It was disturbing enough
to wake me
in total darkness
And I chose then
in my kind of horror
to go to the bathroom to ***
Shaking my head
Troubled
In the wee hours
Not again
Why does this always happen to me?!
Not only is he a ghost
He’s a very old ghost
So what am I supposed to do with that?

She was dead serious
This voice in my head if you will
Earnest
‘But you don’t understand’ she explains
And I wonder where this is going?
‘He’s in love with you’

Okay?
Now what?

There’s a list somewhere
that I compiled years ago
Of questions that never had the chance
to be posed
Although approved officially by Robert
and perhaps by Bob as well
I was going to revise it
to make them even more
Impressive
Robert said that I was a genius
but to stop showing off
Questions concerning Jack,
Mass media,
The World War
in which they never fought
not for one second.
I think now
that I would like to have added
Something regarding
middle class conventions
and their subsequent
however
reluctant
disappointments
And what it must have been like
to aspire to them
In the 40s
When instead there was
Times Square and The Village
****** and Bop
Errant ****** activities
And the San Remo
Huncke suicided
by misbegotten sidewalks
And hapless blue precincts
waiting

Robert mentioned a brief car ride taken
in some Confederate State
Maybe he was in the backseat
and a joint was passed to him
He
who doesn’t indulge
if you will
Although pulmonary carcinoma
would claim him in no time at all
It was his finest moment
Sandwiched gleeful between these two
Literary
Giants
The radio not working
Now they are all dead
And I would like to think
That they are together again
encased in squeaky automotive  
Upholstery
Somewhere unearthly

Laying in bed
before sleep comes
in the new year
KNX newsradio
read the press release
Issued
It was cancer
It was terminal
There would be nothing further
and I said nothing the following morning
Staring at a wall of books and
climbing along on a rolling wooden step ladder
This isn’t even my department
The people coming through the door
were grim and silent
having bought their plane ticket to NY
To sit by his bedside
While he lay in coma
With Bessie Smith records
play softly nearby
and atmospheric
This was not a time for personal aspirations
Nor nursing the loss of a regretfully
jettisoned exchange
And although I had been warned previously
About a certain someone being
prickly
and possibly ******
and very short-tempered
and I had wondered
heretofore
how it would all go down
On the telephone
The two of us had shared a brief
‘What is he looking at?’ moment
That time here in LA
He staring at me from
a bit of a distance
on the court
And me in my chair with yet another
cigarette,
turning my head around to look behind me
to see again nothing
(God knows how many times)
Until I
An idiot
Realized that it was me that was
The subject of his eye
And I thought again
As I had done in the morning mirror
My god
My hair looks terrible

That list whereever it is
Perhaps in that laptop
That leans against my bedroom wall
Dead
on the floor
over there to my left
The one that I always pass
On my way to the john
The one that I stumble by
in the dark,
THAT list that exists
still
in my brain,
THAT I still tinker with,
THAT list exists
I would like to think
in both;
a list of questions that will always have
no answers.
To Allen
Who loves me.

Hello, we've reviewed your application,
we're based just down the road from Nottingham station.

Can you make it in?
We'd love to see you,
follow the signs, and walk straight through.

I filled out the form with help from a friend,
but he didn't get the call,
which I can't comprehend.

So, just me off to see the manager,
wear a shirt, plain white,
and of course a tie but not too tight.

I sit down, we talk, it's going well.
"So, why do you want to work here?"
"Because I'm broke as hell?"
"I mean, I love what you sell."

"Name three of your main strengths"
God, not this,
I always think they're *******.

Three things? So what do they need?
I'm honest, punctual, and work well in a team?

I'm in there for ages.
I thought this would be quick,
I hope I didn't sound too thick.
Maybe my answers did the trick?

I replay it in my head, over and over,
I just don't know how it's going to go.

I'm stressed as I walk back to the bus,
that was a lot of effort for an evening job at Toys R Us.

He looks like the moon from the sky,
His radiant eyes would steal the sunrise,
His shoulder stood high,
Heartbeats as if he smells his likely world
on his arm, there is everything but a tie!
He just doesn't have a job, been interviewed,
He expressed his qualities, many quantities,
but lost, walked out without a offer!

His sunny face was still shimmering.
The successful one, murmured 'my friend
you wasn't smart enough selling yourself!'
I don't think I wanted to do that, he replied:

Am is willing to serve to earn the means
to be served, don't mean to sale and buy.
If ethic has no value maybe then
a job is nothing but 'sale and buy'!