The Philosopher’s Wheel

Sorry, but the carny at the throttle
didn’t hear your screams. Perhaps the brother
has a little problem with the bottle.

Nodding off, his head drops and his wattle
spreads to Mötley Crue and Iron Butter.
Sorry, but the carny at the throttle

hardly cares about your prayers. And God’ll
never hear ‘em here! I’d say this muthah
has a little problem with the bottle-

neck of geeks, the bee lights and the audile
wall of panic in the midway smother.
Sorry, but the carny at the throttle

needs a little “carny time.” We’ll coddle
him—but what of you, platonic lover?
Has a little problem with the bottle

on the ground come down to Aristotle
leaning on the stick, or in the gutter?
Sorry. But the carny at the throttle
has a little problem with the bottle.

North Side

Cold mud and crack huts
under the cherry blossoms.
Spring has jumped the gun.

Cowboy

I liked you better when you had a soul,
before the Mr. Sad-eyed Lonesome Handsome
deal. I liked you better in the hole,
before you held a ton of hearts for ransom.
I liked you when you didn’t have a song,
before you cast the barstool as the leading
man. I liked you when your hair was long.
I liked you better when your eyes were bleeding.
I liked when you were wrong and I was right,
when I could face you down and get on top.
I liked you better just the other night.
I’d like to know the words to make you stop.
I’d like to disembowel your sacred cow.
I’d like to find out how you like me now.

On Mont Sainte-Victoire

After a poem by Georges Rouault

The trees at nightfall, mistral-tossed,
swept darkly at a sky embossed
with stars. The tired hermit gazed
upon the firmament, unfazed
again by symbols of success,
the lights parading in a tress
of banners. “Brrrr, it’s cold,” he said,
and pushed that black hat on his head
around which laurels never wound,
as none could reach the higher ground.

Psalm of Robins

A hearty winter psalm, the redbreast robins work 

the holly tree from misty base camps in the wood 

across the street. They disappear into the green 

to pop out one by one and cut through icy air 

en route to comrades waiting in the naked sticks. 

And aren’t redbreasts thought to be a sign of spring? 



Disturbing all the new-dropped snow, the branches spring 

their badly-camouflaged brigades. Today, the work 

of man is complicated by a slush that sticks 

to everything, including cords of firewood 

left stacked beneath the vagaries of the open air. 

Neglect and reckoning. And still, the evergreen, 



resplendent in its alb, convenes a wintergreen 

communion. Slings the laity. A constant spring 

of russet softballs, the preliminary air- 

support for April’s landing party, sets to work 

across the wires. It flips to dodging patterns that would 

throw the errant angels earthward as it sticks 



to spearfish diving. Crimson fruit, the sticks 

and brambles, snow and sunlight complement the green 

Cathedral of the Mistletoe. The ice and wood 

will be here in the morning. Set the spring 

of winter’s clock to wind as slowly and to work 

as unpredictably as cloudlines in the air. 



They’re everywhere, endowing the suburban air 

with Hitchcock premonition. Here’s a scene that sticks 

with you and draws you in. Inspired by the work 

of Bruegel and Hieronymus—the devil’s green, 

a pastorale of grey and white—these songs that spring 

across the lawn have sketchy harmonies, a wood 



ensemble hitting strings and tympani with wood 

and wind that lift the redbreast to its hectic air. 

Survival. To a resurrection at the dawn of spring 

as in its transit from the holly to the sticks, 

it comes to light upon a crucifix. The green- 

sward is a mirror of the heavens now, the work 



of a capricious God, a work of frozen wood. 

The swelling in the green will flutter in the air 

as, tentative, the sticks hold out a prayer for spring.

From February, 2008

Let’s get naked and dig The Doors
Let’s be German between the wars
Pitch our tents in the finer stores
And chant down Babylon’s hockey scores
Embarrass our riches
Discover our pores
In bed with a belly-up Texan who snores
In debt to our atavist dinosaurs
Instead of the capital bankers and whores
The future’s devoid of the obvious bores
And the sun doesn’t blow in the end
It roars

Danielle and Maggie

Oil on canvas, 9″ x 12″

Marie with Her Mother’s Hat

Oil on canvas, 18″ x 14″

Clouds

His brother had a recipe for clouds,
but that was more a formula for magic
than for chemistry, a kind of tragic
folding of ingredients as shrouds
of cumuli advanced outside the lab,
above the kitchen where he couldn’t see
and wouldn’t have been able to decree
that all of heaven is a cake to grab
and carry in a shoebox to his room
where he could sleep on it and tell his friends
about the view, the colors from inside
as he gazed out from where the cloud line ends
or down into the bowl of murky gloom
he stirred, refrigerated, spooned and fried.

Engines

Around the corner,
or whistling down the river…—Stephen Sondheim

It starts with photos on the front page of the Times—
Remember Giuliani with the holy men?
Well, today, another candidate has hats and beards
surrounding him. Hevesi is it? Maybe Green.
Ah, the primaries. The possibility of change
pervading skies of adamant cerulean

this morning over Vesey Street. Cerulean,
the coolest shade of blue. And there were several times
this weekend that I tuned in to impending change—
the news of an assassination, where two men
in Afghanistan who posed as journalists in green
and yellow mufti did the job. I saw his beard

and turban, this Massoud, the photo of the beards
and hats around him as they stood beneath cerulean
Afghan skies. Now, I’ll admit to being green
regarding Middle East affairs despite my Times
subscriptions (New York and Financial). But these men
affected me–somehow the news suggested change

beyond their bleak Afghanistan. The theme of change
had surfaced Saturday—“Russ Tamblyn!!? Where’s the beard?!”
I shouted, watching West Side Story. All the men
in Sharks and Jets were sliding through the high cerulean
rooftops. And I shouted to my daughter every time
the camera panned and pointed down toward Bowling Green,

“What’s missing?” Technicolor slid across the screen
into the harbor. “How about the Towers, Em! Some changes
since they filmed this in the ‘60s!” “Heady times,”
she quipped.

This morning as I ponder hats and beards,
the candidates and Afghans fighters, a cerulean
canopy unfolds above the plaza. Men

and women glide in countervailing currents, men
and women moving to and from the towers. Green
and yellow banners gently sway in the cerulean
light in which the engines haven’t faded. Change
is revving engines to a pillow punch, a beard
of contrails on the face of fire. End of Times

meet Genesis. The Times will count the firemen.
And I will start a winter beard. Tomorrow. Green
will change to red against the cold cerulean sky.