Summer to Spring

the slow days of summer,
when i can count the seconds in a minute.
pass the hours in a second,
and thoughts take years to form.
the premium days of summer,
unstructured and unrecoverable,
like a late afternoon at Bethesda Fountain.
undocumented time,
unrecorded, prehistoric,
awakening uncompromisingly clear
as i pass through re-creative dreams, 
recurrent feelings that brace me for what is to come,
aware of the process of steering.
summer is ending, everything changing;
i hear ticks between tracks on the last song. 

lost autumn,
when the leaves do not float.
they leap from the trees, 
like rats from a ship sinking.
they creep after me, day in and day out
they come after me, through the cold November rain, 
stay the same, weekend and week out.
rats on my treadmill, aerobic rodent
leaves repeating the lost days of autumn 
that blew summer away, without a word,
until the snow came, covered it all, 
and melted away the rain.

nor'easter eve
looking at the last cold star 
the moon i would not see again.
a winter storm coming,
with clouds and cold wet rain,
windy snow till everything black 
turns the city white and shiny.
i stand and look out a high window, 
winter letting in the night,
heat sucked from a swollen tree,
into an obnoxious 7-11 radio, 
while an american baby sleeps
with my wife inside.


spring has come in time,
planted the seed in the soil.
how does it grow? i still do not know,
but it does, and then pretty soon,
the blooming thing is getting ready,
getting ready to bloom, and none too soon
there will be three of us for tea
through those mean mountains
down the valley to brew
Thai or Indian cosmic fragrance
deep inside, soft and green,
i have been there before, a soft machine. 

from Practicing My Chops
New York City
compilation 1992-1994 

Miss Lonelyhearts

hello miss hearts,
miss tinted glass-eye quick-walker,
these are long drawn days.
your delta and Grand Teton fill my mouth,
i pass through the ribs of your steel skeleton
with visions of white oiled pistons pumping. 
my tongue slides warmly along the base of my gums,
erect through these crusty lips for you,
rising to hardened teeth, chipped and rusted.
an invisible face in fast streets.
miss hearts, what have i done to deserve you?

miss lonely hearts,
your quick rodent look and shoe-lace inspection,
we see each other's fearful eyes at a glace,
and walk away without blinking.
do we know we would lie
to die with hands on the inner thigh?
to excite the rotting prisoner in mind cells?
can we taste that cigarette after we come,
or will i see your ass-crack bent through torn panties;
the brown stained farts on my jockeys ?
will we smirk at our lonely bodies of flesh in the cosmos?

miss, i am lonely, my heart, O my heart,
we ride the same streetcars but pay different fares,
my feet drag mud while yours ride on air,
in window reflections you seem transparent,
with autos, houses, and telephone poles within you.
my head rests on warm pillow cases from the laundromat
as i look down at my paunch; maybe you have noticed,
but when my clothes sparkle and my hair is neat,
would you pass by and whisper "oh how sweet."
or grab the newspaper on the seat beside,
returning home, unknown, to watch rhymes repeat?

miss lonely, you are lonely.
will a plane have to crash before we can meet?
a blood and guts battle of fighting cocks ensue?
or we two, tight-lipped and blurry-eyed at a bar?
will you remove your glass eye? 
will i let my tongue rest,
and let our compassion do its best?
can you bury your dead and take hold of my hand
to call on new spirits, not rekindle the past
miss lonely, O lonely, my heart, O my heart!
your heart and my heart, our hearts, O our hearts!

somewhere there is a light shining,
a fragrance whamming in the breeze. 
a miner digging new paths out of a cave,
after so many dark nights,
one night be brave,
in night, O the night when glass and steel melt
and new lands across East River appear, 
an island of light,
green hills and vast valleys in seasons
when we can cast out our dirty water,
replenishing our springs, without reason. 

new york city
circa 1976 

New Beginning

inside a short wave,
through our surface of consciousness,
after each session of expanding under the influence,
the past brought up to date, 
the present realized in its fullest glory.
there, one finds the passages across the rapids.
there, the other side, a new beginning.
there,people passing before your eyes,
legging the voyage in their own fashion.
they are all your friends,
seen anew through cleansed eyes.
do not speak a word to them.
do not ask for recognition.
you shall meet at intervals,
all spend time within one another.
you shall be witnesses,
birds of fire, 
telepathic language,
transparent beaches of static...
feel extraordinary life within you,
within the terminals of life and rebirth,
as you pass through death endless times...
try not to pass judgement;
opinions were left with reality. 
all wool and a yard wide, 
all heaven for the earth is gone.
when you feel your smile burning inside,
when trees and flowers bid you hello,
you know you have been welcomed.
take it so as a matter of fact,
and you have been mellowed. 
then i can kiss you in a subway train,
you will not feel me repulsive.
you have never seen my face before,
may never see it again,
receive me, pantheon messenger,
we have felt you coming,
know you will pass this way.
alas, the final chapter cannot be read,
as it has not yet been written,
so come along at your own pace,
achieving new heights together. 


original title "Building a New Home" 
New York City 
circa 1974-77

Super Vision

there lives an accountant in a young man's head,
where many a thought is brought to decision.
i shake this man around,
await an answer to plagiarize pure wisdom, 
with shifty intuition.
become a man in a suit by a municipal building?
face reflected in an office window?
all the time checking to make sure my life is paying.

i was looking through a scrapbook,
souvenir rocks and political buttons,
my first girlfriend in the nude,
and six million bloody crisp Jews,
staring at me, yelping and saying:
"you were born one and you will die one."
it may be true.

i was looking through a scrapbook
at twenty pages stuck together,
events in the past,
with an empty book awaiting me.
just had to look back through,
what had already occurred,
while my life kept turning.

came the day when prominance and peace, 
in my airy character,
were swallowed in dread thought of review.
i found myself grabbing,
at what i had left behind,
in search of an error i might have made,
a neglected thought that led me here,
thrown into this fearful circumstance.

though i bled all over, i found no help,
from those who i had called helpless.
i asked for confirmation,
from those i had called blind, 
then could not be bothered by their answers.
went to those accepted peers, 
but they echoed the advice i had given.

conjured idols once respected,
with a growing need for memories,
sufficient, i thought, to bring me around,
brought back to sell my past,
a step backward unacceptable.
so i mocked and belittled them, 
to catapult from their circle,
and again be the envy of all i see. 

i was looking through my scrapbook.
saw souvenir rocks and political buttons,
my first girlfriend in the nude,
i beheld an oven, topped with a steaming kettle, 
as the scrapbook's spine was broken, 
"here is the key forgotten."
its back turned limp, fell loose,
and twenty pages melted apart. 

from Scrapbook
new york city
august 12,1974

The City of Virginal Sin

i call this the city of virginal sin,
where everyone's entered nothing within.
though teenagers screw through tissues of skin,
both they and their players have nothing between
but layers of tissue;
the virginal sin.

they call it a pleasure,
a tickle, full tummy,
without second thought, without means no money.
the earth and the sky, no horizon or depth,
a feeling as true as the people here say:
"the retarded are absurd.
to love is to fuck."

a surface as smooth as the streets of her city. 
acne removed with plaster on troll.
people with toupees and falsies on cycles,
a people whose smiles in Brooklyn are grins,
i call this the city of virginal sin.

as oceans are lighter then darker her depth,
Miami Beach is pastel and sullen,
standard now in this land of ponds and creeks,
a city as bland as the Salt Flats themselves.

what else to say about a rash of white shoes?
what makes me want to spit on her streets?
what makes me think of raping her child?
why did i come here?
this is not my fatherland.

something once precious has now become "in".
we children do not know what we are up against,
we must take off our condoms and love.
a political curse and then,
we must let love be free again.
God may have damned this  paradise,
this city of virginal sin.

from Scrapbook
Miami Beach
January 30, 1973

A Calling

my boat is tied to a mooring,
though i rise and sink with the tide,
listening wind-ward for a calling,
to on the ocean ride.

the route is not foreboding,
against damp wood i sway,
as if Neptune is a-calling,
i cannot get away.

on peak of widow stand,
urging me home,
it is her voice that is a-calling,
again i cannot roam.

a hempen rope is twisting, winding,
around my bloated hull,
yet to my eyes the sea is calling,
looking for my gull.

time will fray the rope restricting,
the ocean's beckoning motion,
and turn my falling to a calling,
rekindling my devotion.

from Practicing My Chops 
new york city
march 30, 1994