HEAL

something shivers under a
sweet film of
innocence.

curing, curling
back, revealing the
pale whiteness, blue
veins, untouched.

never ever will
heal, close, it remains
open, ripped, dissolving,
whiteness becoming filthy
gray.

covered, covered
only with
blackness, irony,
magnifying what is
to be hidden.

maybe someday
just
maybe, it will
heal, but who
knows? Maybe it
will retreat
fade…
fade……

ONCE

i’d cross over to the other side
of the street, with
fluttering blue nets
shading the gleam of sunny sweat on
young, frazzled disciples of urban peace.

i’d wander on the speckled, crumbling
path through the sparse ballfields
one more time, and
would keep myself separate from it all with
a stiff black coat fencing in my
exhaustion.

i’d pick up a small, ragged rock, but it’s
really not a rock, but a
piece of the pavement chipped
away that used to be slapped by rubber soles, and I
would
yank my arm back and thrust it
way, way out into the muddy, prickly
grass to lie and be
shaded
for
once
in a
lifetime.

HAPPINESS®

these are the golden years
right?
this is what we've all been waiting for
for all those dreadful dry gray eons without vaccines, liposuction and gasoline.

we se silver and gold, the black sheen of oil
fueling our whirring gleaming tanks of cars
we see colors, rainbow grease on the street and blue haze steaming from our lungs.

the little boy drinking the noodle soup
melts away into a soft-focused blend of red plaid and platinum hair
oh, so grateful for that bowl of noodle soup
small pleasures warm conscience subliminally.

a smooth flight to the tropics: priceless.
right? or is it $600.00 plus food, water, and other unexpected inconveniences like tipping the underpaid bellhop?
money can't buy happiness
right?
or have so many bought their way into money and power, drinking our willing blood by the gallon?

happiness: priceless plus luxury tax, goes to feed our violence and ignorance for those who have been and are passing, fading, gone gone gone.
wife by wife
husband by husband
children choking on their own dry screams
but we're happy, oh so happy, unaware, making our own lives, the optimistic hopeful family.
right?

THE DREAM

i landed on a cloud of pink polka-dotted squid
they asked me, "will you ever go back?"
their eyes flitted
and down i fell
onto an orange field
scattered with football-sized ice cream sprinkles
i bit into one
and tasted soup.
a red-eyed rabbit sailed down from the tye-dye sun
on a golden electric guitar
he told me,
"you're the chosen one"
and i obeyed his demented will,
dragging him to the land of amnesia.
at the checkered fence an old lady sat on a post
and blessed me with the knowledge
of confusion.
i won five awards for whistling a song
but i hummed it instead.
i swam through outer space,
when on the moon i met abe lincoln on a silver penny.
a talking egg with green corduroy pants marched across the craters and found me,
he handed me the pair of ageless red mary janes
and poked wise words into my ear
he said "go back to reality".
and i found out it was all a lie
my caramel badges melted on my nightgown
then i remembered it was what i always wanted.

THE END

"twenty nine...twenty eight..."
radio journalists scream in their quiet monotones,
the world is about to DIE.
mothers are grabbing little children,
waiting for a dusty boom to end their housewiving lives.

"twenty seven...twenty six..."
men are sweating,
quitting their jobs like birds swooping out of a swaying tree.
flags are burning
shimmering in patriotic waste
that our countries smothered over all of you
spreading sticky propoganda into the crevaces of your brains.

"fifteen...fourteen..."
teachers are panting
curled behind their cluttered desks
children scream at one another
not knowing each other for once.

"eleven...ten..."
we're all waiting, waiting
waiting for the big eruption
orange haze creeps up from the melting sun on the horizon.

"nine...eight..."
stores are being looted,
wrinkled fingers grip gleaming guns,
black-gloved hands toss foamy loaves of wonderbread into sacks.

"five...four..."
and for what?
there is no escape;
mars and venus are uninhabitable
the earth is gray with chalky mist.
why steal and stuff your stomachs?

"three...two...one."
fathers clutch their daughters' shiny hair
that report card wasn't so bad after all...
the end.