Clouds of Gases

A train
moving through
clouds of gases.

My self
breathing clouds
of gases in

and out
again and
again and again.



.

While We Walk

Cold clear stars
in the black
sea sky and
no moon

while we walk
through a world
like a theater
whose roof

blew off and
cold clear eyes
now stare down
on us



.

Another Planet

Throw the light on in the john
to make sure you didn’t leave
the window cracked

(a last flash check
in the pre-dawn dark)

then a sip of juice
and you’re off—

to work again
(with those with souls

like wind
through a crack in a door—

like yours).
And you’re wide awake
on a weary ride

while the sun lifts
its slow glow
over slumbering Earth.

A crushed candy cane
on the floor of the train
heralds a holiday.

Bare trees on the lawns
look paused.

Last weekend you hiked lands
almost unmuddled by man—
like another planet.

The feeling faded.
Work waits.

But for a while
you had only
big rocks in your brain.


.

Spin

“…”
he said, smiling

like a president’s
press secretary

(which he was)

twisting the turning
world’s wires

(which he was)

clouding shadowy
strategies

(which he

coaxing personal
apocalypse

was)



.

Like That

He played a prime time dummy
to make a heap of money—

now when he tries
to smile he smirks

and he only speaks to complain.

You’re going…

Precious Venus blessed
with some of the body’s best
gifts on God’s smudged Earth
appeared at my window at work

with all that jiggle and heaving
—and a divorce decree
to change the name
on her photo ID—

and the seed of my greed
screamed OH GOD I NEED!

You’re going to go…

A suited suburban executive
stomping under an umbrella
through drooling parking lot rain

spat through a scowl at a passer

“MISERABLE
GOD DAMNED DAY!”

You’re going to go through…

It’s as if I’d
grown a gland
that shot hot bolts
through my blood—

all those crude
loud coward dupes
and nasty lucky
punks

insulted me
by being born
and churned my guts
with rage.

You’re going to go through life…

His old eyes blurred
with burning tears
when he thought of what he did

not do—never fought those fools
whose fraternity forced him
to laugh at what he loved

and die a man he loathed.

…like that?



.

Don't Look Down

Climb a building
like a wedge in the sky.

Stand on the roof
and don’t look down.

There, in an ocean of air,
let yourself forget

the sizzling wires below
and those who know no calm.

(A Harvard School of Happiness
would tell its graduates

Don’t Work For Worth In The World!
Don’t Poison The Void With Noise!)

Breathe like slow fog
through wind-worn pillars

(smooth with silence,
total and timeless,

a memory of eternity).
This is it.



.

Behind Big Gates

His white head droops
like a broken bloom
when he remembers what he said

then : when

he played the game to gain
the grace to play the same
as other players played

and he struggled to smile
with a hawk’s fierce face
and sneering winds all around him

...and one dizzy night he sneered
The sky shits pigeons!
for a laugh with the boys in the club

then : when

to curse the rest
was the grace of his class
and the rising tide to ride

laughing forever beyond
some broken old bloom
left on the lawn of a mansion



.

Suburbia

We met at Yorklio’s
(franchise food for folks
with no alternative)
and mapped our next move.

We were trapped:
there was no one
we wouldn’t offend.
(Yorklio’s was made

to make ten men rich
while they watched us
with cigar-butt eyes
and strategized)

We didn’t believe in this world.

If we said what we meant
again and again we would say

we didn’t believe in this world.
So…maybe…we…

should mutter this under
every sentence we said

and shout it after every
catastrophe and maybe

(Yorklio’s now
was crowded and loud)

something would happen.
Then we paid and got out.



.

Big Yellow House

We were two tv teenagers
roaming a sterile suburb
with ski hats on and clouds

of breath in the blank night air.
Dizzy with flickering images
of our soon-to-come Christmases

we decided to hold our old lady
history teacher hostage
with some dumb cornball carol

she’d kindly have to endure
while we sneered our solemn serenade
at her open front door in the cold.

We giggled up her wide driveway
and pressed the glowing doorbell dot
when we got to her front door.

Bong! A mean old man’s
birdface burst at us
through a narrow gap in the door

and we had to start singing.
We blundered through a vague melody
in the frozen awkward air

and I saw Mrs. Grupp
almost unable to look at us
behind her glaring husband.

Our faces blazed with shame
when we croaked our last notes and he told us
our singing was the WORST he’d ever heard

and slammed the door.
At school the next day Mrs. Grupp
called us to her desk before class

and apologized for her husband—
but right before we’d come he’d learned
he’d lost money on the stock market!



.

Heem's Dream

His name was Heem.
He had a dream

of office workers

who refused to use
new postage stamps

because they bore
the twisted face

of the gargoyle Yorklio.

Heem was a leader.
He sought solutions.

He would explain
the historical significance
of Yorklio and dignify

their using the stamps.

He summoned someone
to bring a dictionary.

His fingers flickered pages.
Words dazed his eyes.

He couldn’t find any
that started with Y.

He dropped the book
and grabbed some stamps.

They didn’t cling
to any thing.

The workers’ circle
around him broke.

Faces faded away.



.