today i forgot my umbrella...

today i forgot my umbrellathe brutal rain beat my facelike a drunken fatherthe sad clouds, my mother,pregnant with child,gave birth on my unprotected head.

today i forgot my overcoatthe enemy wind tore thru my skin like soft-point bulletsi waited for the 6:20like Simeon waited forthe Messiah--Lord, let thyservant depart in peace.

today i forgot my umbrellabut it felt good to be alive.

Radiation

Her hair was a constellation,the lock Berenice dedicated to the gods,unnumbered stars, the golden threadswhich held her universe in place.Flowing like the mighty Euphrates orthe Nile majestic, strong and proud,spilling over shoulder like silken vine.

But now they grace the ground like fallen angels--malignant sarcoma,the gloating victor.

Charlemagne

"Your rhymes have no reason,"said the King to the Poet,"save for pleasantry of sound and beauty of form.""My Lord!" replied the bowing Poet. "But give me the word and I shall write endless versesto your name, endless sonnetsto your praise!" To which the King rejoined: "Poet, I require not your pen--but your heart."

green are the leaves...

Green are the leaveswhen you have the eyes to see--e HEART, an infinite winter,will melt when Love springs.e MIND, an infinite forest,will grow when Faith seeds.e SOUL, an infinite sea,will spill when you givethe tears to fill.

e heat of a thousand fires...

e heat of a thousand firesis in your embracee force of a thousand blowsis in your eyesIn vain I have triedto name themwith lips' seal brokenBut found Love is sweeterleft unspoken

e Tiller’s Tale

Rocking of the boat

shall keep the tiller awake So waves are true friends

Shaking of the leaf

shall not fell the tree If you spare the ax

e dark of the night

shall cloak the wearer within But clothes are deceit Whispers betray you

Lovers and friends, the whisper So enemies shout

e Sweet Lament

I lay beneath the tendril vinesand feel their fingers brush

my scarlet cheek and ivory teethand taste the chill of death

Beside a glade of poisoned treesI eat the bitter fruit

And grant reprieves to demon-thieveswho stole my thoughts from me

Beside a pool of emerald tearsI drink the nectar cup

And find it burns with putrid wormslike absinthe to the chaste

Coffee, black, no sugar, pleaseits shade to match my soul

A callow youth who bought a truthbut found its shine was false

I dream in colors, wake in greybut live in black and white

My eyes are closed so no one knowsmy world in shambles is

Play again the sweet lamentO keeper of the night

Laced in moss my heart is tossedby your violent strains

I hear the ring of distant bellsthrough the graveyard fog

and fall asleep in death to meetthe judgement seat of God

e Circadian Rhythm

To see the leaf as sparrowlike resting bird in tree

as part of something greaterall part of something freeTo listen to the willowsTo bask in golden sun

With star and moonlight silveron gilded wings to run

To bathe in milk and honeyTo rest in fields of greenTo hold a hand so lovingto serve a tender queen

To breathe a breeze a whisperTo hear a scream a sigh

As summer turns to winter To dream, perchance to die

To wake without a shudderto sleep all through the nightTo make the wind my mother

to weep, but never cryTo see my heart in body

a nesting bird in treeAs part of something greaternot caged, but something free

(Hello)

Hello, Trepidationare you a feeling or a state?

When heavy steps of passing yearsquicken fast your pace

Where to run from creeping fears that handcuff my escape?

(I wish I knew.)

Hello, Information are you ocean, are you stream?

Are you Master? Are you Slave?Which one takes the lead?

If my head will rule my hearthow can Love succeed?

(I wish I knew.)

Hello, Salvationare you a blessing or a curse?

When devil-eyes and angel-feetboth each have their end

ough I bend and do not breakwhy then don't I mend?

(I wish I knew.)

Deities

Paint peels from the ceiling stale rain from heaven;

Wires, pipes, exposed like woundsthe lightbulb won't shut off

Burns my eyesDulls my brain

Daggers form my teeth

Table, chair, and dressertrue and faithful friends;Gods in plastic templesthe TV won't shut up

Sears by mindScars my soul

Deities are cheap

Wind blows on the windowcries like memories lost

Make your cut, scythe of Time I can bear your sting

Blade is hotBlade is deep

I can take the heat

Harakari

If you shoot some poor thing

in the chest or headmake damn sure before you leave

that it's truly dead

If you tellgrotesque lies

straight to someone's facemake damn surethat you've got

your whole story straight

If you can'tfind a cure

for a crippled heartAnd you fallon this knife

make damn sure it's sharp

Ode to Chuck

Canvas and rubber sewn to perfection,your laces corset a figure divine.

Poison of choice to greasers and the punks,Cobain killed himself but you have lived on.You are more than footwear; you are a bird,Hermes, the winged god, inventor of fire,

messenger of Olympia, running to victory like the bulls of Pamplona.

High-top, low-top, black, white, red, green, and blue your spectrum of colors like fractured lightadorns my feet, treads of a battered tank.

I pull you out of my closet and gazeat your galvanized beauty, and

shod my feet to face our war path once more.

Manhattan Sonnet

My chrome island sits a glistening pearlbetwixt two rivers craddling like arms,a jewel in a crown, a door to the world,

a lover’s embrace, her beckoning charms.O Mother of millions, your sights and sounds

invade my senses, a madcap arrayof faces and places and streetwise clowns

peddling their wares to fools who will pay.Houston to Canal, the 1 to the 3,

transfer at Chambers, wait for the next trainto take me away, express train of dreams.

You look starved today, bone-chilled from the rain.Yes dear, you look of death each falling night,glowing souls fade dim in your neon lights.

How To Make Tea

Lay out your china, the cups and saucersfill the pitcher with cream, not too much,just enough to fill stomach and soul.Put on the water, medium flame,wait, wait, wait for it to boil,but don’t go too far; you don’t wantthe house to burn down or therange to catch fire or something.You need to use cold tap water(not lukewarm or distilled water)or filtered if your tap tastes funky.e kettle is important; choose wisely.Making tea is about the ritual,a solemn rite of relaxation, andthe ceremony must be performedwith all solemnity and grace.Loose leaf is preferable; tea bagscontain poor-quality crumbly stuff.Pour two heaping tablespoons intoa strainer placed inside the kettle andpour boiling water over the strainer.Allow the tea to steep for no more thantwo minutes; any more will bitter it.Take a deep breath, you’re almost there.Remove strainer, pour into cup,cream and sugar to taste and stir.

Shrunken Skulls

I am (Word). A mirror to my blackened face,(Word) giveth form to my hunchbackedthoughts, substance to my desires, flesh to my fears, gilded wings to my flight.(Word) is fire, burning my tongue, singing my fingers.(Word) is a knife, razor, cutting through bone and sinewto my heart, fresh blood on the paper.(Word) is evil, wicked devices strung together likeshrunken skulls. (Word) is a woman,the vowels like her misshapen breasts.(Word) is a drug, a magic elixir, commas in love, me, the chronicabuser.

Dead Men Talking

I have nothing original to say,not like Aristotle or Pericles,or Kafka, Camus, Nietzche, or Monet not like Kierkegaard or Euripedesor Schopenhauer, Dante, or Voltairenot like Ovid, Cicero, or Plutarch or Proust, Marx, Wittgenstein, or Molierenot like Rosseau, Spinoza, or Decartesor Socrates, Plotinus, or Philo not like Kant, Hume, Locke, Hobbes, Donne, or Balzacor Shelley, Keats, Byron, Blake, or Hugonot like Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, or Steinbeckor Roth, Faulkner, or even HemmingwayI have nothing original to say.

Sestina Carbonate

I had bathed in a bubble bath of silky sinstried to dry myself in a plushy towel of grace.I had slept in a bed with soft-skinned lifeand awakened to a rotting face of death.I had dined on a hot platter of liesand washed it down with a cold bottle of Coke.

Oh yes, the sweet seductive bubbles of that Coke,like the sugary, perfumed delights of sinwhich caught in my throat and choked me with lies.I had pondered the meaning of grace:Was it a mere attempted escape from death?Because only the dead sought eternal life.

Sometimes I thought our cheap plastic liveswere mass-produced, like so many bottles of Coke,just expending oxygen, tiny microbes dying little deaths.I was running from the law, paying for my sinswith pocket change. Can I make the check out to Grace?I was pleading the judge and jury, but they knew I was lying.

I looked God straight in the face and didn’t lie,told Him I hadn’t lived a pure, unspotted life,asked for clemency and acquittal. Can you grant me grace?He said, “Sit in the waiting room, son, have a Coke,I’m processing a million souls at a time for their sins.”So I sat reading a magazine which, curiously, were all on death?

I was bored by the first article. And the waiting room TV was dead.en I heard a whisper: “Maybe all this heaven jazz is a lie?Maybe there is no life after death? Who decided what is sin?You did your own thing? You lived your own life?”Get thee behind me, Satan, I said. You’re flat like this Coke:Syrupy and sweet, but the fizz has gone. God will grant me this grace.

en they called my number. I took my ticket to a window labeled GRACE.e teller said, “Sir, our records show you were quite wicked at time of death.”My hand trembled, and I was still holding that bottle of flat Coke.I noticed an advertisement beside the window: HELL IS FOR LIARS. e teller said, “I’m sorry, sir, but you lived a debauched, depraved, evil life.”and stamped my record DENIED: UNREPENTANT SIN.

A friendly security guard led me to a black door marked DEATH. e waiting room TV was working now, playing scenes from my life.I chuckled softly, and slowly finished off the last of my bottle of Coke.

I Am e Executioner

Sympathy is withheld from he who pulls the switch,no sympathy for the devil. I am the bringer of death,the taker of life. I am spit upon. Behind the executioner’sblack mask my face is blacker, heavy with the knowledgeof my chore. I have shed blood for the Law. I have shed blood inin the name of the State. I am a soldier, obedient to the cause.I follow my orders. Sir, yes, sir. I do not question authority.I am a death merchant, cheating my costumers from their mortal frames. My victims are hooded and blindfolded.I am powerless to stop their fate that lies in my hands.e sentence must be carried out. eir crimes must be punished. I know this. I know my duty. And yet.

And yet.

I die each time I pull the switch, with each fell of the ax to the block, each drop of the guillotine, each time my finger fondles the trigger of the coupe de grace. Had I the power, had I the strength, to burn down my gallows!I am more a prisoner than they. For them, death is an exit.ey face it but once. I have a time card, boss.I go home from work like the butcher and the baker.Yes, I am the butcher, too. I must live with myself. I must see the faces of the heads I have removed from their shoulders. Sleep is not an escape. ere is no rest for the wicked.But I am not evil? I am but the instrument of God, thesword in the hand of Jehovah? I am no vigilante; I am licensed to practice. I am trained to kill.

I consider the crimes of those I dispatch. Some are great. Some are small.My sins are also worthy of death. Yet justice spares me. Why? Why?Why does one man take the blame for us all? Why does the crown of thorns rest upon one brow? Why does he bear the lash? eythrust a spear in his side. ey mock him. What has this man doneto deserve such abuse? But I must perform my duty. I take up the nail and hammer. One through each hand. One through both feet. He screams. Blood. Blood everywhere. I am the criminal. He is innocent. But his suffering shall end tonight.Mine shall not. Someone will care for his body.Someone will lift him down from that tree.I am a butcher. I am the executioner.Who will care for my soul?

A Hundred Acre Blues

I. TIGGER, GET YOUR GUN

Always happy am I? Carefree, you say?Yes, I act the clown and fool for you.I bounce around, always ready to play your foolish games, but if you only knew that my total confidence is a lie,my bravado a show. I am scared. Tiggers never get lost but they do crywhen nobody sees my soul I have bared.My stripes I array to disguise my paina camouflage cloak I lose in the bathand paint on before they drip down the drain.I wear a fake smile, but under my wrathrages. One day when no more I can takethese woods I’ll shoot up. One day I will break.

II. EEYORE IS EMO

I’d shoot up these woods. I would break one day.But I never forget to take my meds,can’t feel anymore, just a stuffed grey haze,a hundred acres of wandering dead.Depressed I am not; they just think I am.I am dying to speak, to open my mouth but Pooh and the rest just don’t give a damn.anks for not noticin’ me. Or my house.I am but sawdust, yet I feel the stingof their condescension like a hot bladeeach day I am forgotten. I could singmy lungs out but would they even stay?My nailed tail has forsaken me again,but that’s okay: so have all my dear friends.

III. PIGLET, INTERRUPTED

It’s not okay. For all of my dear friendsthink me a weakling, a cowering lumpof pig flesh to trample upon, pretendcourage and nerve I do lack. Yes, I jumpat the thought of Heffalumps and Woozles

and the sound of the howling wind at night. But though my frail limbs be like limp noodles,I am Piglet, hear me roar. ere is mightwithin this small frame, these bones like wrought steeldeceptive under my body petite.My stutter is my guise, my roar a squeal,but though my words slow formed may be, you treatme like a child, not a peer. Prepareto see the lamb a lion, O fine bear.

IV. CHRISTOPHER ROBIN DELUSIONS

I saw the lamb a lion, O fine bear,I saw you in our Hundred Acre Woodpondering, think, think, think. You would shareyour honey with all who asked, so good a bear were you, of very little brains,but very much heart. Alone I was notwhen I was with you. I am not insane,as my doctors say. I remember our spotwhere we romped and played deep in the green glade.Piglet was jealous of the bond we shared.Murder most foul he plotted ev’ryday.He hated me. He hated me, I swear.Were you a phantom, a childhood scheme?Was it all in my head? Was it a dream?

V. RABBIT FREAKS OUT

It wasn’t in my head. It wasn’t a dream.I swear those crows were eating all my crops.Where is my shotgun, my killing machine?My scarecrow in vain endeavors to stopthese foul little beasts. A murderous rage my being doth fill when Tigger appears, mischief to make. I would take up my spadeand wipe the grin off his face with one spearto the head. Yes, I am a nervous wreck.But what of it? We each our demons face. We each the strongman endeavor to best.We each the dragon endeavor to slay.So cut me some slack when I get like this.My brains are all here. ey’ve just gone amiss.

VI. POOH GOES TO REHAB

My brains are all here. ey’ve just gone amissto the tree with the honey, where my thoughtsgo each day. Addicted to the sweet kissof the amber fluid am I. I’ve soughtits elixir from street-corner dealers,from junkies and addicts, bears just like me.Oh Mr. Sanders, where is your healer,your savior to come, from this hole to free?Piglet does not understand your travail.Tigger is clueless to your soulless eyes.Eyeore is obsessed with his damn tail.Rabbit is a jerk, cares not for your cries. Christopher Robin‘s love is oppressive.Your illness grows with each day successive.

VII. OLD AGE CATCHES UP WITH OWL

My illness grows with each day successive.I lose my memories each bit by bit,piece by piece until they all seem regressive,the clock moving backwards tick by cruel tick. My feathers are falling out, my beak bentand crippled, my wings can’t fly anymore.My bones feel used and worn, energy spent.I never have guests or knocks on my door.Pooh and the rest never visit or askfor advice. All my stories go untold.I putter around the tree house, the lastof my noble line. I feel so very...old.I think I will lay down now and die.If they ask where I went, just say “the sky”. -