Thank You Masked Man

For Lenny Bruce

Tell it to the judge with the big belly and bored face

Tell it to the shy class clown

Tell it to your hilarious carnival mama

Tell it to your sober sulfur father who leaves you both alone

Tell it to that gentle kid in the navy

Tell it to the goofy aluminum siding salesman

Tell it to your grandmother’s seagull shriek at some random phantom flasher

Tell it to the stripclub prince with the vicious spitshine wit

Tell it to a woman famous for her nakedness

Tell it to her leering fans

Tell it to that compatibly bland big band who never laughs with you

Tell it to us with intricate cross-referencing associational dexterity

Tell it to the wives of nightclub owners chained in gold

Tell it all over again to another judge who says you look like a sinister character

Tell it to the guy who pow! gets a faceful of crap for sleeping on a religious holiday

Tell it to the amphetamine orgasm addict

Tell it to the stagestruck star who never wants to go home

Tell it to the steamy faces in Hong Kong Kitchen who ask where’s mama? after your divorce

Tell it to an outlaw standing under a huge flashing arrow in the night

Tell to the judge when he tells you he’s given you every break in the world

Tell it to the suicidal egomaniac pinball bing! bing! idealism flashing in the roots of your eyes

Tell it to the biggest blacklisted blackballed black bastard in all the loud wide land

Tell it once more to the judge presiding over the other judge who tells you no again

Tell it to that twisted mouth wincing at you in the mirror

Tell it to a man with nerves like sizzling wires

Tell it to one more man seduced by the venomous kiss of a promise of a cozy place to lay

Tell it to the bearded monster sprawled on a cold tile floor with a fang in his arm

Tell it to him who’s gwine up ta hebben in de big ribba boat god damn!

Tell it to someone who forgot about the clock

Tell it to us all now that you know

why the masked man flees thanks



.

Through Us All

We all met under
the big tower clock
in the center of the city.

The day was grey in a way
that made everything sharp and stark

and we had a plan

to wander the streets
and see what we’d see
and talk
and pause where we chose to be still
and watch people pass
and eat and drink coffee.

Four friends in the phenomenon
of a bright grey day

I thought
and suddenly it stuck me
that this was a dream.

Not that I was sleeping

but something I’d always wanted
was happening right now:

I felt as if life
were staring through my eyes
—but not me or my life:

more like the excitement of being right here.

I knew that my friends knew this too
—that everyone in some way knew it:

anything we did would be fine
and right and as it should be

and that was what mattered.

And the big tower clock
chimed trembling waves
through us all.


.

Ah!

She had weird music in her brain

flickering laughter
jittery rants
foghorn moans
farting jeers
bleeding screams

but sometimes, beyond all

beehive static gusts
hissing jetplane shrieks
rusty factory clanging
frantic skeletal taps

for a pause, there were no

howling empty yawns
gliding like winds
over creaking tombstone teeth

but just the hum of breathing

and she could twist herself
through that maze of noise

like a radio dial
tuned to a huge smooth tide

and that was enough



.

Magnetized Eyes

With magnetized eyes in the mirror
she splashes her face and decides

It’s pretty.
But what destiny
does that offer me?

Should I just
let them lacquer me
at Hairtastic Nailphoria
till I glow like a flash
on a screen?

And then flee
down the fastest fashion
path to unhappiness?

Where some Rumpelstiltskin can
ransom me with pregnancy
and then marry me
redeemed?

That’s the nasty aftermath
of someone stunned by images
of others pretending to live!

Better to stare at a tree
(so luminously green!)
somewhere and breathe
the moving air.

And stare.
And decide what to do from there.

Then she rubs a towel in her face
and starts her busy day.



.

Opportunity

This is a big gig.

From here, there will be no
hiding in a private nightclub
beneath the blank beat
of another authority.

That will be history.

Instead, you will squint
in search of something
humming like a wire
in the soul of everything.

You will be a bodily
phenomenon,
just like everyone,
even trees.

You will see yourself in trees
and rocks
and garbage.

You will twist through mazes of choices,
each choice a chance to honor
a possible destiny,
even ecstasy.

You will know indignity,
disgrace and shame.
You will have no one to blame.

Sometimes you will smile
through eyes like glowing stones.

There will be no days off.

Do you want the job?



.

"No Expectations"

A song by the Rolling Stones

It starts with slow strummed chords
—and a sliding steel line
whining over them.

Between each twang,
an eerie laughing stream
flashes over stones.

A somber see-saw rhyme
gliding over the steel line
laments your leaving here.

The flashing stream
grows into piano notes
that sparkle over the stones.

You’ve got no
expectations
to pass…through here…again.

And a last twang
hangs in the air
like a sigh.



.

The Life of a Solo

He understood each solo
as a small destiny of choices:

making one gambit meant
denying so many others

and obliged him to ride out
his choice till he reached

a burst of new possibilities
and then he would choose again

one of them
in a flash of a gamble

chasing a shapeliness
for turn after twisting turn

until he ceased choosing
and the solo was over.



.