BE-BI0-BOP
Snap-pa Snap-pa Whoosh-pop!
BE-bio-bop
I am a little woods tree
chipmunk, rabbit, deer
Cave man, archer, fortress builder.
I’ve kicked Tommy Bolens ass
I have been seen then disappeared
Reprobate, renegade, rascal--fast
I have squeezed a grape or two
spun some yarn--sped
Sat at my grandfather’s feet
been his peppers and eggs
On hard Italian bread
I have been Kentucky fried
Burger Kinged
Mac Donald ducked
Sun Ray Pizza
Ice cream trucked
Winky Dinked
Howdy Doodied
and, Clarabelled
I have been retarded
Swiveled my head
I have been the hole in Kennedy’s head
I’ve been dead
Done my best death scene rolling down a
grass hill
--tossed a dirt bomb or two
Played house--do so still
Yeah!I’ve hit a ball
Soared with it too
Stole some kisses
took some shit
Danced the boog-a-loo
I admit a I’ve been a bully
Ended up always looking for eyes
Took up boxing and won the prize
I am my uncle’s battered face
losing the fight--trapped
in the ring of disgrace
Dead from Prostate cancer
they said he was not a fighter
more like a dancer
I am a fried egg in the hole in the bread
slashed in butter--brown as an berry
blue as a robin’s
Dragged in rags in my untied shoe
Watched too much Cocoa the Clown
bo-boopie-doo
I am my father
my mother too
I hear their voices
Although I don’t wear his shoes
nor cry her blues
Baby, Baby,
I am the lounge pool hall
blue smoke pocked marked rails
and the lesbian owners
A pad rolled seven
English Ronnie on the run
On a green cloth
A chewed green
grass smoked
Green liquid in bottle of wax
red lips and pan pipe too
poverty mind trapped
I have won and I have racked
I have been a spit soaked glove
frozen to a pole
I’ve been stolen yo-yos buried in a hole
Mary Janes,cracked like Bonimo Turkish Taffy
I am Joe boy, Andy Salmon
George Andrews’ tin can telephone
And Jackie dancing the shotgun blues
Do-the-bully-run-now
with no shoes
I am Jr. Walker and The All Stars
one eyed Curly a broken stick ball bat
stuck in his eye
Flipping baseball cards and dimes
I am Kyas Ivy, Bille Crawley
Playing knuckles and mum
Leroy Holmes holdin a gun
Four leaf clover in the grass
I am a pain in the ass
I am the bricks of the projects
the snot on the wall
the ass scratched
walking the school five hall
And I have three eyes
all of them open
I am father, mother, brother, daughter, dog
I have been a Falls View Hot dog all the way
I’ve been dry humped in Buckley park
I’ll go all the way
I have been there
I have to say
I am blind Mary, selling candy
Counting change feeling the edge
Michael Curo sipping port
I am all rage flames and snort
I am too tall Ricky Jackson
tossing slugs in Bill’s gum ball machine
Clyde too, scooting around in a black t-bird
Jimi Hendrix heard trying to be seen
I am a lionel Hampton vibe
James Browned
I am that stranger
whispering in your ear
a murder of crows movin in
Gene Ammons blowin
I am a whiskey burn
down your throat
a didy bop --pointy shoed
Paterson boy
Soaked in pain, seeking joy
I am a block party--slowgrind dance
I am hot dreams of Carol Nelson
Tongue down your throat, hand in your pants
I am the back seat in a 66 Chevy
Roaches in the ashtray,
I am long haired
Lower East sider
Rasheed Ali in the alley
Ornette Coleman Sqink squonk
Leather interior, button tufted
I am smooth to the touch
Full of art Ma’am
not Humperdink
I am Johnny Hartman
Watching my mother
tied to the sink
I am the poodle skirt
She couldn’t wear
the lipstick dark red
shame of her ears
I am her Final Net hair spray
Toilet paper on her head
I am bobby pins turned weapons
dippity doo
Bop-badda-shoo
I am, mashed potatoes
Philly dances
Wiggle wobbled out of trouble
I am Bobby Swangham singing in the bathroom
His baggy striped Pants and suspenders
The voices through the door
Rupert Stewart’s suave crooning,
The cigar smoke in your face
the shoe shine man’s harmony in verse
I am his-snap-pa--snap-pa--whoosh pop!
There’s the shine
There’s the shine
I knew it was there
On Grants, the five and dime
warped wooded floors on a
hot buttered toasted split bun
I have been shined on
Shimmy shook
I have given and been took
to the cleaners
to the game,
to the alter
to the OR
to the Lavie and Rose
for bourbon
I am his son
His lack of nouns now
I am your unspoken fear
I can see it clear
I can hear
your stutter
your wounded sound
I am thunder hearted and
we are heaven bound.
VIGIL
I haven’t been speaking lately
At least not outside of my head
It’s true you can elicit some words from me
Although I truly don’t speak fashion mags, music or TV
I can’t speak Soprano’s, smart bombs, or other sports
So guys look at me funny
It’s not funny
My heart fills up often with the desire to really speak go home and think I should have said…
I practice in my mind It’s crystal clear to say killing is not the answer
love and forgiveness is although crucifixion I consider, is a bit harsh
Whenever I leave the dream and
venture out among people they have no ears
All are filled in with small plugs and their talking to some one else usually very loudly
Walking down the aisles They say, “I’m in that store now what brand of America did you say you wanted again?”
I can hear many one sided conversations
So I have my own
For some women I smile and give the impression of speaking about my children
But I don’t say anything of their struggle to speak to me, or of what will be left of freedom here for them
I can’t speak hair color, or horoscope romance
Always comes out questions about fathers and mothers
Or how do they keep sane while supporting death
with silence while breast feeding
I’m always too much inside that one sided conversation
What about the divine?,
never passes between us
Although I hold it glowing in my heart
I meditate on it
I keep precious that desire for it to pierce the conversations like lightning
While Fascists waving flags rail on about killing unnamed dark skinned threats justified by two faced rich white people’s speeches of security, American beer and freedom fries
To them I just can’t say anything at all
Although I have addressed them at home as Stalin or Adolph or just Philistine’s
It is so--simpler minds have prevailed
I have words of balling up in my throat about the value of life and--peace
I feel the collective guilt
Of being quiet
I imagine the Jews swept off--the Chileans disappeared.
The Armenians slaughtered.
To Satan the ultimate personal inquisitor
I give up the name of St.John Ashcroft
I have tried to speak to the dead
to say we are sorry
We, the quite ones
I’ve tried to name the thousands in the trade towers and the untold millions of bombed burned bodies in Iraq, and so many locked down in religious prisons of Judeo-Christian or Muslim rhetoric and those laying in our political prisons
All I can conjure are names like that sound to them like mammon or revenge
Or worse fuming silence
I’ve called out those names into the night air at 3:33am
Tried to find the meaning of it in the dark
I called out tears and cried out my name
asking for the guidance of those hearts before me
I haven’t been speaking lately
At least not outside of my head
Where I think
Unspoken words
are weapons
of mass
destruction!
FOR KRISTINE
A titmouse fluttered
around the near window.
Hovering the seed,
there was hunger there
that kept it’s fear of us at bay.
My rough hands have
a hold on the raw
grey morning,
and this cup hewn in Dingle.
Where we walked together for eaons.
Misting, Irish tea,
to my awakening.
Like the rises of rugged land’s edge
swelling up to the sea.
I look up to your eyes
over the Cliffs of Mowher
That often divide lovers.
As my thumb rounds the handle
feeling it’s every brush with
the potter’s hand, and
I think of the curves of your back
and the collapse of time
like soft clay
of earth, warm and giving
when we touch.
In you, I see
the sparse emerald land
of our ancestors.
The hard work and songs.
The flecks of blue clay dance a
rock and moss mosaic
in those sparked blue sky
and honey eyes of yours.
What?…
you say pulling back your head
I watch the smile rain over your mouth
wetting and opening the inviting corners
the places of secret storms
Rolling over the soft glen
of your breasts
covered in tranparent
Irish white linen skin
Blushed by our passion
I don’t speak
but not a stoic,
more muted by longing--
a hunger so strong
that it has me passing my fears
Hovering, around your heart
Mine fluttering
then thundering
over the grey
morning’s
tea
FLORENCE
Grandma rubbed her hands together.
In front of her red and white apron, and me
She worried over the ravioli
She rubbed her hands together so often, and so hard
they began to meld together
blending like the semolina and eggs.
The left one broke off into the right and became one loaf.
Rendering them unusable.
By the time she had nine children she was mute
Too late to tell her daughters of the wonders of motherhood
Too late to say their periods were a gift from God.
Too late to share her secrets--to explain turning thirty.
Too late to say all the things she wanted.
Long before her husband admitted his infidelities--
his other family.
Her sons ears were too tall
for her fading voice to reach.
My grandmother’s hair turned scared silver in places
But mostly white and yellow
Like the small, now stale bread rolls she has hidden in her linen drawer, away from annoying eyes.
These things are hers now like
the granddaughter’s small plastic bracelet she took
for her secret box under the bed.
Kept along with Mario Lanza’s slicked back hair
While trying to remember the tune of the
staccato spit and cigarette butts her husband
had always left around.
She began to rise from the yeast of years
Eventually, she was rolled up and pressed flat like the carnation from her wedding, pressed into the bible
only opened on that occasion.
Florence was placed in a large iron black skillet
over a medium heat, in hot Olive oil with
sliced garlic, onions, and pepperoncino.
She was folded---
We can only hope gently
Kneaded into a brown box,
set into the ground to cool.
Long before she could
remember.
GOD’S IN THE GARAGE
God and I went out for a spin in the Porsche today
How’d I know it was God?
Well the car was shiny red and smooth as the ass of my lover
Low to the ground like a man
The seat was bare leather like the soul
It moved fast
shifted smooth-- so quick you’d of thought it was spilling out the truth behind it like handshakes at the mayors rally and as common as hens teeth
The speedometer was whizzing round so I couldn’t make out which testament it was referring to.
Genesis was a blur at 100MPH
God made me push down the accelerator give up the control let the wind blow your ass where it will
not out your ass like a eulogy.
Talkin in tounges
left foot clamped down on the snake clutch
Top down
Wind blasting to the sound of fuck the devil he’s in the brakes
Buddha beat broad in my chest
I passed the Philistine houses as they cooked hormone filled beef on their six burners and splashed the blood of their only sons on granite countertops of oiled money machines
I let go the steering wheel
That’s how I knew!
SWIMMING LESSONS
For Poet
Frank Niccollette
Most men are satiated by short swims,
in blue water under warm golden weather,
with feet still firm to the dark earth.
True, some learned men swim great distances,
but never would they loose sight of land,
or break too deep below the tense surface.
Although occasionally,
there are men who learn to control the breath,
dive deep, despite a fear of drowning.
Entering other worlds, other
lives, smelling of white peonies.
They are learning strange languages,
suckling dark nippled breasts, and
collecting crumpled artifacts
on the shelves of their collaged souls.
Engorging themselves,
struggling through viscous blue water,
like they were trying to establish
a frenzied friendship with fragrant death.
They breech the surface
breath in all knowledege again and again.
Later in life, they return to the shore.
They sit in circles tattooed and buried in the sand for warmth
calling God out in sublime songs.
It is then marked in the sand.
They sit in circles, before the tides rise and erase it all, and like fathers to sons,
take deep breaths, exhaling
etching into the sand
swimming lessons.
“THE SAD THING ABOUT THIS WORLD IS;
EVERYBODY HAS THEIR REASONS”
August Renior
“Some people put the best inside. Some people put the best outside “ Bob Marley
I’m sure he had many of them, I do
People do -- have lots of them.
Secret ones that destroy others
like stealth bombs of desire.
After the scatological shrapnel slices you apart
They line their hearts, as armor.
The way you’d put gray flannel pants in the winter,
red wool over your eyes,
or sing an old Bob Wills tune.
“Can’t pull it over my eyes” he’d say,
before she smoked him.
Lit up and burned
like and old butt he found weeks later
under a small stack of love letters piled up
to burn for heat while living on the street.
Everybody has them.
Often they spread them thickly
like lard over their lives.
Even though tallow can be carved into fine art,
it has to be left in the dark and cool.
A place like your subconscious basement apartment.
Seductive they are,
once neatly spread to catch the flies
and well supported by Nietsche, Shoppenouer or Jesus.
You pull them in--
like knowing the right card in a three card Monte game. Of course they can be slid to you via higher levels of consciousness by Swami Snatchenyoudownah’s tantric yogic practice.
Taoists say the sage butcher never
has to sharpen the blade while crudely slicing - often into anyone near by.
“Look you just gotta’ get it!
It’s my destiny to move on now.
I have to get a new shape,
a new karma, a new lover with a better car,
a new line at the five and dime”
Many times they are made like fine Chinese papercuts.
You become so mesmerized by the art-
you don’t ever see the message
until it’s scissors slice through your eyes.
You know, the way you would cut paper
for your kitchen drawers.
I mean they always starting out bright yellow
with the idea of keeping those things neat
and available for your everyday use.
Every piece measured carefully
until the third drawer where you stop measuring.
They build up like clutter.
The most expensive clutter, paid for with the pain
you have in your now gashed heart.
Breakdowns in a sobbing fetal mass despite the hot shower.
When you are alone and all of it comes.
Drawers get stuck.
Only the same one opens again and again.
“Don’t fixate she said !
Don’t obsess!”
Small swarms of blackened shadows buzz round at three am.
More like 3:33 blinking red now.
Their like assholes.
Everybody has em.
They are piled up like cigarettes
along the curb at the stop light.
Like the lint that forms in your pockets
and the dust mites settling from nowhere
on everything you hold dear.
It’s a changing world
See it change.
Walking away, she said.
“I am sorry you don’t get it--it’s nothing personal.
I mean if you were me you would understand
I had to go! Things just got out of hand.
I had a new job offer, friend, lover, chance to get all new clutter and form new horizons-- bigger ones with brighter linings--I--I have to go!
Wasn’t like I wanted to be disloyal,
dishonest or lack any character.
Those ideas are old like you-- piled up in a back alley’s in the lower Eastside.
It’s not just me-- I know you had your own!
Just because you called them honor and loyalty high and mighty bullshit.
Next, you’ll be telling me why it’s called love
like you have some insight as to the influence you have in--my--world.
It is mine-- you know.”
They poured outlike so much paper toweling
falling out of an over stuffed public toilet trash can that no one ever picks up.
Because
they have
their
reasons.