Category: Poems

Now why
did I
climb up
the stairs
and walk into this room?

Oh, right.
I came
to find...
a thing.
What thing?
Some thing
now lost.

So now
I walk
back down
to find
the thought.

It will
come to me
I know
if I only go
to where
I was
when I had it last.

Up and down
and up
and down.
How many times?
I can't remember.

The talking apes
they do not walk
while leaning on
their knuckles
They do not swing
from tree to tree
They just don’t have
the muckles

The talking apes
it’s also true
they do not fling their feces
But when it comes to beating gums
I'm telling you, they sling the poo
like no other species

Yet I must ask
(and you be the jury)
when we come to the end of the day
with all that sound
and all that fury
do they have
anything
to say?

I take back
what I said
about the French

Oh sure
there are the pointy shoes
the murses, the chain smoking
and the little dogs
that go poop in the street

But they are a pretty people
so passionate
and mais oui, polite!
Bonjour, monsieur! S'il voux plait! Merci!

And there is the history
layer on layer
built up and pulled down
Death and rebirth
darkness and light
popes and kings
and obscene excess
and finally, revolution

There is bread and cheese and wine
and love
flowers, carousels, fountains, long rows of trees
along grand boulevards
chic Parisian matrons
with coifs of wine-copper

And in the caves
the Metro, the streets
the museums-within-museums
art, art, art
art to make you wonder
art to roil you up
so much art it makes you weep

Mais oui!
The French!

I want to tell
the man bellowing into his phone
Your cell-mate can hear you
even if you chirp
like a tufted titmouse
and not
a Great Woolly Mammoth