Poem

Theater of the Absurd, The Epilogue

Their end is all we have left to begin with 

The Children without Histories sit in the empty theater seats
their faces perfectly sanitized of memory 
the Humanities Director rehearses 
inside their minds 
his verses 
pristine,  manufactured 

A red wheelbarrow shot up
on the room-size screen begs 
to bleed rain  
  but it is not to be so 

The Soul now excavated 
is mute to the songless echoes 
and the hack of tears stuck 
in dry eyes  

a beat up volkswagen with a bust of Beethoven 
glued to the dashboard 
where Jesus once sat 
is coming over the hilly horizon 
Tarot cards and ancient books flap a musical rhythm in the wind  

and the artists are being called in 
on an emergency 
to paint the children some portraits.  

Poem

Theater of the Absurd, the absent cast, Part 1

half the story of Little Johnny Shakspar.


but don't mention his name 
where the angry river rises
each morning
leaves a pock marked pestilence
the fresh stench of breathing letters 
cleansed of death
sanitized and safe for the masses to embrace 

the Director fears Johnny's history 
the boy and his words are too dangerous 
since the bourgeois enacted 
their Perfect scene 

a knife on the screen scrapes the wheelbarrow's red paint
the flakes windmill and slice
“Tommy can you hear me?” 
Johnny cries from the balcony 

Theater of the Absurd, excerpt of an interview with Allusion Ferlinghetti

I remember chicken white hair 

and visiting Denise Foti's Grandma Zayack 
in the Polish section of Paterson 
after her allergy shots 
Denise couldn't drink milk or eat chocolate 
and her Grandmother's eyes shot blue lasers 
that cut right through my brain
and read my thoughts 
about how dirty the streets looked there 
compared to home

Those eyes made me embarrassed for thinking 

We weren't born when the Doctor became a poet
but Denise had an operation in his hospital 

On that rain-glazed Florida road 
thirty years later 
not even his wheelbarrow couldn't save her 

Triviality Dada, Theater of the Absurd, cast of the Present

Yesterday, it rained 
and because it rained, I thought of you

truthfully
I was thinking about you 
thinking about me 

because I'm beautiful.  And smart.  

I don't shit 
I don't even fart.  And if I did
it would smell like the most exotic dew drenched yellow flower. 

Do my perky breasts keep you in 
a feverish state?
O poor soggy middle aged mothers
whose tits have been sucked
unto despair
I understand
that you desire

to be me.

I understand because I'm intelligent.  
and beautiful. 

        yesterday
during the cold 
rain that pissed on the world 
in between licking envelopes 
for the most successful candidate
and after a few risky fucks with a stranger 

I thought about 
you 

Theater of the Absurd: a season of crossovers and spin-offs

Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray;
  Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.

        Thomas Middleton, The Witch via Macbeth, William Shakespeare



"the tinkerers are bothersome"


the Hag brushes away the swarm
the buzzing flies
and in the center of Her eyes 
two burning candles bore holes 
into the ice at Wintersea 

Immanuel Guzzle waits to sign autographs at the theater exit
he has completed his night of impressions: 

the hatted James Joyce playing golf with Keats 
H.D. fucking Bryher in a boat on the way home from Greece 
Pacino as Hamlet in Philadelphia
encore Archie Bunker bellying up the bar at Cheers 

alas poor Betty Vaudeville just didn't get it 
asks her mommy to buy her a take home book and t-shirt

o' "finger of birth strangled babe"

Immanuel smiles for the camera snapping his back flap photograph
"we're all made of exploded stars and a bit of mud" the quote read

the Hag drags the wheelbarrow across the blackboard 
the students trapped in the mirror gag and cough up yellow fog

Wintersea, 2

In Wintersea when the winter heat 
drifts ashore 
the Degas in the Main Hall?

its white tutu thaws into a soft, milky froth

but the citizens must not ever speak of this 
for the newborns are always and still 
fast asleep
and jealousy creeps and devours 
in every corner 
drip 
    
drip 
dripping a metallic water 

“and thou art dead, as young and fair”
Lord Byron shouted into the fog but no one wanted to hear 
over the buzzing of flies vomiting on rotted meat 
the screaming pile of foul smelling letters 
the discordant noise in the shattering reflections 

“Do you finally see?” the Hag pleads 
bearing her gray teeth through blackened lips 
her silver gown glistening on the synthetic sea 
the froth and foam bathes the Furies and The Crone. 

Wintersea 3: Dismal, Virginia

The squirrel's nervous tail 
twitches 
twirls jumpy circles 
readying for a leap
from the sturdy oak 
to the blowing pine

“in Wintersea, thou must bend 
to meet the winds of time
with thy open hand,” the wizard whispers
“be ready to catch all noises
waiting 
between the slimmest of branches.” 

the Minister and his wife are leaving 
the swamps of Dismal
hymn books in their suitcases 
they're heading to New York City 
for the Macy's Day Parade
their overblue eyes spilling Hope 
on the cock-eyed path 

on the broken roadside 
the ugly Madonna's Vogue 
waving in perfect squares that frame their faces 

the Hag bubbles a hate potion in her blackpot mouth
the wicked little girls steal some 
and spit the yellow acid 
burning holes in the Book 

the squirrel jumps 

dried pine needles jingle 
a dainty cadence

Wintersea

Wintersea

for a reader not yet born


My always approaching Proserpina
follow the fragile wren tracks
newly stamped
into a thin blotter
of cold, white paper

see the message
left for you. Move past
the column of limb heavy
leyland cypress and berry clotted
pointed illex, follow

the skirting bone sound
the brown song
in the dead leaves

forgo the artificial heat of the orangery

and come to fatal Wintersea
where oceans bloom in fields
of white-capped flowers
preparing to ride us under

on this waiting fruit
bite down.