How nice!

How nice to sit in this cozy
and clamoring coffee shop,
to sip one's steaming
Greek coffee in a little white cup,
knowing and not knowing that
this shop, this happy ambience
of laughter and clatter
and all that I see and don't see will
one day pass
into the dusty chest of memories!
How nice, that shop!

Japan

As the land turned side
fire and water tucked her well
and the mushrooms popped.

Looking out the window

Looking at distant words flashing through the window in the rain of tears.
Like faint lanterns from a ship caught in fog,
words search for eyes to enter
and mouths to exit.
O words, drops of rain spattering against the panes of my soul, resounding
chimes in the auditorium of my sparing chandlers,
you tempt me choose the rowdiest of you.

Wind swept words

The sun disappears in the north and we are lost in the winter of our silence.

Of all the return guests we welcome the snow;

It maintains heated discussions – the passion for companionship.

But there are no people here.

This space is unpeopled.

There are only vague emotions, … and the fur coat of the sun.

Memory is a drifter.

O Greece!

O Greece, you are dead!
The blue and green maggots
That issue from ballots
To suck your blood instead

Entered your public body
Of ancient glory
And their filthy, gnawing teeth
Did your life destroy.

For a moment I thought

For a moment I thought
It was a butterfly
The yellow and orange leaf
That took flight from the swishing poplar trees
Across my balcony.

It swayed and fluttered in excitement
Here and there, up and down,
Undecided if right or left,
To the ground or up the sky –
Should I stay or should I go?

What to make of perceived options
When you lose your wings to know
That gravity always wins?
And ultimately to the ground
With or without wings.

Ticking clocks

This world is an orchestra
of silently ticking clocks
counting down life's progress
to death and
explosive rebirth.

Daydreaming

I daydream of the star-
dusty front yard of my childhood -
the years spiraling down on their heads
between hard-working flower pots,
towers overlooking with affection
a sparkling little hand
swerving rubber cars,
the tire ruts a trail
on my mother’s tired face.

The vengeance of the conquered

 

Whether he was after a vision or set

on punishing the Persians, or simply

acted under pressure from within,

the Great Greek, name beginning with an ‘A’

              as in ‘Bucephalus’,

could not have known that those he had conquered

would conquer back and be

              ante portas to the West,

twenty three hundred years later.

 

Enter

        Afghans, Iraqi, Pakistani, Philippino and all!

Enter

        others from the Near, the Middle and the Far East

Enter

        the swarthy from the dark south, enter all:

        the hungry and the poor,

        the victims of politics and war!

Enter Islam,

        the poor cousin from the East.

If your loins survived the boat trip,

the knees of the West will shake and tremble.

        Is this a day rape or a nuptial night?

 

See what the West has become?

A harrowing harlot.

Ruins upon ruins your dreams:

the money lenders have conquered the temple

to establish their own napalm Christianity

marching East on ‘As’ as in ‘Bombers’

 

 

Zarathustra

Zarathustra Revisited

Complacency

Pedaling in perspiration along
the uphill road to poetry,
you smile in cool complacency,
with the left eyebrow cocked to consonance,
while the sun, and sum, of technical
requirements weighs heavy on your shoulders.

Surely there’s something rattling in your head,
but Fate may one day resolve –
playful, complacent and cool as she is –
to hide from your eyes the on-coming truck
of criticism as you try to cross
over to vanity street and,
Ooops, that must have hurt!

Rise and shine my flat-headed friend!
Quit sprawling on the hot-scented
asphalt of embarrassment;
pick up your pancake head;
wipe the red and move on;
and move on!