Life –
Passing by us all
Some try
Some fail
Some by deeds enumerated
Some by acquisitions agglomerated
Some by happy happenstance
Some because they never leave their house.
Some because they resisted touching their face.

Some because the education system worked in their favor
were taught they a basic understanding of statistics
Of those who trusted the experts making their best guesses in uncertain times.
Those are the ones who protected their families
Who put the safety of others before their summer holiday.
Stewards who suffered in a self-inflicted desert
So a few more people could live the collective dream.

Some people want a house in the suburbs
down the culdesac next to the place
where they lost their virginity
behind the gas station
where their older brother bought them booze

Some people want a trailer in the desert
with low humidity

I want a marble palace in the mountains of Ecuador
With my own private art museum
And a family so proud they open a gift shop

#1
Dad slugs snowy rocks
Cold anger breaking the ice
“Who wants some ice cream?”

#2
Uncle John is gone
They marched him into the woods
Another secret kept

#3
Still waters run deep
Especially for Timmy
Strip mines need good fences

#4
Ten to life up north
A catered room with a view
Statutory rape

#5
An old mining town
Filled with pin oaks and brown deer
Burning from below

#6
Scores of old nanas
Stuffing cabbage in church halls
Food for the needy

#7
A fun fair with rides
With food, fun and families
That carnie is drunk

#8
Fresh maple syrup
Tapped into old groves of trees
Corn syrup’s cheaper

#9
Pennsylvania
Two cities with hicks between
Still not Ohio

#10
Steam trains to nowhere
Winding through old brick houses
All factories gone

What’s a Parthenon to a Persian rapist?
Or an Pantheon to a marauding papist?
A sacred site constructed in god’s will
A once timeless tomb now reclaimed landfill.
Historical heroes vying for timeless vestige
All knowing their legacy is a pointless investment.
Beneath their crowns the inkling rides
Reflected in their gilt mirrored tides
That at the end of their succession
They’re little more than a pub quiz question.

The old Khmer empires did it right.
One god king would tear down another’s might
And use the bones to build something better.
War waged and winners weathered
The new Khmer harnessed only destruction.
And can only manage gilded stuppes
And dirty waters.

Imagine all our monuments broken down.
Chipped and smelted.
Powdered an wilted.
Some new upstart with an eye for redecorating
Marching armies with standards high.

Helios and the Local Colours
When Helios deigns to show his sun-blasted face,
He brings out a prism of local colours.
That’s when I step out of my hovel,
Pull my cap down ov’r my eyes,
And go drink,
at a bar,
Run by a gay man
Who loathes me.

Though he sneers when he slams down my drink,
And abruptly adjourns our conversations,
Frequently forgets my orders,
and sighs smoke in my face,
He’s the only publican
in this fucking town
Who can make a proper cocktail.

He uses a glass screwed into a shaker,
The right bourbon and the sweetest vermouth,
With a symmetrical sliver of lemon
Twisted and seared
Mimicking the drinker and the maker.
He decants into a fancy glass
and garnishes with a gored cherry.

Outside, away from his jeering eye,
I sip my drink and watch the regulars.
I study the indigenous and destitute
As they socialise on a bench
They always welcome me,
Like they don’t know me
And like we are the oldest friends.

A native, smelling of glue, has his face tattooed.
That’s only acceptable on an island
Equally worshipping and scared of its heritage.
He interposes himself on my observation.
And frankly asks for a cigarette.
When I refuse, he doesn’t falter.
He just interrogates me about my day.

The off-duty prostitute surprises me,
she’s not on her usual corner.
Instead, she spreads herself on the warm bench
With her sad face and melted features,
Her missing teeth and blue bark,
She quotes Camus
To her compatriots.

When they leave,
The bartender emerges with a pot of boiling water.
He possessively scalds the public bench they dared to sit on.
Disinfecting their presence from his upscale atmosphere.
He’s an expatriated Castro Fag from the Frisco Bay.
Battle hardened by the local leather scene
Though he hasn’t lost his accent.
He’s as jaded as the stone Moko,
Set in dirty pavement stone.
Strode by prostitutes and artists alike.

When Helios deigns to show his sun-blasted face,
He brings out a prism of the local colours.
That’s when I let when I step into the light
Burn away my undeveloped privacy
I merge with the other colours,
Become refracted and reflected,
Just another dying hue.