Confined to
meager living
quarters by
insidious disease-
late in life-55-
he discovers
a facility
for creation-
primitive art
but original
all the same-
canvasses
stretched &
filled w/
wild colors
places & things-
objects like
no other
gradually
diminished by
Parkinson's-
before a final
draught of
poisoned bew
steeped for
the endless
night
for ralph RIP
Hangover Requiem
Broken voices speaking of black leather
jackets and motorcycle boots, twisted
heavy metal, vehicles undone, all the ess
curves taken at too high a speed, rain
slickened and oil stained, all the un-
controllable black ice skids that always
end against unforgiving stone walls,
embankments, metal guard rails and
all the lame voices expending their final
breathes trying to forestall the inevitable:
plush lined boxes, floral arrangments,
slow movements following the exacted
wrath of God, discordant solo notes
rocking the ages, hymns for all the reckless
ones dying too young.
Popeye's Yellow Frock
These last few years had been
unkind to this shipwrecked sailor
stranded on dry land, reduced to
eating soft foods since the last
of his teeth had rotted out and
all the barnacles had been scraped
off the top side of his brain leaving
nothing but flaked rust for thoughts
and dreams enabling this curious
selection of a girl's yellow frock
for an overshirt, one that did not cover
all the oil an garbage impressed
upon his jeans, his mis-matched
high top sneakers missing laces,
tongues, and the not quite closeable
zipper where it all almost hung out.
His jailhouse tattoos left over from
extended stays in the brig were fading
but you could still see crossed oars,
anchors aweigh engraved beneath
epileptic hula girls and sinking ships
sailing into a perpetually sinking sun,
his life draining away into a cesspool
of dimly recalled savage beatings
in ports of call and all those lost days
after, waiting to be recalled as an extra
for the on-site filming of Night of the
Living Dead XIV on the Schenectady
to Albany bus run for which he would
need no makeup.
Desert Sands
She sat twirling
her drink sipper
straw about in
her cocktail glass
staring out of bar
picture window-
who knows what
she was seeing?
Certainly not all
the mud & shit
& slush waves
being splashed
over sidewalks,
curbs, parked cars
& unwary ped-
estrains-no one
would look at
that for more than
a few seconds
unless they had to,
unless they were
seeing something
else: dream rivers,
tropic climates,
desert sands.
Bob Dylan at Elsinor (3)
On the parapets
well past dawn
no self-obscuring
fog-
dread portents
avenging angels
blackened storm
clouds
insisting a hard
rain's a gonna
fall
