But a skull at my feet
Looked up and smiled,
A lucky life for you, lad, a lucky life for you!
(From Nosferatu)
ALLEY CAT LOVE SONG
Come into the garden, Fred,
For the neighborhood tabby is gone.
Come into the garden, Fred.
I have nothing but my flea collar on,
And the scent of catnip has gone to my head.
I’ll wait by the screen door till dawn.
The fireflies court in the sweetgum tree.
The nightjar calls from the pine,
And she seems to say in her rhapsody,
“Oh, mustard-brown Fred, be mine!”
The full moon lights my whiskers afire,
And the fur goes erect on my spine.
I hear the frogs in the muddy lake
Croaking from shore to shore.
They’ve one swift season to soothe their ache.
In autumn they sing no more.
So ignore me now, and you’ll hear my meow
As I scratch all night at the door.
MARKETING DEPARTMENT TRIO
Classical music’s
Gotta go.
All the surveys
Tell us so.
Brahms is boring.
Bach is dreary.
Morning drive time
Should be cheery.
Grieg is stale.
Mozart moldy.
Give us this day
Our golden oldie.
Tchaikovsky’s pathetic.
Schubert’s a nerd.
And once is too much
For Beethoven’s Third.
The past is over.
Let’s clean house.
Out with Verdi.
Good-bye Strauss.
Curtains for opera.
Unstring that cello.
Make the music
Soft and mellow.
Whether you’re driving
Or trying to score,
Lean back, relax,
While our ratings soar.
Mile after mile
Commute with a smile.
So bye-bye Beethoven,
And don’t touch that dial!
(From Tony Caruso’s Final Broadcast)
PITY THE BEAUTIFUL
Pity the beautiful,
the dolls, and the dishes,
the babes with big daddies
granting their wishes.
Pity the pretty boys,
the hunks, and Apollos,
the golden lads whom
success always follows.
The hotties, the knock-outs,
the tens out of ten,
the drop-dead gorgeous,
the great leading men.
Pity the faded,
the bloated, the blowsy,
the paunchy Adonis
whose luck’s gone lousy.
Pity the gods,
no longer divine.
Pity the night
the stars lose their shine.
REUNION
This is my past where no one knows me.
These are my friends whom I can’t name—
Here in a field where no one chose me,
The faces older, the voices the same.
Why does this stranger rise to greet me?
What is the joke that makes him smile,
As he calls the children together to meet me
Bringing them forward in single file?
I nod pretending to recognize them,
Not knowing exactly what I should say.
Why does my presence seem to surprise them?
Who is the woman who turns away?
Is this my home or an illusion?
The bread on the table smells achingly real.
Must I at last solve my confusion,
Or is confusion all I can feel?
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
The heart of the matter, the ghost of a chance,
A tremor, a fever, an ache in the chest.
The moth and the candle beginning their dance,
A cool white sheet on which nothing will rest.
Come sit beside me. I’ve waited alone.
What you need to confess I already know.
The scent of your shame is a heavy cologne
That lingers for hours after you go.
The dregs of the bottle, the end of the line,
The laggard, the loser, the last one to know.
The unfinished book, the dead-end sign,
And last summer’s garden buried in snow.
COLD SAN FRANCISCO
I shall meet you again in cold San Francisco
On the hillside street overlooking the bay.
We shall go to the house where we buried the years,
Where the door is locked, and we haven’t a key.
We’ll pause on the steps as the fog burns away,
And the chill waves shimmer in the sun’s dim glow,
And we’ll gaze down the hill at the bustling piers
Where the gulls shout their hymns to being alive,
And the high-masted boats that we never sailed
Stand poised to explore the innocent blue.
I shall speak your name like a foreign word,
Uncertain what it means, and you—
What will you say in that salt-heavy air
On that bright afternoon that will never arrive?
HOUSEHOLD GODS
Felis catus
The gods of ancient Egypt
Have walked into the room.
While Isis and Osiris
Were sealed inside their tomb,
These sleek divinities escaped
To build their sect anew
And cultivate the worship
Of Christian, Hindu, Jew.
In mystic meditation
The gods their vigil keep.
(Only the foolish heathen
Mistake their bliss for sleep.)
No worldly care can interrupt
Their transcendental state
Of pure incorporality
Beside the heating grate.
Aegyptiacae feles,
Have mercy on your flock.
Don’t shred our brand new sofa
Or smash the Dresden clock.
Award us your epiphanies
Ablaze in morning light
And sit beside us purring
To guard us through the night.
FILM NOIR
It’s a farm town in the August heat
With a couple of bars along Main Street.
A jukebox moans from an open door
Where a bored waiter sweeps the floor.
A bus pulls up by Imperial Fruit.
A guy gets off in a new prison suit.
He’s not bad looking. Medium height.
Full of ambition. Not too bright.
He’s a low life. He’s one of the lost
Who’s burnt every bridge he’s ever crossed.
Just out of the slammer, a ticking bomb,
The Wrath of God and Kingdom Come.
It’s the long odds on a roll of the dice
For big stakes you can’t bet twice.
The cards get dealt. The wheel spins.
At the end of the night the house always wins.
He sees her alone at the end of the bar,
Smoking and hot like a fallen star.
She’s a cold beauty with a knowing wink.
If she shot you dead, she’d finish your drink.
Some guys learn from their mistakes,
But all he learned is to raise the stakes.
There’s something he forgot in jail—
That the female’s deadlier than the male.