NO LONGER HER OWN

The baby came first,
but love did not follow
into the once happy abode
of passion’s sway.

She spat disdain,
her insults aplenty,
and found no comfort,
hidden amusement,
silly quirks
or swagger
that had charmed her to ruin.

…and cried no more,
the vain glorious remnants
of forgotten virtues.
Each silent wail
the torment of youth
chained,
every thought looped
with a safety pin
belonging to no one,
but that concrete bundle
new flesh.

Mindless and squirming,
teething, gurgling,
fatty arms stretched upward
toward something she had no desire to give.

She would run!
She could hide,
the greedy moon
of her reflected desires
eclipsed in one puff of exhaust,
pulling from the drive,
rounding the corner
no vista of freedom undefined,

Alas, never to be,
once that tiny pink car seat,
rocking empty against the back,
caught her bleary, crazed
and fate-less eye.

FIFTY-PERCENT

She said that he didn’t love her anymore,
lost to him now,
gaunt glimmering wisp of refracted affection,
spread too thinly to matter,
stale remnants of a waning life
captured

only in snapshots
stolen carefree smiles
barely remembered
and windswept under

forgotten journeys
once planned to resurrect cold ashes
from the hollow of his absent heart.

She said that he had been unfaithful,
long before the faint slither
of desperate fingers,
grappler
each fickle allure
sculpting

his supple,
weaning ego
cooed placates
shallow promises,
sweet unadulterated escapes -
to what?

More of the same,
masquerading as the next best thing,
with dull sparkles of cheap cut-glass,
an imitation more demanding,
than she might ever have been.

And he knew, within the coiled recess,
in chronic replay,
dallying faint reminders
of erotic shameful launches.

Behind those shoplifted hips,
tattooed scarlet heart.

He knew, at last
that she needed no more,
wanted - no less,
the “for sale” sign revoked

heavy slats clasped onto her blinded soul
turned under,
his labyrinth of confused insincerity,
mounting

abysmal failure
destined to haunt every move,
each time he caught her wavering glimpse,
reflecting back at him
from the rear view mirror.

THREE-'O'-FOUR

If older,
she might have argued,
that the years had been unkind.
Compression of a lifetime,
squeezed through the refuse
of a few squandered months.
Her yellowed resolve buffeted
by melodrama
tear-stained goodbyes,
one widow-black hanky
administering forgotten farewells
to her stolen heart.

How had she come to this?

Standing before a locked grave
en suite restraint driving her
distilling myriads of emotion
one solid grasp of that dusty revolver
beneath her careworn winter cloak.
Shivering mess,
a torrent of sopping wet nerves,
cold feet cemented before
the brassy plate reading three-o-four.

Tapping with shaky fingers
the panel swings open,
to his sweet startled surprise,
half dressed,
clean white shirt crumpled in hand.
She points and smiles,
trigger pent frustration
unloading its shattered rounds
until he drops,
in limpid red tears -
the assassination of her youth.

ON A WEDNESDAY

for Mitzi

She died.
On a Wednesday…
gnarled cold ball –
fetal reminder
of a once vibrant woman.
Contorted as the butt
of a barely lit cigarette,
extinguished quietly,
no more.
Her remnant smolder,
vaporous soul
uncurls its custody in spiraled smoke,
leaning inward, twirling
upwards,
before disappearing
into dingy ceiling overlay gray
sanatorium sky.

My, my my.
How swiftly she left,
with not finality,
or sacred pause -
that contingent prerequisite,
beckoning us goodbye.

And oh,
how the lengthy days gradually turn,
as weighty stale pages of parchment;
unfinished manuscript,
yellowing in her absence,
shelved.

One more to file in six feet unearthed,
before putting away the shovels…
dipped in bitter tear-stained quills,
but destined to reunite,
perhaps waiting impatiently for the last chapter,
all-story’s end,on a Wednesday.

CALLS FROM THE WILD

Make Your Selection from our natural oasis of eligible clients:

These are the specifics of my life…
thus far -

Bryan: 39
single,
and singled out,
in a life so closely resembling that well known – hot spot…
No…
not ‘G’ or the Bahamas.
Interests:
Rodeos, westerns, and my horse – Pooky.
Avid Matchbox collector,
recovering Trekkie.
Please reply.
My horse is starting to look at me funny.

Ugh!
Big and dumb,
That’s the way they grow’ em on the farm!

These are the specifics of my life…
thus far –

Karen: 36
in the process of getting a messy divorce,
on the prowl again for Mr. Right.
Must be rich, sexy,
and able to beat the snot out of my soon-to-be ex.
Slight fetishes okay,
No freaks.
I weigh 236 lbs. stripped -
only because I’m 6’9,
svelte and buxom.
Interests: anything with pants and a fat wallet –
My mother always said “marry rich…”
I intend to.

What? Yuck!
Amazon gold digger needs a new pair of shoes?
I need a ladder to get into bed.

These are the specifics of my life…
thus far -

Jorge: 29
Messy break up left me bitter
and horny…
okay, okay!
More horny than bitter.
Interests: bong hits, cow-tipping,
and generally raising hell.
Not above giving my dates a light smack…
now and then…
okay, okay…more now than then –
but only if they deserve it.
Interests: If she doesn’t dig my Harley – we’re done.

Hmmm…steroidal boy-toy…
no punching bag, am I,
could get used to his muscles, though.


These are the specifics of my life…
thus far –

Ariel: 31
Tired of straight sex,
want a relationship
and someone to watch my kid
while mama brings home the bacon.
Exotic dancer -
some noticeable mileage
and tricked out; will teach willing man/woman…
leaving things open (wide open…come on in)
don’t let the door hit you in the ass, Jack!
The mild mannered need not apply.

See – the dilemma,
Not that there isn’t anybody out there…
just anybody I want.
World full of people,
Scary People,
Scared,
scarred,
sad
…and lonely
We have that much in common…

Is that your sister?
Who’s yer daddy?
…and hey little girl, is your mother home?

MADAME LEONOWENS

Through the parched yellowing history
you're galloping myth infects
lionizing lands breeched from afar.
Forever etching
an imperialist's journey
into sacred Siam’s
ignoble star.

You were England’s mistress,
an ambassador brought,
to child-like liege,
then silly country taught.
Bodice constrictions,
penning fictions into fame.
How beastly barbaric was
that unwilling heart to tame?

Fed on that false trumped legend
your words refuse yet to die.
A musical fiction bursting forth
has all but eclipsed each quiet lie.
And now when one ponders
the supple questions; what and who.
He merely hums several joyous bars
of “getting to know you.”

Or conjures reflections to mind,
from the glean of a bald Russian pate,
the road may have been for journeys -
Alas, some destinations arrive too late.

Was not the pallor and cheek of England bruised,
ancient and self-serving;
a sovereignty confused?
Sickly swollen superiority,
ample absurdities must now decry,
"T’was Anna then, my lord…
and never The King And I."

NORFOLK

Our lord, who art Norfolk,
sallow is thy name.
Thine might have been done
as it was perversely so,
entombed in one untrusting faith.

Leave us England not
this heretic queen,
but deliver us
from Protestantism.

For thine is the wicked,
an evil forged upon treason
to the crown, this sacred land,
Forever, yet never
to be.

Amen.

ANASTASIA

Oh, defiant winged tempest
in that bloody revolution.
An errant cinder flake
cast from the waging storm.
No majestic hail of gun shot
did befall that sacred child,
Stolen by knight to tender
in a hollow, safe and warm
While seven torched,
divine icons lay forgotten
in a haunted shroud.
Under thickening wood,
succumbed to frenzied madness
and yonder maelstrom.
Escaped,
though the legend
n’er she could.

Is she or isn’t she?
What is my little Romanov?
The fabled antithesis
of Lenin’s swarming nightmare,
buried in a frozen wasteland
never to be crossed?
Renew your phantom suffrage.
Speculations we can not abandon.
Lost to us forever, then,
in the name of Anna Anderson?

She is dead!
She is alive!
Speak in riddled dreams no more.
Her reposing splendor tainted
spawned from lips - the well-trained whore.
Rumors, legends - fester and seep,
the brutal need for false display,
written into public consciousness
through retributions muddy tonal gray.
Clever fiction sweetens all fantastic claims
Though I fear to delve too deeply,
With fleeting hopes, burning bitter
as the truth turned under Siberian snow.

NEW YORK IS A FAIRY-TALE

New York is a fairy tale
told by Hippodrome industrialists
Their shimmering spires,
stretching upward to an age
peppered in prosperity and myrrh,
built on the humbled backs
of hard working,
strong drinking,
God-fearing immigrants
raising their families in Hell’s Kitchen
and the Bronx.

Full of bright-eyed optimism,
gaiety and World’s fairs
destined for Empire State
and Rainbow Room elegance.
Lush pastures in Central Park,
bridged and framed
by the gilded, surveying
from their perches on Fifth
or Tavern on the Green.

New York, New York,
a fantasy no less
than Coney Island remembered,
made famous by the camera
in Moon River memoirs
and trembling ovations
off the Great White Way

New York is a fairytale
as those told by Grimm,
or the fabled tragedies of old,
with looming apocalypses,
disenchanted, lost.
Robbed baron of Lennon,
and the dust settling World Trade.
Why so deceived?
Anything is possible,
in the darkening lands of make believe.

ODE TO A "REALLY DESPERATE" LOVER...

…or maybe just a really bad poet

How do I lust after thee?
Let me rhyme the ways.
…or speak in the tongues of boastful oarsmen
their swollen, ripe and sinewy shoulders,
pulsating travails
up and down
your quavering Mediterranean spine,
dipping soliloquies into the bottomless wells of your ear.

Boastful,
and ever-so-slightly-crazed,
wandering about the saffron palaces of Cadiz,
only low sustained booming grunts,
conversing my internal disgrace.
Just like a porpoise in heat,
or Cro-Magnon fish out of porthole.
I am the El Cid of your incredulity
Oh, captain, my conqueress.
Not castrated in shame,
but underwear bulging inside out,
glazed donut
without its tidbit.

To you,
who ignites such giddy clueless bliss,
with one sticky membrane
hot glue-gunned to each sloppy kiss.
Balancing my contorted limbs,
as they manically flail and flay,
like a decapitated chicken,
auditioning Cirque du Soleil.

If I were the proprietor of spirits,
drunk tipsy, to name after you a lager
nay liquor – never ye fear;
if a painter, cut off my ear –
Superlatives bid such waste of art and time,
Hey baby, doth ye not dig my rhyme?
No please, my darling,
Ye quintessence of feminine loveliness…
No restraining order.
No mace…
Would doth a young maiden,
Like ye, rather suck face?

And the moral of this piece is
“Can you say, “stalker?
I know ye can!

FIRST DAY

Squeezed into wooden chairs,
inquisitions billed as higher learning,
pensively gnawing on an HB pencil,
the sudden chill of air-conditioning
like the remnant cool of a snow cone
slides down my spine,
each vertebrae awkwardly shifting,
fidgety feet keeping tempo with the tick-tick-tock
as minutes edge toward the rim of start up.

The prof enters.
She looks pleasant enough.
Arms officiously swinging,
wisdom bursting forth from her oversized leather handbag,
fingers reaching for the security of the podium
and course notes that divide us.

She’s new at this too.
That’s comforting.

Or is it?
...to know that the gums in my eraser-dry throat,
swells twice as parched in hers.
Eyes darting, sweaty forehead,
a momentary hushed frenzy in the room,
as she begins,

“Let’s start with attendance.”

…and why not?
Once we get to know one another,
it’s all down hill from there.

ALL THAT GLITTERS...

Sitting pretty for the cameras -
glib audience of your peers,
sufficiently bruised,
competitively thin -
greed fairly dripping
as the elegant fringe
on high-priced Vera Wang
tickling the ankles
emaciated checkbooks…
but it was worth it.

Strewn spangles of kitsch
beaming capped teeth clenched
ascending off the red carpet
into echelons of artistic Valhalla.

There…
the refracted glint of honeycomb gold
paralyzes the senses.
Oscar winner.
Debutante nobody – no more.
“I deserve this…
It’s mine…”
biting into the faux underbelly of victory…
“I’ve paid for the privilege…
It’s my turn!”

The envelope please…
…and the little bald golden child
to that esteemed so-and-such
for distinguished something-or-other
in a story no one’s likely to remember
by this time next year.

“To hell with it.
I didn’t want one anyway.”
Now, I’ll gorge at the Governor’s Ball,
till I’m Louie B. Mayer rotund,
and try to pretend
that I don’t hate her quite so much.
“Oh, darling…
It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.”
Yes it could have…
ME!
Wouldn’t she be piteous
if that Bordeaux tipped suddenly?
…and she glittered no more.

REEL TO REAL

For the price of admission
I can see the future
or revisit the past,
mingling with the beautiful people
in suspended perfection,
between palpitations of cheap light
and priceless shadow.

Reconciled in the dark
to a million worlds without end.
Then turn out the stars,
fleeting glamour fades
with only lobby cards
and torn ticket stubs
to frame my collective memories.

For those trips never taken
and roads yet to be traveled,
with the clackity-clack shutter
Set to twenty-four dreams per second,
American cinema, I thank you.

THIS SANCTUARY

If a home be a sanctuary
may it taste of eternal spring,
framed in bowers of lilac,
petals strewn about the lazy drive -
glimpses unto the world inside.

Wet, lulling daisy heads swoon
and are redeemed
from the fluttering shadows
of a butterfly’s wings.
Soft velvet buttons burst forth
spread open and are gone
with the migrant kiss
of a fleeting sun.

If a home be a sanctuary
may it find breath in bubbling honey,
glazed upon the pork on the spit.

...or perchance, from warm ether
off cakes perched upon open sills.
Ah, how the remnant tang of nectar
plucked from rightful bowers,
anoints these ripened hands
in the promise of virgin fruit.

If a sanctuary,
then a home resounds,
with the faded laughter of simpler times;
recanted tinkling of piano forte -
the tender patter of tiny feet evaporated,
quick, light taps made more profound -
danced upon craggy weather-beaten steps.

Echoed discussions,
moot parlor game chatter,
the pleasures of company,
magical hush
with the perfect pitch clang of quieting crystal:

To friends and family -
To life and love -
For those lost to us now,
but ne’r forgotten -
a toast!

Then a home remains constant,
alive and near
though aged mountains
and encroaching cities divide.

It can never be further
than our dreams remembered
Suddenly stirred to reminiscences dear
by some vibrant scent -
the evocative twitter, unearthed
ageless and silent
as spirits pass -
one world to the next;
a soul emerging
between mortar and brick,
peeking beneath thatch and thistle.

In that instant - a halo
where time serves no reference.
Memories breed on one another
for those fortunate enough to fall
into welcomed trespass
beyond the house,
...this sanctuary.

THE BACHELOR

There was something in the air,
not there, when I arrived.
Tuttenham Court’s pleasure regaled;
the rigging and rot of gilded canaries,
twittering and chirping about the parlor,
arching a bower in sundry ale,
galloping veil of stiff Cuban curls
the hypocrisies of simpering wit -
laying their claims,
consuming youthful arrogance.

Ms. Clairmont joyously greeted
as before,
some driveled nonsense,
the languid drop of drizzled cherries
atop a garish plume of ostrich
twinkling shamelessly about that empty brow.
Scandalously simple,
yet queerly diverting to any man
for whom form was the utmost order
in these shallow hours.

I escaped, not far, yet away,
lush conservatory splendor
surrounded,
my countenance and good fortune -
restored.
My humorous grace,
insecurities of age
and haunted -
no more.
Spreading the variegated fist of a palm
on parting dead pleasures
for the amorous pair.

The man was fat,
Handle-barred to a wealthy cow in Suffolk
and amiable mistress
planting her assets upon his rounded lap.
Accusatory behind monocle,
and sourly still.
The girl,
much removed from frolic,
upon recognizing me.

And so I turned
without concerted regret,
a fresh step upon that elegant marble,
to reason tomorrow’s conquests
by chance,
drawing in the wicked hour of tonight -
distillations, my breath
momentarily stained,
absorbing kisses
lipsticked upon my brain,
for there was nowhere else
left to pretend.

AGE BEFORE WISDOM

Oh, to be science-fiction young.

What is this thing?
- of beauty?
- a joy, no more?

Brittle, wooden death then -
a mannequin’s stare.
The ageless taunting slits
rolled back.

Cold smiling pupils
devouring reality
for the sake of a handbag,
stretched and patent -

taunt-skinny spokes-model
for the consumer age,
or dough in a timeless strudel.

THE "PLEASURES" OF SUMMER

Overcrowded, under umbrellas
stepped on,
or ogled,
or worse -
completely ignored.
Self consciously zipped into a one piece,
the most minute imperfection
- accentuated.
Blossoming, as envy
while the ever-parade
of anatomically gifted sculptures
celebrate till dusk.

To perspire – nay, sweat,
staining fresh linens,
matting greasy threads of hair.
the tranquility of a bath,
desired on hour –
and daydreams of a snow cone
lazily tipped in slalom
down the front of one’s sticky trousers;
Are these the pleasures of summer?

To be decorated
in reddening,
poison-primped lumps
perchance, the vial stinger of a bee
burrowed deep,
infected,
swollen,
tenderly sour
and swallowing golden granules
in every endeavored bite of a sandwich
in hair and shorts,
impossibly glued between toes.
To peel as the rotting orange,
or stuck dry as parchment,
or wilting anchovies
on day-old three cheeses.
Black flies swarming about -
wreaking of scorched flakes
cindered shavings
upon one’s pillow

Escape, you say,
into the thunderous bellow of surf,
trunks ballooning,
pockets full of distilled sewage and algae.
Scraping heels on coral
Emerging, nay, as Venus
but invigorated by pink eye,
biting kiss of salt sprinkled
over each open wound.
Onward and homeward,
Squinting into the last teased remnants of sunset
To treat the day’s ailments
in repose of an air-conditioned oasis
begging for the rustling cool of embittered frost -
You may keep your pleasures of summer!

TWIST

Twist,
as dandelions blow
across fields of gray.
Apart we are
though never alone.
I see you still
if dreams conceal,
Know that you are
in my thoughts surreal.

Dangle,
as the willow’s swoon.
Gossamer veil draped
about the beguiling moon.
Constant you guide
in memories eye,
simple renderings too,
My darling missed,
Now twist.

PERHAPS...

Once, as an orbit,
so constant and sure,
now spinning happily
in unraveling rings,
my mind, becomes that woolly ball
of patterned yarn -
darting about the bedroom floor.

It rolls beneath one padded paw,
silken reminder smooth and chaste
as the sooty breath of smolder.
Tucked into this sweet, dark nape
then tousled amidst wrinkled strands
beneath a crumpling of sheets
with gusts and billows, in playful folly,
asunder torn from nocturnal rest.
Passionate rekindling spun round,
turned under from view,
Won’t you remember me fondly too?

TORN FACES

If all of life
is a game of pretend,
let us strip away our masks
to disquieting truths exposed.
The appeasement of humanity
is skinned from crusts of gay hypocrisy
grown tired at party’s end.

If I gaze upon departing compatriots
and see only what is there before me
I bear witness to an elegant void.
Silent slither of time - devouring shadow
corrupted by our elegant mantels.

Youth, is slight - a fleeting disguise.
Like the great swirling veil of luminosity
on tower rocks
cast with no permanence
about the darkling seas.
Forgotten.
At last, no more.

I hunger for the more sacred glimpse
behind that dainty curtain,
yet lack the ugliness to try.

COMEUPPANCE

If my writing lacks creative zeal,
An absence of hubris I do not feel
and cannot reveal emotions true
in a poem expressly written for you.

For years I sacrificed my own charm and wit
while quietly swallowing your counterfeit.
Though now I am ready to tell you what
with conviction bound to every last thought.

You’ve no right to be vial or terse.
What would happen if the tables were reversed?
This world has afforded you no special favor
and I am no longer your punching bag savior

I think you dull, to this I now confess,
purged of pity and sanctimonious duress
Thus, care I not for an opinion, you’ll forgive
T’is only with myself I have to live.

SPECTERS OF FICTION

We thumb the yellowed pages anew and ponder;
Where have all the splendors gone?
Ravaged cotillions strip their shroud
of scorched silk bunting,
corseted,
constricting abyss,
mind-fields blurred through a fictional mist.

Spurned intentions hemorrhage the hollow heart.
Into a naked age, grown chafed,
its fragile bones,
lusting for something useless
as tear-stained testimonials,
and the empty pangs left behind by that phantom kiss
never quenched.

SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE

Hindsight is foresight
in reverse,
the future,
by virtues past,
made perverse.

Confusion is logic
turned on end,
that reason,
escapable,
cannot befriend.

Chance is calculation,
faithfully acquired.
Though luck minus structure
is to most, uninspired.

And death is but life
without breath
and unending.
Time’s natural order
not withstanding.

ESCAPADE

Deluge of my heart
tatters all thought,
into weeping bowers,
of sensuous confetti.
The mingled chill
of a world dreary puddle,
plagues sopping reminders
as the curdled dew,
lain crisp upon frosted mud.

Stained Calico rags
are trodden beneath idle feet.
Dead splashes collect
the pools into shallow graves,
spraying carriage wheels,
rotting windmills
with their limpid droplets of time.
They burst, then scatter
a feathery spray
upon my sullen, bitter heart,
daring, if only to break
the impending gloom apart.

THE PASSAGE

Time cannot mar the passage of love.
Into spiraled depths,
we descend like spiders,
fragile,
our minds,
six-legged in thought
and dangling.

If true, be it truth,
and forever more,
do not forsake its lessons;
patience, understanding
and innocence.

To love is to ramble in comfort,
enraptured and flammable,
boastful, even unkind,
then unexpectedly quelled.
Tragically flawed.
Wonderfully unreal.

Love is a brazen plunder,
nipped from sweet perfumes,
sublime, fantastic, supreme
When in love,
most tranquil,
a dream.

A MINOR FASCINATION

She was a minor fascination,
Insignificant -
faint, centric ripple,
with no epicenter.
The figment – fancy twirled,
in refracted glints from his admonished sun;
a talisman, deprived hypnosis.

Without eyes, he misperceives
the great shuttered windows
of Santa Maria Formosa –
soulless hollows
betraying dulcet truths.
Radiant tang of tangerine spring
plucks her mandolin dreams like carnivale -
each festive gondola
docking explorations in vane,
no conquered corridor through his new world.

She feels the throb and ancient hum
dips sprite painted toes
into cooling pools along the canal,
bright banter,
merchant arts,
embellishing Rialto
to awaken in caliginous clangs
from atop the Palazzo Ducale.

Dearly beloved, in rosary haste,
I am now departing –
into sequestered gaiety.
The Al nono risorto beckons
away the spinning wheels,
their coil dizzying strictures,
that prick the aperture of my naked heart,
unfettered by regrets -
and those other minor fascinations,
no fatal puncture can endure.

THE WAITING SEASON

Grimed filament snow
leaching into the callous crust of earth.
Pinched echoes of February.
Early caressing breezes
teases,
sneezes and hiccups
of springtime.

Fashionable dewdrops.
Indifferent flakes
defused into slush.
- then, rain.
- then the wind.

Stirring refuse in brittle dead branches,
godless briar buds.
Naïve, perennial strike of hope beats,
the descendant in every man,
impulsively,
…stretching
the waiting season.

D'emoiselle

Solitary recliner,
in one overlooked corner of the red velvet tea room.
Tonight,
and every rancid moment yet to come,
thumbing through her yellowed Byron,
a gift bought in Berlin.
edges pressed under crackled nail varnish.
Wire bodice - half laced.
crookedly distending nylon checkers
athwart her pointed ankles.

She sits,
head of rags spun taut in Plath,
gassing bloodshot
at the round bottom of Hemmingway.
Thickening halos,
pungent exiles, acrid curls of perfume
dart between her bee-stung quivering lips,
Piaf off the Victrola reminds.
Patron’s delight,
Cackle - passing ignorance,
smug slap
keeping custody of the bass tempo,
her agony, memoirs, pounding.

She loses herself.
in slovenly tongues
moistened with Vichy promises,
and brimstone from victories remiss,
that bloody, frost-bitten hole where he lays,
rutted.
misplaced,
misshapen now too,
wrapped in his gaudy butcher’s paper
of red, white and blue,
souring the terrain
curdling his youth
to haunt her ancestral afterglow
in the snuff of their lovely,
miserable lives.

FLANNEL ON A RAINY AFTERNOON

From the solitude of a worn pelt recliner,
he leapt in dreams across the gray outdoors,
one tacit puff encircled his pipe,
gnarled hands thumbing the dog-eared pages of a novel
he had no intention to read.
Another frosty log tossed onto the dwindling hearth.
Another day, indifferent - best spent in bed,
or the next best thing;
crocheted across his knees,
tired leathery toes peeking beneath
that hemmed drape strewn about the floor,
and flannel; soothing, soft and familiar,
as the cloistered remembrances
of one woman’s stroke about his waist,
Dresden tantalizer swathed about his neck.

Some thirty years turned under gray,
traveling the backward carousel of still images,
swirling, twirling; finally, sputtering along
as tickled half-frozen droplets across the window.
Sliding in veins on a grand race
to their collected rest upon the sill.
If only the dragging hours kept his secrets well,
he wouldn’t mind being alone,
in flannel, on this rainy afternoon.


@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

THE LIGHT IN THE SHADOWS

Soft bruise of inner ruin
worms astray my wonderland -
chalky fragile wooden tomb.
To shame, the steely-eyed chargers
dare spin no more.
Instead repose, their frozen stares
the afterglow
of bemused carousels.

Silent,
brittle echo of pipe music,
weary in half dark,
with the many,
alone,
and lonely,
and silent.

Look.
Look. There.
Two audacious streaks
- combust,
the midnight fairy dust,
razing severed locks
on thunder clasps.

And now, the wrecking ball,
declares it’s merciful serenity -
naughty,
and haughty,
latent,
devastating my ghost flowers
where songbirds choke
thick vapid notes
mollified, at last -
pulverizing memories
into sawdust.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY GLARE

It’s more like a stare,
pierced through the midway
of the last hundred years.
Carved by capitalism’s ventures, gains,
and profit shares,
the turning point - a fatal wound,
where entrenched stereotypes persist and divide,
mangled postmodern remnants of the American dream.

Pulsed aftershocks are ugly and blind,
complacent to a fault,
in questioned morality
refurbished by nightmares
swirling on suspicious times,
minus convention,
tradition
and commitment to anything
beyond the last hurrah,
of the 2oth century glare.

NIGHT IN THE HOLLOW

March,
I see the pallid moon submerge,
beneath a veil of steely gray dawn,
preceded by willows,
stripped gaunt,
dancing aimlessly in curly waves.
The milky caps of honeysuckle
drape along my window sill,
while far below,
black beetles swoon,
on chilled pebbles,
in the echo of curiosity born
hidden by the ocean’s swell.

THE PASSION & THE POWER

The essence of life
is that it is not fair,
Yet it delivers no more hardship
than we are likely to bear.

Draw strength from the ordinary,
and courage in the mundane,
for these are your solitary compatriots
when the hours have dimmed.

I believe that all of life is a test,
the result - we are reckoned
with our fallible nature,
as flawed and unworthy.

If we accept life,
as only that sheer series of tasks
it shall subsist as nothing more,
and adopt a pallid disguise
of drudgery most profane.

But, if we truly observe this brief passage of time
for what it may be,
an epic challenge to be discovered,
finely met and thoroughly conquered,
then life will become that journey we've dreamed:
a miscellaneous of grand illusions,
full of mystery,
tragedy,
comedy,
and ultimate rebirth:
an escapade granted us all
the honor to participate in.

I accept this challenge.
My fervent wish is that so do you.

FOG

Pale blue,
shapeless hue,
stalks the town,
streaks the eve,
and does not permit
the crew to leave.

@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

CORPS DE VALET

Erect in ushered silence
they stand with military precision.
A menial battalion of the nine to five.
Sun sparks glinting starched halos,
brittle cotton rims swimming,
beneath navy-stern waste coats.

One ticket. One ride.
Essaying into leather dreams
and chrome luxury desires,
the silent patrons pass,
overlooking their corps de valet.
A flurry of quick, clean steps
amidst the milieu of polished men.
A few dollars tossed without respect
for that patient row, the thinned out line.

They drive the moneyed cavalcade,
sweeping lazily ‘round the circular drive
and pull into service before exiting
A poor substitute, not even daring
to remove one white glove and touch
the blackened wheel of pampered existence.

SHADOWLANDS

Shadows trace looming contours
of a winding journey
through the glistening meadows of my heart.

Sweep the dance of darkness about,
in, then out and upward spark,
the broad drooping leaves
in short bands of dotted light.

Out, then in, they begin,
their song a swirl,
teased round jagged thrusts
of balding silhouette.

A sudden quaver,
from stiffness too,
for suppler charms encircled about,
caught momentarily,
then torn apart,
in the thickening meadows
of my heart.

WANDERER RETURN

Desire not the polish of stars
or plaintive beams in a gilded moon.

Do not forget
that golden talons stretch the feverish sun,
reflecting captivity on the hours of each day.

For such is not a constant,
mere embers to one sustained flame
on twilight’s magic spell,
the smoldering glimmer
beneath love’s shimmering swell.

BREAKFAST...after the fact

The peaches are tangier,
the milk,
that much creamier,
may nothing
or no one intrude
on this breakfast,
after the fact.

Even the nattering twitter
of the six o’clock alarm
seemed to chime
fantastic, sweet melancholy
as Westminster.

Is that lace beneath the flatware new?
It feels as novel,
as do I,
here with you,
we two.

Dallying,
even as there is work to be done.
Mooning,
and spooning,
just in the making,
of a memory - ever so oblivious,
and waiting,
for the other slipper to drop.

Let’s kiss,
as though it were an original.
Not on the lips,
but chaste, on the cheek
so I just might overlook
that it’s breakfast,
after the fact.

THEY ALL FORGET

She saunters in,
like she owns the place,
marking territory with every smooth pivot of her stiletto
and declares herself at the front desk.

Not your wife,
or mistress…
just an interested party,
the good-time gal
barely remembered from last night.

And as you sit across from her,
thumbing through month old gossip,
unable to place your eyes back in your head,
even for a moment,
she digs sharp-beveled fingernails
dipped blood-red,
tugging at the cling of hem
repositioning her pins in the cushion,
brushes one platinum lock
under the thatch and lace hat
cocked over one eye
growing impatient now,
just because Mr. Good-to-the-last-drop,
has yet to answer his telephone.

Hey, Last Night…
Your twelve-thirty is waiting.

CAST YOUR BALLOT

It’s put up
or shut up.
Election day.
Socialist/democracy at work.
Swear your love to a party of your choice,
Or just swear; divinely,
profoundly,
because yours didn’t get in.
Either way, it doesn’t matter.
Nothing’s changed.

Politics:
the side show
that believes it’s the whole circus.
Blind fervor insights us
like a herd of painted elephants,
tails tied,
to the candidate with the best PR,
most appallingly unapologetic
pack of lies.

The big top never changes, you see,
it merely gets relocated.
Acts come and go.
Some are dismissed.
Others celebrated.
The perpetual audition caters
the voter’s fickle affliction.
In the end, the finale is always the same -
We may not get the clown we want,
but inevitably, the one we deserve!

MR. INCOMPETENCE

There are zero mistakes
in the digital world.
You click.
You die.

Your IP, a compromising E-Z ticket to ride
for any wily hacker in tennis shoes,
trifling to subscribe you to gay porn.
Or hijack your identity,
and mask lucrative black market trades
on bogus Viagra,
faux FBI spams,
and mail-order brides from the Ukraine.

You’re looking at your monitor,
but it’s staring back at you,
each hard drive an encoded bull’s eye.
Googled.
Tracked.
Searched.

Investigated?
Tag: you’re it!
Super highway, piling up,
worms burrowing
unlimited access to personal integrity.
Timed out with a virus.
Emails - read.
Credit rating – gone.
Secrets – exposed.
Just remember,
It’s all fun and games
…until someone’s nude pictures wind up on the net.

Click, click, click, send.
You’ve got mail.
Gottcha!

GIRL WITH NO SECRETS

Eyes glassy
pouring over a fan of lurid eight by tens,
no closer to any truth,
curdled twine of a cancer stick,
fuming between his teeth.
Limp overcoat drizzling pools
under the mildew creak of castors.

“Leave me alone,” in obsessed echoes,
pinched suspender clips,
sloped-shoulders in careworn harness.
Knuckles ground into both cheeks
to keep from kissing leather.

“Hey pal, put out the fire.
Enough midnight’s been spent.”
It’s the end of the line,
minus pay-off
for the girl with no secrets.
A cold case
rattling through empty relics
in his restless mind.