SHOOTING POOL WITH THE DEVIL

Of course he cheats,

but exactly how

I haven’t quite figured out.

Unless it’s by distraction,

‘cuz I’m not really sure

if that beautiful harlot

standing behind him

is real or merely an illusion.

He’s ordered the raucous music

turned up high

and the lights

turned down low,

so it’s rather dark in here,

with demon’s eyes glittering

all around me,

and the carpet squishing and slithering

beneath my feet,

and there’s an awful stench

of cigarette smoke.

Or maybe it’s sulphur.

There he goes again . . .

Shoots every ball into a pocket

without missing once.

“Rack ‘em up!” he barks.

“And I’ll give you another chance.”

What’s the use, I mutter.

But I break anyway,

and the eight ball

goes straight into the left corner pocket.

“You lose!” he screeches,

with a wicked gloat in his eyes.

Curse my damn luck, I mutter.

And the hooker cracks up.

Her cackling

makes my skin crawl.

Then, some demon racks up again,

and the cue stick in my hands catches fire.

CATS IN THE GARDEN

 They try to hide among the tiger lilies.

Good choice for an orange tabby.

I see their blinking eyes among the zinnias.

Or are they winking at me?

What sort of game is this?

A white cat crouches amid the narcissus,

But where does a black cat hide?

In the shadows.

He waits and watches,

Like a Bengal tiger.

And there he is,

The prince of pussycats,

As black as night,

Slinking his way through silky grass,

Down on his belly,

Then pouncing on some imaginary foe.

Up he springs,

Struting proudly

With his usual feline grace,

Strides along in regal possession.

And with one gravity-defying leap,

He’s bounded to the top of the wall,

Makes his exit like a tightrope walker,

Tail aloft,

And, without so much as a backward glance,

He vanishes,

Leaving the garden to his lesser brothers.

MY SECRET MUSE

The thought of the sweet radiance of your eyes

brings tears to mine and transports my soul

to regions unfathomed and unknown.

How do you know the secret magic that stirs my soul?

Did you learn it from a sorceress?

Or was your mother a goddess, your father a mere mortal?

Surely, you’ve been endowed by some high power

with a celestial fire, with something divine

granted only to those who can be trusted

with the secrets of the gods.

When I behold this in you I am more than a little in awe,

But I am resolved to remain silent

And let you wonder if you truly are my muse

PERFUMES OF THE NIGHT

I lie awake, listening to your breath,

Your hair, a dark tangled mystery upon the pillow.

Asleep, you are heavily fragrant with your own perfume,

A challenge to the scent of lilacs and laurel,

Wafting in at the open window.

The flowers from the garden, too,

Steal into our sacred chamber,

Striving to overcome your aromatic loveliness.

And farther away, the Wind harps through pines and maples,

gusts across meadow and river,

offers their weakened scents to me.

More potent are you.

Out of your limbs, your breast, belly, thighs

An incense rises up,

Calling my spirit to worship, arousing my senses to love.

You are an angel of ambrosia,

Divinely fragrant,

A match for the food of the gods.

But I dare not say that aloud

For the moon goddess will hear

And Leto, in a jealous rage,

Will turn you to stone

Or steal your heavenly odor,

Put it in a bottle and cast it into the sea.

But if I breathe your ambrosia deeply enough,

Will I become immortal?

Perhaps not, but my poem may live forever,

Infused with the exhalation of the Earth,

That is to say, with you.

APPLE SEASON

Your body has ripened into the season of apples,

and I go to the orchard in a state of high excitement,

ready to pluck your sensuous fruit.

My lips and tongue explore your fragrant skin,

my teeth first nibble at the red jacket,

then sink deeply into your downy pulp,

leaving their sacred marks in your sweet flesh.

The forbidden apples,
the apples of knowledge,
quite, quite forbidden.
(How one longs to know them!)

O, how exquisitely delicious you are,

smoother than honey,

more succulent than the grape,

as intoxicating as blossoming roses.

Can you blame my passion for your apples?

INSTEAD OF A LOVE POEM

What pleasure do you get from tormenting me with kisses?

Ah, but I wish I could caress you like the wind.

How I long to fall upon you like the rain.

Like Puck I would anoint your eyes with the juice of a flower

so that waking you would look upon me and pity my suffering.

Naked, I go in and out of meadows

searching for the blossom that took Cupid’s arrow.

I bring you all the flowers I can gather

but none of them seem to work the magic I desire.

Next, I burrow deep in the belly of the Earth

to dig out the precious stones,

but even these leave you cold to my embraces.

So, instead of catching starlight in a crystal,

I will tickle you with a peacock feather,

I will stroke your belly with a rose,

I will shower you with lilac blossoms,

I will spread the nectar of honeysuckle over your breasts,

I will rub the pollen from a thousand wild orchids

over the finely polished marble of your flesh.

My passion will overthrow your resistance

as I take you rapturously in my arms.

My hands will slide over your belly and your breasts,

I will envelop you like a storm cloud

and come down upon you like the lightning.

WHAT IS THE NEW BOHEMIA?

Prior to the dawning of the internet age writers usually found other writers in those culturally rich urban locales known then as the Bohemian underground. This subterranean literary landscape also included small theatres for new plays, cafes that hosted readings, and independent bookstores such as Gotham’s in New York, City Lights in San Francisco, and Shakespeare & Company in Paris.  Every major metropolis the world over had a bohemian underground. Many smaller cities followed their lead. Urban Bohemia was a hotbed of creative fertility. Poets, playwrights, painters, musicians, philosophers, and hipsters would rub elbows as well as opinions. All the friction of conflicting ideas and ideologies stirred up the fires of creativity. The shift to electronic culture over the last 10 years has nearly wiped out the old Urban Bohemia. But the human spirit hungers for contact and community, and artists more so than others, perhaps, and so we now have the emergence of a New Bohemia via the internet.

BIRDS SING MY POEMS

My poems fly out to you like birds

freed from captivity.

They take flight on the wind of love

that carries them on its breath.

Sometimes they go amiss

and fall into a river of despair

where they float along on the current

for a time before sinking.

Other times a mockingbird swoops down

and rescues them,

but then, liking the taste,

brings them to the nest to feed her young.

O I hope my poems nourish the fledglings

and that one day they will repay me

by singing them to you.

You will hear the words I’ve written at last

when they perch upon a branch in the forest

and sing as you are passing,

or at twilight as you walk in a garden

and think of me.

FALLING INTO THE SUNRISE

The night runs like a wild stallion

across the desert plain of your belly.

Flashing stars drop into your navel

and I lap them up like a hungry jaguar.

We play this game until the rosy dawn

rises in your eyes and spills over into me.

The ocean waves come up and caress us

and the dolphins sing bright morning songs

as they roll and splash around us.

Falling into the sunrise,

we laugh as we toss buckets of light

over one another until we shine like newborns.

WHEN WHAT WE HAVE IS LOST

When what we have is lost,

temporarily, we hope,

we go in search of it,

each going our separate way,

each of us following a different path.

I go to the forest seeking peace,

a leafy glade where my soul finds itself again

and cries out to you

like a bird calling to another.

It is such a desolate sound,

this crying of my soul,

reaching out, reaching up

and up to an empty sky

like a lark ascending, vanishing

into the rose-burnished clouds.

And you, where do you go?

To a place of mystery, I suspect,

a place I cannot even imagine

and could never enter.

Like Diana, do you seclude yourself

in a grove, a grotto?

Do you strecth out on a crag

overlooking the sea?

Do you contemplate dashing yourself

upon the rocks in a place where I will find you

smashed to bits like some wreckage of a ship

lost at sea, all hands drowned?

Why not wait for me to rescue you,

like Perseus rescued Andromeda? 

THE RAIN SPEAKS TO ME OF YOU

The rain speaks to me of you,

softly murmuring,

telling me what it thinks I need to know.

But I always want to hear more.

I want to know how you take off your clothes

when I am not there.

I want to know how you look at yourself

in the mirror, when I am not there.

I want to know you when I’m not there.

The moon speaks to me of you.

She sees you through your window

and knows you when I am not there.

She is your sister of the skies,

and she smiles at my ignorance.

I want to know how you sleep,

how your limbs lie among the bedclothes

when I am not there.

I want to know you when I am not there.

The ocean waves too are your sisters,

and when I lie naked on the beach

they whisper to me of you,

saying, “So, you think you know her!”

They laugh at my ignorance of you.

I want to know what thoughts pass through your mind,

I want to know what dreams may come

when I am not there.

I want to know who you are when I’m not there.

I NEVER KNEW

I never knew, never knew

such a thing existed

but driven on by dreams

I persisted and persisted.

Till what I sought

turned into an obsession.

I would find it or I would die

in making it my possession.

I never could define it,

was it Happiness, was it Love?

What was it stole my peace,

this thing I kept on dreaming of?

And then you came into my life

and I was sure without a doubt

that in you I’d find the key

to what the secret was all about.

Now the years have passed

and I am still a bit uncertain.

If I hadn’t found you would I alone

have pulled aside the curtain?