the little Chairman dances

                   (and as with John Adams, "dances" is a verb)

1.

the little Chairman dances.

see how he strolls along the wall

of brick and quarried stone,

a more sensible wall than the wall

winding uselessly at the doorway to China.

(and to be clear, neither wall can be seen from the Moon!)

the little Chairman, primed for bigger things, dances

through good times and bad times, through meager

familial wages and into the acid fumes of leaded gasoline.

2.

the little Chairman dances the Wooly Bully,

dances the Hoochie-Coochie, buttoned-up tight

always prepared for bad weather.

there’s a long, long road to travel

for the little Chairman who dances.

the Frigidaire

abandoned to the basement

after years of service

and there, unplugged.

there were things put inside you

that didn’t need a cold space,

senseless hand tools, arbitrary nails,

frayed ropes and tin cans filled

with assorted nuts and bolts

never to come together.

you stayed put a long, long time

and when the cops came

they put a sticky warning

on your door although

It was never your intent

to suffocate the kids.

but the cops came back

and they checked all over

and found you behind the boiler

with the secret porn magazines.

your door was off, leaning

against a musty wall in the dark.

upstairs, your new replacement

held the rank of General Electric

and everybody ran to it when they were told

there’s a pitcher of ice-cold lemonade in the "Frigidaire".

  

is Eline Van der Velden real?

sure is good looking.

seems smart enough to hit the big-time.

seems to have an innovative bent.

Eline Van der Velden should

come up to my place

for a one-on-one close-up look-see.

I’ll feed her chicken feet

a favorite of my uncle Pete

from the old country.

I was ten when

uncle Pete was eighty and counting

cooking oily broth for soup

containing the agonized yellow-ochre feet

once belonging to one

presumed to be live chicken.

did old uncle Pete assume they'd be tasty?

I don’t know.

I used to know such things.

but now I don't know.

maybe I've chosen not to remember.

John Lennon said:

“nothing is real and nothing to get hung about”.

well, that's real enough for me.

waiting to hear from Eline Van der Velden.

 

preface:

the salesman on the road earned his right to be a distant entity.

we never went camping or bowling.

we never played catch in the backyard during the season

and we didn’t go fishing, ever, or had a serious father son talk.

he didn't introduce me to the proper handling of household

tools and actually I don’t think he had any to speak of, except

I do remember a rusty toolbox under the sink

not much larger than a lunch box, so rare that I wrote

a whole poem about its contents.

(a broken one-claw hammer, a screwdriver, a yellowed-

with-age bandaid plastic strip, a set of pliers, its handles

wrapped in electrical tape.)

I don’t remember him yelling. I’m not saying he didn’t yell.

I’m saying I don’t remember him yelling.

but he did advise me to "choke up" when I was playing ball

in the name of our neighborhood church.

he wanted the bat to make contact. he had buddies who had kids

who also played the game.–– but of the things my father

didn’t do with me, I’ve also not done with my son.

the preface doesn’t fall far from the page.

                      in the dream

the man who has something on his mind

is standing in the desert a megaphone at his mouth.

the scorpion shows up.

two lizards come close.

the dehydrated cactus

likes it that way

and stands at attention.

the man who has something on his mind

speaks freely but has forgotten to press

the megaphone's button.

the aggravated scorpion tires of his nonsense 

and zaps him with its stinger.

the lizards make love on the scorching sand.

the cactus continues its determined stance of self defense.

the man who has something on his mind

is learning his lessons.

this is the desert's song

the song of man

the notation of a dream.

                    the turtle sings

you might think I’m slow.

I’m not slow. you’re zooming in and out to everywhere

through your world incapable of resolution.

I'm not slow. what a tsetse fly is to you, you are to me.

you’ll see I’m right when you’re dead.

It's true. I eat houseflies,–– those big-eyed

germ carriers who find their way to the kitchen

then vomit on your morning toast.

It's what they do when they make a landing.

did you know that? still think you're smart?

look at me. penned inside a glass-walled aquarium

without a roof because you know I can’t jump.

I hate you. each morning when you check

to see if I'm living, know now that I hate you.

do you think I'm clawing at the walls of your

penitentiary because I'm conversing with glass?

because it's some sort of twisted mating ritual?

I want out. I want out!–– listen to my song.

set me free so that when I awake in the morning

I can smell the roses before the alligator eats me.

                    skin

my skin. my very own skin.

a silken skin nearing transparency; 

the veins running blood a constant

transfusion to the heart.

the muscle, my muscles, (I’ve always

had them but not for exhibition)

are incapable of lifting, unlike the ant,

anything heavier than my weight.

my eyes seem to be widening.

it's not yet concerning, but

they seem to be widening.

I can tell. I know these things.

soon, they'll become the last

eyes of my father.

I should be exhibited inside a museum.

one portrait is enough;

this is my skin, the introduction

to what lies beneath the surface

like Ingres' drapery, or Vermeer's, or a prom dress.