the cad

it must be sad to be a cad and have women every hour fall like flowers into your lap when you're trying to take a nap or want some solitude to sit in a somber mood and create unflinching perfect art but how can you start when these myriad creatures with their softly shifting features will not go away but multiply every day lining up for miles in kaleidoscopic styles and wind through city blocks stopping the tower clocks of the haughty bourgeoisie who hate art and poetry o apollo shed a tear! but poet, try to persevere though the world be misbegotten you will never be forgotten your words will be on lips when thinking machines and rocket ships are wiped from time's black shining slate immortality shall be your fate

voyage to star 25, part 1

there once was a landlord named jake who had for a tenant a thirty foot snake he grew so fond of that boa constrictor he knew in his heart he could never evict her she was the best friend he ever had, oh but over his life there fell a shadow he worked all day at the missile base and came home at night with a sad face many tenants in rooms along the street sat in the gloom staring at their feet and conceived passions for barely sentient creatures mental death was one of their features and the missiles - when would they go off? the silence was broken by an occasional cough and a slurp from a bottle of schlitz or bud the collapse of the universe was in their blood the windows in the bars were dim and blue the used car lots were silent too with burgers and marlboros on their breath they waited in the shadow of meaningless death you can't love a snake unless you give it a name that's part of the game but words came slow to jake's brain on the dusty window it began to rain the snake used a hundred square feet of rental space but jake took it with a good grace not so mrs harvis down the hall who did not care for reptiles at all and neither did jack d hubbatak a retired spaceman with a bad back who lived upstairs in a one room flat with a seashell collection and an orange cat he and mrs harvis put their heads together whether in fair or stormy weather and drank tea and stayed up late complaining about the government, life and fate mrs hervis was forty-four years old her hair was orange and her eyes were cold men had betrayed her, religion too her children were worthless through and through she did not care much for other females of their troubles, she did not want the details her only desire, and it made her eyes grow wide was revenge against the world before she died joe archibald was another tenant he could say "i'll kill you" like he meant it he had a machime gun tattooed on his arm and was completely devoid of charm joe was prowling the hall one night something just did not feel right he heard the throbbing music of fear for which he had a most sensitive ear he started down the creaking stair past jake's well-barricaded lair of the snake he was not scared a whit in fact he'd like to have a go at it he put his ear to jake's scarred door a thing he'd never done before on the scuffed and worn linoleum a vision suddenly came to him jake was nothing but a commie rat joe was absolutely sure of that talking to his snake? that was a load - he was really talking in code! he was an un-american deceiver talking to a hidden receiver probably planted in the snake it was almost too much for joe to take "peeping through keyholes, eh, fellow?" hubbatak, more than a little mellow swaying in his slippered feet sneered at joe without missing a beat "what's it to you anyway, hubbatak? wasn't peeking through no keyhole, i was peeking through the crack. "it's not the same thing at all and besides, it ain't your call." inside, jake seemed impervious to all the fuss but another door opened down the hall and miss maisie muldoon, willowy and tall barely glanced at the two combatant gents as past then she serenely went hubbatak and joe didn't scream or shout but forgot what they were arguing about maisie worked two blocks away in mrs wilson's all night cafe the moon looked down and seemed to say is it her fate to carry a tray? to be continued

5 more poems

sad poem life is so sad sometimes you just want to cry and maybe even curl up and die and then you roll over and look up at the clear blue sky and st michael leans down and says, what's wrong little guy? so maybe things aren't really as bad as all that but i wish i had a press card in my hat and could visit the president of the united states for a nice little chat and eat hot dogs and ice cream all day and never get fat and could walk up to people on the street and just say hi and look them right in the eye did you ever wonder why it's not that easy, sweetie pie? maybe some things are just meant to be dogs bark, and birds sing in trees humans alone in the evening breeze watch the skies and scratch and wheeze and try not to be taken by surprise by fate's sly tricks and reality's lies each in his own pathetic disguise helpless as the waters rise the hammer of heaven is always raised and will surely fall one of these days no more devilish despair or prayerful praise and no one left to be amazed bad beatnik bongo poem # 2 stalin had a cool hat churchill wanted one just like that but his regimental tie caught the marshal's glittering eye steel drums in the london night bongos in the dawn molotov folded the london times folded it with a yawn soft music through the kremlin played before the final alien raid ant men from a distant star finished off the caviar little angel midnight waited in the rain for raphael and st jerome hitchhiking from spain gabriel in the shadows watching bombers loading ike lit up a lucky with a strange foreboding zoo i ain't never been to the zoo or the opera either - how about you? awww! when morning comes the little stars go hide in the embrace of dawn - the blushing bride bang! he shot himself in the head one wall turned black, the other red

2 poems

unrepentant comrades raise a glass with me in defiance of sobriety though some may deem it blasphemy i say that drink will set us free free from the stress of stroil and strife from squalling brat and scowling wife shall fate forever twist the knife or life be ever slave to life oh precious nectar that dissolves the endless cloud that e'er revolves around the weary wanderer's head from your embrace must we be led down duty's dark and dreary path or follow the illumined swath you cut through universal gloom to ease our unavoidable doom comrades raise a glass with me in defiance of sobriety though some may deem it blasphemy i say that drink will set us free body leaving blues when you leave your body your body don't leave you it drags you around like a comatose cow up and down the avenue well my body left me left me so sad and blue sitting on the sidewalk without a mumbling clue whistling policemen pass me by laughing schoolgirls too highbrow ladies with birds in their hats doing the old soft shoe seems the whole world has a purpose a reason to be up and about can't they see that my poor head hurts why do they have to shout? blinking in the sunlight i got the sidewalk blues world oh why did you break my heart and what scoundrel stole my shoes?