THE BAG

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

I

Here's the deal
either everything is aware
or nothing is 

Besides me that is

Oh, that's solipsistic...
but not totally
cuz I'll acknowledge you
and only you
as I know you are reading these words
AT THIS VERY MOMENT
(and that makes me psychic)
and it makes us intimately connected

So I just wanna know...
how come you never call??? 

II

I noticed an author advertising her book
as being a "clean romance"
I guess that's one where
nobody gets into anybody's pants
a kind of never ending dance
where everybody goes back home
and takes a cold shower

But real life is dirty
so very down and dirty
and I don't mind you dirty little girls
and boys
as long as you quit
making so damn much noise

III

It's really quite simple
though the philosophers have tried
to make it mysterious

Either you go on
(the part of you that is aware)
or you don't
and therefore no one should be afraid
of non-existence
if it really existed that is
the complete cessation of all

joy
pain
angst
bullshit

would really be quite good
but sorry to inform you
that for that to ever be
then the opposite (you and me)
would have to never have been
don't you see
and it's a bit late for that

The cat
is out of the bag
for ever 
and ever 
and ever
and he's shitting
all over the carpet
as we speak
the sound of the universe
misinterpreted for lo these many eons

It isn't OMMMMM
my friend...
just a cosmic
echoing
MEEEOOOW!

TENEMENT WORLD

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

Poets and lovers

what did we learn

in rooms filled with smoke

inside

this ugly tenement of a world?

Raging against heaven

why do we exist

and

can any singular purpose

be pursued

when all about is duality?

Trying to rewind time

return to Sherwood

or the old woman

who lived in a shoe

where the sounds of

grunting and moaning

could be heard at all times

of the day and night

as her laces came undone

Boning our brains out

with assumed names

under an ashamed moon

your eggs unprotected

and my brain fried

(You're catching on

to how it works--

let's spend some time

with grandma Esperanza)

These masters

these devils

The desperate wannabes

at the karaoke bar

All is self-interest

just as I told you

by the riverbank

when we were seventeen

revealing too much

of a universe

already transparent

to my eyes

giving too much away

spoiling the game

And yet we play on
looking at the world
through rose wine-
colored glasses
raising them high

one more time

just to honor a memory

not totally forgotten

BLAST FROM THE PAST

With Real Toads -Poetry Potluck- d'Verse Poets Pub

in the quick

roaring spin 

of time

moments cascade into yesterday

like a waterfall in a dream 

a flower

a stolen hour

a superpower

a viper

a sniper

a windshield wiper

spin in the eternal eddy

as the man behind the mask

harbors secrets

hidden meanings

glimpsed through patchy fog

too dangerous to share 

with anyone but you

all the rocks and all the stars

the reasons poetry and symbolism exist

I'm just a visitor

a loner with a boner

in the star magnificence

an existence

devoid of meaning

and grace

the battered corpses of love

 strewn along my tracks

yet still there is wonder

us

them

uncertainty

the unknown

the astounding scheme of things

hypnotized we wander

Casanova

a supernova

Martina Navratilova

a candelabra

a chupacabra

choose the next palabra 

time sails by on the breeze

and yet 

like you

I  stand my ground

in for a penny

in for a pound

along for the ride 

starry-eyed

and hanging on every word

this blast 

from the past

brought to you by

the 

lingering 

essence 

of

me