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bag man
He was crouched, huddled in the archway of Rockefeller
One bag of a man with no real importance,
And all the suited men tipped him a buck
For, sitting on their art-deco stairs, keeping them warm,
For he reminded them where they stood in Business.
When they saw him, they fondled their slick pockets
Fingering cash and change, tossing him a smirk
Or two—
And he returned to his banging of his hat on the ground,
A man had dropped he, careless-
He recycled it kindly.
(And spruced it in his own time)
He had everything he wanted… blanket, cash and can.
Married twice. Women were not his breed of bag.
He thought they were too full of merchandise.
But he held the time worn opinions which the suited men treasured.
Sometimes on secret nights, the suits slipped into the bag's
corner-
His acrid breath blew wisdom into their minds-
When to buy, when to sell, when to live, when to die.
The suits had studied stocks, but their minds drew too many parallels,
Too many planned deceptions, too many men dreaming.
So the bag whispered trades, whispered deals, whispered and whispered.
Until—
The suits had success.
They no longer stopped for acrid secrets.
They no longer tossed a smirk or a buck.
They tossed nothing.
The bag stooped on the art-deco stairs.
He couldn't warm their empty granite.
He couldn't conjure any more whispers.
The one bag of a man crumpled on the steps of the Rockefeller.
When a new suit passed, he was filled with joy at the illustrious
bag.
He knelt next to his pile of crumpled cash:
"Tell me the acrid secrets, tell me the way to the pinnacle."
He waited
And waited.
The bag did not stir.
He had gone to the land of idealists and dreamers.
He had abandoned his post on the art-deco steps-
And he missed the smirking suits terribly.
Celloed
masculine sensitivity pulled out into the auditorium
to the drum of the hollowed chest
with stretched strings laying dormant.
with a stallion's tail resting beside it.
waiting solitary for the master's swipe
before he ripped into that piece's life.
birth had commenced—
one note hovered up to the roof
clashing in the listeners' ears
pulled out as a wet blouse flopped on the laundry room floor.
on a rack of staffs committed to memory
he disappeared into a flank of vibrations
tickling his knees sensuously.
sweeter
lower
deeper
honey spread into the air
lifted his deft wrists to shake the black boards
to write a pattern on the martyred tree
painted in a workshop morgue
to appear vibrant in its hearse—into a different beauty—
shellacked and squeezed into a suit ten times too small.
yet when the song and birth began
the tree grew roots again and poured out
its oxygen.
lighter man
he ran to hell with one pocket and a lighter
with a stick in his foot and stickier hair.
the spirit and of a person and a time
running after him slowly.
who needs him but he?
he is a man-empire—the last one left.
swallowing everything was his business.
the dream profiles of brilliance flared
up in his stomach with the juices
messing them into wasted ones.
bile terrorists floundered with profiles
a dancing digestive too soundly procured. |
jack
rifling through Jack Kerouac and the
macroinvertebrate pages
his bongo beat
the street is his name
near the bar where he bopped
his now-nothing-but-types.
plenty of books with spines
were a portrait
fresh like fresco,
I could smell the plaster dripping.
but I slipped over those.
jack
drew me to the spineless
the yellowed with broken limbs
like his beats
nicked to their toes.
psuedo-masochistic when they cut me
I was sliced by the old.
so jack huddled in the bar
beat and applauded
the papercuts.
N'Awlins
noir sasparilla epitaph
ingrains the yard of N'Awlins streets.
the voodoo nightingales chant in the bags
and the visionary shopping cart ladies
spew unfounded knowledge into the gutter
sputtering lamps strobe the cobblestone remedied ways,
bringing segmented night to the hybrid flats.
a botched rendering of ancient dynasties—
a caramelized etching of a misfit heaven.
virtual reality
she is sitting in the 1/10th room of a house that's 1/10th
full
in quiet surrender she listens as her sole voice echoes through
the halls.
lots of green, lots of paper, lots of clinking change
can't fill the void, can't space the beats.
in her heart it feels so strange.
the 16 mm view is a bit askew
but she claws and claws in vain.
the façade is down, the veil is peeled
but now there is more burning truth—
all she has when the money is gone
is a soul that's nothing but acute
avec moi
madam X
flattened road kill
on canvas.
25 cent
film lady
from a century.
that could pay
for more than smut.
hair piled
into a smooth knot
doming white head.
red bud.
mistress
#7 or more.
stuck between fiber
on acrylic.
brushed with
pleasure toys.
just one stroke
beamed her
into a vacuumed glass
in France.
free ticket to forever
when disposable
nights died.
quite ironic.
Mesopotamians
Mesopotamians plucked off of a plain
onto a green in suburbia.
the male has conformed in jacket and polo
with a scot-born tie.
the female however is tied to the root
her body hanging in a gray robe
with falsely indifferent hands at her hips.
hair in a wrap to tight to think
and a poised glace to the camera.
she thinks she can see to Mesopotamia. |
