Fall Remembers Everything

October 2015-So- How’s that mask this year ?

In the End of October

*
The day had been the kind of grey
that elected itself spokesman
for the afternoon.
The voice chilled with a certain
knowledge of pale blue diluted
into a chilly white that promised lassitude.
The voice is saying the seasons
are in collision and we are in the locking in.
Fall has spent weeks gathering on the ground
and Winter as of yet is disinterested
in the whole business
refuses to go to work
so the ground shuffles the leaves like
a card shark ready to
deal ice cube deuces for your hand.
The time of the mask comes and goes.
So the night fills and drains costumes.

Stalking Quick Bank; Celebrity hero murderers,
Syntax gender victims seeking damages; Purple
suited stunt person blubbering compassion and
politeness; decapitated rock stars, mutilated
millionaire ex-cheerleaders and just plain folks
caught in the crossfire, carjacking drive-by
random acts of brutal insanity of choice or chance.
Legions of green, yellow, red, black and white
three foot high grunting kicking punching power
midgets morphing into respected connected influential
public officials and politicians that are shaping the
course of personal liberty in your lives.
The traditional allotment of vampires, ghouls, demons
and blood thirsty fetus snatching liberal aliens.
What freedom the night affords.
All the secretaries become waitresses, the waitresses
begot actresses, the actresses begot whores, the whores
begot Raggedy Ann princesses, who begot
gypsies and then as the dawn breaks they all turn back to
secretaries.
The great hangover of our self-deception on
all souls night.

I watched you swim the twilight
while the trees are stripped of their delicate garments.
You are swallowing the dusk in buckets
drowning in a swirl of mad flight as the undertow of
the wind sucks and pushes brittle leaves dragging
their finger nails along the sidewalk.
On the way home, I’ll buy you a pumpkin
and we can carve a face into it and take turns
guessing whose it is.

Taken out in the American Trash
1471 1st Ave. NYC
Halloween 10/2010

*
I was standing at the urinal
in the Men’s room in American Trash
and the devil strolled in and positioned
himself next to me and unzipped
and I glanced over and said
Hiya Satan.
Long time no see
How’s the old demon tonight?
He coolly regarded me in the mirrors
reflection in the mortal image in front of us
and corrected me saying,
That’s Lucifer to you son.
He asked me what I was supposed to be
A beat writer I replied
He smirked.
Finished pissing
vanishing in a plume of fire and brimstone.
And I thought,
“What….no deal?”
So I retreat back into the barroom of humorless costumes
as the night of masks passed with a the dead captain singing
with a ring toss dildo attached to his loins
that love won’t keep us together
when Bad Barbie strolled in
still in the box
with a five o clock shadow
and unlit White Owl Tiparilo
ordering a drinking next to me at the bar.
And of course.

She had a proposition for me

-Sometimes Grief 2012

Yogi Berra. File photo 1965 by Indy photographer Fred Parrish.

You can remember a lot by not forgetting— Not attributed to the late Saint Yogi Berra -Updated 10/11/2015

It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

― Yogi Berra

October Older

Pull in the soften light
as October nears past
a new moon across the sky
in the next street over
here where your absence
passes aspiration in a blur
of newer older days where
Fall emerges fresh
in still born green leaves
patches of watercolor encroach
like your temples gray
Turning away from the truth
the days are sneaking years by you
diminishing the sight
stiffening the limb
Time winding you down
your energy ebbing
singing alone in the empty driveway
the vehicle of your flesh
is late
and growing later all the while
so I still strain to hear the sounds
I need to
while resisting the same I’m forced
to endure
the terrible ticking of the now
in my ears
A sound I find
I cannot refuse or resist.

Sometimes Grief- barks up the wrong tree –2012

October is fronting again

October thought itself into existence
promising color and resistance
sporadic warmth
but most of all they knew the drill
the general consensus was it was everyone’s
favorite season
Sentimental prattle
few would speak against it
but the truth was it really was all about
so much dying
a lingering some color lied to your face
and pending harvest rotted in the fields
but whatever came next
was always just a chilly gray November rain.

Fall From the Clouds

*
(recorded as October-Bi-polar on Quattro-Vox 2013)

The light now
At this cusp of
The season
Can change
As many as
Three or four
Times a day
At dawn
Shafts cut
Cone funnels
As light mist
Snakes S shapes
Upon the asphalt.
By noon
The sky is a bruise
And softly cries
For something better
Than what was lost
And not knowing
Just what
Comes next.
Mid-Afternoon
Perhaps Summer
May briefly return
To warm and
Take the briefest
Of bows on
The way out.
By Dusk
The chilly black eyed
Shadows like dark circles
Under the eyes
And the subsequent tears
Falling now are for real
As is the chill dark of the night.