Flint's pride and joy

We’re An American Band

We’re An American Band erupts

Unbidden in my head sometimes

A song I never paid

More than scant attention

No more no less than

Smoke On the Water

Though nowhere near

I admit  

Stairway To Heaven

But without a doubt

Equal to or less than

Free Bird

Which isn’t to say

Any of them approach

My indifference to

The Joker

Inured as I am

By a lifetime of

Second-hand exposure

To AOR radio

A dismal landscape

Likely as not to broadcast

Slowride

Or it’s evil twin

More Than A Feeling

At any given moment

Day in day out

Eight days a week

Which, given the alternatives

Wouldn’t be unwelcome

Though far more likely

To turn up in endless

Rotation is the ubiquitous

Horse With No Name

Note for note

A song on par

With the despicable

Feels Like the First Time.

“We’re comin’ to your town,

We’ll help you party down”

Is best remembered

If remember I must

And apparently I do

As a public service announcement

Time enough to pack a bag

And get out of Dodge

Before the party starts. 

re post

Taking Stock

Ten toes, ten fingers, nose, mouth, pie plate ears

Two legs, two arms, a chin no stranger to

Self-admonished “up”’s, salt n’ pepper-jowled

Aspect, beetle browed in bad light, good side

Diametrically neither left nor right

But adrift in the watery middle

Distance, watery eyes sloshing above

The high water line of a nocturnal

Bladder up all night with the yips, wisdom

Teeth toeing the fault lines of high voltage

Trigeminal nerves, toes one step ahead

Of galumphing ocher fungi, pink eye

Loitering in the lobby for contact

Wearers everywhere, glasses like watching

Puritans scowling through wavy tavern  

Windows, desertification claiming

What’s left of the once verdant rain forest 

That anchored rich loamy thoughts in my head

Kept them from washing away in torrents

Of time, leaving a barren dome that won't

hold soil but might look good in a rakish

hat, consolation a warm ear flap cap

I wear more and more these days looks be damned. 

Did I mention thoughts of rogue cells skulking

Down back alleys, haunting waterfront dives

That spider major organs, keep me up

At night when I do most of my reading

Books by men of a certain age, tie-less

On the jackets, leaf peeper blazers like

Some character in a book, a man in

Autumn wandering shaggy mounds of reds

And yellows, small j of a forehead crease

Suggesting brooding contemplation when

In fact he hasn’t a thought in his head

Beneath a deep blue sky, heading homeward.

Masks

Thieves

Last night I bore my hands in the manner

Of a mutual friend, let’s call him Guy

A man who kneads air to make a point

Casts handfuls of hymnal dust to the winds

When words alone are not enough or hewn

Rough, a soothing courtliness to wear down

Finning dorsal flashing, time worn gestures

You graced with proper attribution, words

Rendered by a languid orchestration

Of Mona Lisa’s shameless smile stifled

Seconds before the more famous one and

A merry jig of cheek and brow by way  

Of your old Aunt Lib.  George Clooney then, the

Crinkled grin, self-deprecation leavened

With a sly sense of imminent mischief

Your gauzy skirt perhaps snagged and lifted

From behind in a maneuver lifted

From a cane twirling Little Tramp but

For a forthright dressing down by a no

Nonsense Kate Hepburn the Gerald Ford in

Me should have seen coming, my mugging leer

Reminding you of no one so much as

Esteban, our ingratiating pool-

Side bar keep at the Royal Catalonia

Tulum.  Your mother, my father, sensible

People that they were, sat silent witness

Ready to step in, infuriating

Qualities we wear like puckered old scars.