Practical

Mom was practical.

She defined herself as a practical person.

Hope I’m not a member of the practical club.

I have too much trouble with practical questions.

If asked perhaps the most practical of questions;

“What to do with your life”

Would you speak of knowledge, success,

Places or people?

Would it be “practical” to follow your forebears,

Or should we aim to rise, fall, twist and reach,

To seek an impassioned encounter with 

A source of joy?

If “practical” yields to “safe” what price will be paid?

Could we carry the thought to “happy”

With all the attendant risks,

And is “happy” a path or a destination?

Can we comfortably separate those two.

Or is there merely the “way”, leaving destination

As a fantasy that we toss at children

In an attempt to suggest there can be “arrival”

I once suggested that a year of travel

Would offer more than a year of school.

My son, disagreed, and started college.

My mother would have approved.

Pot

We went for a walk before  the movie.

Bobby had some Maui-Wowie.

Just the right stuff.

Feeling very mellow, we entered the old, large rundown theatre,

And sprawled across a couple of damaged seats,

Only to stare at a blank screen 

While listening to some god-awful Hawaiian Music. 

A small organ and the remnant of an elevated stage 

Told of the theater’s history.

An imitation royal palm tree from a begone era 

Held court in the near corner of the platform.

Sitting in the thick darkness

Twenty minutes passed, or was it two?

Maybe we had missed the entire film!!

Bobby looked at the stage, the palm tree,

And listening to the music offered,

In a theatrical whisper,  “It’s not much of a plot”

Barely conscious,  I cleverly replied “bummer”.

We, laughing hysterically,  staggered out of the theater, 

Weaving our way passed imaginary fire hydrants. 

Looking back over the twenty-five years we knew each other

Cousin Bobby and I never had a better time.

Portrait

An old man peers into a box.

His scruffy beard, sharp nose and glasses

Remind the observer of  a Vermeer portrait,

“Old Man at His Desk” could be the painting’s name.

It is a dim and silent  scene

With an unnatural light emanating from the box.

He turns his head, his ancient eyes inquire of my presence,

And I am returned to 2009.

His attention is drawn back to the computer screen

And I am aware of testaments; phone, electric light,

Solidifying my hold on contemporary reality.

Still, the artists studio, the smell of the paint, remain.

Facial lines mark his journey

In his eyes a strong belief

In the need for further study

As he ponders the screen’s message.

Often I have sat looking into

A face painted by a knowledgeable artist

Intent on exposing his subject’s

Implacable craving to understand.

400 years fall away as mere layers of diaphanous lace.

I recognize the timeless, universal expression

That marks man as involved and  insatiable,

Forever searching.

Poets Corner

Mike’s Place is special,

If your looking for 1960 with computers.

On Sunday afternoons aspiring poets

Read to the like minded.

Most often the few poets gathered

Will listen politely as another of their number

Tell of love, journeys taken, 

Lives lost and magic.

When the microphone is working

And the cannabis smoke is pervasive, 

The psychedelically enhanced  corner space

Holds a transitory aura.

Walls painted in vibrating reds and greens,

In the form of geometric designs

And huge faces with glowing blue eyes

Speak of a bar that does not take itself seriously.

Usually by mid- December Mike has picked a tree.

It has to be small, and decorated with care,

For it will, as custom dictates,

Hang over the elevated reciters platform... upside down.

Mike maintains it symbolizes

The waste and materialism that Christmas represents,

That would, with the new year, once again

Dump the refuse on the heads of the poor.

Mike is a cynically hopeless romantic

With a life time longing to experience

A communism that never existed,

In a world peopled by Jimmy Stewarts.

As expected, worn chairs and couches

Sit in disarray near the poetics corner,

Supporting a variety of life forms,

Each with its own interpretation of the tree hanging over head.

Several believe that by not falling on their skulls

The tree ushers in a safe, and rewarding New Year.

Of course within a day of the trees appearance

Decorations are scattered over the readers podium.

Tim, convinced that he will one day

Be a prime-time TV talk show host,

Always dresses in blue suit and red tie.

He calls the poets corner into session.

Tim introduces each poet to an invisible multitude

Who deliver an imagined thundering welcome

To each presenter. He is not disillusioned

By the hollow scattering of applause.

While the rest offer meaningful reflections

That no one cares to follow,

Perhaps 2 readers understand 

And offer light comedic pieces,

Playing

I left the game thinking myself a winner,

Returning to recognize

It really isn’t a game

And nobody wins or loses.

Though we can’t live in today

Before it is yesterday,

Melancholy is not the inevitable outcome.

Indeed neither joy nor sadness, are prescribed.

But as to choices, let us agree

No life exists without our acceptance,

And it matters not what “is”

(Unless you are Bill Clinton).

For we are ill equipped  to know.

I would not judge the Rubaiyat’s

“One moment in annihilations  waste”

A better response than Psalm 23.4’s

“Though I walk through the valley of  the shadow of death...”

Whether scatological or sacred, both dream they are choosing.

Pizza To Go

I tried to cook, like nice and slow

Man, it was torture, you know,

Gave it up; called Tony’s

“Pizza To Go “.

Problems getting there in the miserable snow,

When would they, like, start to mow?

Took me an hour to reach

“Pizza To Go”.

Their oven was hot, like aglow.

Man, could have been from, you know, down below,

Sent by the devil to “Pizza To Go”

There was this chick, her hair in a bow.

Movin’ round the place with a real nice flow,

She worked the register at “Pizza To Go”.

I thought “She’s got a body. Could be a ho?”

Not likely though,

Sweating near the oven at “Pizza To Go.”

The baker started by kneading the dough,

Tossed the pie, made a real show,

Said “5 minutes, you’ll have your Pizza to Go”

I used a coupon, made the cost really low.

Could not get a date with the chick,

So, I went home to eat my  Pizza To Go”.

Pictures On Exhibition

A tank.

What the hell!

Sending me pictures of them standing on a tank.

Not impressive, merely vainglorious and stupid!

I now know where Len and Arlene stand on the Mideast issue;

On a goddamn tank!

A 70 year-old, and his young wife.

What war will THEY win?

Maybe they presented an amulet,

A talisman that protects the armored division.

I once had a stone from the Apian Way.

I know a man who wanted, badly,

To own a piece of the Berlin Wall.

Aren’t these all harmless dreams?

Romantic, but not necessarily foolish images,

Which charge our life source

With something bigger than ourselves.

Or is that too grand a posture?

More likely they fall in line

With a 3 part Masai spear,

Purchased on Safari for under $2.50,

To prove yourself a great traveler and hunter.

But the man on the tank asks more.

We are asked to dismiss the pathetic smile,

And believe he is today one of the warriors

That will bring down the new Philistines.