ALL RESPONSES |
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with suicide doors, burned gas like the Titanic
sailing slowly through the streets of Savannah
by boulevards of palmettos, azaleas, pines and magnolias
smoking pot and drinking Jack on the road
It was my led zeppelin, my pink Floyd
The future was always clear and sunny
as long as it wasn't here and now
Half went mad, or close, the rest disappeared
some of us did both, with red hair like Bozo
thank Yahweh there's no photo
And then there was Mac, who never came back
eights hits of acid tend to change the world
and turn you
into a guru
the next time I saw him, he had short hair, and wore
pressed white shirts with khaki slacks, and stared
straight ahead when I called out to him
Mac? Mac?.........Mac?.........????
as he kept walking, like he had found his dream and never left
they said he had been sent off for therapy, just like the others
I liked him better when he was God. |
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Untitled 6
to a naive self-taught artist
when you fail
to see
beyond the stars in your eyes
when what you know
is how to slide a shoulder strap down
your thin arm
to reveal breast
gone gaunt with
what you fail to eat
when you find it painful to say the words
through a red mouth not your own
when you count yourself a lost soul
(the world started it)
never mind
concentrate on ancient writings
the pictures on the wall
you drew at two
or three
all eyes and heart
stick arms and legs
five-fingered hands reaching giving
your own lop-sided smile
preserved on the cave walls
like that of some forgotten god
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We brought them here and grew them, tending
to the tears with loving hands, caressing the soft
doubts in their brow; year after year, raising
the memory of a life worth living, of words
meant to be meaningful; we sat with them,
never imagining that the doors could close; we
should never have been present to watch,
the gradual fall of exuberance,
their lights allowed to slowly fade
like an immature piece of magic, stuck
under the cracks of heavy silencing rocks
smashed by the pure illusion of possibilities;
it is ironic to think that we, under the pressure of time,
will, ourselves, turn into the rich oil that often feeds
the wars of the world; we, our love, our hopes, will all,
eventually become
the only solvent capable of emptying souls.
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Response to ground control to lost soul
It could be a flag
It could be Christ
It could be a three-legged pig
Whatever is imagined
Within that helmeted brain
Is not out of this world.
No souls are ever lost
Only out of reach
Or subconsciously entombed
In radio silence by choice
Having realized too late
That ground control was never there.
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for Maisie2
You,
who think you are poor,
go stand by the tree
at the edge of the world.
There,
kids do not know a ball,
play with sticks
and get their kicks
by pushing around a lump
made of all their socks
tied together,
while their feet turn blue,
as blue and cold
as the air they breathe. |
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For the painting Harry
still around me, everything
even the train whistle is moving
away
the moon has moved to the other
side of my stars
earlier,
after listening to Frank Sinatra, after
hearing a summer breeze, realizing
he was dead
and, such a pity
there’s no one
here at this time
to notice but me |
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[William Sattler’s maisie 2]
Skirting envious thoughts
regarding the tattooed smile
on the ragdoll’s face
red-haired girl from
across the street shows
to the world the incontinent nature
of what’s underneath a blue velvet jumper.
Time to rip her smile open
and let her cry from both ends.
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In the beginning,
there was nothing.
In the end,
there will be nothing.
For now,
there is the static in-between.
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The tumor they removed this time
was the size of a pencil eraser.
Erase her, is what I hear, wonder
will it erase her
this time around?
The last time
it wiped out her white blood cells
removed every hair, turned her skin sallow
her stomach weak. Rubbed out memories,
days, weeks.
The last time
I sat with her as the chemicals dripped
into her body, like a guard and witness
I watched the clear plastic bag
Empty its weapons
designed to kill just enough
to keep her alive,
as we drank coffee and chatted.
Our lives are meant to be written
Forward, one day after the next,
each memory linked with commas,
punctuated in time. What happens
when we get to the end
the eraser, gone,
the lead broken and dull
so a period is all it can make.
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To untitled4
the business degree,
the fraternity
the babes, the beer
marriage and kids
the whiskey, the ladies
and football
selling insurance
selling machines
selling your sex
your lies
Friday night TV dinners
summers at the beach
station wagons
the stock market
the house
the investments
the job
the girlfriends
bankruptcy
selling the house
selling yourself
selling your son
your lies |
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the tattooed girl was whispering--
listening-- to bradbury
as her note's singularity
came piling down
into her thoughts--
from the roof
of the world--
twisted like politics;
she had learned to figure eight
her first time on ice skates
nearly lost her balance
and bought the farm--
split her seams-- but
kept enough dreams
to be remembered by the stars
so now she's a cosmonaut
whithered away in the upper atmosphere
but her feet are translucent
as an old fable
and every time she thinks of me
bell jars and time machines
curled tails and dramamine
and that's why i love her so.
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