Mansuetude
However your attitude -
herein find
latitude
to change, to
re-arrange,
your hurt and
your mania.
Approach, herein -
to the beatitude of gratitude,
the precept of tolerance,
the transhumance of chance and
venues,
the seasonal migration of outdoor
grills
and fireplace gridirons,
the propinquity of serendipity,
the provenance of Providence,
the boon of the moon.
Approach, herein -
without flouting the daunting
haunting,
without flaunting the doubtful
accord;
steer clear of bitter beer,
avoid places where the sounder
flounder
and bounders founder.
Approach, herein -
to speaking of acceptable
kindness,
care of the common mindness.
Baba Bubba in Europe
He walks the cities, skirts civic actions,
does not stop at doors of ill repute.
He’s big for this age, these days –
but gentle and does not rage,
glances for the fleeting revelations
of the real, the blinks of frozen mimes.
He finds one-star rooms with clean sheets
who knew pine bowers on forest treks
and liked them better, then.
He sits and waits,
quiet beside settled waters,
hears the rumors of silences
that words could not settle.
His good feelings for domestic folk
don’t rouse the wild in him,
but the world that was, does –
the world that wars made bad a while,
a while ago, did;
that evil golems gloat over
and fret to resurrect.
Those are bears he hunts, now,
and tusked boars he knows to
stalk and slay.
His lays lie on ley lines that fate divines,
grape clusters reward his foraging,
his anonymous shadow fits in,
the stealth of health and quiet mind.
The poppies in Flanders fields
grow upon his brothers’ bones:
they live on in him, and he for them,
the flowers and the brothers both
seek not vengeance, but an end
to what has been, and may come again.
He hides his wings
to search the meanings of men;
the semantic shifts that propagate liberty
in spite of all earthly constraints;
the rhetoric of canonical oratory
that tolerates no questions,
the beetled brows of dull doubt,
skepticism of the oft deceived and long oppressed,
the short shrift the ignorant give to the high and
haughty,
the box both sides came out of,
pox of hard knocks and pestilential preferences,
the greed chomped pork chops
slavered in plagues, indulgences,
the universal perversity of monopoly,
the inevitable catastrophe to break
the rose colored glasses that prejudice peers through
to preserve its privileges.
He grew up separating good goats from coyotes,
never worked with sheep in paddocks
nor dandified warlocks,
grandees with goatees, ground lamb in curried
patties,
not sails of windmills of the Dutch gone Spain
that pumped water into the seas and ground grain
with the blood of serfs, subjects and sharecroppers
for titled aristocracies, their follies and
eccentric
pleasures in exclusive, reclusive conclaves of
knaves.
“Siempre he oido, Sancho,
que hacer bien a villanos es
echar agua al mar.”
He did salvage some ashes other mustaches left, back
home,
voting rights from bigot whites,
and guarantees that labor would not be left wounded
broke news-less and viewless helpless and useless
dead headed dumb and dirt ignorant.
He saw the ledes of Pancho’s credes, the villas lead
left for dead
for too much bitchness in richness.
All this would be over, now, but for the infinite
return
of discredited populism and re-occurring seeds of
ism’s weeds;
shiploads of oil and barrels of spent jisms,
carbon steel in the turning wheel of shortened time
made ever new for the frantic antics,
the manic passions of mortal men.
He’d rather be a genii
with a teeny weeny
mustard seed of faith
that need not thrust nor parry
nor worry the hairy humps
of rutting gnomes –
that fill the overcrowded huts
and homes with lust filled anger
– Holmes.
When all this struggle proves a
muggle,
Bubba will have fled, shed his
skin of sin,
gone beyond the pale of ale,
beyond the tete a tete of the public square,
where the upside of greater good is damned
to swell the partisan waters
for man-made disaster,
beyond the donnybrook by the bonny brook
of self serving care,
the delights of busy bodies -
the ennui of the hazy for the fickle rain.
He hides his wings,
they guard their things,
(not from him – from Roma – and from Rome).
The end is always nigh:
a time to sell, a time to buy,
a time to storm through the night
in stark raving lark of wonder
and appreciation.
Good people see him and know him,
and do not fear him.
They see that he is proud
but not dangerous to them.
They know that his caste is extinct,
the frontier he came from long gone.
Amsterdam Idyll
Old gates of war-born states
have given way to clear,
(and some red)
eyes of electron-fed stars.
Public brows of orderly commerce
interlace more personal tolerances.
Elms line the motorized waterways,
gulls and pigeons swoop the urban canyons
between leaning houses of the grand
in the great shining city built on mud.
Coffee House patrons sip forgetfulness.
Tourists in excursion barges look on
as map-walkers marvel
and dodge the chimes of speeding cycles.
On the street by the flower market,
beside a canal,
a blossomed woman inspects her bought roses,
secures her bundled stems,
mounts her bike and with her sleek calves
has gone - Bubba’s whiff of cowgirls past.
Beside stone bridges
familiar paces nod in passing
the faces not needed to know who.
The inside comfort of clean hands and warm bread,
mercies with spontaneity of good sense,
meetings of casual kisses and goings of cool fruits.
* * *
Houseboats barely bob at mooring,
shaded by sentry trees at
attention.
Over the sidewalk, a second-story
window,
curtains behind flowers.
Inside – the roses.
He unlocks the front door
and twists the stairs up to her.
His brows un-toughen to her touch.
She has worked, too -
worked and not stiffened.
She closes the curtains on their
workday,
unbuttons his shirt -
and he shivers off the wraith of
frustration.
“I dreamt, last night, of baby
goats and roosters.”
“I dreamt of levers and snails.”
Their evening hours like
pomegranates,
tiny bursts of savory songs and
musings
of port wine sacraments:
the crystal glasses, the roses.
In the canal, coots squabble,
a swan swims
beneath a stone bridge.
Atop the church spire at sunset
a golden rooster beacons –
guide light to those who look
eastward.
Crowds gather in cafes.
Books in the garret speak of many
loves.
Twilight lasts for hours.
* * *
You must forbear in others -
mind's comforting usages,
the hearth that dusk and dawn
warms to the Un-nameable,
verbs like herbs to ease the un-regret in, that is,
where vacancy is, or was.
Poodle puppy in a bicycle basket.
Must forgive in yourself the day-lit joys,
the sunshine you sip from sidewalks
after the morning fog rises,
the eye-sight that alights
on cleavage under black lace under white blouse,
or the rose-colored tight-covered buttocks
of luscious hussies - the vogue rouge of rumbustious
rambunctions and rogue functions.
Here is the faceless Goddess
- archetype of ancient effigies -
She of the kind smile, the penetrating vision,
the passion;
Athena the Giantess, Astarte the Smarty,
Isis the rare bird – the red-cheeked ibis
that flies to rape lean and lonely men
among whom none have lifted her veil.
Oh, Minerva with her dusk-dawned
owl,
that some fear for bad fortune
and others seek for allegory.
She is always busy, on the prowl,
even in her lovely repose,
she probes for fits of adoration
and casual ties of cornered
glances.
She chooses carefully
what she prays for:
Flowers without funerals,
presents of presence
essential oils to exude
existential
fragrance of pleasance.
She is gentle but not too shy.
* * *
You who seek – the know-not-what,
must come to the know-not-where.
Down the hushed trails,
behind the veils of cartooned
cruising,
through the portal of Omen
College.
Fresh faces of dead artists,
old words that live with new
reading,
Don Unamuno's wished-for glory,
Souls in United Spirit, fates in
common story.
What your true story means,
what roses are...
what you need is here,
just in front of these kind words,
beyond thing-ness – goodness -
born for more, again,
that love of God be not shorn
of love for men,
that good wheat in time be made
bread.
Upon clean sheepskins,
an unbundled baby gurgles.
A red ball bounces and rolls
toward what may it be.
Universal hunger for wisdom's
bosom
supplicates getting of supple
giving,
sweetly giving the caring
getting,
joins and soothes,
blushes and shushes the robust
cupid,
the tempered tinkler.
This pristine budding begs
pruning,
the forcing of more blossoms,
later,
but for now the deed is done,
the virgin won for fondness,
the fondling of baby’s bonding.
The guides of ageless night
wait beyond self reflection,
other's eyes,
other's minds.
* * *
Between Ann Frank's House and
Rembrandt Square
a street musician carries his
used Spinoza.
She has gone,
breasts like wine glasses -
not filled for your tasting.
Salt of earth has lost flavor.
Flowers get no favor.
Alone in the garret with St. John
of the Cross,
an approach to the impossible
recourse of ineffable resource.
From among the stones of heaven
you may take the ephemeral
emerald,
glorious and well-made stone,
enigma of ever and also this
place,
forever the ever here too.
From the vein of gold in the Rock
of Ages
fashion a band and bond
to the glowing green.
With this tiny chain
of faiths like orchids strung
around delicate and tender neck
of novice monk,
under beautiful breeze-tussled
hair,
keep the
emerald,
and love will be there.
A Snooty Woman
Notice her elegant pinkie,
as she contemplates the fly in her wine glass.
She’s nonchalant about the canary in the canapés,
ignores the con-man in the corner on the “would” pile.
She hides the causes of her smiles,
the silly similes that reveal her pretty dimples:
A friendly, ugly poodle; the last gas of another pot of beans;
how we pretend to intend.
She’s unwilling to extend the conversation that features
elongated figures
of the flirting question,
or openly speculate about whether He is a lout,
or just overly stout,
too old or too bold,
yet wishes he would buy one, and another one.
And, of course, he will.
(She’s such a precious pill!
Or would be – could be – maybe).
But enough of that.
She’s miffed that attention shifts from her
when Carlo Marx walks in
and begins blurting
long stemmed roses
from out of his saxophone.
No Nature – No Teeth
Therapeutic wine
made his sooth cool,
won’t save his tooth, though;
it's wobbly and must go tomorrow.
Dang! And the ones he has left are none too pretty.
Not ready for dentures, yet – can chew
but no longer chaw to gnaw gizzards.
How about topaz? That's what he’s thinking:
a blue topaz tooth up front
and agates in back,
that's what he lacks
for shame.
Vagabond soul set in wayward waves,
marked by high waters – flood blood brothers -
bonhomie and anomie from many years to go.
So what brass ring will tendrilled spirit fix
to earn disregard of malice,
the rant that rankles and ranks not?
How crazy can he get to fix and not spook them?
Not very. Their connoisseurship of intent
is keyed to the advance of romance
among ruminant masses to placate humble gusto
and must conform or not need approval,
because they will judge you, Hoss, “fur shore.”
Love that wants nothing is not called to be galled.
The sometimes saint waltzes enigma,
the matter of the mind known who - communing (darshan)
- and some he invites to kiss his ass – even friends.
Sonorous
chimes sing of languorous seasoning,
the stratagems of dull doubt
that raise heavy brows above bare gums
to the soothing soup
without meretricious prolixities,
pixies or drowned dragonflies.
The shush of one brow upping
is almost too much indifference
to sham chances and hardened saps,
tar-baby things and passionate miscues.
No boat to go back in.
He’ll have to swim.
So you want him to be fair & just & right & good?
Here is how he knows the world is:
a cricket on a shaded blade of grass
waits for a drop of dew to roll;
a tiny lizard scuttles
through moist dead leaves;
a butterfly flutters by;
sports scores and painted doors
fade in the blistering of men’s wars.
To speculate on the moray’s mores
one must engage the pathetic fallacy of tunnel vision,
and grin with teeth that grasp and do not last long.
He knows – all right – that his water is no wetter.
The only thing He has to hold on to - is nothing.
Museum Tour
Well, he obviously had a great many holes in him,
but his penis
was intact.
Another nearby had no head,
yet spread his
cock-less crotch,
statute of
limitations.
Onions attacked,
porcelain
cupids pushed a pig,
a net held the fish
at the end of
the world.
* * *
Precise passion – burning fuse fuels.
Beauty or Nothingness.
Is this Art?
What fearful envies drove this locomotive?
Hate will harm!
False Pride, conceit of self-deceit;
the subject of the bull-fighter's focus
emptied of anger made self.
The swan sang universal sentiment
as the snake lay silent and long.
Reason to celebrate the present
that engenders no futures.
So why? Do What? So?
We toast the tryst with time for Beauty's sake
that the love found remembers when.
Yes, birth presupposes a trio, at least.
Dialectic a
triad, counting futures,
and whose father are you looking at so hardly.
* * *
Here is need for us.
so we must go -
must hang the most common cross
upon the shoulders, around the neckless
nape of this gross old golem:
ups-one-ship.
Who won't be spoken truth to,
the hanging rope pulls down - topples.
More nipples.
What 10 thousand million condoms can not cure,
nor war will,
nor hate abate -
then Art must.
Vertical support for an upside down world.
Thank you note reciprocates the death order.
This must be
wine.
The screws are
mine.
“The Perfect Corner” demonstrates postholism –
Bubba’s original vocation, digging post holes for
fences.
A quartet with two toy monkeys, toy frog,
and spinning “Barbie” co-opted.
Many-colored patchwork quilt,
murmurs of amusing secrets and hidden guilt.
No hooks seen,
but visible churches to feudal hierarchy
and perverse states of orthodox kleptocracy
linked to whatever peasant culture
of vast ignorance of material stupidity
that brought chattering classes to chuck good God
and go with the five year plan, an eighty year
pain,
paroxysms of dis-functional means,
perverse ends of personal powers.
Kings. Czars. Tyrants – gone.
Fissiparous clans and pretentious princes – gone.
At last, stones the humble carted for palaces and
forts
make sport stadiums and museums for common folk,
proper bars for their beers.
No longer held in bondage from God,
the group mind functions with elegance.
Pyre of Ire
The spent lemons and easy irk
plot to dog-nap the neighbor's dachshund.
The sweated kerchief wrung to scold –
the wrong peaches of pleasure,
the winepress trodden with feet unwashed.
Where good rules do not apply,
children starve and widows cry.
The crone of bodies' tilt toward doom
(frozen light in buried stones)
waits upon the prism to throw rainbows,
the release of modulated paroxysms,
whatever got
in to them
that Atropos can cut them free.
Now known what said
would regret those harsh words,
not thought but nailed upon hurt
the abscesses scabbed unto guilt
that the hag of time unleashed-
and cleverness did not make better.
How cold zero must be,
to rehearse them so:
the absences, the scorpions, the never-weres
that could not have been good.
the Chihuahua Desert, there are no crows,
only ravens; the skaldic bard’s harbinger of doom,
my personal totem,
a warning to you - who may be cruel.
There is carrion that carries on
that buzzards won’t clean,
the bad ghost the Navajo treat with care from fear,
that Parsees and Manichees
would not insult fire with;
the durable delusions
of
self-regards that must go.
The envy of the lazy for the lame,
the scorn of the worn-out for the idle,
the sweat and snot of the game,
the piss and poison of the insecure:
these are normal mental formations
the world worms feed upon –
the moldy scraps and soiled leavings
the world worms engulf and cast
to feed new cycles of unperfected grace
with health and heartiness.
Only the anger of hatred self-destructs;
that is a Law
that no men have passed
nor man can pass unaffected;
the dead dumb soft-Sulfur coal –
primal ignorance spontaneously combusts,
to no good effect for anybody
save being gone when done.
Into the byre of purging ire,
merciful immolation of thoughtlessness
and wrong action,
the brute you were
to cause pain.
Fire of Desire
Composed care of composted ashes.
Focus in there: for others.
Wee willikins wander the
watermelon patch.
The work toward well-ness:
the white witch loving,
prayer-ful thought of moving
emotion.
Passion of mercy
makes whole more well.
All hail the snail.
Fullness as water flows.
The worms turn more earth
than spades will.
This is the forgiven,
the accepted transformation:
the oneness whole
without thought, worry or future
beyond what can be without
mirrors to multiply fears..
Composed care,
will to well-ness,
wholesome silence – gotten in
edgewise
while others talk,
the walk in
the rose garden.
Knowing growing,
fire of life's desire.
Bubba & the Fishing Fairy
One fine fishing day, Bubba rented a rod and gear.
From among live oaks living by the shore,
a fishing fairy appeared.
“So, you want to catch a big one?”
“Yes, yes,” Bubba replied, “That is the effort of my
desire.”
“You must promise to return it to the water,
unharmed,” the fairy whispered.
“I won't . . . promise,” Bubba murmured, “I would
like
to eat it, too.”
“Then you shall catch no keepers,” she said.
“Off with you, then,” Bubba laughed, and swung his
gaffe.
The fairy ducked and disappeared.
He fished all day and way into evening,
cast and reeled with an empty creel
until nightingales sang, bats swooped and
Bubba slouched home, stooped and pooped.
The keepers all swam free.
The Future of Now
New memories,
sure as rain, will come.
Stumble stones
and stepping stones will come.
The paths you
have to walk from here,
many
ways of knowing,
obscure
brilliances
that make
worthy
this worthy
labor.
Nemesis stands at the forefront
of shiftless clouds that shift and drift,
a dragon man becomes a rooster
and then a puff of vapor.
Way down south in Texas,
in a thicket of thorny trees,
a wild bull sniffs leftover ashes -
with no thought of the bulk
of possessed things.
Images possessed men who made fire,
images that have now lost their wounds -
lost the love of darling hurts felt owned to ache so,
the drunken urges and boasts – all toast.
All breeds and creeds bled and died,
each one called for his mother,
the needed wanting mother, wanted the needed other,
the heroine mother who for worry ate her children.
Emotions poured into images, into motions.
Oh! The medular thrill of cool vanity,
heart trill of vindicated pride in prospect,
the party balloons, ice cream and cap-gun shoot-outs,
the warm fuzzies young mothers conjure to seem well
in what commonly passes for thinking.
The final showdown is just another playact,
the Shadow of fateful error is not mistaken -
the unseen bushwhacker lurks and smirks,
digger looks for trouble with every spade-full –
the Shadow is a lonely soul – gone cold –
has no mother’s love.
Oh! The bucolic stoking:
The forge’s bellows and the bull’s bellows.
Oh! The may not know.
It’s not far now, to Tipperary, my brother.
You’ll like the cool water
from the Well of Arran.
Consequences
The can do,
able not to,
enters the
stream.
With nothing
known to mind,
kindly seeks
kind consequences.
A slow boat,
you on it.
Or have been.
And got back.
later.
to read this.
There is:
urge in urgent,
grow in grown,
way in wane,
moan in moment,
and vice in
versa.
The boat
wallows
down-stream.
you on it.
There are
loves like big words
one uses at
most twice
in any one
oeuvre:
like
pusillanimous, or fissiparous,
or
lamentations.
results -
end in -
continue -
go on -
“Let me call
you sweetheart,
lura lura,
lie.”
From habitual
ploys
to passionate
possess,
to practice
that fills
the
pusillanimous pleasures
that savor
loses.
“I know
something that you don't know.”
“What do you
know?”
“I think
you're silly as hell.”
“Thank you.”
“I will.”
Goes on all the way down-stream,
exits at the dock,
right on the clock.
The way toward
any particular
merit
begins on the
far shore,
where
un-sunk-ness meets
chaste masses,
mental cover,
motifs of
pleasant
uninvolved
attractions.
The dew,
the due,
the do,
or can do that does not.
The boat on
the shore.
Nobody in
it -
to read this.
Bubba in the Killing Fields
He got along great,
had an uproarious time
at his party of one,
woke up and wrung his regrets,
one eye swollen shut in pain,
the other red and watering.
So what if guards and angels are
hung over?
No reason to hold a hanging or
dull swords
to save bullets - they had plenty
-
and big ones, too.
They died well - blaming no-one -
or perchance a bow in prayer he
saw,
his face, him seated he pitched
forward
at the waist - empty -
zeroed free of hate to hold on to
or scorn to mourn - nor avoidance - nor
acceptance.
How they died then
was worthy of noble men -
not killers to be faulted
that followed orders for
freedom’s sake.
Then who will violence make its
next victim?
Bubba comes back as worlds need
him -
a monk-moth in a high mountain
valley
no candle to circle – yet.
Aquarium at the End of the World
At the edge of sand,
water shimmered pebbles.
At the edge of soul,
holographs evanesce.
Further out, fishes school:
Vanities toss, bathetic solipsisms
search the moral of the coral,
naive projections flash forth
between the moral coral and the atoll –
struts a bombshell in bikini,
what history is made of.
Fisher-folk row to deeper bearings,
purposes dive to be heard,
and bread is cast upon the water.
Nets lower, boats circle,
fish mass to the gathering fold,
rise to the harvest.
As bread was cast in the Galilee,
and baskets filled in holy glee,
multitudes of needful wishes
meet the womb of wheat and fishes.
The earth born miracle
in the lap of care,
the earth bound loverly longing,
transfigure in Universal belonging.
A New Age
As the last dinosaur lay dying,
his melancholy sighing
was heard for miles,
the awful dirge for his vanquished herd
rumbled over hills to the crook of a brook,
brought smiles to the critterly wiles
of a tiny mammal, the first of her kind, a shrew.
His big eye shed a huge tear,
the tiny warm-blooded milk-breasted
womb-bearer snuck up close
to investigate and to commiserate.
A saurian reverie overtook the Tyrant
when he saw the curious tyro,
an epiphenomenal epiphany flashed,
a prescience of the world to come;
that this tiny tiddler would rise up to be mankind
brought a strange satisfaction to his fading mind.
A sardonic grin eclipsed his brutish chagrin,
he
bestowed his blessing, his benediction born of
affliction.
"My DNA is DOA. It's up to you, Shrew.”
A supernal glow began to grow,
the dying Dino was in the know.
The Titan’s tears showered down onto the shrew's ears,
a solemn anointment with the ointment of disappointment.
"I have kept my appointment with time;
I'm in the bag, the final quag;
that you may find fondness,
I go into my beyond-ness."
The shew spun in jubilee, overfilled with wee glee,
and did not hear the rest of the augury,
she was entranced, romanced, and she danced
as the dying Rex recited his recipe for posterity,
his peroration to the oblivious shrew.
She whirled and twirled
with the wide open world,
SHE was the center of everything,
shot through with effervescence of delight
young mother of everybody yet to come.
He whispered, or perhaps only thought it:
“I leave you to
the yoke of the joker,
to the dirk of the jerk,
to the supercilious clerk
and to the punctilious general,
to the demise of maggots and flies.”
At the Dinosaur’s last breath,
a puff of dust sent her scurrying,
she squeaked and squealed with ecstasy,
her bright future revealed
and sealed by prophecy.
After Summer
He came again – that spring
to walk the road
to the field of the stars
and the end of the land.
Daffodils and doves,
lilies and tulips lined his paths,
lilac and locust scent in breath
of virgin air.
He listened for the silent air to
speak
to sing with hopes of seeds and
births in winter,
new lambs for Easter feastings.
He remembered a time before,
when burst the crackling, burning
flare,
a tree in flames - heat and smoke
- foul fury.
He stepped backwards then could
not move
and thought to kneel, but bowed
his head instead.
He trembled and could not move.
Star bright light engulfed the
branches,
boughs in depths of space turned
black,
golden leaves shone in glory and
turned to ashes.
He shook but could not flee.
And then a halo formed above the
crown,
a surge of blackness filled the
air
as he wrapped his arms around the
trunk
and both were gone in cloud.
A band of light stood there
steadfast in the wavered air,
its meaning plain to see,
because he was the man, he was the tree.
Twisted Realsim
for James W. Johnson
Sometimes life moves straight
forward:
weeks like days gobbling
groceries,
lifetimes, Sunday Times,
skies so blue the cow forgets her
moo,
lands so flat the bat
forgets his echo,
beautiful rows of fertile
Human Nature,
years like months;
heaped up hills of
cottonseed,
manure, empty cans of
beers,
substances of things hoped
for,
evidences of things not
seen.
Sometimes things must be twisted:
yarns,
dynamos,
tornados,
pollinator's pirouettes
for blossom's nectar,
DNA,
the Moving Pictures that
give good meaning
to many lives,
that long stretch all the
way
here.
- by Baba Bubba
Not Me
the worrier dropped in
with
wine and smokes
to fret the chords
of ennui.
"All Dharmas are empty," Baba
said.
"That's what I was afraid of,"
said He.
The Known Past
(invisible in her paintings)
The were-man trots among scrub-dotted
dunes.
An alien character was here, from out of time.
Here, It encysted.
The sheep flocked - It insisted.
No way they could have resisted.
They got on with the doing of it,
to move the lazy mountains.
Their lived-in zones are no-go now.
They look back at what was made happen.
Drink glacier-melt water made into after-soul.
What gave them peace is done.
They stare at the gate of the city,
The city of Frenemies, lit with harnessed lightning.
Frenzied by the heat of martial mood,
they want to make and suckle young,
Wish to hurry and marry, as others harry trouble,
The hairy men who pant to ravage, rant and devour.
That was an awful, awesome hour, that made them dour.
Mercury to Venus rising, Mars to take you down.
All of this is memory, longing for what was:
A winsome breeze in a deserted town of crumbling mud.
Someday, I’ll boil out of here.
Boy, you’d better start running, now.
Santa’s Reindeer
(Ash Wednesday)
Donner and Blitzen were in the
best of taste
this season.
After Thor-momma and her lascivious cohort
threw Santa over the cliff,
they left venison-on-the-hoof for Baba.
He ate them, roasted over an open fire.
It was so merry.
He sliced the hearts and livers – rolled them in flour
and fried them;
made cream gravy, poured it over buttered biscuits.
Now, Bubba will keep the sacred cow well-fed, all winter,
sow wheat in spring,
to grow the resurrected Christ.
Also, Rudolph was a lie –
there was no red-nosed reindeer;
just Baba Bubba, eating juicy cherries
off Thorbaby’s breasts.
Leap Day Dawn 2-29-08
(in memorium W.C.W)
Who are You?
Meaning not -
at what point of fancied order
you peck.
You white chicken, eye the red wheelbarrow -
it carries the downers and the dead.
A ladder does not go there.
Listen! The glisten -
is not rain.
No time
to explain.
The Skinny - An Ode to Weight
Loss
I love my metabolic belly -
my meta-belly,
and your meta-belly, heavy with child.
It likes to be rubbed, and to be hard.
The fraction of satisfaction it gets in being full
is fractious, inactious, full of bull.
Give me salad! Give me fruit! And protein.
Lots of excersize - sweaty work and sweet sex.
Otherwise - comes the hex.
I love my meta-belly.
It tells me when my mind is right -
or when my world goes wrong.
My mega-belly is harder to feel fond of gone soft.
When westerners first imported trinkets from China,
they mistook the big-eared long-jowled fat guy
for Buddha.
But it was Hotei, instead, the Taoist god of happiness,
rotund with caloric flesh fund
in a land of lean-ness and want.
Between the egg and the hour-glass there is an intimate
connection:
one gets boiled, peeled and eaten;
the other gets turned over to do it all again some more -
trickles of sand like tickles of pleasure,
prickles of timely transience.
I love my meta-belly.
When it goes down, I go up;
up and away;
a hawk with a fish
searching for a perch to devour.
I'll make my beloved a belly, a
bower,
for love to flower -
slender as a lotus stem
for you, for this, our
youth-dreamt hour.
The Pow-Wow Tao and the Naco Taco
We’ll draw a circle to center the action;
where you can spend your last marbles.
Your presence is useful but not requisite,
essential but expendable;
unlike shelter, food, and sanitation,
it (not you) moves through matter
as breezes in pollen-laden bushes
make you sneeze – I’ll bet.
The major wager
Either one of us can lose –
Or snooze.
Try and stay off
The booze,
you woozy floozy
You.
Quicky
The middle years are kinder now
that bees don't get in her bonnet
and wasps onto her tongue.
(watch out, buddy, you just
crossed a line).
She's still cute as a ladybug -
but able and wise,
with a girl laugh and a
mischievous spark
in her dark eyes.
At forty, we were still young;
She'd squeak like a mousie on a
heap of cheese;
I'd say "now?" and She'd say
"Please."
Then we both said "Thank You."
(now you're in trouble - for sure)
At fifty, we like our own spaces,
rumpled nests with known places
for things with dings and
friendly faces.
At eighty, she'll be cool as
summer breeze,
I'll still go wobbly - in the
knees.
Passed Out Long Ago
you think that was all of me?
Who you thought I was
back then - faded since,
lavender scent from long ago.
Did you think that I would not change, as well?
I've carved many words - in stone -
and wake at dawn to carve more.
There are blank stones for as far as I can see -
a good day done and so many more - for me.
When I am most alone I am least alone.
Legions of all merit surround me.
I know them every One.
I Am
In the
mornings -
osprey with a
fish in his talons,
ducks and
humming birds
the afternoon.
in the
evenings -
buzzard
gliding against the wind.
Well Witching
liquid runs underground -
here water,
there dinosaur blood,
next up - magma.
take dictators on one at a time
the hate they radiate - nowhere to go but gone.
we flew skull and crossbones
flag all weekend -
no mercy - take no prisoners!
It's coming down, now.
You dig, then I will,
just - for fun,
bone at a time,
to get a kick out of it,
this One takes that one,
get us some Kultur – Vulture.
Domino! Sweet Water
from the Rock.
Low Grade Mind
I couldn’t sleep late and didn’t want
to wake early,
I got up alone as always and went back relieved,
after turning on the stove burner to warm the Dacha.
Here’s no central heat or gas and don’t need
it in this small house,
old but tight so a candle would do most nights.
This morning in bed wrote in semi-dark of dawn twilight -
darker now since its raining, and me too.
I’ve got low grade mind, with others winding through it,
which I kinda like sometimes.
it’s blowing in cool and good wet outside, a qualitative
change in us.
So I said baby I just write them,
you’ve got to take them under the covers,
because I’m not here to dig or even think to make love
but I feel OK, no way dead yet -
wouldn’t hurt you to look in your mirror,
wherever you are I don’t care.
Poor thing – all in love and nowhere to go
but low grade mind,
and what got you worked up over me – anyway?
Who am nothing that I can see – really – or want to hear,
not even The Odes to Joy and Spring, I’m no Vivaldi,
want no noise now.
I’ll keep me covered;
Uh – huh.
In Cahoots
I have no need of macrocosmic drama,
the soaps and shoot-em-ups of flat screens,
my country venue hosts a pastoral passion play every day.
The mountain lion and the lamb – what a jam!
For the sheep – who will weep?
The jaguar and the jackrabbits –
Meat eater’s habits, hares must bear –
Raptor’s eerie – hairy balls of woodrat mummies share -
makes ‘em aware.
The oil and water of natural order,
life’s blood pumps in living, loving, trying, dying.
“Shantih, shantih – Peace that surpasseth all understanding.”
The dark blue radiant sea of the unseen world – immaculate, beyond the
scum,
makes me gasp at glimpsing – wish to have leapt in, and swum.
of infinite Compassion.
fly over the alfalfa patch,
Cannabis Medicago - high in vitamin A,
they say - that makes it tonic,
plant eaters grow fat and healthy.
The dove rest in cactus scrub, and coo.
Beasties of the man-formed field,
grasshoppers and leaf-cutting ants, snails, spiders and worms,
stealthily, industriously, trail along the ditch,
the spring water channeled to work men’s will.
And we – have teamed up
with the burro – who brays to mock boredom –
and the fate that let his witch wife curse him
to reincarnate as an ass.
The friendly cur, obstreperous with strangers,
awaits his chance to be human, already knows some of the bad manners.
The reliable rooster, symbol of dawn and virility,
has no clue to other worlds – plenty of pullets to chase in this one.
Ganesh, that lucky Hindu behemoth, has found a place here, in mind,
the elephant power of mammoths in collective unconscious
far from Africa, far from India, we know them all –
the archetypes – all allied in enmity even:
we’ve joined the tycoon coon, the dilettante loon,
the coots and the owls,
the coyote who howls and prowls.
We’re all in cahoots – Toots – we’re political pals.
Animal nature bound in scent and sound,
in flight and seed, bumbling beetle and buzzing bee,
we quail in coveys and covens, each covets their own burrows and ovens.
Informed by the radiant darkness of the holy Shekinah,
her emanation of lower realms, queen of elves and fairies,
we come to the meeting, the nectar of the greeting,
the sharing of the eating,
the dancing of the corn maidens risen from mud,
the dancing in luscious ears like breasts with milk of honey.
Mammals unite, songbirds sing as the Ad Hoc Hawk cruises in;
all animate animals animate, respire and conspire,
nefesh – spirit of animal realms, contentment and vigor.
The very water from the rocks
anoints chieftains from feathered and raven-haired flocks –
for this day, at this place to lead
the frenzied race and races
in appropriate niches, to scratch what itches,
and none speak of good nor guilt
but for peril tilt their wary heads and listen, watch and warn.
Many manners roar, peck mortal orders,
families fluid in convivial spaces,
heirs of tamed rages of past ages.
So, don your suits and ties, my dandy guys
(or whatever is this year’s fashion – or coats of many colors),
and lasses your dresses
(and mind your beautiful breeze-blown tresses)
We’re all in cahoots:
we are the elect
we are the alive.
Datura Moon
The Ram -
has wandered
from the meadow,
over the wall
of stone.
Hear the old Bull bellow
a melancholy
monotone.
The water cuts – for ages,
beside the
firestone,
when dancing's in the pines,
and smoke's of distant - hell.
Wildroses, a nest of skunks,
and datura -
bush vine blossoms;
hell's bells the dangerous weed
The arrow comes with awesome speed!
The wounded Ram runs
by snowmelt
river - runs
through salt
cedar and cane;
He is gone from the Hunter -
but not from the arrow.
The Ram breathes and bleeds,
unblinking in the lap of a cottonwood,
by willow.
From his side – burrowing
Shaft – transfixes his mental –
sinking.
Gambell's quail and tassel-eared
squirrels
scurry amid the fore-boding,
chipmunks and tree lizards
maintain
sanctimony.
But flies –
have no such decorum.
The old Bull, commiserates,
switches his
tail, and grazes on.
Sundown
the Yellow Eye
FIRE
fishes silver -
in the lavender
lake,
blackbirds
jump up
in the stubble
field,
twilight
is
coming!
In the Beginning
On the
bridge this morning,
standing alone
watching
the spillway
and feeling
about you;
I found some
of your tears
inside
of me.
Coots on
the spillway
were
pecking at algae,
and racing
downwater.
I wish I could
say -
roses.
Please, bring
me
the rest of
your tears,
and I will cry
them.
Adobe
My given dream,
ramshackle camp,
anchored by ringing stones,
grey on black,
by midnight tan
of sleeping grasses.
Latent things,
and forgotten beings,
participate.
Such a GIFT!
To abide quietly
in a place of great calm.
The Earth has no shame -
in being loved by me.
The Rebels
when free from
fear
and hunger -
most men's
minds
turn away from
insurrection.
Bubba’s Castle – the nickel tour
Of the many mansions in my Father’s Kingdom
the one I live in is sort of strange –
anachronistic, even, at times,
may not even scan.
If feels good to work some every day,
to catch meanings like fishes,
flesh of salads and oil of charms.
Every so often it feels good
to sort through the ancient armory,
to handle the old swords and shields,
spears and halberds,
to make sure they rust not,
are sharp and ready.
* * * * *
Behind that door is the Junkery.
Don’t go in there.
it’s banal as the banshee of a bandicoot,
with ferocity of mind that consumes
the essence of time,
even the good stuff is sad.
* * * * *
That’s the pantry, very nice buns.
The coolest thing since hot pants ,
the coccyx tattoo – belted way low
showing some of it, and the belly button, too.
* * * * *
Out back
in the Coach-house, we keep
a beagle, a bugle,
and a crippled eagle.
Dove and Love come and go.
I tend to the racing pigeons
at the dove-cote over there,
send messages to town by pidgin post.
The peacocks strut their stuff on their own time,
nest with the pea-hens in the Oak trees.
* * * * *
The well wishing well –
this thought sealed to kiss you.
* * * * *
The neighbor’s gardener grows dope,
must be union, they won’t fire him.
Of all the queer paths
Narcissus saw reflected
In his rear view mirror –
I wished a flash to turn to ash
his death metal strumming.
Yeah, I’m wary of contemporary,
it’s not no way modern or correct
to fill the empty sack of hate with anger,
is not good for me any way they do it.
The Boss says leave to each his groan and moan,
but dog doodle do –
and boom-box assault by walk-by bass thug –
I’d fire him quick – refuse to choose
to freely hear – nary a scrap – of rap.
* * * * *
You’ve seen the front hallway.
In the sitting room, we’re fresh out of fools.
You may sit there.
I sometimes think
that the beginning
was a wink
that caused a wrinkle
in space called time,
and at the end –
a blink – I think.
* * * * *
Well, there is lots more,
but right here there is no space nor time;
therefore, all possible universes are filled with
ease –
with plenty left over to wrap you tight in hugs
and hold you close
before you have to go.
After the Storm
Goodness gracious sakes alive!
The woes of wondrous
throes of thunderous
annunciation of new dawn.
Dazzle dares the frazzled hairs,
the chuckle bares the bruised
knuckle
as suckled shots of wine
find their morning mind.
Old boys made men still play,
but sometimes
shamble through induced dotage,
grumble at the potage
the gnomes brought home,
bum desires behind layabed eyes,
Sheppard Lee or Billy the Kid
in tattered top-hat,
looking for a near-dead,
the wounded of whimsy’s wars.
The older ones know better,
they are hard at work, at coffee,
rocking in a front porch chair.
