The International Year of the Potato (2008) and The Last Gasp of Free Verse Poetry
Sax Piano Bird
If you will play
I will kiss your tune lips
’cause anything goes when
slinking down your keyboard
tickling doleful note doodles
plinking your chords
caressing pianissimo
bopping forte, top a’ ya board,
chording love accolades
staying for improvisations
when cool mistys get hot. I shall be cool
when you transpose the glory
keys to high toned harmony
that sees me exposed
with whistling kisses blown
all sax-ified, but that’ll
be after a race. Y’ know
it was a mystery that
birds of a feather could
get the winner’s name
from the horse’s
mouthwash, but
I heard them say
she plays with her pet cockatoo
at the piano bar
down by the racetrack
at the end of the race, and
I saw you
The bird said, “Leave a tip”
I said, “Baby Needs Shoes to win,
place, or show me a new tune”
You nagged the feathers off it
to snatch bills
out of patrons’ hands
After you played with your pet cockatoo
I tipped it into a snifter
hoping you’d play with me
’cause I bet on the nag, then
I said
to the showers
I said
To install the clean
in a froth of warmth
above a soapy love,
join me in the shower stall
by the steamy wall
where flights of fancy
are never scrubbed. If you will,
then I, with fragrant soap,
will wash in tribute
the toe that tested my waters,
cleansing the foot feats that two-stepped
when I was a mere calf
and you were knee high
to a love
like a soap opera. Sing
in the shower from your diaphragm
where no melting soap is barred
while I swoosh below your breasts
with swirling helicopter hands
taking off with haste
as whirlybirds land
on nipple pads. When you say
taxi to the terminal
the refueling hose can dock
and the passengers can be served
hot blessings, but remember
the fifth race is soon,
time to place bets
by the river
on the sailboats, although
we could check out
the entries
swimming in the
racing waters
where in trepidation
you can put a toe
in the water of my soul
as I kiss it as
I would a child’s boo-boo
offering you
a future, a splash
of my essence; I
breathe your perfume
a cherry-flavored love
You undress in my river
and I kiss your thigh
in baptism before lips
Like a mallard
I swim aside,
a breast in hand
worth two in the bush
All goes swimmingly,
as I reminisce
first kisses
raising my mast,
sailing our ship, and
now anything goes
even past
the sunset,
in moonlit tunes
splashed across the stars
——— ** ——–
When Sap Is Not Milk
A sad maple is she,
syrup exploited
never allowed
to taste her own sweetness
Her leaves could have
absorbed the love
of the Sun
of the passing Prince,
had she not played
her lute too softly to be heard
Never should such a lonely string,
such a flower
be cut on a slant,
dying, put
in a vase
for a decorative purpose
Because of such sorrow,
never let winter ever come again
without a prayer implanted
in the bosom of justice
The angels have fallen
if they would honor wine
more than the dangle of
the maiden’s dew, more
worthy than any untested virgin
in a nunnery who
has never cried for love
and only knits diversions
She is so worthy of forgiveness
as are you, when your
morning mourning pancake
has God’s rainbow syrup
on a reawakening breakfast
saved at last
for eternal joy
Poet Laureate of the Primitive Planets 