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Call to Arms

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I call upon all cashiers in dungarees... I call upon the baristas in rags... I call upon those whose sinister principles tax the weakness of their conscience... I call upon all those deracinated by dreaming big...

Nevermore

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One said 'Yes, I remember.' He was dark and tall and slender A masterful pretender who laid roses on the floor Appearing on the eve of morrow, so slow and full of sorrow With a costume he did borrow, borrowed from the poet's lore From the rare and rad

Action she feels as folly, I respond

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Once a friend asked me to write about rape in an email, so I wrote that it is a weapon of war that would not work here because partners do not give in to it; in fact, they would say it is infidelity in relationships.

An Alphabet

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A daydreams about a woman whose name he’s forgotten next to B, who’s been drunk since afternoon.

BACK IN THE USSUSSUSSR

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It was on the Fake News today, Oh boy They built a bridge from Alaska to Siberia Called the Bridge Over Troubled Waters Instead of a wall And Putin came riding bareback on a pink unicorn Into the White House and renamed it The White Horse,

Commander of the Armies of the Four Winds

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"Commander of the Armies of the Four Winds" concerns a nightmare endured by Commander Daniel Bennett of the San Diego Police Department after he is assigned to recover the stolen Necromancer Artifact, which purports to invoke nefarious spirits imprisoned

The Script Sucks But the Special Effects Are Killer

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Victor didn't want to be alone, so he phoned Sophie.

Watch

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At six a.m. he was awakened by the alarm on the watch, and found he could not remove it from his wrist, though he was able to turn it off. Of course, she was gone, but had left a little patchouli-scented note on a pillow.

Night Flight

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I heard them calling my name. “Will passenger Karen Anderson please come to flight desk Six Fourteen? Flight 912 is ready for takeoff. This is your last call.” “Mario, did you hear that?” I asked. “We’re on the wrong plane!”

Mother's Day

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By lunch: The dryer is an F-5 dervish of mismatched socks, blue jeans and your yellowing college T's, lovingly held onto. For a moment there is a comforting warmth and softness to their smell. In the debris strewn landscape of the living room a carcass

Lingua Materna, Lingua Imperiale

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arrogant, sullen,/ supple and ambiguous,// English seems the ideal tongue

Ego with Toupée

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[WE'LL LET *YOU* BE THE JUDGE!]

Sailor's Visa

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He's got a rager for Casablanca, the old Bogart and Bergman classic. I can't snap him out of it.

Buck, naked

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Buck, naked, has no words. The best he can manage is a dopey strangulated cough. His wife, who is clothed, stands before him, next to the waterbed that took Buck half a day to force into the trailer.

New White Blouses

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always thought you'd show up with a good friendly grin, your heart full of gnosis and the rest of you dressed in denim or terrene hues,back from across the world to honor our sacrosanct thing maybe it would be in the wind chiseled afternoon,or the dusk by tables…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 16

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I still wake up with a start to this day, remembering the sound of that squish. And the cheer from above of all the brutes hanging out the open castle window. And of course the roar of approval and delight from the hordes of Chinese, Russian, and Germ

In the Pink Distance

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in the pink distance / a boy in a corduroy shirt / sits before an upended electrical spindle / and drinks a vodka gimlet

Brexit

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Reams of saggy bunting intersect the streets.

Out of the Woods

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No, your clever costume won’t protect you.

My Plastic Dreams

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Once, in the past or future, but definitely not in the present, I worked as a transportation minister for a friendly dictator, whose name was neither Hitler, nor Stalin, nor Kim Jong-Un, but whose mustache was toothbrush, whose smile was sardonic to the p

Seasons of You

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Summer, Spring, Winter, Fall, the Good Lord made them all.

Now Lay in It

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The phone rang again at midnight. Maury sat straight up in bed, a reflex from his days in the barracks. Linda, his wife, was already sitting up. In the hint of moonlight, she dabbed her nose with a wadded tissue and made helpless little noises. Maury…

Gymnopedies

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Does sound shape silence/ or silence shape sound?

(Withheld) 1970

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The Moon The hatch of the lunar module hissed as it opened, a few puffs of leftover water vapor escaped toward them in a sparkling white cloud that rapidly dissolved…

Last Stop

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So we stayed on the train admiring the time.

Shame On 34th Street

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This tanka poem was inspired by news report that the Macy's of "Miracle on 34th Street" fame has a white Santa in front and a black Santa in back.

Amish in the Theater of Lust

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Through the Walmart parking lot they came...

His Name Was Tokarsky, But He Looked Like Bob Dylan

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Tokarsky and I got chased off an El train by a couple of mean-looking black dudes who looked like they were going to crush us. I let go a spritz of tear gas that I had on me in the train and we ran as it came to a stop at the Morris Street stop. They chas

RONDO ROND WE GO

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When he got to the office, he opened the drawer with the new can of fish food and realized he’d forgotten to buy a fish tank. He hated fish, hated the thought of a “hobby” but his girlfriend’s therapist had suggested it. Hobbied, hobbled, whatever

Dear Earth, On the Occasion of Your 40th Earth Day Birthday

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Everyone is tromping around in work boots like an army of happy gardeners. The park is smiling from all this attention, from the sound of kids who think work is play. It's not even sunny but we don't mind. I know you don't. Grey days are just as good. They've…