Cleopatra does vaudeville
as the bells chime
in time, in time—
the pushy broad is no mime,
yet she swirls white-faced,
she kneels, she dips—
the pushy broad is the writer
of this Black-Geisha script
reaching palms open,
she reaches past the tomb,
past the past, backing into
bloody memory of misquotes
and asps—her statues
swim from Egypt, slither
to the Yucatan—at last
she boards the ark
wearing nothing but her dark
rose and smile—her push
is more stroke than pose.
for Lorilee Evans-Lynch
A techno-neon colored red-blue guitar
muted under Dylan’s cigarette-lipped visage
eyelids closed to open your mind’s eye
on funky rat bastards posing
more lies so pour yourself another
drink some more
love all you want
it’s all you’ll ever need to know
although you’ve been urged to shake up the pattern
try to write longer lines maybe consider the prose poem you know that verse that pushes through to the end of the line regardless of meter regardless of time just keeps on keeping on with whatever you try to say but your trouble is you want to break the line
you want to carve your view
into their minds
fuck with their ears and eyes
your sense of the beat
you want to sing them dancing in the street
to the Easy Rider soundtrack
bring back John Kay
and the Steppenwolf pleasure of taking a goddamn stand
against tombstones in our eyes
like Bob Dylan the Byrds the Animals the Airplane
so many great songs too many bands to name
you went to an art gallery today
what a sweet way to spend an hour absorbing the crafted heart-thoughts
of other idlers like you
one of whom you’ve conned into covering your book
lucky men live in communities
where talented people do art for the love of doing
how else do you place a thousand dollar painting on the front of a collection of poems
most people wouldn’t shell out twenty bucks for
you don’t know which way the wind blows unless you go outside
open the door open your mouth spit your mind
it’s alright ma you’re only tryin’
to continue the show
only buyin’ into transcendence for the length of this poem
we all know sooner or later
that hard rain’s gonna fall
look out your window
we’re all disappearing in our reflection upon the reason
the seasons keep traveling on
so don’t think twice
just go there and drink it in
straight up no ice
Saturday morning I’d push
A kitchen chair in front of the fridge,
Hop on to be closer to the radio:
Brer Bear, Brer Fox, & Brer Rabbit
Bustin’ the chops of that tar baby,
So stuck on himself. I still remember
The whole mess: losing his temper, vain
Wit—too smart for his own good,
& Uncle Remus’s low voice, soothing
As the sound of whittling wood,
The meadowlark’s liquid refrain.
I couldn’t get close enough
To that magic box (so hard to hear).
I’d examine the glittered fabric
That covered the speaker, smell the oiled
Wood & that sweet-warm hum
Of tubes & dust & electricity,
Watch the greenish glow lighting the dial
Behind the window—& then I’d fly away.
Mother listened to Arthur Godfrey
Or Art Linkletter while she cleaned house,
Didn’t have time for The Edge Of Night
Or As The World Turns. Outside
We shoveled snow off Dewald’s driveway,
Listened to basketball broadcast live
From the old RCA cabinet radio mounted
On the wall of their garage. Clad in sweatshirts,
Stocking caps, long Johns, & Chuck Taylors,
Our hands red-cold from dribbling wet pavement
& retrieving out-of-bounds snow-balls,
We were Panther heroes of the game
Winning shot—a last-second toss from the terrace.
One evening my dad hauled the radio down
Onto the kitchen table to hear a Heavyweight
Title fight. Liston & Clay. He searched
& tuned through static crackles & whirs,
Buzzes & whistles till we heard the ring
Announcer’s scratchy words: “In this corner . . .”
Muffled by the roar of the crowd. Ding!
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Fading in & out,
Waves of punches floated, jabbed,
bobbed & weaved, & then it was over
So suddenly, before we’d even tuned it in—
Sock & shock. No butterfly
Fix. The bear stung by the bee: Ali!
No Viet Cong ever called him “boy.”
Even after TV stole the show
(those images of Kennedy, The Beatles,
Men walking on the moon, Gunsmoke, Jack
Benny, Ward & June ) I listened to AM
Radio each night in my bedroom:
Rock ‘n’ Roll from Chicago, New York
& L.A. The Wolfman howling about white
Rooms & white rabbits, black magic
Women lighting fires & rolling
Stones, blowing open the doors of perception
On the eve of destruction, California
Dreamin’ in strawberry fields, & old Puff
Smokin’ those Nashville cats in purple
Haze hats—tumbling dice
With the hurdy-gurdy man.
Can you dig it, Ziggy? Ground control
To Major Tom. I’m not the man you think I am
At all. No. So surrey on down, sky pilot—
How high can you fly? You’ll never reach
The spirit in the sky dancin’ in the street.
They say video killed the radio star.
Imagine that, Sundown. You better take care.
Come to me & take my hand. No? It ain’t me
You’re lookin’ for, Babe? Can’t you
Hear my heartbeat, you heartbreaker? Shake
For me girl. Lay across my big, brass bed.
I want to be your backdoor man. If you’re sad
& feelin’ blue, go out & buy a brand new
Pair of blue suede shoes or a night on the town.
I’m counting on you. Lord, please
Don’t let me down. I need somebody.
Not just anybody. How can you laugh
When you know I’m down & out & I can’t go
On? Just take a sad song & make it better
By turning the radio on & taking me away
From here, dear Prudence, Roxanne,
Gloria, Michelle, my belle, Holly
Holy Hell—I love to turn you on.
Now I’m seeing you, Old Man,
From the inside out, and I think I know
You better today, finally recognize
Your silence, your sentence, your view
From that over-stuffed chair
Where you stared back at me looking
For who you were. Still, I try to read your lips
On my mouth in the mirror, the eyebrows
And grin, mugging those tired eyes,
Your baggage, the bitter loneliness you
Couldn’t hide tumbling across the tournament
Of lies. Occasionally we’re awed by beauty
Passing by our observation posts. Wry
Patience is learned in waiting rooms.
We haul this hollow business, our husks
Of bony air, those weathered chrysalises
Decaying, into the storm. Don’t they call it joy?
Rebirth? This transformation to dust?
Their version of “love” you called a crusade,
A bloody sideshow of lust—and your cynicism
They were quick to call selfishness—
An excuse to drink, escape the labors of the lost,
Practice avoiding your duty, their job.
And their cure for you and your ilk, promised
New life, a key to your prison cell and guaranteed
A position in Clown-Hall. Scoffing at those
Gatekeepers of Hell, you knew they could hide
But never deny death row. And the meaning
You strove to find gave way to gray hair
And repeated lines till finally you put
The books aside, sat down and waited
For the change. After fifty-some years
Of murder, tears, hypocrisy and pain, you
Just quit—booze, reading, or ranting about it—
You clammed-up—there wasn’t much to say.
So now when I see you in me and know
I’m running out of words to spew—losing
Interest in my witty ways to grab attention—
I wonder who is who, you in me, maybe
Me in you. This spark we carry forward,
This flicker in the flames, flare and ember,
Spirit or DNA, burning and dying—
We disappear and appear again
To give in—this losing is what we do.
Eighty degrees, a slight
breeze, blue sky, bird
calls, butterflies and bees—
a perfect day to celebrate.
Though surely love survives,
thrives in any weather,
desire demands heat—lust
wants it all now, like this July
tongue licking thighs to flame.
Love does what it says
it will because the promise
is a bargain made with itself.
It is what it believes. True
love cannot be taken
back. Once given, it is passed
along. The only way to get more
is to give it away. Like a fan
creates a vacuum, to stop
loving stops love from
coming in, and without love
there is no dance, no song.
No one cares once love
is gone, lost. We are going
to die sooner than we think,
so why stumble like zombies
craving meat and brains. Hearts
may break, but love remains
if we can forgive and love
ourselves. The world will follow
suit: a heart played calls for
a heart. That’s the trick, letting go
allows love to flow in. Always
lead trump—and shoot the moon.
Waiting wasn’t a problem for him,
he’d brought something to read, yet sitting
there for almost an hour in the waiting room
at the proctologist’s office, while
the badger in his ass huffed & scratched,
dug & growled (as it had for the last six months)
was enough to fan smoldering piles to flame,
prompt him to plan his wake & epitaph — maybe lift
a line from Carver or Plath.
Hours prior to the appointment,
he’d stood & stared, mesmerized by April rain,
a steady downpour all day:
noticed small buds bulging at the tips
of branches; puddles blooming into murky
ponds; & recalled the pure happiness
he’d felt the night before: lying there
wide awake after crawling back into bed
from his midnight trip to the toilet,
he slipped his arm around her,
pulled into her heat, felt his
heartbeats waltz her breath, & thought:
Who cares what’s next?
The prognosis is death — but tonight,
I’m the luckiest asshole alive.
the voice
the cadence
the chant and beat
A-MEN, BEAM IN
the bard of D.C. streets
raps us up and down
these pillars a-cross
the gabled tower ceiling
he raps us rapt
stompin the floor
and whap-tappin
the microphone
BEAT MAN BIRD
MAN BEAT MAN
BEAST TONGUE
LICKIN BARE EVERYWHERE
EVERYBODY EVERYONE
for more than a grinnin
hour or less than it takes
to walk those crystal stairs
he mocks the talk, rocks
the cock-jivin po-em-men
entertainers crowin Dick
Gregory for Flip
Wilson or Nipsy
Russell big Bill
the Cos and Little
Richard Pryor
smilin white
teeth agleam burnin
his ventriloquist stream
the chorus preacher
of dreams deterred
recurred and referred as strange
fruit Huey’s slurred panthers
echoin fros and horn rims
thump, a-thump, thump
pick it up, CUT IT DOWN
thump, a-thump, thump
PICK IT UP, dig the sound
thump, da-bump, thump
MOVE IT OVER all around
thump, da-bump, thump
TURN IT OVER, burn it down
bippity, bippity-bap
BAP, BAP, BAP
keep rappin that milk bowl
bread happity, clap-slap
Malcolm X SHOT dead
smart and sober, just
like that, another SHOT
another SHOUT in the dark
hate is black and white
red-green as Christmas
Oh, children, it’s just a SHOUT
away, just a SHOT away
SHOT away, SHOUT away, away
away, forty-five years back
Charlie Watts felt the beat
as black is black
and blue stoned shelters
on the streets still scream
brother Baldwin’s fiery
news from mountaintops
roll on, Thomas thunder
give us your go-go
ed-ja-cation, N-intimidation
those master-con tribal-ib-ulations
some fate or gate or bait-
your-nation idea
of Gandhi Christ Buddha
Holy Moley Allah Moses
MAN-WO-MAN
go forth and propagate
illustrate conjugate
articulate Mother-me
lover of too much fun
bop stomp, stompin puns
this rattlin ivory hall stutters
high hats and chopper guns
chained between chandeliers
his tongue is one gone down
done and dirty son of a
native song singin along to
Albert, B.B., Freddie
M.L. King dreams his pulpit
table snare of conga drums
like Baraka rollin beyond
Le Roi’s blood-brother Ali
never throwin in the towel
just burnin down the house
all butterflies no bumblin clay bees
—for Thomas Sayers Ellis
Federico Garcia Lorca
my sister is dead
and it’s five in the afternoon
red sun and blue moon
Federico Garcia Lorca
my sister is a slow song
to you at five in the afternoon
her breath caressing your ear
Federico Garcia Lorca
my sister still breathes
white fire at five in the afternoon
where you burn singing her moon to be
Federico Garcia Lorca
Por favor! Dance! don’t pray
for me at five in the afternoon
beat your drum for my skeletal sister
Federico Garcia Lorca
the gun barrel of time
will find you exalting death
alive at five in the afternoon
Federico Garcia Lorca
kiss her lips and climb
before five in the afternoon
the face of Cinderella Mountain
Federico Garcia Lorca
there will be no funeral
bells at five in the afternoon
sing my sister home to me
Federico Garcia Lorca
dance her cloud to the moon
white bone teeth and ash
at five in the afternoon
Federico Garcia Lorca
her stone heart will bloom
flood your black rose
red at five in the afternoon
—for Dave Brubeck
Water: everything, every living thing is
Hard-wired to the sound of water, flowing
Water, from the trickling of melting glaciers
To the thundering of Niagara Falls,
We’re all drawn, all thirst, toward its
Damp promise—be it pool, puddle, or
Brook—we wouldn’t exist without water.
It seems obvious we invented music
Listening to rivers and streams,
The pouring rain, dripping eaves—observing
Nature’s changing, hypnotic ways—
Our preoccupations with weather, lapping
Waves, the howling wind, campfire
Embers and licking flames—always
We’re tuned to snapping sounds, screech-
Scratchings out of sight—day or night—
Those ongoing symphonies of survival
We recognize—each time is like the first time.
Archetypal water drums a bass line
Gravitational call to ride the A-train, thoomp-
Bloomping like Brubeck inside our veins,
Hauling us back to Duke’s blues
On a black-eyed piano-sea, Koto’s Song
Softly killing that old misconception,
Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons’ claim . . .
Silence Is Golden. Complete silence
Is death—dry, waterless death.
The sound of water sings us
Home, wet, to our first best-place,
The amniotic bath—sloshing bones
Dreaming skin, swallow and swim.
Stoneflies crawl for muddy miles deep
Underground following the percussive sound
Of erosion, water over gravel and sand,
Tumbling boulders, tearing at the landscape,
Uprooting trees, floating sticks, leaves,
Fallen debris. Scouring and pounding,
These streambed vibrations
Shake nymphs to rise and dance,
Make seed, then feed whitewater trout
Anxiously awaiting the feast of flies.
When the runoff is done and cloudy
Creek currents settle clear as glass—
Riffles rattling to a clattering roar—
The stream-song invitations, those
Skeleton husks littering the shore,
Announce (like It’s a Boy! cigars):
Dinner has taken wing.
Trout feed fat in eddies then,
When stoneflies flit above the spray
Of that deafening-breathy SHAAAAAAAAY!—
Fast water racing across rocky ground,
Straight-water pushing toward ocean
And sky, creating a rhythm reminiscent
Of Lionel Hampton’s vibraphone—or
Maybe Mingus plucking out liquidy-
Hollow tones—ebbs and flows: rivers
Riffing solos, splashing crescendos.
If water were a stage, some musical metaphor
Praising the stonefly’s Swan Song,
We’d see it feeding a flash of rainbow tail,
Clenched tight in a Cutthroat’s jaws . . .
Now stiffening in the bottom of a creel.
That fisherman might wash blood
From his hands, finger the soft bones,
Wings buzzing his ears, as he watches
A dipper hopping stone to stone—
Inhaling it all—the river’s melody,
Tympanic meditations on a dream.
nothing brings you
into the moment
this present
of breath and light
any more-so
than pain
with its constant
plea of NOW
and NOW I’m here
fuck your plans
your appointments
your jobs
your past
the matters
that matter most
don’t matter much
when pain arrives
and decides to stay
the mundane
that dust ringing
in your head
patterns shapes
colors lines
shadow sounds
hold sway
in the eye mind
driftwood riding
rising flung
swell to crest
cast ashore
then pulled out
to sea again
seemingly the same
always changed
a pulse beating
both sun and moon
churning up the old dark
miracles now fathomed
why you still roll
hung in blood and air
