I Disremember November 4.0

November 2015- How Black was my Friday ?

Black Friday (in person)

When Black Friday comes
the Consumers of Gridville
huddle in the parking lots
in predawn frozen blackness
waiting for the sensor doors
to activate and swing open
so that the ensuing stampede
into the widget warehouse

can gush cheap trinket
torrents of electronic desire
to purge themselves

*
of what limited imaginations
they have left and haven’t
squandered and impaled
upon product acquisition
suggestions programmed
to them by fiber optic
daily behavioral vampires
so well appointed
with glistening fangs
of fashion compulsion
obsessive consumption
in a GPS vortex
instantly alerting them
of the nowhere
they lust….

Is here
In stock
On Sale
And they simply cannot
live without it.

November 2015– “Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby, in a singular mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”― Herman Melville

Bartleby the Scrivener

Insisting Cedric

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnEVyoNKI38

When the November
Sunday afternoon
was two beer chilly delicious
insisting Cedric silhouetted
his way apparition like
throughout the day.

Cedric had believed
he had unearthed
a final solution
to the dilemma of desire
Hunger that ate away
Common lust and
relentless thirst for passion
that was a debilitating distraction
and annoying crippling addiction.

Cedric simply smiled
nodded
and caved in.

To it.
All of it.
They could bring it
all they wanted
to him
or take it
away from him.

His Wife
His Mistress
His Exotic Dancer
even his Daughter.

They called him names.

Unfaithful Bastard
A guilty secret pleasure
The answer to a prayer
A Coward
A liar
Dangerous
and of course…

Daddy
All his life the women
had their way with Cedric
They had left him
over and over and over
dissatisfied
elated
devastated
ravaged
despondent
but most of all
puzzled.

Cedric once had a
barroom full of old time used-to-be
drinking buddies, pals, bros …..

But over the years
all those battered beaten birds
had turned up
Old
Odd
Estranged
Vacant
Mad
Pissed off
Missing
or just
Dead.

So at this advanced age
Cedric sat in the Garage
in the November Sunset
accepting this truth.

Women survived
Women endured
Women thrived
Women would out live
everyone\everything
and most certainly Cedric

Cedric capitulated completely
to the shelter of their cunts
the silence of their eyes
the power in their mighty cold hearts
Their disappointment in him
for what he was….

was not…

Could have been
Should have been

but never was

enough.
Cedric accepted this sentence
Indefinite incarceration
remained to the
Planet of Unhappy Women
with him.

So in return
He would just
resign himself
to love all them
exactly in the same way
they had infected him
with their fire.

Cedric would just pass their torch
right back to them.

Where if in hell there
was no furry like a woman scorned.
They were going to have company.
Intact.
Verbatim.

Cedric insisted.

He would prefer to

11/09

New Work Fall 2015

Series of Puzzling Images

That penny that had been dropped
into the bottom
of a urinal wishing well

Abandoned shopping cart left
in the doorway of a padded
cell presently out of service
due to lack of adequate padding.

-Fragment circa 2011

Almost Falling for it Again 10/15
*
Remembering Echinacea
They said on the package
These seeds are for the Fall
Where this old poem reverberates
In the dirt dreaming of flowers
Out of season.

Hear these lines
In the voice in your head
Cross threaded counter clock wise guy
Always just dim enough to try
And get the lid back on the jar wondering why ?

Pandora would be so proud
To think a cyber citizen of the Terrible Now
Might still let loose holy hell
In this numb estrangement night just might
With a keystroke strangle hold ring that old bell.

Blossom there Moron
You persistence of memory
Where they dug all their seeds in you
Only to disappear like a melted stop watch
Before they bloomed.

*
Visions of Kenny

(for Uncle Ken)

Kenneth on the New London ferry
Up on deck smoking a Viceroy
Thinking about Aggie watching
the white wake slice Sound
cross currents to Orient Point.

Same old story here-
Time to collect the family
The Summer all ready on the skids
Going back down to the red convertible
And popping the trunk as the duck bumps
Fishes out a frosty can of Narragansett
Out of the cooler with cubes still stuck to it.

Back behind wheel he takes a long pull
Off the smoke exhaling

Thinking-

As soon as I get off this-I’m headed right down to Turner House
And taking Nana for a ride- We’re going to get lost
For a few hours and have a long talk.

*
October Shorts 10/15

Somewhere a wind chime
Found its voice
Choking on Spider Webs
*
The S Sound

Summer severed season sigh Sunday
Sullen sandals & swords silent

*
Please Tell Me…

…you at least when down swinging
As the horsehide popped into the catcher’s glove

All Souls Day

*
November shrugged at the time the masks slipped
Stripped away in the face of high wind warnings as if in this season begged advisements cautions
Still mild that morning fooling few to believe
That this day would pass swaddled in gray soft gauze
While the light diffused diminishing increments
Was that encroaching mist unraveling like a ball of yarn
To cascade down a slope of cotton
Falling needle pinpoints liquefied
There was this puncturing of scattered shallow puddles
Reverberating in sound wave concrete circles
Auditory auditions sharpening a deaf set of eyes
In these stains of ink
Lurk faceless memories I think
Past Persona gone non-grata
November shrugged at the time the masks slipped away
To reveal the naked face of high wind awnings
As if this season begged advisement cautions