The Paper News is Dead!

Extra!  Extra!

Read all about it!

The paper news is dead!

Hold the presses now and forever!

Put them all to bed!

Say goodbye to ink stained fingers!

So long to the straphanger fold!

Say farewell to stands and hawkers!

See, the journal's got yellowed and old!

Time for the printers to close up shop!

Set the shutterbugs free to roam!

Send the hard drinking reporters to rehab!

Send the crusading editors home!

No more tabloids with their exploits!

No more news that's fit to print!

I won't see you in the funny pages!

Now the papers have taken the hint!

I won't find you on my doorstep

At the start of each fine day!

But I may see you in the movies

Or in museums, on display!

No more HEADLINES!

No more column inch!

No more continued on page eight!

No more classifieds!

No more want ads!

No more editions!

Neither early nor late!

No more columnists!

No more editorials!

No more of the op-ed pages!

No more letters to the editor!

Now they belong to the ages!

The dateline has grown out of date!

The typesetting's heavy like lead

The press's depressed!

Too slow to keep up!

The black and white's no longer read!

Believe it when I said

The paper news is dead!

Iconography

The bell rings

The dagger flies

No one suspected the ballerina

The man in the business suit looked on

     Though we are divided

     You are my mirror image

He said

     We must watch and wash each other

     Separated as we are

     How else to read the signs?

     Except up close and in fine detail?

     Fine detail indeed?

Each one goes to his/her room

His/her room

Yes his/her room

Each one goes to his/her room

And you know the rest!

Find Me

Find me

Find me in the storm

Find me in the swarm

Find me in the mist

Find me in the midst of the madness of the mob

Find me huddled along the cold, cold corridor

Find me in the tunnels underground

Fine me on a life raft adrift in the South Pacific

Find me on the corner of Columbus and 61st

Find me broke down southbound on the Bronx River Parkway

Find me in seat 20C of Continental Flight 1183

Find me sleeping on the streets of Mumbai

Find me out cold in a parked car just outside of Moscow

Find me imprisoned without cause in Munich

Find me crawling through the deserts of Mexico

Find me feathered and blistered in Mobile

Find me at the side of Maxwell's demon

Find me in Brownian motion

Find me sailing between the countless stars

Find me washed away by innumerable tears

Find me among the walking wounded of the war torn countryside

Find me bleeding and comatose in the emergency room

Find me amidst the smoke and the flames

Find me in the pound, in the Lost and Found, on the merry-go-round

Just find me please

Stimulus-Response Theory

Won't you stop kneejerking me around?

     I'm off to buy a book

             to book a fare

             to fare thee well

             to well and good

             to good and bye

             to bye and buy

                            a book

             to write your name in

     so I can blot it out!

My System

What's solid is a fluid

that's moving very slow. . . .

What's fluid is not substance,

it's energy aflow~~~

Some 14 billion years ago

there was this great big POP!

An explosion so tremendous it

may never, ever stop!

We are riders on the Big Bang

of the universal birth,

clinging to some debris that

we call the planet Earth—

It's all a matter of scale,

and perspective, don't you see?

It's all a matter of where you stand,

and relativity:

Things are not as they seem. . . .

Things are not as they appear. . . .

So please be careful, and be kind,

and have another beer!

haunting

there but not not there

presence of absence not absent of presence

being not being being not

Fourth Thunder at Darwin Station

Four fearsome horsemen, come riding down the road,

Hooves striking stones, make a dreadful sound,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

Mutation, Competition, Selection, and Extinction,

Four names, four riders, but one ghastly noise,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

Residing in their grim, equatorial habitat,

Emerging one by one, from their island citadel,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

Their baleful hound leads the hunt,

Relentless beagle tracks their prey,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

Knowing no geological barriers,

They are masters of all they survey,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

Flying fast as the swiftest finch,

Harbingers of doom like the albatross,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

Scornful as the mockingbird,

Born of fire, like the mighty iguana,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

With all the rage of the volcano,

Inexorable as the lava flow,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

Clad in impenetrable armor,

In their invulnerable tortoise shell,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

They scour the four corners of the earth,

They swim the seven seas,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

They fly across all time and space,

Feel them breathing down your neck,

Galapagos!  Galapagos!  Galapagos!

Galapagos!  Galapagos!

Galapagos!

Not Quite High Noon But We're Getting There

a poem is a pitiable thing

to pit against this innovasion

your tongue has been sharpened by all this noise

you stick it in my eye accusingly

and then retire to your J'acuzzi

to eat cake

your system has grown obsolescent

you have become incompatible with reason

you are foreign down to the body

I have taken your culture

your legends of infections are legion

your contagion necessitates amputation

it's time, little Nemesis, for slumberland

you have made your bed

see how it fries in the indigo air

Pandemonium leads you to the fire

the horned god penetrates your disguised ambitions

and Tintin ambulates to the beat of the heavy metal

hunched back over that noted dam

and beavering about

you arch triumphantly

only to fall beneath the awful tower

betrayed

by the one you least expect

and I am most grateful to him

for sending you on your way

La Via Testarossa

               t

              h

             g

            i

           e

From this h

                  these beige California mountains

               look just like cartoons

and that odd-looking large brown cloud...

        Is something burning

                             down there?

You said,

          the thing about this state is

         that

        it's

       linear

        but

         not

          sequential...

Silicon Valley has seen better days...

     The temperature's in triple digits,

     it's a dry Santa Clara heat,

     but still...

We visited the Testarossa winery,

     what I tasted was exquisite

          and they ship!

               What time's

      my flight back

to New York?

When You Call My Name

Will it be sudden?

Will it be slow?

Will I see it coming?

Or just not know?

Will there be pain?

Will there be bliss?

Or just a fall

Into nothingness?

Will there be darkness?

Will there be light?

Will I come quietly?

Or put up a fight?

When you call my name

Will I heed your voice?

Like a well-trained dog?

Will I have no choice?

Or will I resist

Like a willful child

Who has grown overtired

And become wild?

Will I be angry

When you call

And curse your name

Or try to stall?

Will I say, too soon!

And resent it?

Will I say, I've sinned!

And repent it?

When you call my name

Will I be filled with fear

And tremble and shake

As you draw near?

Or will I be warmed

By the glow of your face

And filled with love

In your embrace?

the gentlest of seductions

whispers whisked away

     by wings of night

stories within stories

     of Cervantes

surveying lovers reunited

patiently awaiting

     the waning of misfortune

mouthing tales so tender

touching from so far away

winter awakening

     from sorrow's sleep

for the word that cannot last

for the time that only comes to pass

for the one truth in this world that was and will be

Kol Nidre

     Forgive me

my foolishness

my failures

my false assurances

          the weeping cello's melody

     Forgive me

my fabrications

my forgeries

my facsimiles

          called forth from the depths of penitent hearts

     Forgive me

my fickle wants

my futile reach

my fevers and favors

          rises to the gates of divine redemption

Then

When we meet

We will know

We will know

When we meet

What we are

In this life

In this life

What we are

When we join

We will learn

We will learn

When we join

Who we are

In this world

In this world

Who we are

When we touch

We will feel

We will feel

When we touch

What we know

In our hearts

In our hearts

What we know