THE SCHOOL OF LIFE

     I no longer ask why one man
     puts a tin bucket over his head
     while another is content
     to beat it with a spoon.
     The rattling,
     that once unerved me
     like school marm's
     chalky fingernails,
     has become life's music.
     How I dreaded the people
     to approach me
     in a newly purchased pail,
     held precariously in place
     by the chin-strap-handle,
     as they tried to make eye contact
     from under its shadowy visor.
     Their voices hollow echos
     between thin walls.
     I used to pity these people,
     thinking, how difficult it must be
     to sleep with one's face pressed
     against a metal sheet,
     the nightmares
     of waking up in hailstorms.
     But now I always carry a spoon,
     just in case I get the chance,
     to clang their tin buckets,
     like a tardy bell.
     
 
     A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAZZ
 
     Long ago--
               man beat his cranium
          with a stone,
     
     so loudly!      
               his neighbor hit (the cave wall)
          with leg bone of a saber tooth tiger to:
                                        shut! him! up!
     
     These two sounds,
               combined--      
                         with the chattering of their wives--
     was
     
               it.
     
     
 
     FLORENCE

     It is a tragedy to see a waitress
     get goosed at a roadside cafe,
     to watch a greasy hand
     
     as it stretches out from under
     the tablecloth
     like a seedy strip of highway,
     
     to snap the tender flesh
     hidden under the polyester
     of a woman old enough
     
     to be his mother. Listen,
     to her squeal like a rusty wheel,
     as her face turns red
     
     as the vinyl tablecloth.
     To wait for a slap, a curse,
     or an evil eye fixed like a knife
     
     upon his sheepish gaze,
     only to watch her bring him
     bacon and eggs,
     
     and refill his coffee cup,
     her lashes blinking
     like a neon OPEN sign,
     
     as I sit huddled in my booth,
     nursing a warm beer,
     as if it came from a nipple.
     
     
     BACK TO NATURE

     Trees congregate
     like street punks,
     branches of mohawks
     line the horizon
     tattooed
     with clouds of cigarette smoke.
     At night,
     birds beg for change
     and the moon's a nickel
     a business man
     drops in a hat
     to avoid
     making eye contact.