North Queens

The quiet streets of Whitestone

keep calling me their way,

bidding me to trod alone

to the outlands

of College Point.

And ghosts

of long-ago movie starts

draw us

to feel the breeze

of Little Neck Bay

and skip stones

from the shady woods

of Crocheron Park.

We dip into some alien feast

with our worked hands

at all hours,

as the night life

of a thousand people

babbles around us

and the dreams of millions

chatter by.

Revenge of the Blue Light

In the lush green

dream night,

bruised and stained

by the sweet chase,

we get to that

mysterious place,

that Daisy’s pier

in heavenly space

to find the blue light

is only a ghost,

a glimpse of dying star,

a sinister dream,

parasite

to our host.

We shake our fist at this, unfair,

ignoring the starry night,

the cooling air.

Burning with anger,

but we have no case,

trying to weave paradise

from a shallow place. 

Alley Walk

strange light

from spring rain twilight

guiding odd characters

seeking refuge from the sun

spreading ethereal glow

across quiet rooftops,

and empty street corners

where wood-tar telephone poles

stand silent sentry

this light

brings the muses

to Earth,

it dances away

before we can give it voice

inspiring, torturing

the youthful heart

that burns to spark life

from all of it 

Rocky Neck

art plied honestly

in sweat and heat

hard wrought

beside the sun-kissed lobstermen

waving gracefully

to rough locals

and soft tourists

where joyous newlyweds

sketch their own future

panel by panel

muck deep

in tiny horseshoe crabs

scrambling in low tide pools

away from baby girls

where dogs swim

beside the private beaches

and the rich sands

are slick

with stubborn seaweed carpets

let’s be worthy of this place,

may we have the good sense

to live lives

as beautiful as this

Winter in Queens

in warren dens

of clutter

dust mist

swirls a dance

as needle winds

scream past

draughty windows

burrowed

above the hard streets

where America gets molded

one rough day at a time

the rough clay

drawn from hard lots

crafted

over patched blacktop

and spotted sidewalks

scramble down

teeming streets

stop-go, packed-hell

commute

lets us daydream

our way

to destiny

Back Roads

the ways we go

will jumble and make no sense

and we’ll yearn

for smooth boulevards

to preen the dream engines

we don’t have time to shine

some of us

can’t avoid back roads

walled with trees

and spiked with odd life

our destination is always

out there, somewhere

just one more turn away

Impostor

They can see it

in the way I walk,

in the way I wear my tie.

They can tell

by the way I talk to the waiter,

in that I talk to the waiter at all.

The clothes don’t fool them.

I’m not one of them.

I stay my course

and get through my day

anyway,

go through the motions

and collect my pay.

They have no way to know

that I’m a secret poetry agent,

a reluctant punk rock dervish

and pied piper

to the righteous underground,

that I enlighten darkly

with a cold fist of truth

through scribbled secret lines

scratched out on the way

to fancy lunches. 

Skels

like bison

that once roamed the plains

the skels are few now

their quaky eyes

no match

for the faster world

moving past them

they will always be with us

shoved into an ashen corner

of our cities

astride that shifty half-step

towards death

On the Way to the Work Event

I am armed

to the teeth

with psychic defense.

I will face-melt away

all the bristling

and tense

and use firefly poetry

to billow my cerebral tent.

I’ll puff

my predator

terror colors

like a menacing

bullfrog

to chase away

Philistine gnats

in well-tailored suits.

Let our minds eyes

strike

with lethal

blue lightning.

Let no one

cross our

poetic trenches.

And we will

forge victory

after victory

seeping righteous

artistry and beauty

into the bloodlines

of future generations.

Call of the Woodsmen

Leaf-lush

primal joy,

a magnet

drawing woodsmen

step by wide-eyed step.

Forrest bound

and snug,

wound tight

but somehow natural

in tree-cloaked garb.

and still

in the magic

of the first light

the world

as we were meant to see it:

waking,

alive

without the glare

of a cruel sun,

autumnal

and ripe for the taking. 

Point Lobos

Like an exotic woman

Flashing plumage

For a mate she’ll never take

The coast is beauty, unforgiving.

Indifferent to the good children

Marveling at the starfish

In the bristling tidal pools,

Mocking its own beauty

Choked thick with seaweed.

Wave after wave cascade

A gorgeous wall of glassy blue

Thrashing like a fist

Heartless foam on sharp sand

Lurking undersea

The currents keep the seals away

Hills stuffed with scruff of trees

No traction sliprock hike to speak

As birds gawk from faraway stones.

Squint into the wind

At the fleeting phantom unseen otter

But can’t tell the dolphins

From the weeds. 

Rattlesnake Mountain

Carved

Like paradise

From alabaster glaciers

Birth trees like

Like stubborn soldiers

Raise the bright fall canopy

            To heroic skies

Hunting for moose tracks

Among the pine needle carpets

Climb and sweat

In the fall breeze

Sloug up rocky slopes

Jagged hills with slip-leaves

Just for us tourists

Climbing …. Climbing…

Serene clearing

To spy Crescent Lake

And miles of Maine trees and skies

Not another soul around to share

The treasured stones, the good musty earth

The dreamy majesty of land

Of the America that still is, at least here.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Health Care Bill

With apologies to Wallace Stevens.

I.

Among fifty failing states,

The only moving thing

Was the cost of the health care bill.

II.

The CBO was of three minds,

Like a hopper

In which there are three health care bills.

III.

A health care bill swirled in the cloakrooms.

It was but a small part of the Big Lie.

IV.

A Reid and a Pelosi

Are one.

A Reid and a Pelosi and a health care bill

Are one.

V.

I do not know which to prefer,

The folly of the deceptions

Or the folly of the desperations,

The health care bill passing

Or just after.

VI.

Snowmounds filled the Capitol steps

With muddy puddles.

The shadow of the health care bill

Passed them, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An unfathomable doom.

VII.

Oh wise men of Congress,

Why do you dream of wonder cures?

Do you not see that the health care bill

Stoops beneath the feet

Of the system around you?

VIII.

I know high premiums

And frightful, inescapable long lines;

But I know, too,

That the health care bill is involved

In what I know.

IX.

When the health care bill moved out of sight,

It marked the start

Of one of many scandals.

X.

At the sound of health care bills

Read into the deep night,

Even the frauds of K Street

Would cry out sharply.

XI.

He flew over Connecticut

In a white bird.

Once a fear pierced him

In that he mistook

The shadow of his presidency

For health care bills.

XII.

Obama is speaking.

The health care bill must be losing.

XIII.

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The health care bill sat

In the Speaker's chair.

Wo Hop

Walking a crowded single file

down more crowded streets

past the fish mongers

with stores like aquariums

strange fishes with scribbled Chinese writing

past courthouse

streaming tired defendants

walking crowded

crowding one another

all of us pile down the steep steps

for delectable Chinese food

twenty-four hours

we’ll take one or longer

on our expanding lunch hour

speaking and dreaming

of a Czech breakfast

of whiskey and beer

or Belfast rain

to lure us away

from the teeming millions.

The Remaining Snow

I have seen enough snow
To know that some leaves
And some remains.

On warm mornings it falls like rain
From eaves and shrubs that shrug it away
To glisten and flow to tinkling drains.

On frozen days it stands its ground,
Glowing blue as a resplendent cowl,
Chilling its bearer, yet thrilling her, too.

But other times, the snow melts soft
And hardens clear when darkness falls
Casting leaf and lamp alike

In glassy prisons, where we await
The moment when the light will break
This fearsome paralytic mood.

Conjuring in our captive minds
Alternate climes where cold is kind,
We cannot glimpse the coming glow,

But glow it will and free it must;
The selfsame craft that gave us ice
Did also make the loosing flame.

And still, in May, I'll find in shade
A shadow of the snow that made
The world its slave for hours and days
And wonder where else the snow remains.

Blackout Walk

past the mobs of downtown works

and tourists popping flashbulb shots

vulture-ing for window positions

to clip a snippet of the end of the world,

wet with August sweat

foot-stepping on blisters for home, home, home

joined the draft of passers-by

re-routing loutish drivers

firing back pouts and surly shouts

at cabs, trucks

and Fifth Avenue regulars,

helping wage the losing war

against the choking gas machines

past goddesses in relief

with sweat-moist flesh

that blesses haggard horny eyes,

past vacant cabs

and rip-off vans

edge past

half-naked Spanish women

and shirtless men

drumming salsa tunes

under sparkled skies,

watched by tired cops

among the smoldering flares

up, up again

to where men in tank tops

slap down dominoes

over beer and oranges,

a sad sack poet drinking up the darkness

and looking for good times

Waiting in the Conference Room

I’m in an office-

sitting with a very dignified face

among the dignified stuffed chairs

and polished wood and glass

And the people I meet

may never know

how weird I am,

or how I sang

loudly and very badly

to myself on the way here

Our discussion

will not broach the subject

of my drunken strolls

down Broadway

or my screaming pleas of mercy

to the blood moon

and all the women of the world

They think I am studying

venture capital

or the stock market

while I scribble

chaotic poems

and dream of swinging naked

from White House chandeliers…