Picture Perfect

Wow it’s picture perfect

another family portrait. 

Now let’s dissect  it.

To look at those pics now

makes me kind ‘a shutter,

to talk about it could make me stutter.

It’s ironic how puns and coincidences

just run amok in our lives

and it’s really no surprise.

It’s like the adverb amok

I’m so struck how I can’t hear that word

without being floored

let me be completely aboveboard

I learned that word from reading the Incredible Hulk

that ain’t no joke

nor the memories it evokes

what  I’m about to say will give you heatstroke.

I first encountered that word when I was in 4th grade

and  I’m afraid I learned so many words from Marvel Comics

so many words they swim in my head like a painting from  Jackson Pollack

back when the age was newly atomic

not one word did  I learn from D.C. comics

they should’ve been abolished

they were almost moronic

but back-in-the-day when I had comic books

strewn all over my room

those same comics today are as valuable as heirlooms

back when Jack was behind the counter at Jack's on Fullerton,

back when all our lives were so homespun

before I even knew Jack  had a daughter named Nancy

back when having a Cadillac was so utterly fancy

we would go on these family picnics on Saturday’s ,

sometimes Sunday’s.    

If someone wanted to take our picture

 I’d sit on my mom’s lap

That was the only time mom ever held me as a kid

whether I was good that day—no matter what I did

back before time-outs

when discipline was carried out with a switch or the strap 

if we were getting our picture taken

she’d only let me sit on her lap so I could fit in the frame

it’s as if I her youngest she didn’t want to claim,

other than those times she rarely even touched me 

let alone held me. 

But when she did hold me,

 and my mom clasped her hands around my waist

I remember rubbing her fingernails

That’s the one time her love I could taste.


 

Silk City

I didn't mean to post this poem.  I'm not sure it's done but I did want to be able to post work that was in the process.

Silk City
 

There’s nothing special about a red wheel barrel.

We try to make it so

but it isn’t all that special;

rain drips from it

big deal.

That scenery is dreadful,

but maybe that’s just cuz

I’m thinking of Paterson now

not Williams’ Paterson of the 20’s & 30’s.

Now, to think of a red wheel barrel

           in Paterson,

it would have to be hidden

amongst other forgotten metal clutter,

car fenders,

         broken sinks,

                   a dilapidated tire.

Now, to see a red wheel barrel in Paterson

the fact its redness could still be noticed

among the trash—

the garbage strewn in the gutter;

that one could even focus enough

to see a red wheel barrel

while the music blares out of people’s cars,

screams out their windows,

 curtains seem to wave the notes out

the 2^nd story apartment

above a bodega. 

If I could find and see a red wheel barrel

thru all that cacophony

of  any American city,

that’s seen its better days

—that’s beautiful.