The bandit

The Bandit

The “A” in the neon sign is blinking

in and out (out and in)

grave digging shoppers shuffle down

overstocked aisles—

of cereal and shaving cream.

Swoosh of pneumatic doors sweeping a sigh across the floor

when the nocturnal omnivore steals—

silently inside.

She’s got the lay-out with mental map at the ready

quick flick of darting eyes and a hungry agenda.

She’s moving between the rows when I spy her dark eyes

ruined make-up or camouflage (black blue)

she knew where to—

wash her paws before eating pilfered cereal bars.

Wild-eyed Mama with fuzzy slippers sagging

sweats (the “Princess”)

startles our foraging friend—

who scrambles next door to aisle 10.

Stock boy Joe acne screaming and teenage despair

spies our midnight marauder (spiked green hair)

He picks up the radio to whisper—

a warning that the rabid vermin

might pocket a plethora of Chinese imports.

The stealth of her gives me pause

I imagine a million years (of evolution)

when the need gave rise to—

instinctual solutions.

Unnaturalness of starvation in stark contrast

to those creatures slower and less adept—

get fatter by the minute. 

Cruelty (Mother of invention)

when called upon—

the nature of our culture evens

the odds with my bold and beautiful bandit of the Mart.

A final moment before

she escapes out the unlocked Garden Center—

pockets bursting (heart shallow)

She turns to look at me—my wanton pillager

for a second I breathe in the forest deep

or maybe it’s car freshener and cheap floor cleaner.

Thick mischief and cunning wild—

She has paid for what we have stolen.

Wallace eye view

Black Cat- Lucky Seven

Straight back and proud

Ears up and glossy backdrop of Parisian nightsky

The black cat speaks French to me alone

Superstitions and crossing paths

So what—I broke a mirror once

Nearly avoided that black cat

Grey and white

Night and Day

Midnight in the alleyway

Only the eyes give you away

Golden abyss of black cat’s peering back

Look at you!  Black cat of mine!

Ready to go?

Ears?  Tail?  Little pink nose?

Treats are in store at each door!

Tricky little feline

Achoo!!

No thanks cat

Black—go away

Black cat rages with fists

Pumping in the air

We shall prevail

Deep in the moon

Chasing mice who eat away the cheese

Leaving giant holes

The sky cat of black shadows

Yawn Yeats

The Honeybee on a Cloudy Day

Why must I toil all day long with

No rest and no reprieve?

Is there never a time for idleness

And the joy of the swaying tree?

Said the buzzing little bee

The sun comes up the sun goes down

Sweet proof of my labor is stolen from me

In cups and jars of golden light

Yet I cannot help but love

The bright petals that beckon to me, softly

So it must be, whispered she

I’ll disappear one day you’ll see!

They’ll wonder what has become of me

Those thieves that smash my home

I’ll renounce making love from stem to stem

Said the buzzing little bee

No more will I light upon blossom

Spreading life from tree to tree

Only in complete darkness

Will my masters be able to see the beauty

Of what I’ve done for them selflessly!

So it must be, whispered she

O'Hara hello

She has to pick up the kids from Little Lukes on First Street at 2:30

And hopefully swing by the Farmer’s Market in the Commons in time for some

Fresh corn and maybe an autumnal squash if it looks good

The radio announces another hot day tomorrow as the Indian Summer seems to

Drone on but she thinks that is a racist term to use and wonders

What the Six Nations might say

The house has no lights on as she pulls in but quickly the smell of simmering

Vegetables and crisp spices fill her nostrils and she is stirring the Martha Stewart

Pot while the kids argue over Spongebob Squarepants

The light changes in the room and for her a black hole of endless nothing appears where the zucchini she is chopping briskly on the wooden block is supposed to be And no sound but a rushing wind while the kitchen floor rises up and goes from

Alabaster to blushing pink…her grandmother—long buried in Oakwood Park Cemetery on County Road 36—calls her to the table for supper and she goes out in the soft white light towards the familiar smell of warm bread.

Dickinson doodle

Soft Whistle of the boiling—

kettle as Nature demands an audience

The walls of water rise higher with

An escaping shoreline—fleeing fast

There is not time to pack

So soon is the call of Neptune to—

enter the living room and

The Whales will dance and ask for biscuits

While the tea stews—

In salty ocean rooms

Floating duvets look like well dressed ladies—

Who have just come to gossip with starfish

And sip from porcelain—

cups that hold back the mighty ocean

and conch shells will sound the—

Whistle of kettles instead of tides

Mayakovsky moment

You cannot stay here!  My walls no longer refrain from screaming at your piled high plates and soiled pants—littering the bedroom floor.  A war torn field full of sprawling corpses—stinking and sticking to the bare floor

The frost of a thousands winters spreads across my face like a glacier jutting into the side of the fated Titanic and no one is King of the World—as bodies fly like a circus trapeze and our ship sinks into the frigid black water with a silent song as you depart below.  Celine’s melancholy voice across miles of Dark Ocean, for you.

No love is left in this ice castle and no fish in the hole—only nothingness and the occasional tug on the line as you smile at me in the hallway hoping for a crack to appear in the stone of my face, an etched edifice of cold marble the arms wrenched away and the breasts forever erect nipples but never soft no never again.

For you there is only a foul taste left in your mouth as you drink the stale milk and it curdles underneath your tongue, opaque chunks like soft chewed food sliding out an old man’s mouth as he gums it to a slow death. 

A river of lost love, our love, winds down the twisting tunnels under the city streets mixed with all the muck and unlucky goldfish who go to a heaven fit for dime store pets—the water treatment plant recycles what it can so that we can love again.  Recycled passion flows from kitchen taps and spills out onto the floor making a wet carpet of new kisses and whispered promises.

Stars and smoke—choking breathe but I will be gone when you awake and the pillow will hold the shape while you call your mother to say that everyone is fine but

Hello? Oh no Mrs. Thorne we are not quarrelling, it is just the sound of the television and not your dear ones, those you know whose lives have been shattered.  Can you hear me?  I promise you he is fine and we are keeping warm in this unseasonable cold weather.   I still love this boy of yours of course I do but how can you understand that it’s complicated by that open window where the winter wind gusts through and I feel like sled dog tied to a post in the deep Antarctic exposed to raw cold so biting.  They will have to amputate this limb you see, it is black and dead and must go before the infection spreads.  You must know how necessary it is to cut away that which is dead.

But why?  Because my tears are hanging from my cheek like little knives making frozen cuts and the dark red flows past my lips to stain the dress you bought me in New York when the towers fell and we burned and they burned.  Cold fire.

Faux Gnews- Redux

Talking Heads

Pontificating

Postulating

Pouncing on words

Ricochets of sound

Haze and stench of pompous

Pointless

Pounding syllables

Silly fools

Droning on and on like—the baffled bumblebees (no more trees)

The buzzing is just a low-key noise to be

Drowned out by Mad Men selling snake oil and penis enhancement

These chattering heads with plastic hair

No escape from the high def pixel priesthood or maybe

It’s just a POW camp with tall stockades of bullshit

My brain sits in the horizontal shadows watching—waiting

Bouncing the ball against the wall—impatiently patient

They have to build that damn bridge sooner or later

Box of light illuminates blank faces—in stasis

Ingratiating our spoon fed nation with delicious lies

Puppetry—this

Proudly perched peacock

Sins of the faithless paraded into the spaces between consumptive embraces

Shackled below the maelstrom of stocks falling—frogs for the Pharaoh

And now the weather

Panic at the disco—Play it again Sam

Love songs for my capitalist daydreamer—or maybe a socialist demon weaver

As the heretics hang crucified to money trees and the monotone heads turn away—

Pontius wash your hands

Where has Authenticity gone at this time of night?

Curfew at 9 pm so into the bushes hides King Rhetoric the Reasonable

We laugh at the rude dance of the Jester—Alas poor Verity I knew him well!

Revolutions ring a decaying bell

Their tolling tells me nothing

For the pundits peel away

The soft flesh of meaning

Leaving bones of bitterness

Bodies piled high

Atlas groans

No one can hear him (press mute)