“I’m Not So Cavalier”

“I’m Not So Cavalier”

I’m not so cavalier, you see; I’ve heard, I’ve a record
In acid rains and lurid wastes and elements stacked,
Deranged, spewed, and rearranged, and I’ve attacked
And married Buicks, Saabs, and Fords and I’m so very bored;
My many homes are bought and sold with not a thought
To living in them. Mine eyes have seen the glory of a myriad of pulpits,
Certified accountants and a pride of priests whose pious culprits’
Books are cooked in scarlets, blood-gelt orders in their sanctities taught
To serve the venal equinox between the self-sequestered fetid clans
In every land who have no ticket, pass, nor ever need to walk
When they can ride, nor ride when they can darn the stocks
That fuel the jet streams, markets, currencies, and family plans
To lengthen gas lines leading lambs to houses built more or less on sand;
Three coins tossed in every fountain

while the Fed and Humpty Dumpty

hit The Wall Street Journal briefly

just before they hit the fan.

“Each Week’s Saturday Morning”

Each week’s Saturday morning’s
Christmas.  Up! Mom’s symphony in the pans
And banging clarion call to breakfast, and the plan
For what token chores are mine; warnings
From Dad that lawns exist to be mown,
And trashcans created to be emptied first
And well before the glory of a moment’s thirst
For liquid interests and mental roaming, readings sewn
In tapestries of total freedom in the early afternoon.

At sixty-five, each week-end’s ritual sleep-in leans

Toward a piety in all that matters, weaned;
Souvenirs of many moons and melodies of countless tunes
Each a zeitgeist, cut a curious fandango; Conga lines decide what’s best:
The week’s remembrances’ memes recalled, but all I want to do is rest.

“A Precedence”

A precedence in expression comes as an attack,

Frontal to anyone whose inner eyes are closed or dim;

Signs of deep betrayal camouflaged in subtle gestures, slim

Effort to disguise emotion in its many bodies will not back

An image or conclusion reaching out from the abstract of the soul.

As in the end, beginnings broadly drawn and crudely etched

Within the memory yield yeast for vanity and little but stretched

Canvases-in-waiting for raw imagination. The lotus cannot unfold.

Rarely mentioned are the consequences in the general rounds;

The finite mind will dictate penalties and fees. Internal purities

Direct themselves from what is sensed in cropped mantras as securities

In souls who support but single syllables uttered as their universal sounds.

So, what’s the currency? By definition, art, and all recorded moments despise

Realities beyond the theatre of the mind,

and in the end, expose themselves as lies.

“Humour Me”

Humour me, if only for a while;

You’ll see how little differences divide

Us; you’ve walked the miles, declined

The host but take the wine;

you’ll laugh, and smile

At yourself somewhere

in scenes you’ve  found

Within a café barely breathing while you took

A single Turkish, milked within a corner nook

In which you styled yourself, ignored a round

Or two of customers, and simply read

Some little volume―veiled the lids―and fed

Allusions circling freely in your head,

And, oh! So brilliant, so vague that book you scan as dread

Of failure keeps you busy. The coffee’s old, the creamer sours

On the table as the ashtray fills with bookmarks of the endless hours.