WAITING FOR THE DAWN

When Frank Sinatra comes on 

singing "New York New York"

I shut off the radio. They'd been

playing some pretty 

decent stuff up till then

but that's like an obscene joke now.

 Still thirteen hours 

to go before dawn

and there's no guarantee

I will sleep any of it away.

Reading poems by Bukowski

and Raymond Carver. 

I buy books off the internet

to read on my Kindle.  

I buy plenty of books that way.

(I know you never buy a damn

book, but all your libraries are closed!)

I'm looking for something there, 

but so often I find disappointment.

Like the time--

it was a long time ago now--

I was at this singles dance

and this woman I didn't know

looked at me like she could

see right through me and she says:

You're looking for something...

but you're not going to find it here.

What did she think I was looking for?

Happily Ever After?

I still don't know.

But there's twelve hours to go before dawn...

and I know 

I'm going 

to have to

fill it 

with something 

that passes 

for living.

A COBBLESTONE STREET IN CANNES

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

I know you thought
that last one was weird
and I could see you
sitting there saying:
Geez, I hope he doesn't 
make this a habit
cuz he was obviously
high when he wrote it!

(I just had to laugh)

When all your angels
have retired and given
up the ghost and you're
out there on your own
existential limb
teetering in the wind
you'll simply tell it as it is
with increasing alacrity

all good people deplore
problems at a distance

appalled by what the
unenlightened inflict
upon each other
(but at a distance)

the power disparity
inherent in all relationships
whether they be between
individuals or groups of
individuals sows the
seeds of abuse

and here's the thing
about Armageddon......

there won't be any time to
look back and ask
what went wrong
when your ass is
high-tailing it for the hills

(jump cut)

If I had my druthers
I'd be walking down
a cobblestone street in Cannes
a few paces behind Brigitte Bardot
whose butt is wiggling like
a sack of Yukon Gold potatoes
in her bright white short shorts
and yes I will take that year
whatever it is to inhabit
like a hermit crab
for all time

The person caught in any
moment in time is
frozen in that moment
because that is his moment
then a much older person
who is caught in his moment
and will forever be comes
along and has the audacity
to claim that he is the same
person as that whippersnapper
from long ago...

identity theft on a global scale

and God said to the monk of 57 years:
You know you could have done
whatever the hell you wanted--
I'm not a prude!

but whatever it is
make it good 
'cause time steals away
like a whore 
from your bedside
at 5 a.m.
and the world 
is made of yesterdays

ALL THE BOOGEYMEN AND THE GODDESSES ARE GONE

dVerse Poets Pub--Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

I initially engage a book of poetry
somewhere in the middle, 
looking to avoid   
beginnings and endings
as one always leads to the other
and if we'd just meet each other
halfway the cycle might be broken.

I  don't need new and improved
like the dubious claims in that
laundry detergent commercial.
Am quietly content with 
a 1997 issue of Ploughshares 
that I picked up at the used book sale.
Those poems have been neglected
for some time (I can identify) 
so I pay them a visit to find
lo and behold that neither they
nor their creators have aged...
only me...old and unimproved.

And then the next ad pops up 
and it's  the real people-- not actors--
with their testimonials, don't you know.
And as for those backhandedly maligned
thespians, I wonder if at the end of the day
 do they turn back into real people again 
when they go home to their families
or maybe just a room with one dim  
bulb hanging down from 
the ceiling and a cat.

And now back to our story.
But maybe I'll just switch it off 
before the foregone conclusion.
Have done it before.
You just walk out the door.
(Avoiding the saddest part of the drama.)
Used to think maybe I would
miss something that way. 
But now can see that 
all I missed was the ending.

FIRST DAY OF THE POETRY CLASS I'M NOT TEACHING

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Stop looking for the
pretty word
and start looking for the
relevant one
there are so many pretty words
blocking the sun
and the cold light of day
I'm 'bout to choke on the perfume

get over the sweet sickness
of wanting to make pretty words
and come to your senses
there are five of them
(six if you ask Bruce Willis)
and you can use them all
do ya hear me?
do ya see what I'm sayin?
are ya sniffin' out my meaning?
you can almost taste it now, right?

(has this touched you in any way?)

cuz nobody writes like you
when you sayin' things that have a meaning
and not just a sound
nobody else can do it
egg-zachly like you
and that's the beauty of it, pardner
right there

Last Tango In Timbuktu

BRING A GRIN TO THE FACE OF THAT LOVER OF LITERATURE WITH A QUIRKY SENSE OF HUMOR ON YOUR XMAS SHOPPING LIST...

AND SO ON

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

d'Verse Poets Pub

No one is crazy
about a poem
that goes on
and on
and on
and on
and on 
and on 
and on
and so on
(you gotta get out there and slop the pigs!)

A poem should be
like a good fight with your girlfriend. 

Say it succinctly
have it mean something
make it feel like a stab in the heart
and get out of there.

Come back later.

Approach cautiously
and take a peek
to see if "she" still looks friendly.

Then dress her up a little
and get ready
for her big debut with your friends!

THE PLOT THICKENS

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

It has come to my attention
as it does from time to time
that I'm much fonder of plot driven
narrative than characterization that goes
on and on and on and on and on and on
and in the end what are you left with
but the same pathetic slob you met in the beginning
in the same place in his life
only he's had some slight epiphany
or not
like all of the postmodern gunk
I used to wade through
hoping against hope
that SOMETHING would happen
anything
but in the end it just ends
and you're left feeling cheated
the way you feel
at the end of a love affair
cuz in the end that's just how it ends

up in the air

so why do we always want more than
what's possible
riding off into the sunset
everything neat and tidy
just give me something messy
The Big Bang will do fine
and I'll keep myself busy
picking up the pieces

Anyway here's what I made away with from my most
recent excursion to the public library's used book sale:

THE PARIS REVIEW BOOK OF HEARTBREAK,
MADNESS, SEX, LOVE, BETRAYAL, OUTSIDERS,
INTOXICATION, WAR, WHIMSY, HORRORS, 
GOD, DEATH, DINNER, BASEBALL, TRAVELS
THE ART OF WRITING, AND EVERYTHING ELSE
IN THE WORLD SINCE 1953 (and that is the title)

750 pages for a damn buck
cheap thrills
goddamn cheap
and there's Updike
Nabokov
Capote
William Burroughs
Ezra Pound
Ginsberg
Mailer
Hemingway
Henry Miller
and Stanley Elkin
whom I've always liked
just to name a few
and did you know that John Updike has a poem called
"Two Cunts In Paris"
oh
and I also picked up Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac Of The Dead
Stephen King's The Long Walk (lotta dead folks in there too)
and Ian McEwan's Saturday (which I finished on a Monday)
and God I swear that plot is so incidental to McEwan
(HE SPENT SEVENTEEN PAGES DESCRIBING A GAME OF SQUASH!)
but I waded through it anyway
I stuck with it cuz that's one of my flaws
giving the benefit of the doubt to
most anyone
till they prove me stupid

which most eventually do...

And I know I'm relinquishing
all claim to literary snobbishness
by telling you this
but I'll guarantee ya Scheherazade
kept things lively and moving
and just like that Persian king
I'm still here
after all this time
starry-eyed and hanging
on every word
with childlike wonder
(or naivete)
waiting to find out what comes next

ANOTHER POEM

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--d'Verse Poets Pub

It was a dark and horny night
dirty diapers and the Doppler effect
were in the air

Damaged child
with his Tinker Toys
don't make any noise
fighting the storm of surprise
under the guise
of normalcy

Who have you been
for lo these many lives
and how many people
are crying quietly inside you?

He heard a dog panting
felt its hot turd breath
on the back of his neck
the dog proffered his paw
and introduced himself

All relationships
involve sacrifice
and just as Paul Simon
has surely suffered for his Art
we look at the world
and discern discordant landscapes
a woman's mountain
a man's molehill
If only I could remember
your memories
but I'm stuck with my own

Diplomacy 
on an international scale
is what's required
we'll send Olive Oyl
with an olive branch
and if that doesn't work
we'll send Popeye
to sock you in the eye

We've trained with the best
we've paid our dues
or you would not see the stellar
lip-syncher who stands before you today

Back off boogaloo
I've got no use
for pretentious retorts
you're certified crazy and
there's some kind of shit
some kind of madness
in the way you've chosen
to live in this world

Blue smoke
echoes of ourselves
reverberating through time
I'm setting off for someplace
east of the sun
and west of Rangoon

And I don't owe this silly world a thing
but maybe another poem

MOMENT OF CONCEPTION (saluting National Poetry Month)

Trapped in an unrelenting

avalanche of words,

conjuring the vision

that has made him blind,

the poet speaks volumes

without moving his lips.

An act of procreation

without touching,

but somehow you've been

touched just the same--

Aware, as you muse through

your morning walk,

and later,

rappel down the mountain of

papers on your desk,

that the words have seeped

into your being...

the seminal fluid

implanting its seed of truth.

LET GO

Walking my dog
Has taught me
An important life lesson

When she does her business
No matter how it comes out
She never looks back

--Timoteo