Steve
I have a friend
who has a head
we go places
because he is a magic giant
A magic giant
with a head
a heart
& a mind
which on occasion
climbs inside me
to work the controls
pointing me onward
the direction
of the up-elevator
robots stop and rust
without magic giants
with heads
hearts
& minds.
Mallory’s Bar & Grill
When I was young
I was truly young & spent my days
on a sandblown dune
Answering the gulls
victim of the sun, gathering castoff wood
by the foam till noon.
All my friends
from the other world, built their lives
on a split-level hill
Amid two cars & a dog
feeding the brain, seduced by its speed
forgetting the sky
Cursing the snow
cursing the rain, laughing & pursuing
their ten-carat dreams
Climbing
the crushed-stone serpent’s back & damning it
all at Mallory’s Bar & Grill.
Mallory’s Bar & Grill
cars lie rusting in stacks, rubber & oil stain
the serpent’s back
Houses tumble
as a natural whim as brains glow bright
& masters grow dim.
The dune shifts
before my eyes, hair graying, skin going leather
but still the sea
Offers wood to me
the gulls cry, ‘Old man, our living was good.’
our roof was the sky our house that sandy hill.
Laugh on my friends
of the other world, your house & stars
were Mallory’s Bar & Grill;
Lift your glasses to the sun
lift your glasses to the sea, & gather at my gravesite
as the wind & sand bury me.
New Years Eve
I arrived at nine
& already Ids lay
shattered and broken
in pieces on the floor;
They were dragging
the old man
kicking & screaming
out the door;
you would think he’d go willingly
A drink …
a kiss …
the blast of a horn;
no reason to suspect
this child to be any different
once it’s born
A Song For Judy
Judy always liked to dance
Most nights when I’d come over
I would surprise her pirouetting
Before the mirror
One yellow spring day
Judy fell in love with an accountant
Who only liked to dance
When he was drunk
I never saw Judy after that
But I would picture her longing
For the crystalline ballroom
And the hush of all those crinolines
Now when I walk alone through country fields
I imagine Judy spinning from my grasp
Dancing ever dancing waist-deep
In tall grass and yellow flowers
Then too I think of that accountant
In some gray convention town
Laughing and drinking with an overnight wife
While Judy comforts a crying child.
An Anthology Of Perception 