-The twilight zone-

The crazy mathematics goes this way:

If two locomotives approach each other on the same track

But only close the distance by half, then half of that,

Then half again and so on, the locomotives will never collide.

Two young women held hands.

A man clasped his hands behind his head

To cradle it from impact.

The "Windows On The World" busboy made a parachute

Of his smoldering shirt and stopwatches were locked

At eleven seconds.

Had the fallen closed the distance by half, then half of that,

Then half again and so on,––

Had the two young women holding hands applied

The benefit of this calculus to this day they’d be falling.

                   Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize didn’t change my life

I was minding my own business in the top of the fifth

which means I didn't have to go to work at a day job, when

out of nowhere, or from the loop of television, or across the bold

print of the New York Times, or maybe via a couple of

FaceBook buddies, I was informed that Bob Dylan had won

the Nobel Prize for literature.

my thoughts immediately turned to my friend, unknown,

unpublished, starving in Cholula, writing the best

poems of his weary life about life in post war Mexico.

my friend, let’s call him: José Eldorado Esquivar,

sends me a bundle of poems every few months neatly scribed,

bound together with twine, not quite like Emily because

she hid her poems bound by ribbon (nice touch) in a secret

drawer at Amherst, whereas, José likes to get them out of his noisy

hacienda, asap.

here’s one José sent to me in a short-stack last month:

"the sun, she sets

over the puebla

and the donkey,

he drinks

from the shallow

pan where

the broken

tractor, it leaks

and my dog, he howls

at the sun

too stupid to know

it isn’t the moon."

now there's a damn good poem right there if you ask me.

anyway, I like that Dylan won the Nobel Prize.

I was there, in Newport in '65 when he moaned, electrically charged:

"I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more."

I neither booed nor cheered being too drunk on yards of beer, but

what it says is.. I've got skin in the game. but, christ.

It’s been over two hours and damn!

the tarp still covers the infield at Fenway.

          -Lady Madonna comes to Newport-

           she lives in southeastern

           Florida where it’s warm ––

           in December.

           sounds like a long distance.

           but she visits me

           on Thanksgiving weekend because, well,––

           what the hell,

           she’s visiting her family up here, anyway.

           so I book an early afternoon lunch in Newport; a dining room
           at an Inn of outstanding repute overlooking the Atlantic.

           the afternoon skies are overcast,

           but the light’s translucent here in paradise.
           

           the seascape is stepping into its winter portal.

           the frontage to the water clings to a rolling green

           and the rocky cliff's at land's end seem stable enough to hold us

           for another few hundred years.

           

           but as we sit at our table (by a window with an ocean view)
           she tells me: "the atmosphere up here is bleak”.

           I'm more than marginally annoyed with her assessment

           but find it common among people who dwell in warm climates.
           maybe they should just stay put.

           but–– she's a loved one.
           so we lunch in Newport under overcast skies

           without enough outside sunshine to please her and

           after lunch we have drinks at the bar.

           she's fucked-up with her regional findings,

           but she shimmy's like the bushy head of a watered palm-tree.

          

           (I have the needle-tipped whiskers of an old harbor seal)
           I should count my blessings in good fortune.

           Lady's a jazz vocalist ––

           the front-girl with a band.

           and ––

           she's a board-certified, published "Healer".

           the broken-hearted are drawn to her and.. 

           And –– she heals them!

           become unbroken my lovelies.

           she’s Lady Madonna in Newport and she tells me paradise is bleak.