;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,5,75,192,2,10,15,20,25,127,5,0,
;.l7,2,78,192,2,10,15,20,25,127,2,0,


BESTWING:  Choice selected poems, 4/89--4/92
    
	Chosen from  YCGTFH:  Selected poems ditto
    		which were selected from:
    		Send me the Wing:  Collected Poems 4/89--3/90 [PO190]
    		(Untitled:  Poems 08/90--2/91 [PO890 + PO909]
          Was you ever bit by a Bee? :  Poems collected at the Baby                                             Face Cafe in the winter rains,                                          1991 [PO91] 
          Life is but a Melancholy Flower:  
               Poems collected from Silverster to Mayday, 1992  [PO92]       



.P
Flying to my home
mourning a lost love
consoled by the stars.

       Forget neither how your souls loved
       nor that her heart has left you.

                                 
                           Dec. 4, 1984, El Al NYC--TA
                           (rev. 1989)

----------------------------------------------------------------

*Came back to the farm flipped out, but found
the crested wheat grass I'd drilled in last summer
had become a pasture.
                  
                (of New Buffalo, apr. 1974)

======================================================================

Ed Clark said,
Comes the Revolution
Todd Gitlin will be under the bed
with the rest of us.

           SPU house, E 7th St. NYC, ca. 1965.

=======================================================================

l7
Our Italian Catholic suburban neighbor's children once "did the job"
with a brand new remote-control-operated electric garage door
on our middle-aged spayed cat.
My mother asked, "Why would anyone want to kill a poor old shlump like that?"

 
                                                         January 21, 1991.
l1

------- 

With what reticence she visited her grandchildren
the light, then, of her life.

                   (ASA)

-----
.p
The Emperor of Ice Cream Shall Return

"Hi --
 Last time we met
 you spoke of Jeshua.
 He's Messiah."
"What's Messiah?"
"Next time we meet
 the oldet buys ice-cream
 for everyone --
'Bye."

---------------

TALES OF NEW BUFFALO

Cave Dave found Jesus
and called the cops
on himself.
He went back to jail in Chicago
and changed his mind again
so we all sat down
while Telus tried to pray him out
and I called for help
on a phony credit card.
In the morning Telus said
"Ain't easy."
Next day Cave Dave got sprung
hitched all the way back to Hondo
and let himself out of his last ride
through the windshield.*


       * That was a true story; his face was pretty scarred, but                 everyone looked weird in those days so it didn't matter much.
         Cave Dave says:  If you don't pray from the heart, ain't no                              way He can hear you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

*News Item by Andy Court from the Jerusalem Post Pesach edition

In Katmandu in '88
ba'al tchuva at a Seder said
"This can't, man, do -- know
 where you're at, baby:
 call the Rebbe."
In '89, beneath the sign
of a bakery on the way of the Elephant-god
came a carton of kippot with
air-mailed matza (baked in great haste)
and a hundred tins of gefillte fish
with two 20-year-olds in coat-and-tails
flown all the way from Austalia.
.a1
 
-----------------------------------------------------------

The Snake, honest Iago, played fair:
the taste was exquisite
    as evanescence
thought the cold after-glow
lonely as omniscience. 

-------

Before I'd washed the clothes
worn to our visit
they'd taken you away.

                          28.04.92


---------

ENVOI

Rinata's in
the looney bin

again.

                          Spring 1991 (Rev. 1992)

=======================================================================


.p

Stumblebum in the sun
coughing and farting and drying his toes.
	"That's one happy nigger."
    
         Poor old Bucket o' Guts:
         Did you really expect
         a marble laurel wreath?
                                                                        --------------------------
                                                                  After so much rain
a warm winter's day --
hastily I sit in the sun
trying not to alarm it.
                                    16.12.91, Modi'in

-----------                 

Thrown out of his hovel,
the pottering old man arranges the kitchen
of his hosts.

                    Mevo Modi'in, 20.12.91

======================================================================


Today they are burying 
two persons whom I did not know were dead
nor had lived.

                          May 4, 1989*
                After two retirees were knifed by a soi-pensant                         nationalist while waiting for a bus.

------------------------------------------------------

**Four Star Night**                   

Sasson the Mad Russian
's wife says
they're out
on the street
but
not quite down
in the gutter;
last night they slept
at the Kings' Hotel.

                           (Cf. Catullus)

----------------------------------------------------------------- 
.p

Like a cat awaiting grace
from the refrigerator
I sit on the walk-way mall
before a Magic Money Machine
marked 'Closed'.

----------------

gale wind over the Dead Sea
spasms of rain driven out of darkness like sand
100 children banging doors
flickering static hurls news of politicized TV peace from Bethlehem --
Signs of a stormy birth for the new year.  

Morning light:  8 Zede Yaelim
                walk across the wadi
                toward the salt-choked sea. 


                                             
                                             Ein Gedi Youth Hostel
                                             24-25.12.91

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Leila:
Black streets, cold rain
driven by a howling wind.
   "Everyone pauses, dreaming of peace" says Shlomo
    they tell us, waiting outside.

Mincha time:  snow settling like doves on orange trees
              and the Old City walls.


                                             Jerusalem
                                             31.12.91--01.01.92

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Cornocopia:

Descending to Tiberias
from the Central Station
one is welcomed by the goddess of the waters
seated on a magazine cover
with legs open.

-----------

Sitting by the swimming pool
I glance up at the West Bank
village on the opposite hillside.

                                    
-------------

"Israel agrees with you."
"Because I agree with it
 overall."

---------------

and the drunk on Jaffa Road
spake unto the #15 bus exhaust, saying:
      been sittin' here since '48
      nobody sees me
      might's well go back home


------------------------

News Item,  Decembear 1991

The complete Buddhist scriptures
once written on palm leaves
will now be inscribed
with concentrated light
on a CD-ROM tree. 

----------------------------------------------------------------


Oh, shomer mitzvot mayonaise -- today's
fast I
unintentionally betake from thee.

                                     10 Tevet,  C.E. 1990

--------------
.p
            
MORE MODI'IN

Reggae Tune

Eliahu go no shoes
     Nu -- he
Jet-Set it to Italy
maybe 
       to bring us back currency.

--------------

"You ain't talked to me in 11 years
 and today all you said was,
 'Don't talk to Leon.'"

-----

Can do
       everything
in half the time
including shmira.

------

"But," said Billy,
"Shlomo told me,
 'Go fly a kite.'"
"ASSUR!"  said the POLICE CHIEF
 for fear	
 you'd snaggle an electric cable
 and then complete a circuit,
     *** HEAVEN FORFEND ***     ."

----- 
.p
`Be a darned holy town
 soon's we kick out the riff-raff.'
	'Oh Pious Ones'
     who continually invoke but rarely attend
     wishes of heavens.

------ 

Today we went out to the shooting range
to learn to shoot 3 shots each
so that we can all carry guns again
but it was raining very hard
and so somebody asked the Rabbi
and he said we could all go home.
So we all went home and the sun came out.
We will go back out to the shooting range
1next year
if heavens permit it.

                                      27.12.91

------------------------------------------------

We have a new Rabash.
Every night he gets up
& puts on a real Uzi
and picks up a big new flashlight
and wakes up the Shomer
who wakes up the guard-of-the-night
who goes  over to Leon
who gives Leon 30 shekels to take his place
and goes  back to sleep
and then  the Rabash goes back to sleep
and then  the Shomer goes home
and then  Leon goes  back home to sleep.

	and nobody gives Leon a gun
	or a flashlight
	or a gate-key 
	or a smile.


Portrait of the Poet by the Lawyer for a 4-year-old

"He came from way up there
 and his mind moves so fast
 you can't even see the wheels spin."

-------
"The only difference is,
 we're all crazy
 and know it
 and you're crazy
 and don't know it
 yet."

				 (after Bob Werz, New Buffalo, ca. '69)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                     
For four year Roy
lived like a perfect English country gentleman may
in a little 2-room cottage
with his 3 big Doberman watchdogs
in his little 2-room cottage.
One day Hai asked,
"Is that normal?"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

My neighbor the commando
slips out in midnight dark
to untie a blue line
from my puppy.

--------------
Adon Katsefet

"14 years
 been shootin'
 Arabs,
 and now they won't give me a gun.
 Some folks are on a power trip."

---------	
Lady with a tied-down mind
keeps her man and dog on short lead;
someday maybe they all run 'way.

--------
fresh smell of brush-smoke
fearing the Moshav's a-fire
I've pressed the Print key.

                     May 4, 1992,  12:42 P.M.


         CHICKEN-KICKING POEMS

                           3-if Poem

If    
     thoughts   cld                                  kill
if   that       cat               had
                                       9      lives
     & each                                   live
                cat               had  9      lives
     he'd                                            still
     be                                              dead.




              Pity poseurs; respect affectation:
              if angels fail
              they fall and fizzle
              out like meteorites; we
              though, can't 
              quit, have to 
              shamble on posing like bagmen with bundles of guilt. 


fumbling and losing things -- pieces of 
teeth mind and memory
I'm only surprised that age arrived
before I grew up.

-------
*Resented for 50 years
your refusal to negotiate,
Time, but know now
relief at leaving
done deeds behind.

                   Harwich-Hamburg Ferry
                   Winter Solstice, 1990.

-------
*I ride the rails as beige displays
of foliage float by, and toast
with tea displays of black-&-white striped cows
that jet-stream past me, relatively.

----- 
*The Arc de Triomphe
lonely as de Gualle
stands encircled
by a swirling moat
of endlessly encircling
autos.

-----

*How Paris celebrates
each house where every poet died
of its high prices.

----
& President Ford V-8
        spake
in a great blaring of horns
unto humanity, saying:
We Rule, worms;
go Underground.

				(Paris, 12/90)

-----




The sun scuttles across the grey sky
like a hedgehog corssing a snow-lined road.

                          (England, Dec. 11)

-----
Frying bacon, honing poems --
trim off the fat.

-----
While I guarded the tavern
the bandits bought me drink
and stole my poem.


----- 
`One must see many cities
 to collect a single poem,'
 quoth a diplomat.
      Zhlolp'd in the sun
      I remember my bookshelves.

    :"Treasure in heaven"

--------

The echo of silence
of an exclamation point
used by Pound.

[Ref: Imitations from the Chinese, 'The River Merchant's Wife: ALetter']

-----
One tries to pick words that fit the thought.
---------------

Leaving, the bandits dropped my poems
back into my in-basket
from their smoke rings.

-----
Old men talk simply,
sipping water after meals:
say, Klee's farewell paintings
or even Yeats
savoring ironies;
retiring bodies
pottering on
as spirit soars.

--------
I came
entangling in the telling, to say
more than this.


-------
*POEMS TO CLAUDIA

sigh of thunderstorm
fluttering wings of a dove
red fox lopes through the grass

------

soft wind, summer clouds
rumble of a thunderstorm
red fox running home.

-----

watched by cows and mule
I sumble down from the pass
soft bells in the rain.


             (Passeo del Colombo, Val Blenio, 8/26/90)

--------------
*One day a poor student met a comely young woman of Moab, and followedher home.  Then he remembered his duties and spurned her.  Quite a bitlater, when he came to rainbow bridge to the pearl-light gates ofheaven, he found, as expected, a great sage robed in a long tallitwaiting to greet him.  'Did you really not recognize me?' asked theMoabitess.
                                       
-----
There was, and always will be, a Princess, from the lands of cloudcolored light, who chose to see the lands below, and descended like ared-and-orange flame, until she came to a land where she learned toride the winds like a fast-fleeing storm-cloud.  Then she chose todescend further< to a land where she learned the ways of Wisdom, andthere with her mind she wrestled joyously with others who climbed inthose heights.  And then, with a deep breath, she descended to thelowest but richest place, where he feet found rest on rock and earth,and looked about for others who had made that journey.  But the sky wasgrey with rain, and cold winds blew, and often the air was full ofharsh noises, and travelers often became confused and forgot what theyhad come to do.  And so of course one day a poor student, who dressedin cast-off clothing and looked about with a frightened air, walkedacross her path and said, 'We met once in another land, where the airis not so filled with noises -- I can take you back to visit there, Ithink'  But he looked and acted so strangely that she did not believehim.

Lovers in the Morning

"before recalling who
 you ask me how
 I am"

---------

"Belied yourself
 only; I
 was, as you'd put it,
 'true'."     "And you
set to rout     merely
our   ration  of time."

----------

*"The best-laid plens of mice and men"
derive, as in Of Mice and Men.
I've no-one now to show this to.

---------------
*I gave my love three wishes.
She bade me wash the dishes.

----------
*"I love you true
 but you must part
 for dropping bread-crumbs on the car-
 pet; yet we'll meet again some day,
 if that's what my housemates say."

------
"garlic"
                      "Darling..."
"Not darling, garlic."

-----

No blame, only loss,
unidentifiable.
Nothing changed.  The Angel with Flaming Sword
could await unseen an improbable crisis.
Reaching toward each other they cherish particulars
of a new, unwanted world.

-----
George Bernard Shaw, a bachelor
romanticized the liason 
as 'maximized chance of accepted advances'...

  ------
"My housemate's cast-off roommate sat
 therein and watched TV all day
 and in and out you do it to
 my CPUnit VDT.

The Temporary Lover views Spring Cleaning

In lieu of ablutions 
she throws away whatever I gave her.
Following, I try to rearrange the pieces.

------
BAGATELLES

*That spayed cat, Madam,
ate your decaffinated tea.

------
"Steve  I just lost another
 Steve; one            must  
 really be more care-
 -ful with her
 possessions."


-----
NOTES FROM HAMBURG

Amusing a modern woman
by my covered head
I pass the Dammtor Plaza
and glance down at a bronze plaque.

In deepest sympathy
2 Hamburg policemen
& 6 citizens
contemplate a wounded swan.

-----
In the first-class Hamburger subway coach
a gentleman sits
beside an attache case
stuffed with chocolate.

-----

                               "this people mild politely smiled"
                                     Gilbert & Sullivan, Iolanthe(?)

The Great Synagogue of Hamburg lies
only in a photo, black on white
of a smirking factory worker or some such
near the Bimah, I suppose ---
   we may fast or go to the Opera
   but the villains have passed
   in a Cheshire cat's ass.

                                     Novermber 8, 1990*
                                     Hamburg--Holland train

             *November 9, 1938, was "Kristallnacht"; in which the Great                  Synagogue of Hamburg was destroyed.


Peacefully, aimlessly as snowflakes
Germans on holiday drift over the frozen Ulster 
as if nothing had changed
from those days, centuries ago, of the Dutch masters.
Now here's a man in ten thousand,
souring their joy the best he can
who says the world will come to end.
as well it may, though I think not  today.

                       2/17/91

------	
The gold-winged blackbirds
stopped last fall in England
to call me home.

                        Ein Gedi
                        December 20, 1991

====================================================================== 
