Balance

The doctor says i scratch an itch to invent
because I'm bored with everything else
and the scratching worsens the itching,
until I have something fulfilling to do.
Itching and scratching in balance almost
down in the lizard brain and that's OK.
Pursuit. Failure, but close. Pusuit. Close.
As opposed to Western civilization. Wait!

The Great Fornication Statue of Bellimatosso

Made out of melted down machine gun,
frying pans, laundry irons. Just after WWII.
Him, of the great fornication statue in Bellimatosso!
American soldier, nicknamed Il Gallo, promising
 
marriage same as saying, "Hello." Smiled sad.
He meant it every time. He just had a lot of love.
So, 3 young women in the village returned home
crying. Hate all Americans. Refused to say why.
 
Then, Nazis crept back into town to take it back.
An advanced squad surprised Il Gallo in the bed
of the Duke's daughter.  They ordered Il Gallo
to get out of bed, but Il Gallo didn't quit.
 
They warned, pointing guns, they'd shoot.
Il Gallo continued fucking, at gunpoint.
Pow. Pow. The gunshots alerted the town!
And so, the statue, Il Gallo, in the piazza,
 
15 feet tall in his private's Army uniform
tearing away from muscles, on top
of one of the girls—in voluptuous bronze—
who volunteered, after getting married
 
to a local boy, to pose for it, answering
the scandal with, "He died because he came
here to help us! He could have stayed home,
got shot by angry fathers! But he came here
 
instead, to be shot by jealous Nazis. Real art
is true!" So now tourists arrive, busloads,
for photos with the statue, and the impotent
leave prayer notes between its toes and fingers.
 
The Americans fought through. None came back.
Bellimatosso abides. Still, some nights it's said
you can hear an Ohio boy madly humming
"Sing Sing Sing" outside the hottest cafe in town,
 
just as it closes, and the girls stagger out.
No one's there.  And it makes the old happy

to hear this tale. Nazis dead. Il Gallo lives.
As they tell their grandaughters to stay in. In! 

Dark & Foggy Night

Blank dark mud foggy, fingers spidered
along cold dead buildings downtown
to keep him latched to the only world
as he moved unseen down a street only
guessed at, in the belly of some beast.
Summoning his rodent DNA memories,
no worries; he'll survive, rat-like, in a city
disappeared, so only those who walked it
out of memory were out there normal.
Not him. Just find a place protected
from this weather. One night. Dawn
would forgive him. Everything goes
the wealthy murderer's way—rest of us
pray, proud to accept each day unsaid!
Now his ancestors appear, of course,
limping slow as if hit with ghost flu,
grey as new cement. Who needs who?
He didn't know if they were there
to help him, judge him, or kill him.
He came upon his old uncle Audi, green
wet mystery island now, and invited all
to jump in! Soon, he drove a clown car
with ancestors' faces and asses pressed
against the glass. Got as far as the 7-11,
called it quits. Bud tall, barbecue chips.
All the world, hard edge gone to dream
in the parking lot—he couldn't see a thing.
"Everybody shut up and go to sleep!"
He dreamt away time, woke up, 
and almost reembered it. But, nah.
Not on a night like this. No sight at all.
How prayer started. Give me luck,
keep me safe, don't change the rules.

External Data Storage

It's nice to end a line
with the slightest touch of rhyme
and we'll remember it so,
till, lo, the embers glow low.
The first mnemonics?
Poetry the first device
for data storage outside
one head until he's dead?
Handwrestled into manuscripts
spontaneity all gone extinct.
Movable type too dear
to spend on poets!
And then someone did.
No more reason to rhyme.
Poetry all gone extinct.
Movies, data storage khan,
loud noises and eyeshock,
with a kid's marble of a story.
But can it do this:
"White tea the breath of London..."

Joe Riley

Joe Riley, he got flustered.
Could not remember much.
Put a cup along his head.
Poured the last sip out.
A drink nobody wants.
Last wishes, terror, prayer,
anger bright as stoplights.
His mother came to him,
which made him jump, until
he saw that she was sober,
maybe softened up in death.
She smiled like an alien,
as if happy to see Joe
grown so old. So old.
Parents sew your failures
to the back of your best coat
so they follow you forever,
right behind your shadow.
His mother always seized him
in full puffery, to deny strongly
all she said was wrong with him.
She came to see him die, 
and hear that she was right.
Maybe it might have worked
a long time ago, before the sky
enchanted him one awful night.
All the space. All the time.
He was barely there, compared
to all that fell into his eyes.
But, he declared it his. Joe's.
Same on summer days. Blue
rained wet down into him.
All the pickled noise now gone,
he could stare right up at him,
"My turn to be just sky."

Waiting On Someone?

Palm tree cast a shadow of a cross.
Twilight is all about what might.
Sun sank in ancient promise.
Night arrived on time.
All is clock and glockenspiel,
piano roll diorama universe.
i predict stars
and all the mayhem that we love so much.
Waiting on lightning?
No, no.
Waiting on thunder?
No, no.
Lightning waits on me.
On us.

Rocketry Math

A crowd has no sense but it does have gravity.
They are your planet. We say we seek the velocity
of escape, but we're too scared to punch it through,
our rocketry math always off. Scrap the mission!
No way to live without each other. Clap-clap-clap.