Early Poetry
IMAGINARY WOMAN #1
Spring 1977
Her voice is uplifted, taut,
as her upper lip pouts
a grimace ... like hello.
Her gum snaps rhythmically
with the sway
of her black
patent leather
pouch-like purse.
Her belly protrudes
after the indentation
below her dwarf breasts like a double chin,
languidly gyrating
to the sway of her hips,
narrowing severely
into high
heeled
sandals.
Dull brown
skirt and shirt
cling desperately
to her hairless limbs
as her mouse-like gray-blond topknot
glints in the midday autumn sun.
CAN I BUY YOU A DRINK?
December 26, 1977
They saunter faultlessly
down the asphalt
their lips
twitched
in a smiling flare-pout
with button noses uplifted
(due to a surgical imperfection)
They mindlessly flick
their eyes
in a gesture of approval denied
smiling faithlessly-religious
their eyes
diligently search
for suitable object sizes, shapes, colors
and
Can I buy you a drink?
When you’re on vacation, everything goes.
From far away
yet close to my heart,
Your alabaster innocence
is refracted in my visions
into a rainbow radiance
splashes, crashing through my mind.
Your gentle smile
sympathetic and somnolent
faintly recurs on my tongue,
It’s sweet flavor
tingling and titillating my lips into turgidity,
with nothing to meet
but the cold air.
Reaching and expanding
upward and outward,
My thoughts rise rose-colored
into the sky,
searching through the clear, dewy dawn
for their caprice counterparts in collectivity.
In a silvery serpentine embrace, we co-mingle,
melting into one consciousness,
A single thought dream eons long
Until you leave
And the far physical proximity exists once more.
SHERMAN
The pastoral masses
following
their eyes unendingly,
their thoughts being thought about
unerringly
following
non-breathing
non-thinking
non-smelling
non-seeing automatons,
their minds subtracted their bodies added,
they
fight back
mentally masturbating each other
hiply sloganeering while liberally distributing
their thoughts.
They manipulatively maneuver about their
carpeted, cool, calm surface
while a piece of charred Sherman
sizzles
On a still deathbed steam hole.
Sherman Raftenberg was a good friend of mine who fell in a negligently uncovered steam spout into acid steam. Demonstrations ensued. Nothing was really accomplished. His family lost the negligence suit in appeal to a higher court.
CONCHITA
She slithers across the door
Her trim, perfect nose upturned
Blithely caressing the unfeeling myriad of steaming hot platters,
she jauntily arrived at her destination.
With a plastic flick of her head
She acknowledges the regulars,
coldly ignoring the molten stares, of the desperate patrons
who remove her scanty negligee-like uniform with their eyes.
Her frigid sneer replies, keep your distance
but stay close enough to notice me ... I need to be noticed, please notice me.
She slides into the kitchen brushing against
everyone on the way provocatively
They know they must keep their distance
but stay close to notice her.
She returns with her order and the faint flicker of a sneer.
A quick upward glance at the clock
reveals the end
A return to the kitchen for
A warm round of good-byes
followed by
A seething tirade of curses out of ears’ reach.
IMAGINARY WOMAN #2
She smiled half knowingly
as she raised a jaunty walk
Her dull orange coloring freshly grown
in an aluminum smelter.
She nods a sham joyous hello,
the mounds of deep seated depression
hidden
within the folds of her
all-too-perfect stylish gait.
Doors, opened automatically
by human servomechanisms invisible to her.
They serve their function,
trying to be recognized
before its too late
and she struts off
not letting up
until
she can lock the door and the world out.
THE HANGING MAN
The door slammed
redundantly echoing a thousand fold
Thrashing and grasping
I find myself
kicked at the roots
bending, almost breaking,
The winds of change blowing
the flash fire to an obscene orange glare
as I search pinch-mouthed for water
I find no sustenance
Just a myriad of leaning and hanging ones.
THE NURSE (Noiss) (with Douglas P. Castle)
Summer 1971
*purse
When I grow up
I’ll be a noisse
with sucking candies
in my poisse* .
I will help
mend broken bones
And make hippies all better
when they’re stoned
when they find I am too old
when they find my time is done.
Yes, indeed, then I’ll be bold
I won’t lay there when I’m told
To a McDonald’s I then will run
and order a burger on a bun.
HE’S GOT A FACE EVERY MOTHER COULD LOVE
Summer 1975
He was born on mother’s day, 1957
In the back of a ‘55 Chevy.
Even then, mom said, why can’t you be like him,
He never ever cried and he was never too thin.
He got a face every mother could love.
He’s got a smile that comes from above
He’s got a halo that hangs ‘round his head
Makes you wish that he was dead.
My mother said why do you have to be in again,
Herbie isn’t.
My mother said why do you have to wear a leather jacket,
Herbie doesn’t.
My mother said why are you so fat, Herbie isn’t.
My mother said why do you say dirty words,
Herbie doesn’t.
He’s got a face every mother could love.
He’s got a smile that comes from above
He’s got a halo that hangs ‘round his head
Makes you wish that he was dead.
PARDON ME, BUT THERE’S LIPSTICK ON YOUR MIRROR
Their inside mirror is painted black
It’s flat, shiny veneer glows a silver gray.
Suddenly, I am an intrusion knocking on your doors,
Mouth open,
Teeth showing all too perfect lipstick coated scream
drop him away with a, “You too.”
the image you want is here,
Staring at you.
But you can’t see what’s really there because we all have to hide,
it
in fear of finding out what
it is.
Not just a smile you throw over your shoulder,
Non-acknowledging, acknowledging my existing
non-existence.
You write me off, too.
TREE BROTHERS
Spring 1979
The stark, bone-bare crisp arms
reach out to the limit,
Race
All-too-slowly for their inevitable
Off-again, on-again
Death-life-death
While his wise, warm brother
Smiles warmly
All knowingly he gently gestures
With a wave of a fleshy breath
As he bends with the wind.
Numbers
Spring 1971
I don’t want to be codified
I’ve been 115-48-7222
and 826-6164
I starred in the role of 7 in 302
My day was 1-314
2-209
and
so
on
into infinity....
But I fought it and became an individual
I lived with the people
I walked to college and
Learned how some love to hate.
I died.
My skull was broken by badge number 15798
I was put into cell 6751 in the county morgue.
LIBERALS
1972
Their putrid breath
having already sullied
their half starved sleep
they turn upward from the mud of avarice,
perturbed by their black pastoral landscape
they turn upward
and
crablike
the legion of plastic noses and wood penises
bare their rubber teeth at the paragon
glaring menacingly frightened.
BLACK DAY
1972
Paranoid sirens ride the air
piercing the yellow mist to find
their destinations.
The already hard but melted ears
telling of the now gnarled clouds
and the frustrated sun,
bare,
boldly shining its last rays
through the screams of schools of salmon
their shepherds having abandoned
them for their
burrows deep within the pit
now molten with destruction.
OXO, OR THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
Spring 1979
The ground shook
As I looked up, I saw Oxo,
her beer drooling drawl shout talking,
“I hope he brought the beer,”
As the song droned on the
blare radio
She sang in a perfect
mock southern,
her beer belly
jiggling-looming
out of her shrunken red tube top,
her speed shrunk tits
underwhelming static
despite her marginal gyrations
to the repetitive
easy to sing along line
Her face, wrinkle frowned as it ended
She didn’t know the words of the next song.
THE FLAMING ENFOLDMENT
Spring 1979
It’s hot red plume
glowing in the glaring white light
It reeks pungently
outward, upward,
In all directions
streaming, spewing
it’s yellow innards
against the blue white backdrop.
HERR MUELLER
May 1979
Hair stickummed
covers the wide teardrop bald spot
Squared to his point jaw,
his too tight tie
hiding wispy haired, wish I were a man’s chest,
Head dropping,
The round uncovered spot peeks through
the hiding hair wisps.
Hands clasp
white ...
tight
tension blanches
his face colorless
eyes bulging, he has the
“Final Solution”
holding it in,
he bursts.
SATIETY
June 1979
Its once mighty branches spread
decadently
in a fallen salute the tree
creaked rigidly in the breeze.
Bare
of
spring knobs
with
no hope of future
save
for its green topknot.
It consumed all
the sunlight
it could last year.
The uptake took its toll
when the thin sheets of ice
smothered the choking overextended branches
their now smooth plastic veneer
too heavy
to be supported by the weak tree backbone.
THE FARM
July 1979
Her creamy breast
glowing
in the morning light she turn hops
mound to mound.
Flitting and handpecking,
gently pounding them
their near perfect shape smiles back.
MOONBURN
August 1979
White round light embraced
in white
clutching cotton tendrils
fleecily glowing at a half gray pitch,
Its subdued volume
unbound
for an instant,
glaring gently in a monotone reflection of glory
only to be encased
in its cottony cocoon once again.
TIDES
August 1979
Wet silky softness
caressing me rhythmically her
multitudinous white smiling curl tops
rolling towards me
gently tugging at my toes to
join them in multiple oneness
I resist.
She beckons
“you haven’t been home in
many million years”.
I shriek in terror,
the gentle tug now an insistent roar at my heels
I can’t return.
We are of different worlds
divergent paths
that can’t circle back
today.
She releases me.
Float softly
to trample on powdery bones of
released others.
It is their time to return home.
THE HERMIT
August 1978
The scraggly, bearded stranger emerged, poking his filthy toothy grin
She gaped with abandon,
“How do they allow you to exist that way?
Cleanliness is important wherever you are,
after Godliness,
Which is vital to our existence, it says so in the scriptures.
But what of the trees and boulders, the rocks and rivers, is cleanliness there?
The little bird perched on my boulder smiled.
He said, “If you’re a bean*
You’ve got to be clean.
The problem, you see, is a social tea.
from which there is no escape except hermitage.”
To process or not to process, that is the question
whether it is nobler to spray one’s pits
pop one’s zits
wash one’s tits,
take one’s shits,
pick one’s nits
Or not listen to twits.
You’ve got to get lost before you are found
and not just by anybody on the rebound
The rain may fall
the pall may mall
But
Your life must go on
the influence must become a confluence
And consequently a congruence
Intellectualism isn’t the answer either
But the gut isn’t it unless you’re a feeler
the balance is to be reached
*human being
But the process must be thrown away
If you’re hair is loose
Then your brains can leak out of your ears
Or out of your nose when you sneeze
Your insides could be for public exhibition
But intuition
will say who is the public
and who is the public
to you
Adaptation is vital
but vital isn’t always adaptable to you
Change concepts while the others remain static
I guess there’s nothing to do but
STAND UP
or at leave.
I think I’ll do one for awhile
when it gets boring,
I’ll grin
somewhere else.
DO NOT COLLECT $200
February 1973
Beady eyed
beetle browed
Beefily leaning meaty
striped furry arms
hot wet acid tongued
dreary twitching mouth rasping
“Now you’re with us.”
I fear smile
little defenseless puppy
backed in the corner of the world room
baring my insignificant canines
uselessly.
Tail between legs
I follow the firm leash to the kennel
where my brothers bark.
The kennel keeper grins
He eyes the keys
thinking
he is in control
but
he is locked in, too.
SPIRITUAL CORPULENCE
AND
THE BENEFITS OF THE AMERICAN DIET TO LOSE IT
August 1979
Long, angular face
she swept over me
her orange see through it dress
flowing, showing her
knowing naiveté
soft scent wafting across swiftly
fleetingly
My eyes slipped
open and closed
again
Imagining her image
vibrant brown eyes
greeting, locking mine
generous mouth
upturned
caressing my being with
long loose
brown, banana curls
slightly electrified
Pseudo Afro curl
reeking
independence
she pronounces her
impending freedom
“going to the coast”
to be just
friends
she returns with
more than friends
mites and jealousy
acid reek of dissolution fresh in my nostrils
I dejectedly
apply a vise-like grip
clutching
the air
of what was
with a vision
of what never will be
Lips glossed
brick red
her black leather
image
poised processed peak
of sexuality
Her veneer a
glowing glowering ground
round regal
wonderment
to civilization’s present
what a woman should try and be when you grow up
the model
that she tried to be and refused at midday
she is at midnight
without the social benefits
her tight lipped smile shrunken
it distends beyond its normal confines
into an “ O”
She offers her gift to mankind
give her no reward save humiliation
her life is
solely (soulie) (or is it soul lie)
to be used as a pleasure object
Self-denial breeds self-contempt.
HOLE IN THE SKY
September 1979
Dull white puffiness
enlightened by
A yawning
bright white gold
gap
streaming life
through the
watery white cotton
it’s rays pouring from the pitcher
of the overflowing crucible above,
their energy rain glowing an illumined
triangular pathway
through the gray white surroundings
the sole vestige of
brightness blaring against boring backdrop
it’s radiance absorbed by
both mother and father
for their seven children
warming, filling
their abundant
cups of life.
AUTUMN ROSE
10/79
crunchy sun
leaf frost
rains yellow, red, orange
cyclical life remnants
leaving their
breathing
half alive
skeletons
basking in the last blaze.
GOLDEN ARCHES
10/29/79
The road led
through a living archway
breathing, singing, swelling
of life
the sun lit
the hallway
the walls and ceiling
painted varicolored
rioting warm brightness
leaving a slightly browned
cacophonous carpet.
She turned to me and said
lets eat cheeseburgers for dinner.
WINTERSPRING
12/79
Snow pelted and coated my soul into insensibility
until your
sea blue eyes
prominent mountains of electricity
clutch my core
through
inconsequential flesh overtones
gazing smile
warmed the glacier
heating my center
after winterfreeze gives way to spring.
The resultant river
thaws
flows
nourishing a sprout
of love.