In the Station of the CTA

Orange juice pools on the floor at my feet
Dripping from a McDonald's cup
No one stops to clean it up

The Love Song Of Sirhan Sirhan

Pay to the order of this and that

The comely sum of tit for tat

For services rendered where and when

Check post-dated there and then

Total is due upon receipt

To keep our ledger books clean and neat

Enclose with check S.A.S.E.

Do it now A.S.A.P.

O Hippopotamus

O Hippopotamus

Your friends all call you Hippo

O Hippopotamus

Let me borrow your Zippo

'Cause I need a smoke

And I know you got fire

You're a fire-breathin' Hippo

If Ever I Should Lose My Sight

If ever I should lose my sight
I’d ask my last vision to be of you
That I might carry into that dark night
Your golden image glimpsed anew
Your raven hair, your crimson lips
Your alabaster skin
Those pale blue eyes that launched a thousand ships
And mesmerized gods and men
O let me gaze upon you now
That I might yet survey
She who makes Aphrodite bow
And hold the dark at bay

Obsession

Lake Michigan roiled and tumbled onto Lake Shore Drive

As the Thames lapped at its banks

And the Atlantic and Pacific ebbed and flowed with the moon

Crying, “you are mine…you are mine…you are mine…”

November

Let's talk about sports, let's talk about us
Let's talk about sex, now don't make a fuss
It won't hurt to just talk about it, will it?
Wait! See that bug? Think I'll kill it.
There! No, I missed it. Oh well, now where...?
Oh, yes, I was about to comment on your long golden hair
And how it splays across your shoulders, so creamy and soft
And then, those lips, of which I've dreamt so oft-
en. How I'd love to kiss them, to hold you in my -
What? No, no, it rhymed. The "en" was on the other line
But it doesn't matter, really, these are post-modern days
And anything goes, thus comes my malaise
There used to be rules to live by, structures to hold onto
Now there's nothing, that's why I want to
Cling to you like Que Queg's coffin in Moby Dick
(Maybe that's too obscure, perhaps I'd better stick
To post-modern references and pop culture allusions
And pander to the masses to avoid these confusions)
At any rate, I digress, and this poem's become a mess
But, then, it reflects where I am without you, I guess
A rambling wreck, the unknown specimen tossed in the centrifuge
Flying apart, grasping for something, some sort of refuge
And that's you, I'm afraid. Hold me, kiss me, just let me know
For one instant, one moment, that I'm loved

Ramble Number One

I gazed into your eyes and saw
My own reflection, and I thought
She is looking at me as I am looking at her
And there's no place we'd rather be

And then I thought,
Does my hair look all right?
Isn't the part too severe?
If i shake my head a little...

"I love you," I heard you say

but not like you're thinking,
in a cindy and bobby brady sort of way

meaning,

I'll dress up and be in your magic show
but don't ask me to kiss you
'cause, even though we're not really brother
and sister, that's how I'll always think of you

But that was all in my head
You didn't say it

"I love you, too," I heard myself say
Looking at you and thinking,
"what is she crazy? she's her and i'm just me
she of the flowing locks, me of the severe part
she with the lips you just know
she was the one fifteen years ago
with the cherry life-saver flavored chapstick
you could just taste..."

I kissed your lips and breathed your breath and thought
This is real. This is right. And this will last
Forever

And maybe. Just maybe
I might get some