Where the Woods Stop

Whose tale this is I think I know,

That darkness where the daydreams grow.

All made of gingerbread and cream,

It’s not a place I want to go.

I don’t like a collective dream,

A much attenuated meme.

Out here at least the air is gray,

And people only what they seem.

They think they’re more and sometimes say

A better world with better pay

Would treat them like the folks they were

And compensate them where they play.

There’s little cake and little myrrh,

Simplicities I much prefer.

Hamlet--Monarch Notes

Your arras, that's a dicey thing.
It keeps the damp away, the chill
old ghosts convey.  A curtain ring
moves by no wind and then hangs still,
though spirits pass on either hand.
A toast, a toast.  A rheumy dude
is run through unannounced, unplanned,
helped on into his desuetude.

Outside the sky in winkled shades
promises much, delivers few
from evil.  Here be younger blades
who row, who row, the sort of crew
no castle keeper does without.
The Prince himself prefers to doubt.

Tarnish Town

The potentates are marching from St. Paul, 

Wearing the hats they stole from desert kings, 

More of them stuffed inside a tiny car 

Than Billy has Spaghetti-Os. The nurse 

Flaunts her prosthetic sword, says Opioids, 

And all fall down. In wheezing lungs, shaved heads, 

And intubated families they fail 

Of faith. The potentates ride in, clean up 

The tarnished town, a sink of billyclubs 

And graft, and scrub the spangled bedroom doors—

They manage with panache and housemaid’s knees. 

The little children smile and pack their bags 

And hide under the porch until the bus, 

The friendly yellow bus with plastic seats, 

Opens its doors and swears it is today.

Ripe for Recruitment

Under the bridges, then, where can be found

Men lost, bootless, unready hands on fire
And hair they use as lockpicks. Or The Last
Piazza, where the contract killers meet
Their lawyers, to insert a venue clause
And limits on assignability.
Down by the tracks, it’s far too popular,
Crowded with scads of housewife-realtors
Who need time off to study Avila.
The Polo Club will take an application,
But not call back. And Kitty’s 24
Prefers you dazed, emetic but aroused.
Or there’s the crossroads. Sandwiches and smokes
Purchase apparent assent. Fruition is
Another matter: these are not the deans
Of Mayhem College; often they forget
Objectives, falling asleep on wiry doormats
Stamped with cardinals and black-capped chickadees,
Right at their victim’s feet. Such tasseled shoes.
Nothing says loving like a drunken bum
Sprawled at the doorstep, hunting knife in hand,
Asking, if kicked, for dollar bills and beer.
Try beneath bridges. Covered in newsprint there,
Soldiers with stories, drumheads fast asleep,
Forage for excess, settle for skinny sweets.

And This Was Only Monday

What do you say when trees begin to dance –

I see you, though I don’t know what you are?
Look at the starlings fall out of the trees,
Indignant anyway, now mortified.
There in the moonlight, starlings on the grass,
What will they tell their mothers? I was mugged
By Terpsichore? The world is just as strange
At Adam’s desk, where the blue screen of death
Devoured a fortnight’s work complacently,
And he has organized Consuela’s name
In paperclips. A pigeon on the ledge
Begins to sing a Kindertotenlied.