Reading from my latest collection of poetry - Daydreams and Other Lapses

Ode to the World Eaters

Violent paroxysms

evoked from impossible

expectations enveloped by

mammoth greed in all its

voluptuous folly.

 

Within the torrid dreams of

empire and

naked individuality,

where humanity is forsaken,

a dimensionless future awaits

of hydrocarbon sludge and

greenhouse gases

erupting from the nightmare of

pointless acquisition.

 

Within the scope of such a future

victory of the dark emotions

forged at the dawning of

conscious life

will be confirmed at last

forever obliterating any chance

of reclamation.

 

Praise be the sublime

stupidity of the human race and the

panoply of gods used to forge

the significance of such a

downward spiral.

 

War

Strident pronouncements from the

pulpit of state

proclaiming superiority,

demanding loyalty,

stirring the shimmering

cauldron of fear,

tsunami of emotions

assaulting the senses.

War grinds on

poking desperate holes in

the fabric of reason.

Humans stand astride

the abyss of the damned

and plunge without reluctance

into the chaos of their own making.

War shreds humanity

under the staggering weight

of bountiful corpses

left bloodless,

discharged from the living

in a torrent of metal and fire.

Cycles of endless violence and

retribution,

falling upon

sharpened spikes

of hatred

ignorance

fear.

War glorifies pitiful death

upon the altar of

the unrelenting darkness.

I mourn for all the pointless killing,

for the gravestones piled high upon

the beleaguered hearts of all the mothers

who have wept over the ashes

of their vanquished children.

Wars' hollow victories

give succor to the void

and offer the promise

of future grief upon the bones of

fractured peace.

I mourn for needless suffering,

for the compendium of horrors,

for the blood and sinews of the

armies of victims who

fall to the earth so

thoroughly shattered.

War is carnage

unredeemed by the rhetoric of

shallow righteousness or

the politics of punishment

and retribution.

I long for a time when peace is

no longer a sentiment

reserved for the prophets,

not just a word used on

special occasions.

I long for a time when peace is

not simply a sweet turn of phrase

laced within the rhetoric of

the politics of deception,

but a way of being

within the substance of humanity.

Illness

 

Illness stalks

relentless desperado

unraveling sanguine dreams

disconnecting hope

from illusion.

 

Pandora's box of maladies

hidden in the attic

beneath the pile of

old photographs and faded momentoes

discovered and opened by

mischievous fortune.

 

Within life's unruly matrix

suffering is the host

humans despise yet

whose company is expected.

 

Disease has laid relentless siege

upon my family,

leaves me frustrated

i possess no power to

deter its blinding course or

avert its chaotic fervor.

 

Illness stalks,

indeed it must

allowing biology to pursue

its cyclic nature and

build anew from fallen timbers.

Disease has laid relentless siege

upon my family,

leaves me frustrated

i possess no power to

deter its blinding course or

avert its chaotic fervor.

 

Illness stalks,

indeed it must

allowing biology to pursue

its cyclic nature and

build anew from fallen timbers.

Curious Obsession

We dance by the window

shadows on the wall,

glance upward

at the wonder of it all.

 

Existence may have meaning,

desire its reward,

tomorrow may bring solace or

escape from blinding repetition,

yet i still choose to

capture fleeting moments with the

timbre and rhythm

that only words convey.

 

Consider it a sign

of childish vanity or

unashamed idleness

to be so possessed by

what is barely palpable,

lacking substance,

devoid of obvious purpose.

 

It is a measure of my weakness,

and my strength

a curious obsession.

Welcome to the Age of Indifference

    Oil extracted from the ground

in prodigious amounts

to feed the hunger of humans in the

age of the irascible machine.

 

From the ancient carbon stores,

many things are fashioned,

gasoline runs the engines

designed to foster and prolong convenience,

to feed the insatiable progress machine.

 

From the fuel that was earth's bounty,

wondrous polymers are constructed,

molded in myriad forms to

shape our insatiable indulgence.

 

From wild and exuberant beginnings,

the creatures that call themselves human

have created an elaborate reality

that has removed them so completely

from their origins that

the future is dying.

 

Magnificent creatures that

remind us of the wildness of the world

we once had,

disappearing from earth's diminished bounty.

 

Polar Bears drowning

ice no longer able to

sustain them.

 

Tigers and Rhinos and Elephants

slaughtered to near extinction

to satisfy ancient superstitions and

feed the endless lure of profit.

 

Zoos destined to be their

final habitat.

 

The insatiable human penchant

for order and dominion

wrecks havoc upon this hapless planet.

 

Once wholesome air

now populated with

noxious chemicals

too numerous to catalog

turn lungs into black parchment and

suffer the children.

 

Water is no longer considered sacred

squandered by abuse,

bottled water now the norm
fresh water no longer trusted,

fire retardant resident in

mother's milk.

 

Oceans, pity the oceans

the fate of coral, uncertain,

denizens of the ocean depths

depleted by the extravagance

of human folly.

 

Humans, an unfinished species

seem incapable of learning

from a history of profound mistakes,

too inured to the machinations of

the lower brain,

too bridled by emotions,

too wedded to the

shallow dimensions of self.

 

What does the future hold for

creatures so immersed in

paths of self-deceit and

mindless destruction.

 

What gruesome future

will unfold if

we do not take hold of the present and

transform it to something

hopeful and transcendent.

It’s Stories We Crave

It's stories we crave,

we thirst after them

and wish to impale them

upon the ends of our

barbed and perilous curiosities.

 

It's the story and it's telling

that reminds us that we are,

it's the story in it's listening

that affirms we are members

of a greater whole

with it's language,

its babblings,

it's eccentricities.

 

It's the story that

binds us to the memories

of a collective past,

that recalls our humanity,

that trumpets possibilities,

that predicts our fate.

 

It's stories we crave,

they give us place

within the gyrations of

a chaotic universe,

they offer sanctuary

from the fear and

uncertainty of living.

 

It's stories that

catalog our fears,

give them all names,

names that we can call upon

to subdue their reckless tendencies.

 

It's stories that

give dimension to dreams,

hopes and aspirations.

 

It's stories we crave,

we long to be reminded,

that we are not alone.

HOW CHARISMA FILLED UP YOUR LIVING ROOM

How charisma filled up your living room,

and the sunlight beamed

through cracked pottery

from the ceiling,

 

How the locomotive died

on its way to the unveiling

of your new placenta

at the whitney,

next to the fried egg on platter.

 

How the days went by like moist arrows,

and the dawn nearly froze

in the wake of your eyes.

 

How i greeted the audience,

and fed them your program,

how i laughed at your stowaway manners,

how  i metered the rhyme that came out  of you

like Oklahoma dust,

how i staged your departure

in  a hallway of mirrors.

 

How charisma filled up

the webbing of your bed,

how i pleaded to pause

by your manifold breathing,

how you turned up the volume

and resisted the meeting,

how you authored your memories on the ceiling,

and signed my letters

with the blood of a hamster,

how precise, how clear

you were then,

how charisma filled up your penthouse,

and let the day begin.

To My Son – Still Arriving

The time is almost

when we will touch

when you will first

set eyes upon the open air.

 

The time is almost

when you will come

on a great swelling tide

to this room,

here by the goldfish

and the scattered letters,

to this room

its walls

its dispositions.

 

The time is almost

when the separate sea of your flesh

will meet with those who

conspired to make you.

 

The time is almost,

spring teases at the window and

earth is open to your anticipated

arrival.

MANHATTAN

 

I walk the streets of the city like a

traveler from the distant stars

noting every nuance of the human thirst for

survival, for pleasure, for reverence,

for glory and for meaning. 

 

Humans seem to be beleaguered by the

complexity of the inner life,

the images of self and others and the

summation of the infinitely diverse interpretations of the

singular events and circumstances of a lifetime.  

             

There are many nomads in the city,

many homeless,

many hanging precariously to life. 

 

There are many young vital males with

nothing to do but endure the

relentless passing of time 

while the vitality roars in their bodies.

 

These men decay from within from the

ravages of the restless engine of inertia, 

the parks, the christian missions and

ultimately the prisons await them.

 

There are many who walk the city

inescapably mad tormented by the fire

burning constantly in their brains. 

 

There are many who walk the streets with a

running dialogue being carried on by the

myriad personalities trapped within a

singular consciousness

particularly prone to perilous ends,

completely devoid of the least remnant of

survival programming, so engrossed are they

with their own divinations.

 

 

Uptown women at the very pinnacle of fashion,

hailing cabs in a driving rain, 

junkies nodding out over a cup of coffee at bickford's, 

lunch time employees causing

ten thousand hot dogs to disappear from a

nedick's restaurant in less than an hour,

a drunk pissing on a statue opposite macy's.

 

Five young black boys

demolishing a burnt out tenement with

consummate speed and skill,

young gay men cruising with an

almost mocking grace on a

hot summer afternoon in central park, 

a family speaking french on a bus

nearing lincoln center, 

old italian men in white playing bocce.

 

A gaggle of widowed women

lined up on park benches

like chickens roosting on an old fallen log

exchanging stories regarding their dead husbands

and inconsiderate children,

or comparing the severity of their operations, 

queues of young professionals outside the

broadway theaters on a saturday night. 

The ghost like quality of Wall Street on a

sunday afternoon with the wind blowing the

refuge through silent thoroughfares,

the sharply delineated gray of winter with

low clouds enshrouding the great skyscrapers,

thousands upon thousands of workers emptying out of their cubicles onto fifth avenue.

 

These are some of the images that

envelop my senses and

catapult me into the

ever changing fabric of the human kind

infinitely diverse yet

somehow monolithic,

ever moving yet changeless,

an immense population that

shares a commonality of their genes,

the architecture of their brains

and the form of their bodies. 

 

Humans are the chimera of a protracted past,

an instantaneous present and

an uncertain future. 

 

The city stands as a

crystalline mirror to that humanity

revealing all its convoluted facets,

its monumental incoherence and

shimmering vitality.

 

My own growing up with all its

particular circumstances is but an

indelicate mirror of the state and situation of humanity. 

 

I am, in fact, a living time machine

carrying with me through the fourth dimension

the history and possibilities of the race.

Two Guitarists

Two guitarists at the window by the night, 

the moon glides gingerly over

sounds of humanity

where jungle meets swamp.

 

Air is filled with longing,

we awaken to it like gypsies, 

mayhem and confusion both rushing

over sanguine dreams. 

 

Hypnotist and his magician

hand in hand in the alley, 

the highway motions,

the sea shatters the illusion of time,

the heart empties its vessels. 

 

Brick upon brick,

civilization is built and 

worn patterns of the ancients reminisce

amid the brooding whispers of

the virgins of the clotheslines.  

A Meditation on Humanity

From the magical darkness

of the womb

into the abrupt light of

human contrivance.

 

In the dome of the implacable skull

the torch of consciousness

passed down through generations

and fashioned into

the protoplasmic wonder called human.

 

Dark, wild images implanted

in layers of distant memories

in the labrynth of brain.

 

Sleepless nights of

tumultous storms

tossing lightning through the skies

at the ground in haphazard folly,

trees snappig like helpless twigs,

rivers raging with their burdens of

relentless driving rain,

nights filled with utter darkness,

volcanic fury ripping the earth

as if it were paper,

sky overwhelmed by distant points of light and

moon, mysterious moon

casting pale shadows on the midnight earth,

howling beasts that break the silence

and impregnate the unsuspecting mind

with avenues of fear and deep distrust

of nature so capricious.

 

Lush rich beauty  of the world

enveloped by the seasons,

filled with wondrous creatures

gave pause to awakening spirit

to rest and meditate

upon the possibility of meaning,

to considere cause as well as effect.

 

Conflict between the inexplicable and the known,

horror of predation and joy of the kill,

fear and understanding,

health and disease,

plenty and the relentless pain of hunger,

harmony and upheaval,

rapture of sweet love and rage towards the enemy,

living and the end of life,

gave sustenance to the idea of the capricious gods

who hold creation in their playful hands

who can change the course of life

in an instant.

 

Born with the hunger to understand,

born with the relentless desire for harmony,

wrapped in mother's arms and

held sweetly at the breast,

we seek each other out

to enrich the joy,

to placate the suffering

that begins to unwind from first breath.

 

We are a vast tribe

grown from few to billions,

we carry the emotions

bundled in our minds like fire,

we have great capacity for

living fruitfully or

giving sway to ignorance

and a thirst for chaos and dissolution.

 

We are a vast tribe,

grown from few to billions,

we can continue to nurture hatred

sustain the idea of enemy,

need for mortal combat or

take the noble idea of equality

and give it true birth

in the human heart.

 

We are a vast tribe,

grown from few to billions,

we can hold on to pernicious ideas

that arose from a darker age

where ignorance resided or

embrace our capacity for wonder,

and enfold the whole of humanity

to our breast like the ancient mother that

gave birth to us all.

Nascent Scream

There is a nascent scream

forming in my throat

its origin runs deep

within the labrynth of

my psyche,

embedded in the fabric of

my persona,

beneath the scaffolding that

supports the beating of my heart

intermingled with my breath.

 

I've endured for far too long

the pathetic nature of the

human condition,

the endless stream of senseless violence

that circumnavigates the globe,

pointless murders based on

an infrastructure of crazed logic

embellished with religious beliefs

that tolerate no answer except the

ridiculous ones purported to come out of

the mouth of psychotic deities,

untimely deaths of men, women children,

victims of ludicrous struggles for power

wrought by nations that seek nothing but plunder

disguised as self-righterousness.

 

I've lived through too many wars,

too numerous to detail,

too horrid to contemplate,

too stupid to be believable,

wars that have grinded bodies

to dust,

buried alive thousands too

weak to resist,

wars that have wasted entire cities,

turned civilization to rubble,

sent mothers and their children

to screaming deaths,

wars that sacrificed reason and intellect

to the desire for oblivion and ruin,

wars that have murdered hope and

offered free license to despair,

wars that thwart human progress and

consign many to an early grave,

wars that unwind the clock of the future,

launching history into the

darkness of the dreaded past.

 

I've grown weary of the

endless streams of nonsense that

fill the bandwidth of the present with

tidal waves of petty thoughts and

nearly useless information.

 

I've come to tire of the

misuse of language,

vocal chords no longer the

gateways to our minds,

words strung together haphazardly in

nonsensical arrays,

communication no longer a tool for

exploration of self and other,

all has become insufferable vanity.

 

There is this nascent scream

lodged within the signature of my

innermost self,

brief sojourn of life so delicate and

wondrous,

turned into a shadow play

filled with circus and

steeped in illusion.

 

Reality has become sidelined,

the trumpets sound,

the noise deafening,

humanity herded into

a vast and perplexing hall of mirrors

where all protest is muted and

within the blazing lights of a

multitude of artificial suns,

what is essentially black and dismal

seems somehow golden,

young and agile children

armed with baskets

filled with a bounty of ornaments

disperse wondrous arrays of color

without substance,

fill the domed enclosure

shrouded from the incessant darkness

with idle and cheerful songs.

 

Dread has become enshrouded by apathy,

fear by pitiful amusement,

architects of the future

have crafted a world

impossible for humanity to endure.

 

This nascent scream

nesting within my belly

is an incipient cry of anguish

over all the needless suffering

carried by so many for

no acceptable reason,

for all the mindless insanity.

Existence in All its Naked Wonder

Within the house of innocence

there are no mirrors,

no telltale inkling of the truth.

 

The spin of the disc jockey,

the alluring call of the

near-naked model with the

fabulous jugs

whose nipples entice with a

suggestive glance as she

mounts the hood of a honda accord

urging the hapless to buy with abandon,

the clearasil politician with

flatulence in his pants

constructing a doomsday device

within his agile brain

who tells quite another story

stitched together with

lies and misinformation,

all the nimble admen and procurers of

bottled pleasure and innocuous daydreams

designed to suppress rage and contain despair,

armies of fabricators of digital delights

carving a prodigious mountain of bits

into the essential pabulum of the age,

all occupied with the formidable task of

erecting a wondrous tower of imagery and

delusion that bears no resemblance to existence.

 

Within the breast of every human

beats a heart designed to live,

to move about the planet,

to breath whether the air be fetid or pure,

to gather energy in bits of flesh and fruit and

root and leaf and stem,

to penetrate the core of desire and

conjoin egg with itinerant seed to

sustain the species.

 

Within the boney skull lies the

a fabulous organ crafted from

millions of years of practice and experience

honed from diligence and potent error,

assembled from happenstance and the

incessant greed for life.

 

Within the core of this fabulous

piece of organic magic

resides a gifted sculptor

armed with wondrous circuitry

that distils from the chaos

of the flowing universe

a sense of order and purpose,

the formidable idea of god

who makes all things possible and

helps contain the ever-present shadow of

inescapable mortality,

the need for language and the

idea of civilization that flows from it.

 

At the helm of this neuronal wonder

rides the captain

constantly compelling his minions to

act upon matter and

extract from incessant desire

and petulant curiosity

a purpose for existence.

 

Civilizations have come and gone,

have endured the jaugenot from

lofty beginnings,

through anguish and confusion,

from fire to ash

finally ending in ruin.

 

Beneath the rich panoply

of all the raucous theories

regarding divine purpose,

underneath the perpetual shell game

of contrived enjoyment and

the lofty edifice of indifference and

delusion,

at the very core of

sublime pleasure,

and inevitable suffering

lies a simple truth,

existence.

 

Idle self-proclaimed truth tellers

fill the airways with vast yet

shadowy edifices of pure nonsense.

 

Beneath the arch of the

endless cosmos filled with

rapturous starshine,

humans convene at the marble factory

where conformity is fashioned and

idleness constrained

 

At the marble factory

within great expanses of real estate

under a magnificent domed sky

a bland facsimile of the sun

is projected to fill the space with a

cold and unforgiving light.

 

At the marble factory

there is no place to hide,

there is no place to gather and recollect,

there is only an endless array of machines

that hum incessantly and beep and flash,

that manufacture things

we are compelled to need and

urged to acquire.

 

At the marble factory,

data is collected, digested, regurgitated

and reshaped to ultimately create

the most magnificent machine of all.

 

It is called by many names,

it is referred to in hushed tones

and regarded with great pride by the

master builders,

it was built to be indestructible,

it was contrived to sustain itself,

it was forged from illusory materials

to contain and perpetuate and

world of shadows and delusion.

 

Life has been likened to a

perpetual game where

truth is obscured by wily magic,

life has become a peep show

where the participants can only watch

but never touch or feel the essence of

passion or desire.

 

There is an endless queue at the pawn shop where

the present moment is exchanged for

innocuous glitter and happiness delivered

in an empty bottle bound for the recycler.

 

Yet, when this fabulous warehouse

of concoctions falls apart from

lack of substance,

the vast terrain of existence remains

strewn with chaos and desire,

passion and suffering,

pleasure and longing,

where the essence of matter and time

cavort with naked truth

that does not abide illusion.