Fast Feast

My right holds bird, my left, cranberry sauce,
The turkey, relish each move hand to hand,
One bite, three "Pass the stuffing"'s, voices cross,
The plates in flight seem not to stop and land.

Plates burgeon, rimming full of hours spent
In dicing, ricing, basting, care and toil,
Then, FLASH! Potatoes downed, drinks chugged, flesh rent
The burglars to their lairs digest their spoil.

How does this orgy value labor giv'n
From open heart, with hands so much to bear?
How many hours from your breast are riv'n
By furied gnashing teeth, no thought, no care?

My brain is stuffed with dismal thoughts like these-
The hell with it! I'll go and learn Chinese!

Renewal

With wondering eyes I love you as a child,
Yet passion bursts the bounds of bodies twined.
No words the purity of thoughts defiled,
We laugh, we wink, we form a common mind.
Though God's great gift makes lovers' heartbeats wild,
With wondering eyes I love you as a child.

The dew from lotus flowers in the sun
Infused in every breath you gasp with me
Sweet liquid on your brow resembles spun
Condensed sweet nectar, ready to flow free.
Each clench, each kiss has Natures grace inclined
While passion bursts the bounds of bodies twined.

With fifty words the other understands,
A wink, a giggle, push, touch, point, and look
Make sense anew; our glossary expands.
Each minute writes a brand new children's book.
With beauty, joy, and impishness thus piled,
My wondering eyes must love you as a child.

Can grammar schoolmates flashing word-cards who
With every gain in language laugh out loud,
Be ageless lovers, naked forms askew?
A love across the sea with youth endowed!
There wondering eyes will love you as a child,
When dimming passion yet warms bodies twined.

Shiny Marble Waves

rippling gold black white
place and time at once at war
a rose blossoms forth
marble buffed to shimmering frozen
tides time plexing - Magic! you appear

Ciommuning With the Day

caressed by sheets
she senses satin yet unaware
that her skin, her fingers, the patina of the sculpture
she was born in
are the sensors
eyelashes like barometers
sense the lightness of the morning

a quick rub into the pillow
crosses the lamina of mighttime
opens her face to light sound air
muscles flex shoulders spread thighs extend

who am the I that receives this day
what do I long for before life blocks the way

Eyelash whiskers feelthe crisp air
Summer languor long squeezed out
Toes check for November chill
All senses say "This is a different day."
this is a late fall play day

her body calls impatiently to her soul
playmate is ready
choose my shoes shorts tops
celebrate the late fall sun with cutoffs
and too big too short sweat shirt
"Let me drink in the garden
Let me massage myself with the woodland sun"
every cell anxious to play
hooky today

Dreams of Blood and Maggots

hello Serena
feeding remembered
only you care
purring echoes off close-in walls
round table morphs to irregular
polygon of papers homeless items.
Meds among themaybe

dreams of blood and maggots
cat food isn't kosher
Nor the mouse you laid on my pillow
but Thank You, Hero Cat
ramen noodles cereal safe once more

scraps scream ignored from indoor-outdoor carpet
milk spills on kitchen floor
this poem is written bills unpaid
mop stands like advice ignored

La Cigua de Nuestras Palmeras

(How do you make Blogger.com do Spanish characters? Also, I could use some help with my Spanish, both idiomatic Dominican and general).

The subject is a young artist who lives in a shack on the beach in the D. R., who gets a full scholarship to an unnamed US art conservatory. This song is the merengue dance number at the end of the first act. Notes: the "cigua palmera" is a cute, unassuming little dovelike bird, whose main distinction is being the national bird of D. R. When Dominicans party, they "van de parranda", and they might wind up at a "bachata" unless they leave the island - then it's a fiesta. "Come what may" in Dominican is "salga pato o gallareta" (whether aduck or a chicken comes out)!!!!!!!!!!!

Verse 1:

La arena en tu pincel sentimos en los dedos,
Coloques la luz y las sombras in los flores de rosales.
En Nueva York cantaron las mujeres con nuestras voces,
Incluso si todavia hueles - a pan~ales!!

Chorus:

Pinta, pinta las estrellas en el cielo,
Colore a las nubes un rayo dorado,
Vuele, nuestra cigua y nuestras esperanzas -
Y planten para ti palmeras en los calles.

Verse 2:

Oye! Celebre, vamonos de parranda!
Pintad una pauta con pies bailandos.
Armed la suerte y esperanze con cada pata,
Bebed, bailad, celebremos a bachata!

Verse 3:

Hasta que segun encontremos de nuevo,
En barrio de Nueva York o en tu "jet" privado,
Famoso o pobre, salga pato o gallareta,
Beberemos, bailaremos, pasaremos a bachata!

Designer at Work

They're $till ba$tard$ but that doesn't stop a lotus flower from beginning its bloom...

let them see her as I do
make the clear shadowy filigree
soften but not hide
****
that if she chooses
only kana for the things she holds dearest

the Gobi at night
mountains coupling through a **** wall
bouganvilla squeezing through cracks

woven in her own soft script
black satin buttons let her adjust
what of her breasts can reach out to touch us.

black weaver's yarn
knitted into the shape of a Sin
kana for heart, hebrew for wilderness
filled with little string dumplings glistening contents
all to decorate, not conceal
what, underneath, so perfect, begs to shine
with each breath the whole ***** ****es
to bring beauty to the world.

(F)our decades have left few marks on your belly
suffering loss for filling its longing
peeking out from underneath the dark silken scrim
it calls out to the ones it mourns
saying, "You live on in me."

(S)ilky abdomen cascades gracefully into
smooth thigh blessed with the perfect tan
seamless glory bringing summer's hot tan passions
into winter.
no thread dare challenge this beauty
the only one needed thin soft black on golden brown
enters and exits the breast weave unnoticed

let the woven density vary only with the risk
tightening into the phrase we utter at the height of our passion
gasped screamed stammered
not a cover for the parts it shades
Not a cover
Just a blessing

Death by a Thou$and Cut$

(if you are the first to follow this blog, you'll notice that this is only my second poem, other than the rap, that uses punctuation. Baseball predates e e cummings, to whom I owe the realization that the words must stand on their own merit, so I abandon the unconventional convention here. Also, whenever the Yankee$ are referenced, all "s"es, including in the word "suck", are $la$hed.)

A child, ball in hand,
Waits for a hero to emerge,
The smell of sawdust and tobacco
Fresh on hands larger than a
Little League catcher's mitt.
Betrayed, he mourns
As his own child consoles him,
"Daddy, they're just in it for the money."

Scourge of youth!
Grievous void of childhood dreams,
$ucked and ever $ucking,
Long after the last breath of pure hope
Di$appear$ in your maw.
$tealing $andlot $ummer$
San Antonio, Pittsburgh, Kansas City,
Detroit, Cleveland, now Philly -

Henry Hud$on, you can't have it!
The mounting mi$ery your billion$ bring
To a world acro$$ your $tinking, fetid water
Fails to quench the unquenchable
Inferno blazing white hot in the hearts
Of fans, who pawn the dreams of youth
To pay for your parade!

A Typical Day

This rapid-fire narrative comes from a friend of mine who teaches in the School District of Philadelphia, and with whom I'm working on a musical. It took him five minutes to write, and has stuck with me for weeks:

I go out to my car for lunch and as i leave the stairs into the main lobby i hear teen boys screaming, kicking, punching. I hear a teacher try to break it up and then I hear a thud. On my last step I see four thrity something athletic adults rip past me climbing the stairs in full pursuit. but it's when i open the main lobby entrance doors to Edicson High school that I see
and feel things that will be forever etched in me: Screaming up the student grass walkways I move aside as two phila police SUVS baelry halt in time from not hitting the lobby'e exterior garden wall. Three cops in each SUV, lights, sirens, bullet proof vests, holstered guns run up the stairs that I had just left. And then I watch amazed as i count iwith pride, adulation 13 more flashing police cars, at least 2 men in each, fit and trim, most with vests, pour into the school. One officer drops his gun, stops to pick it up, places it in his holster and proceeds. and then, unbelievably, three philly police vans, used for riot duties I guess, add another 15 cops into the fray. my first reaction is that there are no more cops left to protect
the city. I notice the older cops looked really piossed off and have their billy clubs out and raised as they climb the stairs. The cops with the vests seem to be special operations p[olice, they are the quickest, strongest and most well protected. They seem to give the orders. I watch from the parking lot and count 18 police cars, suv's and riot vans. after ten minutes I leave the parking lot and knock on the main doors. A school police lady sees who I am and let's me in. she tellls me there are over 50 policemen in full battle gear all over the school.there are gang fights errupting in hallways, classrooms, stairways. she tells me that
a roving detachment from one gang is picking pout and beating unprotected teens from a rival gang. I hear the principal over the intercomm. He talks to the teachers. He tells us that the school is in a lockdown. studentsa outside of a class during a lockdown may be arrested. ..certainly suspended at the least. I walk into my class to find the students excited but calm. ( I share a class with another teacher). The girls tell me that i missed all the fun. I am surprised at what they say. the bravest of the girls confess that the policemen ( I'm guessing the special op guys, are soooo sexxy. the bravest girl tells me, and the rest of the class for that matter too, that she wouldn't mind spending a nighrt in jai;l with one those policeman.
I ask what happenned and the smarter of the girls tells me it is a fight between a black gang and a latino gang, I go to the library and write this e-mail. People talk about the phillies, the weather. The cops are gone. Things are quiet. Only the principal cares anymore. he hopes the local reporters don't come.