Ode to smoking, in the style of Dorothy Parker

If I choose, and choose I do
to have a cigarette or two
and it's my smoking that you rue
well then, my love, to hell with you.

Travelogue

Compendium
Byzantium
Alone again at last
My time well spent
Under the tent
Where I break my fast
Each day the same
Replayed refrain
I eat, I drink, I snooze
The heat decays
Neural pathways
(Though that might be the booze)
I traveled far
By plane, by car
World history to see
But sleep away
Most of the day
Sir Laziness is me
Yet better still
This lack of will
Than bustling like a tourist
I instead avowed
To avoid the crowd
And be a travel purist
No café visit
Whilst in transit
To Mahmutpasa Bazaar
To buy some things
Some food, some rings
A gadget-like guitar
Which home once more
I’d only store
And surely never use
Preferred by me
Is memory
Than buying future refuse
I’m soon to leave
No plans achieved
I’m far too lackadaisical
But better spent
Was time in tent
Than scurrying nonsensical

Librarian

I saw his inward soul today
Beneath the outward stoic face
Which up to then was all I’d seen
Each button done, each hair in place.
More proper man I never saw,
So dignified and so austere.
Yet in him beats a heart so warm
Beneath the frozen hard veneer.
I dropped my book. He picked it up
And gently laid it on the stack.
I barely dared to raise my eyes
For fear he’d see how much I lack.
“You clumsy oaf!” I inward thought,
“This dapper man will surely shy
From fumbling arms and messy dress
And barren and alone you’ll die.”
But, then he stole my heart away
With secret grin as rare as gold.
A precious moment just for me.
A spur of hope to make me bold.
Throat locked, the words just would not come.
Until, “Thank you.” I meekly squeaked.
Flush-faced, I turned my head away.
As through my eye salt water leaked.
I feel so terrified I’ll die
Alone and withered on the vine
With head in book and house of cats
Until I’m laid in box of pine.
So self-defeating is this fear
Sweet dapper men all walk away.
“Shy one, shy one” of Yeats’ rhyme
I have become my own cliché.

9-12-01

smoke rises and the winds blow over Queens
the acrid stench surrounds the TV's carnage
my blisters unhealed
open sores from six miles in heels
the 59th Street Bridge parade
small reminders that sting even when
liquor decays the hazy memories
the phone keeps ringing
I'm okay, I'm okay, considering

We are all accounted for
Our little coterie
one was late to work, got off the train
hung over
to buy some asprin
walk outside to clear his head
small miracle that kept him whole

another quit his job
across the street
the week before
feel guilty feeling so lucky

we flick from channel to channel
reception is barely there
antennas somewhere in the rubble

eyes curiously dry, all of us
unable to take it all in
towers replaced
by a pillar of smoke on the horizon

For Daddy

On Father’s Day

The years go by and older I
Look back at what I’ve learned.
The things I’ve seen, places I’ve been,
And all the bridges burned.

The trips I took in life and book –
Have taught me quite a lot
But more it took (than life and book)
To get me where I’ve got.

From you and Mum, the basics come
And on which I have built:
The wit, the smarts, the drive, the heart,
A healthy dose of guilt.

Look back a ways, to early days -
Memories I treasure so:
The training wheels, my girlish squeals,
Of “Daddy, don’t let go!”

And next to you, I’d sleep right through
The end of Barney Miller.
My fears you’d quash when bugs you’d squash
Or spray with the roach killer.

You’d play guitar or drive the car,
And then we both would croon,
But with the beer and Tolan near
We rarely were in tune.

The give and take, the jokes we’d make,
The cribbage and the Scrabble,
The movie shows, my teenage woes
About which I would babble.

More recently a game we’d see
Some football and, once, hockey.
Billiards we play when I come to stay,
Though winning makes you cocky.

Politics debate – the difference great -
Our divergence of opinion.
You’ve seen me through maturation to
New Yorker from Virginian.

I cannot say, words can’t convey,
The things for which I’m grateful
And if I could this poem would
Be mailed by the crateful.

For through example you’ve shown me ample
Strength, warmth, and dignity.
Because of you, and Mummy too,
I’ve seen who I could be.

I’m not there yet, but don’t regret
The journey I am taking,
For you’ve shown me, though hard it be,
My life is my own making.

The gifts you gave, sacrifices made,
Have shown me what is Love.
So now I strive a life to live
That you will be proud of.

The years go by and older I
Can see how far I’ve gotten,
But further still I travel will,
Your lessons unforgotten.

Hail to the Chief

He thinks that he’s like Julius Caesar.
I think he’s more like Nero.
Playing while our cities burn,
Yet thinking he’s our hero.

But still, the “Liberal Media”
Is lax in its reporting
Pretending that the man’s at work
When actually he’s cavorting.

He’s traded in the fiddle
For a set of golfing irons.
He thinks that it’s “good business”
To chop down sacred environs.

He tells us that we’re safer
(Though some people plan to bomb us)
Because within his righteous mind
The apocalypse is upon us.

He tells us that his God
Has put him upon his throne.
And that the choice of life or death
Is his and his alone.

Those who voice another plan
Are called unpatriotic.
Believing in the Constitution
Makes us all quixotic.

His friends who own the voting booths
Will try to steal the ballots
And leave no trail of their deeds.
“Impartial” right wing zealots.

But if we disagree with them
The Court will have it’s way
And then another coup d’etat
Tomorrow or today.

I find it quite ironic
That he “builds” democracy.
For we live in a Republic
And he lost his “victory”.

The are no words exact enough
To describe all his disgraces;
The scheming and the leaks,
Service records he misplaces.

But Hail to the Chief
For our mission is accomplished,
And if you don’t agree with that
Ashcroft will see you punished.

Prostrate

Above a blackened sky: I
Stream through the abyss
Unplumbed
By men of your ilk
Free from the encumbrances
Of life’s everlasting why
Earthbound:
Misguided in my courses
Misshapen in secret places
I squirm in my skin
Quasimodo underneath
Unassuming above
Mistaken for normal
Whatever that means
Inside: I
Fly away from facile descriptions
No words can cage
The rage that age has brought
To light at
Innocence deconstructed
Words dry and arid
Like the dust of long dead corpses
Effects in late night horror shows
Hosted by Elvira
But like the zombie dead
Words rise unbidden
Gutting all before them
Undead and not undead
Objects of ridicule
Until the lights go out
Pictures flashing on the backs of eyelids
Like movie screens
Words like screams
Rising from the chasm
Eternal darkness of the ravaged mind
How happy I
Could be
Free
From the everlasting why
Forever
Brief interludes aren’t brief at all
But repeat and repeat and repeat
Ad infinitum
Respite too fleeting
And always
Returning to the everlasting why
me

sonnet 3 or sexless in the city

Alone in all the crowds, I sit and wait.
At bars and parties men just pass me by.
In New York City it is hard to date,
Especially when one is rather shy.
And yet, down city streets the lucky walk.
Those couples hold each other's hands and smile.
So smug, they kiss and hug and baby talk.
They fill my empty chest all up with bile.
Is it at bars or cafes or the park
The couples met and mated, two by two?
I go these places and the time I mark
Waiting for someone to arrive, but who?
New York, I know you have the man for me
But where the fuck in all these crowds is he?


(yes, I did copyright this, thanks)