from Orpheus in the Attic #11

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.

from Orpheus in the Attic #19

19

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.

My throat was parched from sleeping in the sun.

Back then, I would trade all the light

of the world for water.

I wished to sing but it hurt too much.

I trudge 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.

A Note on Bob Dylan's 75th Birthday

Bob Dylan's brother, David Zimmerman, taught the children in my neighborhood how to sing! He was the music teacher at Sunny Hollow Elementary in New Hope, Minnesota. It is well known now that David Zimmerman contributed to the re-recording of Blood on the Tracks in Minneapolis (Christmas of 74).

Bob apparently spent some time with his brother at the grade school. After David Zimmerman worked with Bob on the album he decided to leave teaching. With Bob in tow, Mr. Zimmerman visited all his students, all of the classes. During a question & answer session, my brother Rob (age 7) asked this unknown visitor if he knew of the poet Billy L (my middle name is James). Bob said no but that he would have to check this "poet" out. I did not know about this conversation until later (my brother, after all, was 7 & really had no idea how famous Bob was; I was 17). When I heard the story a few weeks later, I was thrilled.

At 19, I studied for a semester in Rome, Italy. There was a copy of Blood on the Tracks at the University of Dallas campus where I stayed. I listened to that album every day, over & over again. What an education: The Confessions of Saint Augustine, The Sistine Chapel, Agamemnon's tomb in Greece, the Louvre in Paris (Leonardo, Botticelli, Giotto), Sophocles & Bob Dylan.

Happy birthday Bob!  

from Orpheus In the Attic, #12

12

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.

from Orpheus in the Attic, #8

8

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.

from Orpheus in the Attic, 18

18

In the valley of the green mountains,

I hear blackbirds squawk and moan.

They mimic hawks and humans.

But they never lose themselves in the dark,

in shadows and rain.

They can hit high notes beyond

any human range.

Some call them starlings or Myna birds.

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 waits for a chance to live.

In the valley of the green mountains,

I hear blackbirds squawk and moan.

The Eye In The Sky Watches Us Close

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

Orpheus in the Attic

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

The Father of Black Holes

"'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

Vincent Van Gogh On His 163rd Birthday

Above the heroin and the whores, the sex shops
and the Van Goghs,
we float high atop a Ferris wheel

on brilliant waves of pink, blue and neon orange;
and breathless 

we hover there, rising, but longing to descend.

Always the blade hovered over his head,

ominous and foreboding,

a shadow that changed the shape of things.

He saw apparitions in the corners of his mind.

In his sleep, he saw the faces of the dead.

There is money in nightmares and pornography 

but not in poetry.

The oldest woman in the world said

she once met Vincent van Gogh

and that he was disagreeable and drunk.

But why talk of that?

His work will not be forgotten.

We walk in a room and there he is, looking back 

at us, more like a ghost than a man.

Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene stood at the tomb.

She had been visited by ghosts in the night

and longed to be free of their voices. 

She brought no flowers for the dead.

Her world was gray, buried beneath a shroud.

The earth began to shake and a flash of light

descended. A dazzling figure appeared,  

clothed in a garment of white.

The angel moved a boulder.

The guards fell to the ground. The cave was open.

The angel spoke: ‘Jesus is risen.’

Mary trembled, her heart shook.

As she hurried away from the tomb, Jesus appeared.

Mary embraced him.  

Jesus said: ‘Go and carry the news.’

We Could Hardly Wait

We could hardly breathe
We could hardly wait
There at the starting gate
Our horses had wings
The wind took us up
The wind took us high
We began to fly
We could hardly breathe
We could hardly wait
There at the starting gate
We closed our eyes
We fell from the sky
Now our bones are cold
Now our flowers are withered and old
Our world is made of papier-mâché
Discolored and gray
We could hardly breathe
We could hardly wait
There at the starting gate
The wind took us up
The wind took us high
We closed our eyes
We fell from the sky

Little Red Riding Hood Lost Her Way

Little Red Riding Hood froze in the snow

While Barnum and Bailey put on a show

They’re selling trinkets and AR15s on TV

They're buying politicians in DC

Bargains galore, prices are cheap

They buy while you sleep

Goldman Sachs has got Hillary on the line

They peddle their wares to the deaf and the blind

Time bombs continue to tick

(Lobbyists turn another trick)

Another clown takes a dive
Highlights and news at noon and five

Little Red Riding Hood froze in the snow

While Barnum and Bailey put on a show

UFOs (Ziggy Stardust To Major Tom)

I saw a spaceman in the park

I saw UFOs in the dark

I saw refugees on TV

I saw the vapor trail of a fighter jet cross the sky

I heard the wail of a mother cry

There are missiles hidden in the west

There are missiles hidden in the east

I saw mankind buried in the belly of a beast

I saw a spaceman in the dark

I saw a homeless man in the park

I saw refugees in the street  I saw UFOs on TV

I saw the vapor trail of a fighter jet cross the sky

I heard the wail of a mother cry

There are missiles hidden in the west

There are missiles hidden in the east

I saw mankind buried in the belly of a beast