1
The darkness is no
consolation
It cannot relieve the pain
An endless parade of clowns
Will not make me laugh
I am no longer tethered to
the ground
I’ve spun off into the
blankness of space
Songs from home can no
longer be heard
I bob and float on an
invisible wave
I call out to phantoms
They talk back, their
voices hoarse and weary
I eat these shards of stone
And unwind the
wire that twists round my head
As I add and
subtract all that I know and believe
I evade the fumes of a toxic
cloud
I consider all that
I owe
I make a list of
debts I will never repay
2
She only spoke when we were
alone;
And like a statue on a
pedestal of stone,
She held a secret and would
not let go
I saw her cloaked in a
purple hood,
her hands clutching a cross
made of wood
I heard her whimper
I heard her sigh,
And then I heard her say goodbye
My satellites have all gone
blind
All that remains is a box of
names
I could sail the ocean
I could ride the waves and
the foam
(Head in hand and with my eyes wide open)
I could fly a plane
But I will never find my way
Back to her again
3
A TV billionaire wants to be
president
He wants to make America great again
He wants to build walls and
cast out
Eleven million souls into
the darkness
NASA once planted
a flag on the moon
(Some say in violation of
the Outer Space Treaty of 1967)
And he wants to take both
the moon and the flag back
Even as ICBMs blanket the
earth,
He promises to build more warheads, stealth bombers,
Drones, fighter jets and
destroyers
I long for news but when it
comes, I’m disappointed
I look for signs of life and
try to decode
The signals in the sky My
mind balloons out
But everything seems so far
away
My telescope cannot see into
the past
Or predict the future
4
The moon is no mistress,
She rides on a white horse
I followed her home
The prince is locked up in
the tower
The princess eats alone
The eye in the sky watches
us close
No one confesses their sins,
If everyone wins
The children are pardoned
After being fed a fatal dose
The eye in the sky watches
us close
The dead are gathering in
the dark
Their voices are gone, they
no longer breathe
The tide is rising, the ship
is off course
The moon is no mistress,
She rides a white horse
5
Children look for paranormal
activity
In this old school
They hunt for ghosts
They say there was once a
murder here
They make chalk marks where
the body laid
A bird flies in an opened
door
It flaps its wings and flies
into glass
It is trapped within these
walls
They burned the corpse, the
smoke rose
Into the clouds
And fell back to earth with
the rain
We dance in the dark and
perform rituals
Contained in an ancient book
We follow the text as best
we can
We make reparations to the
living
We say our prayers
6
The levers ceased to
function, nothing would turn
The machines shut down
The wizard collapsed behind
a black curtain
The elevator stopped, the
movie ended
Her ruby slippers still fit
when she died of a drug overdose
In a London hotel,
Triumphant and alone
She survived five marriages
She is wandering now with
the scarecrow beside her
She hears the sound of birds
but cannot see them
It is too dark
She recognizes the whistle
of a thrush
She hears the call of a
bluebird and the cry of a dove
The are not friends, more
like distant cousins
Even so, she knows them all
By name
7
Like a magician, he's up to
his old tricks,
Another show, another fix
His heart's in a box
Bound by a thousand and one
locks
His world is whirling and
about to tilt
The knives are in all the
way to the hilt
He'd let them go but he
doesn't know how
If looks could kill, he'd be
a ghost by now
From the shadows, he calls
out your name
Just one shot and you're
back in the game
Your heart's in a box
Bound by a thousand and one
locks
Your world is whirling and
about to tilt
The knives are in all the
way to the hilt
You'd let them go but you
don't know how
If looks could kill, you'd
be a ghost by now
8
Together we drank
fire and walked
On waves of guilt
We spoke the language of the drowned
At night, I could hear the
murmur of her heart,
And feel her breath on my neck
She was so small and so
pretty
Asleep, she dreamt of a
prince
And a white wedding gown
While still a child, she offered her virginity to Christ
But her father took it in a
drunken stupor
And left a hole in her psyche
She would never fill
She entered the convent but
never took her vows
She drank fire and
walked on waves of guilt
She spoke the language of
the drowned
She made the call that saved
my life
9
I left my hat in the dark
I left my heart there, too
Out here on the edge of the world
The mountains are blue
I left my hat in the dark
I left my body there, too
The earth holds me close
I would sail across the sea
If anyone would take me
I left my hat in the dark
I left my heart there, too
I ride trains at night
Out here on the edge of the world
The mountains are blue
I left my hat in the dark
I left my body there, too
10
If this was the last word
you ever heard
Would you give it back?
If this was the last song
ever sung
Would you let it go?
Once there was a princess
Who rode on a horse made of
snow
She searched for a lost dove
She searched for love
Once there was a man who
wore a black mask
He had a dark past
If this was the last song
ever sung
Would you let it go?
If I took off the mask
Would you take me back?
If I told you the truth
Would you let me go?
11
"'Now I am become Death,
the destroyer of worlds " The Bhagavad-Gita
He rode on top of a white cloud
He rode on top of a white elephant
But this wasn't the circus
And he was no clown
He was the father of black holes
when the bombs began to fall
He tried to close the coffin
that he opened but it was too late
Warheads multiplied like rumors
Nobody kept them secret
If you look high enough, you can see him
He rides on top of a white cloud
He rides on top of a white elephant
He is the father of black holes
12
He defaced the cones of
nuclear warheads
He ignited draft cards with
napalm
He burned paper instead of
children
In protest to the regime of
Diem, a Buddhist monk
Set himself on fire in Saigon;
And now decades later
Father Berrigan follows him
on a cloud,
Out of the haze, beyond the
reach of radar
As a child, I carried the
news of the war dead
On my back
The draft ended when I was
sixteen
I would not loose my limbs
or die in Vietnam
I would not kill
Father Berrigan was looking
out for me
He defaced the cones of
nuclear warheads
He ignited draft cards with
napalm
13
My memory is a closet without dimension
Or doors: a mystery, often
blank, sometimes dark
A child, a stranger, waves
to me
And laughs from across the
room
As night begins to fall
What does she know? What
does she see?
Her mother holds her hand,
they walk away
Out of view but the image
remains
The vapors and debris of a
lost dream
Haunt me now: the barrel of
a rifle,
The flash of a ballistic
blast,
A pink cloud
Of blood and brain,
The presidential limousine
racing towards the underpass,
Dallas, Oswald and the death
of umpires
The crime that haunts the
nation
14
Children
ride on white ponies
They go up and down
Airplanes could carry them higher
But they stay close to the ground
Refugees gather on the border
The lines are long
The children freeze in the camps
They say their prayers by kerosene lamps
Out in the desert, rockets flare
They go up and they go down
The go round and round
They go up and down
Along the canal, blue lights flash
The carousel goes round and round
Where children once rode white ponies
And stayed close to the ground
15
Officers in blue, mourners
in black
Where do we go now, is there no way back?
Helicopters hover, there’s a gunman in the clouds
All lives matter, blue or black
Dallas, JFK shot
Officers in blue, mourners
in black
Where do we go now, is there no way back?
All lives matter, blue or black
There’s a chokehold on the
soul
Too many dead
Too many guns, too much lead
Officers in blue, mourners in black
Where do we go now, is there no way back?
Helicopters hover,
There’s a gunman in the
clouds
All lives matter, blue or black
16
I examine a photo of a ragged child,
Holding a ragged doll
In Arabic, her name means “White Cloud”.
She is just five years old.
She is a refugee from Aleppo.
In a filthy camp, she cries out
In thunder and rain,
In tragedy and pain
Here In another zone,
In the valley of the green mountains,
I hear the blackbirds squawk and moan.
They mimic hawks and humans.
Some say they guide the living and the dead,
out of the shadows,
Beyond the thunder and the rain,
Beyond the tragedy and the pain
17
Words change, killing
becomes a choice
Human limbs, lungs, eyes and
brains are tossed out
Extermination is possible
Auschwitz is possible Gaza is possible
Syria is possible
Madmen make wars on the
upper deck
They hide from the sun and
cast no shadow
Corpses no longer feed the
earth but poison it
A plague descends
All is darkness, all is one
A blackbird floats in a
starless sky
Unidentified flying objects
maintain radio silence
No one speaks, no one breathes
There is no chatter, there
is no pulse
Words change, killing
becomes a choice
Human limbs, lungs, eyes and
brains are tossed out
18
An electric eye opens
It watches us while we sleep
It opens doors and windows
and lets the others in
We hear them, their voices
Echoing throughout the house
We can’t
quite understand what it is they are saying
A one eyed fat man reads
from a book of tarot cards
And a crystal ball
He looks into the meaning of
things
He sees the towers fall
He sees flashes of a burning
world
The fool remains but no one
is laughing
Death rides in on a white
horse
The talking heads have all
gone home
Satellites bounce signals
into outer space
Who can hear us? Who will
save us from ourselves?
19
Light shone all around them
but they did not see it
They had eyes but they
remained closed
No one analyzed their dreams
No one even knew if he they
had any
Like Oedipus they walked in
a world of darkness
They existed in a land of
unknowing
They built war machines
In air conditioned rooms,
they piloted drones
By touch and dropped bombs
On innocent women and
children
Whirlwinds of dust
blew all around them
Radioactive clouds darkened
the sky
Ultimately, they considered themselves blessed
By their blindness
When the end came, no one cried,
No one was left to tell
their story
20
Mars is far but not far
enough
The planet is dying and so is mankind
The dead must be left behind
The orphans wear oxygen masks
The White House is in ruins
The president is deceased
Radioactive felons roam the earth
The Polaris submarines have all vanished at sea
Mars is far but not far enough
The planet is dying and so is mankind
The dead must be left behind
The space ships are landing
Their taking as many as they can
The women and children are boarding
And preparing for a long flight
Mars is far but not far enough
21
In the darkness, he rises like a moonlit shadow
He imagines himself a king
He tells himself this is what a man is,
This is what a man does He teaches, but not this
The pills make the woman his subject, his concubine
She offers no resistance
Words begin to form in fragments but drift away.
She forgets how to speak She cannot move
When we played I Spy, I would be him.
I assumed my dark skinned playmate
(Whose ancestors came from Africa on
slave ships)
Would take the role
But he insisted on playing Robert Culp’s part.
I would be the funny sidekick; he would be the debonair spy
Watching TV, looking at the pictures in Playboy magazine
We learned how to become dinosaurs but not men
22
Miss America lapses in and out of consciousness
As she floats down the catwalk
She often sleepwalks; her dreams are diminished
Her ideals have vanished
Her kisses are no longer free
She works the seedy side of reality TV
Her pimp owns the pageant He wears a bronze mask
His platinum blond hair shimmers under the hot TV
lights
He pontificates beneath that halo
He states that he’ll kill, deport or jail all the shadows
in his way
The headlines are depressing
The news of despair is everywhere
Gossip, rumors and innuendo rule
We often sleepwalk; our dreams are diminished
No one buys our kisses and nothing is free
Here on the seedy side of reality TV
23
I unhook the stars from my
neck
And let myself go I descend I ride with ghosts
I roll and tumble into the
unknown
I parted company with the
others in Tangiers
I miss them so much
I crossed the desert in the
dark
I tried to sing but it hurt
too much
My throat was parched from sleeping in the sun
Back then, I would trade all the light
Of the world for water
I trudged through the dust
and haze
Of a dismembered continent
I remember my brothers
I think of my sisters
I unhook the stars from my
neck and let myself go
I descend, I ride with
ghosts
