Utopian Turtletop

She rocks the hat

     she could have grabbed

     off Marianne Moore,

     flustering West Portal Peet’s

     one eye blind behind

     the bent tin dimestore brooch

     that secures her pinned-up brim.

A silverish pendant evokes

     the golden age of art nouveau.

     Neo-bohemian,

     it bangs against her chest,

     a fluted weight

     suspended by the sort of cord

     save-the-Tibetans pray by.

She leans on an acrylic cane

     wrapped in bows of duct tape

     and artful lace mylar,

     twisted round a draping

     chain of six-pack collars.

     She unsnaps the rubber band

     that binds a cough drop tin,

once painted yellow. Nickels,

     dimes, a quarter here and there,

     she pinches out a stack

     of coins along the counter,

     payment for her non-fat

     double shot, no-foam.

Prayers at the Grave of Ivan Rilski / Wrestlers

The Wrestlers

A moutra,  ex-olympic wrestler, 

self-styled ugly face,

disgorges himself from a stolen Mercedes

jamparked up on top the curb.

Carpathian-flanksteak tough, 

big as a dirty bomb

wrapped in shiny Versace, 

he keeps a silken wallet bulge 

against the sweat of thick pink skin,

On his arm a thin blonde vacancy 

tests the carats of her chain and collar hasp

toothed links bit into the soft gold 

proves the value of her shackle.

They’re ready for the club,

the chainsaw roar of metal 

dance and grind. Inside go-go dancers

sing their spike and powder love of home.

Olympians served as secret police, 

the well hench iron-fisters of the state.

The fall of the bully collective 

left the wrestlers out of work,

Bulgaria’s guardians stripped the skin

off a barely breathing body

and dressed themselves Ed Gein style

in Gazprom and the banks,

in eviscerated industries.

Malevolent phlebotomists,

they found employment

draining blood. 

Muscles of the Nomenklatura

protect each household

from the vagaries of liberty.

The Lev shrinks as we speak.

5 today is 4 

tomorrow night it’s 3.

A smart man takes the cash 

he saved up all his life,

and buys a bag of flour,

a sack of sugar,

an egg or two,

something that will last.

a plum rain slaps our street
awakening wrens

Grazing

like the nape of your neck

in the palm of my

lick the length of your blade

with the rough of my

like the pulse of your throat

bows the bone of my 

 lick the gasp of your breast

when the skin crimsons

you loose a swallow and

we lose the will

to rise.

National Velvet

three a.m. reflects
how beauty numbs

the legend wilts

we all reflect

how beauty cures 
an indelicate tamarind

though everyone is beautiful

celluloid projects

the mysteries of light

bewildering utility

our eyes project

the lure of silly radiation

we are undone with generous speed

though everyone is beautiful

meth freaks skin Bambi in the driveway

meth freaks skin Bambi in the driveway

A roto-tiller grinds up the backyard.

Blackberry brambles shriek against the blades.

His home-pricked tattoo smeared across limp muscle,

my neighbor unloads eight rounds at the blue

metal halide streetlamp,

bringing it down in convulsive showers of gas and glass

 to lighten the atmosphere of his fresh-plowed garden.

A city truck drove up to replace it two weeks later,

so he shot it out again.

We found a genuine cherry

laminate television console

on the corner of Alemany & Sickles,

smashed in the screen with a roller skate

and planted hydrangeas inside.

Angela set the controls for the next lunar eclipse.

The Perseids arrive as venison dries in the garage

and all the spoons start to curl in the kitchen drawer.

A tribute to Nina Hagen - five short poems

banshee arias

in a kreuzberg squat

warping vinyl

spun on

stolen electricity

rangehen

warm wax

spilling candlelight

on stale crackers

a safe distance

from the fire of her

generous ferocity

the sparkle of her snarl

reminds me of my own

mad crush