El Dorado Winds

Dancing figures swirl above the sands as the moon winks her silvery eye among the doting clouds. The night is full of Mayan magic. A figure of varying concentric circles is propped evocatively against a Joshua tree, feeling the enticement of his prickly spines.

She remembers leaving footprints on the bank after sitting in the rock spring, basking in golden shafts of sunlight all summer long, watching that man with the hungry eyes. He was looking for gold, yet didn’t consider her offering more than Mexican hospitality.

Family outcast, Esmeralda is the queen of these badlands where only stick cattle grow.
Blowing gusts from America carry songs and messages to her from that Promised Land.
She sleeps atop the very treasures the pale man sacrificed his family to search for.

The south wind is named Mariah; they are lovers in time now. No man understands the comfort that the wastelands offer those that linger in their hidden recesses. No man understands why there was a tornado in Kansas on the day that Judy Garland died.

A Pallor of the Soul

Sing joy harmonic
As worms draw near.
Shallow wells sustain
Both cloudbursts and apathy.

Imagine the brush chosen to
Color your birthday canvas,
As Boomer heat-vision
Sears the new unknowns.

The smothering DNA sacks
Meander across the universe,
Gray stars bereft of twinkle,
Gaze barrenly, like trees in November.

Stay inside, watch reruns, and
Listen for air traffic while
Indian boys haunt parking lots,
Playing ball way past dark
(with the heads
of metrosexuals)

Fifty Fifty

If you feel that modern art is dead,
Go visit the Tate Museum.

If you feel essential music is dead,
See Garbage in a converted Church.

If you feel modern literature is dead,
Get to know Stu Redman and Nick Andros.

If you feel that movies have lost their edge,
Watch Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.

If you feel anything at all but real hunger,
Be thankful you aren't in Africa's death hug.

If you feel lonely, you are still alive,
Enjoy beating Captain Trip's time bell 4 another year.

Indians

Some fought, many died.
Some yelled, many cried.
Some stayed, many went.
Some killed, many killed.

Never sued a neighbor,
Never had road rage,
Never defiled the land,
Never defiled their race.

Will they be in Heaven?
Will they be in Hell?
Will they have Nirvana?
Will Geronimo be Sainted?

Forget butchers.
Forget massacres.
Forget Father.
Forget Mother.

Mayonnaise Sandwich

When its really hot out,
And something cool
To eat sounds so good,
I remember what you liked.

I fix a mayonnaise sandwich,
Eat it, wishing you were here
To eat one with me, and talk
About another week gone by.

It now tastes sweet and bitter,
I doubt I'd think of having it
To eat were it not for those
Happy, happy memories of you.

No steaks, ales, or fancy treats,
Required a place in the meals
To eat, when you craved rest,
Snack on the porch after dark.

Drive-In Dog

Wander over the ungrassed acres where
Things are parked facing white square.
Picture beamed from low bunker house as
Food lines meander when dark reawakens.

So many good things to have to eat.
Sometimes get petted or spoken at kindly.
Not many mean men like other places,
Many walk sideways and laugh and fall.

Singing, crying emanate in turns,
Especially from the back row right side,
Where night light yellow bulb is dim.
Hedgerow shadow deepens night's void.

Sleep when sunrise yawns over tall pine trees,
Everyone gone, vast empty wasteland all tilts
To whitish bare square, pale in the glow of day,
Marked T.L. + B.M. bottom corner, red spray.

Tags

Black
White
Dull
Bright

Jesus
Jew
Him
You

Rich
Poor
Ghetto
Shore

Tall
Short
Library
Court

Fat
Slim
Us
Them

Think?
Do?
Love?
Renew?

Landfill Race

Visit church and cemetery at night,
Learn to drive without headlights.
Pass in curves and stab the brakes,
Be the first, first alive at the club.

Stevo sitting in with the house band,
Rifts more meaningful than Apostles.
Good smoke mixed with bad smoke,
Guitars screaming like seizure tires.

John leaves to wash his ride, alone.
First place his only bona fide friend,
It serves him well but very briefly,
Not company beyond the journey.

Wailing reverbs the back corners,
Light twists away, shy to illuminate.
Only two can know this moment,
Moment fleeted away to Loveland.

Fake Blooms

Open foyer phony tree,
Attracts flying critters daily.
Never tiring of the fruitless
Circle, hover, flit, touch.

Dogs eat the plastic leafs,
Cats scratch the poly bark.
All creation accepts pretender.
Why then don't I?

Angered, those fliers cause
My disappointment when
There is no sweet scent
Smelled thereafter sight.

Dominant species needs
All five senses duped
Rather than one, or two,
Maybe three like teeny gnats.

Do you love the same way?

The Longest Day of the Year

Took forever to get dark outside,
Been dark inside since the break.
Banned from the robot bar,
Feeling pathetic and angry.

Think about cool shrimp salads,
Back before the vegetable ban.
L58 had that hologram phone
Just days before the transfer.

Where are the Druids in this forest?
Working graveyards at Lifehaven?
It there not a tree worthy of worship
Growing in this nuclear park?

Shooting star arcs the twilight veil,
Murmurs of lost sopranos echo
Over the dull electric hum of overseer
Cameras hovering near bodies in motion.

Take a vial of pond water and add an
Instant Jager packet, wait a triple sec,
Down the import delicacy slowly,
Savor the equinox, curse the fear.

Dark fullness now, artificial life cocoon,
No you, no he, she, or it for company.
A cyberdane barks erratically close by.
Creech bugs rhythmically crawl formation.

Virtual fireworks begin to explode
Beyond the realms of consciousness.
Your constellation darts out, out brief,
Till moon shadow blankets geometry.

Death is time, unchecked by gravity.
Tattoo orbits fade into illusions,
While the blind man tilts his easel
Proclaiming there is no light.

Sleep is a dream only achieved by
Synthetic drinks bought behind facades.
When atomic clocks radiate midnight
I will blink once, maybe twice.

Special to MVPL

The Last Petal

by Dahl Cook

She loves me she loves me not,

This flower can't tell me what she will not

I scream out for help she don't seem to hear

She won't even lend me an ear

I need courage I have to see this thing through,

Give me courage, at least this she will do.

What good is love none it seems

Just fuel for broken dreams

Only one bullet. it bears my name

It's all my fault no one else to blame

Forgive me, but I know it can't be done

I am holding my gun

I can go soon there's nothing left for me

I pull the trigger, no more I see

The last petal falls… she loves me.

Pepper

Never a passion,
But sometimes red.
Never a vegetable,
But sometimes mute.
Never rooted in soil,
But sometimes dirty.
Never burning a candle,
But sometimes burning bridges.

(Sighs)

Madre magma.
Once tasted,
Never forgotten.

Jumping beans,
(Mexican)
Frijol feet.

Jealous cousins
Grind your
Reputation,

Senorita H.

Old Gold

Send that ring
To the old gold store.
Shred all the pictures,
Paint new decor.

Cause, reply,
When to stand or sit.
Absolved of conscious,
Vanquish, forget.

New buzzword,
Meltdown, not revered,
By the soulless fires
Hearts changed, now teared.

Blaze consumes
Impurities, strain.
Parallel rainbow,
No real end gain.

Perceptions

Never knew how it was to really start to go up till I went down,
Richard Pryor fan uselessly throws out facts about his mother.
What is is not what matters, instead the illusion as fact is paramount.
Do today what you can read about tomorrow-to get naked truth.

Soylent Green is people. We consume it in greater quantities now
That we know the secret ingredient. War fuel grows. Disease-laden
Vegetables, television (will not have another golden age.)
Ed McMahon gets turned out and moves to Belgium with his beer.

Demand increases the price for peace, oh why can't we be content
To allow otherwise mediocre, small, bland lives to feign herocity as
We mourn the lost remote control and the futility of half-time shows.
Soldiers hate war because they fight it, we hate war, yet we make it.

Sand Man

I fell,
There is sand in my mouth.

I can't spit,
This sand tastes bitter, thick.

Vision veiled,
Am I asleep?

Hear mom,
The smell of bacon, my home.

I'm so sleepy,
Playing possum now, lie still.

Feel the heat,
Stove must be nearly red hot.

Better go,
Why can't I get up?

Try to yell,
Mouth won't open for the sand.

Bad dream,
It has to be, I'll wake soon.

Laugh inside,
I was about to get afraid.

Just sleep,
Being carried away by a blackbird.

I'm floating.
We all float away in this desert.

Special to MVPL

Infinity's End
by Dahl Cook

Take me back to a place I've never been
Introduce me for the first time a long lost friend.
Bring back memories of times I never had.
Share my sanity, for I'm completely mad.

Show me open arms as you send me away.
Burn midnight oil in the heat of the day.
Give me sand to quench my body's thirst.
Suck life from me until I swell and burst.

Bury me in winds high above the land.
Be spontaneous doing what was planned
Remember my death as long as I shall live.
I'm sorry my love, don't you dare forgive.

Take me back to a place I've never been,
Stranger, you have been my lifelong friend.

Sex Lottery in Prague, or Bohemians Do It with Rhapsody

Thirteen decades have passed since the Rolska Rubber Company
First introduced the Shining Light Companion drawing sweepstakes
Which permeated the Czech capital of Europe during Lent of 1878.

Jan Lotys became renowned for being the first of the sixty nine lucky
Recipients of tax free womanality in that burgeoning city of a hundred
Spires, inspiring a life size statue to be erected in the Lesser Quarter.

Enthralled citizens began shepherding members of eligible single men class to
Causality pens from which their likelihood grew of becoming the next "golden
Touched man" occupier of a plush, blue velvet lined prize examination hostel.

Gilded relatives, all revered potentate winner kin, sailed the greatest branch
Of the fame stream by publishing bawdy, baroque accounts regarding the sex
Life of their favorite brother, son, nephew, or cousin prior to his sanctioned orgy.

Only scheming intervention by a jealous sister city denied a huge multi orgasmic
Explosion from rocking Prague's hills, now nearly soaked with unbridled, influxed,
Single male citizens, when April saw the enormous Vienna Sausage Contest exposed.

Blackberry's Rabbit

Hot June morning,
Dog caught her brunch.
Baby rabbit zigged when
Zagging was apropos.

Br'er rabbit, were you eating
In the berry patch when
Blackberry caught you today?
(She never captured before.)

Did Grandma Rabbit tell
Stories of gray men picking
Berries, wearing stovepipe
Leggings to sentry br'er snake?

The ping, ping, ping, noise
Coming from the brambles.
Fang meets metal music,
Jam made from a jam escaped.

Cotton tail swallowed down
Child bunny tartar banquet.
Blackberry licks her chops and
Dog smiles toward the briers.

The Parlay

Never late to arrive
Stopped to see what
Was hanging in a tree.
Found a specter floating.

Asked me, "why are you?"
Answering, "I am me."
"Its time to follow away,"
Shade hissed in the pitch.

Protesting, "papers are due,
Yard needs mowing,
Clouds unnamed float over
Undiscovered seas churning."

"Matters not the un but the done.
Reason one truth which makes
The stay to continue unchanged
Resplendent in the repetition?"

"Trial of the last century
Is over, yet the verdict
Remains overlooked in the
Chorus of apathy winners.

Fusion the done to the sticking
Point where the song that remains
The same is the song that is
Sung over the blues of truth.

Bliss to the motion,
Creating nirvana expanse
I will the recognition of
The once wasted glance."

Tree sways breeze empty.
Return on the way to
Concert club friend fete,
Write story then forget.

Smudge Pots

The great unheralded loss to society
In the shift from agrarian to industrial,
Is the modern interstate and superhighway
System that negates any feeling of neighborhood.

Back in the day, yeah that day,
When you had a long trip to make,
It meant traveling past unknown homes in
Little known community pockets.

Seeing a solemn, lonely, smudge pot
Along the side of the road near a driveway
Signaled that there had been a death in the
Family that lived there.

It didn't matter that you knew those folks not,
The grief hovering over their locales was known.
Humanity made brief yet necessary connections
Via passing cars and somber hearts.

Now we hop on the interstates or the super wides
And never see anything beyond shallowness en route.
Fireworks, food, and motel signs reflect modern passions.
We gained technology at the price of our birthright.

Scottie Burgers 1979

Work in the South
Get used to low pay,
Mindless jobs, believe
The lie that it matters.

Early indoctrination,
Forced to stay for
Minimum wage inventory
Completion, careless.

Work 16 hours when 12
Is the usual max they allow.
Go the last 8 without break,
Hungry, tired, disillusioned.

Get off in the early a.m.,
Everything closed, sleeping.
Truck stop got shut down, so head
411 South to Etowah's far side.

See red topped diner descendant
Glowing in the early morning night,
Scotties is open. Scotties is open.
Hell everything good is closed.

2 a.m. crowd is not very lively,
Maybe a few travelers, a few drunks,
One rejected lover, a loner,
Grocery store inventory clerks.

Co-worker, always over dressed,
Looks ready for adventure.
Dress pants and shirt, black oxfords,
I'm in jeans, sneaks, Alice Cooper tee.

Counter girl, cook, and waitress
Wear a perplexed look as we enter,
Out of the ordinary, out of the ordinary.
We are pitiful news in a pitiful place.

Order the burgers and fries,
Wait and sip on our shakes.
The waitress and counter girl
Deliver our food, walking in step.

Like a packaged date, delivered,
They look awkwardly toward us,
Then each other. Food laid down, one
Says "eat hearty," the other "eat happy."

The Flemish Poet Visits Versailles

Beauty exists beyond mere age,
True love will conquer mortal rage,

Boorish tourist creates a photo op,
Canvassing complimentary trolley stop.

American beer sold, warm in cans,
From racks on top of welcome vans.

The better art works long ago,
Taken away from above and below.

Matted posters of Matrix trilogy,
Steve Martin, and Gallagher I see.

Casablanca plays nonstop, Marie ballroom,
While children are trapped gray cellar gloom.

Continental lunch, burgers and champagne,
Harps playing a forgettable refrain.

Grande piece de resistance revealed at last,
The historical fate of poor Leonard Bast-

The missing chapter of Howards End,
Where Leo found a true French friend.

His ghost still haunts Versailles today,
Calling for Helen "come back, stay."

I depart the palace of old King L,
Wondering if I just saw Hell.

Cellophane

Congratulations.
Whisked away off the shelf
Over three weeks,
Yet packaging remained intact.

Sterile and moisture proof.
Transparent, but impervious
To the ways of the flesh,
Those wiles of interpolation.

Returned in original factory
Condition and placed again
On that high shelf, wrapped
Away, monotone harmony.

Now peck on modern sarcophagus
From the lonely within, comforted only
By empty beat box, viscose Cello Rap,
Entirely heartbreak and love proof.

We Didn't Know We Was Poor

Me and my sisters grew up in a house
That stood below a steep embankment
Where the railroad went through our
Little village of Mount Vernon.

Twice a week the train would come through.
Early in the morning before daylight the whistle
Would wake up the roosters and every
Other living thing in the the country.

Later on the train would pass our house
Again as it doubled back to Englewood and
From there it went I never knew where,
But we were always out in the yard waving.

The engineer would wave and blow the whistle
As the locomotive and its cars wound by our place.
Fresh cut lumber was loaded on the flatbed carriers
And behind them was a red caboose with railroad men.

The aroma of the train engine and the lumber
Was different back in those childhood times than
Anything we ever smelled for the rest of our days.
It hung in the summer air for hours sometimes.

There was a couple of rough hitches in the track
Where the coal car would rattle and nearly always
give us a few nice lumps of fuel for the hearth.
The train would always act glad to give that to us.

The railroad men in the caboose were so grand.
Hollering and waving to us as we gathered those
Lumps of coal and lots of times they'd throw hard candy
Down to us and sometimes hair bows too even.

Every now and then there would be some cloth
Scrapes for quilts or some meat scraps for our dog.
Mammy was always so tickled when we would come
Running into the house and carry on about what we got.

One winter right at Christmas there was a Mexican
Family that lived out at the sandlot that never had
Lived through a winter and didn't have much in the way of
Warm clothes for school or bedding for the cold nights.

Mammy and us had made a quilt out of the "train" scraps
And she told us to take that very quilt over to the sandlot
Kids and tell them to wrap up good in it and stay warm.
We didn't know we was poor, and neither did they.

Cat Kings and Old Video Games

Thought fragments can be troublesome.
Did you jump? Did I jump? I don't remember.
What was the sage advice at the end of your reign
In that final boss level again?

Everyone shaves, only few realize it.
Words of wisdom purr from the cinematic finale.
You were never juggled by Steve Martin,
Nor were you out kung-fu 'ed by Bruce Lee.

The running time of history is constantly, awfully,
Spliced to make room for our current sponsors.
The truth is out there- embedded in the bonus level of
Sponge Bob vs. Rayden vs. Scooby Doo & the Zombie.

Sex and the Uncity

Sex, sex, sex, sec, sec, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millenia, ages, eras-

Time

Rhyme

Time

Rhyme

Time

Rhyme

Why?

Why?

The question IS the answer.

Abyssinia Sid

Everyone knows someone like you,
We just never make the connection,
That there is a universal sameness,
In worldwide suffering and angst.

Your name, age, sex, talent may differ,
But your fate and circumstances are alike,
From USA to Uzbekistan to Hedwig,
The loss is just as great each place.

The false comfort that yours is a romantic death,
Disallows the focus of why life had, had to end.
All want to believe that the field is level,
While we know inside it tilts us into oblivion.

A song, a poem, a picture is safe,
To remind the undeparted that you were viable,
Yet very just reasons compelled fate to take you,
Not just an unredeemed dog eat dog world.

Trixie Blinked

Barn loft,
White couch,
Back seat,
A&W bathroom.

Allison Hall,
The knobs,
Homesteads,
Sleeping bag.

Front seat,
KFC booth,
Drive-in,
Walk-in.

Library,
BLC,
The Grove,
Top of Wal-Mart.

Flannigans,
Uncle Sams,
Hoo-Rays,
State Park.

Skateland,
Vo-Tech,
River bank,
The beach.

Chestua Club,
J's house,
Back room,
Town Square.

Lemon Legend

There once was a group in a food fight,
Which went on for well over a fortnight,
When asked why the long fray,
They had nothing to say,
Flinging pies hard at me, with great delight!

Staturtory Judgement

Gaze down at us, at me.
It is so easy to see flaws
When you do nothing but
Watch, watch, watch.

Memory can't taint you
When you never remember.
No sleep, not even a blink,
Robs you that option.

Holding that eternal position
Has formed you into a thing
Undreamed of by the Sculptor.
Exude merely rigidity with guile.

We frolic at your feet,
I thumb my nose at your
Cold stares icy dagger piercing
Shallower minds than mine.

Gaze up at you, dull
Bird guano wreathes
Your head for a crown, yet
None bow for the baxter leige.

Fields you cannot cross,
Carved neath my plow
With a freedom uncollared by
Your bitter, haunted eyes.

Farewell old titan decider,
Purveyor of doubt to souls
Allowing your earwig entry,
Gleaned from odd fleeting glances.

Hesitation powers your pillared,
Invisible hold, and rube charms
The passive consciousness
Many damn 'ed travelers carry.

Aspirations

So many dreams,
So many breaths,
Propelled you,
Enabled you,
To arrive here.

____________________________________________________The end of the line.

Mir

Do you still revel in sunshine?
Do the winds still blow in your hair?
Can you still do pantomime now?
Does your face show lost years of wear?

Do you still recall the meadow?
Can you still smell all the heather?
Shall we ever lie together?
During springtime's blissful weather?

Will you ever come back over?
Can we ever greet each other?
Willing, nurture the forgotten?
Regrow love without a smother?

Did life's orbit take you higher?
Was the price you paid worth entry?
Did you break your solemn Earth vow?
Does you heart still crave my sentry?

Can I look into the heavens?
Is your answer glowing up there?
Will it be true passion's dictum?
Sounded ere death's trumpet does blare?

Bachelor Chef Insults Three Countries at Once, and Likes It

Bought me some meatless soy Chorizo
Thinking it was a veggie form of a kielbasa
Looking forward to having this tasty treat
Fried up proper in a skillet of kraut.

Fake meat choices are so few to the heretics
Choosing not to eat animals any longer but still
Yearn the flavor and texture and of course-those
Proteins do come in handy now and zen.

So comes the time to prepare the dish, I’m hungry for.
After freeing the generous link from its plastic prison,
Proceed to slice the solitary soy veggie punishment,
Notice that the casing is plastic and must be removed.

Without its barrier protection, the fake meat is limp,
Powerless to hold the shape of a façade slice, so I look
Again at the packaging and discover that this Chorizo
Is a Mexican sausage designed to be crumbled and fried.

I do just that, after browning the soy sausage to rich
Fake brown I add the can of kraut to my international
Concoction and wonder if this recipe is approved by
The United Nations Security Council or PETA.

Feeling quite the jetsetter for creating this entrée
Possibly enjoyed only by those whose love craving
For this type of food dare not speak its name,
I decide that it looks good, smells good, is done.

Upon heaping a generous portion into the dinner plate
Already inhabited by a wedge of fresh cornbread,
I chow down this exotic conglomeration of mine
In front of the TV, an apropos venue seemingly.

Dinner theater-a politician giving a live/prepared speech.
His every smile looks oddly forced, foreign, almost scary.
Resembles electro shock method used to make Mr. Ed
Appear to be a talking horse on the old 60s TV show.

My meal is delicious and I decide that somehow I
Lucked out on this unknown zone confabulation, will
Have it again, so good and agreeable is the flavor.
I solemnly dub this recipe “Guadalajara Goulash.”

The politician keeps grimacing into those eerie smiles
And I realize creepily that when he shows his teeth
It looks very frightening and suggests that he would
Like either to eat some GG with me, or perhaps just me.

Knickerbocker Gravity

Jan first saw Gertrude along the salty great wharf
One day as he was delivering bracing to the harbormaster.
He knew from that very moment that his life had been changed
Forever.

Won Ver Meers' permission to court the gem daughter,
Urged Father John for apprenticeship in family business.
The carpenter needed to only bide his time until marriage could
Propose.

Gertrude's eyes would pull him deep down in to a
Timeless place where all was serene and devoid of strife.
Jan could barely do his day labors for dreams of falling, falling
Paradise.

Evening wharf call, Jan saw British ship harbored,
Along the side Gertrude hung from the pier, her two sapphires
Still shining as they gazed directly through Jan from her soulless shrine.
Lost.

New Netherland was murdered by the British, Old Dutch
New Amsterdam was gone. The crown gained the great colony of
New York. Years later gray carpenter visits the old great wharf, late eve
Pilgrimage.

Crystal Butterfly

Ghia visits odd-shaped places,
With their differing foods,
Varying collections of
Earthbound residents.

Ghia sees the emblematic
Shades and colors displayed,
Marvels how similar these
Unique appear with time.

Ghia hears muffled cries of the
Weak and oppressed which
Strangely resemble each other
Regardless of GPS.

Ghia sleeps the restless sleep, only
Postponing the necessity of sadness,
Journeying to a different place-
A same place, each day.

The Day the Power Went Off

Everyone was so surprised.
The sun was shining, the breeze was sighing,
No one noticed the birds weren't singing.

Then the smiles and cracks about not paying the light bill,
Which grew into frightened gapes when word that the
EBS was urging everyone to seek shelter immediately.

Now we are all scavengers for water and food,
The occasional medicine or gasoline a rarity,
Society found time to read too late, too late.