The Magnificent Magician

Don’t call me by my name—

Call me The Magnificent

Magician Of First Impressions,

where all the world’s a stage

and every player has his part,

where women played by men

no nothing of the difference,

where fragile lines seem effortless

written by the long hand of night,

where smoke is thick and endless

in the mirrors of wasted time.

Call me the Magnificent

Magician Of False Positives,

where anything seems possible

until commitment to the narrative,

where hope is built on trust

and not the other way around,

where kindness is a give and

not taken as an afterthought,

where love is solitaire

and not a solitary place to die—

Call me The Magnificent

Magician if you must,

where pain relies on burden

a burden I can trust,

and ABRACADABRA heals

this feeling of disgust.

The View

It’s senseless to sense this

phase from May to June.

These fences stand defenseless

like guards on duty do.

In truth there are no changes

or phases of the moon,

it’s just a formed perspective,

outsiders share the view.

His Revelation, Her Over-Time

With a white satin napkin

He wiped away his pride

That’s it my Lord, my Savior

What more have I to hide?

The pills induced his coma

His blood ran thin with wine

His revelation managed

By the nurse’s over-time

Comparison Theory

Politics without comparison

would make for a far less

hostile and egomaniacal landscape,

as the press will pit red against blue—

it seems as long as ratings are on the rise—

until no man is left standing,

so that we’re all watching the Donkey drown

and ignoring the Elephant in the room.

WARNING: something I should have mentioned earlier

If you’re going to read me

Don’t read me with a grain of salt

Read me with the whole damn salt shaker—

Trust me, it’s for the best.

The Vatican with Friends, Rome 2012

Chaos Theory

If we can accept ourselves

in life, and that in this life

we’re living, the right way

and the wrong way, mostly

aren’t ever in alignment

with our true nature of self,

rather it’s often

sideways we must go, sideways

like the pebble in the stream

knows only one direction,

and that chaos when reversed

reveals itself as precisely

the way it ought to be.

Hot and Wild

I don’t need a fan

or a fawn, I need a fire—

Hot and Wild—black as coal,

as clean as a diamond

dazzling

in the mud of my soul.

Self Portrait, West Haven CT, `2013

A Song Once Sung To An Infant Under The Gun.

Today the time ran out

just as it had begun—

Hot water fills the tub

you swore you’d never become—

It’s warm and shallow now

cut servings for only one—

The echo down the hall, well

that’s just yesterdays love—

Now it’s all become a song once sung

to an infant under the gun.

Today the moon refused

to trade place with the sun—

Sidewalks full of people

but still you know only one—

It’s an impossible force

that drags you from yourself—

Now it’s all become a song once sung

to an infant under the gun.

I try, you know I do, to balance

fault lines and faith, the surgeons

steel blade, it draws a bridge between both—

It’s a symphony of simple things

that will seem eclipsed by the sun—

Cause it’s all become a song once sung

to an infant under the gun.

California, 2020

Streams

Whatever stream it gets to you by,

it’s still a stream—leading nowhere

to some, somewhere to many, and

to others it’s—already there.

Florida Sunset, 2018

You just have to live.

Being sober’s

as overrated

as being drunk—

nobody wins.

You just have to live.