The Sun Sets

Every fifth year Jesus walks into the middle of Times Square and, with a colt revolver as a guarantee and blows his brains out. It is never the same time of day, but always on January 1st so all day residents avoid the square, usually staying in altogether because there is always a chance they will forget what day it, walk through the square, and ruin their favorite coat.

Tourists, on the other hand, pack into rows upon rows of seats, fill the balconies, or pretend to be searching for something in the Disney store while keeping an eye out for a man with long hair and a 45. This is surprisingly hard to nail down considering the number of imitators that, whether it is religious fanaticism or celebrity trend-following, choose to take their own lives after growing a full head of hair. Consequently it has become a noted sign of severe depression to have hair past the shoulders.

On occasion one of the more traditionally devoted spectators will attempt to talk Jesus down as he pulls his luxurious hair back over one ear and clicks the hammer into place, but, with a look of dull courtesy he always responds, "See you next time" and it is over.

Carry The Scars Of Your Weekend

This aching sunset etched in my back
will peel into the muddled waters
of our rippling youth and yet
the glowing crescent,
permanently affixed and smiling
in its quiet mountain landscape,
fails to leave an impression
when the city lights,
in their misguided splendor,
drown out its face.

Our Soft Focus Life

I'm looking into the future,
ten years or so,
into our cottage
outside the city,
with a study for me
and a room for your hobbies;

our endless present's
edges become feathered.
The colors run together.
We are impressionistic.
Golden light seeps from the corners.

Suburban Gloaming

Your ash-brown soles on the dashboard,
seat reclined to the napping point
as we coasted through nowhere and stopped
to eat out of a basket in the cul-de-sac
where I first felt the pull of the moon.
There is no scorched earth, only scorching
pavement, yet lions squeeze through the cracks
and ants pool around any dropped morsel.
When I said this you threw the salt shaker
out the window. It shattered into a glinting
constellation and as each piece was carried off
underground we drove away.

Allen Ginsberg Aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln

Let the President execute his own desire--
I claim my birthright!
I call all Powers of imagination
in every direction.
I lift my voice aloud,
reborn after the vast sadness of War Gods,
published to my own senses,
approved with pleasure by my sensations.

Let Congress legislate its own delight
and pronounce words beginning my own millennium;
blissfully received by my own form:
destroyer of battlefield illusions,
of human kingdoms to come.
Let the States tremble
when our trembling bodies hold each other
on the bridge over the Republican River-
The feeling from our faces
burst into animal beauty
15 years ago--

Let the Nation weep,
O but how many in their solitude weep aloud like me--
the bodylove emanating in a glow of beloved skin,
visible on the horizon
reborn forever as long as Man
who loosed the bomb that's slaved all human consciousness.
Manifestation of my very thought,
this Act done by my own voice,
I here declare the end of the War!

Beach House

You make me nostalgic for somewhere I have never known:
Miles of grey shore stretching out past a gloaming ocean;
the sun ripples the skyline; an aching wave catches me
with its spray. Once, I was in the swell, felt an upwelling
motion overtake the locks in my throat and spill out
till I was a river with my own coast
by the moon, its invisible arms embracing my limp form.