Tableau (taˈblō) - a group of
models or motionless figures
representing a scene from
a story or from history.


The poet laureate is—
inexplicably—on his
knees, holding a

jack-o-lantern above
his head and the self-
proclaimed Great Leader

has just stepped behind
the pumpkin, with its
crooked smile, which

obscures his head and
the eclipsed moon—
a blood moon—hangs

over the Fool in his
green and red checked
costume, holding his

recently authored book,
Chaos Theory, The Order
Within Disorder, while he

opens the gate of the
lion’s cage, and behind
them, in the far distance

is the black smoke and
swirling fires of war, and
opposite the war are the

masses of somnambulist
citizens, crashing into
one another like carnival

bumper-cars, and in the
mid-distance is a blur
of a figure—probably the

Mad Scientist—next to his
new invention, the eight-
armed Robotic Chain-saw,

The Federal Model and
nearest to us, hovering in
the gathering darkness are

translucent Celestial Beings
holding a banner that reads
Beginnings Are Endings,

and below them, a journalist
prostrate in the mud, deathly
ill, vomiting a bile black as ink.

He is a
yardstick,
a measure
of something.

He is a
body, something
worn like a
suit of clothes.

He is a
string of words,
a sentence
to be parsed.

He is an
individual,
a myth
that is told.

He is a vast
space,
a screen life
is projected on.

Who is it that sits
on the cushion
on the floor, here
in the twilight,
during the final
hours of spring?

Even though
there is

nothing about
himself that

he likes, he
defends his

image like he
is singing

the final aria
in a tragic

Italian big
time opera.

The drunken clown
breaks his leg as he’s
singing and dancing,

and the bird in the
room sputters, boxed
in, disoriented, as the

brother outside has
his trained ear to the
ground, listening for

their disturbed mother’s
angry mob, coming to
reclaim her lost home.

How to navigate
civilization

in four steps:
Find a chair and

sit quietly.
Then, dismantle

the chair and use
the pieces to

build a ladder, for
a panoramic view.

Return to solid
ground, and

remake the chair.
Sit quietly.

My little boat and I,
tossed like a juggler’s
eggs, then into the sea,

and as I stagger onto
the beach I see her,
June, my next door  

neighbor who is 95
years old, but somehow
now looks 25, reclining

under the blackest night
sky, as she says, You
survived, the last three

folks went under—and
if you’re going to speak
keep it under 100 syllables,

past that it’s just babbling—
so I sit next to her,
she holds my hand,

my mind goes quiet,
and I can’t think of
anything worth saying.

Nine words
scrambled
in the wind.


are

habitable

They

democracy

a

planet.

and

of

ending

The tea
kettle
whistles

in the
kitchen.
Then all
is quiet.

A cloud
moves  
slightly

and the
room is
a little
brighter.

Under the harvest
moon, the farmer
mourns his dead
wife. In his black
suit, sitting on
the white rock,
he looks like
a question mark.

She’s renovating
the old house.

The kids are
making costumes

—he’s a ghost,
she’s Cinderella.

The apple tree,
recently dressed

in red and green, is
now nearly naked.

An ode to
the broken

world, its
stories and

images
stretched

like taffy to
satisfy an

insatiable
sweet tooth.

The pilot is flying the
small white airplane in
circles, for the fun of it,
in the cloudy blue sky,

and below the black dog,
in the red car, is looking
out the window, barking
at nothing in particular,

and across the street
the banker in a gray suit
scurries, preoccupied by
a problem at the office,  

and in the apartment
above, there is only an
awareness, sitting on an
empty chair, breathing.

Fish in
a tub
swimming
in circles.

He can’t help
himself. He

knows his
thoughts are

distorted, but
like a criminal,

he’s compelled
to return to

the scene
of the crime.

The past is a room
with a peculiar door.
I am inside, then
open the door and
exit only to be
back inside again.

A countryside
dirt-road, a black
crow in the blue
sky, a scarecrow
dressed as Jesus,
and trash swirling
in the late
November wind.

The sun illuminating
one side of her face. An

argument with her sister
rattling around in her

head like a baby’s toy.
On the counter, a plastic

bottle whose contour is
like an exaggerated

shape of a woman.
A glass of cool water

in her hot, angry hand.
She stands before the

paper-white wall, her
shadow slowly forming.

Like everyone in
this place, he’s a
cowboy, riding the
digitized horse, writing

his self-styled myth
with spray paint and
gasoline, a fire
breather, and always

off balance as his
head is seven times
too big for his
body, which, for some

reason, he believes can
be compensated for
by talking very loudly
and continuously, he’s

the sheriff of Main
Street, a seer of
the nonexistent, a
near-sighted marksman,

but in reality, like
most of us, he
is just another version
of a rodeo clown.

You are
bathed
at birth.

You are
bathed
at death.

One can
bathe in
every

moment
and shed
the dust

and soot
before it
accumulates.

X is dragging the body of the
dead history professor, a man of
enormous girth and monstrous
height, through the empty

landscape, then the vast ocean
appears and X drops the body
into the water, where a shark
whose ancestry is four hundred

million years old, eats it, as X
recalls the professor’s sleepy
eyes, artificial smile, and
remarkably unreliable memory.

I am in the house and will be
leaving in a few minutes to
take a walk. Not much on my

mind. The sky is clear and
radiantly blue. The world is
in chaos, as usual. I am old

and at some point in the not
too distant future, I will be
dead and gone. It is spring.

The wind-up chimp
in the swimming pool,
dressed like a sailor,
steering the vessel
shaped like a man’s body,

when a noun dressed as
an exclamation point
falls off its stilts, landing
on the chimp and they
tumble into the water.

The noun floats but the
chimp sinks to the bottom
and as he winds-down,
prays to The Savior
Marionette and in his

mind she dances, in
her tutu, toes barley
touching the surface of
the water, expressionless,
the strings barely visible.

Insight, clear
and precise,
like mathematics
in the hands
of a poet.

She reads the
letter there, by
moonlight, under
the pear tree;
the fruit so ripe
it may fall
at any time.

The drunken shoemaker
falls off his horse late
in the night, and in the
morning awakens to find
all his clothes have been
stolen, except his shoes.

Six objects in
search of a poem:

an overheated planet,
an obsolete

pencil, a burned-
out light bulb, an

overwhelmed young
woman, an unripe

avocado, and a
selfless form of love.

A ***** martini
in the shape of
a Christmas tree,
a Christmas tree
in the shape of
a cup of coffee,
a cup of coffee
in the shape of
a gun, a gun
in the shape of
a man, a man
in the shape of
a ***** martini.

Employ science,
the way a poet
employs words.

Employ belief,
the way a
mathematician  
employs arithmetic.

Or, be the eye
that sees, and be
employed by death,
the way life is
employed by time.

Dried, faded red
carnations on
an electric blue

tabletop, a dark
green avocado
sliced open,

revealing the
ripening inner
canary yellow flesh

and sienna brown
seed, and on the
wall above, a

round clock—with
bold black numbers
on a stark white

background—
that audibly ticks
every second.

A statuette of Durga,
alluring goddess of

divine destruction
and new creation,

in her sky blue and
cloudy white robes,

on a shelf above the
swirling gray smoke of

a burning unfiltered
cigarette in the

sunny orange ashtray
on the kitchen table-

top the color of the
churning stormy sea.

I was the shadow
puppet, a barking
dog. Then became

the vigilant cat, that
apprehended the
ruse. Now I am

the rarely seen
mouse, too swift
even for the cat.

The room is empty
except for an egg,

about to erupt
with life, as it is

sitting on a chair
in the passing sun.

The verbs are living in
caves on mountain tops.

You can only call your-
self on the telephone.

The nouns are wearing costumes
to look like you, or the place

where you live, or the thing
that you bought recently.

Your mail is being spell-
checked by smiling burglars

who ply their trade by
strolling through the front door.

Adjectives have a dress code;
blue suit, white shirt, red tie.

Everywhere you sit there
is a whoopee cushion

that makes a long
repetitive mechanical laugh.

The calliope plays
its jaunty tune.

A cow is on
fire. A drunken

entrepreneur shoots
an apple off the

head of a child.
A young woman

in the audience
is having a

****** fantasy.
A monkey juggles

beakers of volatile
chemicals. Soon this

carnival will be
bankrupt, but for

them another way of
life is unimaginable.

that's the beauty of attention.

Dry dirt as far as the eye can see,
an empty landscape, then I turn
and see her, and she says,
How did we get here? and I say,

I think I’m asleep and dreaming,
and she says she thought that too,
then a fierce wind, and all is
brownish-gray air-borne dust,

then the monkey yells, Cut!
and he tells David Crocket,
the camera-man, that they
have truly captured reality

with great verisimilitude,
and the next thing I know is
I’m here, face down in the water
and washing ashore on a very

small island, a big sand-bar, really,
and she is naked, in a fetal position
and the monkey is kneeling over
Crocket’s corpse like an alter-boy,

weeping, and she yells, Shut-up,
you ***** little ape! and the monkey
howls and bites her on the leg, and
she crawls to one end of the sand bar

and I to the other end, and all is water,
as far as the eye can see, and the
monkey, a television actor, then a
director of acclaimed historical dramas,

is lamenting that Crocket was, The
Da Vinci of the modern age, and I’m
thinking, Da Vinci? Yeah. The guy
who never finished anything, and I ask,

How did we get here? and she says
she must be asleep and dreaming,
and I’m thinking, Yes, that must be
all there is to it. We’re dreaming.

The sunrise looks like
something ******

the cat coughed up.
Having not done his

homework all year he
is failing algebra class.

He wakes up in bed,
then falls back asleep.

He’s in the front yard
and can’t find his pants.

The school building is
like a jigsaw puzzle that

is impossible to solve.
The sunrise looks like

something ******.
He wakes up in bed,

then falls back asleep.
Of course he doesn’t

know that he is asleep.
He’s forgotten how to

balance the equation.
The edifice is a puzzle.

All day she tends the garden behind

the house. Every morning she lines up

clear jars on the kitchen counter,

like rows of pacifist soldiers. In the

evening they are filled with fresh

yogurt. Some evenings we sit by the

fire and she reads Haiku poetry aloud.

Nothing expository there, she says,

then winks and laughs like a church bell.

One night as I was passing by the

drive-in movie theater, I saw her

up on the screen, playing a spy

disguised as a goat. Last night she

sat in the meadow, in the moon light,

wearing the robes of a Buddhist monk.

In the morning I asked if she was

rehearsing for another movie role.

Oh no, sir, she replied, I can assure

you I am entirely the real thing.

Then she crowed, exactly like

a rooster at morning’s first light.

The cuckoo
sings to me.

The cuckoo
was sacred

to the Greek
goddess Hera.

The cuckoo
resonates like

a flute and often
sings at night.

Those Bavarian
clocks got it

wrong. The
cuckoo is a

singer of the
hallowed song.

Fall into that
hole in the shape
of your body

and keep
falling until
you reach a

silent, empty
space, where words
have lost their

use, and emotions
pass through,
like tourists

and your name
has a hollow
ring to it.

I won’t bore you with the
whole story, I’ll go right
to the end, when it’s
the day of the wedding
between the gangster and
his bride, the lawyer, and
the priest at the church
is eating his lunch, a
strip-steak with creamed
spinach, as the bag-man
delivers the airline tickets
for their honeymoon in
Borneo, and the gangster
is tossing the gun
into the river, as his
bride is passed-out on

the floor of the church,
under the circular apse,
having been struck on
the head with a sacramental
chalice, and the priest, who
is really a spy, is dead,
apparently poisoned
by God knows who, and
the gangster is on his way
to Borneo, alone, as the
concussed lawyer-bride is
half-awake and can’t remember
where she is, how she
got there, or why she is
wearing a very ******
creamy-white wedding dress.

I am sitting on a branch,
near the tree’s top, next to

a Capuchin monkey and
we are watching a man

wrestling an alligator. In
the distance an industrial

truck belches black smoke
as it nearly runs into a

very old man slowly crossing
the intersection. Then the

monkey says, Looks like the
dude’s got the alligator in

a choke hold. And I say,
The old guy barely made

it across the street. Then
the alligator gets free and

scurries away, but gets run
over by the truck. ****, says

the monkey, then, I got a
job, working with a private

investigator. The monkey
peels a banana and hands

me a piece as I ask, Doing
what? The monkey looks me

in the eye and says, Help
solve crimes. I say, Sounds

like a TV show, and the
monkey replies, Yeah, very

much like a television show.
And we watch the old man

very slowly amble down the
street—until he is gone.

They are on a mountain
at the edge of the world,

on her white parachute
draped on the ground under

the cherry blossom trees,
naked, vulnerable, while

down in the valley the
trees are on fire, even as

the oceans are swelling
and flooding the coasts,

and they feel the fever
in the air, the infection

in the atmosphere, and
as soon as they patch

his balloon and ignite
the flame, it will float

away in the hazy air,
to who knows where.

What I saw at the
moment of my death:

a mouse trap,

a card trick,

a woman riding her
bicycle in the park,

a businessman

who lies for a living,

an empty kayak
navigating the river.

The minotaur, trapped for many
years in a labyrinth, is the
sailing master, pilot of the
ship. His mother, a depressed
biologist, is below deck,

lamenting the loss of her
husband, a bull who was
killed by a matador—now a
pirate, chief executive of an
international fast-food company.

The rigger, master of the sails,
tracker of air and ocean
currents, hermaphroditic,
was a juggler, a high-wire
walker in the traveling  circus.

The look-out, with telescope,
in the crow’s nest. An orphan,
raised in a Taoist monastery.
Describes his life as a
journey of wandering solitude,

All looking for—refuge—
a place to live, to be,
an island with fresh fruit,
not sinking into the sea,
and not on any pirate’s map.

The Minister Of State
reads the speech
dictated by the toiling

titan of industry,
inventor of the gadget
that everyone needs,

while titan’s wife, the
Baroness, though
talented with an

umbrella and tweezers,
sits idly waiting for a
delivery from the

publicist, who works
into the long night,
crafting the narrative

that all of us fall
into, like the words
in this sentence.

Thank you.

What are you doing
to yourselves? I can

not suitably reply
to the question  

posed by the vast,
unfathomable

sea, as my little boat
barely stays afloat.

The riddle of
everyday life.


A balloon rises
as a paper airplane
descends, and below,

a yardstick,
one end broken
off, while a ripening

pear sits on a
nearby chair, as
the drama unfolds.