Obon

It's festival day: paper
lanterns strung above
the hall. Names
are recited, children
fidget in the pews.
Oshoko, incense
and candles for those passed
on into the Pure Land.
In the kitchen, starched
ladies in madras
aprons ladle somen
into bowls.
The altar gleams with gold.
Sandalwood wafts through
the dojo as an old man
clasps his hands --
gassho. He bends
his shining bald head in prayer.

Tenderloin #4

Perhaps it's a point of pride:
the ability to look another in the eye
and say, "I am who I am,
no more and no less."

What goes before the fall?
The know-it-all boy
in t-shirt and scarf
sings a song on the brick

Pavement of the sidewalk.
A choral response from a playground
rings out through the town.
He flashes the devil's horns

And thinks, "Rock and roll."
The King in his own head
knows he rules this life
with neither scepter nor crown.

Of Songs and Sirens

Existence screams out,
the void which is not.
An echo, to silence, replies,
"You are wrong."
He totally denies
his removal from God
and says he is closer to Him.
Awareness is more grand
than the twisted place
between one and zero.
Are there infinite riches
or tombstones for muses?
A boy crowned with stag's horns
may be tamed with psychic machines --
a cylindrical brass helmet donned
pieces him back together again.
He descends into singularity.
A tiny pinprick, a splinter
of light, to flash once,
then disappear eternally.

Alzabo Suppertime

They came by ones and twos and threes
to feed on the brains of a family:
a chunk out of Grandma,
a nibble on Timmy.
The whole household will speak gorgeously;
little fragments of Mom's voice
emanate from razor-toothed mouths
set in great big shaggy white heads
that whirl with fragments of souls with no choice.
Fodder for beasts, they bled.
The ursine aliens' eyes glowed red.

The Sacrifice

Dive headlong into magma-red rage.
Rock gently; a fat Jew body
floats in the Dead Sea,
big as a house, in black
knickers, black brassiere,
spitting fire as she goes.
Oh Bubbe, steal my dream
as Marines phase back
into alignment.
Rip me to shreds
with bullets for stray
thoughts I've entertained.

Plastic Rosebud

"Take your punishment."
I am punished for wearing
my punishment too well,
the flogging scars blended
under buttercream layers
of Jezebel foundation.
I bear up under the years,
and the casual and too quick
see damage yet to be wrought,
merely because I thought
good might happen for good done --
inconsequentiality
laughable to the silent ones
whose eyes gleam,
red berries in the sharp holly.
To incur anger
for contending that those
whom we call simple
may be the wisest of all!
I am well, and that does not sit well.
I am superfluous, a vegetable
in a garden among many --
a mirage to those
in an unceasing search
for fresh blood,
for the meat that steams
in Spring morning air.
They mentioned seeing something there,
then shook themselves from me.
Imagine, if it consoles,
my branches laden with frost
lacquer and diamond shards
killing my blossoms and buds --
the beauty in extremis
may gall, but is it not enough
that this year, too, may prove barren?
Leave me still then,
among the others.
I will shatter with them
when the storm comes,
and leave to our tormentors
a world of splinters and scoured air.

Rosemary Encircles the Virgin

There is a heart.
The flames around it grow higher
and hotter with each word heard.
The girl says to the boy,
"Give me back that one."
As he says, "No pun
intended; there is no point,"
his hands blister
and burn. He turns
to her and she takes it
(she is unscathed) to the rosebed
where it belongs.