against
earthly
debit

note! a well-strummed lyre
to cheer those gathered
round the devil’s fire
 
might earn one credit
standing strong and tall
’gainst earthly debit
 
’nough to prompt the fates
to push one’s entry
past yon pearly gates
 

hungry, I went on the lookout
in the neighborhood
for a barbecue cookout
 
finding none,
I went looking elsewhere
for another one
 
that was not there,
which was not good

 

The ripple on the horizon,
the imperceptible start.
The wave comes closer,
the wave reaches higher.

Now it’s upon him,
upon the tiny surfer.
High the wave reaches,
it towers over,
it gains a crown,
a boiling white crown,
and this great monster,
cold, cruel, curving,
picks up the surfer
and is smitten a blow,
a great white gash across its chest.
In attack the wave rears higher, higher,
higher still.
The surfer rides destruction safe to shoulder.

The wave curls over,

What we need
is another F*cking French Revolution
right on Hollywood and Vine,
and in the midwest.
What we’re missing
is Bolshevism,
is the fire in our bellys.
What we have
is glassy - eyed stares,
oooh, "that’s hot."
What we need
are the muskets, and knives,
and the wooden guillottine.
Assemble it,
set it up on Times Square.
Louise and Marie
had nothing on us
and our electronic lobotomy,
if the poor bastard had the internet,
and our pill called entertainment
he’d have kept his head.

The most dreadful thing I have seen in my life,
worse than the horrors of war or famine
was the look on my best friends face when his mother didn’t recognise him.
Now my mother is beginning to forget
and I am scared
 so scared.

In my dreams you yet live.
Smoky tendrils cover our battlefields.
Young men bent and broken before our time.
.
Smiling faces frozen in time, keep some part of my soul still young.
Was it a sword or Whistling Ninety Nine that broke you, and shattered our line?
.
Acidic deathly green fingers caught some of us in those shell holes of Flanders.

I have 85 weeds
which have creeped through
the surface of my driveway
and around its perimeter.
Another hundred or so
have grown from a thin layer of soil
which has appeared over the asphalt,
as if by magic.
And so on Sunday,
after three years in my house
I began my chemical warfare,
in an effort to rid them.
I am a lazy man,
it has taken me this long.
At first, I thought I could use these weeds
to my advantage.
When I was chef at the Grovewood
I would toss dandelion weeds with lemon,
vin catto, greek olive oil,

I believe in utopia -
yay -
I believe in simple pleasures -
in utopia -
yay -
I believe in logic.
In heaven I believe you -
yay -
I believe in Johnny Walker.
I believe in a red label -
yay -
I believe in Southern Comfort.

my
word
of
holy
caution

think of God's advance in years, I say,
when setting down yourself to pray;

that p’raps He’s turned life’s page
and come hard to hear in His old age.

oh, heed my cautionary word:

though you may think the thought absurd,
there may be more than hell to pay.

there’s risk in mumbled, unclear prayer 
that finds God's ears but poorly heard …
by God or any passing bat or bird.

when those words you choose---hey-hey!---

’Tis overnight
that pinkish cherry buds
white to blossom flare …
so magically …
to wisely scent good
morning’s sultry air.
’Tis marvelous, I do think,
those blooms so stay me
posing here in awe …
to cherish them, you know,
so awfully terribly
much, withal.

I stand here marveling,
agog,
all lost in morning’s
wonder fog.
Oppressive awe, its daze
within, fills me past the sky.
It makes me crave to fly.
’Tis all the wonder
I can bear.

Oh, my!

I spy a bee
abuzz on blurry wing arrive …