landline phone

my life is a landline telephone tethered
to the ground
magnet for nuisance calls

on the bus they all dab madly
with their thumbs on colorful wireless gadgets
with all these appliances -- music, games,
video, text, tweets, hair dryers, refrigerators
and the endless jabber jabber jabber

each morning at 9:40 precisely I get the call
from Mumbai
some young chap with a thick Gujarati accent --
"Hello, sir, my name is Villiam Jones..."
he wants to sell me protection for my credit card

then at 4:24 pm the automated girl calls
inflection always the same (must be a tape) --
"I'm calling because there's a chance that I can
save you a lot of money"

I gave up talking on the phone in the late sixties
when all the phones were tapped
you never knew who was listening --
might be the Russians, might be the CIA,
might be the SIS, or even your mother

but I keep paying the phone bill in the hopes
somebody will call
who's worth talking to
it's like playing the lottery for 30 bucks a month
always a chance for a miracle

when poets grow old

when poets grow old they go

to teach English in the universities

thus Ginsberg wound up at

Brooklyn College, and Snyder

at UC Davis, like gentle lions

in the protected game preserves

they were forged in the fires

of the fifties and sixties

the heroic Journey to the East,

assaulting the politicians of

the deadbrained armies, the soulless

and lacklove Molochs of Amerika

Snyder a shaman of the mountains

and Ginsberg a shaman of the cities

Ginsberg sending out cosmopolitan greetings

and roars to the end; I saw him a year

before his death, chanting “Don’t smoke

the official dope” – wry, cynical, untamed

Snyder making love to the earth

he discovered oil as long ago as the fifties

and named the addiction; in sixty-seven

at the Houseboat Summit with Leary

and Watts, they plotted a new civilization,

just around the corner, the new dawn

and fought for it in the streets; well,

we all know what happened to that

fabled Age of Aquarius we thought

would save us, and the world – the devil

principalities and wicked governments

shot that down, discouraged our children

I studied Russian Novel with Nick Lindsay

at Goshen College, wrote a paper on

“The Impotent Hero” – how prophetic

Nick’s old man Vachel had killed himself

so Nick fathered thirteen children, delivered

them all by hand, with DuBose’s help of course

Nick remained a carpenter on Edisto Island,

banging out the Gullah rhythms, poetry in

his calloused hands and tormented hammers

so poets forge their own destinies – Rimbaud

went off to sell guns and trade slaves, Thomas

drank himself to death

poetry is not a trade for the faint-hearted who

wear green Nehru jackets when they’re in

fashion and flit about reading crap at the

colleges – we’ve all seen them come and go

some poets write one poem in their life

and that’s it – most die weeping in the alleys

oracle bones

bones crack and the turtle sings
sun tomorrow, snow to melt slowly
the king will be victorious, no disaster
springtime and harvest, sowing and reaping

on Saturday morning I go shopping
bare trees blossom dirty plastic bags
sixteen pigeons on the roof's edge
the trolleys and El are running again

and the snow is melting slowly
our kitchen sink is stopped up
no hot water, the toilet is leaking
how long, oh Lord, how long

poring over the crime report last night
on google maps, looking at sex offenders
the neighborhood's plastered with rapists
the houses are abandoned

in America the rich are becoming richer
the poor inevitably poorer, same story
the kings are victorious, no disaster
and the peasants are starving as always

snow melts slowly, no flooding expected
dirty mounds stick up like Devil's Mountain
robins pick at the plastic foliage
this year's nests will be poisoned

my bones are old and my bags heavy
for the first time I hire a driver
the hack's friendly, an entertainer
he's from down south, can't believe this weather

I lug my groceries up the stairs
the steps are always getting steeper
but the view from the third floor is worth it
in my windows the orchids are blooming

root canal

ice sliding from the roof

crashes down

on Broad Street slush

sucks at your boots

Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber

brings in crowds at the Merriam

I never cared much for

Broadway musicals, still less

for the soft rock on the radio

as I sit in the endodontist's chair

pondering the X-rays of my molars

blown up on the flat screen

as though reviewing a misspent life

while I wait

the dentist and her assistant

converse in code:

"2-3-6-10-3-3" "ok"

"18-18-22-18-22"

my dentist has brown eyes and

peers down at me anxiously

like my mother

beethoven's fifth, kimmel center

released from the dungeon

you walk on the sky

in a vast, soaring glass

terrarium

your daily solitary walk

in brick exercise yard

suddenly blossoms

with possibilities

those horns, those horns

blast, and lift you up

arising united with fellow humans

into the velvety contours

of the viol's body