I Don’t Buy It
I don’ t buy it, says
the scientist.
Replies the frail
and faithful heart,
it’ s not for sale.
I Don’t Have a Pill for That
It scares me to watch
a woman hobble along
the sidewalk, hunched adagio
leaning on —
there’ s so much fear
I could draw you a diagram
of the great reduction
all of us will soon
be way-back-when.
The wedding is over.
Summer is over.
Life please explain.
This book is nearly halfway read.
I don’ t have a pill for that,
the doctor said.
I Fail As a Celibate
Despair leaves
a dry spot
the passage of light
through my veins.
I fail as a celibate.
The smell of honey
fills my throat.
I lose touch with
my bone when
it stiffens.
Sometimes
I find a place
to spring
& spike you
while you cry.
I try to rev things up
although I hate
the sound of flying.
Gagging leaves
the breath
no exit.
Then the chest puffs out,
no longer hapless,
in the face of
everything aloof
& distant,
I Flew into Denver April
I flew into Denver April.
Rock salt and sand peppered the asphalt
reflecting myself on a downtown street
where I’ d paused on my route to smell lilacs.
The wanton winds chortled wickedly
over remnant snows in gray clumps of doom
and my heart soared gladly at winter’ s death
but an hour later I had whiskey breath
at a dead end bar full of Indians.
A Winnebago woman waltzed with me
and told me how handsome I truly was
so I bought her drinks and felt her hips
and somewhere between the grinds
I Genitori Perduti
The dove-white gulls
on the wet lawn in Washington Square
in the early morning fog
each a little ghost in the gloaming
Souls transmigrated maybe
from Hudson’ s shrouded shores
across all the silent years —
Which one’ s my maybe mafioso father
in his so white suit and black shoes
in his real estate office Forty-second Street
or at the front table wherever he went —
Which my dear lost mother with faded smile
I Google Myself
I Google myself
I want you to love me
When I feel down
I want you to Google me
I search myself
I want you to find me
I Google myself
I want you to remind me
I don’ t Google anybody else
When I think about you
I Google myself
Ooh
I don’ t Google anybody else
At home alone in the middle of the night
I Google myself
I Google myself
And see you before me
Any fool could see
Just how much I Google myself
Get down on your knees &
Friend me and Poke me
I Grant You Ample LeaveI Grant You Ample Leave
"I grant you ample leave
To use the hoary formula 'I am'
Naming the emptiness where thought is not;
But fill the void with definition, 'I'
Will be no more a datum than the words
You link false inference with, the 'Since' & 'so'
That, true or not, make up the atom-whirl.
Resolve your 'Ego', it is all one web
With vibrant ether clotted into worlds:
Your subject, self, or self-assertive 'I'
Turns nought but object, melts to molecules,
Is stripped from naked Being with the rest
I Had a Little Nut Tree
I had a little nut tree,
Nothing would it bear
But a silver nutmeg
And a golden pear;
The King of Spain's daughter
Came to visit me,
And all for the sake
Of my little nut tree.
Her dress was made of crimson,
Jet black was her hair,
She asked me for my nutmeg
And my golden pear.
I said, "So fair a princess
Never did I see,
I'll give you all the fruit
From my little nut tree."
"I danced o'er the water,
I danced o'er the sea,
And all the birds in the air,
Couldn't catch me"
I Had an Easter Bunny
I had an Easter bunny.
One day she ran away.
I looked for her by moonlight.
I looked for her by day.
I found her in the meadow
With her babies one, two, three.
So now I have four rabbit pets
To run and jump with me!
I have a furry kitten
I have a furry kitten,
He's black and white and grey,
When I try to cuddle him,
He always wants to play.
So I drag a piece of string
Across the kitchen floor,
He thinks it is a little mouse
To chase out of the door!