How to Become a Poet

Step one

Be born into a dysfunctional family

If your family is perfectly normal worry not

Just claim they're dysfunctional

Step two

Spend your childhood being abused

By one or more drunken parents

If neither of your parents drink

Convince them to start

Step three

Spend your teen years

As an unpopular, isolated geek

Turn to drink, drugs and sex

As solace for your fucked up life

I can't stress step four enough

If you haven't made

Sex and drugs and rock n roll

Your three basic food groups

You can't be a poet

Step five

Get fired from job after job

Be broke all the time

Spend periods of your life homeless

Step six

Develop a warped view of the world

Write it down

Inflict your writing on audiences at open mike nights

Always remember

Being a poet is like being a rock star

Without all the chicks and money

A Walk in the Woods

I waited by the phone

Knowing you'd call

We'd spoken of a walk in the woods

It was still summer then

The season of abundant life

Everything all fresh and green

As was my hope for our romance

I waited by the phone

Knowing you'd call

We'd spoken of a walk in the woods

It turned autumn

The trees exploded

Into colors many

Natures last gasp

In the season of decline

I waited by the phone

Knowing you'd call

We'd spoken of a walk in the woods

It was winter by then

I had hoped our love

Would warm us

As we trudged trough the snow

The white blanket

Of the season of death

I waited by the phone

Knowing you'd call

We'd spoken of a walk in the woods

You never called

YOU BITCH!

Requiem for the Last U.S. Soldier to (eventually) DIE in Iraq

First, my condolences to your family at their loss

They hardly knew ya, that you died so young

Said youth can be the reason why

You were seduced by the recruiters Siren's song:

"One weekend a month, and two weeks a year"

Nauseatingly ironic, that they pulled you

From the community college classes

You hoped to pay for with your service

Worse still, that you were sent by a coward

That vile socially promoted moron in the oval office

Who avoided combat in the Nam though use of family connections

What of the party of the JACKASS?

Did we voters not speak clear voiced in the 2006 election?

Wasn't it enough that we swept the bloated corpse of the pachyderm

Out of both legislative houses

Leaving the donkey nothing more to do then use the mop of executive impeachment?

Alas, the party in legislative power

Is stupidly attempting to wash their hands in the

BLOOD RED WATER OF NON-BINDING RESOLUTION

Contained in the leaky bowl of POLITICAL EXPEDIANCE

A question lingers on my mind

Had you lived another summer

Would you have been the one on the fated beach

That dove in to save the drowning son or daughter

Of a senator or congressperson?

To breath the heroic breath of CPR life

That our cowardly so called leaders have denied you

Into a person they hold dear?

Instead, they suffocate us all with their talking point inaction!

A CLEAR SHAME that HR 635 would have brought you home ALIVE!

Table Destiny

Drop the coin of the realm and press start

PLOONNOOGGG

The pin fires the silver sphere

BINK, BINK, BINK

BLONK, DEDEDEDIT

We're off on a wild ride

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP

At first we're almost helpless

Only able to effect outcomes with nudges

Then as gravity brings the action down

We get our first flipper shot

Like all firsts a bit clumsy and unsure

CLUNK goes a drop target

A small pay off till we drop the row

Up the right ramp WOOOSSSHHHH

Around the play field down the left ramp

Up, up, up goes the bonus score with every inclined plain orbit

Left right flipper save into an out hole

Whooo Hoooo! Capture was lit!

A new ball pops into the pin channel and into play it goes

The second capture is lit, one drop target from multi-ball!

First attempt falls short, the ball reverses trajectory

Down between both flippers it goes forever lost

Next ball in play four more attempts fail

The fifth finally falls into the drop, two balls captured!

Pin shot starts the multi-ball, JACKPOT IS LIT!

The other balls are ejected

Three now on the play field at once!

Jackpot success or failure

We're in for the ride of our lives

On the pinball table of our fate

Creeping Suburbia of the Mind

It makes you place yellow ribbons

And vote red or blue

"Mega Ditto"

And be afraid

Demand highway expansion

And cheap gas

Hire day labor to clean house

And lawn mow

zoom around at high speeeeeed

And miss everything in between

Install yourselves in mcmansions

and hide from the neighbors

Shop in a big box

and eat buyers remorse

Be what you wear

and think what you're told

Dream of TV stardom

And rock star status

Be mundane

And unknown

Feel nothing well

And everything overly

Read the best sellers

and recycle the containers properly

See the urban as problematic

And rejoice in your overcrowded isolation

COME HOME TO THE CITY!

All is forgiven...

The Object of Her Disdain

She doesn't un-un-understand

She misses the true nature of our connection

That we are alike in our history

Both having lost rents at mid-teen

We ran free in 1970's art ghettos

She in la la land

I zoo york

We sharpened or verbal swords

On the bloated corpses

Of minor art thugs

On the battlefields of club, cafe and street

Did it make any sense to throw our words

In shards of glass fistfuls

At each other in rage?

Dueling couplets at high noon

To have one more go round

At running through the streets

In opposite directions

Half naked and bleeding

Howling in painful elation at separation

She un-remembers her words

"You are me and I am You..."

Amnesia by the dashboard light?

I'm using a shovel to cleanup my guts

Might as well make quick work of a well known task!

We're too fucking old for this shit!

This is me

Cutting off an ear and sending it to her

Escape

A prison of form

Seventeen syllables is

Breakout to freeverse!

Patriot Bells Set to Morlok Sirens in D Minor

The Pavlovian dogs of war salivate

As the bells of patriotism are sounded by Fascists

All the corporate television and radio stations

Bell hammers of fascists, give voice to the bells

Flag waving sports fans blue tie of idiocy wearing morons of all kinds

Attendees at "support the troops" rallies

Paid for with clear channel right wing miscommunication blood money

Dribble a viscous liquid down their bovine chins

All the presidents men and woman

Chicken hawk oil whores

Military industrial complex experts

In full teleprompter play by play of the republican super bowl in Iraq

Ring the bells

While at the same time they

Dribble a viscous liquid down their bovine chins

As the propaganda minister of

Bunker boy sadam

And the propaganda minister of

Bunker boy g'dubya ring the bells

The fooled and foolish

On both sides of the coin

Death being the wages of war

Dribble a viscous liquid down their bovine chins

My mouth desert dry

I mourn All the dead

And wet my lips with the water of truth

Ignoring the bells, I warn you thus

Do not obey the call of the morlok sirens!

Lest you become kibble for the dogs of war

It's Just a Fad

There were daniel boon 'coon skin hats

And hoola hoops

Klick-klacks

And little rubber things that crawl down walls

Flagpole sittings and dance marathons

New deals and contracts with america

D-days and desert storms

Gerbils in butts and flavored condoms

Polyester leisure suits

And fancy overpriced baseball caps

Swing and bebop

Techno and hiphop

Assorted yellow ribbon hangings

And flag wavings

The noriagas and bin ladens

The slick willies and g'dubyas

The pronouncements of

postmodern paradise

And other beckonings

To a glorious past

That never really existed

Eventually they run their course

And we wait around

For the next hot new thing

The New Algonquin Round Table, AFL-CIO

We poor poets, producers of a lesser art

Are expected to give our copyrights

To any who offer us "exposure"

Should I wish to expose myself

I will read my poetry

STARK NAKED

In times square during rush hour!

I seek not exposure, but fair return for my work

Having starved for my art for too long

I now dine on a different bill of fare

I'm now seated

With the hungry as well as the sometimes slightly overfed

Who build with line and stanza

At such banquet halls as we build

We feast on food for thought, body, and soul

We join with our brothers and sisters

Worshipers of Apollo

To ride our flaming chariot

Above the corporate heads

Much as our works meaning

Shines sun bright and high above them already

Now secure in our enlightened ascendancy

We can warm the too small rooms and sparse tables

Of the sweatshop workers, migrant farm workers, and miners

Those last who work in light less toil the perfect metaphor for what I speak

The joining of those who work with mind, body, and soul

That clothe, feed, and warm us through seasons of despair

We poets are often as traditional Cuban cigar factory readers

Speakers of our own personal truth

In hope of a more just society

A Two Dimensional Image,

Well After The Eagle Had Landed

I remember being shocked

that I couldn't see madagascar

As I would in an atlas or on a globe

Instead I saw a mixture of white and blue

The colors dancing in a lovely swirl

The moonscape foreground

an interesting contrast

As was the surprisingly Starless

Deep black of surrounding space

How odd to see

From the perspective of a man

As far away as any human has been

The most profound view of our

Earthly home that I have ever seen

I wondered how he felt

Weighing one fifth normal

Viewing gaia rise over the sea of tranquility

I've held that photo in memory these three decades

And still I long to stand

Suited against the airless cold of luna

To watch our azure agate

Float above a crater's rim

I'd then add to the remembered

The third dimension of personal experience

I bought a new teapot today

Not the ceramic type you steep in

I have a whole collection of those

The metal kind I bought

The one you boil water in

The kind that sounds the alarm when the tea waters ready

At least when it's new

My old one hadn't sounded since 1969

But I didn't mind

It was a stout little pot

Made of stainless steel and bakelite

The new one isn't as good

Built of aluminum and poly something

It won't last as long as the old one

My connection to the old one is much stronger

It was a shower gift to my mom, back in 1955

When she died in 1973

I took possession by default

Being the only tea drinker left in the house

Every time I used that old pot

My thoughts went back to the family home

To mom served cups of tea

Drunk as comfort against our chilly north east winters

I left the kitchen the first time I placed the new one on the heat

I couldn't stand to see it in old whistlers place

But then the new one sounded for the first time

It took me right back to 1969

Mom was there letting it spout for longer then needed

Cause she knew I loved the sound

And the tea was as always sweet and strong

I seek not conquest

But connection

I seek not manipulation

But understanding

I seek not games

But playfulness

I seek not possession

But sharing

I seek not judgment of others

But to know them deeply

I seek not to use or be used

But to be served and of service

I seek not to win or lose

But to tie

For it is the ties

That bind us

One to the other

That make of strings

A rope

Strong enough

That we my pull together

To share

The workers burden of relationship

And the lovers joy of romance

That we may be ourselves

Safe and secure with each other