I'M YOUR MAN (NEWEST DRAFT)

for Leonard Cohen

What were you looking for,
Leonard, as you haunted
the evening streets of Greece, 
while the midnight moon

spun above your venerable 
escapades like a coin?  
What was it like to be torn 
between a woman's flesh 
and a single sweet breath
that illuminates the face of God?
Did your mother's whispers
burn in your ear as she admonished
you from her hilltop mansion,
her sanity nothing more than swirling
tea leaves at the bottom of a cup?
After a swim in the Aegean
you towel dried your hair

and retired to your place in Hydra,
where the thick white walls were

a sanctuary from the past and 
the priest's blessing, a black soot cross
over the doorway.  In the afternoon 
you smoked on the balcony and 
listened to the birds, dwelling on 
the Talmud and the mystery 
of Christ's wooden tower.

Then, as the story goes, you drank 
coffee in the corners of secluded island 
restaurants, scribbling furiously, 
dreaming of the perfect line
until suddenly, her face obscured by sun, 

she sees you from the doorway. 
Yes, finally, it was your muse, Marianne, 
whose husband had just run off 
with another woman and who, 
so long after you left Greece,

and so many years before she passed, 
called your old-fashioned love
“a beautiful, slow moving movie.”

I'M YOUR MAN

for Leonard Cohen


What were you looking for,
Leonard, as you haunted
the dark streets of Montreal
and Greece, as the midnight moon
spun like a coin above
your sacrosanct adventures? 
What was it like to be torn
between a woman's flesh,
and a single sweet breath
that illuminates the face of God?
Could you hear your mother's whispers
burn in your ear as she admonished
you from the mansion on the hill,
her sanity nothing more than
tea leaves at the bottom of a cup?
They say that after a swim in the Aegean
you would retire to your place in Hydra,
the thick white walls serving
as a sanctuary from the past,
where the priest's blessing was nothing
more than a black soot cross
over the doorway.  In the afternoons,
you smoked on the balcony and
listened to the birds,
thinking of the Talmud. Later,
as the narrative goes, you drank coffee
in the corners of dark island restaurants, 
scribbling furiously, dreaming of the perfect line
until suddenly, you saw her in the doorway, your face
obscured by sun. Yes, finally, it was
your muse, Marianne, whose husband
had just run off with another woman
and who, so long after you left Greece,
and so many years before she passed,
called your old-fashioned love
a beautiful, slow moving movie.

NEON MADONNA

she was introduced to a type of christ
in the nighttime.
standing there in the alleyway

she was too enamored
of the holy spirit
to run or hide.

maybe she was just
too overwhelmed
by the lamb of god

to see that the stained glass
staring back at her from
the barroom window

was nothing more
than another whispered prayer.

SOMETIME IN AUTUMN

The fall takes hold
gradually
like a soft piece of music--
each leaf, a tune
set to the rhythm of
the sun

the leaves fall slowly
first green, then red
then orange
then brown

finally, a naked tree
honors its individual
tempo

and with branches
reaching out

conducts a no
longer visible
orchestra.

MAST BLVD. (MASTER PLANNED COMMUNITY)

I have counted
the bulldozers on the mountain
& watched, slack-jawed,
as their giant tires
tear up the ground,
as their heavy metal shovels
growl and snarl
like junkyard dogs. I have seen
them raze and level
bit by bit
even the last remnants
of my childhood
with no second thought
not even a brief suggestion
of what I should do
with my memory
where, if anywhere,
I should put my pictures
of what once were glorious hills
but are now this close
to becoming
the tiled roofs
of three-bedroom homes,
the bourgeois garages and
concrete driveways
of the middle class.

LET THERE BE RAIN

The rain blessing
the patio
is an overdue epiphany
each drop
falls like a
       suddenly understood
bible verse
something jesus
might have said
or maybe something he
only thought
       but kept inside
keenly aware that
the multitudes
simply were not ready.
Maybe that's why the rain
has been so late
in coming:
the answer is above us
     and yet
we see each drop as a savior,
some mute messiah
coming to save us from
the world we made
      (and which now is dying)
with our very own hands.

PIANISSIMO

In the final
moments
of the evening,
the radio is on
and from a channel
I don't usually
play, a soft piano
soothes.

HEAVEN IS INDIANAPOLIS

from the plane

i see a thin

ribbon of road

that never ends

but instead

reaches to

the edge

of an infinite horizon

and then

curves up 

into a sunburst sky

and penetrates a sea

of clouds

that look like

jagged mounds

of white cotton

and there 

the curve

of the natural earth

shifts 

and the plane banks

left

and if I squint

I can almost see

the beatific face

of 

God