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.

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

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.

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

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

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?

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