The wrong address

Two Doors Down

The hardware store just two doors down

another garage project

sisal twine and thread tape

an easy out bit and a new bulb

for your drop light

maybe a pair

Of ox hide gloves.

                                                Lapse into

a camber fugue

                                                down the fastener aisle

Gallery with walls creamy and cool

as the inside of a milk carton

drained dry

by the light

of the fridge

at three a.m.

in early February.

You shot your cuffs

to Ape the man that

Dogged you in the plate

glass windows

reason enough

to lose your way

walk right past

the door to Weir’s

a gesture barely registered

by Old Man W

dozing over the till

Bonneville Salt Flats

came to mind

minus the metal

tang of iodine

those eyes of yours

running flat out around the walls

falling

with a mighty whump

the sound of your

bursting chute

upon my masterpiece

in monochromatic tones

formless

self-portrait set

in a receding landscape

of atmospheric perspective

leaving you with

the intended

impression

a frozen pond

a polished floor

a black ice curve

your gaze in

a glancing blow

your one and only visit

though  

from time to time

I’d catch you peering in

or trying to fathom

the man drowning

in the window. 

GOP reaches out

Exciting New GOP Entertainment Offerings For 2016! 

Karl Rove, Live At the Apollo!    A live recording of Karl’s dazzling 2013, four night stand at the legendary Harlem venue.  Hear Karl rip through funk and R & B standards on the very same stage once graced by James Brown, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke.  Backed by a quartet of evenly tanned Liberty University coeds, the Rovette’s, Karl sweats through jumpsuit after jumpsuit, busts moves galore and pays homage to the Godfather of Souls famous cape routine.  Available on i Tunes and as a download on the John Birch Society website. 

Fifty-Shades of Akin   A racy new romance novel by well-known “pink” author Todd Akin.  Akin has created memorable character, Toddd Akin, a powerful red state senator who gives it all up for the love of a beautiful woman.  The dark, moody Toddd, an amalgam of the author, Rhett Butler, Stanley Kowalski and Jesus of Nazareth, woos the wealthy widow Mourdock, a handsome filly living in a castle out on the moor, alone save for her wolfhound Santorum.  Toddd wins the hand of the fair widow with chocolates, flowers, time-saving kitchen appliances and a gift for knowing what makes the ladies swoon.   

Mariachi!, the hit telenovela on Tacomundo, the new Koch-financed Spanish language network.  Mariachi! follows the lives and loves of Jesus, the handsome yet troubled mariachi played by Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his wildly fertile wife Juanita, played by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and their forty-seven children played by a rotating cast of indistinguishably brown child actors.  Trouble arrives in the form of the mustachioed bandito Pancho “Choochoo” Babaloo.  Pancho, played by a convincing Iowa Representative Steve King (R), fronts a rival mariachi group and has his eye on the fecund Juanita.  Brought to you by the good people at The Scott’s Miracle Grow company and its family of lawn care products and Porta Potty, outstanding in its field and yours, if you’re lucky, amigo.   

Japanese wood block printing

Ukiyo-e

Thin curls coaxed from the grain released

from all claim by the dogged

rooting of the spoon gouge,

bone white ribbon

easing itself to the fragrant floor,

spiral cherry rivulet

lost in the churn at the feet of the carver

is the first thing I remember.

A churlish man I recall, the burl of his squint

screening detail and smoke

from his cigarette,  

a blue double helix rising in mirror image,

a lowering ceiling steeping

his head in stormy weather

gimlet eye brewing heavy seas

a tempest lipping

at the canted rim of a petal thin

tea cup, the striated wave

heaving for the heavens,

top lopped off clean by sheering wind,

the fluter and the veiner alive and biting

in the hands of the carver who cuts me free

at last, rendered in stark relief at

the boiling crest of the surf break.

Trick or treat, smell my feet

Halloween

Sacks of candy from big box stores,

Grab bags jammed

With Jetblue

Drams of sweetness,

heavenly hosts of sameness

bestowed

on the stoops of each

and every house

on my block,

Plenty Good

for the endless line of petitioning

Marvel and Disney

intangible assets

interspersed

with vampires and the odd

Freddie. 

I’ll admit to sleepwalking my way

through this pagan ritual

until a pint size Winston Churchill

presented himself and sent me

scurrying to the scullery

for Bombay gin

in a highball glass, the MP

no sooner having weaved  

off into the night

than appeared

a ragtag gaggle

of beggars.

Reagan and Leary

Armstrong, Hitchens and Grant

crying out for jellybeans

acid and EPO,

single malt and Cuban cigars,

threatening all manner of mayhem

and dirty tricks when low

and behold 

as if on cue

a late arriving Cheney

deftly shoving

Molly Ivins

into the shrubbery

while asking sweetly

for nitroglycerine

and a Dum-Dum for his little brother George. 

mechanics of speech

Lisp

Onomatopoetic name graces

a childhood affliction, if affliction

it is.  Betrayed at the hands of the tongue,

longing to lash out, roll ball lightning vowels

around in my mouth and feel the stitching

abrade my lips, bite off die cast ingot

consonants, debride them, gnash their cunning

angles and curves into hot lead and spray

belts of bullets in staccato patterns,

laying down a field of fire where I’ll

stand and let the wind blow through rib and strut,

whistling through old gaps in the armature.