Smoke?

Nicotine
increases
sneakily as gray
smoke
curl into market value.
The tobacco
companies
enjoy
their victims'
ointment
and
fumes.
Vicious
spew
infests healthy
lungs' air.
Percentages
grow and glow.

Anger Frappé

Beaten in words
berated.
Bedded incestuous
inculpated.
Coup cuts
coupled in drowning
young souls.
Perpetuated
perpetrators perform
heinous acts.
All powerful sadness
and anger prevail?
No mea culpas?

Truthiness & Wikiality

Truth and reality
is no longer a contender
for the more easy virtuality
to shape life as a television dream
claim it is the blatant truthiness
to which we adjust and ream.
Whatever happened
to authenticity?
It is now wikiality?

Lack

Malnourishment
lack of the simplest daily need
hungers for individual contact.

Indigestion
overstuffed of foodstuff
screams for human contact.

Defecation
excreting the leftovers
implodes living contact.

Hope?

In the blogosphere
individuals are trying hard
to get to the bottom
of a conflict
to grasp what's going on.
There is hope for humanity yet;
quiet exchange of viewpoints
once removed
may be the saving grace
of political diatribes.
Mortal meeting Mortal.

Know-it-all

my mother was a drunk
So was mine and much worse
my father was a don juan
Mine was even worse
we are proud of our children
Yeah, but I am prouder
my daugher is sick and I live it every day
Well, I know it and it is not as bad
my kids are going one way
Mine have taken a much better
i understand so little of life
I know it all.

Behavior observed going to the fair

At the fair you meet
people you greet
you see people doomed
buying their first bloom:
they shall then return
next year - to yearn
for more age garb
looking real sharp.
We started like that
a garland, a little hat;
then now we show up
in full regalia topped
by tingle tangle -
wrestle and wrangle
into renaissance gear
year after year.
So just be aware
when you go to the fair
and need that bloom
you'll to fool's dream zoom.

To the faire

To the faire - to the faire
I am going to be there
every year to it I look
sinker and hook
for transformation.

To the faire - to the faire
Many people are going there
every year to it we swarm
in renaissance garb - warm
in transportation.

To the faire - to the faire
Again this year to be there
will be as if I'm at home -
Venice, Florence, or Rome
in adulation.

Honi soit qui mal y pense

The old order of the Garter
proclaims for the world:
"Honi soit qui mal y pense!"
We this premise embrace?
Accepting war as the code,
resigning to status quo?
Hunger and illiteracy
add shame and poverty?
If somebody timetravelled
today from the dark days
whence this maxim came
they wealth would find.
They at doodads and gadgets
would nonplussed gabe.
Alas, underneath the surface
we have not much reshaped.
The slogan for our world hence:
Honi soit qui non mal y pense.

Maternity Leave

Most civilized countries
let their women rest
before the baby's birth
why not the BIG WEST?

Most civilized countries
let their women mind
their babies once born
the US lack painfully behind.

Apologia

Uttering a slur
of any kind
is easy
retracting it
heartfeltly
is sleazy.
Civic mea culpas
for politicians
are breezy.

To that daughter of mine!

I am enraged angry and hurt
somebody is treating my kid as dirt
why - I don't know
maybe it is for show.
My kid's nerves are on the alert.

Is there a solution, she asks me, mom?
I don't know what to say, hon'
except this - never sway
from your chosen way
if you are resolute, and have a passion!

Whatever you accomplish please know
that life is going to just throw
hindrance and humps galore
you will be pretty sore.
Advice: Stand up straight and glow.

The number game

Some will pick a winner
others select a schlemiel
certain are lucky
several ill-starred
just a number's game.

Many live alone
either by choice or not
but as we all get older
frail, feeble, or strong
our number comes up.

Pluto

Pluto is a planet
Pluto is a pluton
The universe expanding
the cosmos receding
black holes, white stars
the old song "we collide with Mars"
black matter we cannot see at all
let's accept that we are infinitesimal.

(Apology to Cole Porter)

My avatar

I can create my avatar
on the irreal internet
to be what I am not
to give it all I have got
of fantastic abilities
and virtual aspirations -
but it comes with a price
a reality not quite right.

I am a beauty of reknown
selling my creation of whatever
because good looks command
that it holds intelligence and truth
whereas ugliness and old age
incredibility portray.

My fraudulent alter ego blooms
in chimerical cyberspace
I am young, vivacious, and brilliant,
forget about the sad veracity -
the middle-aged troubled face.
Once I leave the keyboard
actuality sets in - mirror on the wall
wrinkled - hurting - angry.

My new avatar shall be
a matriarch - an elderly elegant female
full of life and joy and wisdom;
in other words - just me!!

Separation

Reliving the past
in installments
hidden away
excuses the artist?

The age-old dilemma:
forgive the craftsman
for malefactions
and applaud his creations.

Should we accept misdeeds
when the common man
rarely avoids doom
and bigger souls get away with murder?

Trial

Try and do
something for you
anything new.

Try and meet
a new person - greet
with a smile - neat.

Try and create
out of nothing great
a world without hate.

The same story

Lunch - latent undercurrent
of unremitting desire
four spectators
two stooges
continuing
seriously
tragic
play.

Flødebolle a la Proust

Sweet childhood
chocolate covered
bun
alone or
in an icecream cone
first bite - crunch
second bite - munch
even far away
sometimes dream
of that special day
when you shall taste
your jeunesse
with this special faiblesse.

Epitaph?

atheistic alien
bawdy bookworm
careful consumer
elegant entertainer
fearless feminist
graceful granny
hopeless heroine
indecisive idealist
jazzy jongleur
kind keeper
lousy lecturer
merry motorist
notorious nonconformist
opulent organizer
passionate pacifist
quirky queen
radical rebel
staunch siren
tolerant terrestrial
ultimate underling
vicious woman
xenophobic yenta
zany zealot
which
will fit my epitaph?

none but: human!

To P

Friendship
fellowship
shipmate
doublet.

Lovers
parents
partners
couplet.

Future
grand
parents
raise
thy
goblet.

A wounded bird

Today in the vet's office
was a wounded bird
a lady tried to save
this creature - not absurd
goodness is still around.

A man with a lot of power
criticising a state's citizens
mocking their opnion when
voting for what they believe in
hatred is still abound.

For fun

There once was a cook from Marseilles
who made a lobster a la bordelaise
it was not a grand success
her guest could not it digest
so the cook heated clam a la bearnaise.
Then the cook served crab a la Maryland
which was consumed by her guest and
he the whole enchilada ingested
could not get it up and the cook bested
so she offered him pommes a la anglaise.

Philosophical exercise

Fatalistic dedication
to centrist competition
is flawed dialectics.

Instead instant idealism
psyches the anima
creates abstraction
distracts from rationale.

Visionaries must be
without beliefs
but never without heart.

Sluozac

A dream of my drowse
sounds of Sluozac
near my uncle's house
in sunny Carsac.
A village burrowed in time
Romans, Visigoths, grime,
churchbells and vivid chimes,
cafes, market days, thyme
near town and azur sea.
Sluozac - you are for me.

Ingrid

Sweet
young
Ingrid
under
thyroid
cancer
attack
again.
Spirits
battle
plague.
Grand
thoughts
urgent.
Action
ravenous
immediate.
Combat
Ingrid :
Fight!

Twiddling

spent time - wasted money
an innocuous item
on a hot summer's day
consumerism par exellence
that makes the swirl go around
oil, plastic, China,
containership, train
middleman,
store inventory, salespeople
that makes the world go around

all ending on a rubbish dump

Dreams

nightmarish
ridden in sweat
eyes swell
muscles meandering
constricted

sweet dreams
cool satininess
eyes still
body peacefully
relaxed

reverie balances
yin and yang
eyes face
roaming reality
anticipating

At the money machine

a lady outside a bank
her handbag on the ground
anybody could yank
it away from round

oblivious to all
writing the total
checking the check

moved the purse
to the shelf
anybody could have
helped himself

looked at her receipt
glanced at length at it
turned away - caught
in her own thought

this action at a time when
the world is getting grimmer again.
her naivete admired
or her trust desired

Weeds

looking at the immaculately cut lawns
in our middle class neighborhood
saw some beautiful flowering weeds
a new kind I have not seen before
they will soon be pulled up and killed
just like the humble beautiful dandelion
what if one day this blemish was part of
the cure for cancer - would it then be a blotch
I think --- not!

Image

Only try and believe
what you personally see
a tampered photo.

Only try and heed
what you actually hear
a revised speech.

Only try and react
to what you can feel
a changed image.

To a young person

we eat to survive
we eat to thrive

some young girls grow
into hating their glow

so - you starve
or - you much carve

and you commit
to violently vomit

created by affectation
loneliness - aberration

need for not being measured
by family and just treasured

some youngsters just click
love does not do the trick

the mind is a powerful particle
the disease a sad article

get help - snap out of your box
refuse and you will get a big sock

Peewee pus

To the end I shall never grasp
that the people in power
who send souls in cruel combat
have never participated
except seen on the silver screen
when or where the ominous odors
flee the fleeing life force
where death is but pretend.
Go and smell the burning flesh -
the screaming pulsating pus.
It may be that it just reminds
you of the earthly pungent cow manure
from your grand ranch.
Immunity built in
when you go chopping the underbush.

A Viking mitzvah

Somewhere on the globe
lives a man who gave me hope
that kindness is not dead.
A Viking or a Visigoth's
mitzvah means so much -
humanity comes out ahead.

Repetition

Watching watchfully
a baby girl wiggling
is scarily sensational
watching warmly
a girl girding
is fearsomely fabulous
watching woefully
a teenager thriving
is logistically lonesome
watching vindicated
a lady leaping
is anticipating ambition
watching vantonly
the lady's lament
is repeating the repertoire.

Sense?

voluptuous ventriloquism
the newscasters spew sensations
is it a wonder that some of us
turn to l'art pour l'art?

Soon

soon my man is going away
soon my daughter is traveling
soon my son is leaving for college
soon it is Monday again
drudgery mixed with what's next
everyday life hits the ceiling fan
spinning, spooling
soon the dog wants walking
soon the night will appear
soon the halfmoon light shines
without Pierrot
soon Pierrette shall become
- a grandmother

A phone call

Bzzz - a call - a voice from my past
unmistakable - mellifluous - baritone
singing your voice in your childhood vibrations
taking me back almost forty years hence
to a time pre-kids, pre-mortgage, pre-jobs
just studying, just savouring the life flavours.
Giving birth to the adult me
in an enchanted, engulfing city.
Friendship forward to this day
two lives run parallel with meeting twigs.

Water

Water is an ocean
Water is a sea
Water is a river
Water is a lake
Water is a brook
Water is a puddle
Water is a drink
Water is so essential
for everyone - eternity
Why are we
polluting the pristine necessity?

Obituary - Odette

This is the story of Odette
who is copied in this minette
French to the core
sometimes a bore
born around the 1. War
a beauty of renown
Man Ray took her hands
how does that sound?
A lady - a whore
do you want more?
a mother, a granny, a friend
a keeper - a snob - a fiend
a century - around
lived away from her ground
due to another world War
stuck it out for the man.
Business head sound
in beauty and Napoleon.
She came from nothing
she ended with something.
Elegance and pretense
an wrench excellent.
This is the story of Odette
a personal vivid vignette.

Rant of the heat wave

raving about the lovely summer's heat
raving about the lovely hummers' beat
raving about the lovely icecap's seat
slowly melting
raving about the lovely mosquito's deet
raving about the lovely mescaline's weed
raving about the lovely hurricanes' meet
slowly pelting
without thoughts we progress - a no-feat
without wondering why we weep
without change we will not chaos heed
slowly welting

Ex libris

A window looking out on a small square
a tree spreading its crown
over the canopy sheltering the table
with two chairs in front of the cafe
in France - empty - waiting.

How strange this picture on my bookplate
tells my love story
created for me by the man in my life
before aeonian time
two chairs waiting another age
almost there.

Gardasil

Garden my garden
guarding my garden.
Female flowers
bloom.

We the guardians
must go beyond the garden.
Female flowers
blotch.


Guardedly the gardenias
take guardianship.
Female flowers
blossom.

Leveling?

The level of testosterone
goes up in men
if they hold a real gun in their hands
for fifteen minutes.

What would happen
if they held a puppy in their hands
for the same fifteen minutes?
Would the level go down?

What would happen
if we let all men hold babies,
puppies, kittens for an hour?
on the battlefields of war?
for a year? - forever?
Would the level level?

Alienation

How dare we live in the now
please tell me how
anybody with a sane mind
can digest the news of this kind?

War and hate and human folly
Riding on this jolly trolley
I want to get off, get away
to hide and concentrate every day
on art, on music, bury myself
in the library's great book shelf.

To return to the beauty of creation
disconnected from our situation
is to give up and comply
to this world's anti-symmetry.

Defeatist behavior is drowsing
alienation - anti-rousing
the earth will become our tomb
the alphabet spells our doom.

Lieu commun

We see, read, hear the same old tired tale
every single bloody moment
people killing people - people killing animals
people killing themselves in all kinds of ways.

Politicians address their syncophants
any clergy preach to their devotees
people killing people - people killing animals
people killing themselves in sophisticated ways.

Poets rant and rave about this state
skeptics applaud the poets - but
people killing people - people killing animals
people killing our earth in unforgivable ways.