The Economic Report

The muddled message
of desert dreams
Crashing about
like an opiate fit
Thrown by the huddled masses
Just before
They dropped their chains
in fervent hope
(lurking deep in their hearts)
That they too
Could go shopping
(each day in the market place)
Only to find the shelves
going bare
While they fidgeted with
their last two dollars
Buried deeper than their
parents' graves
In the silky tattered
folds of moth balled purses
And there, as the chasm opened
to faith long lost
Did they finally cry
to some distant
Spot in the sky
where they heard
The wizard lived
behind fluted drapes
In a seersucker suit
selling ice cream
On the side.

Memories

Perhaps - Remember.
Remember what?
Aside from rambling thoughts
Confusion rampant like
A dreamy if languid fog.

Fragments like a broken bowl
Containing bits of wisdom
And fractured moments
Made of faded snap shots
Left hidden in the back of
An old paperback.

I have forgotten more
Than I had known
And remember less than
A tiny sum
Of where I've been or
Who I've seen.

In the Drought

Bleached and weathered
rows of tattered stalks,
Crisp and golden from
endless sun and days.

Crows made lazy circles,
never dropping.
Never raising
against the azure sky.

So much waste
when your father died.
The world went dry
And cruel
Yet beautiful,
like a Burchfield scene.

We drove silent
through dusty fields.
Nothing ever seemed
the same again.

Epitaphs From the Cambridge Cemetery

Feelings Were Her One Misfortune
so it said,
somewhere next to the dog
who at least was
a Faithful Friend.

She Did What She Could
not that it was much
but what can you say -
one should not speak ill
of the dead
(just backhand them instead).

August

Talk meanders with the shifting breeze
and thoughts slip silently beneath the black,
unsettled ponds.


Early blossoms have decayed and
untended gardens have faded into lawns.
Mornings seem so clear while
each afternoon slumbers toward
long shadows.
Fireflies have given way to the crickets
incessant song.

A Brief Soliloquy

On restless nights crowded
with intermittent meditations
of early selves forgotten
and futures lost
in endless rounds of
jabber and digressions,
only then do I remember
my recent, post-dated sense
of resignation

News Clips

A boy age 8
was struck
by a trolley
while waiting
for a train.

A witness
remembered,
in her senile years
a red bandanna
around the boy's neck.

The driver,
heartbroken,
was detained
past supper
and retired within
a year.

To Sophie Brzeska

Welcome woman

To your world of shit.

Embrace your life

Of piss and pain.

The moon, your mood,

Disdains your ambitions.

Fetid birth

Is your one reward.

Destiny - A Prologue

"...Maybe any human being was his own enigma which he would take with him to the grave."
-William Faulkner

Its strange to say
but there's nothing to be done about it.
It's a junky world full of jukeboxes,
radios, and songs about love and death
and endless highways.
The concrete strings it all together.
Four lanes, six lanes, twenty or more,
if you can make sense of all that.
It's all the same.

More motion and less location.
You got to keep driving like a shark
in the sea.
The locus is the focus of reality.

The asphalt sings a lonely song,
a piston-popping hymn.
A dream of love and motor drive.

S&M, B&D
S-E-X, M-T-V.

Life is like a commercial break
with all of the boring parts
mixed in with crazy spurts of
nostalgia and revulsion.
Emotions make for the strongest cage.

Strange to say.
But maybe it's true
that the universe could exist
in a single drop of our morning coffee.
Maybe.

The universe is really a small place,
full of smaller specks.
There is no vital stuff
except electricity.
We call it destiny.

The outerbelt only seems that way.
Infinity is really just a circle
which is why we think it's eternal.
But we call it the outerbelt.
You could live on it forever.
Strange to say.

Dogs Bark in the Himalayan Night

"Dogs bark in the Himalayan night."

That is the state of these times.

Like the dogs of Constantinople, bound

And abandoned in their sacks.

Leather bound or vinyl -

Does it matter?

Like the voice of the Popol Vuh,

Lost histories eventually return as songs.

Dreams drift between the stars

And we creatures, burnt and ravaged,

Lumber toward the sea.

"Dogs bark in the Himalayan night."

The House With Broken Windows

Vacant

Like an empty face.

We are alone, you and I,

Abandoned (though we are both

Weighted with debris).

So much for sentiment

(often false)

And memory

(misleading at its best).

Its accumulation wears the

Owner thin.

Scissors cut paper

And paper wraps rock.

Was there once hope?

Hardly, though the illusion

Is hard to shake.

Endings are contained

In all beginnings

And the text between the

First and final words

Is often arbitrary

(though some have called it

Destiny).

It has rained

In the bedroom.

Water warps the floor.

Erosion melts most everything

In time's meandering course.

Rock breaks scissors.

The front faces North

But the door points West.

The sun is a constant

Except at night.

Near a window by the door

One chair remains (though

It was never meant for sitting).

And paper wraps rock

(do you remember the game?)

Snow has fallen

Between the rafters,

Hushed in confession.

Is it memory or simply

A shadow?

The difference is mute.

All houses are full of

Such shadows.

What's Wrong With Bertolt

What's wrong with Bertolt

except that he smoked too much.

He knew a brown shirt when he saw one

and he saw many.

He fled the marketplace

when the fleeing was good.

Often, he lived out of his suitcase

(but who doesn't move round allot

in times like these).

So, what's wrong with Bertolt?

Yes, he did smoke way too much.