The Unbearable Lightness of Ancestory

It doesn't matter to whom the viscera go, but rather whom holds that quill which might dribble the ink of record.  To the far from pacific, to say nothing of rested, in Heaven, this sad burden of History has passed to the hands of their children: us.  As with most things inherited: beauty, health, wealth, intelligence... the gifted can hold readily their privilege, but make of mockery of its use.  A rich man will spend a dollar in pleasure no more readily than he will stroke his fancy clothes, like a pet, all weekend.  He can be forgiven what he has forgotten: he lives in the base of his brain.  A thousand dollar palace of withdrawl: only to return when, Jesus willing, his thrill is gone.  How sharp the stony floor of the beach, where, the ecstatic comber plays.  How heavy the ectoplasmic hand of his ancestors: yet his excuse is at hand, for father, mother, grandmother, uncle; soon, he will be dead like you.

There the monolith of innocence.  No touch to crumble it's mortar.  No mark, even, of the craftsman, or woman.  Simply the blank cry of hunger, the curdling scream of abandonment.  How we sophists smile as we remember a time when we could look away from the edifice of our making: our grizzled sculpture scraped with  paw marks of atonement.  Do we stand, so marked, to any account?  From the eye of science we're but vessels/ from the eye of religion the serfs of both king and our nature/ from the eye of our experience we dance through the silent questions of our bodies constant song.  "How are you doing?" to another.  Awaiting an answer from the self. 

With What Will You Ice My (Piece Of) Cake

Oh, shiver me timbers and pull my leg
It wouldn't be hard, you know
I once met a woman who told me, "Hey,"
You can't have a girl for the gold.

You can make all your millions
And lay Thee down,
To a rest only innocents take
But a beau shouldn't hope for another round
For your loves just the ice on the cake!"

I could tell she meant well... after a spell
Where I heard only cruelty and shame
All the earthly pursuits ("like Hell!")
I despised,
There was something from her I might gain.
Ha! There was something from her I might gain..

I'd been living a life of Riley and Gin
Where I'd open my eye to the day...
Hell had no fancy for the bed I laid in,
But a friend in this man in its way
Yeah, a friend in this man, in its way.

Oh, I guess I'm still in, or counting out
For my plans are anything but laid
It's a bat to the face and a hand so sour
To be hoping for things from a maid
It's a piecemeal job (if you're paid!)

Now please don't be cruel, if I remember you
As the one who had these things to say
Life has it's way, from the red to the blue
From the beggar to fool, from the beggar to fool.
And Death has its way with Whom?
Amd Death its way with Whom?

There are yards filled with men,
So much better than Sin,
And the daisies and granite too
Though a whistlers haste, is a waste, just a waste

For it takes more than observing
Beneath the heavenly pages
 More than observing is due
 Lest the rock and the weeds request their wages
And shake down a widow or two
And shake down the very few;.

Lest the rock and the weeds request their wages
And shake down a widow or two
And shake down the very few.

Move Over Gentile

  (No joke, some of my best friends are gentiles....)

If bacon could straighten the wandering Jew
Whilst Euclid spins like a pig on a spit
For, I noticed the sidewalk won't give him his due
Since it curves around obstacles... trees.. to wit;

Some say that hunger brings out the tiger in you
Others give lovely and profound advice
Some only love life when they've had a few
Then measure but, once; and cut, oddly, twice.

If taken by odds that you think aren't your due
You might take to praying to God for a bit
The diaphanous hanging warmth of your blues
Blown 'bout by Grace no man can inherit

Once shaken with shame, on this path curlicued
The Classics in shambles... the libraries dump...
By the grave with a veiled but broad daylit widow
Who's head held up high, above shoulders that slump

Ask her, though veil there obscures her eyes,
"Is this a loved one, beneath the old weathered stone?
Whom do you honor with your dress and your guise?
Does the savor of life follow the host?"

Hidden beneath the black fine worked fabric
Through the trick of the light, and tradition too
The eyes of this loved one, turn to your own
And given the voice, the mouth, too, you assume.

"There were stretches, I guess, where I was sometimes unhappy,
Where I hated, at times, who he was, what he'd been...
But, there was joy, and there were moments, circumscribed by our marriage
That gave an address of the person I'd been.

His name was... it's still strange to say that,
Charles L. Cohen, when I took the name,
And it's safe to say, from this grave where I've sat,
Many times I've realized I'd do it again."

Her gloved hand rose, to the edge of her veil,
When the voice therein had finished her words
As she lifted what hid a West Russian face,
I felt my own take a slight pinkish turn.

"We wait all our lives, for things, young man.
Things of the world, recommended and forbidden.
And I wait yet again; do you understand?
But, not for the things that I've already been given."

I looked at her still, silent, form for awhile,
Somewhat speechless, ashamed? I couldn't be certain;
Perhaps, like a monkey, I gave her a smile,
Oh, she beamed back at me, of that be assured.

We turned our sweet mirth to Charles old stone,
I had no desire to ask after its years,
And I took her hand, as we stood there alone,
Some distance from shame, and let fall some tears..