Blue Scatterglass

Blue scatterglass
sunset's suicide
There are lots of ways to die, day goes
slowserene
From the corner, table starkly pokes out
towards parallel legs and chair
Empty stars in the blue pink sky
over a rainbow snowflake the
Squares in rows, reflecting
Punches on walls
Curry with peas and eggs.

Baltimore

Orange cream carrot cupcakes
Two kids with sleds talk with strangers and
let them fly down
Federal hill dragging feet for terror stop me
Three wars, two civil or that is to say two
revolutions the
guns over the city to ensure Maryland's
interest in staying rockets
red glare over Fort McHenry
(and the Domino sugar company)
Grey area border states, riots in the streets,
Roll off into the snow to avoid parking meters and concrete,
When they leave I'll use a lunch tray and
get snow down my back, through my khakis.

Camden yards brick city old factories
Scattered paintings swirls, stipples, pointil-paintings,
Factory school university
Freedom of thought (self-taught)
As stodgy creativity
Should we take art seriously?
Hardly.
Winter overcast photography
Can't see the shades of coloured bridges
Or freckles (just the lens?)
B+O railroad (Never went to AC?)
The way you look me in the eye has always drawn me
and intimidated me.
MICA was mechanical arts
Babe Ruth dreamed
Japanese red snapper sushi
Garlic caught me off guard, pretty and pink
We reminisce on problems of Pensacolic
societies,
Our home that never felt welcoming.
Artists sometimes smoke for respect,
Blowing words in chilly breeze,
attempting to summit towering chocolate vegan muffins.

Workshop: impact paintings, extensions on easels,
brushes, used cups of coffee, flowing rivers of concrete and cubicled
genius A thoughtful smile (ever-present, deafening) illuminated in
a flowing red frame, the balcony window
light hovering a story above the street and stories of
freakouts driving the wrong streets free buses
and Cal Ripken's heroic consistency, He lived to play,
Present a landscape of orange, brick, black, water lights,
mosaics with squirrels with haloes on top and
passed dino bones deep slow breathings of
the bay and the interstate and histories, weary
from walking, sometimes home feels like this in-between, a border state,
A little cup of green tea in passing, "Yes, I see you,"
The acknowledgement when strangers' eyes meet
between bus door closing eye blinks,
And something human (or cupcake) is shared, momentarily.

South Philly

Loud, bordering obnoxious,
Smell of newports and bud,
He was caught up in a Colorado magazine-selling scam
he couldn't buy;
I found him hard to respect,
His comments about "my girl" I'd just met hit
a little close to home.

No saint I don't think,
Tired eyes, impatient mind, freckled worry lines
But he looked after his invalid grandmother four years
Adopted his crack-mom's daughter at 21, she was half his age,
And he faithfully loved his Lithuanian girl, couldn't wait to be back in her arms.
Maybe sometimes saints are like this.

Osama Bin Laden

With a twinge of insincerity,
trying too hard,
Obama mildly proclaimed that the
world was a better place,
we should celebrate,
because a man was dead,
hunted for years, no
longer a threat,
yay blood.

People were shouting "USA" on the White House
lawn for the death of a man
Who believed deeply in national and religious sovreignty,
the evil of American meddling, and the utter depravity of
a JerseyShoreEminemDesperateHousewife
culture, a godless "Great Satan" of blood and greed,
A man who, given American support and
weapons, was encouraged to wage Jihad against
the Russians trying to conquer Afghanistan,
the Soviet Vietnam, and then hunted out of that same country
by the same spooks, thirty years later. From wealth, he could
have sat back and watched tv, married many wives, and played
golf. He had other hobbies.
He got involved, and like us he believed in
guns.

On Sept. 11th 3,000 Americans died as collateral. The targets: 1)World
Trade, the God of WTOs and GDPs, exporting a consumer society. 2)The
Pentagon, that goes without explaining, and ostensibly the White House or maybe
the CIA? No one asked why. No one thought "ya know, maybe we deserved that."
No, it was only anger, revenge, hurt. So now, later ten years and hundreds
of thousands of bodies...

One hastily buried at sea. Murmurs of cover-ups, a statement? A liquidation of
a former favoured son?

The president's pasted-on rhetoric, his eyes
never flinching, but perhaps I saw confusion and disgust,
announced his candicacy for re-election, look what I've done
Osama Bin Laden is dead. The war hawks and the leech
men have won again, we know now the candy-coated sheen of diplomacy,
the tipped lance beneath a proferred hand.

I was praying for redemption,
That we could somehow be better for better than
this, bullets in the back of the head.