Even More December Pomes

1.

Having

now

begun

this unendurable season,

You, on galvanizing calculus waves

Make for the filial shores

and this

what I see

to be sure

is unsustainable.

The mark of fine souls, character

--should we fail to make it out alive--

is the past finding no equal in present behavior.

In snow, packed and squeaking,

the Buddha attempts His maneuvers

on solid brass.

The Sino restlessness

The darkened corridors of the West

Are a source

Now

Of mindless, random comfort.

Come with me

--should you care to--

and see the Meatpacking district

With its local color, fin de siecle odor, and blackpaint grates

See the trucks pull in at dawn;

Watch the shrimp boats, heading east, beguile.

I haven’t had the sharpness of mind

these days

To perceive, forgive, but maybe

When the jewels of the Hudson are mined

You can finally see

What I’m talking about.

2.

Hoarding seconds

The tools of re-evolution are upon us

In our grasp

Hunting for perfect pleasure

Sure-footed and cunning

They trip up over lasting memories

Those of candied apples, salt water, fish

The canards of a perfect existence

You cannot heal from wounds

Exacted by medicine

Meant to cure

There is no salve

Control the minutes and count

Soft, one-two,

The drab seconds cluck by

Never ending in cycle

You are lost, forgotten

But certainly, you will return

To that self-same bunk bed

With your clothes splitting now at the seams

The ne plus ultra

The sine qua non

Of your fine, fine experience

Delivers you home, in time now, for the holidays.

3.

The up-tick upturned loserfish

Done up in nostalgic elegance

Is alone

Tonight

Should you need a date.

The handsomest of the parkinglot boys

Is coming over to see

If you are worth talking to

Can you stand it?

Don’t look at him!

My coupling with sorrowmen is done

I have forever changed

And will with aplomb

Make my name in fashion

Or poetry

Far from here, the current carries

Those ripped from the gloss of headlines

You cannot know my solitary

cuntshame

I only, and with my teeth beguile

Can grasp this bitter, warm, even California night.

4.

Hurried the cost, paid penance with children

You haven’t the foggiest notion of what it takes

When you’ve sacrificed, seen warfare, poverty, crime, then

Come crying to me

I will shed layers, hoping to get through

This corduroy endurance, this life

My seeds will scatter, under nightlight pall

To make the nomenclature fit.

Surely you’re no menace

With your half lid eyes and troubled speech

You, child of my child, shan’t question my resolve:

I will make it out of this mess, and alive.

The soda jerk was lying

When he said his love was true

Petulant and ever changing

Can’t you see I’m drowning?

You haven’t a clue

Any of you, what I mean to say

And I might say good night

But if not for you, I am lost.

Now then

If we may start again

I have the ruby cheeked woman somewhere in my grasp

If only I may speak to her

And should she surface, you will find her most agreeable

You will feel free to begin new lives

I will return back to you happily

The difference and substance of your days.