The wrong road?

I don’t know what

Salvation means

As I sit on the train

From Journal Square

To New York,

Maybe it means

Forgiveness

Although that seems

Too strong a brew

To swallow,

When most of life

Comes out of a series

Of wrong turns

We never meant to take,

And can’t take back,

Maybe instead

Salvation means

Finding clues to

That path we meant

To take in the first place

And getting some place

Other than where

The wrong turns

Wanted us to go

And even if we

Don’t get to the end
of that so called right road

We know we’re better off

Than if we hadn’t

Made the effort to

Get off the wrong road

Before it was too late.

Forever Young (monologue)

I notice the odd looks the moment I get out of the cab.

I live in one of the hippest communities in New York City – a place most folks would kill for but is so exclusive, murder is not an option – eternal youth is.

Fortunately modern science provides for us where Mother Nature fails and I am wealthy to have received an implant when I was still in my teens.

I don’t understand the frown until I get up into my co-op and see the wrinkles.

I’m only 101 for Christ’s sake!

I’ve heard people at 200 sometimes showing signs of wrinkles, but no one at my age.

So I plug in and check the small screen that verifies my worst fears: implant malfunction.

I’m in a panic.

I call Phil and leave a message, saying I can’t make it for our usual drinks.

The last person I need seeing me in this condition is Phil.

He and I bet when we got our implants on which of us would out live the other.

The one who wins inherits the other’s fortune.

I always figured I would never die and that someone somewhere would come up with an implant that would defy death itself so that neither one of us would lose the bet.

So I call the doctor, begging for him to see me right away.

It’s life or death, I tell him, little realizing everybody says that to avoid the weeks of waiting.

I also do not yet realize how true it is this time.

A pair of sunglasses hides the worse of the damage, though before putting them on I noticed that the wrinkles seem even worse than a moment earlier.

I tell myself, I’ll be all right; all I need is a minor adjustment.

I get to the doctor and he tells me the implant is failing and that it can’t be replaced.

It happens from time to time, he says.

When it does, a person rapidly reverts to his real age – then dies.

I see – the examination room mirror – the wrinkles spreading across my face like a brush fire.

This isn’t fair.

Old age isn’t supposed to pop in on a person like this.

I counted a living another 200 years at lease.

Worse, I can hear Phil’s mocking laugh in my head and I want to murder him for it.

The doctor says I could try some of the alternative therapies such as surgery or drugs.

He gives me the address of a local clinic.

I hurry out, and oddly enough see Phil in the waiting from.

He pretends not to see me even though I know he does.

This is a relief.

The clinic hands me more bad news.

The surgery, which might slow the implant deterioration, won’t work with me.

So I’m stuck with drugs.

This means I won’t grow older at a rapid rate, but I won’t revert to my younger self.

Except for plastic surgery, I’m stuck with the wrinkles I have and those can expect to get worse over the next few years.

But what will I do with my life?

Where will I live or work.

My co opt will toss me out at the first sight of my wrinkles.

My boss won’t want an old dodger like me handling his accounts.

The clinic assures me that places exist for people like me, communities designed to handle an aging population.

It shocks me to learn that implant failures are more common than any of the manufacturers let on.

With no other options left to me, I make the move – only to find Phil living there already.

As sad as my situation is, Phil’s presence makes me feel better.

He’s still not sure which one of us will bite the dust first, and I’m glad.

Then one morning with my back feeling as if someone has broken it over night, I get up and seek out Phil only to find his room empty.

At first, I’m elated.

I outlasted that son of a bitch after all.

I think about his vast wealth and make plans for it.

I’ll be able to keep up my treatments and maybe hold off the inevitable for a little longer.

Eventually, the truth seeps in.

Phil was my best friend and I miss him already.

Life just isn’t the same without him – especially since I always thought we would spend eternity together, forever young, and not rotting in our graves.

Hand of God

The rain trickles

Down these stucco walls

Like silver worms

Crawling through

Deep cuts

Morning moans

At the windows

A memory of ghetto

I spent a life time

To escape

Bustling buses

With beeping backup

Compete with bird song

for this soundtrack of city

where nests cling

to drain pipes

and old men

sleep in the street

rain sweeping

across all

like the hand of God,

and the drip down

this stucco wall

filling spaces

that God misses

inside me

and out

Tiger shark

(from Imitation Nature)

At times, even he grew afraid, of the sea and its dark places.

Others feared him and his power, even envied his row after row of razor-sharp teeth, his sandpaper hide, his jaws that spread wide enough to devour anything he chose to eat.

But they never understood his curse, his need for constant motion, the swishing bubbles and the endless circling to keep him from falling.

Through motion alone, he kept breathing. Through motion he forced water through his gills.

They feared him because he constantly killed. He had a fire inside of him the water could not quench – only blood and shredded flesh.

Others moved away when they saw him, small things even scurrying on the ocean bottom as if they might be next.

He seemed so majestic when he passed over them, leaving his broad shadow across the bottom like a twin.

But he had no voice the way the lion had, and could not roar, living his life in silence – perhaps even more terrifying to others who did not always know when he came near.

They did not understand his hunger or his need to move, and perhaps they thought him some evil god they could appease with prayer – if only they could find the right prayer, not knowing no prayer would save them if he chose them.

He was a glitter of silver in the water, a stirring tail, an open mouth, a snout always sniffing ahead for the scent of blood, swooping down like an eagle might, rising with his victim clenched in his jaws.

But he was always hungry – at no moment satisfied – and always fearful of falling into the darkness below from which he might never rise, always moving, circling, feeding, watching his own shadow for that day when he would no longer see it, and knew then, peace.

Deep in the valley

This trail stretches out it long finger

Pointing down the soft incline

Into the heart of a valley

Where trees have spread wide

Moved aside by the persistent

Strike of ancient tribes

In their persistent hunt

The sky drips wet

With the remnants of rain

And a suddenly exposed sunset

Each drop dripping

Off extended limbs

As the trees lean in

Gray given to blue

That rapidly grows

Darker and dim

With the orange gleams

Of another dying day

Along the ground

The points of pebbles

Sprout up like

Living things

From between

The yellowed hair

Of dying winter grass,

Each with roots

Into his sacred brown soil

Over which we stroll,

The unnoticing wanderers

Who seek comfort

In the warmth of

This deep valley

Marching down into it

Down into the dying day

Down into the labored night

Down into the place

Where all life sprouts

Hearing ever before it

The flowing river

And its promise of life.

On the ice

They mostly come by night

Light-haired strangers

Brawling and squawking

At the shore

For the precious bits

Of sustenance

The old oaks

And tired elm offer

Ruffled feathered

Philosophers who

Ponder dawn

From their flapping lofts

Complaining hotel guests

About lack of hot water

Or towel or some other

Minor inconvenience

Most can live without,

Or stool-warming barflies

Glaring around at who

They can sucker into

A refill,

Some never land

But glide for miles

Streaking beneath

Snow clouds

While others

Peck at each other’s hearts

For apparent fun

Or wreck others minds

For profit

Mostly, they dance alone

Squat upon their haunches

Without permanent partners

Eyeing everyone

That has more than they do,

Especially those

Who have partners,

To swish through this

World of insufferable reeds

Love-tapping beaks

That gets them through the lack

Of heat of this winter river,

While the crabby loners

Wonder where their lives

Went wrong, snapping up

Those grains of cracked corn

Strangers give or they can

Steal, always organized

Even when the cracks

In the ice

Eventually

Consume them.

Reckless and weary

The road from here to there

Is filled with woe,

Cold miles of early morning

Caught in a harried pre-dawn dash

To keep from disaster,

Warm weather evaporating like mist

As February flexes it muscles

And drags back brutal air

My hands aching despite my gloves

The unnatural feel of leather

Against the steering wheel I hold

Car headlights blinking through trees

As I see once more the distant shape

Of the New York Skyline

Limbs to either side of me,

Bent and bare like masts

Of sail boats in the harbor

Across the Hudson from where

World Trade Center towers,

Once stood,

I ache for the smell of the sea

After so many days smelling mountains

I hear the imaginary echo

Of seagulls crying in their winter despair

Birds like me who cling here

When the more sensible among us

Fly south for these brutal months

And like me, the birds

Rise and fall with winter winds

Taking a peek at the distant sun

Over the mountain peaks

Boat masts and skyscrapers

But not warmed by the sights

Needing something more

To warm our fingers on.

Bitter sweet?

It is not what

we dream, but how

Pressing the pulp

out of the fruit

Bitter or sweet,

So we devour it all,

Better bitter than bland

Or nothing at all

The fake wake we mistake,

Unreal for real

When nothing is real

Except for what we feel

I ache for a take in life

I won’t mistake for fake

It is not night’s arrows

That make dream ache

But the darts of daylight

We mistake for waking

When we are not,

And it is in the midst (mists)

We miss real for unreal

Dream for not dream

Love for not love

Wake for not wake

When all is dream

And none else

Matters.

So smooth

So smooth,

It soothes the soul

Even in this searing heat

No sun block blocks the sun

That comes from the inside

Only this, the bliss I miss

So soothing a kiss

Too dangerous to take

It all at once

A drip dribbled onto

My parched tongue

In a Chinese torture

So sweet

I can’t help

But reach for it all

One drop dropped

Never enough

Always too much

Only to burn me more

Dripping drops

Into my open mouth

I can ca never

Get for myself.

So smooth.

The carnal sin

I hear it in the wind

A voice of love

Or lust or some

Other ache

I can’t resolve

The whisper of it

In the dead of night

Love after even

Lovers have

Embraced sleep

The call from

The great beyond

Where all carnal

Things cease,

An ache that has

No root in bones

Or soft

Flesh gone hard,

A feeling beyond

The mere plunge

Into dark

I hear it

Murmur my name

Telling me it

Is not gone,

That no bite of apple

Can cast us from

That golden bed

Where we could lay

Clutching each other

And not notice.

I hear that voice

Singing in the wind,

A song I can never

Resist, love from lust

Risen from a bitten apple,

The carnal sin

That is no sin at all.

Living with it

I didn’t pick and choose this

I got stuck in the eye

And can’t get it out

And don’t want to

This sliver of you

That pricked me

And sticks in me

Like a splinter

Struck too deep

To ever tear out

Without tearing

My heart out with it,

So live with it

And learn to live it

Because I can’t ever

Live without it.

Don’t forget to breathe

They say that death’s twin sister is sleep

So I don’t forget to breathe

I count butterflies instead of sheep

To sleep, perhaps to dream,

But never to mistake one twin

For the other

So I don’t forget to breathe

The wrong twin is the mean twin

The twin that takes you places

You don’t want to go

No dreamscape of easy escape

But that dark space where lost souls go,

So I don’t forget to breathe

But there is beauty in that dark twin

Just as there is beauty in the dark

Of night, a slumbering infant

Winged like cupid, crossed-legged

Yoga-posed, wreath of poppies

On its bare head

The reflected lamp of madam liberty

Upside down in the dark waters

Of this harbor of ours

As tempting a sleep

As a bite from Eve’s apple is,

Love’s embrace, our last embrace

And perhaps the last

Embrace we ever need.

But don’t forget to breathe

Lick

I lick the drip of sweat

From your lips

With the tip of my tongue

Amid the shift of hips

I miss most the kiss

With bliss

And the taste of blood

The bit lip

From shifting hips

A taste as fine as wine

Filling me fully.

Love is not blind

The rain patters on my checks

But I’m not crying,

Love isn’t blind;

it’s blindingly bright

Even in weather like this,

The river, the soft swell

Filling up each step as

I stumble along this path,

No destination except

Where I already am,

No thought except

To embrace this moment,

The warm breath of spring

That has not yet blossomed,

And may never

But always a bud

Waiting to burst

Full of the ache

Of anticipation

And the whisper of some voice

I can almost but not quite hear,

All life lingering

On the edge of a dream,

Those who love it

Need only listen to her song,

For deep in that voice,

Deep in the gurgle of the river,

Truth can be found,

And we spend a lifetime

Working out the harmony,

And love – even love of nature –

Is simply being there,

Waiting, listening

And breathing deep.

You have it all

You it all, every bit I can give

Not more than before but just as much

Any time you want, or just to live

A card shark with too many aces trust

Up sleeves to draw out with expert east

To hand you one each time you call

I’d stack the deck and still squeeze

Out every bit until you have it all

I’m not so proud to know I can be enough

To fill that deep, deep space you call a heart

But if I can I pump every bit of it up

Until you know I’ve done my part

For you it must be everything or not at all

So here I live on your beckoned call.

The impatience of being earnest

When it happens, it happens,

When it’s real, you know it’s real

The earnest yearning in the breast

You can’t resist

When love comes, it comes in a rush,
an over heated drive by, you can’t

Catch your breath from,

Or take the wait for it to happen

Again, or make it happen

When it must come when it comes

The tap of it knocks you to your knees

And you bleed from the need of it,

The gush flush against your face

From your heart’s race,

Your thoughts can’t keep pace of,

When it’s time, it’s time

And you can’t get it out of your mind,

The ache like a stake straight

Through the heart until it breaks,

Making it stop, then start

Only to rush and gush again,

It can never be enough,

This thing called love,

And you can never make it come

Until it comes

In a gush up inside you.

It is you

July 13, 1982

It isn’t the green leaves

Flapping on the brown bank ridge

Or the cold or the vivid

Blue sky outlined

In white fluff,

It is you,

The fire flicks

Its orange lips

And I sit silent

A gray haze

Bubbling inside me

As I wait for you

From time to time I think

I see your blonde hair

Floating among

The tree trunks

Your face highlighted

By lantern or flashlight

Along the twilight path

But it isn’t you.

You sit beside

A furious red fire

At some far camp site

A pink face calm

In the external haze of smoke

Full of light and laughter

You, a yellow glow

Among the flames

I am orange embers dying

Blue sparks strolling

To reignite,

Hoping to burst again

Into vivid flame

Knowing in my heart

Old flames rarely do

My fire smothered

In smoke

From feeding it

Too much green wood
or wet brown bark

My smoke staining

The purity of the blue sky

My fire needing more than

Desperation to thrive

It needs you

Tracks in the sand

It is not always

The sand storm

That kills you

In those dangerous

Times when

You walk in

The desert alone,

But what the

Sandstorm hides

The illusion

Of well-being

Cast before you

Like a mirage

So that you

Crave water

But eat dirt

And cannot

Tell the difference

For the dust

Cast in

Your eyes

The Narcissist in me

I stare into the reflection water

And see your face in the place

Where my face should be

Your lips instead of my lips

Your hips replacing me,

Me thinking as I stare

How being with you is not enough

Or even in your, the whole time

Wonder if it is possible to

Look out your eyes while

You look out mind

How different would it be

Trapped in your skin

Feeling what you feel

Seeing what you see,

Tasting the world’s wine

With lips that are not mine

My feet walking your shoes

My brain thinking your thoughts

Struggling your head or bed

Would I drown in this pool

Or realize the beauty there

I failed to see with mine own eye

And how much less a person

Would I become when thrust back

To view you as I always have

And how much more lonely

Having been so deep inside

And come back without you.

Where clouds may go

If this is all there is,

I’ll take it

Blue skies fluffed up

like a soft bed

sailing beyond my reach

to read like tea leaves,

making me ache

to be a sailor

with erect masts

to catch the stiff wind

instead I rise and fall

with the tides

settling for the lick of waves

upon this amazing shore

to touch the tips

of pointed stones,

and sometimes even

deep sea dive,

letting other men

go where I cannot

happy to be there at all

this amazing place,

this fading time,

all there is, or ever was

or ever will be,

a dreamscape

filled with whimsical clouds

all sailing beyond

where my fingers

can reach.

Stitches of rain

July 13, 1982

The morning sways

With currents of rain

Liquid

Dripping drop by drop

From rusting elbows

Of drains

The window is dark

With Brillo-faced clouds,

And steamed

With worry,

Another year, you think

And laugh, and close the shades

Another number

That marches up behind your name.

When you were young

You sewed them on,

Stitch by stitch

Marking sure they stayed fast

But like Penelope

You pause now, with prayer

Passing the night with pinchers

To pull them out

You weave no years

Inside of you

Nor stitched a numbered belt

Around your waist

Instead you watch

The June wind wind

Its weary wonders

Mixed with drips of undropped rain

The drains groan and grumble

The windows glaze

The morning comes again

And speaks of birth,

Birds chirping ponderously

From under the porch

Somewhere,

Tires swish on the road like waves

You wonder after them

As if after a wandering husband

But Odysseus is home

And Telemachos

Grows within you

Another storm

Some words to live by (from Poems from a Garden Wall)

(This was somewhat naive stuff I wrote when I was 23 years old)

May 14, 1974

I’m just too busy to cry right now so I guess I might as well laugh

It’s too late to say I’m sorry, perhaps it always was.

It’s too early for me to die, so I guess I’ll keep on living.

You made me mad; you made me cry; you made me do all sorts of terrible things; I’m trying to figure out what I did for myself.

If principle is all I have left, I’d better hold on tight before I lose that, too.

Passaic Street Blues

1

Rows of trees

Line 8th Street

Planted by hands

Not familiar

With this soil,

Living four families

in two room

cold water flats,

a half centuries

dead leaves falling

at our feet as

we walk passed

the house Hot Lips

lived in

before she made TV

her picture in every

Polish store

As prominent

As the Virgin Mary’s,

Local taverns

Holding parties

To celebrate even

The reruns,

This being 1989

And her father

Already two years

In the grave

Leaving one

Whole floor

Of her house vacant

A gap even the trees

Can’t fill,

Though the prostitutes

Stroll by it

With the same reverence

The nuns hold

Passing a church,

Mumbling about

“our Loretta,”

With some even

Remembering those

Rare days when

She came to visit

Her family,

Surrounded by

Henchmen

And body guards,

Staring down

The line of trees

As if suspicious

Even of the changing leaves

2

They screech

At the lightest thing

At mice crawling

Under the door,

The wind rattling

Panes of glass,

One spirit so small

They could crush it

Between forefinger

And thumb

And not burn a calorie,

While no one

Even remotely

Understands the wind.

Fear imprinted

On their genes,

Panicking over

The inevitable call of death,

Calculating when

And if

The cancer gets them,

While leaping up

With each squeak

The mouse makes

As if these are one

In the same.

3

What do you give

A dying man

When life have

Brought him down

For the final count,

Bed pans banging

Instead of the boxing bell,

Strangers prodding each

Hole to find out

Where the disease

All started,

Instruments hooked

Into him to

Calculate when

The final moment

Comes,

Odd faces with

Raised brows

Watching for

When that spirit

Rises out of him,

As if to feed,

And he refusing

To let go,

Not wanting to

Give in,

And give them

The satisfaction

Of knowing

He got beat

By blows from

The inside out,

An opponent

With no boxing gloves

Only the ability

To multiply

In parts of him

He can’t see.

4

We flock like geese

When we see it come

Clutching our rosary beads

Against what we can’t see,

Stressed to death

In fear of the cold,

This life the only life

Any of us know,

Tempting fate

But never so far as

To give up faith,

Even when the clock tick

Tells us what the doctor

Won’t, but we guess

And huddle

And hope for the best,

Wondering about the sleep

That comes after a long

Or even short life

And what we might

Wake up to

As this thing

Eats at us,

Will the world

Be green,

The way spring is

After winter,

And will we in our

Sleep feel not cold

Or hard or lonely,

But warm, and immune

To passing time?

5

She was the lady

In the health food store

We flocked to

For immorality,

That shop a hop

Skip and jump

From Passaic Street

As she peddled

Vitamins and herbs

The way Marcus Welby

Did pain pills,

A sure scenario for

Disaster we thought

Even before

Her grieved husband

Informed us

About the surgery

In the brain

No herb could reach,

As he shuffled

Early-aged

Among the rows of

Bottles out of which

He could find

No magical cure,

For her

Or for the loss he felt

When he thought

They’d found

Nirvana in a bottle,

Now, all he sees in each

Is the image of his dead

Wife, Mary,

The rosary beads

She kept behind

The register

She called

Her insurance policy,

He didn’t know

How to cash in.