Who knows the Subject*

August 95

Who knows the subject

When the muse

long slumbering

suddenly awakes

and shoots you out of bed

practicing martial arts inside the brain.

 

Tall men in Spiderman costumes

Roam the deck of the queen Mary

As it sails the desert

Looking for shade and mangoes;

An oasis of civility

From a time long past and short lived.

 

The streets of New York

Lined with throngs

In thong bikinis

A ticker-tock parade

For Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Allan Ginsberg

And Jack

Who isn’t there, but on the road again.

 

In Kansas City

People look for wheat pennies

Collecting time and green patina

While Picasso says

Que pasa?

You Respond:

“Tonight we sleep without air conditioning

and hope

we aren’t awakened

by shuttle sounds

scuttling across

the silent seas of space."

 

Copeland copes

With the Appalachians

Springing forth with happy music

Lost in the lines of faces streaked with coal dust

And bellies bloated with malnutrition

 

Somewhere in an attic

A new little Dickens writes

Ready to change the face of the urban streets

To be disarming in the face of violence,

To give lunch and dinner chits to the homeless who know truly

There is no place like home, where the heart is.

 

Who knows the subject?