Joseph Reich
I.
The Demographics Of The American Family
i know a lot of families
a lot of couples
who watch tv
while eating
supper
i don't know
why don't
they just
look into
fishbowls?
II.
Town-Statistics
this year in the subdivision...
there were 2 divorces,
1 alcoholic neighbor
who tried to make
the moves on his
best friend's wife,
1 suicide attempt,
1 head of the association
impeached based on some
collective paranoia, excommun-
icated from the neighborhood,
and 1 husband who just simply
took off on his motorcycle
out to phoenix, arizona...
III.
For William Carlos Williams
when you
finally discover
your old faded baseball glove
simply
resembles a toad
sitting on the side of the road
IV.
Stanzas Of Summer
pink motorcycles glimmer on the seashore
like soft-shell crabs with mustard one would want to devour
the painters come out after a full day on the job
you dream of grilled corn and kielbalsa
of her home-made meatballs
and sweet wilderness
creeping up your nose
after a full day's work you head home with a whole chicken
the whole pretty softball team in ponies duck in with grins
V.
Television
tries to placate you with mundane metaphors
as the children of the corn come out from
behind the radio tower creeping through
the industrial brush on an overcast day
and it all comes down on the aluminum
siding of a rambling ranch when the man in
a beard on a tractor returns home in drizzle
VI.
For Some God-Forsaken Reason
in watching old reruns
of battlestar galactica
you swear this old dude
looking a lot like
lorne greene
sternly earnestly
approaches the
enemy and says
"i have prepared
your underwear"
VII.
For Convenience Sake
you sometimes just
wish to slit your wrists
and let it all drip
into a window box
of geraniums as it
will be camouflaged
to welcome the hum-
mingbirds and crows
you'll look
forward
to ghosts
who'll put
everything
in perspective
your wife simply sitting
there with the babysitter
in their lawnchairs gabbing
away without a care looking
a little like nixon and kissinger
(later on she'll inform you
that catherine told her
they almost got busted on
horseneck beach for starting
a bonfire and there were police
and booze and jumped the fence)
sun coming down
on the iridescent
dead-end of
photosynthesis
VIII.
The Himalayan Birches
you smell her
shake & bake
& potato latkas
streaming up
the staircase
life can't be
as bad as
you think
shadows
& breeze
will overtake
the evening
IX.
A Summer Poem
"erica while you got your sandals on
can you turn off the water outside?"
"uh-huuh..."
"thank you so much!"
you hear the nozzle turn
and the birds squeak...
X.
The Unmissing
after spending a full day
with your boy on the beach
you can't get out of the back
of your head blissfully the song--
do you know the muffin man?
the muffin man? the muffin man?
XI.
Song From The Prairie
where never is heard
a discouraging word...
XII.
Erica
all her soaps & shampoos & rinses & conditioners
all her pretty pink panties with little bow laces
all her mantras she muttered at the end of the day in the shower
all her sniffles & sobs that went down the drain that followed
all her farewell kiss final drip from a dramatic draining faucet
all that sorrowful shit you couldn?t get off your face even if you wanted
all those mug shots from mad years of real-life run-down run-away experiences
all those strangers who literally tried to threaten to sick their dogs
their big brothers their guns their diseases as you never once
backed down to become something of this fictional fugitive
(sometimes even questioning why you were alive and how you made it
embracing the mad dogs of brooklyn on the waterfront docks of winter
who you shared your fried chicken bones with and became your best
friends after working the graveyard shift hustling a cab in manhattan
all the sadness & suffering & kindness & wisdom
that silently seeped from shut sockets
from man?s cruel character & contradictions)
all the seasons all the shadows all the promises all the betrayals
all those magnificent purple pines that rise from dusk to night
from dark into light from your imagination to the netherworld
all faith & forgiveness all the times she never gave up
on you as she?s simply the greatest girl...
XIII.
The Apothecary
baby please get
ice cream & wine!
through the blinds
you spot firelight
XIV.
Aperative
sun falls
like a slice
of lemon-meringue pie
XV.
The Supper Poem
you savor the last bits
of paprika and sour cream
clinging to your palate and bid her goodnight.
Ghosts And All Things In Between
1. Phenomenon
i don't know, when we get old
it just seems like we get more
shallow, having gone off the deep
end so long ago; the other option
simply to play these stagnant roles
which is even further from the soul...
(proof: grown-ups appear disingenuous and full of shit
as though there is some sort of disconnect between
cause and affect, or what's even worse are conscious
and have chosen to be indifferent, almost the antithesis
to descartes famous statement of prove that you exist--
"i think therefore..." while ironically the more you think about "it"
the more you feel in conflict, crazed, confused, and unconfident
if you tell me with the grown-up
all that's left, all they can offer
is common sense, i am not
so sure i necessarily agree
that this is good judgment
i'll take the adolescent
any day who goes with
his instincts & emotions
it is no wonder there is so much more meaning and
substance when we sentimentally reflect back
to such schoolyard games as "ringo leevio,"
"red rover," and "crack the whip," as this always
required a certain amount of courage and compassion,
gusto and passion, a constant code of ethics and earnestness)
"uh-oh kenny oh-taka, uh-oh kenny oh-taka..."
i can still recall the smells of all my friends homes
have you forgotten as a child all those
sleepovers sharing with each other all your
long term dreams and goals, the raids to the kitchen, pool-hopping
drawing up secret maps that would lead you through the darkness?
2. Soul Survivor
tonight i broke down while listening to mahler
for he was able to evoke in only a couple simple notes
birth & death & life & childhood more so the core soul
key notes of childhood the earth & dirt river queen lit on fire
parked in the wilderness outside my window all of the bronx &
brooklyn & the berkshires rambling as a poet-philosopher-social-
observer from paris to italia to the coast of africa watching the terrible
slapstick comedians doing their song & dance acts on a ferry to sicilia
watch out or i'll wash your mouth out with sarcasm 'cause i'm a soul-survivor
combination of raging bull & brando love my blessed child when all that's left
is buddha brother of bodishivatta kentucky-fried dhammapada mama always
told me i was born at harlem-valley psychiatric behind the barbed-wire
on our way to pick up pumpkins stopping off at the red rooster...
3. Earnest
my consciousness
my active-conscious mind
is an ice maker making ice at night
they said with hemingway before he wrote each new novel
he had to somehow be romantically involved
and interestingly would take on a new wife
widow
with her curtains
parted just right...
4. Shakespeare
it is my contention that it is true
that the (good) actors got it right and
had all the right answers yet the one loophole
to the equation is there are so many out-of-work actors!
5. The Neptune Carnival
freud at the end of his life
claimed he devoted his whole
career to working with women
and was convinced of one thing
that he still does not
know a thing about them
this is kind of how i feel
about the state of america
but my problem is i've gotten
way too familiar...
(with a complacent consumer
culture hooked on cellulars
and computers)
i have always relied
on the instincts
of imagination
spying a giant mermaid
in stilts and sequins
returning home
through bleary-eyed
windows of coney
island at dawn
6. Spanish Bombs In Andalusia (~from a song by the clash)
they say when bertrand russell, the great english scholar-mathematician-professor
asked wittgenstein when he first met him to write down just any one philosophical
sentence, he knew from what he penned right there and then, he was a genius...
i have always wondered what it was that he said. i think if i was asked the same
question i would have simply said--"correct me if i'm wrong...correct me if i'm wrong."
it just sounds so constructive and reflective and paradoxical and perverse, and self-
effacing and deep and demure, and opens the door to learn and absorb almost
everything that has not been taught before, and in some ways, even thought...
correct me if i'm wrong, the opposite of what everyone purports to know
(the rare, ideal poetic and philosophical and psychological phenomenon
of anti-narcissism) i have not found someone in so long to correct me
if i'm wrong. i have always found someone to love me and to love, to
criticize me when i really needed support, to give me advice when
i never asked for it, to talk when i just needed to be heard, to take
advantage of my kindness, to treat me like a madman when i really
was some kind of mystic, who saw through all their masks and
machinations and bullshit, to take me for a clown when i was
about as compassionate and sound as you can get, to hate me
for doing it right and love me for getting it wrong, to flatter me and
wish i had never been born, yet never ever to really quite sincerely
...correct me if i'm wrong
7. The Jack London
when i used to exist as something of a "vagabond"
out in portland, oregon i used to hustle the streets
all day long to try and make ends meet even working a
couple jobs at a time then at night haunt the bookstores
literally camped out in aisles reading books on mathematics
and science and philosophy and poetry even the biographies
of people like the stooges and brando and galileo and michael
angelo and remember reading how baudelaire was so disgruntled
by one of the translations most likely le fleur du mal from french
into english he retorted how he had only hoped there might be
someone just as intelligent to translate it back into
his native language and although this may appear quite clever
and humorous i believe there is a whole hell of a lot of meaning
behind all this as well as something quite accurate and realistic
as he really appears quite ambivalent and acerbic and even to be questioning
the overall integrity and truthfulness of
the ridiculous perverse quality of human existence
i often find myself worrying about semantics like this on a daily basis
how there are so many self-righteous passive-aggressive acquaintances
who will make your existence miserable by simply being disingenuous
8. Call Me...
there was a jew who escaped one of those concentration camps
or labor camps during the horrific period of the holocaust and he ran
back in great haste to his village to try and warn his neighbors and they
all treated him as though he was some kind of an overzealous madman
it is a pity yet it feels as though you got treated much of
your adult-life by your "gaslighting" family
in a similar fashion as your heart and soul
went into hiding and you became the ultimate
"stranger" becoming the personification of the
"self-fulfilling prophecy" constantly having the need
to defend yourself or to run away and become a thief
of society just in order to sculpt an identity
(a convenient clown who got taken for granted
as whenever they were in crisis
you were the first one they contacted for
unconditional support and wisdom then
when they worked through it it was
as though you once more no longer existed and
they were critical of you and
nailed you to the cross the fake cowards that they were)
they used to use such obvious and obscene catch-phrases
as you're exaggerating the situation,
you take things too personally, you're over-sensitive,
as they appeared to thrive off a pathetic
and malicious simplistic sort of false ethic of glib
justification of indifference from their safe
and secure ivory towers of contradiction in which
nothing could make you feel more frustrated
lost and lonely yet interestingly when i started to
show a little success they ironically and
hypocritically were the first ones to absurdly claim--
"we didn't know you had it in you"
as though conveniently forgetting and forgiving themselves
(excusing themselves simply continuing their phony and
guilty acts from anna freud's famous defense-
mechanism of reaction-formation) while simultaneously striking everything
from your hard earned-record of sorrow and suffering similar to baudelaire
with the cruel and quixotic phonies of humanity or that jew who
came ranting and raving trying desperately to warn and rescue
9. A Companion
the ladybug has finally perished
on my carpet finding herself unable
to get back out the window...
i grieve and lament this
as she was so much more a companion
than anybody else during days of loneliness
10. Borderline Personality
the girl in which i had the most wild and
passionate intimate relationship
used to say when she got real blue and
down-in-the-dumps that it was a fact
that as much as you try to tame a wild horse
it was impossible and couldn't be done
and then would simply look off lost and hollow
as this was the same one who claimed
that she loved me 'cause she knew
there was a place she clearly could not get close to
11. An Aphorism Called "Innocence Lost"
imagine boys stranded in the windows
of group homes looking out to beautiful
young girls tanning in bikinis next door
there must be a metaphor for this all...
rabbit scampers through hole in stone wall
12. Old Man Goirot ~In 5 Stanzas
I.
i still have the heart of a little boy in me
and want to know all their visions and dreams
and never to leave. i have never quite grown up thankfully
all these geometric shapes and primary colors
still beaming, clattering in the breeze
is there really something so...
II.
god, remember that short-cut
which rambled through trees, through pachy-
sandra, through streams, through boyhood dreams?
III.
upon getting into a fight with my wife today
because i was acting all o.c.d. she left me
and told me she went down to the sea, and
to the apothecary to read some magazines.
in many ways i consider myself pretty lucky
IV.
when all that matters is what lays scattered
what lays tattered what lays stranded
in the fossils of the bones of the soul
of the song of a seagull in the sun
a boy and two girls stroll into the restroom
on shore to explore the mystery of flesh & bones
and when they discover it's not open decide instead
to open a red umbrella in their car in the sun-drenched parking lot
V.
mom, you had asked what we planned to do this weekend.
we decided to take little man down to newport, no not to be
with the terrible tourists who mock history and culture, but
to see the sea and see if the carousel was open. it was not
so he decided to stroll with the seagulls and we rolled his
dungarees all the way up to his knees and when the tide
came rushing in then decided to turn back out to sea, he seemed
so happy and free amongst the pretty old homes, the edward hopper
houses, and spooky dimly-lit mansions and sandcastle cathedrals,
trying to make sense of silhouettes of ships in the distance, and
when he seemed to get a little cold i would scoop him up and put
my big hands over his tiny feet, as with that big mop of blonde hair
and big blue eyes, he just sat way up there and seemed to dream
and fantasize in some kind of secret sea side subliminal semantics
within the rhythms and motions of pure brilliant holy silence, of which
i savored this rare moment, even a bit of babbling as though he was
imitating the sounds of the ocean, swear he even said the word dolphin
and when he appeared to get a bit tired erica took off his damp overalls
and he fell fast asleep in the back of the car and went back to dreaming
in his diapers drifting home though the wind and vineyard and orchards
one can talk about all these scholars...
Domestic Living
*
Junk Mail
the new neighbors move
in and they welcome you
with barbecues and rumors
the first day you move in
the hag next door stares
your wife down because
she is young and beautiful
because she is not and has
a poor marriage and feels in-
secure and knows her husband
will be all over her and she'll
feel even more...
she tries to get you on her
side with fresh-baked
brownies and past
battles happening
to casually mention a little
later--"did you hear the dog?"
like some really bad build-up
to a terrible, futile riddle...to me
the ultimate parable to the suburbs
you knew right there
and then the first
day you moved in
*
The Defense-Mechanisms
why is it
that we always get
blessed by the hypocrites
like being forgiven
by the devil for
malicious tricks
*
The Flight Of...
peculiar i am so much more fond
of the crow simply strolling up
and down these sleek purple roads
than any of my neighbors who will
rat on each other and call animal control
*
Secrets You Wouldn't Want To Know
the suburbs unfold
like a banana peel
yet unlike those
wonderful & weird
slapstick comediens
these lack the humor
the wit and sex appeal...
*
Couplets
fly lands on a dandelion
like an umbrella on the mediterranean
fire-setter kid next door
does a rather out-of-control burn
can you
blame him?
when i used to lay out on the ocean
on dead-ends used to have grandiose visions
reality-based
that when totally undisturbed
in the days of the clash &
the who & the doors & dylan
*
Your Wife Creeping Into Bed
angrily in the morning
is dirty ribbons
blue frog escaping the red lawnmower
sparkling ships of old san francisco
bumpa'da'bumpa on bustling bridges
cemetary cider
papers from philadelphia
every true quintessential queen
in the meat market when bagel
shops open in the cobblestone of dawn
mathematic equation on a blackboard
that will forever go blissfully unsolved
paper routes
the movement of lagoons
masks from venicia
crows with disco moves
swooping down to purple pungent lawns
blood orange sun rising falling awakening
does it ever rain in london?
in coney island?
a far cry from far rockaway...
*
Ground Zero
alarm
awakes
us to--
"10 are dead
from tornadoes
in a texas border town"
*
Queer Commentary
while waiting outside walmart on some weekend morning
for my loved one to return (a matter of fact, she was in there
for tiki-torch lighting-fluid) i spy a whole bedraggled culture,
obese and repulsive, not scoping a thing around them,
addicted to their contraptions, such weak see-thru souls
a high school slash college girl sporting her sweats
which she has spent hours on to sculpt & mold in her own
private mirror aimed to perfectly accentuate her asshole and
then when she gets her targeted audience for her superficial
seduction (pretends to be offended and feign indifference)
like they're all a bunch of perverts and don't exist at all
(ultimately, what she has captured is "the illusion"
for adolescents and the young-to-middle-aged males,
for the raw and primitive status-quo, becoming a slave
to her fantasy world, of which she has become the ultimate
"consumer," and which the opposite gender desires to consume,
yet who's (de)formed superego knows there is a huge price
in order to pay for this item, and thus heretofore
becomes an out-of-reach idol for them to log
in their frontal lobes for when
they get desperate and down-in-the-dumps at home)
then goes casually to her cell phone...
which has become a part of her absurd and
acquired conscious-body-language-protocal
guys walk out with guns and fishing poles...
*
Toy-Representative
today i got transferred all over the place
when i simply wanted to ask a question
about a swing-set for our two year-old child
then got put on hold for what seemed like hours
to the song--"these boots are made for walking"
by the late-great psychedelic nancy sinatra
and when he decided to make his return
said something crazy in this mechanical
man-made voice as these days they find
it necessary to formally train them like
automatons all for the sake of political-
correctness and for litigious reasons--
"is this the customer who had the question
about the dorado swing set?" as i instantly
got defensive and over the phone (in)visibly
shaken and said something along the lines of--"huh?
what the fuck, i have a question about a swing set?"
(you know those husbands who just lose it all
and decide to drop their pants and take a dump
right on the lawn or those college coaches you
hear about these days over the radio getting
busted for driving intoxicated as well as naked?)
as these days they have these wonderful ways
of formally sedating and placating and patronizing
while this mechanical micro-manager during this period
had turned me distant and indifferent you know the part
about waiting all this time and being treated like some
kind of statistic when i just had one simple question
about a swing set me and my wife wanted to get
for our rambunctious two year-old son as the song
these boots are made for walking which i was really
starting to get into was constantly being interrupted
by some man-made mechanical-moron--"thank you
for your patience...the next toy-representative..."
*
Chick Logic
my wife finally confesses to me
one of her secrets that one of her
daily traditions is to go to super stop
& shop with the baby and steal a cookie
from the bakery section. i told her they most
likely in the most wanted room have a mugshot
of her with crumbs on her face. she simply shrugs
her shoulders and in a very casual way mentions "ok"
then picks up the conversation right where she left off
*
What The Day Said
i love thunder
it's like moving
furniture on a mildewy day
and knowing something
interesting's happening
my wife articulates--
"i won't be your
beckon call girl"
got to love her
*
The Natural Ecosystem
our babysitter arrives in her old retro red volvo
and plants it in the middle of our cleveland pear
blossom with her windows rolled down and a purple blanket
from the beach still strewn out and some sun-scorched starfish having
baked in the back with great crooked diamond arms casually flung about
the only substantial thing i learned in college was
about the concept of regeneration and how for example
the starfish can lose one of its appendages and how it will
instantly grow back and remember how i got myself lost those days
in all things that existed within the natural ecosystem of the ocean
(i think i was more so deflecting, trying to subconsciously and even
consciously escape all those things i was tragically discovering about
the terrible hypocrisies of human nature, and was almost in a state of
shock about what a friend or even brother were capable of doing to one another,
and literally, nihilistically went into a state of denial,
unable to fathom, so dipped down to other levels, and
similar to some abusive cycle, took it on myself like, "did i deserve?"
you know that old expression if a tree falls in the forest and
no one is around to hear it? more precisely i think this applies
to the human condition during periods and phases of
depression feeling profound emotions of desertion and
abandonment if you kind of get...
one wonders if when you die you take with you all your fantasies and fixations
or simply go back to that innocent moment right before they were created)
was also fond of how the beautiful babysitter probably was spending her days
seducing helpless pathetic boys on the beach and how she simply parked
her beautiful old retro red volvo in the middle of our pear blossom with
her windows open and big crooked starfish and sandy purple blanket
*
A Cultural And Didactic Study Of The Beach
trancendently engaged in games of seducing
rearranging bikini strings, primping ponies,
pussies; laughing, levitating (the high school
and college girls with their pearly-white skin,
with olive complexions) ever since then i guess
the name of the game has always been
to get the ball in the hole; i suppose
the other option something like
complacency killed...absurdly still
staking their territory, diametrically
opposed to the rhythms & motions
of the ocean (is there jealousy &
envy beneath the sea?) wars still
being fought overseas, the school-
yard bully making the world safe for
democracy, blues from brooklyn, you
settle instead for a piece of sun-scorched
driftwood, for the starfish and seagulls, for the dunes,
for the boy and girl drifting to the restroom in the ruins
(the helicopters come like drunken spiders from the sun)
*
Sundown
you look to the top
of the lagoon
for your soul.
Stanzas From The Road
1
state-cop chowing down t.v. dinner with his wife in the front seat of his squad-car
2
gigolos playing dominoes in the back of hearses
3
batman & robin on suicide-watch barreling to horizon when lights go on at the stadium
4
lucky buffalo-head nickel windows of cities glimmer in the distance
5
alabaster angels escape brutal boyfriends in pick-ups from the mountains
6
why is it people always mistake courage for a lack of compassion?
traditions established from pretty shallow superstitions
7
boxcars rattle through farmhouses
through beautiful broken birches
8
motorcycles parked outside antique shop
within shattered heart
9
(pet-names you have started calling loved-one
angel topping, angel bones, angel stock...
all discovered while she was in her dream-world
10
why does fantasy-world
seem to exponentially grow in marriage?
the things you can and "can not do..."
11
white girls try out silly seductions when they got too much time on their hands
and will follow through if you're some kind of stud they always wanted to land
and can satisfy their wish-list from their acquired, pre-planned "fantasy-world"
12
or even worse, know you got the ends to support them...
pretty gross, vulgar, transparent, and passive-aggressive
13
their affectations are developed from articles they read in magazines
on "how to please men;" from the television, and the things they do are quite
horny, even hornier; things they have always dreamed and things you could never
dream of, as you become the "control" for their experimentation,
their innocent-victim... their lust somewhere down the road
strangely turns to love and more times than not ends in drama
14
when your were single
you were always able to escape
to places like spain & sicilia
escaping past girlfriends
literally running at dawn
for ferries that read
"sicilia," "e. africa"
15
spying from tiny tiled rooms
within olive mountains
through weather-worn shutters
onto the great & grande mediterranean
and make sense of it all knowing there
was really no sense to make at all)
16
what men will talk about
when they got nothing left to talk about
weather... and... sports... and... women...
17
(ibid.)
cornfields... & graveyards
gravefields... & cornyards?
18
they say you should put aside money for a rainy day
for your offspring for their college fund
19
i wish i was rich enough
to put aside a little for all those on the road
who helped me when i was down & out & on-the-run)
20
when is it that we may start to stroll like horses?
when candles go on in the widow-watches?
when silhouettes of wild waitresses go out
in the hills & lakes & lagoons & oasis'?
21
when freaks on the beach sneak a peak from carnival trailers
onto the great red ball of fire going down dancing in the distance?
when great geometric shapes of the village go down on the horizon?
when weeping willows finally protect our eyes from the hypocrisies of existence?
22
the next day you try to recover from the road
as you shut your eyes and take a deep sigh
in the wild winds of your backyard
23
a tiny rabbit scampers
through a hole
in the stone wall
24
the whispering whistle of birds reignite your soul
and dream of those days when you and your loved one
literally ate cream puffs & champagne for breakfast at buffets wandering
through catacombs of ancient andulucia to the verdant vibrant courtyard
25
in closing your eyes you can hear from so long ago
from the other side of the state in the berkshires
the rippling rocking buoys beneath the boathouse
26
the butterflies & dragonflies
resting on secret & mysterious
weather-worn wood of rowboats
27
this is the year the crabapples won't come out
replaced by luminous lacy snow-white blossom
28
you wonder when the ice cream stands will open
and cute high school girls will smile from the shadows
29
when the goats might return to the rock farm
and fishermen with their great big bushy beards
and traps stacked up on the back of their flatbeds
30
you have finally shaken off the road
and take a deep breath...
The Art Of Sublimation ~In 15 Hard-To-Assemble Stages
1. Manual For Mummification
*
ladybug leftover from spring
on lace doily of dresser
in bleak light of winter
*
i have never trusted pictures
of families who appeared
all ecstatic and elated
*
to me they always seemed
so troubled and wanted
to punch their teeth in
*
the fakes and phonies
who the only thing they
do genuine is alienation
*
that kid from high school
who you thought you had
a really good relationship
*
then whenever he got around peers
would treat you like a stranger
through tactics of humiliation
*
(no wonder why
you used to fall in love
with proofs and logarithms)
*
i want to be the
mad embalmer
tickle monster
*
and stick my finger right up
the gut of empty orifices and leave
a sign which simply reads "vacant"
*
when you grow up
you find there are
so many like them
*
long beautiful mists of seaside mornings
bring out the tulips quite early...
witch must have had a good night on broomstick
*
where's the skyline?
trains rush by
in the distance
*
as dusk turns to night
to imagination
to radiance
2. Visions
some secretly sewn path
which rambles through a patch
of pachysandra off the sideyard
right up to curtains of an old colonial
where your phantom holds a candle slurring
languages hidden behind weather-worn shutters
one might call him a raconteur or provocateur
not really a storyteller yet more so a jokester
the overturned tractor-trailer jackknifed on the
george washington and when they stick their
heads in to poke and probe you have some know-it-all
expression which tells all about the core of civilization
some spirit lurking from behind lattices
which spots crows hanging from branches
like the top hats of tricksters of drug addicts
gods and devils rolling bones against tom
and huck factory fences where fate and
chance mingle as though everything
as though nothing ever existed
you had always had visions in the ribbons
of sundown splashed out wrapped around
the sacred sides of mountains
in the country towns
full of factories and rivers and
old hotels and covered bridges
in the dusks and dawns
when all was silhouetted
and mystical and mysterious
in the ribbons of sweet chimney
smoke where it seemed like everything
was enveloped in an eternal plume of paraffin
you had always had visions
which in childhood were kept hidden
in suppression in subjugation translating
into detentions and suspensions of running away
as a delinquent cross-country writing poetry in the back of buses
of which lovers later on said they got turned on
and even asked me for their hands in marriage
of which family and friends a bunch of doubters who felt threatened
used to like to use words like "hypersensitive" or "your exaggerating"
constantly changing their allegiances and points-of-view in a second
funny how you used to keep
all the convicts all the psychiatrists laughing
as bosses used to say they used to like to simply
hang around me 'cause they liked to just hear me talking
when they fired me and security escorted
me to my locker out would spill out novels by
jung and camus and ezra pound and dostoevsky
you could see their startled expressions
often of a self-effacing and sympathetic
even a tongue-in-cheek modesty
the traveling carnival which budges
which buzzes over bridges
and decides not to stop
in town all the giraffes
and clowns
sick of the vanity
and contradictions
and hypocrisies
of man and settle instead
for signs which read--
karate, honeydew
drive-thru, tap room
chords of freshly-chopped
mettalic-gold wood rattling
past gingerbread cathedrals.
in bum-pa
da-bum-pa
you'll catch the
baseball scores
would you
believe me
if i told you...
3. The Stranger
all's you
ever'd imagine
was visions
of travelin'
leavin'
every-
thing
tragic
in the mist
of magic
on the hudson
on the housatonic
all the trauma
and traintracks
diss-ass-sociated
diss-gruntled
diss-family member
diss-membered
forgiven
and
forgotten
coming
up simply
out of nowhere
to some silver
mailbox with
black letters
which simply
reads "west"
the pumper-
nickel
express
and seeing it
all vanish over
your shoulder
all the promises
and betrayals
the red-roofed
snowy colonials
the snowy schoolyards
the snowy cathedrals
the snowy brooks
babbling through
snowy pachysandra
the smoking chimneys
coming up finally feeling
through snowy pines
rising up to heaven
for good-
ness sake
what it really means
to be a runaway...
martyr sole-survivor
(not one of those
phony loud-talkers)
the last lover amongst
a pack of losers and liars
every breezy screen door
smacking on the horizon
every crow and seagull
windchime and attic
the ex-addicts
both full moon
and full sun
falling and rising
at the exact
same time
in your cigarette rearview
evaporating regenerating
against beautiful silhouetted
candle-lit mills and factories
banking hard-working miraculous
new england rivers which simply read--
"don't do
denver
who-
satanic
paper
i'll be
your
savior"
every
fare
girl
you
once
loved
you
once
savored
who
whispers
woon-
socket
paw-
tuck-
it
pat-
her-
son
montana
st louis
central-
lock up
san francisco
your demure
angel partner
patiently waiting
in shadows
sniffling at dawn
in your tippy-toe kitchen
the night
before
asking--
"baby, did you take something?"
"yeah, oranges...
sleepy, i'll speak with you tomorrow"
a strange security man
rattles his moped
through fog
they sweep up
the square dance floor
with a view of the mountain
for cowboys & truckdrivers
lumberjacks & hustlers
biscuit & gravy
revelations
on-the-run in
portland, oregon
4. Thieving A Land Of Caucasia
after a life full of torment and torture
from a munchausen mother
and narcissistic father
from a life of survival
of supression
and denial
a hole life of feeling guilty
always explaining all
ways defending
he finally asks no more questions
taking to the art of conning
taking to the art of taking
the thieves who he met on the bus
escaping from back east looking down
from the tiki room with mai tais
after a long
hard day of hustling
watching the evening
settling reflectively
taking a sigh of relief
looking down on some
bleary-
eyed
city
(always feeling lost
always feeling lonely
always feeling nothing)
and knowing inherently
they'd never be given
the opportunity
nor of course
the proverbial key
so decide instead
to pick
the lock
to the city
to be
to see
the torsos
of trees
moving
serenely
downstream
and begin to
start breathing
5. Working Methadone
both me and the good
ol' fishermen trying to get clean
mutally agreed while loosely laughing--
"who are our
super heroes?"
that seemed
to sum up
everything
6. After The Party
a purple fox sticks his
head out the wilderness
a blue slate path leads from
the mysterious to indifference
while with confidence and conviction
without self-doubt or conflict you are
convinced people are so full of shit
this obnoxious step-mother who
was the 4th in which he cheated with
and deserted his angelic daughter
and now has the nerve to pass judgment
and to spread gossip and rumors
remember those cars you used to see
stranded on the side of the road in the bronx
when heading to manhattan and got stripped
within a couple minutes and all that was left
was an empty carcass
that's how you feel
after all the bullshit
what they do to your
heart & mind & soul
your gut & gizzard
to your
consciousness
(everyone wants something from you
as you conveniently become the culprit
while no proverb seems more apropro than--
"an opinion's like an asshole everyone's got one")
no wonder why sometimes you want
to be an exhibitionist to fantasize
about babysitters to be
some kind of abolitionist
(you wish before one of these shin-digs
they'd play the pledge of allegiance as
you'd simply put your hand over your
chest and mouth the mantras--
"can i get
a witness")
winter settles on the russet
leaves of autumn
old-time knocker sounds
on the purple door
it's anne-marie and the 3 kearney
boys--"sorry we couldn't make it
john's
in japan"
the piano-tuner and animal control
make their way down the road...
7. Redemption
i take great pride
in planting myself
inside my garage
seeing trees i planted
growing up and down
the drive with proud
torsos stuck out
bulging beneath
autumnal sunshine
awakening nourishing
my withered soul which
may once more turn ripe
as i head inside after all the battles
and fights and alas by no flip of coin-
cidence or chance finally feel alive
8. The Sexes
tonight i asked our babysitter
while taking her aside as she
instantly turned paranoid thinking
i was going to fire her for constantly
being late all the time but rather
inquired if she knew any clowns
or if she had any connections
to clowns or happened to
hang around any clowns
for our kid's second birthday
party as she was one
of these real avant-
garde artsy-fartsy
types and for some
strange reason almost
seemed to get a bit defensive
maybe even a little insulted
or offended and even articulated
how she thought her old boyfriend
might juggle and there was a chance
she knew someone who possibly swallowed
fire but definitely unequivocally did not know
any clowns as though this had touched on
some sore spot or hit a raw nerve or this is
what i thought of her and the people of with
whom she hung out with and thought even
a little further that if some male or female had asked
if i knew any clowns i would feel flattered and honored
as this for me would not be too much of a stretch of the imagination
and might even if the price was right throw my hat and suspenders
and exploding shoes and squirting flower right into the ring
and don the role of king's...yet i don't know that is just me
9. The Functioning Of The Male Species
there is a reason why we all need
to escape the dysfunctional existential
routines of everyday living to either become
the "fiddler on the roof" or the other alternative
for the male species which always seems to be
to become something of a thief and slip
on a sky-blue suit with powder-pink rose
traipsing up and down delancey to secretly
meet your doe-eyed darling. any which way
this appears to be some sort of existential
escape or what freud's daughter might deem
to be how the male species chooses to acclimate
or extricate with maladaptive techniques and traits
or even better yet the defense-mechanism of sublimation
we always talk about these martyrs
on a historical and spiritual level
but how about the women
who had to live with them
"your mountain view
motel representative
will be right with you"
10. Frigidaire Is Passive-Aggresive
tonight my wife came in our bedroom
and i hollered--"get the hell out of here!"
i was doing something stupid in the mirror
and she proceeded to pull down her pants
and give me the ol' stink hole then i heard
her little girl giggle in the hall as these are
the little perks of marriage then her echo
in the bathroom--"elmo's using the potty!
hooray!" a tea-light the smell of seashore
sputters on our dresser and you wonder--
where's paul revere?
frigidaire's passive-aggressive
11. Contrition
always seem to just miss
the sprigs of daylight
sprigs of moonlight
and can't help but
to feel a slight bit contrite
in this cruel and absurd life
somewhere around midnight
of how much i truly love my wife
12. Mid-Life
you find yourself falling in love so quickly
with some young charming portuguese girl
who's a secretary with a great bubbly personality
so nice and kind and holy ironically in the lobby
of the "briarcliff nursing home" where you flirt
in your old wool coat waiting to be interviewed
by the heinous head of nursing for a social work
position that will offer you the world right below
the poverty level while all you really care to recall
is this beautiful young portuguese girl who you
are convinced can really offer you the world
where one of those mechanical pianos plays
by itself all alone all the way into the netherworld
13. Been Driving Home These Days
down the highway like some mad
crazed doctor making house-calls
some solemn and solitary stranger
as all you hear over the radio is
some spiel about "irregular dandruff"
wondering what's the hell's the difference
between 'regular' and 'irregular' dandruff?
these days you're hearing alot
about college coaches getting
arrested being picked up for driving
intoxicated while at the same time naked
there is a knock at the door
of the moby dick motel...
(your mind wanders
to girl scouts
and the law)
14. Case Study
if the scapegoat
the pawn
can possibly
stick to his guns
if he can
simply hold on
he'll shed
the skin of
rat-bastard
to become
something
of a good
son if you
kind of get
where i'm
coming
from
15. The Transcendent Soul
you stand on the corner
in the hot sun of 7-11
with nothing to do
and nowhere to go
just your pocket
full of pop rocks
assorted bubble
gum-smelling
baseball cards
and slurpie in hand
where like some dream
like some brilliant nightmare
you hear the rattle of trains
and miraculous brook mur-
muring beneath the land
(right there and then
you felt something
of a cross between
hamlet holding the
skull of the king's
fool in the air and
an incandesent
jack-o-lantern...
in blowing-off
homework a certain amount
of guilt and hope and fear)
could anything from
a buddist point-of-view
be more brilliant and sad?
nothing has really changed
much for me and you
feel grateful and glad.
Quartet/All Things Whispered Between The King And Queen
Auto-biography
spying through a deep keyhole
you spot your shallow soul
which is still a scared little boy
trying desperately to cope
everything learned, all that's been stolen
stuffed in your back pocket with a simple note
brought up on the old
big boys don't cry
and am now a big boy
and don't know where to go
running from the law
running to the lord
punchlines in a puddle
in a radioflyer at dawn
wake up call--
we have be need
always loved the smell of...
pussy, the beach, burning leaves
looking out to the high seas lost & empty
content & solitary with sea-spray wings
sunups & sundowns surviving off pigeon crumbs
of fake aristocratic families who no longer speak
who no
longer wink
lost my
skate key
through the mist
you spy sicily...
Of Marriage ~the abbreviated version
you go down the highway
and spot this beautiful blonde
with hair blowing from the window
of her mg convertible and follow her
into the parking lot with your station
wagon like some low grade james bond
and strip her down to her bad girl panties
and when you bend her over the bed whisper
such strange taboo requests like do you mind
if we nap a little and we nap for hours and you tell her
thanks that's the best deep sleep i've gotten in i don't
know how long leaving the motel with a big wide grin
and head back down the highway to your marriage
America
people just want to get home for supper
watching their backs for state troopers
escaping from the ocean
from the sideshows
from the flesh & bones
from human nature
past miniature golf & cathedrals
& exotic dancing & ice cream
past the mulch
& dairy queens
gymnastics
& karate
past the big billboards
of corny phony news-
teams smiling insincerely
before they reach the big city
clowns & vampires delivered to tragedies
way down deep in the lagoon of the farm
o-psued-o
-call valley
port-o-sans rushing
down the highway
horses in the back of trailers holy
well-behaved and breathing deeply
through the peep-
holes of reality
the chimney sweeps are out on blind-dates and
reunions are in full swing at hospitals & factories
when they reach the traffic jam white boys
from the suburbs stick in rap from the ghetto
they glamourize this and have no concept
of what it's like for survival on a daily level
they head
for the stripmall
(yet with all this bumpa-da-bumpa it's finally discovered
much to the chagrin of the inquisitive rubberneckers
that in fact there is no accident at all yet rather
a blonde muscle-bound stud in his ten-gallon
standing guard over a stranded swan
who has strayed and has carefully
placed orange cones around his poor pecking body
while disappointed blood-thirsty commuters
race off
indifferently
and go back to tailing
in the rat-race of rush-
hour in the holy land
of providence
rhode
island)
sun finally falls
& lights go on
on the ballfield
as all is well
in the weird
& wild land
of the ker-o-
sell of america
Where Columbus Got His Start
leather-clad killers & lovers of the dunes
convicts escaping in hot-air balloons
a ruined boy & girl giving each other shots
exchanging nightmares & neglect
& the rest of what they got
objects of temptation
christ & used-car lots
scholars reading dime-store novels
wild holy girls somersaulting, seducing
doing handstands & cartwheels
exposing it all with sex-appeal along shore
this scene the only thing worth fighting for
on the horizon, long bridges, clouds & islands
chaplin shuffles like seraphim
all seraphim like chaplin
god bless chaplin
god bless the children
the stooges making a nuisance
exposing masks of civilization
at the wind-swept, drunken
hamburger stand of creation
god bless the stooges
god bless their victims
the old rickety whale bones of w.c. fields holding up the boardwalk
bonnie & clyde in origami rowboats
here comes the bread & butter
the butterfly nets
the burlesque to the fellini buffoon set
cigar-smoking lawyers & red-neck witnesses
sailors taking cat-naps in the parking lot of desolation
you wonder what they dream of
you dream of what they dream of
slaves who work for the state driving in big pick-ups
thinking closing off souls is what makes them studs
you have so much more to live for
the nurses & winos
conch & seashells
watching your child shuffle along shore
you hope your wife will follow you to all ends of the world
the church bells & foghorns
where columbus got his start and then fall...
Of Marriage
I.
for ernest hemingway or any other man
who suffers from a beautiful woman...
my baby won't let me lie next to her
when she takes a nap or goes to sleep
at night (for one reason or another; don't
know? wasn't this the best part with
other past lovers? well i really do know,
she's a bit of a princess, of which i had
been warned several times by her mother;
maybe i should have thought twice
before i tried to get back at that bitch
from yeshiva) well, i don't really care,
i'm much older and will die much earlier,
and one day, she'll learn her lesson, o no...
hey, wait a second, do i have that backwards?
II.
learning colors
you look out your window
to the tops of tall windy
pines and dream
of treehouses
of the pine cones
which have fallen
soon the leaves
will come
in from
great weep-
ing willows
III.
fantasies
(you dream of being one of those
rich eccentric englishmen escaping
to the south of france during winter for
fresh mozzarella for naked french women)
IV.
aside
sometimes when i act up
she threatens to give me
the zu-zus which is some
old yiddish wive's-tail which
she told me she once gave
an old boyfriend for breaking
up with her and when she saw
him a couple years later he was
working at burger king and had
broken out and wanted to get
back together and simply dropped
the burger right in front of him on
the floor and danced out the door
yet suppose i really do love her because
when retrieving pine cones and lichen
from the lawn smelled the sweet scent
of me and my son's clothes streaming
from the laundry room to the sideyard
the delightful sound of tree frogs
through screen window of bathtime
to avoid nightmares at midnight
you eat bagels & peanut butter
downed with tall glasses of milk
on the refrigerator reads
"toe jam puppet band"
V.
words that came out of my wife's mouth
i can't make sense of: finding a babysitter
"i had a cow paper
and i gave her the utter part
and she was like you gave
me the utter part...
that's funny!
i literally gave her
the number on
the cow's penis"
VI.
the shape of wind
what the poets & philosophers have still not been able
to explain are those days when you're simply hanging...
(maybe in a field or near a body of water or even the city)
& some great mythological shadow
suddenly creeps & greets you out of
nowhere & before you know it disappears
out of the clear-blue & then
having nothing to do with language
or folklore, you feel saved, absolved
VII.
love her like creaking floorboards
you creep through the house
and she calls out--"joe, joe?"
(2007)
