America

New-New Hampshire

I sing my songs in quiet lonely rooms,
While fed-up unapologetic looms in each street...

A pharmaceutical salesman from California said:
"You can buy this same dose,
(this exact same pill)
For 100, 200, 300% less in another Country."

I told him:
"A Nation that advertises medicine is always sick."

My poetry was wasted on his bottom-line mind.
His wares wasted on me.

Words are my nectar,
Ambrosia, Olympus in a cup.

If what the salesman with the Pacific seaside tan says is true,
(can we ever trust a salesman or elect one President?)
I'll order the balm online directly from Greece.

Depending on the tariffs
A round trip flight may be more economical.

Catch a classical Tragedy in Athens.
Good for your health and wallet.

Heard an audio visual tech representative from New York
(the City and the State)
Blare his sound systems made him a fortune.

He hipped and hopped:
"The subwoofers might as well be seismic gold."

I told him:
"The trouble with treble is it prefers quiet introspective mettle."

He didn't hear me. How could he?
Why would he, with bass so seismically oversized?

Online shoppers in all of America say the World
Is full of mountains, lakes, and seaside shores.

They say:
"Many vacation destinations are five-star review worthy."

Presently I'm living in New Hampshire;

Enjoying all of them,
Rather than bothering to write a five-star review.

Ms. Information

America the Beautiful;
Depends where you’re standing.

God bless the U.S.;
Depends which one.

From sea to shining sea;
Depends on the latest oil spill.

Oil burns bright, so do wildfires.
The torch on Ellis Island was never lit.

Probably why she turned green, got sick from the cold,
Or ate something that turned her stomach.

Bad French Fries, maybe.
Call ‘em frites over there.

A little redundant calling them Français Frites.

Though, sometimes a patriotic adjective is helpful.
There’s splendor, then there’s American Splendor.

A work of literature or...

Maybe, metaphorically, a poetic name
For Lady Liberty’s torch...

If we could only light it.

But, then, perhaps it would be French Splendor,
As she was a gift from France.

So, Liberty is a French woman with cleanly shaven armpits,
Standing on an island in New York with an impotent torch,
And some book Napoleon used to stand on to address his armies.

He was short.
Little man syndrome.

Definitely not as tall as the woman who holds the book
Sent over to give us our impotent torch of liberty.

Copper goes green behind the ears after a while, evidently.
French Fries go green if you don’t peel them or cook them enough.

A slightly copper colored fry is best.
Slightly crisped on the outside to protect the soft white center.

Sometimes a bruised potato shows up and the fry turns black,
Deflates a bit, and can’t protect the soft white center.

It holds nothing of presupposed value being black and blue
Before it had a chance to cook to the right temperature.

Might as well hold a bruised French Fry over Liberty’s impotent torch
And try to make it of nutritional value to the American eating it.

Maybe raise the nutritional bar...

They only eat Frites in France where
Bruised done right is for a five-star gourmet soiree.

They call Paris the City of Love, but ‘Eiffel’ is not something you want
The world’s most notorious phallic symbol saying on a honeymoon night.

Quite an awful thing to hear your tower sing:

‘Oui, oui, Eiffel!’
On your honeymoon.

Oui! Oui! for Lady Liberty’s impotent torch.
Green obscene frites for treats on Coney Island

Sounds fair real newsie to me.

Let Freedom’s Onion ring for your attention!
Cracked Liberty Bell peppers and all.

Hello, Hamilton!

There’s that story again. The same one we were talking about the other day. Remember?

The one that had you tapping on the glass like it was a tambourine and the jokes you made regarding the weather and drug addicts and homeless people.

Did they know how to swim because the rain was coming down in buckets, so there was nothing to hold-out to fill with handouts?

You laughed over that. Saw it on The News.

Not The News but someone talking about The News after The News.

And didn’t see it. Heard it. On a podcast.

A podcast on political values and how the world is going to shit and how it’s not even safe to drive your car out of the supermarket parking lot without someone in a face mask holding out a bucket made in China for you to throw in a George, or an Abe, or a Hello! Made His Week Hamilton.

Maybe he ought to start a patriotic bucket factory, The Fuck It Make a Buck Make a Bucket Factory.

Assembly line workers in Spangled Red, White, and Blue uniforms. Clean Diesel pumping through the air. Double Minimum wage for all!

Local buckets are twice as much now and that times three. But we all have jobs, mostly. And overpriced buckets with nothing but stuff and junk and extra to put in The Made with Pride Right Here in the USA Empty Containers.

Enough room for a small trash can for the backseat floor. Something to toss your face mask into on your way home from the supermarket.

No longer buckets for uncomfortable stop lights. Buckets are too expensive for a hobo to steal. Besides, a hobo's bucket is not a safe bucket when it’s an expensive one.

Not a long for life hobo that peddles at a stop light full of hungry shoppers looking for somewhere safe to dispose of their disposable masks with a too expensive Made with Pride Right Here in the USA Empty Bucket.

Maybe a straight from the bank drive up I-pay QR SKU NFC scanner for bucket-less street corner hobos.

No one carries loose change these days.

George and Abe and Hello Hamiltons are too dirty and too maybe infected.

Toss them in the can on the backseat floor with the used masks.

Cash is King, after all.

The 51^st State

We these people, gas-masked, can't breathe,
Faces to the curb, choked out by that other
Still on about that Mr. Monochrome Maniacal:

Other Brother.

This body. This skin, I'm in.
Heard the Science Man Say:
That's not the same one you wore just yesterday.

Snowflakes and Skins have no twins.

In so many years gone by,
So many tears gone by,

You're a whole new you.

Read it right that's true.
Which Yesterday's Particle are you?
What graft grafted your You?

What piece of You did America bring You?

Every atom of Walt's grass still belongs to Me-belongs to You.
Every shoot shot new from Gettysburg's field that's You,
That's Me, too.

The 51st State, Unstated:

The heart pumps the prism, pumps the shade.
The heart bleeds every color in America.
The grass at Gettysburg is stained with bloody rainbows.

The leaves are Black and White thirsty.
The brown earth runs raw the spectrum.
The blood battle bespangled.

The battle beats the Mississippi!
Run Blood, Corre! Colored Blood, Corre!
Run Rainbow Blood! Run American Blood!

Lap up yesterday's bleed. Take Account!
Lap up the bled bedecked Bunker -no- Breed's Hill.
Lap up the insincerity in the Courthouse in Appomattox.

Kiss your own Black ass, your own White shit.
Kiss the great every color bloodstained leaf of grass.
Kiss your bought and sold two shade-soul.

The 51st State, Poetically, Unstated:

Evil never loses but lurks.
A battle won is done undone
By silent convenience.

America still belongs to you, America.
But your way still marks in twain.

So single it out.

That:
The cause of every American Hell,
Is the cleft cut in Liberty's Bell.

The 51st State, Stated:

In America:
There is too much Black.
There is too much White.
And there is not enough Color.

All of Her Poetry, Still

I didn’t know Mary was dead.
(No one told me about Maya, either) A blank
Pause when I read about it online.

Poets don’t go out when we die.
(We live with Death while we live.)
We stay home.

Which is why when Walt said to me
(The other day)
That to die is luckier than I suppose,

I believed him.

She Knows

She knows she’s going to die.
The way she watches her grandson,
Reads every word as joy.
She knows the numbers,
He’s learning to count backward,
Only go forward.

She’s smiling easy ruby ready,
Cheeked checking out,
The way he smiles
When he knows she’s smiling
Because she knows something
He’s just learned.

Happy Dancing

You did dizzy.
Then spun around
In mind and dream
Like you do in this chair.

Like you as a toddler
Your spin dance
In the center of the kitchen,

Head back,
Eyes on ceiling fan,
In twirls,

“I’m happy now!
I’m Dancing!
I’m Dancing, now!
I’m Happy! I’m Dancing!”

Hope he remembers
The joy of dizzy dances
Under a ceiling fan,

The whole wearied whirl
Around world watched
And wondered while you spun

Happiness was
As easy as
Happiness is
In an unwearied world.

Black Tar Gone Gray

thin blue chalk line up on black tar
gone gray called concrete curbs
set -not reset- since The Great Depression.

where old weeds
the same weeds
new weeds grow

sometimes, though sometimes
a dandelion grows, too
sometimes, though sometimes

a kid picks it up -plucks it up-
blows the parachute cotton-
picked soft seeds to the wind

sometimes- so few times
float to full wishes fulfilled
sometimes- so many sometimes

no wind on never fall flowers, but turn flat
and press down yesterday’s gray concrete
bought old sold older worthless oldest

windless without reason why pick up
pluck up a weed and dream it something
some wonderful some-any-thing new

hopes choke on dead dandelion parachute cords
tethered to hot black tar gone gray called concrete
set -not reset- since the Great Depression.

A Poet Knows a Poet

Then I remember America's poets.

We have this thing, America's poets do.
Maya taught me that. We share it.

She read Edgar Allan Poe and called him EAP (rhymes with creep).
Maya told me, see?

After the first line of hers I ever read, she was Maya, Emily, Langston, and Emerson.

Hank Thoreau called him Nature Loving Wally, Boston's original Green Monster.

First names. Nicknames. Instant friends. Kindred spirits.

A poet knows a poet the same way we know poetry; we let ourselves.

We surrender to what we are: The great manic steady stream called life.

We are not Hallmark Cards. We are tougher than adamantium steel.

We write the day.
We stay the tide.
We steady our ride.
We notice.
We take notes.

We live our lives in the eye of the storm.

A warrior poet?
Is there any other kind?

Fire Dancing Freedom’s Fire

For,
Maya
Angel-
Oh!

Singed, while her house
Went up in smoke.
While her neighbors,
-numbed and dutiful-
-drummed the usual-
Clutched their masks
To cough in an elbow.

In this suffocation:

Low never knew Low,
-And-
Dark never knew Dark
-And-
Hell was a thing that chilled,
While words never knew
Their names.

-So She-

Showed them- told them,
Showed them- and told them,
Showed them- and told them,
Their names.

-Now-

Good News is Good News!

Light is Light!
-And-
Joy is Joy!

-And-

Boy! Oh, Boy!

This Soul,
Is: This Soul,
That’s met,
Joy, who is

Joy!

And the fire burns.
And the fire warms.
And the soul’s name,
Is spoke with Freedom.

Prescott Park

People stop to smell the flowers in gas masks.

I wonder who keeps the Mayflowers at Prescott Park,
Wonder who keeps the Marigolds on Marcy Street.

I wonder at the Mayflowers at Prescott Park,
Wonder how they stay and go year to year.

I wonder of Plymouth down the coast,
Wonder of Mayflower landings to our land.

This Land.

"A rock don't do much; don't grow."
A mouth-masked kid said.

How many Mayflowers drift into Prescott Park?
How many wind glide and set down seeds each new May?

I wonder how many minutes and myths make a Plymouth rock grow.
Wonder if the scent and sense of flowers in May can ring memories

Through blue masks, of the scented and sensible ways
Of Marigolds and Mayflowers, in May, on Marcy Street.

Ooh-la! Moo-la! Hooray!

Drugs
!
Money
!
Women
!

Hip-Hop
,
Ooh la
!

Hip-Hop
,
Moo-la
!

Hip-Hop
,
Hip-Hop
,
Hooray
!

Is there any better way
,
To spend each day with
,
To spend and play with
,

Drugs
,
And Money
,
And Women
?

The Ooh-La
.
The Moo-la
.

The Hip-Hop
,
Hip-Hop
,
Hooray
!

What a day
!
What’s that you say
?

Drugs
!
Money
!
Women
!

Hip
,
Hop
,

Ooh-la
,
Moo-la
,

Hip-Hop
,
Hip-Hop
,

Hooray
.

The Downloaded Dream Deferred

But I can’t America;
I can’t make you Great again,
Because you never were.

Great is finished good;
Greatest is finished great.
You are not finished, America.

You are a living document.
Therefore you breathe;
Therefore you grow.

Make America Greater Again!
Forward, everyday. Greater Everyday.
The Never-done, The Greater-Again.

But the Dream Langston!
The dream deferred conferred
With the downloaded dream deferred.

The Dream Deferred (1)
The Dream Deferred (2)
The Dream Deferred (3)

Downloading…
Still…More…Of…
The Dream Deferred.

Copies… The Great gone dead.
Make America Great Again,
Makes America Dead.

Dead does not make Dead Again.

Langston,
The Dream did not explode:
It started (to terminate) with a political bang,
And ended (to restart) with an Artificially Intelligent whimper.

Frost's Shooting Range

Rode around Frost's farm.
Windows are boarded white.
Closed sign. Historic landmark.

The grass out back is mowed to look like a shooting range.
Hard to see the birch trees through all the saplings,
Shot up young since Route 28 was paved over.

Something about honor and profession and the poet Frost,
And his swinging trees colored over with brittle pines
To keep the scenic route of a poet looking scenic.

A skyscraper touched a sequoia
With a certain kind of light
In a certain kind of eye.

Good Neighbor, Frost

If the sky and the horizon bent properly,
I could see those paper barked birches.

Autumn -swung and knocked- swung and knocked
Oak and ash and spruce and pine and even

Evergreens
Grumbled.

Fat chirping squirrels bent trunks down.
Elasticity whip snapped shot them back up.

I crooked my neck waiting for the dome of Heaven to burst.
Home ten miles south of mine watching for Frost on the birch branches,

To shatter coke bottle pieces on the bracken of autumn wet.
My whole young life long waiting for you to crash back down,

Back home;
You never did.

You must have found a better place for love.
You must have found a better place for love.

Too Many Old Glory & NRA Bumper Stickers

He has:
Too many NRA bumper stickers-
Too many Old Glory bumper stickers-

In a quilted firearm and flag frame
Pressed without wrinkle around
The rusted rear Chassis of his
20-year-old Chevy 2500

He has:
Too many separate-
Too many pieced-

In a quilted firearm
And flag frame around
His new tailgate with
stenciled perfect letters:

STOP Bullying.

Then below that-
Spelled with stickers-
Used on front doors-
And mailboxes-

Capital letters
Executed as
Expected:

The Birth-day.
The Death-day.

The First-name.
The Last-name.

Even-

The Middle of his
12-year-old son.

Giant

There’s a peacock sounding race relations.
There’s a fox snarling this and that amendment issues.

There’s an angry man, not really angry, playing angry
For your angry pleasure, on the AM dial,
All not-really-riled up-riled, rolling in his not-at-all-angry dough.

There’s a housing shortage in the neighborhood of the last school shooting.
There’s good people in blue and good people in red blood on the streets.
There’s medicine and there’s insurance.

And there’s the bank. The Bank.
And there’s a loan where the front door used to go.
And there’s a rainbow and there’s the way over it.

Now, we’re talking.
And now, I’m talking about living in and out of a white cardboard box.
So now he’s talking about a white-cardboard-Banker’s-Box-box.

The man wants metaphors.
But I don’t want a metaphor,
I want out of this cardboard box.

“That’s quite a cardboard box you’ve got there,”
He says to me from his perfectly good not cardboard,
White-cardboard-Banker’s-Box-box.

So, we’re healing.
So, we’re doing what we would not do.

We’re being who we were afraid to be.
Finally.

But we’re afraid of it.
But we ought not be.

Because we’re already what and who we need to be to do the thing.
It’s just a matter of doing it.

So, the only thing in our way is yesterday.
But that was yesterday.

So, we don’t know
What’s in our way.

But I do.

It’s today.
It’s this Right Now.

We spin against it.
We crash against it.

We wham.
We bang.
We boom.

Boom against the doom,
That’s not in the room.

But We
Must win.

So We
Do win.

One win
At a time.

So…

I am a giant and a giant killer.
I am the mountain and the moon.

I smash it down.
I raise it up.
I sculpt it

Into
Something
Beautiful.

Binary Poetic

One

Pen-Brushed-Bristled-Bulldozers
She’s got this.

Poetry of Power.
Power Poetry.

The Poetry of Women in the new millennium.

Mighty metaphor.
Super simile.

Subject what
Subject you will:

Dog. Apple.
Cat. Zucchini.

Race. Hate. Crime.
Birth. Motherhood.

Poetry of Power.
Power Poetry.

The Poetry of Women in the new millennium.

Push down the canvas.
Eat expression- Poetry.

Take it!

Punch down the poem.
Signify this- Poetry.

Like it!

What’s Poetry gonna do about it?
What’s Poetry gonna say about it?

Whatever she tells it to.

Power Poetry of Women in the new millennium.
Even zucchinis are up for grabs.

Bulldoze-Brushed-Beatific to the floor.

Kick its ass- then step on it.
Make the metaphors go soprano.

Zero

The good men today are all shamed, ashamed
Of yesterday, when they weren’t here to do anything shameful.

The good men today are all missed, remiss
About yesterday, when they weren’t here to be missed for.

The good men today, mourn for this day, when they were here today
Missed, but remiss, because they were filled with shame.

The good men today have nothing
But everything to say and can’t say it.

Great-Great-Grandpa left good men with impotent ink.

Country Eyes

The first Saturday morning in October at Massabesic Lake.
The world is in masks. The trees are in technicolor.

Autumn in New England, when Mother Nature
Reminds the Country what color really is.

Autumn foliage season begins in New Hampshire.
The eyes only see 4k desktop wallpapers.

Professional photographers.
Japanese family vacation photographers.
Lesbian couple on park bench for breakfast photographers.

It Is What It Is

We feel so uncomfortable
Saying the word soul.

In the morning:

We dress
Our children for school.

Then march
Them off to war.

In rooms:

Full of
Semi-automatic clouds of chalk.

Full of
The lingering smell of pencils.

And tomorrow:

Take an eraser
To a predictably bloodied world.

We feel so uncomfortable
Saying the word soul.

She's Afraid to Hope

She's afraid to hope.
The spider in my window;
She's afraid of hope.

Black Widow Beautiful
And she (yes, she!) is
Afraid to hope.

Could it be this time,
(Yes, This Time!) the grass
(Yes, This Grass!) is actual

(In fact, actual!) green.
Actual factual Green.
Gracious grass green!

Black widow spider
(What a heart!)
(What power!)

In my Window
Eyes on green

Actual (In fact)
Factual green

Still afraid to hope,
Afraid of hope.