POET IS THE NEW BLAH, BLAH, BLOG

THE RECORD PLAYER

2008-10-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

A tale by an idiot…
so Shakespeare thought.

Each generation introduces the next,
making contribution and gross folly
to the great upstream dance.
The argument already made…

Do we march proudly,
into the annals of history en masse?
…or does the daily drudge,
constantly relegating poignancy to purpose,
make rot of any tangible meaning
long before our bones are returned
into that primordial dust?

The days yawn as though,
like some great gaping chasm,
they tempt onward;
spurring our Galileo quest,
never quite fulfilled,
a more refined and deeper purpose
- absent.

We amuse ourselves in endless contemplation,
penning ballads and odes,
warbling half celebrated dirges and sonnets;
disentangled vainglorious attempts,
plunged deep and heartily
into that wounded immensity
of mysteries beyond,

…only too late to recognize
we are fast becoming that next waning filament
unraveled by the vast -
our inconceivable tapestry of life.

MIDNIGHT AT THE ROXY

2008-09-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

I thought I heard a child ask if God lived here –
- last night…
just a few blocks from Time Square
descending from the presidential suite of the Taft Hotel,
addressing an audience of 6,000.
Standing room only.
An army of ushers flanking both sides.
If he did…
the age of miracles has now ended
with the last thrash and crackle of the wrecking ball.
No entrepreneurial spirit could withstand such a faithless blow.

Even as I float,
blithe and unnoticed
into that opulent, oval behemoth
omnipotent in my observations,
winding toward each miraculous mezzanine
or dipping from one gilded balcony to the next,
spiraling dizzy past mock pulpits
to breathe in the ornamental pierced grilles.
Green faux marbre columns greet,
they seem to tumble toward my half lit consciousness…
unwitting spectre of a dream not even Samuel or Balaban could raise.

If only Ahlschlager had prayed for restraint,
or humility, instead of garish pride;
beyond fabled glitz to permeate,
then perhaps I might have awoken to make my witness
in tact,
and not as Gloria found her in 1961.
@Nick Zegarac 2008 (all rights reserved).

TESTAMENT

2008-08-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

What will the day bring?
I wonder,
as I sit,
back to the sun
feeling the warm horizontal brush of dawn
ride slowly up exposed vertebrae
Another start,
chance to be useful
to myself, as well as others.

Faced against challenges,
reminders,
yesterday’s guilt
in lazy repose at my side,
tactfully waiting to pounce,
or pummel into the raw
noon day swelter,
the oath in my resolve.
It seems to ask…
‘what will the day bring?’
A fresh beginning…
or much more of the same
or perhaps,just another ‘nothing at all’.

AWOKEN...

2008-08-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

…with a jolt.
It came to me,
in the hapless,
forgotten,
discarded hours,
caught between distant night
and sad days,
that never might there be a tomorrow,
where mine eyes were shifted,
to the highest peak.
…that perhaps, I was only fit for the toil,
like so many,
and too few.

This great passing cavalcade of time,
slipping unnoticed
rarified by the moment,
as melting snowdrops,
or the last frozen bits of water
distilling into my cocktail.
Inebriating, that is…
until the empty bottom of the glass,
stares back with panged remnant juices,
still clinging about the rim,
as if, to say – ‘this, is not for you’.

PEPPERMINTS

2008-08-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

The #9 blood of many
spilled for you
to jostle and suck and rattle
swirls of peppermint
about your woozy tongue.
Sticky, stained lips,
drawing deep the pungent flame
sharp odor, up and into nostrils flair.
Bite down hard,
splitting the atom candy cane crunch
into two…
then four…
then more…
then – none.
Funny, how that little red and white swirl,
stays behind,
in cavities yet,
not fit for the drill.

LITTLE MISS ON BIG SUR

2008-03-05T14:37:00.001-08:00

From fifteen thousand feet,
the elegant round of backlit morning dew,
thickening cloudy malaise,
masks ghost-whispering sandpipers at play.
Their pecking wild call,
unheralded against the craggy moors,
weather beaten by sun and sea,
mounting Dianna’s chariot
tucking noon beams into ancient coves
mist and fate,
caught expressive, yet removed.
T’is the outside world,
a myth endured,
till weekend trips eclipse
the cymbal crash of restless surf.

We are not amused,
and liken this change-less paradise
to each small and supple bend of my lover’s back
trampled underfoot
bewildered as a pack of midday galloping rhinos
beach balls bobbing,
toward undisturbed, forgetful sands.
@Nick Zegarac 2008 (all rights reserved).

TRICKS TO TREAT

2007-10-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

Sit, my friend,
drawing loose tongue
into deep laps of bubbling intoxication
whilst I illuminate the possibilities.

- a ghost story, then…
superficially corrosive to logic
bolstering the wonder-path
overactive imagination
thrust undulating and diluted
into the murky crust of darkness.
We see…we think…
we hear quick light footsteps on the ceiling
perhaps a servant girl
-yes…gone down
into rat infested bowels of a Tudor manor house,
where the good doctor buried
rotting flesh of his wily mistress
concealing their infidelity from an unhealthy wife.

A flash and flicker, then
candlelight…
no – gunfire!
The heavy role and tumble
shattered skull,
clumsily careening
down damp wooden stairs.

Ah yes…then to summon the spirit –
by faith – not prayer,
or, perchance the unholy séance…
specter of Dashiell Hammet,
nay – Sherlock Holmes…
or maybe just a hint of Jessica Fletcher
For sincerity,
to calm the taut
fine fingering nerve-strings
my caustic violin heart
quickening as though by arsenic…

…the same as in your champagne flute -

Dear guest,
You are the murder tonight.
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

I'VE CALLED HER 'LIZ...

2007-10-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

…she would have hated that.
As though, from spite –
Not so, my love.
Affections naturally blue and coursing
as dropped reposes from each beaded vein.
Eternally yours.
Bearing strange witness
to those pierced flashes of aubergine,
the hemlock flickering
deep within,
gorgeous window-shaded lashes
barring entry to her soul.
Seen…
too much
the unveiling –
not even notoriety’s noose constricts,
faint tabloid kisses lipsticked wet –
a Trojan’s promise
ever made honestly,
from the divine…
rapturous innocence,
womanhood most childlike
- than real
and likened to sport
at playing mistress
amidst uncut yards of glistening celluloid.
Roll film…
and break the tethered heart strings once more.
Oh, Nile-breathed goddess –
…the shadow of your smile refrains.
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

BY THE HOUR

2007-09-27T16:12:00.000-07:00

...awakenings, too late“Whores make the best lovers…
technically speaking, of course.”
He ponders alone,
in sweet bundled repose,
imagining the trickle of sweat
from his burning forehead
wiped clean as a thousand tongues
their supple sticky juices
changing chemistries mingled
with passionate acrylic finger tipped scars,
proudly displayed
across his arching back.
“Their eagerness to please…”
he explains to no one,
“…for a modest fee.”
- pleasure per cost distilled
more blissful than truths
or that filthy harlequin
promised romances
strung like beads
tightening about his tickling parched throat.

How thoroughly satisfying then?
How now?
To pry these dead memories
self professed
the boulevardier cut adrift,
impaled and pricking
on the sour gnash of repayment.
Thrust into the dry filthy crust of dawn
lucid and cold
with prying eyes
and probing inquiries –
a different sort,
into each deep sunken crevice
starched over by a frosting of saliva:
dire price tag
coughing up wish fulfillments
for compassion only,
any hint of warmth,
or perhaps
- merely death
and a soft Dresden arm
to lay upon these corrupted entrails,
trading insatiable needs
for the dull prick
from a physician’s needle.
“Technically speaking…of course.”
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

NEVERMORE

2007-09-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

Craggy rocks of nevermore,
beckon the stifling tang
noon day rising,
through narrow vapor slits
thick clot of filtered humidity.

Raw, crushed
plates of fragmenting haze
cut Ceylon shadows into starfish
perforating hallucinations.

These parched scroll exteriors -
gape their hungry mouths,
in prickly thistle spires,
tucked fruitlessly bare,
until the only distant mirage
- humpbacked mountains,
dot paradise's
blistering cloves.
The pungent dust fragrance
of petrified death…
is inhaled by yon weary,
asphyxiated traveler…
succumbing to that last wheeze
like an old concertina in his knapsack
– punctured,
struggling in low sustained booms
one upon hyphenated next.

Unseen,
a speck concentrated under noon day’s sun
pulverized against nature’s anvil
beckoning toward stifled tang
from craggy rocks
thick filtering humidity
…then,
nevermore.
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

LAST SUPPER

2007-09-02T10:29:00.000-07:00

She thought intensely on it now,
on that other fellow,
on this one,
how she had betrayed him,
so completely,
such utter lack of remorse.

No splash of shame
from exposed, sweaty pores,
breading his halibut
dutifully
as though,
stain of ruby wine kisses
had not tainted her.

Imagining – proudly
daydreaming even,
that cold slender insertion of metal
twisting inside the lock.
“Honey, I’m home…”
…only to discover her note,
next to another perfect meal
by the phone.
a ‘please don’t call me
– ever again’
scribbled in frenetic excitement.

Note pad sticky, egg batter
faint tang of lemon rind -
garnishing little more
than she might do,
sun shedding its grace
too obvious -
across flour-dust counter top.

No plans for intrusion…
…but it comes.
thick gooey ooze
curdled mixture
frying battered fillets,
perfection – in a skillet at least -
both reminder
and farewell.

Arranged so neatly
bitter hint of parsley
beaded glass, homemade tea
one cloth napkin pressed into service,
everything else purged into the washer
- almost.
Nothing left to consider –
small comfort of clean up.
She smiles,
pitching apron and mitts
remnant domesticity aside
trading Limoge for lip rouge
‘Boy’, she reasons,
emptied handbag slung over strutted shoulder,
‘When I cook I sizzle,
But when I lie, I really bake!’

BRAIN CHILD

2007-08-07T17:42:00.001-07:00

She sat cross-legged,
pensive parental hush,
observing his every unrehearsed movement
happy fingers,
dancing clutter
amidst the menagerie of wish fulfillments.
Her rigid excitement,
bursting forth from well intension arteries,
storefront stocked ready in baited daydreams.
Encouraging the chemistry set,
with pointed debate, shuffling building blocks,
determined with all faith,
to rid him of his left-handed crayon doodling –
the sure and telling signs of a penniless future.

Perhaps he would reach
- even surpass,
these lofty expectations.
Presidential appointment, no less,
though statesman would satisfy anew,
her hawk-like search
seeing a swift proud hand,
dispensing justice from his ice cream gavel.
Misperceiving the curious delicacies,
light surgical touch from sticky fingers
grazing over cat hair husk.

He would scale these heights,
as foreign, disinterested and force-fed
as the waiting spoon -
drippy pabulum
leaking from his full lips.

Perhaps then –
in a few nauseating annum
calculatingly measured
in growth spurts,
then grade point,
and finally,
- certificates and honors
hard earned…
perhaps then –
when all that he might have desired
had been beaten from his consciousness,
liberated – then, might she be also…
from her own disservice youth
and blindly follow…
to no fulfilling end
when all either had wanted then
was to play on the drums.

TEMPLER AVE.

2007-07-23T14:24:00.000-07:00

Just beyond crackled pavement,
ghetto streets,
I found salvation,
the unlikeliest place,
last bastion of gospel
swimming my memory’s eye,
exalted,
differed,
no payment required.
“What do you sell, deacon?”
“Why hope, of course.”

Yet how –
and why?
To so few,
reaches God’s great miracle
when small minds persist
and the hiring line of public debate
is caught between the sticky gum aftermath
from city hall’s red tape.
“Where is thy soul?” I ask,
wearing the mindless cloak of sheep -
expecting tambourine justice
admonished and spit upon
by local color.
But oh, “ye of misguided faith”
beating the rhythm of life
strong, sustained ecclesiastical booms.
“Look inside,” says deacon,
throwing open the great mahogany girth,
spilling earthly strains and swell
heavenly music uprising,
hand on his heart,
then head,
then…

“Look inside.”
…the unlikeliest place -
salvation,
beyond crackled pavement,
and ghetto streets.
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

PRINCE OF SLAVES

2007-05-18T16:53:00.001-07:00

Your veins, my lord Cesare
are thick with gazpacho
clotting reason into the murky,
chive-infested depths
garnished by rancid bile
mingling, the corrosive element -
where a tempo heart,
so desolate barren and cold,
must indeed have drowned –
in tomato juice
along with logic’s most perverse
and decadent stir.
You skulk the grand Mediterranean halls,
dragging this soupy mixture,
acidic, yet pure,
reaping the coal of taste buds
even more thirsty for new conquests
under your savory guise of one -
a nation for all,
only…all for thyself
and thine fractured dream.
To kiss your lips,
is to know sweet perfume -
death’s after dinner wine.

You are indeed,
the blood of nobles,
displeasured more and ever still,
as vengeance draws no mercy
to suckle lasting juices,
from that heavy-corseted breast.
Princely,
the naïve forgets his victories,
peppered to taste,
seasoned too great –
though no better than
a prince of slaves.

MERRY MEN

2007-04-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

We think a discovery has been made,
Galileo predicted long ago,
that butch barren men,
foppishly fancied,
wielding their garish affectations
this enlightened age -
clutching a favorite brazen self image,
caught drowning
Narcissist pools,
by limpid candle wax
drip, dropping into clusters.

Inside the antechamber gossips,
pluck their lute song
bailing the fresh choral
half-naked angels’ dares,
teased by the sudden suggestion of merry men.
‘Go home to your dutiful wives,’
they whisper wearily,
knowing no use.

Only after the last bitter kiss of Plato
leers from shadowed halls
blowing judgment upon its wicked
but sparing unloved,
inner children of night -
bedazzled, speckled red hens,
darting about the cobbled court yard,
unaware -
goose, cooked.

She is next -
The one dallying female desired
from this ornate, encumbered crowd-ling set
copper and lace,
and wine to adulated song
‘sshhhh!’
‘Please, there are gentlemen present…’
- those
who would have preferred to have been –
ladies instead?
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

CAROUSEL OF TIME

2007-04-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

The nimble compass of time
spinning memory webs
outside my window,
records posterity,
as a carousel of galloping seasons:
birth – existence – death…
renewal?
Unable to appreciate answers,
perhaps, not even understanding the question,
stifling ignorance –
mesmerized by disadvantaged opportunities;
imagined – real…some unrealized.

I sift through granules,
a search in vane
for that absent vacuum of moment -
as suspended in linear magic
clinging perilously
to bitter-bare clutter of branches.
The hours are shorter,
intricacies woven;
a jolly-insignificant patchwork
stitched by puckered fingers
spreading the tapestry of being
taut - beyond control;
existence – death
renewal…
I pray,
and spiral
on the backward strobe,
no time…
the human comedy
at an end.
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

EMILE BY CABERNET

2007-03-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

In sullied thrash
giddy hysterics, she cackles
arms spread
by invitation only…
across a discount wavy quilt.
Kinky little strip of negligee
snuggling, preening,
with tag tucked firm into gurgling collar bone.
Ahoy!
All sales are final –
tonight, at least…
but tomorrow,
this unmentionable
may go back on the rack.
No matter.
He doesn’t mind –
not him…
her hairy bow-legged polar bear
on bony knees,
leering into ocean rolls of comfort only she can provide…
well, maybe…a few of her friends.
She doesn’t think about that –
much.
If only the rest of him were as svelte –
she daydreams,
as thick knuckles
press into swells
her gravity-misshapen breasts.

Stormy contemplations gorge and fill,
drizzling cheaply, erotic liqueurs,
in – then out
making bubbly pools in the pit of her navel.
The only safe port
comes with reprisals,
but no genuine regrets.
Ironic…
how most women yearn for dreamboats,
when slipping on rose-colored halibuts,
craggy sailors off the wharf
with barnacle crusts
above and below their water line,
just as easily…
can satisfy Emile by Cabernet.
Ahoy again!
Oh…and man overboard.

THROB OF MEMORY

2007-03-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

He existed today,
but dwelt beyond,
memorizing yellowing photographs
from another lifetime,
drawing the rod of imagination,
sliced deep into his distended passions,
peeling each rotting layer away -
and mesmerized.

The sandpaper touch
of gnarled finger-tip
barnacle crusts
emancipated,
permitted, in whimsical fantasy
this bittersweet glimpse
into hour-glass absences.
Never the witness.
Always the messenger.

Bleeding for that prenatal nostalgia
extended to second-hand experience
shopworn and ruddy
only in thumbnail sketches
and the thrash of memory –
burnt -
on to the golden throb
stepping clumsily
into his present day consciousness.

COME ALONE

2007-02-20T07:21:00.000-08:00

I float,
in passive awe
of your flawless gray perfection.
The enveloping comfort,
autonomous dark
all around,
without even a ripple of contemplation
for the many
sharing my silhouetted throne.

You ease me,
into pearly frames,
glistening contradiction –
so real
yet removed,
considerable distances
from my everyday.

Shimmering,
monochromatic velvet
and black satin strip -
burlesque apparition
mounted on tenuous spools -
silver and nitrate,
the evaporating secrets in composition
painted with light…

…and shadow
Till flicker dissolves,
then fade out,
and, “the end”

Houselights.
News Reels.

I shut my eyes to savor your imprint
sheen brilliance recaptured.
The drunken recesses of my imagination
rekindle you whole -
speak, so no one else will hear,
“When you come next…”
Dear Gilda,
“Come alone.”

@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

MARIONETTES

2007-01-23T19:59:00.000-08:00

He sits and waits,
For what?
…not even he knows,
blowing the last flint dust
from a careworn heart
aching, into youthful hands
more worry – than life – set before him.

The days,
so empty and without hope,
march on.
The gaping corridor of time
- memory’s almost eclipsed sun -
like impenetrable veils
temporarily cast off the apocalypse.

Looming;
scorpion’s tail invites
paralytic kisses
to devour whole,
only in miseries left behind

…and no one cared
at the twilight’s last gleaming.
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

BLIZZARD

2006-12-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

Flake. Flaked.
Float.
Followed by another,
whimpering cascade.
Skies turned to chalk.
Melt. Melting.
Slush.
Slippery beneath my shoes.
Sleet. Sheet.

Barometer falling.
Temperature plunging
hard drizzle pelt,
frigid caramel stick
biting into apple cheeks.

Sweaty brow,
matted hair,
drippy scarf,
tired feet.

Cold. Crackling.
Wind gusts.
Heavy shovel.
Silly, soggy, sullen.

Dig. Dug.
Down to the pavement.
Blow. Blown.
Blast.
Ah, hell,
has frozen over!
Tick. Tick.
Toc.
Time to fetch,
another cup of cocoa.

THE CANALS OF VENICE

2006-12-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

In narrow slits,
wind the canals of Venice,
their cavernous air recoiling
thickened assassinations
on a million rare spices
swept under loose-rimsy paddles -
my swarthy gondolier.

Who navigates the tenderloin
of eclipsed youth -
sucked beneath the vibrant maelstrom
in cultured threads,
the sauce and soup of rusted private lives,
fishing in vane
for that postcard Italy-
half told above the watermark.
But to mingle - at length
under blue-veiled arteries
by corrupted moonlit
drains these obscurities of time.
The cracklin’ flicker by candlelight
casts appalling shadow-dances
into each halfway lit modest courtyard,
where Valentino once discovered
his sudden whores
transformed to Rivoli sprites
most wondrous - enraptured
Toscanini screams -
the peril of their pear-shaped magic-love tones
mostly buried now,
teased under beautiful sewers -
this waterlogged paradise. @Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

BRITTLE BONES OF THE MIND

2006-11-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

He fled into the powder-fluff halcyon
stark and bold as the raven,
spreading shadowy mirrors of his darkness
about the land -
chasing the dart of angels,
tucked deep into that bit of blue
that seemed forever disappearing;
unattainable, as mirages
or tips of the Ottenburg
shrouded in ancient fogs.

Only forgotten ancestors,
dip their brittle limbs
into welcomed moist cavities
the black worm earth beckoning -
to sleep and ruminate
with the decomposition of time.
How tender and gentle,
directed to dire anticipation was he,
and driven by some vapid quest…
when all the glamorous day had eluded
he who believes that the currency
of status - is
…meaningless.

FINALITY AVE.

2006-10-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

The acrid lure of temptation
barbs in twine about my neck,
blithe and pitiless,
darkly mortal.

Each metal cuff,
sucked deep from the recess of fertile breath
waking sacred days of pretend -
too squeezed from morbid juices
‘cross thick calloused treads.

Alas, even sacrifice seems
insatiably tantalizing
like the spinning wheel threads
of veiled spider’s web
nimbly draped upon
the chain of my bond -
thrust from this gaping world fever
into the next -
bottomless amour…

to bleed no more.

@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

THE JESTER AWAKENS

2006-10-13T20:54:00.000-07:00

To trip along the golden lash
of tongues,
more robust than clever,
leaves disheveled wreckage
clotting in my veins.
Eggplant bruises
across wounded flesh
of my forefathers.

These adversaries frame all reputation
in backward reflections
- time run amuck,
wrapping impure enigmas
within their frustrating decapitated majesty.
To dance on cracks
and jam or fall,
breaking bones of contention
upon my woozy brain
at three a.m.

I reel from the pungent smack
- reality deftly proclaiming,
‘Here me, oh fool!
You are undone –
T’was all for not,
and not yet begun…
but at last
thy face is wiped clean
of superiorities –
a slate in turn,
thrust upon the world
to transcribe...
Behold!
You have found yourself.’

ARTICULATING THE POPULAR RAGE

2006-09-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

With regards to writing social commentary
– it is the plainest form of critique.

To begin,
simply observe societal ineptitude
our lack
a pebble’s toss
from the inarticulate crawl of a snail.
The social writer then ridicules the obvious
made more so
by the end of his critique.

Half his readership
mundane,
mind spoiled on rotten tripe
sound bytes without soliloquy
engage only the ‘pleasurable’ aspects.
Beyond this intellectually misshapen brood
exists the second half…
Yet only one third remaining
embrace his word
in its fullest understanding.

The first third
dispassionate
with all the lasting sensitivity,
compassion and depth
otherwise imbued on a ‘nice’ cream soda
or rum Collins.
The final third,
isolated intellectuals
openly hostile to truths
contradictory to their own
judge grossly inferior
his motives,
then easily discarded:
not, because the word is disheartening,
ineffectual or misguided,
but on its strengths
clarity, depth, confidence and detail
Professional jealousy,
sadly,
reigns supreme.

The exercise of social critique
is therefore most maddening for the writer
who gives both body and soul,
left humiliated,
drained and perplexed,
by the incomprehensible -
matriarchy of societal inefficiency
supremely lauded.
Stamped loudly.

Mattering not,
in levels of odious sarcasm,
cleverness,
or profound convalescences
even oracular proficiencies…
What is paramount
is no joyous exaltation for the reader.
Profound cynicism –
the order of the day.

AUTUMN SOLITUDE

2006-09-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

You must remember September,
Its rustic cool unexpected frosts,
showering the scarlet canopies
in gaunt and narrow
piles of galloping leaves.
Funnel winds twist and Asian mists lay
the crunch, crunch crackle
crispness of a steely dawn mounting.
Taunt sunbursts escape
through gray flannel clouds, then slip
Preparing for aged winter’s
crystalline whip.

LOVE IS MUSIC

2006-08-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

Love is music,
the swollen prelude mounted
on rolling notes
thrusting into passion’s sway.
Senses playfully corrupted,
scarred artistic palette
hurried into punctuated hush,
each mezzo sopranic trill
screeching greedy accents
spilled on tone deaf appendages
the thrill scorned,
scoffed,
rejected or worse –
slovenly bemused by too many notes
merely drinking in polite applause.Ever shifting scales
liquefy the subtle arts
into a mimicking clattery
batter of each pulsated fall
metronomic tic-tic-tockings:
Andante!
Allegro!
Allegro!
Andante!
…until all strings are plucked
to noise-less distraction.
…and love is music
a blackening kiss
drawing curtained curiosity
to its bosomed close,
heartless and cruel
under taut dissatisfactions
from a conductor’s baton.“No. No! Try it again!”
…giving rise,
not to Puccini’s glissando –
but Don Giovanni
licked by flames.

LAST NIGHT WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

2006-08-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

Must we always dream,
scented petal and primrose
the myriad through colored mists,
while dimpling age creeps
chasing away the specter of youth
across the shadows of our death masks?

Plain and prominent,
beyond the spiteful nose
that directs our gazes hither or to –
anywhere but in reflection
of these celebrated truths.

Last night,
the density of youth
marvelous and obtuse,
unobstructed by pragmatism
t’was an oracle before its time,
clairvoyance taut,
beyond the scope of mere logic
finding the nonsensical
- charming,
the foolhardy
- it’s challenge
proven fallible,
even as invincibility fails to shield
the approaching granules of sand.

Behold!
The glass is half empty…
more than,
each lapse, a shortness of breath,
the specter no longer shotgun,
but leering,
its generous fleeting kiss,
blown in the rear view of formative naiveté
Sixteen candles times two,
our farewell to the prom chaperones
fitting – now quaint.

I admire youth…
catapulting toward imminent disillusion,
only vague comprehensions
of an end,
engrossed in the ride,
with those perilous mid-life cliff tops
fast approaching –
full steam ahead, I suppose,
till the end of the line.
@ Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

FIASCO IN WHITE

2006-07-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

Biting,
bottom lip blistered
the repose of a tiara cocked
just so…
or maybe a little to the left,
as the happy gaggle
maids a’plenty,
preen and tease their Sunday best
made garish and contrite -
abysmal mediocrity
mired in the spectacle of it all.

“It’s my day.”
Whispering nonchalance,
forgetting the man’s part,
wax plugging reason,
laid deaf on the only appendage
untouched –
virgin ears.

Acutely tuned in
to the one that tells –
of a night...
indiscretion penetrating,
stretching the blissful hush
to a snap of gartered playtime.

“Be quiet!” she barks,
grand dame guillaume
rearing its foreshadowing head
through the paper thin crepe of veil,
“I’ve forgiven him that!”

At least
…until the honeymoon wears off.

Papa always said,
'women make the most peculiar brides',

…and now I remember why.

IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE

2006-07-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

When the sacred scorch of Valhalla
sears its grand complexity
in molten universals
and truth,
this unworthy shall not pass -
unnoticed.

Across the finite rim of time
caught in playback,
yore travels rekindled
from the vantage of stained maturity -
affirmation of my sins,
may clear the scarred slate of all expectations.

Up the craggy slope, shall I climb
where sinking pebbles
devour each granule,
of hourglass sand -
sifting between those who acquiesce
and others
effortlessly passing
from favor into the abyss.

That greatest of poisons
sublime enriched nirvana,
retrofits a scope upon my sojourn,
its aim affixed,
elevating to exaltations
blissful and blind,
binding my soul to each continuum
in the ever after.

Eclipsing pain,
with saintly parades,
darkly thrust
and drawing from impaled flesh
these imbedded thorny selves,
transfixed, then cast off
until all desires and aspirations,
the ballast of youth
unworthy to this succession,
spits forth from evangelical mouths
into Plato’s forgotten cave
of earthly Xeroxes.

@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

FIST - the musical

2006-07-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

Graduated –
from private failure
to public nuisance.
Imploring each passer by,
to dip tanned palms
into pockets lined,
incredulous success on the march.
To and fro,
from cozy corners of a world,
I have never known -
lazily drifting
past the ever-changing focus of life.
You see…
when people like me…
well, we’ve had all the bad things happen…
and when the good finally comes
it seems so much better.

So,
for scraps off your table,
I’ll warble the myth,
compassionate embraces
from my fellow citizen.
In this little place
full of big adventures
I’ll clench stiff digits
about well-plucked chords,
in lies and trade,
my meandering soul
for a cheeseburger…
or coffee…
gin poured in kind,
from brown papered sympathy
between teeth yellowing
on the butts cast downward
from your glittering lips,
and drink in the moment –
or two,
of what it must feel like
to dance merrily obtuse
about metropolitan streets
instead of banging
this tired worn fist;
cracked chalky remains,
beaten into cold
wet,
unfeeling
pavement.

TOWER OF THE BELLS

2006-06-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

That shameless clatter and clang
rough hewn metal knocking together,

Awaken!
Old San Juan Capistrano!
Impatient ritual slumber,
Dig Junipero! Frustrated, blood-knuckled piety
thrust into the red earth
from whence our sins,
ye old Spanish conquest,
have been resurrected.

To gorge Teofilo’s artistry
on darkening truths –
pressed under the settling weight
until each plundered flap
the winged springtime of swallows
drown out our greatest miseries
- no more.

HARBOR LIGHT

2006-06-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

Afterglow in the hall is dim,
darkly thrust
into pale languid echoes
barely evident
through smoky glass cracks,
my hurricane lamp.
Wick sinks deeper into paraffin seas,
sparked with ruddy amber anticipation,
storm clouds restlessly quelled,
to a diminutive sneeze.

Farewell the looming creak of timber sway,
my beacon burns triumphant
past shallow breaks of day,
stacking reformed perspective on wreckage askew,
prayer lights - fearless,
against spectral fleets of lightening
sporadic slivers,
the rumble roll/thunder clasp
a distance now.

That scouring funnel
that tore asunder this room,
has mawkishly retreated
to crack of doom.
Striation tides absconding,
without the glow in the hall,
dim and darkly thrust
into tomorrow’s great works,
sashay swells deposit
their thick barnacle crusts…
coddle the final embers of my flame,
in understanding goodbyes -
for a world,
ne’er to be the same.

MARRAKECH BY MOONLIGHT

2006-06-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

Within the ancient pearl of the south,
its golden beggary stirs.
Its crowded market square,
a tigress-lilting -
plucked strings,
the souk kimakhin teases
my handsome affair.

Hypnotically swayed,
spiced breath
wafts from framed turrets,
to drift foolish fancies -
inlaid beyond tiled spires.

Towering,
pleased against sandstorms
the taut settling breeze,
caught in echoed chants
between darkening sandalwood entries.
For only in this abrupt present,
does being haunt its reliquary of mysteries
time forgot to classify.

Ancient, robust,
beyond the amber flicker
in shadowy slits of charred waxy flesh,
these half burnt candles sparkle
within the halls of Koubba el Baâdiyin
where the weary and the traveled
tacitly commune anoint draped heads
serenely dipped into black-beetled abyss
each wordless ghost,
one titled prayer.

YOU HAVE NO IDEA

2006-06-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

Until, at last, I brim
with the bleary-eyed hours
best spent in bed,
darkly thrust
beneath thick Persian covers
into that absurd world of revisions:
where editors hack endlessly
ruthless -
desperate to recover that drivel
which will sell a million copies.

T’is a bittersweet epitaph
“I have forgot much, Cynara!
Gone with the wind…”
But not this…
my authorship blows gust-less
- gutless and distilled.
The hemorrhage of red ink
for each carefully constructed paragraph
lapses under the weight of a smile
and my check.

Sold out for the BMW
and that barren parcel -
mortgaged heaven,
rife with sea salt
in the Hamptons.
I wonder if…
enough personal integrity left…
for a hotdog?

THE GREAT ONES

2006-06-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

Rather than wait,
the great ones always destroy themselves.
Who can say why?
To gnaw and tear,
and bite through the chord
that sustained.
Their place among the heavens –
affixed.
Longevity of their legend –
secure.
To glisten
as white diamonds strewn,
across a firmament of clay,
devouring quicksand.

At last,
to endure no more,
to gnaw and tear…
who can say why?
The great ones always destroy themselves,
rather than wait,
Their place among the heavens,
evergreen,
for a while,
forever renewed,
yet always
the great ones destroy themselves,
rather than wait.

PURE BOLOGNA & COLD CUTS

2006-05-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

Sublime torture -
compacts the casing of her mind
behind the deli counter -
her inner most insecurities,
wedged in subtle greasy perversions
of frigid-fingered anxiety,
as she slips the Genoa
back under the flap of counter display.

Anticipation,
for the thick-necked stranger,
threatening to choose;
plump finger pressed stout
propping corpulent flesh -
double chin ground
into a heavy jowl drape,
as fresh -
as stripped intestine.

His thick index
appropriately points to ham,
her back turns
imagining the sickly engorged mound
of his portly cheeks swollen.

“Will there be anything else?”

She know the lid’s off the cream
as the chubby gent leers,
coins tossed into his waiting meaty palm
coo dreaded honey
from flabby-flapping lips -

“Hey baby, how’s yer Assegai?"

PRIMAL INTERPRETIVES

2006-05-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

Primitive urges paint a Messianic rainbow,
blood-noted bliss -
seems to honey fairly drip
in robust pagan lust songs
straining my explorative flailing limbs
about this incandescent sun-drenched countryside.
The amber wine slovenly surges
betwixt my meticulous wrinkles.

Purified in turn
tender-kissed and apple-ripe
inflamed against the shimmer
of your passively stimulated heart,
until another precocious attack of ancient hunger
awakens my impatience
to stamp out the beat,
proud melodies spackling the tombstone of Isadora…

For only she can resuscitate
that fatal-light snap of scarf
caught taut and final
about the dizzying spokes -
unleashed by artistry gone wild.

CORNFIELDS AT SUNSET

2006-05-16T16:24:00.000-07:00

I walk the cornfields at sunset,
to remind my footprint upon earth,
stuck, staring upward
into epiphanies of twilight
as dried weeping bowers
obscure my view of heaven -
their caustic stalks, loosely rustle
the ripe pumpkin autumn breeze
defiantly planting shrivel roots
beneath the dust of my dragging heels
dug deep and clumsy.

I taste their husk,
pondering immanent eclipse
from this pendulum of time
distilled into dying minute particles
of disturbed powder -
tattered remnants of musty hair
swooning against cooling beads
born off my sweaty brow
caught stiff by solemn gusts,
in worship-less truncated memory,
with only the specter of youth cackling ahead,
and suddenly realize,
I walk the cornfields alone for the last time.
@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

THIS OLD HOUSE AT SUNSET

2006-05-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

This old house at sunset
is a picture postcard from another era.
Its lazy shady promenades
defiant Pythagorean
recessed in gingerbread
no right angle ever knew.
A craggy lion’s head
tarnished brass ring clutched
between gritted teeth,
provides that subtle nod to propriety -
this valueless world, unaccustomed
to its decadent grace.

I pause, to toddle the lazy violet-eyed veranda
breathing from restorative juices
limpid bowers of honeysuckle rose
clinging an instant welcome
or sad parting song to parlor game youth -
when Vyuga horns chirped noisily
and the polite clatter of hooves
put to tap on cobblestone
pronounced the arrival of our daily milk.

Does anyone else yearn for this age?
Its haughty aristocracy,
building kitty-corner beacons
polite monstrosities,
dipped in civic pride,
and the dirty overalls and paintbrush
that plied delicate colors
echoed in dainty gaslight.

“How do, Mrs. Cartwright…”
and “How well your daughter looks today”
the bloom of Black-eyed Susan framing
her amber-kissed angelic smile
imbedded in twenty-four karat locks
and the convivial ‘come hither’
for this young man
diligent and beaming from my portico.

AND TALLULAH SENT HER CAR FOR ME

2006-05-12T08:16:00.000-07:00

I charmed my way
through her string of pearls,
chantilly, odious thick
with forgotten perfumes -
as a stylish coquette or parakeet
preening cocked robust feathers
spread before her blush randy boudoir.
Within,
without,
and not much consideration,
for self evasion
on how many men
been before,
How many then?
How many more?
Quenching my desperation
in rancid little bubbles
flat champagne of youth elapsed -
any glass slipper will do,
but the open-toed need not submit,
or sell short
perchance,
per hour,
seeming gratitude
turned under thin-lipped crocodile tears
and Tallulah sent her car for me.

TRAVELS BY NIGHT

2006-05-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

Pressed against my pillow
I pave the loose winding road
between meandering temples,
and hallucinate faint emerald meadows
where aristocrats casually
preen and daydream;
to the even keel
time’s seldom remiss
setting golden sway
of gothic yesterday,
caught briefly
in retiring postcards
of jaundice daylight,
- exchanged
shimmering dimpled moonlight
refracts across a crestfallen silver lake.

I see a spirit with long satin gloves,
pretending to be,
her arms outstretched for a suitor
joining her momentarily –
cool and refreshed as his steam bath
off the court,
secure and stolid
and so unaware that none of it can last,
‘cross broadening wooden slats
hard times ahead,
barons debate
while their ladies take up a collection
in more affable thoughts.

…and unexpectedly,
no longer is my mind denied
by too many lack of opportunities
for that forgotten, beckoning rest,
with utter chaos from oncoming headlamps
strike full my brow
catching and disoriented,
by the sharp burst of prelude
met on impact
crumpling the darkened corners beyond
what only my eyes had seen.

MANIC MUNCHIES...FOR THOUGHT

2006-05-05T17:15:00.000-07:00

At the behest of greatness
I dip the ore of my anxiety
into your excited hands
outstretched
forgiving,
and beat the fist of my well born intensions
into half baked schemes
predicated on the frenzy of fame,
money, not mine -
fleeting power,
made real only within stiff corruption
daydreams remade
in concrete logic.

There are so many kinds of riches…
only one is gold,
the rest a tinny echo;
of the boy I was -
man I used to be,
conflicted but pure,
and genuine as cucumber dip
without the curdles
of sellout sweat
mingling with your cream cheese.

Bite down -
Hard!
…and measure the length of fame,
money,
and power replete
by my girth of intentions
cut off at the pass.

MODEL BEHAVIOR

2006-05-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

Lights.
Music.
Fashion.
She descends,
half starved
a vanishing wisp
dissolved in flashbulb adulation.
Giraffe-like strut
swallowing foot lamps
and one amber spot
cocked just above the collar
belying her chalk white
cocaine and death mask visage.

Eye brows tweezed, isosceles
and vexed by puckering stomach
growls pursed tight
against bee stung lips –
hair tossed about
in knotted frustration
at the tryouts.

Designer bone rack
for the jet set.
Everything –
but luck, happiness
and reputation
in hasty jaunt by her side;
the wherewithal to pour -
not over eight by tens -
but gravy, sweet and sour
as she feels thin lesion silk
sausage casing
slide up, then down
her shallow ribs.

She could kill for that Ford contract
or a cheese burger…
whichever appeared first
before her cold greedy hands
to squeeze and devour.

Lights.
Music.
Stilettos poised
digging deep into her pockets
to bring up lint,
cotton, hay and rags
and that fetus
her 94 lbs. could not carry to term.

END OF PRETEND

2006-04-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

Tell me -
that I’ll find dulcet
intoxicating,
as you stare
helpless,
beyond spent tokens
of your secret lover -
depositing low
unsympathetic
sustained gasps,
one upon the next.

“When I am speaking
I wish you wouldn’t.”
Not that you could.

Try –
and I’ll leer a flash
fleeting victory
over this tortured wickedness
we’ve masqueraded as love.
That, which has tinkered my soul
in slights of hand
masking denials torn,
jester, juxtaposing passion
as the car keys from our nightstand
or stubs belonging to a concert
I’ve never attended.

“Now, observe these hands, my dear.”
Now you see ‘em,
now they squeeze,
until you writhe no more
in self inflicted misfortunes.
This blank soul coddles your vacuous heart no further,
except to caress its beat to stillness
resembling that rock of char
slovenly hurled in my direction.

Farewell, those nuptial promises
as loose dangling toes
into forever skinny-dipped Spring
while I make everlasting futile attempts
to pry that erotic senility
from your cold dead lips.

SLOW COAST TO FINALE IN 'A' FLAT

2006-04-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

I have nothing left to say…
There, I have articulated the end.
Now, which is fitting tribute,
many years lost to incredulity:
that – which is genuinely complete,
for it is so.

The tangled filaments
of my spinning wheel chaff
their cotton twill, hay and rags
stuffed deep within.
Reclamation into dusty bins
from where I befell
- complete.

The account of my overseer
all resources sheered –
receding and robbed,
greedily vacant.

Lock the wraiths of occasion
lording over my desolate shell.
Lay forbearance,
that devastated hallmark
upon my discontented creed.
For no rebirth stirs the silt of May,
and busying flax caught heavy,
in ambitious grandeurs resigned
instantly,
to decay.

This concave muddle
of predominance and filth
belies that unholy launch,
into renewals brief.
Except once…

…that I pledged my trove
to moldering husks replete
and clotted dizzying fancy
in this empty-headed devotion
built rickety upon the notions
of ceaseless spring;
now disenchanted youth.
Gone,
bitterly, at last
for I have nothing left to say.

INTREPID

2006-04-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

In a blaze of heated glory
he parades…
haughty pursuit -
speedy dreams
caught clutch
in a gale force F-5
collision of luminous streaks.

Generating fits in shocks
the remnant after-spark
of impatient toe to heel
back and forth
cross the living room rug.

A flurry of activity
twixt perpendicular struts
raising lint from cushions
breaking exculpatory beads
streaking his defiant brow.

Internal fluster pulse
lubricating the pistons of his mind
revving speedometer
gearshift whirling in place
challenging
each petty
revisited notion
…mere mortality – Bah!

“I am intrepid!”
“I am fearless!”
“I am the master of my domain!”

…now if I could just remember…
where did I put my car keys?

WHENE'ER I ERR

2006-04-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

This wavering path
has been silent suffrage
nearly forgotten,
not worth repeating -
It is a mast of gilded folly
affixed to foundering ships,
cast adrift into merciless fogs of daydream.
Thrust crooked, dark and jaggedly swayed
thrown open, laid bare and raw
found dense and smashed
against the craggy looming edges.

One does not ask for this,
but handles it as best one can,
up from the turgid foam,
wrapping bloody-knuckled spite
defiance and stubborn will intertwine
whole gutted remains - gripping flesh,
dug deep in ancient failures.
The mind – a decadent sea sponge
caught in recoiling tentacles
squeezed to near inexistence.

Bedraggled,
the sop of fertile staining algae temptress
licks these torn keels,
jabbed tattered resolve -
reminding with ease
of that simple surrender
beneath the tides,
giving way to the inevitable.

I will not allow her triumph so easily,
though one day she must –
cackling gales at the pains
I held on - begging
some omnipotent force
to sing a mariner’s lullaby -
or unaccomplished welcome.

Hence, whene’er I err
I simply look up into the skies
and find my moral center
staring from that beacon
at the top of the world:
the flood - a distant memory
come crashing
on my spiritual compass.
…and perhaps, somewhere
forgotten bluebirds reign supreme
left quietly
to mingle with the stars.@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

EASTER PARADE

2006-04-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

They came
in the premature vacuum of early dawn,
their licentious crowns
burgeoning thorny accusations.
Their heavy chains of open disdain,
commencing loose cords in sealed regret
to witness the wide-eyed leering spectacle:
lepers of one communal sin.

Placid, their piety mingling
Roman law – hard pressed,
united in one common caste
of happy stone-throwers,
sycophantic wailers,
the weary, the poor,
malnourished enlightenment
made impoverished by these dregs
staked to be cleansed.

He defied their crust and filth
with pierced hands unclenched -
forgiveness running red upon the block,
to annoy today’s commercial daydreams
of the sprightly raison bird
writhing lonely effigies in the sky
above these wavering gaggles
in their sunny bonnets, frills upon it –
kindly cottontails
collecting their Cadbury eggs.

GOOD MORNING SUN

2006-04-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

It began as knotted sheet toil; to turn
away the first warm renderings of Spring
Appalachian dawn
twittering golden beggary -
to taunt my lazy loins
through half filtered slats.
How now, does that slit of puritan light
widen its long-puckering tentacles
across my spread,
razing into the transoms of my soul
capable yet of refocusing on nothing -
yet, remembering it all.

I am exposed,
thrown open upon the bedroom sill
of almost beyond memoirs
where time honored apiece caresses
tickling about my ankle-socks -
the pleasure stretch
dazzling in ever-fresh shawls
upon these sun-bruised cheeks
for those few recaptured hours
spent in virginal bliss.

JAZZ-A-BELLE

2006-04-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

In complete social defiance
of her naïve caste,
and rigid moral code,
this masculine silhouette
swivels pastel licorice
hip-to-hip;
her cloche hat cocked just so,
a flapper – no less
pert, than bold.

Her wiry bob,
sits tight and round,
string of glassy pearls
loosely tousled
bouncing up,
then down.

This brazen figment
carefree adorn,
totally unprepared
for Black Monday morn.
Her shapeless shift
passes in cool sway
and breezy strut,
chasing every mongrel
to find her mutt.

That endless vacuum
where a woman’s heart should lay
bass-tempo keeping fast,
clickety-clack shimmy unsurpassed.
Devil’s eye and empty slate
waiting for hat check promises-
one chit,
some chat,
vapid plaything,
speakeasy alley cat.

Just in time, disposable waif,
plotting second to moment,
in manic Charleston steps,
toe-to-toe
as her distraught lover leaps
from a fifth story window.

FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK

2006-04-09T09:51:00.001-07:00

Let us be clear before proceeding:
Keats is God.
Tennyson: a saint.
James Hilton - masterful pulp.
Stephen King,
cheap thrills.
…but Jackie Collins will always be toilet paper.

Write!
Manipulate circumstances
made uncommon to life,
yet vaguely teaching a lesson.
Do not shock –
but rediscover the shocking
in the everyday.
Insincerity in living
permissible -
carry over into prose,
inexcusable.

Bleed freely,
if not from your soul
then tender vestiges,
understanding derived from the human heart.
It yearns for legacy
even before a single word is penned.
Many tears are shed
when quill to parchment
unmasks self-reflections -
processed by imagination,
undiscovered in process writing.

Forgo the pen for crayon when perplexed,
by epic embarkations,
or solid last act finales.
Absence of experience
derives its sprightly ember domain
from childhood fancies.

At last, the thing,
that misshapen tale,
cries out for representation.
Technically, an art –
artistically – a craft,
…but most authors will concur
that any resemblance
between manuscripts submitted
and final drafts approved
is purely coincidental.

UNSAID

2006-04-07T15:43:00.000-07:00

A lie, in secret, blooms today
atop the casket of my youth.
Sealed within this darkened vacuum
of divine permanence and a heavy lid
my nimble thoughts seem much tighter
than these impatient feet
fidgeting above my earth.

Onward Christian soldiers,
into Taps -
the forlorn harbinger cast shallow
into deeply inspired patriotic dirt.

Does someone pray?
How no one weeps,
though all keep vigilant hush.

I lie in still, embalmed repose,
elegant, stiff in military clothes
and dream upon no particular thought,
as pallbearers of my departed past -
desired, no more
yet loved, no less…
eternal prisoner
to each wandering thought,
and vacuous consoling distress.

No tangible trace, I leave behind
my conscience free, though body tied
to what might have been
with enforced obligations
abandoned, unfulfilled – and yet…
if only I had incurred enough strength
to have changed my will.

TRACK #9

2006-04-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

In days of old,
before the war,
I fantasized in ticket stubs,
plotting alpine excursions ‘cross Austria -
the thin leather plate of my shoe
grazing dense, craggy terrain
on a walking tour
while snowy-frosted peaks
glinted by foreign moonlight.

I was young, you see,
and optimistically pixilated
in miraculous-blind naiveté kisses
to Baden Baden and Berlin divine,
its renaissance menschen
and the gemutlick fraulein
awaiting my return on track #9.

The crisp apple of her cheeks singed
rosy by the hiss and coo off engine steam
mind - a crooked mix of Shelley and Hegel,
heart, unfettered by prejudices yet to come.
Her sudden appearance, was the milky white center
of virgin chocolate, pliable -
apart from the passing parade.

We chose to stroke our Russian vodkas
and eavesdrop Strauss by candlelight…
each sway and pulsation, mood and tempo
imprinting sonnets
the tussle of an evaporating existence
laid cold now and buried –
within hollow historical records
kept brittle, yet warm
in the prickly heated embers of my brain.

I cannot bear to dream on that pillow –
mein Liebling,
meine Liebe, mein Leben, meine atmenseele
straining that fragile haunted melody
blotting out the anschluss
though not its tinderbox memoirs
sealed chambers,
my forgotten youth.

Hence, when I imagine you now,
I dream inside a postcard Europe,
that frosty-alive November mist
poised natural on some ancient station platform,
properly aged before the war,
or in treasured glimpses…
and Stuttgart rolling past my window sill.

STORM WARNING

2006-04-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

The cotton balls are gathering,
antiseptic velvet wisps,
spun beads of pearl-like sugar
dot clear blue skies
in ancient stranded mist.

Their gossamer fingers interlock,
a rummage sale of knotted fluff.
Pastry flakes, ethereal gauze.
One veil-like cluster, then splits in two,
raising winds that weave a bridal halo,
into virgin blankets, ghostly braids.

They dab and sprinkle,
each playful swirl bumping into the next,
until angelic bowers curtsy to the earth,
twilling cotton ball rain in sticky dew,
and summer’s drape spreads anew.

THE UNDERDOG'S GRINDSTONE

2006-04-01T16:48:00.000-08:00

I cannot compete,
in this world of finite possibility,
where one spurned velvet tongue
infects the throat of my neighbor
with wrongful speculation.

I cannot,
unjustly, to trespass
on fondling gossip
crooked fingers,
hoarding each thought
in miserly disease.

I must not
if the winner
entitled to nothing,
take all,
masters deception
basks in bilious limelight,
thick as envy.

So here I remain,
a prisoner to loneliness,
one utter complete failure
of my own displaced convictions.
Forgotten and careworn,
weighted millstone about my neck,
a pillaged reminder
to that barrier reef of unfettered playtime,
embattled last bastion
of hopeless innocence bound
to a world thieving over
crusts of maggot-filled bread.

MY LIFE SO FAR...or the vagabond takes his trip

2006-03-30T06:21:00.000-08:00

The clichés of life are robust
and hearty in the mildew sweat,
festering from absentee portions
of my forgotten basement.

I have professed no goal,
as much as I have desired direction;
the former is never the shortest distance
between points ‘A’ and ‘B.’

To be taken seriously in due course,
I have cultivated a good sense of humor.
It has served me well.
For only after I laughed into this face,
did others recognize worth
in taking me seriously.

When carving my niche
in the forest of life
I did not immediately stab into the heart
of the nearest glistening pine
without first considering
how much sap would spill
from its sticky soul.

My road has been for reflection
- one third amiss
two thirds vision.
To reflect in hindsight
perhaps, was inevitable.
To dwell upon it
has been pointless.

In reflection, then, I now recall,
that my greatest despair came not
when the battle seemed bleakest,
only when I resigned hope
of rescheduling the rematch.

…and yet, my most profane self discovery
humbled; that at any given moment
never more certain than mere paces removed
was I from the person swinging naked on a maypole.
If spontaneity be that spice of life,
my common sense has been its advisable Benzedrine.
Conscience, my personal income tax –
for which never a moment existed
where calm judgment proved more a hindrance
than rash decision-making.

If only now,
I seem to present, dear friends
this magnanimous creature of foresight,
I recognize, as much for your vanities
as my humility
that it came,
blithe and decorous,
with more than ample regrets.

Emotion remains my tenderloin,
proverbial marbles lost at play.
In many ways masqueraded
as the part of an elegant fool,
taking time out for comedy;
the fool’s paradise,
when perhaps prudence might have
in order to preserve my forgotten face,
instructed to bring more Kleenex
to life’s party instead.

In this, I have at last redeemed my soul
so readily willing and pliable to be happy
that I deemed its simplest travel
the impossible dream.

Now,
arise,
dear reader
and dare to peruse me no more.
I have nothing left to give.
for the road life travels
is only two directions –
the paths well trampled,
and those too late in the footprint
of each forgotten journey.

I speak of the awakening…
now, go to sleep.

@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

REFLECTION IN THE WATER

2006-03-29T11:22:00.000-08:00

Tender gales whistle the willows
in radiating stalks of sun
birthed, then gone -
yet in my heart
renewal springs
the sacred parchment memoirs,
beckoning life and love
to linger on.

As the cradle of innocence
born in rippling seas,
marries shellfish
to engorging sands,
as flaxen hours
sift, are bare caressed,
through foamy lace
ebbing salty kisses
upon rejuvenating lands.

No coastal regret may captivate -
Triton unleashes his tidal dismay
hearty in mariner’s pride
swallowing swarthy romances,
dragged under mermaid’s breath,
thrust deep and forth, then carelessly away.
When August moon love decorates
its prelude to shipwreck in fresh barnacles
leaving bitter thoughts to betray.

Yet, how quick the light timber easily departs,
leaving behind its vestiges in swift,
heavy autumn decay,
splashing the pool of merriment about
dense plunder sprites
succumbing to their weighty despair
in oceanic cascades,
bon-sky embers afire,
smoldering fool’s folly -
under bountiful mist-laden crutches.

How now, cries the pagan sprig
in bereavement of cursed winter renewed,
her wretched frozen oasis
dangling death upon the heath,
a frigid mantel in crusted oceans
where skaters slice up the ice,
and silver wet flakes parade
their grey-toned firmament,
extracting the seasonal vice.

And here,
atop this encroaching epoch,
the canyon sparrow weeps
an eternal sonnet
encircling each final breath
awaiting the end of time
in her setting sun,
the wrenching winds have told and taught her,
my hopes,
diseased fears,
all dreams gone by,
like reflections in the water.

FATHER

2006-03-28T16:24:00.000-08:00

Into the cheery abyss
of childhood days
we burst into his arms
“What did you bring us?”
Unconditional love, pride
and devotion to our every whim
No conscious weight applied.

Years later,
Summation of his worth
dwindled into a few hush pauses,
the prerequisite of tears,
an appreciation distilled
into tangible remorse
and the inevitable,
“What did he leave us?"

PHOTO LOGIC

2006-03-27T07:30:00.000-08:00

The social footsteps of time -
cropped and matted
on display
or periodically splashed
as inserts;
shape-shifting remnants
of truth reconstituted.

Epitaph stamped in flashbulb memoriam,
luminous pedigree by the gilded soothsayers,
their slant in showmanship
present fact below par –
misperceived as “nothing but”
predigested cultural mandarins
with a one-world narrative
emanating Jeremiahs
on the nightly news…

You see –
not always does a picture tell the whole story…
‘worth a thousand words’
- perhaps,
or thirty seconds spent in commercial free
apart from first making deeper inquiry –
amongst the many thousands from which to choose
which absolute is there left to lose?

OUR DILIGENT COOK

2006-03-27T06:07:00.000-08:00

Her thick
snicker-snap steps
go clickity-clack,
heel to toe.
A weighted truck
across the Linoleum,
rumbling, as if, on cobblestone

She pirouettes a dervish of
gnarled hands clutched full
with powdery utensils,
studying the fine print
on the back of a Graham cracker box

The whiz-grind spinning
of bladed Kitchen Aid muses
Hair mussed with dough
and pale flour rouge
upon apple cheek.
A flair of apron strings.

No.
Not yet.
Forty-five minutes to go,
or until, light and bubbly.
She collapses
amidst a fouled heap
of rags and sticky dishes,
content to start planning
tomorrow’s dinner menu.

LOST

2006-03-26T19:19:00.000-08:00

The impulsive swell,
of her misshapen breast,
drew his heated breath
into forced puffs.

Deeper,
labored,
struggling.

Onward – lasting expulsion
of tainted youth,
with ball of socks,
resting off to their side,
tempo driven
keeping time,
as a pounding drum roll,
through each fall
and rise.

Their eyes, in unison closed,
to an unholy surprise,
with the sparked innocence
of childhood suddenly,
irreversibly
behind them.

SOUTH-WEST OF NOWHERE

2006-03-22T15:47:00.000-08:00

When descending into Rouge purgatory,
that vast inhospitable landscape of ascetic death
one prays for hushed-winged Godspeed
and a chariot-full tank of Benzene.

For south-west of nowhere,
lies a desolate tinderbox
mercilessly veiled
through apocalyptic urban decay –
the unwilling decamped,
moldering its motley kith by crater-light
swallowing totality
of any aspiration measured
real or imagined,
beyond that cavernous wasteland.

Caliginous junk pile,
wailing ramshackle row
of saggy façades and trodden recesses
internalizing silent notes
distemper in unison
– one low sustained echo
no Motown ever knew.

Here, the piteous smugglers deal,
pithy tokens of kinship away
dangling loose smelly ankle socks
and aged red nylon parasols
from the gaped festering cavities
open wide as the Hotel Yorba.

Dislocated under jazz-velvet hairy arms
unaccustomed to the cool
accepting payoffs from billfold politicians
extolling what few square blocks of virtue remain –
untouched by greed and filth
while all around
these nicotine stained indexed hearts
billow the sacrament - ritualized truths
tossed lifeless and bloodied
in empty back lots
where no prosperity may grow,
crushed against the cracked holding lot
outside the Salty Dog Tavern.

Drive on, fair chariot,
drive on.

ON TAQUATO LAKE...

2006-03-20T13:05:00.000-08:00

...he sits beside himself -
a lurid frenzied shade
unrecognizable.
His stammering heart
contorted and flailing,
unreal and yet realized -
in every tortured cog interring wild thoughts
dawdling to early decay.
The tender blow of cinder flakes
funnels the umber mists of fireflies up and away
her crisp death mask imprinted
in the gasoline soaked brittle bon’,
languid last expulsion of campfire,
cannibalizing her tender vestiges.
In the pit of his manic exhilaration;
her fiery cessation at midnight
narrowly peeks through
the hangman’s noose -
choke-holding heart
enveloped hers,
charring scorned lover-wisdom
acquired too late
and lain brutal
upon unsuspecting flesh
on Taquoto Lake.

WHEN NATURE SPEAKS

2006-03-19T13:31:00.000-08:00

When Nature speaks,
she marks her burgeoning season’s kiss
in wet dew, autumn gales,
bountiful, thickening rainbows anew,
the crisp aloof crunch of native rot
stripping her art from ancient bows
cast carelessly asunder,
preparing the encroaching plunder.

When Nature speaks,
she surmises death,
easing the craggy limbs
from brittle orchards,
condemned to sleep -
silvery carpetbagger,
lain dense and steep.
She splits the sacred holler-thrust of wind
about each whetted turn and twist,
evaporating somber daydreams
from her primordial mist.

When Nature speaks,
she devour this thorny rime of old,
plunging new sprigs flanked
in pungent crusts of earthy mold,
her renaissance a chaste delight,
twittering suckled pheasants by twilight.
Awake and rise,
my children bare,
witness my nimble-graced thoroughfare,
Rehabilitate my destiny, in this earthly pool,
fattening milkweeds, carrion jewel.

Alas, Nature is hushed with fickle pride
and robust, desire foretold,
accomplished, revised,
silent shock and buzz of fireflies
aglow, the dangling drape
in sticky humid repose,
mingles thrushes wavering
near sandy bluffs as she blows,
thunderous at once, momentarily bemused,
unsettled perhaps, good-nature confused -
vigorous dance of life, a recommence,
without sustaining providence.

THE TELEVISION AGE

2006-03-16T09:15:00.000-08:00

NBC presents the following program in color:

They sat affixed,
captive receiver
flurry of images
anesthetizing frequencies
awash in the perversities of life.
Their paralytic shock distilled
into nominal waves…
becoming less than zeroes and ones.
Emotions out of focus.
Soul of desire on remote control.

Not even the static of thought re-channeled,
all perspectives fair, balanced and impartial
skewed in postmodern pop-friendly clichés:
the forgotten spender
saturated in market share
consumer distilled into ratings
spent,
drained,
bemused…
amused no more.
If only they possessed a nerve of intelligence,
they might get up and change the channel.

It’s eight o’clock –
Do you know where your children are?

DEATH OF A SCIENTIST

2006-03-16T08:37:00.000-08:00

One low gasp
-then two,
alert the attack.
Wheezing
thrashing,
unable to draw breath in,
between half swallows
of slow congealing phlegm.
Buckling at the knee,
a thunderous timber,
splits his Adam's apple
in two lightning thrusts.
Lids drooping,
lips tinted Robin-egg blue,
rosy-cheeked bloom
swept into chalk,
panic distilled between echoes…

“Help! Somebody!
Is there no one to help my husband?!”

He veered off into heaven,
beckoning Galileo’s swoop from the stars,
but saw only coal and the devil,
and died– a broken man,
with one eternal reminder,
and the cold dead hand of the universe,
closing his heart to her forever.

@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

STAND, WHEN YOU CANNOT...

2006-03-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

Stands alone -
oh, wretched clown
sifting through painted veils of obscurity,
wandering in floppy shoes -
a ghostly spirit
passing through granite and marble halls
juggling each perilous deliberation;
a balancing act in spangles
that gnaws and corrupts
the parallel bars.

Searching through the pungent muck
stale sawdust hallucinations,
cursing the after hours
that condemn these morbid chains
no strong man will break.
Wrapped between the myriads,
gaudy mirages
dedicated to each cardboard flight of fancy
or moistening sticky lashes,
oozing in discolored tracks -
my faded rainbow tears.

SHE AND THE SEA

2006-03-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

She sat cross-legged on a white wicker couch,
bewitching spray of sea salt lapping under her nose,
and could almost conjure his proud silhouette
matted against the kaleidoscope of dusk,
darting along each velvet beach head;
turning, haughty strides, to wave her goodbye,
and a “see you later…after my swim.”

But that was long ago.
One thunderous moan from that ancient tide,
fastens the clasp on her memory box.
Too painful to think of him - even now,
wrapped in her luring tides,
and happily so, at first,
before clawing the sandy bottom
bloody fingers,
airless gasps,
praying, desperately pleading
to glean one last flicker of porch light
or soft smile through the kitchen window.
Damn it all!
She hated the sea.

MUSCLE TOUCH

2006-03-11T13:36:00.000-08:00

Simmering heat of thimble sweat,
teases -
festering pricks in sliver shards
lain tight upon my skin.
To taste flesh for the very first time,
that rippling mass of thriving panic,
writhing sensation
taut, penetrating sinew
one jagged contour
traced into the next,
‘til frenzy lays waste
sharp little curves - relaxed
bouncing all these supple daydreams to earth,
living deep inside my core.

VOODOO CHILD

2006-03-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

Came to him twice,
that winged gossamer devil-woman,
wild-eyed and curious,
her jealous flair ups masked,
surface innocence – personified;
the deep black vortex of those emerald eyes,
swallowing cautionary tales -
spreading the thick tropical malaise
pressed deep against hardening bamboo;
raven curls perched in ragged bundles,
thin-lipped dancing Isadora
her cold dead visage,
tap, tap, tapping wigwam thoughts -
sway and bent madly about her plunder.

Ghost flowers
decayed but not forgotten,
lie and lay their drunken perfume
upon splendiferous worshipers.
She corrodes beneath burdening shafts
pierced light filtering through,
darkened recesses that cannot bake away
the frigid pallor from possessed souls.
Tangled in sashay ropes of seaweed
her crusted barnacles dig a grave
measuring the moments in patient repose
with the tick, tock, ticking of painful notes
caught inside each fertile naked brain.

STARDUST IN DAYDREAMS

2006-03-07T09:24:00.000-08:00

I met the velvet ghost of Cappucine,
her, quick light haunted steps,
sinking diamond tiaras
beneath twinkling sands.
Her pupils affixed,
as endless pylons of sapphire
swimming in unbalanced golden halos.

Wrapped in raspberry quilts,
we drank the ruby nectar from burgundy baths,
while sheets of taffeta fell
the sparkling diamond-chipped rains
that nearly drowned,
smooth and casting
soft mink shadows darting,
about one silvery kiss
and two eternal flames.

Then, all at once, I awoke anew,
startled as these resplendent dreams
melted into my cocoa
and spread the buttery smooth cream
of mellows about the stir, spoon, then pallet,
fell back into this swirling black bean pool
of daydreams for another world,
and the secrets of my darling.

STARDUST IN REELS

2006-03-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

Dawn of sound,
birth of stage,
echo through me,
the golden age.
where celluloid deposes time’s natural order.

In the mockingbird, I do concur,
race the chariots with Ben-Hur.
the plane, from Casablanca, departed,
leave I, with the hero, somewhat broken-hearted.

Crosby, Hope and Danny Kaye,
King Kong clinging supple Faye Wray,
Tapping through showers with umbrella in grip,
luck be a lady?
just shoot from the hip.

Fanfare for Astaire,
and Rogers,
and Rodgers,
and Hammerstein.
Oh, what a beautiful morning,
to be younger than springtime,
in swing time,
top hat, white ties and tails.

Victorian ascot today,
Imperial Russia for ‘morrow,
This is the day, Judah,
in the shadow of Rome,
Oh, Auntie Em,
there’s no place like home.

Hefner, Hughes, Citizen Hearst…Kane,
Dorothy Dandridge, Auntie Mame.
Bogart, Cagney, Davis, Shearer,
draw the masses to their bosom nearer.

The world is indeed a stage.
Thuffering thuckatash!
I taut I taw a puddy tat!
Maggie the cat is alive.
In like Flynn,
Mickey Mouse,
Lombard’s spouse,
Gee, I wanna be a stooge.

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!”

Margaret Mitchell
Walter Winchell,
…these are a few of my favorite things.

SWASHBUCKLER

2006-03-04T15:07:00.000-08:00

A-vast me hardies,
on galleon seas,
stoically trundling past forbidden lands,
sip the greedy poison of our fruit
intoxicated still - with thorny lute.
Behold, the witness plunder ruin
delving bony fingers
onto sweet dragoon
thrust deep into yon maiden breast,
hording her jewel encrusted chest.

Hi-jo!
A pox – what grows before…
Tis land,
that ripening familiar whore -
her tenacious craggy bluff
doth stretch proud into the sea,
making prisoner of all but thee.
Her gaping lips,
swallow port’s mouth
to lull these motley gadabouts
breeding, feeding carousing men,
beckoning the scullery wench,
and then,
again, cast off and kept afloat,
in the billowy sail of her petticoats.

We, to whom no home belongs,
extol the lonely praises
in salty songs,
to hearth and girl
an eternal pledge,
spends the maiden
from her chaste ledge.
Until at last there seems no more,
that can willingly appease -
a-vast, me hardies,
on galleon seas.

TORMENTING HIMSELF

2006-03-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

Was this the only moment of love?
- caught in a cold snap?
Leaden tease,
lock-jawed in quaint reminiscences,
unwrapped, sullen goodbyes?

He sat alone,
a crumple, embittered repose,
the fetching of haunted kisses,
feeding this resilient hunger -
a tempest of some stormy dreams.
Tapestry of life eaten away,
into greedy little moth-holed
hours, laid tattered waste.
Still -
dangling the rotted carrot of youth
before wrinkled, shallow simpers,
clotted by constricting temptations.

The acrid perfume of tobacco,
drilled sooty holes between his crooked lips.
How they twitched.
Sour. Smoky.
The brooding chimes,
of forgotten summers cast off
in funneled gusts of the Autumn brittle.

Rigid, settling into his armchair,
with only one fresh memory,
that pretty young thing
whose smile once ascended
from his stiffening knee,
tormented pleasures of his company.

MARZIPAN

2006-03-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

Surrendered completely,
to his thicket of daydreams,
pleasures dipped in sweet marzipan
awash with sensualities -
fattening life.
Sheer unrequited bliss,
willed him the custodian,
chocolate fancies
through that dim looking glass,
sprinkled dalliances by moonlight,
tapping the pane and pang,
subtle growl sifting through his empty belly
ticking recesses, engorged
in marzipan -
if only the baker would unlock the door.

LAMENT OF A CREATOR

2006-03-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

I am not my art,
It is unlike me,
though born we two
of grand artistry.
United in trips
unattainable by foot,
each time hand to pen,
then paper put.

That Vern should n’er have traveled
not even one league,
nor Norris, in miserly theft
before scribbling McTeague,
Stevenson in absence of a treasure lost,
only in halcyon stupors did Carroll,
such a wonderland cross,
Keats – no primacy found
in any Grecian urn,
or Shelley in Blanc,
beyond the sojourn,
revived in print,
Mitchell’s Atlanta decayed,
Tennyson charged imaginary
onto his light brigade.

And if, no Bohemian, am I,
as wanton wandering Toulouse
what intrinsic value
from this may one deduce?
that, like fool and wallet,
art and artist are easily parted,
the tempest stirred,
words maelstrom thusly started.
Still I reinstate what I said before,
not that miserable pleasure to write,
but revel from within
each conflicted delight.

THE LAST ELIZABETHAN

2006-03-02T08:38:00.000-08:00

Shakespeare wrote
masterworks of old,
ripe pleasurable follies,
so it has oft’ been told.
Yet, did he really pen
such eloquent fluff?
Or have prospects,
mere folly,
coined a literary bluff?
For speculations beg the inquiry
be made in short,
to chronicle each sly retort.

History is excused
disproving its past,
confirmed resolutions
to each curiosity,
at long last.
And then,
of course,
there are rumored scandals
debated academically as fact,
that Will n’er knew
to witness even a contract.

As such sweet sorrow,
his reputation remains a pox
on etiquette’s sweet persist,
in that Elizabethan time capsule
where his legacies exist.
Perchance to dream,
To be, or not,
The bones of the Bard
continue to rot.

And I, for one,
believed fiction should lay
dormant still,
from those in perennial failings
of that Englishman’s supple quill.
But then, of course, who among us knew,
that the greatest of all literary masters
lived just down the road from view?

THE ETERNAL

2006-03-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

Pallor of autumn moonlight,
cast across one lonely sea,
unearthly vessel thrice passing,
salvation ebbing quietly to me.
Laboring tides collide about,
launched, upward and swift,
set this passionate bounty before me,
then elusively cast it adrift.

I breath the sting
salt vapor and spray,
mingling rage,
quelled calm - the ocean,
my gaping heart cresting
on careworn tides
foamy springs from Triton’s potion.
The pang
beaded waves distress,
succumb my soul to sweet kisses wild,
weighted breezes lustily billowing
softly teasing,
perpetually beguiled.

At once, I awaken as before,
escaping nature’s cold dampening grasp,
forever altered to the better, to sea,
this lover, always knowing you.

LAST MINUTE AFFAIRS

2006-03-01T17:02:00.000-08:00

Easel poised,
cocked beret and silken scarf dangling off the edge,
gingerly bending under thoughtful light strokes
artist’s brush twirling the Seine
in majestic echoes of Piaf.
Trenet, Chevalier plucking her acoustic nerve,
as the warmth of breakfast croissants
melt inside…
still enough room for crème brulee.

Leaching romantic inspiration
each landmarks beckon – a tale
coveting the canals
in slender splendors,
seductions and…
- silence!
The Arc de Triomphe and spire tower
fancy her Degas at noon
or Gene Kelly by Gershwin-ed midnight.
‘our love is here’ to be immortalized.
Sipping the quiet dark nectar in vineyard fruits,
gliding past gilded mirrored clouds in the halls,
transforming time’s elegance inside the musee d’Orsay –

Her daydreams are numb,
past window éclairs and cabarets
her heart weaving ribbons through beaded windmills
rouge velvet hours at last fade;
steely dawn once more.
Locals sullen and moody,
musing profoundly…
‘Ah, she dreams like a Frenchman,
Alas – but trips as the tourist’, past Momarte,
duffle hunched across her back,
her Toulouse - too loose,
and finally exhausted,
with Can-can memoirs,
to be immortalized on postcards
written in haste on the plane back home…
... If only the ticket hadn’t expired last night.

NO LONGER HER OWN

2006-02-27T14:49:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-27T14:04:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-27T09:05:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-26T10:12:00.001-08:00

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

2006-02-25T08:44:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-25T08:35:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-24T07:50:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-02-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

…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

2006-02-23T07:47:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-02-22T10:56:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-22T09:46:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-21T12:42:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-20T08:26:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-02-19T11:29:00.000-08:00

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?