Pond

My lobes and joints dissent
filled with toiling argument
what does not blend separates
the wankers from the erudite
life is not a thing but apportioned
between lucidity and distortion.

I saw an old family photograph
half of them gone, half left
in the crevasse carved out chosen
by each of my brothers and one sister
picture of change and where to run
to ecape a toxic life with someone.

Glad this morning at the gym
where for decades I have been
telling all my friends about my wife
only to realize my life has
allocated a region for romance
cut off from first glance.

Instead, instead because I cannot
bother, bother with the afterthought
no one knows the future and
no one knows the alternative.

Current generation without context
works long hours asking no questions
hundreds of years we spent on humanism
all that time shit on by capitalism
split between beauty and being popular
the rings of Saturn abandon their curvature.

Look at the streets and the news
more complicated than we suppose
actors not acting so much as acting out
less is added than is subtracted
ins and outs on the ledger paper
divide the orthodox from the ageless.

In the camera carried in my eyes
Latinate verbs and dances occupy
an inordinate proportion of my landscape
pushing to corners the floodgates
of tear-jerked and concentrated strife
a million eons under slicing knife.

Resentment ends but not dropped
grasped greedily hardly distraught
most my forwardness your fond
look back napping at the pond.

Instead, instead because I cannot
bother, bother with the afterthought
no one knows the future and
no one knows an alternative.

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again seven

monday morning
the beat is on
two and four
short of sweet
tuesday pushes
easily rushing
before anywhere
can be reached

septets parading four times a month
how to behave takes rule by mood

wednesday now
who is counting
noon of the week
stop and break
back on track
blooming thursday
make the crooked
ways straight

duets quartets in rows and bunches
octavian followers marching slowly

can it be
friday already
wrap it up
whatever you’re working on
saturday given
to full abandon
except for errands
if you like

not so musical blue chairs circling
off one sitter falls giggling

one day no more than a step into space
where all directions shine with free face
sunday on a briny threshhold
between the sea and thee

This Corner

There’s gambling going on but you don’t see it passing by.
Boys trying to pull off being both beautiful and bare-fisted –
the same figures up, down, and around glassy crisis.

An uncle’s anger fell upon this corner like copper –
like an acid-bladed scimitar over the heads of nephews
who would not ask for his permission even if he’d give it.

Time has ravaged its green paint in favor of plaster.
Try to tell a joke and it’s taken too seriously by the too young.
The whole neighborhood’s character is neo-Jurassic.

Feeling slipping away here, nothing is secure but spite.
Half-baked people clinging to their potential like money
like it’s gonna be gone tomorrow but comes back frazzled.

Each player in the game a seller, mouths full of fives and dimes –
like preachers and pawnbrokers and nobody is a buyer
unless they can’t afford the miserly long term.

On this corner the sons of scramble, the profligate and prodigal –
dancing and singing too coldly, wondering which one
will escape, will make it happen, will get a little leverage.

Beyond the urban calcified concentration of mean meaning
old crone of watchful and deceitless bearing of witness
lives on this corner in its future dependent on the sentient.

Unheard and Sweet the Sounds Around Us

 

If the sky could speak to the hawk,
if the grass talked back to walkers,
how lowly could the nobodies
voice everybody’s weaknesses?
What air do the swallows swallow?
How can those fat flies fly?
How many are the anyones
who keep in their outcry?
Like the roses the thorny lizards
are as prickly as protestors.
Who is losing to the winners
as our desert grows bitter?
Listen to the crickets crooning nightly.
The bright and deadly winter is coming soon.

Far Too Long

I put my personal brand on whatever
I touch, I see, on what I want.
It’s registered, certified and statutory.
If I say it is mine it’s mine
under the laws of inventory.

The man put trademark on the woman
threatened to violate anyone
who comes close to calling her by name.
It is his right under the lame,
inflamed law of possession.

Person property
neighbor shareholder
friends enemies
bought sold
right wrong
far too long.

Put your name on a piece of paper.
Put your name on a skyscraper.
Don’t say please. Don’t say thanks.
Put your seal on a line of banks.
The law of the elect will protect you.

Person property
neighbor shareholder
friends enemies
bought sold
right wrong
far too long.

 

Me Boy and Moi

Hey son what’s new? I
want to hear about you.
Are you growing in stature or
is your subtlety maturing?

Since you started down the path
grab-scrabbling down the side
of the road to freedom from
what never really held you back

I’ve been counting difficult days,
wearisome weeks and years,
too quickly given to transient
hours and afternoons of fragmentation.

Thanks for the visit that
lasted less than a minute.
You picked up stuff and I gave
you what didn’t amount to much.

I know you don’t know, son,
although once or twice I told you –
I walked those sexy but barren
dead marshes below Udûn.

I have thirsted waterlessly,
sweltered sleeplessly in the shadow
of woman’s sped-up and spiral
purple moods of undefinition.

Been there like a waif
like you, shackled to strife,
promised selflessly to a scream
carneled like a boy to a dream.

Ah, the slave lost in us
coughs and coughs up circularity –
recursive riff and convolution
almost there, but where?

My looking your way remands
fatherly love to stiff hands
handcuffed by faultily
conceived generosity.

Stop, hold, stay, no
far away grown too –
your mother and I know
what harbor awaits you.

Not the harbor of departure
not of teary arrival either –
rather the bump of boat on rock
realizing the hard knock.

Knock of knowing, of battle,
surprise of shocking straddle
awaking of what deep within
is and always has been.

Smiles and Scowls

[A]
Towns groan when they grow
cities whine when dying
folks without jobs walk up and down streets
abandoned by the elites
open and shut again big mouths
with smiles and scowls.

[B]
It takes a lot of work to just stand still
takes a lot more to get anywhere
most of us labor and slide downhill while
a few are strapped into an easy chair.

[A]
Starts fast then it’s slow
getting dense then sparse
our mayor says he is doing the best
anyone could ever do
opening one or two doors then
closing a few.

[B]
For every generation that remembers
two generations have forgotten
for every neighborhood that catches a break
two or three are hitting bottom.

[A]
Children grow up fast
will their home town last?
Where to work? How to buy a house
when paid like a doormouse?
Home is where families live out
the corporate syndrome.

[B]
For every generation that remembers
two generations have forgotten
for every neighborhood that catches a break
two or three are hitting bottom.
[A]
Am7 / DMa9 / G13 / CMa9 /
Bb7 / Am7 / C7#9 / D9 /
G F G E DMa9 / E6 /
Am9 / G7 / G ///
Em / Bbm / Am / G /

[B]
D6 /// Am7 /// D6 /// Am7 ///
Gm7 /// Am7 /// Gm7 /// Am7 ///
D6 /// Am7 /// D6 /// Am7 ///
Gm7 /// Am7 /// Gm7 /// Am7 ///

[instrumental buffer]
Ab6 / G7 / G7 ///
Fm7 / Ab6 / Cm7 ///