Something Prevents Me

Something prevents me from gaining my fortune
Expensive attempts to escape on the town
Those evenings when all was decided bodegas
Could solve life’s dilemmas served cold with a smile

Something prevents me becoming aware
That my time is enshrined in a snowglobe of dupery
Suited clowns on their soapbox of truth (call them Rosebuds)
Convincingly staging my pantomimed fears

Something prevents me from trusting entirely
Faith-plucked are mine eyes wailing blood river tears
While the wise men stride peacefully pacing their mountaintops
Watching high from above the ants scurrying senselessly

Or the girl who once claimed my virginity dying
How I knew that she would not stay buried for long
Rose again three days later to say it was over
I told her to cry wolf whenever she wanted

Something prevents me from learning my lesson
Embalmed are my silly, fastidious ways
Like the sparks of flint frenzy flick forth rot bukakke
I’m devilishly dim-witted with nothing to say

Something prevents me acquiring freedom
Intolerable role play that binds me in chains
My disheveled mask boasting its bloated illusion
Veils the fact I’m no more than a misguided slave

Something prevents me from finding forever
It comes only once and is suddenly gone
Exceeds conscious dimensions and then on toward oblivion
Blazing Forward & Backward & Sideways in flames

Euclidean planes stretching further (En) further
Until all is lost ‘tween the vectors beyond
Affine transformation of faith and of reason
Carries critical mass though there’s no explanation

Something prevents me reclaiming my mind frame
Try not comprehending, there is nothing there
Goddammit! There’s no plan! No final solution!
Only maddening Holocaust dreams of despair

Some vaudoux conspires to prevent my release
From the shackles I’d come to carve during my life
Let my ti-bon-ange find its Parinirvana
Written down in the pages of Bardo Thödol

Yet some past life prevents me from entering paradise
Forced passed the charade gates, turned loose once inside
Where the Nazi three-ringed act of pine ripe skull pestilence
Wholly douses my sense in complete iridescence

Blisters bursting now drown me in pustuous rebirth
Angry horn sounds, surround the town, tear its walls down
Draw the sword of attrition and slay Babylon’s Harlot
Till her scarlet menstruation reaps the spilled virgin ground

Something prevents me discovering Saigon
A cog in the wheel - proletarian man
But the theory sits marred by an act of Uniqueness
Take one cog away and the wheel will still stand

Something prevents me from casting my lot
Though I’ve got quite a lot of support recently
Rip the robes of my piety swift with expulsion
Exposing my flesh to the crucified air

Something prevents me from seeking conviction
The gun smoking in my mouth can’t prove a damn thing
I was there when the innocence finally departed
Sentenced me to damnation bereft clemency

In these hells I’ve laid claim! Just to prove my peculiarity!
Grotesque my bones immolate idiosyncratically
Though I no longer say prayers to save my condemned soul
My insanities translate through word alchemy

Something belies commercialized enterprise
It implies the world’s fine – what a super-sized lie!
Shall I turn a blind eye? Change the channel and hide?
Drowning innocent lives in a cupful of cola?

I see something’s not right, pleading faces in need
By the hand of my own greed they die everyday
Massacring starved babies with the broadsword of ignorance
By pretending fine wine is by far more important

Still something tells me - breathe a bit more naïve
Throw aside useless guilt and wash poverty’s feet
Be ye kind, ye shall find the kingdom of the meek
But before I can hear I must learn not to speak

Listen closely! What folly! What verbal castration!
Such enfant terrible from supposed adult lips!
And what’s worse those cursed lips disperse re-hearsed redundancies
Lathered in snake oil, well-versed in hypocrisies

Something still lies in the bed that I’ve made
An imprint of a dying desire still remains
But the coffee pot’s cackle dismisses those wishes
Teasing me with its caf-fiend reminders of failure

Something I lost long ago again finds me
A knave once was I with no need for a cure
Now I know that no one can surrender completely
Made to bathe in depraved swamps & wash with whore spittle

Something prevents me authentically caring
Falsetto affection, ambitions debased
I tell my companions I covet their friendship
When deep down inside I could give a shit less

And I beat on my chest until swollen with suffering
Crying “Let me abandon my blasphemous ways!”
Like a hen clucks her frantic farm-laid fascination
Begs the farmer to steal revealed yokes of her name

And so onward Odysseus, I draw up my anchor
Drink the waters of Lethe, sailing far distant shores
Navigate Scylla & Charybdis, forgetting my purpose
Because something prevents me and will evermore.

Sweet, Sad Existence (Kasper’s Parable)

Turn Tennyson West toward the pale afternoon
As the chimney sweep soot boots tap Taps in the ballroom
Connivary
Plasård
Cídone
All ants kiss gentle greetings

Sit worn in weird classroom chairs questioned too long
The hindsight soars skyward yet foresight is gone
We live, we die, we multiply - a billion years before our time
And growth denies what stains our lives
So as we seek we plunder

The great escape – St. Jeannet, France
A mountain nesting worth the chance
Sit perched above the jewels of Nice
Try counting countless blessings

Strut self-assured across the beach
On smooth-laid stones that break a stride
You falter forward – catch yourself
Continue toward the cool, blue tide
And speak to gods who fail to answer
Instead forced fed to face our cancer
In truth the pain of coming down
Is so much simpler than it seems

I’ve languished here 5,000 years
Five seconds more and I’ll be free
The clouds of light burst into flame
The hole expands and swallows me

In darkness split the sky divide
As all kept secrets span the plain
A rush of holy absinthe coursing
Through my veins of styled finesse

I’m so electric satisfaction
An alligator suit of red
I am the shark that swims beneath you
Searching seafloors for salvation

In my arm dug deep the daylight
Liquid Jesus neon ride
In ‘terra-eyes’ lie hidden truths
Begotten Son of Sovereign Sew

Lost Shepherd to cerebral thoughts:
‘You’re wandering further from the fold’
Cerebral thoughts to Shepherd’s Flock:
‘Cordoned in cosmos cellophane’

Space cowgirls grow up faces fast
I wish they’d take their time and stay
Propose to them with Saturn’s rings
‘Neath Enoch’s Zion-ed Milky Way

Consummate with chitter-chatter
Lost the faith, but what’s it matter?
Biting the seams of stitched rhinestone-lined dreams
Give me fashion and lust and a god I can trust

Intense isolation breeds infatuation
For artistic creation when the father held sway
But the father loves more than one ever could asked for
And now it’s that love that turns daughters away

Is it wrong to detect that our problems connect
To the fact that our souls have as yet to let go?
When it happens, you shutter and your heart starts to flutter
And you weep until Buddha revives your sweat head

And it’s good to be here, dare to dream – dream in fear
What’s regarded as nightmare can sometimes prove promising
Prose restrict tongues that have long been extinguished
Oh, this sweet sad existence is the essence of all things

And to be young – a poet, and to hear the tree fallen
Smell the soft embers burning as the flesh falls away
Cast the subtle wish upward toward the skies of Atlantis
O’er the sea crest Golightly in her stalwart jazz sway

And the kiss proof of toilet seats, the world slowly dying
It’s the hydrogen jukebox Prince Ginsberg dropped dime
It’s a mystical guru-fueled number of pleasantries
Found high on the mountaintops snow-capped in mystery

The mad ones to live, madder yet the mad season
Howl the idiot winds as the Cheshire cat grins
Don Quixote and Lancelot swapping distressed damsel stories
While Rapunzel and Stiltskin spin fair golden hair

Oh, this sweet sad existence breaks its stale bread with beggars
And the veterans of wars who have lost noble faith
In a system that breathes the grave sins of machines
See the woman malnourished give her breast milk to liberty
Oh she wants to pretend the suits passing her by cannot see her
She’s bruised and been crying for centuries
Pleading for someone to take her small orphans
And give them a hope that has long been expired

Petrified paper dolls hang like fruit on the poplar trees
The Jack of Spades chances the Queen of Heart’s glances
And with cards stacked against him makes his move with romances
The white dress she wears hides the lies she confesses
But what does Jack care? He’s the one the priest blesses
To take her and make her the queen of his schemes
So hold fear for ransom, the chains have been broken
You’re free from the sweet sad existence you’ve ruled
So far off your sweet head, take the gun and run screaming
Out into the street and shoot down the crowned fool.

Meteré Un Pepino En Tu Buzón

De donde eres? Cómo te llamas?
The answers lost in southern Spain
Begin in metro Malága
The taste of vino blanco stirs

An arid purr from mountains vast
We board the eastbound bus at last
Despacío through calle stretched
So gaunt along the turquoise sea

Then begin, at once, ascend
And leave behind big city trends
Invade Motril for just a spell
Enough to stretch our suntanned legs

Benaudalla - adios - careening more toward ‘muy bien’
Just then the driver reprimands a passenger sat back behind us
Who thought he’d take a chance and smoke a fag
Was caught and forced to flick

Mucho gusto, Orgiva
The long awaited intro seems
To bury me in wordless mounds
‘Ta amo’ - thus to thee I sing

Gracias dear Leon, Becks
Your way of life – an overture
Of all that was and now should be
What is to come and makes us free

La Alpujarra villages
Call distant cries in sheepish bleats
A strain of ear brings all things clear
The lull of hidden Pampaneira

Beat two track path through mountain pass
Arrive at Casa Heppenstall
An expat Brit-laid Numero 8
That overlooks Nevadas tall

(Uno mas) cervesa served
At El Pilon – sin tapas por favor
No more! Casa Julio/Diego
Fill guts to busting brim

Splash down the mighty El Molino
A Rio Poqueira wonder wall
Where rapids cut Barranco de Poqueira
Deep into the untouched landscape

Bubión - so quaint and clean
Could make one never want to leave
The merriment of costa seems
To drown in Berber influence

Nightfall paints surreal oasis; terrace chats give way to wine
My thoughts drift toward Mikhail Bakunin – an advocate for anarchism
Whose free ideals inspired the Andalucian people to regain themselves
Co-opting thus throughout the region, creating Spain’s first CNT

The days like headlights in the hills
They flash so bright then disappear
I find myself reciting childhood prayers
‘Dear God, if time, find time to use me’

So quiet, now my love asleep, as I sit by myself and dream
Don’t know where I in fact will be when ‘muerte’ finally comes to claim me
Her stealthy ways have always dominated how my future reads
I’ll have no fear, this one fact clear - I could see me dying here.

What Did You Expect?

What did you expect?
Wisp mystical lioness
Serrations embedded they tear me to shreds
As flesh of my flesh falls, dissolves into nothingness
Bereft of condolence and scrambling for safety

What did you expect?
Her ‘acte gratuit’
Leaves me sprawled on the lawn sipping stout in the sun
A murmured conspiracy gripped melodramatically
Around my taut throat and the age of my whispers

What did you expect?
Manipulates my lips
I search for the answers to conjure – none there
Discarded of all but my heart’s newest tumult
Voluptuous intoxicants filling the air

What did you expect?
Proud venomous flower
The fruit of your petals entice me to stay
Then slowly envelope my connubial quandary
And stab at my soul till my wings fall away

What did you expect?
Tenacious played chokehold
Mocking my voice as it struggles for sound
Of all the calypso silk sirens to tempt me
The one I most covet wraps her sea in dark bulwark

What did you expect?
Luxuriant moonlight
O the fathoms you go just to drink from my carnage
Left naked to brace the intense cast of shadows
Of all that was lost in the hush of despondence

What did you expect?
Asks divinity’s madness
A rucksack of pain lets one know they’re alive
But what of the ashes that once were my passions?
I question, but silence again the distraction

What did you expect?
Undressed innocence
Factitious caresses immorally glean
Emancipate me from the finger of tyrants
Who fondle my ailments and sully my name

What did you expect?
Emotional outpour
Can never take back the lone fact – I’m alone
But of all the felled giants I’ve slain in a lifetime
The beans in my pocket still wait to be sewn

What did I expect?
The friends I have suffered
And some I’ve been proud to have called me their friend
Their mystery, like fireflies, shown flickered in twilight
Yet much can be learned from the books that they lend.

North Wind Cloudy

Inner scope, the stench of scheme
The non-descript anomaly
Canvassed in laden boots a peg
A civilization put to bed
Co lesion plaice adrift and so
The hemorrhage of said Volga flows
Passed birds that twitter in the trees
The pleas from fleas on fur bent knees

White splash of Berezniki sun
Creeps through the clouds shone down on tenement
Relaxing in a café set
Upon the banks of Kama River
She carefully cuts her BLT
While I sit slowly sipping coffee
The lack of central thought reminds me
Of a spoken line from Chekov

Upon his deathbed drank champagne
Then sat abrupt and declared “Ich sterbe”
“I am dying” can’t you see?
Deliberating aimlessly
Her touch caressed my silhouette
A touch I will not soon forget
Solar embrace on the wall of brick building
Young hearts wild with passion in provisional swing

How long can I go on existing like this?
No worries, no cares, none considerations
Basking in grace and her ravenous beauty
Disappear in Perm Krai on the lam like Wel Kees
Under brisk skies blow the blankets of grey
I keep thinking I can’t maintain living this way
Watch these mice on parade, see them tarry to/fro
She presents me with questions to answers she knows

A suffering animal that cannot be still
We stroll through botanical gardens at will
These pigeons, what queer birds! How awkward they run!
Fighting ever so fiercely over a stale hot dog bun
A rugby game scrum of mechanical fowl
Heads bobbing peck frenzied bumping bird brains endowed
Eyes that ne’er move as they jockey, who won?
Certainly not this poor crumb that was once a full bun!

Cross the pond London burns, Paris steams on grand dreams
Washed upon Holland’s shore breaks the Führer’s lost war
In Gammeltorv, there completely unaware
I could swear that these cares have appeared from nowhere
A moment or so more or less long ago
The true anarchist holds to social overthrow
Libertarian socialism (shhh, keep your voice low)
Comes and goes, it just shows what we want we don't know

Bend no more to the fist, give the king’s ring a kiss
As the eyes of madness slowly rise from the midst
Escape northward to Russia and the red setting sun
Recall fond the ideals of Bolshevik Revolution
Moscow/Petrograd workers strike together as one
Seek in earnest to retrace the steps of V. Lenin
Taking cues from his pamphlet ‘What Is To Be Done?’
“I am not your brother, I am not your son, when I'm no one it's then I become everyone.”

From Mackinac Back Home Again

Leave me here on island splendor
Never heard or seen again
Washed away in pristine waters
Huron’s stone thrown shores contend

Evening summer rain restrained
Just long enough to run for cover
Recline on porch - Chateau Loraine
With yours and mine and flask of wine

Salty seagulls, guilty geese
The horse drawn streets that offer peace
Majestic in the setting sun
Mac Bridge which spans the Great Divide

Posh dinner at the Carriage House
Where duck is served with strawberries
Then stagger home for good night’s sleep
The daybreak harkens frequent ferries

Aboard belies in back once more
The lure of clean, crisp, rippling shores
Beyond lies U.P. sanctuary
Within the bosom of her bays

Respect to those who lost their lives
Off Whitefish Point and came to rest
At bottom graveyard cold and still
The guardians of Great Lake swells

Superior along the coast
Her beauty calls to have a swim
No hesitation, jump right in
She’s claimed so many souls that way

A rainy stay in old Marquette
The Slipper’s largest, college town
Her better days now long behind
Reminds me of my home - Muskegon

A shot across the starboard bow
We travel west across Wisconsin
And enter long lost Minnesota
Ten thousand lake sung lullabies

South of St. Paul sits Mankato
We cool our heels and sit a spell
The locals argue when we ask
“Pray tell, how far due west is Sioux Falls?”

Quaint, quiet towns along the way
Tyler, New Ulm, Sleepy Eye
Of course we stop in Walnut Grove
Pay homage to the writer Wilder

Near border ‘tween the two great states
There lies a Native pipestone quarry
Red rocks and greens of grasslands fair
These sights bewildering, awe inspiring

Across state lines lies Devil’s Gulch
Where it’s been claimed leapt Jesse James
In order to outrun a mob
The good ones always get away

Parlay in Mitchell, South Dakota
A diamond in the rough we find
Exquisite dining at Chef Louie
The best walleye I’ve ever had

Waltz through the curious Corn Palace
Impressed by color-altered maize
Reds and blues and pinks and greens
Like rainbow schemes in farmer dreams

Down Highway 90 - what a thrill!
Such specks I never knew existed
Blink once to find they’re no mirage
Blink twice to find they’re gone forever

And just when we can take no more
Of prairie fields and miles of nothing
A bantam hint of rock formation
The Badlands on the calm horizon

Dried riverbed of soil deposit
Volcanic ash and sandstone clay
How bizarre and fascinating
This lay of nature’s wonder walls

And bison! Yes! I’ve seen them there!
Carousing on the plains they graze
As hotly tempered prairie dogs
Debate in high-pitched conversation

No trip out west would be complete
Without a trip to tiny Wall
The town made famous for its drug store
Hides the best secret of all

On Main Street sits Cactus Café
Where dark beer drafts are freely poured
The waitress makes me feel a fool
Informing me they call it Moose Drool

Continue passed towns built on ashes
Great warriors who fought and died
I’ve never heard the scream of land
So loud as I did passing Pine Ridge

The poverty round Wounded Knee
It made me weep such useless tears
The Ghost Dance practiced long ago
Still calls to spirits in the hot wind

Onward steaming round the bend
Toward towns with population - ten
Pink granite sculptures loom above
In sweltered heat and hot baked car seats

Solemn faces blankly stare
Out cracked and dusty café windows
Their silent voices seem to say
“We’ve waited here a thousand years”

Eleven miles southwest of Hot Springs
A soothing gem called Cascade Falls
Down the grassy bank we run
And jump into her cool jeweled pool

Our last planned stand in Coyote State
Is in the sleepy town of Custer
Where on the backs of CRAZY HORSEs
We MOUNT up RUSHing MORE toward glory

Hiking in the Black Hills forest
Held church on reverent bluffs that touched
The endless, skyward face of God
Stretched further than the eye could fathom

Returning east on Highway 20
Gun passed Nebraska’s rolling dunes
And sleep inside Sioux City limits
The freight train sings at 4 a.m.

Awake and make tracks for Dubuque
Where there we seek the muddy river
Downtown we dine at Main 180
Fin tuna steaks and Fat Tire beer

Steam down the mighty Mississippi
Oh Twain, you devil, you knew best!
The steamboat’s paddle splash reminds me
Why your soul chose here to rest

Riverbanks turn into fields
Gold waves of grain that yearn for rain
The sun beats amber on the pavement
Full throttle toward sweet home Chicago

Alive with pulsing, city heartbeat
Pumping life into our veins
The sounds of downtown all around
Seductive windy coastline sparkles

The setting skyline reveals it’s time
That we in fact must head on back
To Michigan - the Lonesome Mitten
With our bags packed, we board the Amtrak

Rolling through the same small towns
I’m sure we passed when we were west
So many miles, so little time
But that’s the way it goes, I guess

Awakened by my own convictions
Was it real or just a dream?
I wage a struggle in my mind
And fight against my cynicism

Compared to my own countrymen
I claim "I’ll never be like them!"
And just when I feel most distinct
I’m more like them than what I think.

Can You Tell Her?

Can you tell her that steady on steady she goes?
Can you tell her that memories are mind passing windows?
Can you tell her that all I have suffered I’ve gained?
Another finality Tragedy’s claimed

Can you tell her that magic is real to the eyes?
But the hand that moves quicker is somewhat disguised
Can you tell her that cold hearts, if not warmed, will freeze?
And that love works its best when it’s bent on its knees

Can you tell her that senses are heightened at dusk?
And at dawn when the scent of sweet dewdrops combust
Can you tell her forever is only a song?
And the duet of beauty and youth won’t last long

Can you tell her that dancing feels right in the rain?
And a chat over wine with a friend can ease pain
That ‘Belleza Eterna’ are the mountains of Spain
And that paradise lost can be found where it lay

Can you tell her it’s time that she let it all go?
Like the skies of December shed blankets of snow
Can you tell her regret is a waste of her time?
And that hurting is part of the healing divine

Can you tell her I’ve moved on and please not to worry?
It is simply her smile that has left my eyes blurry
Can you tell her she no longer has to pretend?
That I finally forgive her for all that has happened

Can you tell her I hope that one day she will find
A love that is patient, unfailing, and kind?
Can you tell her my soul will forever reside?
Clandestine in veiled shadow near by her side

Can you tell her I loved her with breath I knew not?
But perhaps this whole poem is better forgot
As the sting of the blade through my wrist severs blame
I lay back in the tub feeling utterly drained.