the cat laid her head in the palm of my hand

I was nervous and undecided

sirens had been sailing for days

in the street below my window

manholes exploded

across a sea of fucking humanity

and I stopped to reflect

and moped like a sad drunk

in an ocean of insanity

what makes us, I wailed

what takes us far and afield

what owns us, I wept

this gravestone and how is it sealed

I am lonely sometimes

I whispered to the cat

her head on my open palm

I am lonely and glad to be in this dark cave

her head in the palm of my hand

my step on the ocean

my step on the wave

my eye on the carnival

my heart gone to seed

I write like a farmer

up ending the bones

I write for a cat

in my upturned palm

 

6.25.16

  

your face your face

your amazing grace

under fire

to the barricades

leaving accolades

in a pile of requited desire

your face your face

between ire

and sweet candidates

for songs and knowing

how awful we allow this

world to be

your face your face

on those dawn morning raids

when you give me the time

when you give me the space

to fan unseen fire 

simmer catastrophe

make a song

cool the lava

rake an angry tongue

with saliva undone

you guess where I’m going

nearly always wrong

you pack my bag

like I had a star ship

you are the captain

of my murderous lisp

chin out

fuck the pundits

those gnarly keepers of

what they think they knew

I am yours you are mine

your face your face

is my dangerous mine

here’s the gold

in my hand

here’s the diamond still banned

no children were harmed in

our rainbow romance

no animals slaughtered

to get at the answer

you live like the gentle answer you are

I give the confusion

a name to the star

your face your face 

your amazing grace

make it last

make it real

with rainbow potential

I love you

and then some

diabolic eventual

I love you

I love you

make some sense

of this won’t you?

 

2.25.16

Photo: UES 3.25.25

 

Where do we go from nowhere

when the last cowbell clangs its lonesome cheer

when seven o’clock is abandoned

when protest is manhandled

where do we go when the bees disappear

traffic below returns like a shark

eat enough junk food they say

you’ll embrace green asparagus

retire to your room

read more Karl Marx

who has the moral authority

who wears the real mask

this is the question to

ask and then ask again

look to the gods who are complex humans

the ones who stumble

the ones who die grinning

clasping dream gyros

and leave us spinning

drop that summons that insult to freedom

charge from the lighthouse

attack the doldrums

we have always shuddered in darker places

it’s a game, it’s a scrabble

get down with the races

love and war

hunger and Zen

you can’t be declawed again and again

there is never a time when

a flower lacks beauty

children are born free

this certainty’s no illusion

disaster becomes us

grows our heart and our minds

in the moss of invention

we are people in charge

we are people enlarged

we are people learning to look closely

all visas before are rendered unworthy

passports are useless

we are travelers free of the night

put on a raft and set alight

push us off to the sea

fight the rage of the sharks

haul those oars

depend on the larks

morning comes as it always does

righteous anger awakens

what was interrupted

we will no longer be diverted

can I survive, beauty asks

normal was wounded

unorthodox tainted

heartbroken heals what was always intended

6.13.20 nyc

Photo: Tim Tapling 

Detectorist. Gunfire Beach Wallasay: Wirral25 Feb.2025

WHO THE HELL IS A POET

 

the dog with the pen

and the Harvard penis

may or may not be

a start or halfway to finish

empty telephones are poems

for the blind who relish

smoking pupils see fire

in your beer-stained breath

fathers raving in alcoholic

splendor have danced

on the typewriter making

poems with their toes

if only someone goddamn

knew they wrote witty prose

the dead are poets they

read for the worms the

living are left with

consonants and vowels and

the sickening job of making

sense

battered children cry with

poetry and flowers can’t

give a fuck because they

themselves are the rhyme

the poet nailed to the

wall with the rose in

his teeth only THINKS he’s

a poet who has bled on time

nails pounded by lovers

are weapons

mistaken for poetry

they come dressed in rhyme

biding their time

in rooms hidden by longing

watch when the dust that

begins to speak with disarming

idiots make lists

fathers are storming

the gate of the poet

what the hell is the warning

who the hell is a poet

my father my longing

who the hell is a poet

the man with the warning

 

For Hank who is too dead to argue.

10.21.18

 

this, this, this, 

loneliness

a holiness

so clever 

and so keen

it makes a bell 

fall silent

a tender cat

get mean

 

this, this, this

loneliness

a hollowness

I never

care to treat

it brings a gift

so dangerous

a junkyard dog

retreats

 

this, this, this

loneliness

a steadiness

betrays that

need to grieve

the space is filled

a languor blessed

a blind deceit

will leave

 

this moment

comes

embrace

move on

 

7.5.12

Photo: Central Park 2.25.25

 

IN BETWEEN

what happens at

the end of something

you’ve written

a poem a story

a song a myth

it’s left you

with all that you’ve hidden

alive in a messy rebirth

what happens my friend

what happens is this

you are left floating

in your own blue sea

the sky above

burns magnificently

you study the world

around your prison

the door is now open

you can leave indecision

your cell has a poem

a story a song a myth

the jailer discovers

and guides what comes next

10.25.13

nyc

Photo: nyc 3.5.2025 E.97th Street