Powder Room Dance Floor
We waltzed and tangoed in limited tiled space
as a pulsing showerhead pelted us with wet pearls
soaping each other’s bodies, never missing
a step, we’d exchange pecks and kisses
before I buried my face in perfumed hair
grown heavy with gentle water droplets
that touched angry skin like liquid masseuse fingers
steam as thick as London fog embraced us
cloaking our arms, legs, toros and privates
while gravity’s law drew our aging anatomies
towards Mother Earth where one day soon
we’ll both dwell in ashes, linger amid dust
scatter in the ocean till they dance back ashore
renewing other lives with our bodily essence.
AI By Design
Generating…Generating…Generating…
Each time I sign-on to stream
some mindless entertainment
I’m besieged by AI inquiries
asking me to relax and relinquish
control of my thought process
attempting to convince me any search
by artificial means provides humanity
additional opportunities to ease
weary minds and veg out by championing
opportunities to replace critical thinking,
Mimicking… Mimicking… Mimicking…
human reasoning, and decision making
with computerized intelligence
since exercising the body and soul
makes little since when the arduous task
searching for documentaries, movies,
news clips, and local sports can be
accomplished with a verbal cue as long
as it does not question the integrity
of a biased programed response
that masquerades as biblical truth.
Simulating… Simulating…Simulating…
Surreptitious
(Or Dads’ Porn: An Open Book Secret)
Arise! Arise! Arise! a boy of eleven years
alone at home, there’s no time better
for him to seek out the forbidden drawer
in his father’s armoire where siblings
and himself—en masse and individually—
would frequently embark on pilgrimages
hearts pounding, foreheads perspiring
devoutly approaching concrete items
worthy of young Catholic confessions
yet absolved in prayers private at home
where images of Ingrid and her street
wise friends remained fresh in nubile minds
brothers and sisters united on an illicit quest
forsaking moral constructs, embracing depravity.
Did the boy’s Mom know about Dad’s
porn stash poorly concealed beneath
jockey-shorts and t-shirts? Between gathering,
washing and returning dirty underwear
in his chest of drawers, surely she noticed
at least once vibrant bare-breasted colors
of the glossy porn peeking through
carefully folded white cotton piles?
(Did she peek at it?) Was she aware her
children memorized exotic photos, visualized
sexual practices, and endeavored
to translate crude captions written
in German, French, and Swedish or did
silence feigning innocence serve her best?
I have no legacy to leave children
never sired—only notions of how I’d
hoard adult magazines and sex toys
in another world at time’s difference
I’d prepare a diverse stockpile trinity
of bawdy materials from X-rated fiction
to tits & ass photo spreads, smutty rags
to hard-core stag films, DVD skin flicks,
foreign and domestic VHS blue movies
placing one in my dresser—a nod to dad—
another between guestroom mattresses,
and still another—piece de resistance—
under tools in my garage cabinet,
a treasure in waiting while at rest in my grave.
Chameleon Distinction
My poems exist like tens of thousands
grains of sand slipping through closed fists
desperately grasping cascading granules
such words defy unique remembrance
as imagery, meter, and figurative language
sandwich themselves between unremarkable shapes
like naked individuals anatomically the same
whether tall, short, slender or chubby, individual
personality’s all lost amid birthday suit conformity
yet best intentions and purposeful words
take flight and soar upon each imaginary breeze
like hourglass granules dropping, gauging time
objectifying reason, dedicated to impossible tasks,
as devastated by outcomes as street vendors who
discount half-priced wares to greedy barterers
now, my clenched paw open wide no longer attempts
to manage or contain verse crafted only in Ars Poetica
moments scattering like wind-blown silica caesuras.
LETTING GO CADRALOR
I. The Centurion
Like a garrison of terracotta soldiers
protecting the tomb of Qin Shi Hung
day and night, I safeguarded my rolling stone
lover’s apparition tethered by emotions torn,
business unfinished, blood oaths broken,
memories fleeting, sacred words unsaid;
plagued with melancholic despondency,
lack of follow-through bound her to living-death.
2. Houdini’s Shadow
Sand pyramids emerged from a Jellyfish Lake
each ziggurat etched with Nazca Lines
providing longitude and latitude a grid-based address
to liberty, compass and scale keystone signals
suggesting purgation’s possibilities where
spiritual and mental disparity converge to map out
futile exit strategies balanced on the precipice
of Xanadu’s opulent towers and netherworld sepultures.
3. Lord of Flies
Prevented from wandering beyond hell’s gate,
transfixed by burning Beelzebub’s flaming gas crater,
my beguiled perception mistook gurgling raven croaks
for intricate nightingale trills, whistles, and melodies,
confused beautiful dead woodlands as an entrance
to the “Shining of Karakum” reflected in a liquid rainbow;
refusing to kiss rings of power or bow to no one,
neither god above nor fallen angles brought me closure.
4. Mystery Winds
A conscious embodiment shattered my genuine and imagined
afterlife shackles, revealed geographic coordinates
whose parallels and meridians disclosed an escape route
scaling marble caverns, walking amidst Mendenhall
ice crystal caves, crossing a limestone arch
as narrow and grand as the Green Bridge of Wales;
liberating my essence from an earthly plane, her
exorcised past and peaceful departure delivered us both.
5. Mortal Reckoning
Laying down my weapons of mind and body,
free from earthly charges and Yūrei distractions,
I strolled indifferently through a suicide forest
fixed disillusioned eyes on daylight slivers
far down my path, discovering deliverance
in a sea of stars where dinoflagellates
made my own unkempt hair and fading features
glow like bluesish aquatic fireflies.
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