THE WALL

On one side, evil
on one side, good.
But I could not always tell
which side was which of the wall
On one side, Devil.
On one side, God.
Sometimes I couldn’t distinguish
and sometimes not even wish to.
On one side, David,
one side, Ahab;
in their misuse of royal might
didn’t they both behave alike?
On one side Ahab,
on one side David,
putting their passion over prayer
didn’t they take what wasn’t theirs?
On one side God,
on one side Devil.
That wall less wall than saddle
when both sides I did straddle.
On both sides, good.
On both sides, evil.
Since no differences at all
I just demolish the wall.


NIGHT SHIFT

Last night I studied the sky from my porch,
Suddenly an ignited cosmic torch
burned and slashed through Cancer.
Even though I know my constellations
I continue to have doubts and questions,
but I doubt stars have the answers,

You, modeler of phases of my moon,
did you watch that spectacle from your room?
Our sections of the sky don’t quite rhyme,
our eternities look like different
patterns of buckshot in a canvas tent.
Whose Heaven’s bigger, yours or mine?


BARABBAS AND JESUS

Barabbas and Jesus
out walking in the sands
and along comes Pilate
wishing to wash his hands.

“Hey, Boss, why you so cross?”
the good Barabbas said.
And Pilate said “Herod!
John Baptist gave him head!”

“That’s mean!” said Magdalene
“Intruding on my job!”
Pilate: “Please understand”
(rehearsing for the mob)

“Someone must take the brunt,
it’s me or one of you.”
Barabbas thought and said
“Will nailing two thieves do?”

And Pilate said “My guy!
Indeed, that may suffice.”
But then they heard Peter’s
cock. It crowed only twice.

And Jesus wept. “The jig
is up. I’ll see you soon.
But first I’ll meet Judas
at the Last Chance Saloon.”

 
HIGH COUP

O moon, so distant….
I’m not smokin’ in Tokyo,
my poem will not fire.

“Revolution bursts
sunlight on stained stainless steel:
your yolkcolored hair.”

Night’s vaunted Shakespeare:
just flaccid Little Willie,
cold to geisha stars.

“Nestraw hair – egg’s eye
blue – honeyed limbs; trunkhugging
bearcubMe:     climbing.”

Sake enflames verse
(you say), arouses rhythm,
kindles rhymes sublime –

mine (old drunken whore) 
fires up unsuccessfully,
sucks relentlessly,

till we fall asleep.
And Basho a monk remains,
red raw poem limp, still.


LOVES I BEAR TO YOU

Addressing my allgirls class in Seoul 
(a sea of knees and eyes) – 
just whom do I cast my verbal net unto?


Miss J in her vast lostness of late adolescence


The mirthlessness of Miss O’s mercenary matrimonialism


The practiced spontaneity of Miss U’s blushes


Miss E’s patient burden of passionate virtue


The ancient futures of grown middleschool dreams



And then,
in midOthello,
the lights go




out




and in the sudden night
all that I can make out
are the pale fluorescent coral
of fingertips,



lips….