The Vulgar From The Streets

        for HC

Such hieroglyphs are easy. This one says,
CATES IN THE MORNING and that swirly one,
NO PAIN, NO PAIN, today the practical
Feast-day of St Bartokomous, who wrote
God is most perfect, this His indigence,
And gaped in satisfaction, doubtlessly.
Over the air conditioner man hath sprayed,
HARM TO A WISE MAN IN HIS BROTHER’S FIELD.
Prefects prefer straight-shooters, schooled in plain
Annunciation, all lean and clean in tone.
The pink one pricked above the mansard reads,
DRAGONS FORGET THEIR EGGS. Who claims they don’t?
They disbelieve in swords, even in dark
And ribald festivals of patriots.
St Evelyn said, This ghetto is my stage
And squashed his inner pupa. He was mad,
This wight who wrote beside the padlocked door,
THE WORLD IS COMING TO THIS STAGE. STAY TUNED.

Le Bistro Petit Mal

 

You know the one about the whore,

The wooden teeth, and Sully's goat?
I heard it just last night, a corps
Of lawyers, rich of scotch and throat,
Enjoying themselves. The nachos went
Well with their ties. We got and spent.

Like Wordsworth, but they didn't laugh,
And I was showing off, besides.
They sliced the hired help in half
And left them for the cleansing tides,

But with a good tip. I split so they
Could do me, too, if they'd a mind.
Heroes at rest. The gods at play.
Some nymphs abandoned. Daphne pined.

Platonic History

 

The Land of Lu, or Mu, was washed away

Embarrassed by an iron-hungry surf.

In gaudy triremes rowed by engineers

The government attempted to re-boot;

But Greenland intervened and Newfoundland

And all the loansharks rising from the sea,

Shaking their cowrie shells, their scuba gear,

Promising retribution had occurred.

Debacle and disaster. Turned away

From Silverado and Leander's Gate,

The governors, their Chicken o' the Sea

Exhausted, floated, while the trade winds spent

Our heritage and blew the whole thing up.

The Worms & I

 

They do not come to see me in this hole,

My buds and bloods. Perhaps they share the shame

And largesse of disaster. Who would bruit

His kin's confinement in an earthly cone,

Tapered for retribution? All the worms

Are laughing, mind you: they don't see the sense

Of wider welkins; blue just makes them blush.

My Uncle Thad threw rubbish on my head,

The Daily Mirror wrapped around a bun.

Perhaps he meant to plump me. Kindness comes

In kits, to be assembled as you like it.

Aunt Alice led him off, her voice the twin

Of heavy rain on mud. There is no bed,

No sleep, no sanitation, whereat worms

Stand up and cheer for everyone but birds.

I pray for commutation, they for dirt.

Reading Yeats For Greats

Imagine that it’s been
A century since Yeats.
Imagine, and conclude
How meaningless are dates.
All of time gone by,
And not a second passed
For you who saw him first
And you who read him last.

He stepped outside to say
A line or two. It was
Out of time and place,
But no one cared because
No one had built a wall,
Nobody tore one down.
Beautiful women merged
There in Lissome Town.

When you are given away
Another century hence,
Your comely wisdom combined
Worth a couple pence,
The women still will walk,
And rebels stop and stare,
Nothing much to say.
Helen will not care.

Talking Pictures

 

His spurs would jingle when he brushed his teeth

Or dusted. When he bent down to remove
Clean silver from the dishwasher, his hat
Would hit the floor, 10 gallons all at once.

He drilled the Jack of Spades clean through the eye
At 20 paces. Right handed. He left
A slew of weepy dance-hall girls behind,
Their garters disarranged, their fishnets full.

The rustlers swung from greasy cottonwoods
Or, planted upside down in alkali,
Displayed their soleless boots to noon. Though cured,
They went unclaimed, black villains, black and blue.

The Chirikawa called him Brother Love,
Notorious as they were for irony
And tropes of understatement and reserve.
He hailed them from a distance, clad in white

With crimson trim. The dry-goods store in Fort
Pauperis did his dry cleaning for free.
(He'd saved them from the Crippled Kings last fall
At 2:30 on Main St., dentist time.)

Sunday a.m.s he offered himself brunch--
Chicken satay and crepes and papadoms.
He rubbed his boots with neats'-foot oil and planned
Retirement along the Jemez Springs,

Where no one asked for favors, no one died,
Except in winter, firewater brought
Dreams of the schoolmarm larnin' little boys
How Cicero betrayed himself for fear

And sent out letters wetted by a slave.
(Additional Effects, he called them.) Spring
Fell late on Jemez, cutthroats coming home,
Packed to the gills with stories of the snow.