There It Was

There was a boss and there was a tide
 and a cold wind shouldered from behind
 The grass ached and the banker plunged
into the bass note on the veranda

 That was the scene, that was the context
as ravenous hours ate up the morning
 which was really evening, or even night

Savage bells bent, all upholstered
 in granite. Waiting for the train
in the mysterious station,
worried about the schedule, but not
the unknown destination.

2/2017

Cloudbank #1

 I think he said his name is Trotsky.
 Maybe he plays the piano.
 Some rooftop Lothario in a fiery mold
 and a mile wide leaf on the faultless highway.
 Nobody here will grow up
 until I say so.

 Steam wasn’t the only groping.
 There was the ergonomically challenged clothespin
 sprawling with doubt.
Measure for treasure, I always say,
 he said. No clouds like the present.

 2/17

When I Go

When I Go
c 2016 by William S. Kowinski

When I go don’t have to forward my mail/cause I don’t get any
 when I go don’t have to pay my bail/won’t cost you a penny

when I go I’ll be wearing a mask/so you won’t recognize me
when I go my net worth will be low so you can’t amortize me

 don’t get bees in your bonnet if I wrote you a sonnet
 instead of finding a buy-in
you think we’re getting rich but we’re just digging a ditch/
for us to lie in

 when I go it won’t be a blow you won’t find it vexing
 when I go I’ll make my farewell address while everyone’s texting

 when I go you can drop out of school get a job that’s steady
 when I go the morons will rule but they do that already

 did you find it surprising that the temperature’s rising haven’t you been listening? if they’re all blowhards when you pass by the graveyard why are you whistling? 

when I go I’m taking my name on a long vacation
 when I go I’ll take all the blame for procrastination
 when I go I’ll mail back the key but it won’t fit any longer
when I go the air won’t be free cause the sun will be stronger

 will anyone remember when it snowed in November and the world was quiet
 will they regret we knew what we would get if we tried to deny it

 when I go at the end of the show there will be one hand clapping
 when I go you won’t even know I’ll catch everyone napping
 when I go I take what I know it’s gone forever
 and when I go I go with the flow it’s now or never

 We all have to follow what the days will swallow as the world stays busy
  theres no time to make another rhyme before it makes you dizzy

Something in the Morning (Something Else in the Night)

This is a song lyric.  I haven't posted these before here but they are another form I've worked in for many decades.  I've also written the music, which in this case came first, with the two line refrain.

SOMETHING IN THE MORNING (SOMETHING ELSE IN THE NIGHT)
copyright 2016 by William S. Kowinski

Theres something in the morning/something else in the night
 something in the morning/something else in the night

 Grandmother in the garden/spider woman tells her tales
 butterflies spin around you/like packages in the mail

How many weeks till christmas/how many days of rain
the porch light on for supper/sleepy whistle of a train

Moron threw the clock out of the window/because he wanted to see time fly
 how many days without you/with no memory of goodbye.

 there's something in the morning, something else in the night.
 something in the morning, something else in the night.

Burning on the sidewalk/ of the life you could not see
 there’s nothing here that’s for you/ but maybe to believe

College was depressing/everything sad but true
 you learn that life is tragic/for everyone but you

She sits down at your table/ with her stained glass smile
 she takes you back to her apartment/for your free home trial

something in the morning...

You go back to the office/to try to make things right
 you peer into the darkness/as if its just another shade of light

In the deep blue of the evening/when the lights begin to glow
 it all has such potential/but it’s all you’ll ever know

Your destination is programmed/into your new device
 but you don’t have to go there/just think about it once or twice

There's something in the morning...

The future mocks the present/the present stares at the past/
lost in the viral moment/of the shoes that do not last.

A breeze wrinkles the curtains/ a bird sings Beethoven’s fifth
the highway sounds like the ocean but the yearning never lifts

Hummingbird at the feeder/blue cat’s come to play
 he said life is no 10 point program/it’s what you do everyday

There's something in the morning/something else in the night ...

From here the ocean seems so endless/sun shining in your hair
 but you know we’re just all tourists/spreading poisons everywhere

Thieves and liars above us/they hide in the brightest light
 we don’t seem to learn anything/just take another bite.

They take everything from us/with the power they have bought/
they get away with everything it doesn’t matter if they get caught

 something in the morning...

Buffy won’t take the freeway/Tom won’t get on a plane
 I don’t like escalators/you don’t know where they’ve been

Watching for your car for hours/never thought you’d be that long
 a hundred times I saw it coming/a hundred times I was wrong

These days with you discover/the colors of the deep
 they’ve spoken of devotion/in our castle keep

 there’s something in the morning, something else in the night
something in the morning, something else in the night

I started the water running/ I can hear when it gets hot
 wash away the chalk marks/ between what's real and what is not

 Hope is what she’s doing/ in a world coming unmade
 be kind and be useful/no time to be afraid

This scene is dissolving/ into the one to come
 it must be getting near the end but/ I guess we’ll have to let it run

Theres something in the morning something else in the night
 something in the morning something else in the night

The Survivalist Song

The grave survivalist stood
 in the blue meadow
 accosting a fervent mirror.

Evening spread like pollen.
 He saw the entrance to it behind him,
 but there was gauze to stack and count
 before it all disappeared

 in the swirl of magic noise
 wreathing the blank sky,
 or the failure of darkness
 or the teeth of the moon
 or the spigots of eternity
 or the implacable prison
 of urgent flowers.

 His heart had already flown
 into the busy distance.

 7/24/2014

Workshop

The least manageable fraction
of unreleased time
is a virgin consequence of blasted
tomorrow.  This stem of night
carries flashes of life through
ardent branches, not
perplexed at all.

You want to know
where you are.
Fair enough, as hands emerge
from fragrant meadows
of longing.  The long
and short of it.

Is this the workshop honey?
parting her hair
with the sun.

3-13-13

The lost purpose of evening
when the stars are fertile
and time bends back

dreams edge their masters
into realms of dust
glowing in another universe
just across the wobbling sea.

The vagaries of day desist,
while sleep insists on
passion's focus
swimming in long sunlit waters
for the moment before it fades
back into the boundless sea.

Moon flares its rhythms,
broken words racing into its light
how do we locate ourselves
in the blazing cacophony of night
so far beyond us it seems silent?

We can't go back, we can't go on.
With aching echoes of yearning
the urge to wake back into time
before the night is solved
into the consolations of morning.

 --early March 2013

whereupon

the dreamer lies
within the lies of dreams

whereupon the strangers cry
for the strangeness gone missing

for some the course will change
as the flowing sweeps flowing on
persistent current in the novelty of days
and some things will rearrange
till absence is no longer strange
just flickers of light
that skip across the water
or a sudden echo in the night

did a lover smile
did a companion laugh
did a stranger stop and think
or even for a moment be
inspired

whereupon
the drift of haze
covers the road, but is beautiful
and the dream goes on
until it doesn’t.

2011

At my age a man expects honors
and recognition.  Forget that!
The bland leavings of diminished demands--
contributions to the ambitions of others
are all that worldly matters, along with familial fondness
however distant, however adhering to someone
I no longer am, perhaps never was--
but what do I know about that?
So this is it--cope with the present
until the light goes out forever?
I end as functions, as scenery,
as someone whose desires do not matter,
whose accumulations are irrelevant?
A stick figure of silence, just another
vaguely startled red face and white beard
identical to every other old man
our individual faces lost?
Small warily searching eyes, no
smile?  Just one
of the floaters without position
in the world, whose children are far away
or don't exist, or never existed?
Old man fading into the darkness.

2011

Maybe the art is not apparent
maybe it isn’t real.
Maybe the silence out there
of embarrassment, of incomprehension,
that absence that is refusal
is wholly correct.
I no longer care.
I no longer expect
more. I ramble
on, being what I be,
as busy as the blood speeds
buzzing and humming.
Lonely,
sure.
But in here
with the light and the rain
the moist flaking fog
the dark boughs, the flashing trials
the golden trees, the melodies
in breath and out
why bother
stopping.
We can all
talk to the future.

12.10

This is not the silence of the cemetary
but of the soul world
of shadows that must be named and arranged,
of the explorations they force, and their rewards.

This is not the echo of the crypt
but conversation with a friend unknown,
another echo maybe, or another time
never to be known—
a phantom, or a future.

11/10

Twitter me this:
mania phobia
LOL
SOS

2010

So here among my fellow parasites,
the jibbering and buying, a warm
steady hum that cumulatively strangles
the given world,
and me scratching
the itch of writing, for that is--I've
come with alarming speed to accept--
its only remaining function.
We are the rapacious guests
and all I've got is silent gratitude
for my muscles working through this world,
its trees within the sky, its insects
ravening without conscience,
and for this brief moment
our fellow killers hidden.

In this most
comfortable age for as many as have ever
been comfortable,
easily sowing the seeds
of total destruction with every
happily stolen breath.

9/2/2010

The nerves of lemons, may they
peacefully reveal the limits
of forethought. What is the moment
when it's over? What is the future
when it's ignored? Eating can't
be remembered, not really.

Stan got on the subway in 1967
and got off the planet in 1983.
Where did he go? Does it matter?
He's gone. Was he ever here?
Or ever there? A fashion for two-toned

cars began in the model year of 1955.
Boys sat on hills overlooking the highway
shouting out their names. Ford! Chevy!
Buick! De Soto! Little girls squealed
and jumped up and down.
Now they totter
and smile, at being still alive
and yet, maybe not.
The fog before my eyes, the sudden clarity
through the earphones,
a dance.

7/2010

Let the buzz slip by
as the flowing architecture
wakes you.
Across the weary fog,
the ancient plot, the passing noise,
the relocated stone, the patient water,
the apples in formation, the air
in retreat. This fervent
dalliance.
The echoes of pain,
the anticipation of everything
changing forever.

7/2010