BLIND DOG

I bought a porcelain dog
at a second hand store
Blind Willie  stands and stares at me
with perpendicular eyes

he needs food
and a water bowl
I need  love
and his bark

we stand frustrated

EIGHT BAR STOOLS

almost every night at ten
they held court at the Cedar Street Tavern
a landscape of rebel poets and painters
defying rules that might be formalized
talking jazz and baseball
guzzling eight oz jugs of beer
drunk

Kerouac was always at stool one
trying to find the next word
another ashtray to piss in
and the road ahead
never sorry

Pollack would sit next to him
dripping paint dropping spills
before kicking in the men's room door
pissing on the unstreched canvas
never missing

Corso sat at stool three
knowing he had been saved
after kicking in cafe window
finding words in prison
never graduating

de Kooning sits at stool four
feeling the desperation in himself
trembling on the bar stool
throwing his melodrama of paint
before falling

Creely sits between the two painters
sitting so patiently
no knowing who he is
presuming he is a poet
never regrettable

Rothko sits in stool six
never being moved by colors
searching for their emotions
and expressing his non-self
always intimate

O'Hara sits on the next stool
waiting for his next catastrophe
eyes vague looking away
being sick to his stomach
too much vodka

Kline always sits at stool eight
looking familiar in his blueness
with images of his emotions
painting in black and white
eight bar stools

POET'S EPITAPH

words of the soul
slowly running thru
the worst and best of me
forever
like my blood
the creek flows
with fear
unafraid of critics
to the forgiving ocean

YESTERDAY'S SLEEP

releasing the dust storm from her eyes
and the broken memories of the past
beneath the dark sky where stars sleep
she arises from her dreaming mind

seeking the truth by starlight
with the mysterious music of Persia
strangled by expectations
she feels the breeze of yesterday

ascending from the bed of rumours
and the thousand years of madness
beneath the dark sky where willows weep
she shivers with yesterday's voices

feeling the aches of broken postures
inflicted upon sleepless nights
high from her addictions
she fears the applause for falling asleep

having lost the imagination of death
with the blurred vision of falling
standing alone at the window

dreaming of yesterday's sleep

GROWING

growing peacefully
rain drops on the fern's shoulders
wetness of July
soil gets ready for more growth
before leaving with winter