GRAMP’S GRIPE

I don’t understand it at all,
said Gramps,
here I am at ninety-two,
a 3-D seismic of my pulse o.k.,
life’s taught me a lot, been
good to me, I obey all protocols,
try to be friendly, environmentally,
wear my reusable diapers
when I go to town, still don’t know
why I owe those damn student
loans



THE LADY IN RED

As soon as my grief therapist
steps into her robe, skips out
of my head
I return to the story that keeps
me from drinking: be it pitiful
or apocryphal, it goes something
like this—
A young American diplomat is posted
to South America. He goes to five
consecutive embassy parties. At the
fifth he sees a beguiling figure
in a red dress. He asks for a dance.
The lady says NO for three reasons:
1) You are drunk; 2) They are playing
the Brazilian National Anthem; and
3) I am the Archbishop of Chile.
Then, thirst assuaged, I turn over,
go back to sleep
counting the lambs of God.


YOU ARE THE ROUX IN MY GUMBO


You are the roux in my gumbo, said Gramps,
your invisible dobros add riffs to the spirit,
no pop culture battened down, my little social
heroes with your philanthropy of love!

We gather here before I take the long slow spin
into stone-cold silence; now don’t give me
your e-bookish look, you know I’m more than
loquacious, a curiosity beyond blather and ink,

Hoping my psychoses is emollient, disappears
in a fast-food fix. So, we meet at the intersection
of the senses, pluralistic in passions, no need
for affidavits to declare our love, for you speak clearly,

Kiss in the street, while my War-Two generation
can barely remember 'The Leaping Libidos'
at the Circus Of Flesh; and with deep regret I confess
that each of you has not lived one day without war,

Plunderer of blood and treasure, admiring still all
troops sworn to keep us safe, while you study words
'enmity' and 'amity,' become doctors of diplomacy,
lubricate tweeky wheels, let rapprochement

Become the song of Peace, for if the chemistry
isn’t human, change the formula, for you, dear
children, are the living link of hope that stirs
my endless dream.




KEATS TWEETS

Combo Rap


If one could find Keats lost in the tweets,
vapid or livid, single or wedded, somewhere
in wave-lengths of winners and losers, shakers

And movers, for Fannie and Freddie have long
gone to beddie, the buoyant and blemished
join hands in the skirmish, lean and the linear

Illustrate interior; would the great Keats
be quick to recall all those who would rush
to his wall, hackers and big-city whackers

Wait to enthrall, and if Keats were here instead
of there, would he leave fashion bare
with poesy as his passion?

Would our household pet, the internet, water down
his textured tone, left alone, to tweeking
rotors in sensitive motors, millions strong

Rush him along? When they tuck in yuks,
run amok, chase the buck, burn feathers
on his pen, and if invited, will dear old Keats

Come back again?




THE LOVER


He could tell
In one caressing kiss
If his lover’s lips
Had tasted manzanillo
Or sevillano olive.

He could tell
If it were sun or touch
That aroused
The compelling scent
Of flesh’s essence;

He could tell
In the texture of breath
If the words
'I love you'
Were deeply felt
Or merely spoken.





THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE LAST TIME

'Finns do not thank each other
for a visit, but wait for
the next meeting.'


Summer days without darkness; winter without light
but for the flare of her body
in firelight; raw/pine rooms, flax/covered chairs,
life brought back
to the 100/year/old bed.
Nakedness steaming in the log/fueled sauna; bodies
color of pink/fleshed salmon trout
found in Baltic inlets; her smell of birch leaves &
juniper berries; her aura, sisu,
a pack with pride & the past.
Toasting with frosted glasses of kokenkorvo,
a strong schnapps
biting the teeth of laughter with toasts of 'Hei &
Terveydeksi.'
'to your health'

sharing broiled crayfish in dill with barley bread ...

He felt, in dying; how that Cheater War
chose young salmon trout,
caught, sealed, gutted; smoked in the dull drone
of gunfire
fed with birch branches & bark shavings
in the round old oildrum of the world,
lost in deep pillows
of arctic cloudberries,
the hot & whirling whiteness of her arms …




KOKOMO


A wicked looking bird! What is it? Damn!
It follows me through the bush of ancillary remorse,
As sure as life is my mentor in a world without reason—
All I have is my little book, 'Pidgin-English, Fur Papuan,'
Can you believe it, all in German? The text is Papuan,
Guides I cannot afford—'mi lukim likpala man'—
What does that mean? Watch out for the bird, Kokomo,
Page 23? Small eyes boring through me, red as the
Ruff of bloody feathers, body plucked clean as if prepared
for a cooking pot—

So—'pison is pidgin'—count the hours Kokomo has hopped
Behind me, beak banging on the banyan trees, un-slung
As a palace guard’s sword in Dubai—'wan, tu, tris, foh,'
Hours before finding a note in English in my used-book
From Sydney—the bird Kokomo has dedicated its life
to saving strangers lost in jungle tracks, lead them to
the nearest village 'tiklet' where they’ll receive comfort,
restored health & spirit—I now know its time to stop,
face Kokomo, give him a translation of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge straight from my heart—

'I may not hope for outright forms to win the passions
Of this life, whose fountains are within.'
Kokomo, all absorption, appears to nod, cock his head,
before leading me to where my life will begin again.