Poems
Mayday
In Bragg Alley I opened the eye of a dead bear
(with a long stick in case he was still alive).
Mayday? No, was truly dead & so I asked
for a roll in the hay of anyone in my audience
of three - a damsel fair, a truck driver square
& the Mayor of Iswhich, the village in which
I was trapped, that truck driver's hand
clutching me by my collar
as he gave me to understand that as
an opener of a bear's eye dead or alive
I was about to be hung (a sky-hook from
a cloud descending) by the scruff of my neck.
Birthday Boy
A cinquante sandwich, a chance to French, it's
Lenny's line of course
I know I've used it before & will again, right up
to the very end, those sugar-sweet visions
turning sour as Mayhem gets in synch
with a kookaburra's laugh. All you want
on the mattress without preamble as the flags of the ten
most recently extinguished nations are torn to shreds
by laureates who've never had what it takes
to say what was said, crowding instead
into my coffin as it's lowered
into a hole. Bombs
away! It's a sky burial as subtle
as hourglass sand. Hands up,
I surrender &, yes, it is the cotton pickin' case
that I've blown my chance to French, that sandwich
turning fifty in July. Spiked with candles
I've left it for Lenny.
Moves
They're making the wrong moves - the waltzing dead.
What they need is a good drenching under
one of those sexy waterfalls where savagery
sweetens into open country without definition although
at the base of that hill there's some narrow gauge tracks
emerging from what was probably a coal mine circa
1840, a pony pulling a small gondola, the contents
of which are unceremoniously dumped in the aisle
of a 747 where subdued terrorists are calling
for their mothers. One corpse tumbled down
a boarding ramp & another to come
at 3pm if the conditions weren't met, & these guys
expect mercy. Pony boys, set them to pulling
gondolas or, better, no-nonsense mistresses
in buggies. Faster, boys, or get a taste
of this whip. Sounds like fun. Wouldn't mind
some pulling myself. Down some country lane
to the manor house, a dungeon in the cellar where
I'll spend the night if I don't get a move on. Stumblebum,
now you're in for it. Stripped & shackled, & tonight's
the Grand Ball, a coming out for fellows like me. Corseted
in leather, waist like a wasp's, I could have taught them -
the waltzing dead - the right moves
Correction
Idiot, I've mistaken (for the 3rd time) the morning of men
for the night of animals. Fattened
in a feed lot, my ex, Gloria, would enjoy watching
me squirm, another self-inflicted humiliation. I just can't
seem to stop. The last time, how embarrassing, my
dinner party contention that puppet sex with friends
was okay but not with foes was howled down by everyone
present. And then they milked me, the bastards, for all
I was worth, half a pint at the most, which my hostess
(Gloria's sister) gulped down with a smirk. So milk
under that bridge & more to come if I don't find a way
to keep my opinions to myself. Wear a gag, always,
only taking it off to stuff my mouth with a few
funeral meats while mares thorn. Mares
thorn? Yes, surely it's a striking image that will lead
the astute reader (albeit, by a twisting path) back
to the opening lines which I'm about to correct: the night
of men for the morning of animals.