Poem

Vitruvian Man


The promise of the body
at the fingertips of your lips
on the nose of your elbows, funny
bones give symmetry
to your immortality. Your body
a temple, a recess so precise
in my imagination: a sugary bear
claw, usurped and swallowed,
ursa minor and gone.


The guidelines on the palms
of your hands curve at the needs
of the mighty oak tree that lies
like a cherry tree armpit, subtle
and crimson in the small of your back
divided like hubris, humility: hu-
man and that tattooed promise: a kissed
cinnamon tongue.


Your body exposed to the elements
of my eye, of my tortured design.
The poison of speech and the mind
of my love in letters and paper hearts,
an arrow like a matchstick straight
and rubbery sulfuric tip through
the heart's Rubik's cube
rubric promise: A Light! Alight!
Alight!


the promise of the body:
a way in, a way out, a sinister
vessel, let down, lit up
desire frown smiles like a clown:
big shoe, big shoe, white face
paint, big glove, big glove,
red nose, red lips, giant plastic tulip,
polka-dot dress, lace garter belt,
lace garter belt, white stockings, black
belt and brass buckle, big love,
big tear, split person-
ality gestalt.

W.B. Yeats - The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Remember, remember the fifth of November....

Poem

Twist

Solved
poem
at the brink
of mourning light;
have a drink:
vodka,
rocks.

Ice
hisses,
slides and tinks
the glass tumbler
with lime twist,
Stoli,
crisp.

V

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
--from V for Vendetta

once, I.....

lyrics - XTC

King for a Day

Everyone's creeping up to the money god,
Putting tongues where they didn't ought to be.
On stepping stones of human hearts and souls,
Into the land of nothing for free.

Well the way that were living,
Is all take and no giving,
There's nothing to believe in,
The loudest mouth will hail the new found way,
To be king for a day.

Everyone's licking up to the new king pin,
Trying to get way up with a smile.
Sing for your supper boy and jump to a finger click,
Aint my way of living in style.

cause the ladder gets longer,
And ambition gets stronger,
I cant satisfy the hunger,
That bad old moon has got you in its sway,
To be king for a day.

You're only here once so you got to get it right.
(no time to fuss and fight.)
cause life don't mean much if measured out with someone else's plight.
(in time you'll see the light.)

cause the way that were living,
Is all take and no giving,
There's nothing to believe in,
The loudest mouth will hail the new found way,
To be king for a day.

poem

SinTax

Creme-filled expectation
sweetened and sifted onto your lollipop
tongue and bubblegum lipstick,
over time, in blocks of cold-packed
imagination and puckered thoughts
frozen for ice-age eons up
brick-layered steps, around the lazy
concrete corner, down the easy alley
of your lathered desire
as she dances, tip-toed, around
the stripped, striped maypole
and the furrowed horizon of your soul:
honey-dripping lips.

lyrics -The Clash

"The Street Parade"

When I was waiting for your phone call
The one that never came
Like a man about to burst
I was dying of thirst

Though I will never fade
Or get lost in this daze
Though I will disappear
Into the street parade

It's not too hard to cry
In these crying times
I'll take a broken heart
And take it home in parts
But I will never fade

I was in this place
By the first church of the city
I saw tears on the face
The face of a visionary

Though I will disappear
To join the street parade
Disappear and fade
Into the street parade

rhyme

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot to surrender,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent

To blow up King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

lyrics by Love & Rockets

Haunted When the Minutes Drag

The word that would best describe this feeling
Would be haunted
I touch the clothes you left behind
That still retain your shape and lines
Still haunted
I trace the outline of your eyes
We're in the mirror hypnotized
I'm haunted
I find a solitary hair
Gone and still i remenice
I'm haunted

Haunted by your soul
Haunted by your hair
Haunted by your clothes
Haunted by your eyes
By your soul, by your hair
By your clothes, by your eyes
By your voice, by your smile
By your mouth, by your soul
By your hair, by your clothes
By your eyes, by your voice
By your smile, by your mouth
By your soul

Haunted (haunted)

So this is for when you feel happy
And this is for when you feel sad

And this is for when you feel...

Nothing

when the minutes drag
when the minutes drag

And this is for the tears that won't dry
And this is for a bright blue sky

And this is for when you feel...

Lucky

And this is for when you feel...

Lucky

when the minutes drag
when the minutes drag

So this is for when you're feeling happy again
And this is for when you're feeling sad

And this is for when you feel...

Something

when the minutes drag
when the minutes drag

Haunted (haunted)
When the minutes drag
Haunted (haunted)
When the minutes drag

Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid by Johannes Vermeer c.1670

Poem

Nina and Vermeer in Dublin

The elongated creaks and groans
of the varnished floor
of the National Gallery,
waxed and polished to their spit-clean
ending as grade school classes,
teenage art students and mid-day
browsers parade past
the painting hung
in the middle of section 40,
a Beit gift,
paid only stolen chance
glances, unadorned, as if to say, ‘Stop
here only if you see the value
in illumination.’

Through left over pall
from the mid-morning
shadow, after overcast days,
her eyes adjust to the painting,
to the tossed items on the white,
gray and charcoal tiles:
the purse, the wax, the seal, the letter.

The key is in her hand,
the seal on the floor.

In the painting the overflowing sun
highlights a view of despair
or air of rebuke,
heart in repair, the lady
and her maid basking in mosaic
of pearl-flecked sunlight, shadow.

The key is below the folded arms,
the letter on the floor.

Through high glazed windows
bright, washed faces, tears,
birth

of clarity: the child
in the painting within
a painting that breathes,
communicates with naked
faith and brushed hope

and where Nina sits cross-legged,
the atrium light tapers and reflects
from her white paper journal
and metallic pen.

Poem

Thirsty

The cool water drips
staccato
out of
the green
garden hose
onto
her tongue.

She swallows more air

than water, her throat
a gurgle
of guttural clucks
until I thrust my thumb
in the hose opening,
a sluice. My hand
opens the valve.
Flabbergasted, she grabs
my wrist and pulls. Water falls
on her face
creating small
creeks, rivulets, tear
streaks down her cheeks,
neck, collarbone and t-shirt.

All “I’s” flushed,
I twist the spigot off. She
laughs; thirst slaked.

nice hats

Poem

Hitherto

the man
coming
and going
in the night
will be-
come
a pillar
of desire
or thirst
for skin
or dew
on morning
grass gone
astray.

Poem

Love

is hardly a matter of fact;
is it a question
or an answer
to the new sun in your eyes
as you lay in scrunched crabgrass
and scattered small rocks
tearing the skin of your back
as she whispers again,
'pair of balls’ or ‘parable.’
You can’t tell which and either way
you would miss the point.

Morning Blue Jays sing and Red-belled
Woodpeckers beat song:
when things might be different
love makes them the same:
clouds, cobblestones, curators of dreams;
when things might be reasoned
love makes them absurd:
mountains, moments, measures of desire;
when things might be lost
love rescues the ends:
pulp, pleasure, painstaking belonging;
when things might be deemed
love at long last:
breathe, breathe, breathe.

The solitude of the clear sky,
the moment
regards your existence
like a trace of ginger, typhoid,
alchemy: we are
what we are
and are not, a question,
an answer.

Poetic Justice and the road taken.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24935777/

Poem

Tell Your Sins

The Boeing 767 cruises at an altitude
that bumps you like that last minute of microwave
popcorn just before the ‘I’m done’ ding; descends
through the gray and white
cloud layers as her words ring
through the cabined silence:
“What’s not to love,” and “Shoot for the moon.”
You are still unsure of their meaning;
believe in the delivery, the genuflect
of your knees, her incandescent smile.

Where do you begin a moment if you have
always failed? There is no diving board at a safe
height, no pool or water deep
enough to survive the fall. You
should have taken the window seat.

Your ears begin to pop as the plane’s atmospheric pressure
increases or decreases, you forget which. Physics, no,
simple matters escape
your consideration when faced with anxiety and the stark
promontory of smiling back.

The allure of her words like sections of the plane breaks
apart in your mind: fuselage, verbs, wings,
nouns, participles, cockpit. There is nowhere
to hide; what’s not to love.

The Memos!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtRjmY6UX5k