If not, 
We could bury 
The hatchet right here 
And now, agree to disagree, 
Say one last good night 
And leave it at that, 
All right? 

Citrus Grove in Moonlight

under odorous 
lemon trees 
bearing pendant 

globes of gibbous 
moons shining
overhead. 

Wanting Mainstream Spirit

Taking stock of it at the start 
Of one more “soul-searching” session, 
He discovered “rich” was not what 
He wanted it to be after all, 

But he did not want it 
To be poor either; 
He desired neither 
The one nor the other— 

Clearly muddled 
In the middle, his was a singular 
Commodity of two minds, 
Both mediocre. 

Surfeit of Naught

Replete with nothing 
But that which is 

Missing, ciphers 
Spend their entire lives 

Filling in the blanks. 

Supplicants in Garden of Eden

Once you were merely two 
Blithe creatures who thought 
How happy they were before 
The fact without bothering 
The gods for an explanation; 
Losing your grip, now you’re 
But two creatures who know 
There is no explanation. 

. 

(Parenthesis)

Such is the lot 
Of the lowly 
Sloth that hangs 

On high from branches back 
Downward and falls fast 
Asleep, feeding on nothing 

But fruits and leaves. 

Wishful Thinking

Still a young boy, 
I’d spend hours teaching 
My puppy new tricks— 

Now too old to learn anything 
New and old Fido long gone 
To doggy heaven, sure 

Wish I knew how 
He learned how 
To play dead. 

Eidomeni, Greece: Answers with Questions Not Missing Their Marks

Shoes that fit. 
What? 

Too much of nothing 
And not enough 
Of anything. 

But who’s counting? 
What else? 
Does a refugee need? 

Try it on for size. 

Old Widow Opening Window Shutters

Picture this— 

First day of spring 
Out walking 
At daybreak, 

At the crack 
Of something metallic 
Against stone, you 

Look up to see her 
Two thin arms shooting 
Out of an aperture, 

Securing the shutters hard, 
Fast against the weather- 
Beaten wall so that all 

The light can spill in 
To the dark room— 
Got it? 

Now print it. 

Taking It One Step at a Time

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” 
—Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon 

It’s in the stars 
From the word go— 
Spend your life mooning 
Over where you’re going and never 
Once looking back, you’ll never know 
If you’re one step ahead of there 
Where you used to be or 
Simply backtracking, taking off 
On a wrong tack once more. 

Expendable Human Resources

I know 
It’s a long story full 
Of blood, toil, tears and sweat— 

But just stop and think—back 
Then we never knew how 
Much of us was spent— 

What say we 
Take it easy, after all, 
We’re almost there. 

Theater of the Absurd

Always on cue                 light is 

                         a dark angel 

fluttering 

                  in the wings for you. 

Amatorious

no apparitions

                            
                            sprightly

following a long

                         

                            spring

           drizzle, a pair of spar-

rows lightly spar-

ring on

a wet green bough.

Living with the Muse

Looks akin to having a virago 
For a wife, always berating 
You to stop wasting 
Precious time writing 
Trash, verbally 
Thrashing you with her 
God, why can’t you write off 
What you’re doing and do something 
Constructive for a change, 
Like take out the garbage 
Tout de suite, anything 
Anything to show me how 
Much you value your fleeting, 
Stinking life. 

Symbiosis Fated to Be Inevitable

Don’t be selfish, Janus-face—share 
Everything with your other if you must, 

Just so long as you’re aware 
It has to be 

Something you both need and trust. 

Breakfast for Two in the Garden of the Milk and Honey House

Waiting for pie 

In the sky cobbled apricot clouds 
Mourning doves' cooing 

Breaking apart what brings us together 
Piecemeal 

Our lives fly by. 

Classical Landscape with Homeric Allusions

That perpetual 
Refugee from darkness, 
Our old friend 
Rosy-fingered dawn— 
Let us greet her 
With splendiferous sips 
Of angelic light served 
On flower-bedecked verandas 
Overlooking the wine- 
Dark sea and not—by Zeus— 
With panoramic views 
Of an odoriferous Aegean 
Aflower with corpses 
Taking our breath away. 

Feeling Left Out

I’m taking all the time 
I need to read 
Between the lines 
To find out what’s missing 
And why nothing’s there— 

I know 

I need all the help I can get 
But something tells me 
I’m not going to find it 
Till I feel it leaving 
Me all by myself there. 

Zen Bucolic

At a loss with how to 
Jog your mind? 

Look at it this way— 
There’s a stream 

Of fresh asphalt sheep 
Droppings steaming 

In the sun, wide-eyed
Drop everything, watch 

Out where you run. 

Serial Killer

Oh dear, it looks like 
Your next poem’s well 
On its way to turning in
To your latest nightmare— 
What to do? For crying 
Out loud, choke it— 
You wouldn’t want it 
To end up stalking 
You too, would you? 

Skeleton Keys

Hard by 

There’s a door behind 
Which everything hides 

And where 

Everyone’s trying hard 
To get out 

Of going in. 

Lazarus Redux

April’s no fool— 
To come up smelling 
Like a rose 

In this waste land, 
You’ll have to dig deeper 
To revive 

Whatever remains 
Alive in you. 

Facing the Prompter

Friend, awake you pretend 
You’re sharp, alive and kicking, acting 
Up, one step ahead of the world again— 
Asleep, five will get you ten you see 
Someone tripping over his lines, 
A ham actor falling perfectly on end, 
Flat on his face again and again. 

After Attending the Funeral of a Centenarian, Phaedra (Approaching Four) Muses on the Subject of Mortality

Papa, 

I know Granny Sophy died 
Yesterday because I saw her dead, 

But I’m going to read as much poetry 
As I can and then try 

To write it so I don’t. 

Empathy of a Third Kind

Each village with a madman—might it be 
The work of the wind blowing in 

One ear and out 
The other 

Inconsolable as can be? 

Greek Occupation

Before the war, my father worked 
His small, patchy wheat fields
Wearing rough sandals 
Made of used tire treads, 
But he still put bread on our table. 

When the German boot came, 
He walked barefoot with no
Bread to be found anywhere— 
Another story altogether, 
But the kernel remains the same. 

Alarums

cocky insouciant plump 
roosters ring in 
false dawn like clockwork 
. 

lean crepuscular jackals 
in thicket clear throats 
cry out in unison
. 

same bloody refrain 
drones through vale 
of death daily
. 

again and again 

Idiot Boxed in Real Time

Once upon a time, 
At a loss with what 
To do with his id 

Most of the time 
The couch potato 
Just sat on it 

And waited 
For it to sit back 
All of the time. 

Not Just Anybody's Distress Call

From out of nowhere, 
When I needed someone 
To tell me who I was 
And where I was going, 
No one showed up 
To call my name. 

Notation on Negative Capability

Shit I can’t read 
A goddamn note of music 

But sure looks like 
The starlings 

Strung out like so 
Much sheet music jamming 

The utility lines can’t either. 

Hard Awash in a Fog

Thick cotton swabs 
The mind white 
Gone soft too 

To many harsh black 
Landscapes too thin 
To hold water 

Just right for you. 

A Poem, More or Less (after Porchia)*

One can never say enough— 
It has to be less or more, 
Till what’s left is just 
What you’re looking for. 


 *The catalyst for the above: 

     “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.” 

--from “Voices,” translated by W.S. Merwin, Big Table Publishing Company: Chicago, 1969.

Ultimate Refugee Solution

Round burning bedsides, 
Vigilant undying lines 

Of snuffed out candles seeking 
To be lit again once 

Their last day on Earth turns 
Off the lights and sputters 

To all a goodnight. 

Despair

What is it that takes 
So long to appear before you 
When you’re down, down, down? 
You spend forever waiting 
For some sign of it 
Before you're goners
When the herald’s already 
Winging it to the next town. 

Verdict

cut-and-dried 

white- 

washed 

walls 


no 

shadow 

of 

doubt 

crossing 


blank 

page 

leaving 

no 


room 

for 

deliberation 

As Good As It Gets

So sick of hearing 
Of the death 
Of this unacknowledged 
Legislator of the world 
And of that, I cannot 

But think in these mean times 
How many have come before 
And how many are yet to come 
And how many after that— 
A distressing, unceasing line 

Of well-meaning poets 
Dead or alive or yet to be 
Strung out and scrawling across 
An indifferent, chaotic universe— 
It doesn’t get much better than that. 

In Praise of Ephemera

There are only so many things 
Indolent ones can do in a day— 
If they take their sweet time 
And knock them off one at a time, 
They may last a lifetime. 

Injunction

When you have at last acquired 
All your heart desires, pray 
Do not come to me offering nothing 
Save your heart on your sleeve. 

No Bed of Roses

Each morning I ask myself if I’m awake, 
And each night I lie in bed sleeping on it. 

The Ultimate Notebook Poem

Try to write down everything 
You see—not enough time? 
 . 

Write down all that 
You can remember 
 . 

And then try 
To remember what 
. 

You forgot—no need 
To write it all down 
. 

The first time round 
Or the second 
 . 

Or the third 
And so on 
. 

Ad infinitum— 
It’ll all come back 
. 

To you when you see 
Everything becoming 
. 

A blank in due time
Next time round.

Seeing is Believing

It’s true, Narcissus— 
Even the reeds up- 
Right in the water look 
To be bending over 
For a closer look; 
But look again— 
Is it going 
To be the same 
Stream tomorrow? 

Driven Senseless by Pro Aris Et Focis

This solid citizen heeded the hallowed 
Call of the strait and narrow once 
Too often and ended up crazed 

And racing like a rat down a maze 
Of cheesy halls straight up against 
One hollow chintzy wall after another. 

In Lieu of a New Year's Poem

Oh, dear— 

Hard to find 
Something new 

To write about 
Each coming year 

When it grows old and dear 
And goes before you 

Come to know it, dear.