Somewhere Out In America: Poems in search of the green light
Somewhere out in America
Infinite hope and women wearing white…sounds like summer to us.
Reserved judgments clash with infinite hope
and women wearing white
huddle in the derelict doorways of the past.
It’s raining general all over Chicago
streaking mascara and personality -
shadow-casting hazy, turquoise-blue phantoms -
Ceres exacts spectre-gray revenge
then leaves it
as it is.
-July 7, 2004
A Night Scene by El Greco
His own private nightmare, laid bare.
The saturated air of twilight
slides to the horizon and gravelly
crunches keep modernity at bay
Slurred speech and simple sugars
crash head-on with sunlit obscurity
Ticket scalpers cast your lots
and pick a number; my own private
nightmare is on display
Don’t forget your camera, we’ve got
life, death, and plenty of diet soda
to soothe your frayed synapses
Swerving in and out of reality
bile creeps up my esophagus
but birthday greetings help me
remain calm
-September 12, 2003
That Would Happen Very Soon
Ambrose Bierce delivers a blow but
purple mistakes brighten my life-line.
Steinbeck reflects on death
while I turn the page
and my childhood ends.
Bitterness unleashes its rapt attention
as Joyce and Kevorkian smoke
until quarter to three.
Eddie Vedder is oblivious to the world;
He sits in the corner
singing softly and softly singing.
Ladies and gentlemen,
check your pride at the door
We’re about to enter hellish humanity.
-July 11, 2003
You got that from Shakespeare, didn’t you?
Uncomfortable silence hangs in the air…
Purple-plastic white noise quickens,
blood oozes rather than flows,
noose tightens, context fades,
the freshly-cut blonde ponytail leaps
from the chalkboard window and the
conjured woman cuts through the
pink-plaid lightning storm.
Solipsistic children devour
deep-dish rock ‘n’ roll songs
while gum wrappers and granola bars
are its avatar and seal.
Uncomfortable silence hangs in the air,
Septimus hurls himself out the window,
gets caughts, (we don’t even notice),
and he has dominion over all.
Excuse me, that’s interesting
What did you say?
-March 24, 2003
Delaying the inevitable
Growing up and into a life beyond bars with darts
Tightly-wound trip wires of illumination and
Shivers of autonomy falling upon me,
far into her eyes fearing -
while I trembled; fumbling, leering,
Catching myself, herself, skipping every
floodgate promise and speak-easy smile,
Fifteen hours and a French vanilla pick-up line
later - how much later? - I lost count,
the human voices have not yet awakened us.
