A Supermarket In California
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! - - and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the
About His Person
Five pounds fifty in change, exactly,
a library card on its date of expiry.
A postcard stamped,
unwritten, but franked,
a pocket size diary slashed with a pencil
from March twenty-fourth to the first of April.
A brace of keys for a mortise lock,
Attention Please! Attention Please!
'Attention please! Attention please!
Don't dare to talk! Don't dare to sneeze!
Don't doze or daydream! Stay awake!
Your health, your very life's at stake!
Ho–ho, you say, they can't mean me.
Ha–ha, we answer, wait and see.
Did any of you ever meet
A child called Goldie Pinklesweet?
Who on her seventh birthday went
Long Distance Ii
Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
Smudge Of Blood
Here, this smudge of blood,
Of a tender boy of eleven,
Soaked thru the tarmac,
Yet to be dried, still wet and warm!
An innocent young lad,
Fades-in my mind,
Your bag! Your bag!
Picking up a shopping bag,
Shouting and chasing the biker,
By A Swimming Pool Outside Syracusa
All afternoon I have been struggling to communicate in Italian with Roberto and Giuseppe, who have begun to resemble the two male characters in my Italian for Beginners, the ones who are always shopping or inquiring about the times of trains, and now I can hardly speak or write English.
Remembrance Of Christmas Past
They let the children out of school too early.
I left the Christmas shopping till too late.
Each day we had a holiday excursion,
Which gave us the entire week to wait in line for
Movies by Disney,
Gift-wrapping by Lord & Taylor,
And everyone's restrooms.
On Christmas Eve we started to assemble
The easy-to-assemble telescope
Bomb
Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
Ah and the sad desparate gun of Verlaine Pushkin Dillinger Bogart
And hath not St. Michael a burning sword St. George a lance David a sling
Crucifix In A Deathhand
yes, they begin out in a willow, I think
the starch mountains begin out in the willow
and keep right on going without regard for
pumas and nectarines
somehow these mountains are like
an old woman with a bad memory and
a shopping basket.
we are in a basin. that is the
idea. down in the sand and the alleys,
this land punched-in, cuffed-out, divided,
' Ay Naku Mahirap Umibig Sa Binibining Taga Albay ' (With English Translation)
(This is a composition in Pilipino Language the first one I did, the only one, and hope some of the Filipinos will get this funny poem in this site. The poem is updated with English translation)
Noong taong otsenta dekada
Ako'y may nakilala dito sa Amerika
Babaeng mestisa, nakakabighani
Kaakit - akit, napakagandang binibini
Ang mata ko'y lumuwa
Tulo laway pati ng aking kaluluwa
Sa suot nyang 'short ' na napakaiksi
Humility
Snow, falling thick and white, along the village street,
People struggling through the drifts, their shopping to complete,
Kids dragging sledges, excitement fills their minds,
Rolling a giant snowball, great, cos this is snow that binds.
Trees looking decorated up, with icicles that glint,
Branches weighed down with snow, which holds a golden tint,
That bright red sun that's setting, way out towards the west,
A wonderful rich vision, ordered at our Lord's behest.
My Mother's Body
1.
The dark socket of the year
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down
and threatens never to rise,
when despair descends softly as the snow
covering all paths and choking roads:
then hawkfaced pain seized you
threw you so you fell with a sharp
Invitation To Miss Marianne Moore
From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning,
please come flying.
In a cloud of fiery pale chemicals,
please come flying,
to the rapid rolling of thousands of small blue drums
descending out of the mackerel sky
over the glittering grandstand of harbor-water,
please come flying.
Whistles, pennants and smoke are blowing. The ships
Everything Is Fair
Everything is fair in love and war,
Prove your intelligence and excellence at par,
Even if no means to ride in car,
Entertain friends in shopping and visits to bar,
Boy may think it is simple game too lure a girl,
Great adventure as if to lay hands on pearl,
Attempt in orthodox way to impress upon,
No success in sight but still carries on,
She
She is the one
who will notice
that the first snapdragon
of Spring
is
in bloom;
She is the one
who will tell the most
funny
The Macaroni Necklace
Lynzie Anne Mc Kenzie was a very creative girl,
She made a macaroni necklace for her teacher Mrs. Pearl.
'It's the dumbest gift I've seen! ' Laughed little Tony Maloney,
'Nobody wants a necklace made from macaroni! '
'Stupider than Jupiter' said Tony with a smirk.
But Lynzie just ignored him cause she knew he was a jerk.
Oh Mrs. Pearl just loved it and she wore it every day,
Then she bought a matching bracelet and earrings in late May.
Soon people came from miles around to buy what Lynzie made,
Supermarket Shopping
A pound in the slot and out comes the chain,
It's Saturday supermarket shopping again,
And so I've obtained my large wire trolley,
And when shopping, you certainly need loads of lolly!
The shelves will be stacked with goodies galore,
There are loads to be seen from ceiling to floor,
Things that we need and things for a treat,
Food to have cold and food you must heat.
The Bachelor's Soliloquy
To wed, or not to wed; that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The bills and house rent of a wedded fortune,
Or to say "nit" when she proposes,
And by declining cut her. To wed; to smoke
No more; And have a wife at home to mend
The holes in socks and shirts
And underwear and so forth. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To wed for life;
To wed; perchance to fight; ay, there's the rub;
If I Was President
If I was President
The first thing I would do
is call Mumia Abu-Jamal.
No,
if I was president
the first thing I would do
is call Leonard Peltier.
No,
if I was president
the first person I would call
Enter Without So Much As Knocking
Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.
Blink, blink. HOSPITAL. SILENCE.
Ten days old, carried in the front door in his
mother's arms, first thing he heard was
Bobby Dazzler on Channel 7:
Hello, hello hello all you lucky people and he
really was lucky because it didn't mean a thing
to him then...
A year or two to settle in and