vignette
blood spilled blackens
after a while
the way the light
of the sky blackens
with time.
crossing the street
with a purpose to nab
an italian
bread for supper
hot from the
baker's ovens
crust cracking under
the sheath of a bag.
walking home is easy
with this
italian beauty
tucked in my arms
a Monica Vitti
look-alike,–– blonde
and warm and soft
and smelling
like Vitti would smell
if Vitti was a hot
italian bread.
sacristy vignette
man.–– the snail of god.
slick as the hand
at an altar boy's
cassock undone from
the bottom,..
the speed of priest
from rectory to judgement.
today is the start of god's day,
I assume, and why not?
who can duck for cover
against these odds..
snail vs. the omnipotent
whatchamacallit
the thing we don’t see
the thing that’s everywhere
inside the two-door sedan
inside the glovebox
floating in the lead
of a toxic gasoline,
inside the room which has no name
and deep in the bowel of man
so far that the nozzle can’t reach.
but priest, he’s seen it and seen it all
and that’s by a slow count
on the old down-low.
but I tell ya: the trumpeter of god can run.
I'll give him that.
a conversation with Charles Bukowski
W––I read some selections from
“burning in water drowning in flame” again last night
which I think is your masterpiece.
B––yeah? maybe. I don’t know.
W––I think it’s better than "last night of the Earth.."
B––wait. what’s better? each poem?
W––I mean taken as a whole…as a volume..
B––no. let’s go poem by poem. and besides
what’s a masterpiece?
W––let me take it back. I should’ve said
I like it more than “last night of the earth..”
B––look. take the first poem of “burning..”
and compare it to the poem on page 151
of “last night..” very different. how do you
decide which is better?
W––I wasn't engaged with page 151. that’s the Elvis poem, right?
B––yeah. “Elvis lives”. no good?
W––I just meant I like the opening poem of “burning..”
B––yeah. “tragedy of the leaves”..that’s a good one.
W––can I have some of that wine?
B––fuck you! go buy your own fucking wine you shithead!
laughter, applause and curtain.
potential spam / and a little traveling music
introducing potential spam, my annoying midnight caller.
we’ve never talked. we've never embraced,
we've never shared conversations over coffee
at Carmela's Diner where sandlotters feast
on fried clam sandwiches before choosing-up.
I don't answer potential spam's calls and
I mute my iPhone ringtone, which if I may say,
is one of the best within the tri-town area.
better than Bach's lilting harpsichord and
as near to perfection as Marilyn's throaty
"happy birthday mr. president" –– and I don’t leave
return messages for potential spam to jerk-off to.
it doesn't announce its sex on the screen's prompt, but
I’ve never known a woman who went by the name
"potential spam". –– well, maybe once at the
"Highway Casino" on route six east where the trio
plays it heavy on the downbeat and strippers
perform on stage and on occasion just for me.
for Edie Adams in paradise
this is a poem. it’s a love poem.
I'm no saint, but
I’ve had loves taking shapes
like chameleons, warm-colored
and cold-blooded, sensual and mean,
mean-spirited like the vultures
who pounced upon you for the money
Ernie owed to the banks and the Vegas
mobsters and all the unpaid utility bills
and they took your money, too, the bastards!
so I’m dreaming of you, Edie, of your tight dress
and your mouth and legs of silk and I know it’s not right
to be so superficial, and there are other dreams, I know,
but not right now. not tonight.
tonight it’s only your face like an angel’s face
and your legs making nylon act like another
layer of skin and your ass, the ass five hundred
starlets wish they had but they don’t, Edie.
It’s only your ass for my kisses from now until as far
as light itself can see, which is 15 quintillion miles.
that's the number. look it up. but who cares about that,
because tonight,–– tonight Edie it's you and me and your face
and your legs and your ass and lord have mercy!
plate 13
come close.
let me look at you
peeled like oranges
from acid Venus.
let the light do the work.
what else do you have to do
but reveal yourselves,–– glossy,
painterly, inside-out, digging down
twin-to-twin chest deep beneath
a shimmering water?
covergirls!
gracing the room leaving smears
of paint where they fell on the table.
"clam diggers" de Kooning 1963
vignette
one hand washes the other.
the cat’s tongue licks its feet
and then its bum-hole.
the snake lives within its skin
then leaves it and lives within
another skin.
a new address.
a new zip code.
better traction over the land.
same bite. same poison.
same disposition.
all natural.
no added perfumes.
brain still the size of a pea.
still scary. still pretty.
and since the beginning of time
we still run from snakes.
but think about the cat’s tongue
next time it licks you.
first love
what I want / a man's poem in response to Kim Addonizio
I want to scribble a poem
like a frantic lunatic
that'll make women swoon––
that'll give me a boner
that'll take me to paradise
and back without a prayer.
and I want a car with a big
back seat with Virginia Fox
waiting there under the domelight
her prom dress powder-
blue and perfumed...
Wind Song is what it's called.
a poem that's nobody else's business
a poem that nobody reads anyway
an invisible poem
a poem that dies when I die.
