Here lies Samson

His meaty Samson macro hands didn’t know

what his delighted Delilah tastebuds

and nano fingertips were doing

to his sinewy sueded nano tatting,

fractal lace membranes, and

rosy beaded-curtain synapses

drawn and undrawn with nods,

eurekas, sighs and shrieks…

the deep revelry of comfort food.

Every day an orgy, Delilah danced

and served as cook and pantry slave

smearing his cellular raiment

with grease, butter and broth,

then gummed it with sweet syrup

and fan dancing Crystal Light feathers.

While he ate and drank and smoked,

she stabbed his cirrus nerves

with fermented knives and

smoked the sails of pale lungs

buttressed by breath until they

hardened and oozed with tar.

The other mourners and I

file past him and think, “Such

magnificent ruins

of a man.” Whom I also call

everyman who ever had a stroke

and collapse over their own pillars,

too early with boots on and taking

their inner Delilah along.

P.S. I’m fixated on the topic of food and mortality.Just trying very hard to see if I can make poetry out of it.

Part of the solution

Beetles and fungus turn

anorexic and shy away from

Siberian, Canadian and

Patagonian bark.

Trees, shrubs and weeds uproot

and slouch north yearly

while sea corals shimmy

past cables under the sea.

Polar bears, seals and walruses

graze alongside deer, moose, cattle

and sheep, eager as border collies.

Glaciers gorge on ice and exit

the Palm Beach-Palm Springs diet.

Methane clathrates recrystalize

instead of foaming at the mouth

of subsea rivers and volcanoes.

Christians, Muslims and Jews

plus a Buddhist and Hindu

or two (as in two billion)

in timed, unified prayer

herd Indian monsoon rainclouds

over North Africa and lift

the coasts and river fronts of

Bangladesh, Venice and

Micronesia, then pledge sex

only on holidays.

Rain, fruits and rice return

to inland Australia like

green boomerang.

Rambo, the Terminator

and Superman join forces

to bottle blizzards and spread

frosting across the poles.

And yes, Virginia, Santa Claus

wanders the streets in a

tatty red suit homeless, stuffing

coal into the socks of energy

execs and K Streeters

even as they wear them.

On the anniversary of the Men's LP at the 2010 Olympics

This poem celebrates the 2010 Olympic Long Program performance by Johnny Weir of "Fallen Angels."

Icarus on ice skates

His wings of white knit

and crystals stretch like

Eros's bow before he flies.

Shoulders thrown back,

his spirit arcs across millions

of wire and airwave miles.

Over the heads of judges

who furiously cook and stir

their vat of sealing wax

to stamp a lesser score

whilst with each

gesture and landing

hearts are pierced

and spirits soar.

Sing, O diva goddesses, of how

Patti and John taught their boy

to channel stillness, listen within.

Too late for us but not for

our sons...Johnny learned that

falling down on the job

means leaving your soul in limbo

or locking away a dream.

Johnny tuned into his music

and learned how to skate

on a frozen corn field behind

his home dancing and

riffing over vented stalks.

He uprooted his family, twice,

sowing clan whirlwinds

with his inner compass,

but soon landed triples and

stuffed shelves with medals.

Tirelessly he courted the

unyielding Newark ice nymph,

caressing her with glides and

slides, averting coarse

shoves and scrapes.

And falling and landing,

until perching precise

a whirling hurling silver blade

on a slick film of ice.

He spun like a top across

continents and slingshot

past borders into the Russia

of his childhood dreams.

Off ice he landed in hot water,

a live wire spinning quotes

that sparkle and spark with glee.

Ten thousand times he flew

and dropped from the sky,

slowly numbing fears of pain,

fame, fear, love and being alone.

In guises like Leda’s swan,

he stroked upstream to

the real, ideal and truthful,

the whole, bold and beautiful.

Behold, the new Icarus…

our own gay Prometheus…

borne by music and silence,

buoyed by cheers, cinched

by tape and spangled with light,

silencing hurt and filled with heart,

crackling the air with Eros and the

sheer nerve of a soul in flight.

His supplicant spirit ascends

to Heaven and Olympus!

then plummets and slams

the ice-hard earth, again.

I dedicate this poem to Johnny, Patti and John Weir.

P.S. More of my Johnny-Weir-inspired posts are at http://aaaack.blogspot.com/2010/11/our-inner-johnny-and-evan.html and http://aaaack.blogspot.com/2010/05/in-my-heaven.html

Wanted: A Guan Yin statue

Who does not spy for

the ancestors like

the Kitchen God

and who fills

the Mary-Pieta niche

in my psyche.

Wanted: A hard-working

goddess who’ll roll up

her silken sleeves,

shrug and forgive,

who’ll wear her heart

on her flowing sleeves.

Her face must blend

kind, tranquil and pretty

to seduce me into

unmasking my better self.

The statue stood in

a sculptor-owned store

in seaside Hoi An in a land

where Guan Yin rules.

A mermaid wisp of a girl

surrounded by deities

declared her brother had

carved it. She asked

where I had come from

before releasing a price.

Was her quote justice,

payback or both?

I only counter-bid

once under her

mahogany gaze.

Mao Tse-Tung excused

his war, “When the lips

are gone, the teeth

are cold.”

Bloody biting cold.

Nixon opposed

“the domino effect.”

Behind the gate,

he tilted the dominos

and loaded the die.

Guan Yin came home

shrouded in plastic

like a war bride.

After a week on Oklahoma’s

blowing umber plains,

she cracked down

her front in the dryness.

The finer the features,

the deeper the cleft.

Guan Yin is the goddess of mercy. She is a lesser Buddhist goddess and the only female in that pantheon.

CEO décor

My art and furniture

will grow in value

and yield tax deductions

when I finally donate

them to museums or

charity auctions,

while your pressboard,

steel and posters will

crumble or rust

into worthless dust.

My office art is

tastefully framed and

and professionally lit.

There might also be

portraits of my family

or chummy photos of

politicians we have bought,

but none of my mistresses.

HR cubicle police patrol

your dividers for

pinups, bad jokes,

and unsafe objects

hung from the ceiling.

I tour the world

stimulated by myriad

cultures and invest in

high quality crafts,

while you settle

for a scrap of pseudo

beach on which to tan

and find escape,

trade postcards, and

buy souvenirs that

will clutter garage

sales or Goodwill.