Pitter patter of literary feats  

The head-author-in-charge of this town

comes at me at the book party, his long 

praying mantis neck stretching out on me, 

yeasty smelling as a New England food co-op, and asks,

“You write?”

“You right.”

This backed him up a little, against 
the venetian blinds of the kitchen window, 

letting some moonlight in. 

"Genre?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"What genre do you write for? SF? YA?"

"MU."

"FU? What?"

"No, MU. Not FU, though that may come next."

"What's MU?"

"Made Up." 

That was the end of that conversation, and 
I walked out the back porch door, where 
two friends were obviously waiting for me, 
by their body language. The moon, 
FULL tonight, sparkling her earrings,
and my old friend, the talking raccoon, 
who I hadn't seen in five or six years.

Their body language, and sense of quiet
anticipation, also said: We're listening. 

"I just said something nasty 
and catty to a guy in that party, 
but after you've been humiliated 
as much as I have, you do that 
for protection, I guess."

The moon shrugged and looked off towards
the sun. The raccoon looked up at the moon,
then back at me, said "Yeah, we heard it.
What do you think, Moon?"


"I thought it was funny. You did the right
thing. That guy wanted to locate you 
on some kind of shelf. You didn't want that.
Neither do I or the raccoon, who aren't even
supposed to be able to talk."

"Yeah," said the raccoon, "what genre are we, 
do you think, ha ha ha!"

I laughed but I wasn't yet on the same page
as the moon and the raccoon.

"But maybe he was right. I mean, maybe
the man just wanted to know who I am. In 
literature - what this party is about - or in
life, aren't we suppose to know who we are?" 

"You're getting warm," said the moon,
creaming the sky. 

"Aren't I suppose to know who I am?"

"Warmer," said the raccoon, licking a paw. 

"Or ok, maybe not always know, because 
it changes, every minute, every second.
But in the end, as it was in the beginning
I get to be what I want? Day or night?
And holidays?"

"RED HOT!" they both said and laughed. 

Then the raccoon went over the fence;
rambunctiously as Gene Kelley, lasciviously 
as Mick Jagger, languidly as Snoop Doggy Dogg.
The moon slipped sensually, softly
behind the mysterious range 
of powdery blue midnight clouds. 

I went back into the party, a little less mean 
but ready for anything.

To Surreal, with Love

I won’t look at life straight anymore

I’ve had pain enuf enuf enuf enough 

Now I will laugh & laugh & laugh & laugh.

And when I die, turn the party lights on; 

slumber party with God! 

Small talk in the caboose; wrong side of the tracks
They ask that question every time. 
How’s the family? 

They don’t know what happened

but it’s easier now

to say 

They all died in a bad train wreck. 

And when they ask

Gee whiz! All of them? 

I say

Yeah, all of them. 

Even though really they’re all on vacation

in a family reunion I didn’t get the engraved 
or even the unengraved invitation to, with
selfies, groupies, and the laughing Wall of noise, 
I like summing it up like this 

All dead in a train crash. 

I got off on the wrong track in life.
But I'm an Engineer, and I know where
the coupling is. 

A L I V E 

Run don’t walk and Laugh 
towards death, not afraid of it; 
it’s just a squirt gun! 

{ To Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche 

who wouldn't know me 

from a chipmunk 

but so what } 

On a higher plane 

The fasten seat belt sign blinks off 

and I lean my seat and my head back 
into the conversation behind me, 

“Well, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a corpse fart!

You see, I worked in a morgue all my life.” 

The jet banks and the sun shoots white yellow
across the aisle, highlights a very sunny
animated amputee telling a childhood story,

"She - mom - would wake me up every morning with this song:
WAKE UP LITTLE MAN, JAR THE GROUND,
SHAKE THAT WOODEN LEG, ROUND AND ROUND!
She was cheering me up! I don't know where my leg went
or what she did with it, but what a great mom to have! 
I mean, it could've been worse!"

There's a line to the bathroom, the stewardess
at the caboose of it with the drink cart, and I hear a nun
talking to a maybe basketball player, his head hairing
the ceiling of the fuselage, 

"Do you think Jesus would shop at Whole Foods?
I think he was more a Trader Joe's man. Also,
if someone had said to Jesus, There are no 
free lunches, He would've come back with: Why not?
Happy Easter, sir. Man … if I may say,
I bet you have a great 3-point shot!"


(To be continued; check flight information at your gate.) 

Your life, not somebody else's

Slow motion, waiting

sinking, stop. START. Red - blue flash!
Your brain adventure.

White plastic  

Pianos and dancing and hands all over me
I started the morning, before the meeting

in the AME church, floating on inclusion 

and soul, and as I went out the front door

a BIG man with lively old eyes, yellow and open -  
like two harvest moons 
looked into my eyes, gave me a BIG handshake;
he was dressed like a wild and friendly unmade bed
with black & gold suspenders and a brick-red bow tie;

he had complete and unhesitant warmth. 

I drove away filled up, the car floating now too, 
towards coffee at Hole Foods, the other side of town. 

When I arrived, I saw a man at a table in the window 
the man I was to talk to,

he was arranging for me to do a poetry reading
(who me? I asked God, in church, are the rest of the poets busy?)
but now I was doing a reading on him;  
I noticed he was very carefully dressed, very 
carefully cub scout-buttoned up, 
the millennial matinee idol of Wes Anderson movies - 
with a mathematically trimmed beard. 

When I got out of my car 

his eyes went up and down on me 

like an elevator, not wanting 
to get off at any floor, 

then he went back to the white plastic on the table. 

I almost got back in the car. But no, though
I left it running. 

I got inside Hole Foods and heard the NPR jingle.  

My ears must have jumped like crickets
and the man must've viscerally divined it,
because he said (still looking down, typing), 
“You don’t care for NPR?”

“Well, let me put it this way. 

Do you know any black people? Ask them 

if they listen to it, and when you get your answer, 

you’ll know mine." 

He looked back up at me, but only about to the mezzanine. 

“Not that I’m black," I said, "but I’m trying."