IT ALWAYS COMES BACK

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And we talked about time

and how we sometimes wish

we could get past the unmomentous moment

but that's just willing ourselves

one step closer to death

but we never see it that way

we just want to be nearer to that

which makes us feel more alive

And Time

you smirking sack of shit

I study your face as you perform

your sleight of hands

and when the big one's on twelve

and the little one's on eight

I've come full circle again

heading out the door in a groundhog daze

and all this picture needs

is Sonny and Cher

singing "I Got You Babe"

And the hands of time keep circling

like vultures around 
my fledgling schemes

but time is well spent

when one's well spent

and I try to think of what

I'm supposed to be thinking

but it always comes back to you

and every song on the radio

has already read my mind

this much I know is true

you make me feel brand new

I say a little prayer for you...

And Time

you old gypsy man

just once I'd like to land

a swift kick to your cojones

as a token of appreciation

for dragging me down

this one way street

And I think I know what it is...

it's this feeling of being alive

that's so heady and bittersweet

Spinning into a moment

that spits in Time's face

like a fortune cookie that reads:

You are living in an eternity...

the time to be happy is now

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WHEN YOU GET RIGHT DOWN TO IT

Funny Bunny Fridays

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All right

NATURE LOVERS--

Let's talk about the NATURAL man

When you get right down to it...

It is UNNATURAL to

trim one's hair

It is unnatural to

shave one's beard

Or to shave one's legs

(and I knew plenty of women in the 70's

who were fully cognizant of this!)

When you get right down to it...

It is unnatural to

get a bikini wax

Or to allow someone

to unceremoniously rip off

the hair

that is naturally growing

on one's back

with that sticky tape...

AAAAAGGGHHHH...son-of-a-BITCH !

When you get right down to it...

Were we to opt for the completely

NATURAL LOOK

we would all

(eventually)

be the spitting image of BIGFOOT

Just like the aggressive

chest-thumping

barely evolved past apehood

species that we are...

And wouldn't the Victoria's Secret fashion show look funny then?

IN MEMORIAM

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Everything starts here

in my composition book

just like the ones I never used

for school work

too busy scribbling my subversive poetry

in study hall

a nasty little parody of Beowulf

or The Night Before Christmas

a drunken Santa staggering around

busting up the furniture

always thought drunks were funny

still do

art imitating life

I guess

I was past the days when dad

barely able to stand

took the car out one New Years Eve

and wrecked it

injuring some innocent family members

in the other vehicle

then

somehow getting a ride back home

and taking our other car out

and wrecking it on the same night

the guy was a gas

one day I said this is such B.S.

this idea of school as a full time job

and I vowed to stop taking homework

completely

and made good on it

my last two years of high school

nobody cared

the funniest thing was

they let me graduate

dear old mom and her Second Big Mistake

would be at the beer joints all night

I'd stay up alone on Saturdays

in that isolated farmhouse

watching Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi on late night TV

I wanted to walk like an Egyptian

I could always count on them

to come home fighting

ripping the phone out of the wall

and busting up some furniture

so comical

I'd pass my nasty rhymes around in class

Teach would be up there with his blah blah

my poem circulating up and down

each row of desks

even the girls snickering

and passing it on

and Teach

protector of impressionable minds

intercepting the paper

beginning to read

beginning to laugh out loud

catching himself

face turning red

going on a diatribe about how such trash

was the product of a sick mind

but it was too late

I'd already caught him

in the act

and gool ol' Mom lying there

in a pile of chicken feathers

from a ripped up pillow

and ol' Doc from town would come out

and patch her up

discreetly

it was a small town

and Doc's young daughter

prettiest girl in my Junior High class

asked me out one time

to a roller skating party

it occurred to me much later

that he must have put the kabosh

on that from ever happening again

with the likes of me

and Santa cursed

and flipped them all the finger

as he rode out of sight

after busting up some furniture

of course

always thought drunks were funny

still do

but only funny

if they're funny

and not morose

more points if he's staggering around

with a lampshade on his head

every comic knows

that comedy comes from pain

so please don't stand there

with that look of disdain

and try to change me now

CHRISTOPHER STARDUST

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You gambled on a sure thing and your losses were incalculable. So you hit the road (after being tossed from a speeding pickup truck).

While hitch hiking, you meet up with an old southern gentleman who is offended by the stars in your eyes and the stripes along the highway. He says, "I SPIT on you, suh!"

"No ya don't," you cry, keeping on the move, bobbing and weaving, increasing the tempo until he runs out of saliva.

You shag a ride with a woman in a Jaguar convertible. She parks along a dirt road and her top comes down. You desperately want to get her home to play a game of Scruples, knowing that she has none.

You say you can never be bought, but she purchases you outright. And though there was a price on your head, she says it can be easily removed with a little soap and water.

Her career is in high gear, so she leaves you at home to play Mister Mom. She sends you a text that says: BANG THE DRUM. BURP THE BRAT. BE SURE THE DOGS ARE BATHED AND PROPERLY TUCKED INTO BED. (It is public knowledge that she has a rash in a private place, but since it's always dark when she gets home, you're the last one to know.)

You become a transvestite, fashioning your own dresses from the burlap bags you buy with your meager allowance. You wear glitter in your hair and call yourself Christopher Stardust.

The newspaper does a human interest story on you. You get your own cable TV show, doing psychic readings for house pets from the way they bark, mew, or snort into the telephone. You tell a cat that its last escape from death was just by a whisker.

You parley your knowledge of animals and your smooth bedside manner into a successful phone sex business for those who are into bestiality. (You imitate all those beastly noises yourself.)

You take all your profits and hit the casino again, intent upon making that one big score.

You put it all on black.

It comes up red.

You borrow money from a guy named Bruno. You don't lose your shirt...you lose your bra, your wig, and your garter belt. They take you back to the highway where they toss you from an even faster moving truck.

Ever the hardheaded one, you gather yourself up and stagger down the road. Glitter falls from your hair and gets stuck in your navel. You look up at the sky and see a shooting star burning itself out. Your woman drives by in her Ford Fiesta.

This time, she doesn't stop.

STARS ON WATER

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We are lost in the darkness

the autumn constellations

like the sparkle of snow

Dreaming

drifting
as milk wagons from a bygone era

on nightbound roads

moving ceaselessly in search

of a vanished dawn

The sleeping forest

crisp and cold

a jewel in the moonlight

Night planes

spiraling stars

deer snorting in the underbrush

Atum spills his seed across the firmament

the great nebula of Andromeda

we need only believe in mysteries

Our campfire

like the summer

fades to glowing embers

Eternity so relentless
and yet so fleeting

springs and autumns flash by

slipping wordlessly away

And we

like stars on water

drifting seaward

In the awe-filled silence

MEMO TO MYSELF

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The day doesn't care

what you're doing.

The sun will still

make its arc...

the quail will still

scamper across the yard

in the morning...

and all the nasty little children

will pile off the bus

in the afternoon

screaming epithets

that once were the purview of sailors.

You can lie there

on your dead butt

or you can do something heroic...

but you won't do anything heroic

lying on your dead butt.

The day doesn't care

what you're doing...

it will pass you by

without a moment's regret.

It's all up to you.

RISE OF THE FALL

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St.George and the Dragon--by Gustave Moreau.

Night descends

like a straight razor in a morgue...

The cutting edge of the

moon illuminates a blood-spattered

canvas, as art imitates death.

From the tenements there comes a wail--

siren song to the thunderbeat of jackboots

in perfect sync, a mirage or a memory, but

you can't trust a fascist to tell you which.

In the night I sense that he

is soaring over the city

with his searchlight and his megaphone.

Solo flight in a jackdaw dream.

Brownshirt in a black sky.

He wears a silver swastika on a golden chain.

He has come to inspect my paintings.

I tell him that once viewed they

are no longer mine, but belong to the world,

like Saint George and the Dragon.

Pretending to be a Brahman with

high-falutin' ways, his tail switches

like an alligator who disapproves of my shoes.

His lips curl into a sardonic smile.

Flames shoot from the sides of his mouth

as he contemplates his next tactical move.

When I escape, the sky

is on fire in my rear-view mirror.

Pink flambe in a Black Russian's eye.

Is Paris Burning?

Quick, try to remember the year you were born...

and were you in love with Anastasia after all?

Across town it is ladies night at

the poolroom, where Miss Manners

is learning to let down her hair

as she falls off the chair,

lying in a lump like yesterday's oatmeal--

the foam on her lips like white caps

on a sea of unspoken desire.

Her words float in the air like alphabet soup...

Unhand that rainbow, you cad,

and let me color my world like

a purple-assed baboon

walking backwards on the moon!

The hushed gallery waits for her to tee off again.

While I sit lonely

by a fountain

where naked cherubs

are pissing away my dreams,

knowing that collaborationists

stalk their own shadows

while pigeons goose-step

through the square--

but none can tell you whether ghosts

sit up and listen to the footsteps

that echo through an empty museum.

Now, the edges of the world begin

to blur, like a painting by Monet.

I must draw my own conclusions.

And I am running...

RUNNING...

ducking down blind alleys

searching for the truth

that will open my eyes.

ATTACHMENTS

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Not the kind that come

with your sewing machine

or your vacuum cleaner

but the ones that keep us coming

back to this dubious place

for another merry chase...

love

hate

money

sex

power

food

fame

shame

the love of the game

gambling

rambling

murder

(like a cattle herder)

booze

dope

greed

people

iPads

(EGADS!)

words

perversion

any old diversion

Hypnotized like sleepwalkers

we follow our nose

see how it goes

take off our clothes

any way the wind blows

gleefully ignoring the spectre of karma

So simple

the way Wernher Von Braun put it

For every action

there is an equal but opposite

reaction

Don't need to be a rocket scientist

to get that one

You don't learn to share

what the hell do you care

but you think you're immune

let's go to the ball

and pretend that midnight's pumpkin

isn't waiting down the hall

the unmitigated balls

to think you'll get away with it scot free

now you're hanging from a tree

If the definition of insanity

is doing the same shit repeatedly

while expecting a different outcome

(I'm as guilty of that as any

not like the few

just like the many)

then we are all crazy

to be coming back here and thinking

THIS time

it will be a cakewalk

You know

Fonzie

duality guarantees

that there will always be

heartache

along with happy daze

the more we cling and grasp

the more our grasp is exceeded

Taken away

taken away

To the land of Nevermore

So quick

find a replacement

a sub

a stand-in

a hero coming off the bench

to save the day

isn't that the way

it's always going to go

until finally

at long last

(have you no shame)

we get tired of this game?

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Funny Bunny Fridays

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So is it that you are afraid

I might use your comments section

like the wall

of a public restroom stall?

Hell...y'all should be so lucky.

Some of the best wit

I ever saw

appeared in that little cubicle

where minions sat

and shat

and posted their witticisms

in that minimalist style

so reminiscent of Hemingway

or Raymond Carver

for all succeeding thinkers

and stinkers

to ponder and reflect upon--

next to the phone number

of some girl

who would show you a good time.

I never called

though I was tempted.

And who could ever forget

that timeless classic:

Here I sit

all broken hearted

ran sixteen blocks

and only farted

Those anonymous writers

were carrying forward the legacy

of the prehistoric cave artists--

or less romantic perhaps

they were the forerunners of the taggers.

It was the closest thing to the internet we had--

especially when the crapper

was located inside

an international airport terminal.

So no

I'm not concerned

about offending the laity.

I prefer spontaneity.

So come one

come all

and scribble something

on my wall.

It's only words

(as the Bee Gees once said)

after all.