need to make myself a hat

I hear that metals

would be the smart hedge

to buy now.

a ticket to the fifties

when the world was golden.

as long as you were white.

and male.

and lived in the northern

hemisphere. (or maybe

south africa or oz)

well.

here's the problem though.

can't buy tin foil anymore.

aluminum

just isn't as effective.

and lead isn't doing

a lot of good in flint

or orlando.

it's sad.

no protection

from the invisible rays

emanating from the District

(take your pick of districts,

political or financial,

plenty of them to choose from)

not to mention the chem trails.

which of course

have a more significant effect

than thousands upon thousands

of coal-burning powerplants

and a billion cars.

and cows.

actual bullshit is as destructive

as the kind emitted from

the mouths of demagogues.

maybe i'll just build a hut

in the Andes or the Congo

where tin is plentiful,

and smelt a personal Panama

or Trilby.

because the only bullion

I have, comes in a jar.

broken cookies

There were twenty two

broken cookies

on the sidewalk,

(I counted)

chocolate chip.

fancy ones, ovals.

like the emblem on the hood

of Crown Victoria police cars.

At the fringe of the financial district

around the corner from the offices

of Immigration, Customs

& Enforcement.

An accident or

a moment of frustration?

In the window

of the Chinese restaurant

the electric sign displayed

the current lotto pot,

380 million dollars.

The cookies had yet

to be trodden into crumbs

for the feasting 

undocumented English sparrows

and Norwegian rats.

If only

if only, the only

megalomaniacs

dwelled in subterranean fortresses,

wore collarless black suits,

endlessly stroking

white persian cats

cradled in their laps.

if only, disaster could be averted

by correctly choosing

to snip the red wire before the green

and the flashing numbers

counting down on the device,

froze just in time.

if only, evil did not spill

from the gleaming suites

of downtown office towers

or spew forth from a podium

an odium of lies into

a hungry bank of microphones.

if only, the quiet wannabes

brewing hatred in their souls

were not concealed

behind the bland facades

of their bland suburban homes.

if only, vile intentions

were visible on a face

undisguised by suits and ties

or souvenir t-shirts,

baseball caps or uniforms.

if only, crime did not hide

at the dinner table,

in the bedroom

or the boardroom

on the sunlit urban plaza

or dark playground

behind the country school.

if only, the villains were confined

to situations that could be

accompanied by popcorn

if only.

heroes

officer red o'reilly

badge number 4723

coaxed the kitten

down from the hoary oak

on the corner

of elm and jefferson.

little fatima

threw her arms

around red's waist,

thank you ms police lady

you saved my kitty, muffin.

oh it was nothin' missy, red replied.

how'd you like to ride

around the block in the patrol car?

really? can i?

that would be so cool!

i can't wait to tell

all my friends at school.

is that a real gun?

did you ever shoot it?

yes, it's real,

but it's mostly ceremonial,

it was my grandfather's.

it hasn't been shot at anything

but targets in fifty years.

what about bad people?

oh, there are still some around,

yesterday I had to cite tommy brown

for not giving up his seat on the bus

to a senior citizen.

and believe it or not,

some people still fail

to put their coffee cups

into the proper recycling bins.

did you arrest them?

no, a warning was enough

i don't think they'll do that again

or they'll really be in dutch.

cooool. i think i want to be

a police like you when i grow up.

good for you, honey,

want to take that ride in the car?

oh yes ! can we turn on the siren?

maybe. we'll see if it still works.

in the movies

He slid across the slick orange vinyl

into his favorite corner booth

and smiled at Josefina

as she handed him a menu

and poured a cup of coffee.

what's the pie today? he grinned.

boysenberry or banana cream.

I'll have a slice of the berry. ala mode.

he opened up his laptop

ready to work on his screenplay.

the one he'd been working on

for the last three years.

it was going to set the world on fire.

if only he could get past the first scene:

dawn. 5th Avenue. nothing moving.

no people........

and then what? he was stuck.

but surely it would come to him.

maybe after a few bites of pie

and the first of many cups

of the weak coffee that they

served here. free refills after all.

it was more pleasant to imagine

himself and Josefina sitting

at some ancient bar in New Orleans

discussing what recipe

makes the finest Sazerac

or the tragedy of Iraq.

Or perhaps a cafe in the old quarter of Acapulco,

dissecting French New Wave cinema

or Dostoyevsky, Beat poetry,

or what would Jesus do

if he showed up in Jerusalem today.

Josefina poured him another cup.

He put on his most engaging smile.

She didn't notice and walked away.

He typed a single word: The.....

Better eat this ice cream before it all melts.

Yeah, he could picture it, he and Josie,

(that's what he will call her

because of course they'll be lovers)

stripping off their clothes and running down

a moonlit beach into the warm tropical sea.

and tiny fishes nibbling at their toes

and they are laughing before embracing

and then they are lying on the sand

like that scene in From Here to Eternity.

His coffee was getting cold,

Josefina was standing at the window

to the kitchen joking with the cook.

It's okay he told himself,

that guy doesn't know anything about

French cinema or Sazerac.

All he knows about

is cheeseburgers and Bud Light.

This is where in the movie,

the robbers would burst into the diner

waving guns and shouting and the cook

confronts them and they shoot him down.

Then Josefina tosses a pot of coffee

into the the tall one's face

and the screenplay writer leaps out of his booth

and clobbers the other one with a chair,

grabs their guns and tells them

to stay down on the floor.

and when Josie

(because that's what he's going to start calling her now)

comes over to him, he puts his arm around her shoulder

and she snuggles into him and he can smell

her shampoo when he whispers into her ear,

what time do you get off?

and she smiles up at him and says, Now.

And as they walk out the door

all the other diners in the restaurant

stand up and cheer.

misunderstandings

I was always opening

the wrong end of the package.

wrestling with the bottom

when clearly,

it should have been the top,

inserting the wrong key

into the wrong lock,

showing up at eight

when the date agreed on

had been for seven o'clock.

if not for the sincerity

of my mistake,

I'd've been shit out of luck.

and on the bus

back across the bridge

by nine for years to come.

until I messed it up again.

woke up to find myself become

an accidental spider,

spinning silken threads of poetry

on the electronic planetary web

and discovered that

I still possessed

an appetite for butterflies

who in turn preferred

the verbs I wrote or spoke

to the ones I wished to act.

she wanted gossamer metaphors

of gardens and gunsights,

ruins smothered under blossoms,

words more than flesh.

or so it seemed to me,

the wrong-end-of-the-package

wrong-key-for-the-lock guy.

am I mistaken to think that

bodies are more truthful

than words that can beguile

before they cut?

first person singular

on the smoked glass wall

of the bus shelter

this morning

someone had scrawled

with silver sharpie:

i am the reason

abortion should be legal.

what shade of pain is this,

the anguish of seventeen,

with knife-scarred wrists?

or the hate-daubed dart

of furtive resentment?

aimed at

the multi-colored,

multi-tongued

riders on the morning bus.

a cry or a spit in the eye?

some other sharpie wielding citizen

had crossed out the first inscription

with a carefully targeted gold X

and added their contribution below

in big bold caps: PROLIFE