FOR THE ROSES

 
I wore Tea Rose and
often a black rose
in my hair that summer,
symbol of freedom,
a nod to the White Rose,
the German girl who
protested the Nazis,
gave her skin, her lips
and heart, her life. I was
flying coast to coast
to read, coming back
to an alone house. Named
for the rose, for an aunt
adventurous as Joni,
who danced in flames,
I dressed in rose. Deborah
of the roses. The stories
about her whispered by
grown ups behind stained
glass doors. Who wouldn’t
expect roses in my poems?
White rose, Bulgarian
rose. When I walked thru
airports with a white
rose from Allen Ginsberg
everyone whispered, “roses.”
But it was the rose scent
perfuming the air from my
body. You could almost
hear, as even now I can
almost feel the one who
touched me on that
coast, what Joni heard
in the wind, the end
of, the chilly now,
the last face to face

 
FOR THE ROSES

the way I scrawl my name,
the petals that don’t
connect to any center.
I felt like that
summer, packing and
unpacking my head,
alone in a hotel room
drifting like milkweed
dust. Rose on my wrist
and nipples. I think of
Joni, her blonde hair, a
fan on the rocks of the
Pacific miles from where
an ex-con poet sent me
keys to a hide-away. He
might as well have
been a rock star, Joni’s
rock n roll man,
the kind any blond would
flip her hair for, fall
and follow home. A man
you can’t hold long or
count on. Back in my room
I played her songs
over and over as moths
brushed the August
screens and berries
glistened. It was so still,
so much seemed too
good to waste and
I wasn’t even blonde
to the bone yet

 
FOR THE ROSES

When I see hers
sprawled across the album,
explosive brush strokes,
guava, blood and green,
her wild petals not
connected to any
stem. I can’t help but
feel those slashes
of light in your poems,
how sometimes if seems
your words could be mine.
I’ve heard those lost
lovers in the wind. Maybe
I heard then last night
when I couldn’t
sleep. I think of the
photograph of you with
a rose in your hair. You
could be my sister those
nights when I am the
rose I was named
for, Raisel Devora.
And why wouldn’t some
one pierced by words,
turn addict for a
sense rare as Tea Rose
or Rashimi rose incense.
Those lovers, like
applause: I found them
addictive too. I think of you
crisscrossing the country,
a cigarette dangling,
leather and suede,
tawny earth colors
(you could find in my
closet), eyes few would ever
be as blue as. Aching for
something you can’t
still hold and knowing
from that raw wound, pain
and piercing beauty explodes

 
FOR THE ROSES

sometimes what stays
is the odd way one
said “Albany.” Or
another’s print on the
wall no paint hides.
You hear “honey”
in the wind. So few
called me that as
many years. As in
her song, that
sound, like applause,
face to face. Tristes
and joy. I can feel
her feeling it. Some
times what stays
is the fog the
day after, a voice
on the radio like
skin, days when her
words were like
lips on the air. No
more shiny hot nights
of rose petals, but
that touch that will
stay, last if it has to, as
long as your
heart beats

 
LET THE WIND CARRY ME

like tumbleweed, like
milkweed. Wind
blown, drifting between
hands. Oh she’s a
free spirit boys use to
sing to me too, shaking
their head. No one
can hold her. My mother
tried to, my father didn’t
care. Joni knew you
could be so drawn
and quartered. Wanting
a home with candles
around the door,
wanting a man who’d
be there to hold her and
then packing in the
night, eloping alone with
strangeness in a short
skirt and heels, fuck me
shoes and a hooker
sequin mini: a mask a
moat only the wind catches

 
ROSES, BLUE

when I go back and
look at those poems,
it’s as if Joni
dabbled in them.
A little jazz, a
blues riff. I think
of the woman on
the metro, sobbing.
I think of rain.
I think of roses.
Of blues my baby
left me. I think
of Joni’s woman
with her Tarot cards
and tears, of all
things that did not,
could not happen,
more haunting than
so much that did

 
TIN ANGEL

her words are my
words: “tarnishes,”
“beads” tapestries.”
I think she’s my
doppelganger with
her letters from
across the seas
and her roses
dipped in sealing
wax. Was there
something in the
water those rose
and butterfly years?
The white rose
Alan Ginsberg
gave me flattened
in a Shakespeare
Folio before wax
caked its leaves
could have been one
her tin angel sent.
The columbine
I planted in the
house I’m rarely in,
color of her lips,
her crying. I too sat
in a Bleeker St Café.
I used “tarnish” over
and over that year

 
FOR THE ROSES

when I hear butterflies
and lilac sprays, the
glitter, the what she
heard in the wind,
a fierce lullaby.
I think of Virginia
Woolf keeping
fragments, scraps of
images, tossed
them in a drawer. I
think if I cut lines
from a random
number of songs,
Chelsea Morning,
California and esp.
Blue, color that
leaks thru my writing
and put, like slices
of colored glass
or velvet squares from
a quilt into kaleidoscopes,
into a bedroom drawer
and waited to see
what would coalesce .
Each time I dipped
the verbs would
keep changing and I
don’t think I could
tell Mitchell’s
words from mine

 
READING SONG TO A SEA GULL

When I read about the
photo retouch expert in
Japan, taking what’s
blurred and faded, torn,
assumed lost and how
removed from debris,
as I’ve pulled some of
Joni’s songs from a
dark room in the house
I’m rarely in and what
was, blooms again, brings
back the most vivid
memories. I listen again
to her words, the
lyrics raw and direct,
chunks of what I
thought I’d lost and I’m
astonished, as those
locals in Japan who come
to look thru photos that
were found, cleaned
so they can hold
what they no longer
have, touch, bury
themselves in

SONG FOR SHARON

I think of that long white
dress of love. I think of a pale
Mexican dress I lusted for
in Guadalajara, perfect
for my long ironed hair.
If it was lacy, it was a lure.
It was like poems. It was
like using words for skin. I
think of being that young and
of her in her 20’s singing
how first you get your
kisses and then you get your
tears. Her musty LP like
my still white lace spills from
my closet instead of kisses

THE WALL PULLS ON VIETNAM VETERANS

One man who was never in combat,
spent his tour in Hawaii where his
duty was to process replacements.
“My job was to read casualty reports
and find replacements for those
missing, wounded or killed.” He
said his job was to search the Marine
Corps world to find the right person
with the required occupation skill.
“I simply pulled a name from a
stack of IBM punch cards,” he wrote,
“those chosen were fed into a card
reader. Within 30 days, sometimes
sooner the marine I selected would
receive orders. “There he was,” he said
a 20 year old lance corporal playing
God. “Throughout my life I have
suffered survivor’s guilt from my
IBM punch card selections. The
secret yellow colored casualty reports
started every morning at 8 sharp.
Out of respect, we would sit
quietly without anything to eat
or drink, no candy, no gum, just sit
there quietly and read the horrid news.
From the message board I would
know what my work load was to be for
the day. Some days it was out of
control. Other days it was a few casualties.
I hand those cards as though they were
priceless. I really tried to perform the
selection process at a certain time
of the day because I would only have to
dread a small section out of my day”.
Once the replacements were selected he
tried not to look at their names a
second time and tried to forget them.
He couldn’t always do that. “As
fate would have it, one of my placements
was killed less than 60 days following my
selection. He had been killed in an accident.
However it hit me the same as if he had
died in hand to hand combat

 
ONE MAN WAS AN ARMY DRAFTEE

who was taught Vietnamese
during a 40 week Army could
and worked as an interrogator/
analyst—he was in his early 20’s.
His job was to get intelligence
from papers taken off dead
enemy soldiers. “I saw more
than my share of photos,
most from parents and girl
friends and were accompanied
by letters telling how much
he was loved and missed. They
too were soldiers just doing
what their country expected
of them

The Margarita Machine

Quick moved in with a
beautiful woman, she
screamed and bitched
about the movers losing
her margarita machine

Two weeks later when she
found it, she swore the
movers had broken in
and returned it, Quick

Loved her crazy ass, but
got no peace to write, one
night while working on a
poem, she read what he had

(Burroughs cut off his left
pinky at 25, Hitler lost a
testicle in WW1 and farted
so much he got his ass
kicked by his own side)

That sucks she said, that’s
not like any birthday card
I’ve received, Quick packed
his duffel bag and split.

 

 

Felony Littering

One night he came back for
his bowling ball, at Margarita
Mama’s, he finished a burger,
fries, and a milk shake

The burger bag fell onto her
lawn, she kept Quick waiting
on his ball until, the cops she
called arrived, she insisted he

Be arrested for felony littering,
Quick said the bag wasn’t his,
one of the cops offered to throw
away the bag, but she wanted

It to be checked for Quick’s DNA,
they refused, she tore the bag
out of the cop’s hand and started
looking for a receipt, she

Slammed the front door on all three
men, then jumped in her car and
raced to three nearby hamburger joints
she wanted the workers to pick out

Quick’s photo from her cell phone
as a customer or to examine their
security tapes, when the management
refused she started screaming bloody
murder, they called the police

Unlucky for her the same two
cops arrived, they decided her
bullshit had gone on long enough,
they gave her an electricity cocktail.

 

 

Faster Than Sound

Quick’s lady friend Debra Pickleliquor
enjoyed a glass of whiskey or port, so
he went to buy her some ignorant oil
and milk for his cat and hamburger

He had onions, garlic, and rye bread,
when he exited the store it sounded like
a plane was diving from the sky, then
it felt like Thor’s hammer hitting earth

Quick turned the corner and saw the
flying machine in flames jutting out the
window of his flop house, he’d miss Ms.
Pickleliquor, her name suited her well

Jimi, Quick’s best friend a black cat
was singed but survived, he poured
milk for Jimi and drank some vino,
they slept until the rain came down.

Entrepreneur Jailed

There’s a moral to this story.
Police in St. Louis have arrested
a teen for felony auto theft.

They asked her why she did it.
She said the owners didn’t
pay her for sex so she took

their cars instead, saying
she doesn’t have sex for free.
She took one man’s car

while he was sleeping,
another man’s car while
he was showering.

Now the young lady needs
an attorney, which proves love
and lunch aren’t always free.

Donal Mahoney

 

America Wants to Know

What will she do with him?
That is, if she’s elected.
She’ll have to take him

with her to the White House
after keeping him in the doghouse.
Maybe the FBI can put

the doghouse out on the lawn.
He shouldn’t be a problem there.
Only men jump over the fence.

Donal Mahoney

 

The Big 62 and Everyone Else

They have a few bucks,
the 62 richest billionaires in the world.
The Big 62 have half as much wealth

as the bottom half of the world’s population,
according to Oxfam International.
(Oxfam tracks the rich and the poor.)

Oxfam also points out that the top 1%
of the Big 62 have more wealth than
Everyone Else In The World Combined.

Oxfam released this information
ahead of the 2016 World Economic Forum
held in Davos, Switzerland, where the rich

from all over the world gather every year.
Capitalists at the Forum who read the report
had to be embarrassed, if that’s possible.

Perhaps they told workers back at the office
about the need to find more tax breaks next year.
Or face unemployment. But if layoffs occur

unemployment comp and food stamps might help.
In some states Medicaid remains available, too.
Just don’t let your boss drop out of the Big 62.

Donal Mahoney

SERAFINE ROSE DANCES FOR THE TSAR OF ALL RUSSIAS

Serafine Rose pulls up her hair
With a red gancho
Lets fall
A thin black dress

Wearing coral on her toenails
Silver links around her waist
And nothing else
Dances for the Tsar of All Russias

Staring with green eyes
Into his blue
Thus unveiled
To a very slow waltz

Like fingers around his throat
Searching for bone.

 

BUSINESS AS USUAL NUMBER 2

Benefit design.
New turf.
Algae bloom.

Global weakness.
Data breach.
Deportation.

Shared needle.
Razor blade.
Closed circuit.

“There’s a trade off,”
The executive said.
“The cost goes up somewhere else.”

Some glimpse of salvation.
Automatic override.

 

EVENTS OF THE DAY

Leslie Narum homers in his first at bat.
Eddie Murray homers.
Charlie Macwell hits four in a row.
Willie McCovey homers in his last at bat.

The Old Man in the Mountain topples over.
The British execute Patrick Pearse.
The British execute Thomas McDonagh.
The British execute Thomas Clarke.

San Francisco burns.
So does Jacksonville.
Egypt seizes the Sinai.
The silver fleet sets sail.

Byron swims the Hellespont.
Goya paints.

Under Their Thumb

Each city becoming like all other cities
Crowded rush for the fleeing dream

Each country becoming like all other countries
Government control with false ideals

Shrinking earth and core of consciousness
We the slave allowing vampire flies upon our face

Burning sun upon our bent backs
Making-love when it’s merely making flesh

Humming entertaining songs in our hyped heads
Deaf to the crying of consequence

Wanting bland contentment in the continuing chaos
Accepting the snuff of the fire within our hearts

But there’s always a few rebels beyond the grip
Pinpricks to the heavy thumb of the elite

And we’re gathering strength under their cocky blind eye
As they’re beginning to know what it means to bleed.
 

Dark Days

They are blinding us

So many starving and undernourished
So many fighting wars against ourselves
So many entertained into inaction
So many tortured with screams unheard
So many trying to resist what they don’t understand
So many stumbling

But still seeking the light.

Isn’t it nice? Our lofty analysis, that is. Scouring what is said, done, looking for patterns of wisdom. The Colombian Gold Stairway to Heaven, a new sense of a permanent now. Zero tolerance for future and past. The arresting of all those whom fail a drug test. For profit prisons, for lucky, arrested folks. For time spent in an educational institution comes with life-skill choices mandatory. One may learn 1) constant curious/continuously wanting or 2) waiting. You know it has been said, dear readers, those in prison should be freed and those that put them there should take their places. But of course with the new university prisons to be either free or in school matters not. But then again, it’s all a prison if you think about it, and freedom is after all the freedom to control, the market, drive your competitors out of business and charge whatever price you like. I know the answer, of course, is blowin’ in the wind, but I gotta ask: what is your stupid conclusion? The aforementioned sentence, was most uncalled for. And dammit, God-fucking dammit, I’m sorry.

Cuo bono, and Sonny two. It could be the sound, the meaning-effect, of one hand, one arm, of a one handed person, clapping, flailing away. The sound, the fury, what audacity to live! It is Patton-esque! It is what marks men, and makes them scratch. Newly fightin’ female U.S. soldiers, enjoy their company. Time spins an uncertain circle, wobbling, and needing linearity like the Invisible Man needs clothes. Or bandages, or eatin’ something, or wearing glasses on an enormous erection! Speak of it! In thine missives!! Live it! In thou slovenly graces! Oh idiot!! Come to me! Love bomb me baby!!!

Okay, a couple twenty years ago, I was lookin’ for a cult to join. Or one that would have me. But then, of course, like Groucho, I then couldn’t join that one. Sacred weed use, and sexual freedom with ugly guys, had to be high. LSD and mushroom ritual was a plus. Hippie freaky sexual nymphs and MLF bazongas. Bodacious tatas. Bhagwanger-Rashneesh-like, I wanted. But, as things would be, no cult would take me. I tried the Hare Krishna. I was still high on acid, had seen a Who show the night before, stayed up all night looking out my darkened room window. Saw someone with a can of gas go round an old Victorian house across the street pouring gasoline. Saw the house go up, fire engines, police, gathering people. Then, the house burned down, a charred ruin, everyone and everything gone. Dawn and hour away I still sat, tripping. Spewing “Wow”. That was weird. Then I got up, went to my 8:00 class and met the Krishna, dancing and chanting, playing the little finger cymbals. I inquired critically, and apparently deep introspective questioning of all critically is not their bag. I studied cults, or new religious movements, as they are less acerbically called. Couldn’t find one I didn’t like. Like at the fraternity, I was black balled by them all.

But hey, these poems we’ve published and those coming, are, more than quite simply, let us say, they are poems of courage. Tough little buggers. Poem for poem, I’d put ’em up against anything, say, Updike did, or Whitman. Poems of a coward, they are not. Mere Haggard fightin’ poems. Riverboat gambling poems. Whiskey rivers never runnin’ dry…. We encourage, good-bad, bad-good, solid trans-valuing work. Trans-value your values is the idea, in order to get closest to truth. Think of it, everything is its opposite, in truest reality. Big is small and hot is cold. In an infinite anything, like the universes are supposed to be, it all works out. Infinitesimally small from a certain point to never nothing is supposed to be larger (smaller?) in area more than the outward immeasurably large. When something is strong cold it burns hot. I don’t know if hot burns cold; a question probably best unsolved, by me at least, in self-experimentation. Personally.

So read! Submit! Subscribe! Get a Cowboy blog-published poem in and you may be in hard copy zine! Yee-haw it’s another day! A really, one big chunk ‘o’ a never-ending wake. We are timed here, on Earth. So get writing and remember. Hemingway said when asked how to succeed as a writer: “Stay healthy, and keep writing.” Vaya con aetheismo.

Randall K. “Doctor” Rogers 9:38 P.M. 1/24/2016 Rapid City, South Dakota, U.S.A.

Darkness on the shore

 
The person on the shore – stands motionless.
Turned away from the seas action
As the viewer still blind to seeing
The wave overwhelming…
Then drawn; – viewing the rear of the beach.

Slowness of the animation: The creeping the crawling
there is disaster about, lurking…The clear
black and white, dissolving the coloured world.
The unquestioning, of being there at that time
And time. What is it that is here? This black against white.

Even the white fades in to a clear eternity as magic glass.
Revealing those whose eyes who see in…
And your all unknowing eye that must see out
That ocean all able to take the essence and leave.
The dregs swill around the seas bed and wash up – along, tomorrow….

The World in the Year 3000

There are pockets
of them everywhere,
quiet and discreet.

Usually they meet
once a week
in private homes

in basements
some call catacombs.
Depending on the group

a minister will preach,
a priest say Mass
a rabbi teach.

Elsewhere you will find
a mosque on almost
every street.

Donal Mahoney

 

 
Bullies and the Wimp

They laugh at him
because he’s weak
by their standards
but they don’t realize

they’ve signed a
contract with him,
a lifetime guarantee
for recompense.

It will be fulfilled
perhaps tomorrow or
maybe on a wedding day
or years from now at

the funeral of a loved one
when they’re as vulnerable
as he appears to be
and for the moment is

but they don’t realize
the spider in its web
looks slow to any fly
circling overhead.

Donal Mahoney

Morning Wood
At sunrise I find I have already risen
after swimming in a sea of wet dreams,
to see that my appendages are stiff
and damp drops of dew have formed indoors.

I come to notice that I’m affixed to my sheets,
as all the blood floods towards my head
and tangled hairs dangle like icicles from my follicles,
while peeling off caked layers from my encrusted eye.

Every day I erect my cotton tent,
which is the perfect place to hide in.

 

Previously published in Poems of Pain Volume 2: Emo (C) from Scars Publications.