AUGUST  2003

               For John H.

Dead Man Reading  


I don’t want to become the man

Who fell dead in his too long lifeless

Dried arrangements, nor become

An attention addict consumed by

Compulsive humor at open-mic-nite.

 

I’m not your cyber turkey

Looking to repudiate anything

So you can see my little cocked hat

Every time I say something.

 

I refuse to look in Nostradamus’ dish

For fragment forms trembling in the

Black pooled mirror of future events,

Possible war with Syria not withstanding.

 

The lands of the holy grail

And the kings of fierce continents

Are not going to change, that is, 

If the past seven thousand years

Have shed any light on the subject.

 

Yes, I’m comfortable with twisting

Shakespeare, Coleridge, and the masters

And love to make fun of the guy

In charge of 180 degree turns, as well

As the guy in charge of saxophone music.

 

I am skirting the edge of sanitation

Risking the abode of fowl smells

By adopting this attitude, but I

Don’t want to become a great greasy

Pompous asshole portrait on a wall.

 

I am not aligned with the heavenlies

Nor pursue interest in my glory body,

I will eat my yogurt and assume my

Squat and lackadaisical lotus position

Albeit hell bent on everything I do.

In the meantime as John Hartman says,

I should look forward to walking Greenwich.