Spiders and Flies

Caught up in the old firm line
Hopeless struggles the fly.
And here too dead hang by design
Souls departed and blood sucked dry.
Enter keepers of the web
Tying heavy struggling shapes
Hoping to prolong life’s ebb
Entwining wings to bar escapes.
Carcass now hung by dangling thread
A trophy for the captors’ slake
Ruined and drained the fly is dead
Realizing too late the great mistake.

One to this insect may relate
The Bogle and Gates* associate.

*One of the premiere full service law firms in Seattle before it went under in the 1990's

Playa Del Carmen

Palm thatched palapas stand and run
Loud surf crashes in rhythms strong
And breasts offer up bare to the sun.
Young and old couples walk along.
Aggressive Mexicans ply their crafts
Dogs in shade of the tourist chair
Elitist Mayans share cold laughs
Little sand-birds running nowhere.
Chaac-Mool still serves gods’ message to man
And at water-sorcerers’ well
Rests great serpent god Kukulcan
Marking where ones sacrificed fell.

Each display on Tzompantli knew
None of the promises were true.

Palapas – a sun umbrella made of palm leaves

Chaac-Mool – messenger to the gods

Kukulcan – god of the sun

Tzompantli – the wall where severed heads of those sacrificed to Kukulcan were displayed.

Dream Engine

Wound up so tight
Each pressure gage
Exceeds max height
Kracking with rage.
Engine shut down
Now parts with wear
Driven to town
Get their repair.
Engine switch on
The Bullet Train
All problems gone
Winds up again.

Amid all the klickety-klack
Your dreams need rest upon the track.

Andromeda

Abandoned here by our father
Named the scapegoat for your sin
Done without concern or bother
Regarding my delicate skin.
Openly you claim to love me
Matted hair tangled in knots black
Epiphany of truth mine eyes see
During arms wide spread and wrists pinned back.
As long impending death draws nigh
Some do watch with true reverence
Letting themselves think I would die
Only for their deliverance.

Tell each such ignorant fool ear
That I was never a volunteer.

Caffe Greco

Talk to me old crushed velvet walls
O’ Victorian busts speak up too
Betray openly your memories all
Exclude nothing and speak always true.
Carefree god Pan full of smile and mirth
Account of those who here shared your mood
For here I came inspiration dearth
For here I seek it where Keats once stood.
Even now echoes poets’ laughter
Gathered over espresso and smoke
Reclining in your red chairs after
Extolling some long forgotten joke.

Continue your watch time worn Caffe Greco
Only could I but share each musing you know.

Workaholics

They sit small under office light,
skin drawn back pale and sickly white

Hapless all in great black masses
of round bellies and fat asses.

Each weekend workday that is lite,
herd stampedes beaches for sun's sight

Separate from the lower classes
sporting oils and tinted glasses.

Under the gun guts glaze and bake
disappointed with how much they make.

Maybe they’ll be on a boat
racked payments keeping it afloat.

Maybe they’ll be in a lake
lamenting for a boat to take.

Either which way its laze and bloat
a-griping at what gets their goat.

Right here I sit, cast among them
wishing hard not to become them.

Foolish and true a hypocrite
I too do all their same old shit.

Oh how it makes me choke and phlegm
to admit that I am just like them!

Onto their mold I do not fit
and it has me in a real snit.

Last year I vowed to quit this scrape
yet here I am the sour grape.

Someone help me to escape.
Someone help me to escape.

Benaroya Hall

Audience knee bends before modest seat
To rehearsing minstrel cacophony.
Backstage though maestro and cellist guest fleet
Enter they stately amid symphony.
Nocturnal-esq senses now orchestrate
Alan Hovhaness’ cello concerto
Rapt as Janos Starker skills navigate
Opus seventeen number one alto.
Yet hands with no lesser gifted talent
Assembled this hall humble of music
Having satisfaction in its advent
And recognition being intrinsic.

Loud accolades praise artists who fill it.
Louder still what inspired to build it.

Jazz Alley

After drinks in the upstairs lounge
Toasts and a bummed cigarette
Tonight’s seedy faced tip scrounge
Has us stage side for the late set.
Eating up the hot blue spotlight
John Pizzarelli strokes each fan
And trio lips screw up tight
Zip-zapping out tunes for “Best Man”.
Zoo keeper-esq night club hostess
As we jazz rats applaud the act
Lifts away our cold dinner mess
Less candle-wicks burning intact.

Eye wonder at the difference
You see in live experience.

Sarbanes Oxley

We put our darlings’ trust into Wall Street
Resulting in Ruin; it was stolen
As though Paris stole Helen – a golden
Trickster, a grand seduction, a deceit.
How could this happen? How did damned cheats
Fool each proud accountant and lawyer den?
Unfaithful servants they lied to us when
Lording truth meant padded client receipts.

And so all good men fall prey to such dreg
Cast from Street dime-less by sickening deed
Handouts their last hope for being made well.
And so for however long y’all must beg
I am to vile chiefdoms’ infectious greed
Achaia, when fairest Ilion fell.

Sherman Alexie

Listening to you Sherman Alexie
Each act of incest or alcoholism
Traces back to “bad acts of Cavalry”
Serving white man’s evil colonialism.
Excuse me for pointing out the lie, but
Legacies of conquerors long dead?
Feed not my guilty conscience such glut.
Past history falls on no modern head.
In childhood I saw my father named
The label of “dirty d.p.” and stranger
Yet today we are players in the game
Each respect gained from action, not anger.

Nations whose culture, artist, and lover
Dwell most on setback never recover.