ENCOUNTER IN A FAMILIAR PLACE

So we meet again.
I don’t remember much about you
Except that dirt stain on your Nikes reflected in the mirror behind me.
The tension is so thick
It can be cut with a knife.
It is only me and you
Trying to minimize the silence in the room
As if we’re playing hide-and-go-seek.
I attempt to figure out the optimal stance,
While you are struggling to control your intra-abdominal pressure.
The mutiny inside of you
Is transformed to awkwardness and embarrassment.
Now that you mention it,
I kinda feel awkward too.
But what do we feel ill at ease about?
Is it the stream of liquid hitting a pool of water?
Or is it the air rushing through a narrow pipe?
It’s interesting that we are not filled with shame
When we hear water dripping from the faucet into the sink.
It’s interesting that we don’t feel uneasy
When we allow a balloon to deflate.
But why here and now?
They’re just porcelain receptacles.
I guess it’s something to consider until our next meeting.
Alrighty, I’ll see ya back here soon
And maybe next time we’ll exchange places.

And for the visitors,
In finding that, they
Thought it was beautiful
And so they set about
In peeling back
The bark of its layers.

And each one, removed,
They would study, and
Admire.

Until there was no more bark
Left to remove and
They stood there, looking,
At the exposed bare tree of the world
Which was now stronger,
And more beautiful,
Than it was before.

Jungle Fuel

In the jungle
Breezes cycle briefly
Through the trees overhead.
Monkeys squawk and
Jesus laughs a big belly laugh.

In Philadelphia
The talking commotion
Of the city is fueled
By the consumption of
Coffee and cigarettes.
Jesus is not present.
Instead you have
Hipsters in clown costumes
And sedentary tow-truck drivers.
Cheesesteaks clog the arteries
And local brews dissolve young men’s lives.
The city rumbles.
No one knows what
Keeps it alive.
Slavery and genocide?
Pill popping and organized crime?
Philadelphia is a sick,
Twisted place.

Hobgoblins search for
Change in the gutters.
Aristocrats in Audis idle
On congested street corners.
It’s a polluted planet,
And Philly doesn’t mind at all.

Reading a poem is unpredictable,
like when you surface from under the water:
you do not know what you are going to get.
Until you stop at the level where
your eye is half-submerged
and you realize there is another layer
neither wet nor dry.

Perpetual... (Cont'd)

The speed is delirious, and the heroin sweet nectar
I can’t believe I’m going this fast and faster.
All life’s a haze with just her at the center,
If I don’t do something now she’ll put me in the blender!

Magnet

Click for whole image

Perpetual...

Write the next stanza of (4 lines) of this poem as you listen to any one Jazz song of your choice:

Walking down the jazz infused path
I am surrounded by the hissing of the cymbals
With my honey next to me trotting to the thumping riffs of the bass
I want to flow through this tunnel forever

The Desert People

The desert people reach out of their trenches to eat the bugs on the ground,
Crawling at their eye level.
And I hear they say each other’s names backwards
When they greet each other.

They don’t have a religion.
They live only to starve.
I think I’ve seen one or two of them,
Over here or over there.
They never acknowledge you,
And they never stare.
I swear to god though,
I once saw one eating the other’s hair.

I don' know what they’re doing there,
And they sure don’t care what I’m doing here.
Someone ought to find them and set ‘em straight,
I tell you.
I’d fix ‘em up with nice clothes,
And good jobs,
If I were you.
What are they doing there?

This is, to help you, know me.

I see, behind things, mostly.
They pull me, with them, slowly.

Sometimes, I ride, the night ocean.
Her dark hands, round me, unspoken.
And moon, bright watch, above me,
From, my back, you’re lovely.

Hold, me close, oh light!
Your eyes, no lust, just fight.
I know, you’re jealous, of the black sea.
But smile, little face, love me!

I tuck, my head, go under,
Before moon, she shrieks, like thunder.
I like, it where, it’s wetter:
Rippling muscles, breathing better.

Eerie echoes of creatures twice my height:
The strangeness, here, gives me dark delight.
Up is down from side-to-side,
I move my body my only guide.

Cities, color, along the bottom
Rays of sun after night forgot ‘em.
Look, the coral, fish passing!
Where, I’m from, they’re asking.

I’ll take you!
Tell me:
Show me

I see good things, mostly.

White paradise

The Jazz Rumbles Through my Inner Yarbles

The Jazz rumbles through my inner yarbles
I can hear now the shouting saying hallelujah to the thronging masses in beautiful tainted buildings.

Death drinks dog's urine,
but I can hear the name of the Lord loud and clear
His name is Bohemoth.
I can see him in the shadow,
Tumbling down that dark hare’s hole,
Teeth grinning wide
I’m driven to do insane things.
Death’s calling the numbers.
Time’s running itself out.
How can I get a score?
Who’s out to get me?
I’ll get em, an' tear em apart!

But the angels!
Those twisted blonde angels!
Singing harps and flinging flower petals!
Rain on me sweet melodies of distant gardens.

Who can I choose?
Devil with his goat-man’s beard
Or Heaven’s angel with curling lockes?

I’m my only own man now, I know.
Send them to the next suckering stoogelet.
I’m goin my own way
With only my back to follow me.

Jesus still shines his grace on me,
Laying one golden brick after the other.
I can’t do no wrong. That’s what he tells me.
I know it ain’t true, so I follow anyway.
I don’t have a clue where it’s goin’,
But I follow anyway.

That old jazz man’s sure laughing his ass off.

If he could hear what’s inside me.
He hears me, an' he hears you.

That old jazz beard’s laughing his manhood off.
Cuz it’s all the same old joke. You know.
Tell it agin' an' agin' an' agin' an' agin' an' agin' an' agin' an' agin' an' agin'!

so, last night, at a small cafe in the east village, we started talking about salami.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SALAMI

‘Your salami’s almost ready,’ she said, and
Turned, and
Gently kissed my cheek.
I looked behind her
And watched the heavy snow as it fell
To quietly smother
The frigid earth.

From outside
I could hear the lonely metallic call
Of the railyard
As it shivered
From across the brown field
Separating us.

Her breath was warm in my ear,
And, somehow, it travelled deeper,
To a place
Which was dark,
And glowed there, filling me,
Until I knew
We would be
Allright.

The salami crackled,
Drawing her,
And a smile,
To bend devotedly,
Over the blue flame
As it flickered
Against our bare walls and
Inside me.

Birthblog

Live to death.
Live to Hell.
Live out your mother out
Live til the blood squirts out.
Build a bridge,
And paint that portrait.
See Zimbabwe.
Go to the moon.
Fall over laughing,
Kill your inhibitions and all their friends.
Breathe the breeze,
Tell your friends.
Smile at your future.
Smile at your past.
Bake in the present.
Drink in deeply all around you the smiling deathdefying beauty of your true inner face all about your featureless surrounding environment.
Say ahhhh
This is it. Fall open your arms wide.
This is the bioblog. Welcome to the bakesale.

It ain't all pretty though.
There's death and fear of it.
There's loneliness and dreading of it.
There's sickness and angst of it.
There's killing and war and fucking bullshit.
Did you know that
Snake oil salesman
Are eager to suck you out from every pore.
Nope, it sure ain't all that pretty though.
The bioblog'll tell you all about that, what you already know.
But that's beauty though,
Through and through.
Funny how they never told me that,
How that beauty ain't all that pretty.

This is it. Fall open your arms wide.
This is the bioblog. Hear now our inside outside inside-outside.

In baking loving gratitude,
Jim "Jimmy" "the baker" Baker