Point Spread Poems

Excerpt

WINDFALL

Photos along a soft-centred wall
like assorted chocolates
with prized centres,
tiny miniatures--
full portraits
the young army major, for one,
in battle fatigues come full family regalia.

Mounting the staircase
(tearing back the chocolate paper)
shroud hand on the railing,
pressuring the cherry liquid
into oozing burst of memory,
the nectarine orange of a summer's day.
Swing & garden loom into view,
the mind plays thoughtscapes,
a tag ensemble, along the wall.

Old colours (or lack of them) abound--
the antiquated dress & hairdos
of grandparents that speak lavishly,
into taste buds, across the fallen years.
Ivy & ivory fan, kitten on a rocker,
cradled baby that amounts to me,
the sun coming home to roost on this plaintiff, pleading
wall.

Passage of thought
into this chocolate box--
the lid off stern memory
prying forth a directory of
mouth-watering choice,
or so the advertisers' claim.

Yet do we ever thought
over what we taut (in our heads)
we are? My dad in Kenya (a time and age
from this perspective like the peanut brittle)
or grandfather, about eight, from the dreamy,
dark cream & nougat reaches of layered black space
that speaks the aeons ago--
his manner and distance a smoky haze
from the twilight "special occasion"
Black Magic chocolate box.

Sitting in the spendthrift dark
lilting pennies away,
deciphering fate ... .
The bed, a warm reach past
the pillow
like personal mortality in the
incest breath of life.

Warm stuff of dreams--
the calender with its days mesh &
march like soldiers
dearly departed
(cindered and bludgeoned)
or the old sea-faring chest
where all men are sailors
past light's corner.

Sturdy trudgeons,
clock bursts thru the room
mindful of time and aching,
decaying things.

Hallow's Eve in movements of the curtains--
a remembered Rembrandt,
self-portrait of the old man
standing alone in a clammy room,
idling the seconds, with drab
browns and grays;
that sea-faring chest, again, speaking
of depleted journeys.

Mystic and occult moods,
worlds caught in a single glance
off the wall paper standing abreast
the lamp
and the mirror, back from
the pace of a single thought.

GANGLAND

A sailor, "tatoo you,"
the cigarette Players
with tape-deck playing
a jaundiced "Yellow Bird",
Cerveza, Dos Equiis, the
two horses, in red flame,
across the label.

Trolling in a deep sea-trench
(spinners and chubb),
the dark night
a religious procession,
acolyte stars in hymnal to the wind.

Across the channel
a Party Boat
--the words almost demand capitals
with actions so diminutive--
creased laughter "to go" cross the waves
flicker of lights, siren call
then a lemon shark strikes the bait
on anchor reel, Horse-Eyed Jack
perhaps borrowing the name
from the Outback--
think pantomime, enter Wahoo
and the aesthetic of fear
crazed fish jack-knifing the boat.

Someone produces a cheese tray,
warm wine
the small shark caught in a
role reversal lies bludgeoned
under the seat, even there
a halo glow surrounds the eye and
cobalt snout, but it is the grin
that takes the edge off antics
of the Party Boat
some bedraggled hundred yards away
this Death's Head cocktail,
"What's your poison" leer
teeth like naked light bulbs
against tenement stairs
protean hoodlum a millenia away....