Tree Frog

Brother Tom should

   have warned

of this particular illness

   . . . and, in fact, he did . . .

It is so horrible

   to see your

own confusion

   and understand it

Georgia O’Keefe is

   Just Alright With Me

but a true shame ‘twould be

   to miss Anders Zorn

  

at the Legion . . .

   . . . and not be continued . . .

The Redemption

Grant Park Chi Town

“Every one is on duty”

The siege is not forgotten

& may never be redeemed

Chicago’s front yard

      & a great place to

smoke ganja or

      tobacco from Iwan Ries

escape from the loop to which

      you can only hope to return

& welcome Amerika back to the site

      of its broadcast accent

Your amazing racism

Your great good & bad movies

Your bars where people still talk to each other

Your Art Institute with its Picassos and Braques

Your Old Town that wasn’t really & isn’t there now

      although they still sing the blues nearby

Sandburg, Pynchon, Mailer

      all wrote about you

      & mentioned that

      the river flowed uphill

      in places here and there

      & alluded to the sewage it entailed

The Way

So this is the end my only

arachnophobic friend.

How do you plead?

Arachnophobia will not do

nor will the invasion

of the body mashers.

“You’ll never take me alive . . . cropper.”

“Heaven awaits, albeit reluctantly.”

“Linnets to you, ya’ big galoot!”

Bang Bang!             Simper Fidelia!

Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels and fly!

Diva

Cowboys trying to change their ways

make the sign of the double humpbacked whale.

Great players on songs like this,

      sz the Right Rev. Billy C. Wirtz,

great players like this

      all they want to do is rock.

Rev. Billy has his problems too

      although they cannot be or ever have been

as serious as the Ayatollah’s or

      some guy with a cat by that name

in a movie full of hoodlums

      wave action, and uncountable packs of Gitanes.

Every moped postal delivery fella in

      an even not so Gay Paree

would like to sleep with Cynthia

with the Eiffel tower for reference preference

     

& ghost riders in the sky.

      Yippee ki-yay futher mucker!

Lyrical Lament

            (in a Southern Accent)

Strange doctor of love

how can you stand to

give your love like Candy?

birds & their songs

demand we sentient beings

turn one and all

to worship the rich

human universe

and our fossilized legacy

& their dinosaur ancestors

who fuel fools such as we

and then every now

and then we find more

such as we &

even more such as I.

The 13-14 drought

Greetings old friend, from the interstices

where no matter how we cut it the program

puts spaces between our lines, whether we

want them or not, let alone

the horses they rode in on.  It is a good road

to ride, of course.  A fine course, rated or otherwise.

Slope and a professional to assist

us with our problems, personal or otherwise.

Even so, here we are in San Francisco waiting

for divine intervention fully aware at 65 that

there will be none.  Profound meditation cannot

even intervene or make a difference.  Abused,

we await deliverance, a drop or two slowly or

even right now.  Short that, how about dinner, huh?

XXXI

            for Gina

When the rains came I saw myself as you

knew me.  I dreamed I saw Tuli Kupferberg

alive as you or me.  There was Tuli and me

and rain on the roof.  Someone a lot like

you impressed although not very by all

those poems coming like junk mail.  And (not so

much) with many happy belated birthday returns. 

The dream was a pleasure . . . for a roller coaster ride.

Like cats, racing, in a state of grace

and then lying on their sides, asleep.

What else there be, pray tell, to do?

Pray?  Not likely here, not to any deity you

or me or Tuli or rain on the roof might

find comprehensible.  There she is though!

            (February 2014)