Not in the News Today

O chanting insects of the evening
on the north shores of Long Island,
what does your insistent clickering
signal from dusk till dawn?
Hey dudes party over here?
Hey ladies I’m looking for love?
Hear me, the loudest bug around?
Check out my stick in the ground?
But you peepers and chirpers,
squeakers and scratchers,
your polyrhythmic racket ceased
at the squeal and crashing of a beast
in the bushes. It woke and spooked me, too,
as I was sleeping on the porch.
All of us held our collective breath
till the mystery creature stalked away
and I resumed my slumber.
Then your miniature drum and bugle corps
launched into another cacophonous number.

This article does not meet
California Bureau of Home Furnishings
Flammability requirements.
Care should be exercised
Near open flame or with
Burning cigarettes.

It’s a trick. Watch.
Our gods are full of surprises.
They wear very clever disguises.

The glory of a noontime
Breeze in July
Shared with a white pigeon
That ignores a red grape
On sun-dappled herringbone bricks.

A bright brass box
With a gleaming hinged lid.

And presto! The tides of toxic goo
Had magically ended.
Or so everyone hoped
Or pretended.

Like crashing onto the cemetery ridge
And clinging to tombstones
Tilting over the edge.

Troubled by the hole in the basement ceiling
Through which he could see his father squinting
In the entrance hall above, Pete poked
A broomstick through it.

Silent birds and blinking jets
Stealing through summer night
Tree branches latticed like big tennis rackets.

This is your ticket.
Present this entire page at your event.
Please play again.

***

Thursday Special! A bonus poem:

Patriotism Twice

I lost all the i.d.’s I needed to buy
A crummy god bless America t-shirt
So I could eat at the restaurant
Wearing more than a towel.

Gone, gone, gone beyond,
Gone altogether beyond,
God bless America
My home sweet home.
And I know I don’t believe in gods
But I believe if I’m wrong
The gods hear me anyway.

1. Seek me out a small pigeon pure
Of unexpected feathers swirling sea and sky
Surprise us both by landing beside me
Sport a blue band upon your leg
Look all around for familiar faces
Lift away at a motion of my head

2. Carve the letter C white and chunky out of chalk

3. Experiment with horticulture, dig into your floor
Raise mountain laurel carved from coral

4. Survive like lobsters that will not submit
Leap from cookpots till
There is not a bucket big enough

5. Conspire with moon and clouds
To wink at me with a friendly eye
I will not ask you why

Can you remember two things at once?
Who knew that Bob’s death
Would bring everyone together?
All the ancient jingles—
Like a good neighbor
You’re a pepper too
Gloria in excelsis deo—
Do not preclude responsibility
For what I’m doing here with you
On this unusually warm June afternoon.
A starling flushes a flying beetle
From a low hedge and pursues
It to the tip of my nose,
Lunch still on the loose.
I don’t know if it’s bankruptcy or what.
We have an intern from Syracuse.
We have a job for you,
A little deck off the back porch.
Something snaps in the treetops
High above the shady lawn.
A sizzling thing on furry wings
Comes hurtling down, smacks the ground
Rises up in a rickety
Open-air theater where
A little boy in motley whispers
Malevolently in your ear:
Doin’ it doin’ it doin’ it.
And from then on it kicks in
That you’re a tennis player
And maybe you can do it.
Franco Buci? She was stuck to him
Like glue all last night.
The glycogen window doesn’t last long.
So let’s go
Through a curlicued labyrinth of impending
Trains at distant stations
With phantom duffels, trunks, cases
And cake frosted toiletries
You realize with relief
Do not belong to you.
I’m sorry about stranger Bob’s demise
And the poor dear who wondered aloud
To her silent companion at the bar.
But here we are
Bob brought us together, too.
That our souls would ride
A red kite so high
We would enjoy clouds blowing by
Until safely reeled in
On a winding spool.

Locked outside on the roof again?
Never fear.
This poem is your old Swiss army knife
You got from your sad pappy when you were fifteen,
The one you lost on the F train.
Broke your umbrella out in the rain?
Lucky you.
This poem makes you laugh about
Soaking your cracked clock,
Ruining your crazy hat getup.

This poem has magic power.
Use it for good.
You don’t have to ask me.

You want something bad.
Imagine it.
This poem gives it to you.

This poem is your signal bonfire.
This poem buys you another round.
This poem sings for your supper.
This poem takes your wallpaper down.

This poem can be fashioned out of twigs
And worn as an attractive hair clip.

This poem is your antidote.
This poem is your accessory.
This poem is yours for good.
You don’t have to ask me.

If I often doubt
My worries are what
I should worry about
Of course I suspect
That’s another doubt
I should live without
*
Who are you who snort
At my clumsy hand
My sloppy heart
You don’t even exist
Yet I fear your razor smart
Insights and erudition
Your ensconcement in the groves
Your sconces, too
How absurd
It’s time to let you go
You and your family tree
It was time long ago
So blow
*
These guys are diehard in the wool

A statue of Mary, the Blessed Mother
(My mother was Mary)
Lived in the green back yard
Uncle Tim made it, I was told
Dark oval of stone
Smooth head, round hips
Cool to the touch at morning
Warm in the afternoon
The height of a child
(I was a child)

I looked for shiny whistles in the grass
I always found them
I wished for helicopters
They always appeared

Plunging into bright water
I could so strangely see
Stones and shells upon the sand
I marveled at my vision’s clarity
As I gazed from below the waves
I saw the hilltop town above the bay

*

A six-story statue of Jesus
Styrofoam blobs upon a steel frame
His arms uplifted as if to signal
A celestial touchdown for the Saints
Struck by lightning burned to the ground

I took apart a broken Hello Kitty telephone
To play with magnetic metal beads
Symbols flashed upon the screen
Code I could not read

An elephant escaped from a circus in Zurich
To wing-walk on a biplane in the clouds
We crossed the summer city
Via silver rooftops to see a sunken schooner
Buried beneath Seventh Avenue
Step on top of this
Luxury driving machine
Said a salesman with a smile
You can’t break it

Sapphire toys twinkled
On the ends of the pipes
That led down to the land of the dead
All coffins concealed apertures
The carpenters made no big deal
The souls of the dead still breathed
I heard them whistling to me
Over the clattering uncertainty

This is a two-player game
Do not pull the emergency brake
We’re on a little platform above the action
Although we’re part of the show
When a glance from a bearded stranger
Says we’re leaving the level, say hello

Smaller, lighter, less fraught
Red and yellow tulips
Next to blue hyacinths
Plaid Bermudas and striped tees
Death’s heads and eight balls
Tattooed on our butts

We swim the crawl in a shallow creek
With great big packs on our backs
We wonder what the mockingbird sings
We scrub out the buckets filthy
With anger at the low regard
For our life-size statues sculpted
Of miraculous pink goo

Sneaking backstage we brush
Against a coiled black fire hose
That explodes and unrolls out
Across the southern scenery
A big fat licorice whip

Secret agents we search for the man
With the Gregory Peck silhouette
Standing on the water tower
We hide among the people
And pretend to participate

You my baby are going away
Made up for a Norman Rockwell
Red lips and strawberry prints
Chatting happily in your high chair
In the bright green glare
Of a summer back yard

We come to a watershed
A ridge between two rivers
At a moment when rain soaks my head
And my gray-haired siblings gather
Perpetual children in each other’s eyes
Remember the way we used to dive
For loose change beneath the cushions
At the sound of the Mister Softee truck

This is not game over
Baby don’t go

Thunderclap and the city went black
We stood outside the storefront
Gazing at darkened towers

A thread led up into the clouds
I held the end until it snapped
And ladders patterned the sky

Smoke from an old radio purled
Soft diamonds and surprises
Berries hiding inside a bush

A ladies’ dressing table equipped
With enameled cigarette lighters
Proffered on extended arms

Coffee sipped in breakfast sun
As I sleepily contemplated
Pleasures of obscure origin

Minestrone at Bleecker
Street Luncheonette
Chizz?

Meanwhile back Mister Time revealed
Geography to the wandering Mephites
Red dots in the sky
Thirty-five thousand feet high

Couldn’t go on camera with that butcher knife

Went out to the record store
Wet from the pool to check an album cover
Revolver, an excellent reference
On the proper way to fold up his dollhouse

Thought better of it

His breaking pitches were crisper
Although his body jumped
Ahead of his arm on several fastballs

He used to picture the end of the universe
The farthest corner in the basement
A raw concrete wall in starless dark
Behind that was a nagging doubt
When things won’t add up
The diagrams fall down
Now it seems stuff
Just thins out
All the way
To zero

He misses the ache
Behind the wall