Two flies on the ceiling

Two flies on the ceiling, one of them contemplating 

suicide. Together, they look down to the floor. 

Ok, that does it, I’m gonna kill myself now, says the fly

on the right, I've had it up to here. 

The fly on the left looks up from the floor and over 
to his pal.

We’re only 10 feet up, you know, he says. The suicidal fly 
shrugs his wings. 

I don’t care, I’m jumping. That’s a hard concrete floor 

down there. Don't try to stop me. 

Well—it's linoleum, says the other fly. But think about this: 
how much do we weigh? 

There's a long pause as they both consider that, and rotate
counter-clockwise, on their tiny black feet. 

Oh yeah. I hadn't thought of that. 

Once they start laughing, they can't stop. 
But now the fly on the left stops, takes a breath,
and looks into the other's eyes, trying not to compound anything. 
And trying to keep a straight face. 

Anyway, suicide? What the fuck? Why so serious? 
You need to lighten up. 

The once-suicidal fly glitters his green bottle eyes,
and says, Lighten up? How?  

Now they can't stop laughing
and they can be heard laughing all the way 
to the no-fly zone!

The Testosterone of Time 

Centuries of War

Centuries of MEN!       ... uh, where was I? 

got a bit intimidated there for a sec, I hope I’m man 
enough to finish this poetry ... oh yeah, I remember, 
whew—that was close ...                         IN CHARGE. 

Centuries, War, Men in charge. 

I do believe I see a pattern here. 

Sis boom bah 

As a little then bigger boy 
I lived in an apartment
(roach-brown walls, overhead lighting)

with some woman I didn’t know

(she had a name tag—
Hello! My name is  your mother.)

and the apartment felt like the waiting room

to a dental office

(screaming in the next room). 

I couldn't get air inside my dirty plastic bag 
of worrying but I was dreaming, trying 
to see the rosy, musical, merchant ivory mansions of England
in the tv dinner, laugh track, garden apartments of Kansas. 
Dreaming, worrying—life and the future were both
vague, but—there were facts. 

I could see the high school football field from 
our apartment through dusty white lace curtains
(getting roach-brown and greasy, lacy snares for roaches) 
and I knew I could catch touchdown passes
from myself, after playing catch with myself
in the nursing home parking lot, waving!
at Grandma in there.

So, I tried out
got on the team
there was an hour between
school's out and team practice,
so, the apartment being convenient
and me worried about playing football
with other people
and me already into the   your mother  Sherry
I'd go home first, drink a six pack of Budweiser,
go to practice.

No one knew or smelled this for awhile,
I ran fast because I was thin and terrified
I made a touchdown that won a big game
and broke my nose (I ran into the goal post, even
the perfumed pom pom girls loved me that night!),
but by the Homecoming Game, I was drinking
two sixes
before practice
and sort of wandering into the locker room.

Coach Taylor, ex and always U.S. Marine
kicked me off the team in front of the team
telling every player to get in line and
come smell my breath.

The coach took me outside
by hand
and with both arms
shoved me into the chain-link fence
between football and the apartment.
He said—I don't give a rat fuck
about poor you, no father. Go get character,
though I think it's too late—he said
and shook me against the fence again.

I'll go get something alright, I thought—
bloody hands from the fence, halfway crying—
so I went and got more beer
called my one friend, Jerry
who was cross-eyed and gay
(1974, neither of these accepted yet)
and we went driving around.
That night was the Homecoming Game,
and I was out of uniform
forever.

Another fact: Coach Taylor didn't like Jerry, either:
sissy, faggy, abnormal, "it's just too bad for his folks,"
etc etc etc etc, the usual.

So, we weren't nuanced—Revenge
was on our minds, driving around with Elton John
(glamour-eyed, not yet officially gay)
on the radio.

Then, I saw it. How we'd go get the coach.

While the football game was being played
(we stayed in the neighorhood, hearing the cheering),
we stole real estate signs out of front yards
jammed them into my big back seat and trunk Chevrolet,
waited until after the game
after the Homecoming Dance
after the victory celebrations
past midnight,
lights out in houses
lights out in the Chevy
both of us real drunk,
and planted all the signs, at least 30 of them
in the coach's front yard.

Drove off laughing
headlights still out
then ON
beer cans rattling on the floor,
75 mph in the 35 mph zone.
Then, even faster
into the rest of that Wizard of Oz night,
passing English mansions flying by—
on both sides!

No one stopped us, no one
tackled us, not even close.

I got out of that apartment.
The coach was upside down
in that house, and anywhere else.

And me and my friend, we
got character that night. Maybe.
We thought. Anyway, we were
on the way.

Jesus swings both ways

I’m in North Carolina and my bathroom 
is open 
to ANYBODY!

But look—before you go ape, "Christians"
(sorry to bring up monkeys, "Christians")—
you should know that Jesus just came by 
with fresh toilet paper, Mr. Bubble, and He
put a disco ball up over the bathtub. 

He did it with love. So, 
cool it. 

Escape Artist  

(I can't sleep, the coast is clear—
so, I'll try to describe it ...)

In the middle of America
and the outside of any family
or friendliness
or even something a little bit interesting
I'd hide out in the art gallery;
FREE! colorful, lively, smart ... quiet. 

It was gray marble cool
(the dim blue Henry Moore room, a/c jets flying green ribbons)
in the hot, slow, sun-blind, rattling box-fan, all tv sets on
and laugh-tracking through the apartment house
(upstairs downstairs, left and right) walls—
noisy summer.

And, it was

yellow haystack warm
(the red Van Gogh room, heat-vents humming like toasters)
in the snow-buried time going on and on
tv still always ON
Hamburger Helper hovering
in the unventilated dragging on and on and on and cold—
muffled winter.

By some big miracle or maybe small crime
I got out of the middle of America
and across the sea to Paree.

I found out about the Musée d’Orsay— 
I loved it so much I wanted to live there!
In the 80s, I hid in the bathroom for 7 months 

(the one downstairs, killing time at night
reading French political magazines) 
before they caught me, and even then 
I told the cops 

that I was an installation piece. 

Then they deconstructed me. 

Later, I threw away the political magazines
and my mother finally died.
An election, a family reunion—just temporary.

But I'll never give up on art. 

(Uh oh, gotta go. I hear the night guard 
coming this way, clicking his clicker. Later ...) 

What to say to ICE 
agents if they drop by

I’m a gentle guy (gal), more or less, 
but my question is
what kind of wall do we put up 
against Radical Caucasian Terrorism? 

(They may move closer, not answer, but go on ... )

If I can answer that, boys
I’d say it would be equal parts these:

crisp, forest-scented animal skins
moonlit and sunlit
crackling, new, bold black and yellow
the sentences and the parchment—
the Constitution. 
With that new tar smell, glued
lavishly with a lush brush onto 
the sliding dry wall of dry wit! 

(Don't worry, these men
are loud 
but thick 
also temporary; 
since they won't get any of this 
they won't get any of us. 
We'll never be this scared and lonely again, amigos.)

Let yourselves out, fellas.
I'm not that gentle.

I was a teenage light bulb

So much of my childhood I felt like an exposed light bulb. 

Up on the ceiling in a musty basement,

flickering

either not screwed in or not turned on,

or waiting for someone to pull the chain. 

But didn’t I pull it, way back then? I did! 
Didn’t I? 
Still ... this flickering feeling lingers. 

A couple of weeks ago my mother died, and she’s dead
she’s cremated, and ashes can’t pull chains, 
that's for sure. 

She isn’t going to pull it now. 

So, guess what? 

Yes, and I see the light 
and in the light, I see—the stairs up, 
out of the basement. 

I'm out of here.