In Amphorae

Icicles inside on the window frame, it’s freezing in here.
Cook a little something, warm it up a bit. Semolina
Linguine’s what I use, and the minced clams are
Only c99 a can. Chop garlic and parsley, voila!
Are those socks warm enough? We’ll just
Curl up on the couch and plan this trip.
Squids in their ink and Park Güell,
When we arrive in Barcelona,
Take the stage and sing the blues
Away in a bar in Barcelona.
The Liceu has a production of
Die Meistersinger, we’ll dress up, my love
Though escape from city’s what I crave
In that Budget car we’ll make our way
North. Rural highway flanked by
Working women flagging rides.
To Empúries, the seaside witness
Of Roman, Greek, Iberian distress,
In Amphorae as fish paste packed
And shipped abroad, suit divers tastes.
In ceremonial piled stones we will find
A bas-relief of reaching phallus, grant
Fertility to humble scabrous petitioners, any
One of or small assemblage of you
Bipolar Mediterranean gods.
On temple floor we’ll scan mosaic patterns
Scuffed by centuries of dust and pressing
Procreative kneeling beings.
Those tiled geometries, weirdly somehow like the
eyesore linoleum flooring in this
Freezing kitchen. I’ll grab a blanket.
We sure had to save up a lot for this trip.

 

Sunlight glazed

Din of crowd’s applause, echoing hall,
He took his bow and left the stage (piano),
Unbuttoned collar, emerge fresh air of night,
Light bulbs and moths & patient resignation.

Walked cobbled streets with clicks of heel,
Unpeopled but for kids that feel
Dissolved beneath the stars at fountain’s
Edge in village, base of mountains.

Cigarette for now, just clear the mind
Elsa let me kiss her in the lift
It had been ages but she had the same
Cool fragrance, brought me back, notte Toscana.

Cheap negronis, espadrilles,
Ply her ‘til martini spills,
No connection, look at me,
Contemplate how we would be

Bar Mateo drew the herd, midnight
Darting eyes and tapping foot, let’s drink
Bar maid, Montenegro, why you smile so?
Mirrors on the wall give me the whole of you.

Glasses clinking sparkling lips
Medieval drainpipe gurgle, drips
Spirits melted on the cobble-
Stones and blanket over trouble

The sun arose on bottle rolling echoed
Through corsos, vias, lean on one of which
Hatted man and Elsa in her frock,
Entwining fingers, squeeze, on tired legs.

Like a Brueghel peopled town
Children running, falling down,
Among the throng a couple gazed
At marble fountain, sunlight glazed.

Suburban properties

Suburban properties, yards laid out
Like squares on a chessboard,
One plot greener or blonder
Depending on the anal-retentive industry of
(usually but not always the male) inhabitant.
Sometimes a fence, occasionally a row of privet,
Often both, variously testing Frost’s theorem.
Goaded to mischief by the blessed
Midsummer morning sun, the urchins
Make a foray into the adjoining square (to
Retrieve a baseball or shuttlecock
Perfectly understandable within limits but
Today a budding sense of vandalism
Has spontaneously arisen from their
Mere company and the presence of a
Meter-tall mound of earth in Don’s yard
Left over from the “project”). The oldest
Among them picks up a clod, considers
Its weight, and without a scintilla of compunction
But a burst dam of imagined thrills hurls it
Over the green and white plastic crosshatch
Fence into Mr. Munz’s swimming pool (that
The latter’s younger son is co-conspirator
In the rascal gang exerts no moderating influence
Whatsoever) Splash! Cloudburst of elated
Guilty guffaws scatters a flock of grackles
From their perches in the maple tree.
Every child, five in all, takes a turn, clod,
Rock, or fistful of loose earth. How many
Childhood idylls rudely interrupted by
Incredulous adult howling. The sentences
Are served and soon forgotten, but never
The act.

Vertigo

Vertigo.
Actually no, not really,
Just a glass tabletop reflection
of the atrium roof’s latticework.
We’ve waited patiently
for someone to vacate a tennis court
and I’m getting dizzy from the heat.
The “Pong, pong” of volleys keeps me awake,
& maybe the thought of cocaine.
It’s a new age, Allen! With none of the same.
We’ve worked ever so hard to enjoy the rarefied air
of well-coiffed dilettantes.
That hyper-confident big-boned brunette stepping
Into her weightless cab ride down to Tribeca,
We’ll catch up with her later.
First, owing to my forgetfulness (and I won’t
bore you with another apology!) I must
ask the name of that tax guy, is he discreet?
You see, I’m running out of time in this new age,
It might be only a day between the appearance
of a Campbell’s Tomato Soup can and
the rust and maggots, tenement shadow.
Yeah, let’s go up to your place, what a vinyl collection!
How does one keep old records so pristine? But really,
a fax machine? You’re beginning to scare me, Allen!
We have the means to fight tooth decay, but
Really you must pass on that tax guy’s number.

The motorcycle never dies

The motorcycle never dies,
Echoing bellow, hippopotamus belch,
Tear out of the city with a
teardrop gas tank full of joints.
When the dust settles you can still see
The skid marks.

Tender is the night no more!
There’s mischief in store,
Leather-knuckled fist,
An over-done steak,
You just try and count the stars
While sodomites in backs of cars
Writhe until they nearly break,
The last gimmick on a lover’s list
Poorly executed, distracted by
The hawg’s roar
Trucker’s dream rising beyond
Purple mountain’s majesty,
A string of bubbles from
The bottom of my beer,
Pearls without end.

The only history lesson you’ll ever need;
listen: it all took place on a movie screen
in Fort Lee, NJ, the last showing;
a deranged Jasper Johns climbs naked
up the flagpole on the White House lawn,
tears the holy lurid shroud; cut to
interior scene, the Lincoln bedroom with
wineglasses aplenty; Betty Ford repairs
the wounded flag with needle and thread
taken from Nixon’s vermilion underpants.
Through the leaded window we see the
Driveway below, Hell’s Angels tinkering
With their Harleys, tintinnabulum Americanus.

Plummeting, pulsating, trumpeting forth,
Engine block’s fishgills mock the half-life
Of uranium; you know the chopper never dies.
In days of yore, the camel trains
Sought out oases, slaked their thirst,
Perfumed the desert air with dung.
In such a way have biker squadrons
Refined the sacramental, reinforced the tribal,
Oh, little town of Bethlehem PA,
give us this day our roadside diner, give us
your daughters.
The Wild One will pick the fairest, pluck her from your midst, brain the sheriff in a ring of fire and repair to the Great Plains, his shock troops rumbling faithfully behind, on their inviolate, droning, Iroquois, irredentist, insomniac Steel Steeds.

Seahorses

We’ve all read the gloomy reports of coral bleaching,
And just when shark populations were beginning
To rebound, what rotten timing!
But I ask you, what do the diatoms think of all this?
Their pure geometry is carried in turquoise currents
Through lonely stretches of moonlight
And whale song dirges, one suspects
the families stick together, they are
truly the Hondurans of the deep.
Delinquent diatoms build their bones from the ash of
Cremated consumers after its long journey
From smokestack to sea, their dirty little
Marine secret
Better Angel diatoms wait patiently for a chance collision
with coral dandruff and make particle whoopee
when the mood is just right.
And therein lies the rub:
If the delicate political balance is upended, if we
Tolerate the pernicious influence of the almighty sand dollar,
and a fluid fascism flows, I warn you,
That Kansas-size mass of discarded plastic
Will swallow Hawaii and then Heaven knows what.
Seahorses, some as big as a man, will emerge at Santa Barbara
In disciplined ranks, they’ll don garlands of hydrangea
But it will fool NO ONE;
When they reach St. Louis the piebald shamans among them
Will construct voodoo effigies of Lewis and Clark,
Gurgle salty canticles and goosefish Psalms,
Pierce the pair with spiny dorsal fins and
Trigger the final rot of…
The proconsuls Alaric and Lenin will have a quiet celebration
At Captain Jack’s Seafood Shack, burying their horsey faces
In shark steak.

Scandal Brasilia

The front-page ink jostled
Red blue & black,
Headline emblazoned,
A minister sacked,
Fall from grace, excuses plenty,
Spun, but in vain, a reputation slain.
He conspired with partisans
Reviled from below,
To hobble the champion
Of those with no voice.
To serve the greater good
Or become its foe
In bed with reeking cronies,
He made his choice.
Pensioners on park bench,
Their curiosity piqued, squint,
To glean further details from the fine print.
An ethics panel solemnly announces a date
For hearings to be held, but first, we wait…
For elites get second chances,
Third, fourth, fifth…
You see, democracy is a ruse,
And justice, a myth.

On my 阳台

The day for departing approaches.
Think hard: If you forget
to pack a razor, a beard
like Velcro will become
an unwelcome companion.
Please, Peking, don’t change too much
while I’m gone.
The jianbing man is your
Krishna, a wiry little butter thief.
Leave him be.
Your cherry blossom trees will endure
the summer smog; your
massage parlor girls will endure
my absence; the portrait of Mao
at ground zero will never blink.
Grant me three wishes:
safe passage to Italy,
Lindy-hop lessons on my return,
and a long life of quiet contemplation
thereafter.

Ocracoke

Pilgrims crawl on wounded knees,
Calloused hands, toward the sands of Ocracoke.
O’er their heads, the buzzing bees
A drone lament, from hallowed hive sent, fleeing smoke.
Crackling fat of barbecue,
Brushed-on sauce, pennies tossed into the font
Of turquoise tile, mirrored blue.
Southern belle in schooner, heard tell, the slave ship gaunt,
Unloads its jazz on coral shores.
Hemp rope taut, twelve men bought with copper coins,
Marched to manor house in 3s and 4s.
Master cocksure, mistress lure them to your loins.
Ocracoke, built on wooden piles,
Pelican stare, seaweed hair of mermaid prow,
Shrimp boat stern cracked toothy smiles,
Flag unfurled, orphan girl asks why and how?

No rush

No rush, we have all the time in the world. We didn’t have to dress up, but we did, and now we’re the envy of the shoppers in the Marktplatz. They crowd around the organ grinder, but they turn their heads to see if we’re still sitting by the fountain. Can you believe we only met a month ago? Do you remember our first guarded conversation over glasses of moscato, when you opined how irresponsible it was of people to bring children into a world like this, and I nodded proudly in agreement, thinking, “This could be the one.” Your obsession with Serge Gainsbourg was off-putting at first, but you were willing to moderate your idiosyncrasies and that really touched me. After two weeks you cut your hair short and I imagined I was making love to someone new. Tonight we’ll lay a blanket on a hill on the outskirts of the town and watch the Perseid meteor shower. When I was a younger man, stargazing made me feel a strong connection with pre-Colombian cultures, hence my anthropology degree, and now it’s going to deepen OUR connection. You’ll close your eyes and still see stars, I promise you, as I make my mouth the focus of your pleasure. Is it too soon to say… No, I will wait until I see your reaction to my speech at the alumni association dinner.