Scott, so it is! What would constitute perfect contrition for the rich man Jesus spoke of...once he threw off his debentures? Tom

Crotch, beckoning


stateroom

for a moment
i think my bedroom

blinds down
stocked with books
and cacao from peru

an interior stateroom
on a ship taking me
where I don't want to go

the crooked finger
of antarctica trying
to stick itself in chile's butt

if it falls into the wrong hands
it'll be curtains for sure for
me

and for you
hard to say

but if you walk in
i would imagine
i am in my bedroom

and you are here
to help me
sleep


Theft of Services

They kept watch
for an over-sooty possum
or raccoon: just eyes
if all had gone as planned.
They never saw one
but the hunk of pork
they'd lashed as bait
onto the damper knob
had made a clean escape.


Multidisciplinary

What's left unsaid in the philosophy
of art for its own sake speaks volumes.

Although the medium is the message
why claim that something lovely as a tree

just struts and frets its hour on the stage,
an apple in the eye of the beholder?

To sweep the heart use new brooms,
but to clean the corners use the older.

=====

Why turn the earth over
....to the next generation
without stripping it bare?

=====

I ski, but

I ski, but the worst injury
I ever got was craning
for a box of pretzels.

You cannot get cocky
and over-extend yourself,
no matter the activity.

When she said Do you
want to put your whosit
to my whatsit, I said No.

tramp stamp

her sweet 16th
she says

i want to get
a tramp stamp

it's who I am
being promiscuous
& advertising it

crop top
lowriders
tramp stamp
the whole
package

but...but...
but...
i stutter

you guyz
are liberals
right
the hippie
generation

is there
something
wrong with
getting off on
being horny

it depends
i start

depends on

i don't know

i take
precautions
dad
i didn't say i
was a re

don't use
that word

dad don't be
such a wimp

you gonna
give consent
for the tattoo
or not

it's not the
tattoo
honey

dad yes it is
i'm asking if
you'll give
consent for
a tattoo

i'm also telling
you that yes
i do stuff with
a lot of kids
& really like it

but i'm asking
if you'll sign for
the tattoo

i realize
when i call it
tramp stamp
i can't ask for
you to pay for it

does this girl
have her head
on straight
or what


Jubilee

There's just one benefit and just one cost to time;
and how they balance one another is entirely sad.
The benefit—each year we mix new cob and add
a recess to this sturdy house of honesty and trust.
The cost—it tires us, puts aches in us, makes bright
events so distant, they might never have shed light.
They're equal, so that finally the extra sec  inside
the glasses that we raise in celebration is but dust.

Hooking

What I do for a living is disgusting, dangerous,
illegal, low status and exhausting—the opposite
of white collar office work. But I have the best
and funniest colleagues in the universe. Lecher
after lecher last night, then just when my crest
is at its ebb, two comrades in arms grab my purse
and make me chase them down Grand Concourse
while they bellow Help! A crack whore's after us!
Big brother asks why I do what I do—is it just
the money? some kind of thrill? unbridled lust?
I really have no clue. No, I don't it like it much;
and yes, I'd rather do most anything than this.
But on the other hand, unpleasant experience
is fortifying in a way, its own kind of abundance.

thank you, cheryl. you're entirely right,, but this N is not a crack whore -- that's her two friends goofing on her. she's an intelligent, literate woman. I'll go back see if there's a way this should be clearer. tom

Unexamined Life

Unexamined life can be a lot of fun—
what gushes straight out of the earth
like a sweet cold spring, or slimy oil,
or even falls to earth as a reflection
from a face that's been dust for eons.
A poets searches these plain virgins,

looks at them from five or six angles,
and then leaves them on the ground
again lost, ransacked and despoiled
so others passing by will see and say
He got here first, he had his way —
but he is gone, who had that fun,

gone plundering some other ingenue,
making her a tart for the likes of you.


Bio Lab Lothario
 
1.

They say we can't see microbes
with the naked eye, but the eye
is awash with Staphylococcus
epidermidis, Propionibacterium
acnes, and when we look down
at our hands, which are coated
with mini-life forms, we peer
through two microbial prisms
at a body whose cells are over
90% commensal fauna and flora.

Even our brains give shelter to
anaerobic Phocaeicola abscessus
and Borrelia duttonii spirochetes
whose participation in thinking
is not thought to be as massive
as microbial agency in digestion
or the vaginal environment—but
homo-centrism begins at home.
We are more trellis than clematis.

All this by way of prefacing my
proposition: what harm would it
do if we kissed? It may not be
my own idea entirely, may strike
you as a wee bit out of left field,
but there were odder thoughts
you acted on, with pretty good
results at times. My fauna and
your flora might get a big bang
out of it, a new species will be
born most likely—seriously, true.

And the downside...frankly, I can't
think of any downside, can you?

2.

I do have one other idea. I'll wash
my hands and gargle Listerine, then
how about I take you the movies?
Warm, dark environments are often
wombs to new developments—

3.

Okay, I'm a pimply, clueless geek—
possibly repulsive on several levels
but sincere in wanting to find out
what it's like to be your boyfriend.



To my kids, for now

In some far future
we'll have just these
words to reach out
to make each other
feel safe, important
and warmly loved.

Everyone will have
stopped asking me
why I do what I do
and why I don't go
take the dog out or
work longer hours
at the pretzel plant.

Everyone will know
why each metrical
scheme, line length
and word choice is
critical if human life
is to survive beyond
the reach of touch.

Until then, all of you
will have to content
yourselves with the
explanation that this
sort of thing is more
fun for me than salt
distribution systems
or even Rollie's poop.


Watching my dear poem

Watching my dear poem
drop straight down the board
to the bottom and then
on to the second page of its
long plummet to oblivion

reminds me of when I felt
the wedding band slip off
my finger in the ocean and
I foresaw a long afternoon
of futile diving ahead of me,

the difference being that
the value of the diving was
clear to my wife if not to me,
the poem's value clear to
me but not to anyone else.

beech

Mom planted the year-old beech
on the day Hirohito surrendered.
That makes it a few years older
than I am and so an older sibling.
Now, the tree-planting promised,
our marriage shall at last begin.

Dad stayed in Japan three more
years. We all think he had some
kind of fling with a Tokyo woman
for the duration of his time there.
On his return the beech was mom's
height and I was soon conceived.

All this makes me feel illegitimate,
second or third hand. My brothers
both joined an established family
but I a ménage à trois and a tree.
All of them, all of us, are still alive
and it still feels very strange to me

because whenever I see the beech
I think about the Japanese woman
that was loving my dad as it grew
instead of me, in my place. Folds
of smooth gray bark gather around
its current and lost limbs; squirrels

with an oriental cast to their eyes
live in a knothole they gnawed wider
and sometimes stand on a little limb
just next to it, in this sort of oriental
prayer-crouch with their paws joined
as if to express humility and greed

and fake piety. Why am I still living
here? I've been asking myself this
question for decades now and finally
today I see the answer in the beech
and the squirrels and mom and dad
and me: my older sibling is in Japan.

Dad looks at the beech so sadly.
Mom looks at the beech so sadly.


luge

as the news broke
nodar kumaritashvili
hurled from his sled
at the olympics dead

outside the window
here in south orange
the neighborhood kids
stood on their sleds

and shrieked down
the small slick slope
toward a maple tree
and the fire hydrant

he flew from georgia
to sacrifice himself
just as surely as jesus
died for all our sins

and i would rather
have my sins back
than lose my child
in a sledding crash

but it's complicated
because i am still
letting her ride so
the last thing i want

to do as long as she
is still out there is
tick off jesus's father
even the slightest bit

richard

a bubbly. social boy
peals of laughter
but his parents call
him autistic
and brag about how
well he does

none of my business
I just want to go
on record calling
him an angel
who stumbles more
than you'd expect


francine

breast brims with love
but mind a mire

of bitterness
spite
and suspicion

she does her best

not well liked
but well meaning.

the one who loves her
is her husband

he gets short-tempered
but adores her

accepts her
relies on her
watches out for her.

i'm coming around too
poisonous gossip

not the worst
crime in the shire.


Sleigh

As we sit she explains how
the snow bends the limbs
of the shrubs into the walk
and the driveway, and they
get pruned, then the snow
disappears but it's too late,
the cuttings can't be stuck
back on: unfair, but bushes
must get pruned sometime.

She settles her boots onto
the steering boards, and I
settle my legs around her.
Then I push my gloves on
the snow and put my arms
around her too as the sleigh
starts to slip down the slope.
As we gain speed and start
to whoop, I appreciate the
rationale behind the wound
she inflicted on me an hour
earlier during our breakfast.


Ronda

Those who pursue the beautiful
and those who pursue the ugly
and evil just disagree esthetically,
according to a Hell's Angel chick
who hangs out and hawks weed
at the bodega near Radio Shack.
You think that pain is like all bad
and shit, but we think it is worth
a lot, and all your pretty-ditty art
is repulsive. Flies in reality's face.

Her name's Ronda and the tattoo
she appears to wear instead of a
bra proclaims one fealty to a Bob
and one to a Jim. She's truly nice,
the pot she sells is excellent, and
her view is worth taking seriously.
I can get pretty tired of beauty at
times, can't you? Get a jones for
something really ugly? We all do
and we needn't be ashamed of it.

I want to say that ugly is another
form of beauty, but it could just
as easily be vice versa, which is
her point. Evil an esthetic​? I can
see that. Some definitely have a
taste for it. We all know its allure.
Do evil-doers feel as happy as
do-gooders? Very subjective, but
apparently. So she isn't so wrong.

I say, There's something beautiful
in your idea. I know, she says, and
that's the fucking problem with it.


Old Jogging Lady

The old jogging lady
inspires everyone
including the kids
but she's spooky too:
she's always out there
jogging, mornings,
afternoons, evenings.

If she dies one day
as even joggers do
they may discover
she has no home,
ID, or next of kin
but was a kind of alien
who just jogged—

unless a vigilante
posse nets her first,
pins her down and
demands some answers.
What do you eat?
Where do you pee?
Do you ever watch TV?

It's none of my business,
I know that.
It's a free country
for old jogging ladies
as well as anyone else,
but she troubles me.
She troubles me.


Tribute

Both of the smart, vivacious sisters
married rich men who soon were
completely debilitated by disease
and required decades of nursing.

When the husbands finally died,
Bea and Flo began their new lives
as kindly, well-preserved widows
on New York's Upper West Side.

It was too late for jitterbugging,
but they went to Barney Greengrass
and shared lox heads and wings
broiled up with Valencia onions.