The following poems are just the window opening, making that sudden jarring noise

that startels you after a long silence. These are love poems and the feelings when it

evaporates. Poems that will appear in the new poetry book:

“A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.”

Beg and borrow

I think of the dead friend dying of cancer,

and the young unknown man about to be married,

so what is between the time a man launches

a dream to beg, borrow and steal we all

take life seconds and cook time like some

chef taking orders from things, events that

leave us with a dear bill to be paid, and

we’ve been paying it with small talk,

climbing long ladders you can’t go back down.

~ ~ ~

It’s a sentimental journey, poetry is,

something binding to another. Life is all that  –

a sentimental journey all the time. Piano music makes a sense

beyond one’s life, then thereafter the difficulty to

make one’s music is sentimental after all.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes love leaves a blank stare,

so blank that no love can be made,

and only a goodbye, like sailors leaving on

a long sea ride, waving to the people

on the shore, something loved not seen for a

long time or forever.

this blank stare of love never solved is just

that,  a distant shore sailed away. From

never to be set foot again. The sea, and its

endless horror of loneliness,  bobbing up and down,

lonely buoy staring ahead into nothingness.

~ ~ ~

Does it really matter thief of people’s heart,

who takes nothing from everything,

but leaves the tendrils as if he never came

empty like the barrels of a gun chamber never fired.

Funny thing about love never realized,

it’s just that, a shot never fired, cold

shot in the barrel and that empty sound

is all the person will ever hear

the rest of her life.

~ ~ ~

Never will I write another love letter to

any woman whose heart is a closed orb

for that orb is frozen, and no pen or words of warmth

could ever penetrate what cannot be penetrated

and the love, and why love is not, becomes sometime

love cannot be. And this is why love is love.

~ ~~

The secular point of each generation is

to realize itself, and by the time that is.

It’s time for the next generation to judge.

~ ~ ~

Each generation is too busy making still life,

then to judge itself. That is the now, which

will soon be them. Human kind is a creature of sad light

always thinking of the past and how the future

will be affected. Like a long forgotten dream,

the future just happens each day next,

the way it’s supposed to.

~ ~ ~

THE RIDE

To gain entry into one’s soul can take a

lifetime, the arriving like a plants hystemic

growth, some storm or events sweeps you away.

Life can make no sense, except for each

moment, better to live each second in some

kind of better life than to dream in one’s

own perfect fear

Life is like that, will take you until

your last second, that’s why when a roller coaster

ride ends that kind of slow down to a step,

and just let you off kind of quick.

~ ~ ~

This thing called time which gives lovers

chances to meld together two hearts that

were once apart, as if people were objects

in museums, alone looked at with “do not

touch” signs hung on placards from their necks.

These placards written by others marked in time,

then someone rescues that museum heart.

To time which then carries away two lovers,

unforgivable time that spills forth in some chant,

a pickle to eat or throw away as long as time permits.

~ ~ ~

Underneath the silver moon, opaque

harmless, but menacing. These full moon come

and go, leaving the world a little more blind

each time. Some mercurial bind of little importance.

Just some marking of time, elegant time that

postures each second, stands still only in memory, can give lovers

one more chance to love, and the world revolves around

itself, an owl head spins and gravity becomes this woman’s

friend, keeps her heart on the earth, from flying away

To that place where time stands still only in memories.

~ ~ ~

The depth of beauty, something beyond

that never exhausts itself,

never changing, is the true beauty in a face,

more like a musical melody

keeps playing inside. The music

stops, but the beauty of her face

kept on unending. So this is

beauty that can never be loved,

only admired.

~ ~~

Like Montreaux was a place, and the

Dents du Midi was something for a

dentist, up alone at Caux, the maps

showed roads that only existed in

the minds of farmers. To find these

forbidden roads takes some skills, luck.

This is the beauty of the Alps, that

things, roads, divine hamlets are found

by accident, the same way two lovers

find each other, by some twining of time.

~ ~ ~

Saillon 2011

This thing in between Saillon, the fete

with all the noise, people, faries and nymphs,

chanteurs, but before time began there was

nothing, only a void called Saillon, a name before

names, where groves of vineyards just bask there,

when there is no fete, is the sound before

time, a vacuum of nothing, space, not medieval,

but primordial, before sound, and ears could hear,

lays quietness of Saillon. A dog barks, and

rain smatter hits pavement, and there are no

ears, only sound before time.

~ ~ ~

Monte Generosa 2011

Something about being a young man at Monte Generosa,

being in the grotto with the salty old Swiss Italian men,

who joke, laugh at life and everything, it’s all funny.

these quarter centuries are like mist, a tethered dream

woven by invisible rope of jokes and laughter.

Someday, in twenty years, I will be on the Monte

joking into the sunset as the younger people watch and listen.

~ ~ ~

The dark spot between the light,

eternal optimist thinks this

light will always be there, then the light

becomes a dark spot within the new shade.

To paint a light color, start on a dark background.

To paint a dark scheme, set on a white background.

To find love, paint it where it does not belong.

~ ~ ~

Some painting of long ago,

some dissection of mankind.

as if divine providence gave

the artist supreme reign

over right and wrong, and all

was to please the church over

the left shoulder, and the people

over his right shoulder. In between

was the artist middle that sold

out only to make some meager means.

~ ~ ~

The city becomes some dark hollow

hull of a ship, something where concrete,

wood fused together to hold man

in its belly. These people that

float by in some San Franciscan theater

where no one speaks, and no lines are written

for anyone to remember. And the crowd

just watches dumbfounded, waiting

for the applause signal.

~ ~ ~

Autumn arrives with its whisper

inside some glove its fingers fit,

take the pine needles that fall, sounds

rustle as if the wind, not air but a

shaking of things, as if the world was in

a tumbler, and we just tumble around.

~ ~ ~

Yes (The painting)

They painted in celestial gardens

angels giving arms to the blessed

righteous one’s, weapons lay on

the ground, and to the victor is given

a hat with plumes, and pikes draped

with canopies. A golden chicken on the

mountain gleams inside the sun. This

is what victory really is. Angels

come down and speak of love not

war, and the wicked loneliness of nothing

is gone.

~ ~ ~

The poet and his Pelikan pen is a fool

with an instrument that both creates death

and life with one line. Who says the well will run

dry, when the mind is teeming. Some poet said:

“Nevermore.” That is not a word but nevermore,

like something you say to a child who eats between meals.

Better to “anymore,” so I can deal my love pellets

Inside this “evermore.”

~ ~ ~

Smart bombs and apple plumbs,

computers and horses,

old songs that should never have been written,

banks, dentists and long highway to hell.

Some lady came in and stole all the unfinished

drinks, that’s the way it goes in the city.

My daughter’s eyes have turned from blue to aqua hazel,

so there is this beauty to life after all.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes a harsh upbringing does nothing

but teach that life is an unwanting,

something not to be lived, but survived,

some hard scrabble, footsteps echo on

stones, better to be left at home, then

go out into the dark night. All that

awaits you is darkness. The morning always

comes, and you can write until the pen’s ink

is dry, but there is always music to play, food

for the mind, people come and go, but to be

alive each day after day is a joy. And whatever

harshness from before can just hang in the mist.

~ ~ ~

Action speaks louder than words,

but in the city, love roams to nowhere.

Those misfits called humans frolic to

some lost heartbeat, a path that

gives, loses what rescues down a blind hole,

instead love wanders away each day,

no rapture, only feint memories of what

could have been. The end is never near

and love wanders away again. Always so

far away, as if there is a mountain that can

never to be climbed. No star light to show the

way, but then, when all is lost, here comes

love, and the special moments wash away

these things that roam to nowhere.

~ ~ ~

The funny thing about love is that

It’s fleeting, like some bird that flies

to your roost, then flies away almost as fast

as it came, like the sun that hits your face

between clouds, love can warm you between

the cold spots.

Almost as if life is just some

sex bubble, where everything in between is centered

on one act, and love is the facilitator, some

trick of emotion, attraction that keeps us

hungry, food down our throats, kisses and

deep chasms of love.

~ ~ ~

It’s like a flood the way three daughters

come at you, they all speak some unknown tongues,

and their music is something from bad syncopated

machines, voice changing devices,

Mp3, Ipod, clicks the door shut.

Each night, as the moon revolves around

in mystified fits over gizmos and gadgets.

It keeps the hands busy,

and the mind likes it that way.

~ ~ ~

Back at the Chez Steel

All hell breaks loose every

morning. Something about kids

going to school uses energy

reducers, taking over the stress,

as if a ‘bird in flight’ wavering along.

There are never any endings only beginnings.

That is what he opaque world teaches on

many levels

These insects undefiant, some kind of joke,

like a flat tire, but confident is

the insect carrying the morsel, like an

unbound notebook we twine away the hours

like some mindless fish.

~ ~ ~

The winds have some extra

sensory perception, and the sun is

a glove to change every day . Then the

rain becomes sheets of decay,

Sultry alone on the blank streets

waiting for the sun to dry this.

~ ~ ~

So weeps the river of time when love

Is lost or swept away, but time does

not care about old love never spent, only

In today and what stands for.

~ ~ ~

Some long time ago in the dark ages,

a man sat alone in a room with a feather

and pencil, after some time, the piece was

finished, since crumbled to dust, never to be

read again, this thing called time, what it

does is such a perfect gift for the last

to be unknowing.

~ ~ ~

What happened to values?

said the old man to the young man.

These values given

from me to you, sanctified to obey,

but love conquers all,

so what does love and age quantify

to anything other than what birds chirp, and

fly from tree to tree.

~ ~ ~

The best place to write a poem

is from the inside, if you can find

that spot, stay there and listen

to the nakedness of your face.

The truth blisters on, gone like

Some bird that flies away.

~ ~ ~

The selling and sales of life’s things

are just that, a selling and sales

of one’s life and things. It’s all

just a passing of intangible  …

these things stay behind, and keep

passing along

~ ~ ~

The sun rises in the same spot

in the sky as only one place

as the moon. Same place, only one spot.

~ ~ ~

Occupation of one’s life by

the wrong person is the same

as stealing someone’s life away.

So better not to be stolen away.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes in the middle of the night,

people wake up to find nothing but

themselves, like some sentry, alert

as if in someone’s army. Then it takes

some time to find out there is no army, only

a million stars unseen in the night, like a

half-moon soon to surface. To fall back asleep

is the battle won against one million

stars, this unseen army marching you

to sleep.

~ ~ ~

In some place long ago was invented

Aa valley where the moon rises in the

same spot as the sun rises the next morning.

The pine tree anointed center of Earth,

axis of the universe, the Portuguese herdsmen

are up at 4:00 a.m. to move the cows, in some

dark portal, a lantern swings, a dog barks,

by 7:00 a.m. they are back up on the slope,

there is always a reason to move the cows from

spot to spot, and the water released into

the mountain, two cracks were heard, and

a spark brings death and life.

~ ~ ~

There is something about life on the lamb,

this suitcase and road, where valley

meets mountain, a husk of an old

beehive sits petrified on the door post.

Why be a wolf or a lamb, instead a wolf

in sheath’s clothing? Along the way, a

wolf is just an animal all the

same, but the lamb will always be

the lamb.

~ ~ ~

There was the light in her dark

eyes that stayed within me, like

a flute playing in the night, there was

nothing else but spastic movement.

Love is nothing without its mirror

reflecting itself on each other.

A flute plays in the night, sweet

power from the sky, and lovers

look that look, keeping love

what it is, a silent thing.

~ ~ ~

Somewhere in the heart of

humor lies a reservoir, this

force remains forever hidden like

a birthmark, something that comes with

you, like a long sleep, that you hope

to awaken from. The bells ring, the people

laugh, and the moon hides

away, half-full or whatever moon you

need.

~ ~ ~

Once upon a cloud long ago love lived in some place we look for,

when you find this place, stay there

as long as allowed because love is

temporal, this flutter and bird flying,

keeps flying as long as there is wind,

hope or fantasy from this cloud long ago.

~ ~ ~

Some time long ago people wore

fake hair, mops of silver and perfume.

Today, we wear fake brains, strange

thoughts imbedded from this place, this time,

there anymore, always something to hide,

one must find a way to be.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes the story is never over,

it keeps going like some flower growing.

You can never pick, only smell, and

that is the best part, otherwise, the

flower just melts away, and the story

is over.

~ ~ ~

There is something about going home

again, the forethought is there, and then you are

there also. Seems like shadows outline the

dark lines overcast skies always say you are

home, dim-lit rooms, dim-lit people, and

the crusty smelly chair you left. Kind of like

a spider spinning a web where the web once

was, disintegrated, but built up again.

Makes sense when you leave, but

only a home is a home when you make it one.

~ ~ ~

The funny thing about mankind,

rolling across the planet, invents animal

traits for protection, like the pike, some

porcupine, in the center, waiting for

some sponge to attack. Then a tribe

of amoeba on horses resemble

some moving stock of goats meandering.

Then comes the sheep, moving

aside for the goats, some procession of

animals, mankind in the forefront in control.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes the last orchard drops

the sweetest fruit only too fresh and delicious

to have, only pick-up, marvel at the facets

this fruit has. But what is a fruit if not to

be eaten, enjoyed. Its seeds lost forever inside.

Lost forever this planet never known, blocked

by the moon from the sun that will never

shine again. But who will pick up

the fruit if you pass it by?

Love is a thing known to

no other, so when it comes,

it’s always misunderstood.

~ ~ ~

Time only runs out

when we are out of time.

~ ~ ~

Read more »

(new absinthe writings 2010)
September 12-27: 2010

What can be said about this new, another trip to Switzerland. They all start the same, cloaked in mystery and ends the same: with myself becoming balanced again, and feeling like a human being. Somehow like a magic pill, the Swiss people renew my faith in life and being human.

It was the Heso festival again in Solothurn on September 22-25?, and again more days of revelry, drinking and some mayhem. Not so much as four years ago, when the youth tore down Solothurn. Since then, the municipality closed off the St. Ursen Kathedrale with bicycle barricades to keep the teenages from leaving all that noise all night, and all those broken bottles.
The municipality truck would come at 6:30 a.m., some three hours after the final horde of teenagers would depart. The workers in orange jumpsuits would sweep up all the glass and bottles, making a orchestra of tinkling glass noise, as if drunken wind panes that Pan was caught up in and could not leave. It would take forever, some twenty minutes to pick up al the glass.
Upstairs at Hotel Krone, room 337, I seem to see and hear all. People look up at me occasional and I feel like that hawk in a tree looking down at some prey to hunt. But I only hunt with my eyes and feed the book with my words.
So at the Heso Festival, Solothurn has several party tents at night: Teenager nothing pop, Rock n’ Roll, Rythym and Blues, country western, disco, Electro diva techno; and also another techno. All these tents become very crowded, and there is no room, unless you like not moving or getting anywhere, or just sweating. Four years ago, they would allow people to roam, now there are lines to enter, and roped off quadrants for special tickets.
Inside at the business tents, there are all of Solothurners and their businesses that sell to the canton. Banks, window specialists, Chocolatiers, special aesthetic gas fireplaces, metalic waterfalls, auto dealer, a man demonstrating how pipes corrode and he has the non-corrosive pipes for sewage, St. Niklaus ville for travel, everything.
Saturday afternoon, around 2:00 p.m. nothing out of normal for this Heso Festival.
Then around the corner from the St. Niklas, Grachen travel exhbition, a man lies flat on his face. He has fallen unconscious. He’s a big man, about 335 pounds and maybe 6 foot, 6 inches. He’s a big Gurten bear that escaped from the Bern pits, and he lies flat on his stomach, face down, so no one can see his face. The people crowd around. I missed the fall, but it must have been a loud crash. His hands were large and black, not black skin, but dirty black, as if he never washed his hands, or is a auto mechanic.
He might be dead, or had a heart attack, or a stroke. The concerned hover over, not knowing what to do. They give him space, but really no space to breathe properly.
I ask an older Swiss man that there should be a doctor inside somewhere? He agrees, throwing up his hands. The Gurten Bear just lies there unconscious. He’s about 56 years old possibly, big long black hair down past his shoulders, more like a Sasqwatch. Grey streaks in his hair and long beard. Something that maybe fell out of a time machine from Solothurn 1871.
I felt his pulse as the paramedics were just arriving. It was weak yet steady. He is alive.
The people cleared a little for the paramedics, and I walked off into the horde of people in the hallways of this exhibition center.
It was the next day, Sunday night around 8:00 p.m., I walked up inside the main tent to the Gasthoff Enge, this makeshift pub tent with plastic doors that anyone can wave aside.
This man, large, hulking, walking slow as if in a stupor – was walking toward the plastic sheets to enter the Gasttoff Enge. It was him? No? Yes! I looked closely at his hands. They were twice as large as a normal man’s hands. They were dark and dirty looking like the man who was unconscious yesterday, soon to be carried away by the paramedics.
I followed him into the beer tent. He stepped directly to the bar. His long black hair and beard more resembled a Gurten Bear, than a human. He idled to the bar and next to a man with a large moustache. He was a drinker also. Some come to this festival for the business contacts; others just for the beer. Which am I?
I walk up to him, as if a news reporter and ask him:
“Du OK?
He looked down at me, barely understanding anyone was bothering him, as if a fly was hovering near his drink. He may swat me away.
“Sprechen Italianisch, Francese, English?” I ask.
“Nein,” he growled. “Deutch.”

His friend standing at the bar to the right, chimes in finally.
“Nein, Deutch, Deutch.”

Great, I found the last throwbacks, the last link to some period before the Swiss were forced to learn the international business language, English.
I asked again.
“Du biz Samedi…..” and I made the international right hand coming down in a clap into my left hand, as if someone fell down hard. He looks at the bar, not paying attention to me anymore. He understood, but understood nothing.
His friend, already drunk, smiled and struggled to make some kind of joke that turned out to be some kind of wisdom, also.
“It’s a new day!” he said, looking as if we were all heroes again, like children playing.

A new Day for the Gurten Bear to drink from tent to tent. Inside, there are many wineries and bars to drink at the business tent. With little air, he went down Saturday.

After my Saturday at Palace Besenval for the 1st Absinthe contest to select the best Absinthe in Switzerland, and after consuming 7 absinthes, and some beers before and after….I was no Gurten Bear, and could barely stare down a beer, yet alone drink any. I watched my new-found subjects of interest act as if yesterday’s trip to the hospital drunk tank and a good sleep, just made this hibernating bear a new reason to add some beer fat to that big belly. Sasquwtach.

How could I have been there at both times. When just after he fell, and then magically 16 hours later, I catch him ambling through the plastic sheets to another bar, another beer or wine.
So, there is Rosario, still the same, white wine and Williams all day, carrying the vache from one point to another. Always a cow to move, always a wine to drink in the valley; always a chocalate to sell and always a beer to drink at Heso.

Life had been some kind of whipping post, but today – this weekend with Heso Business Festival, and Absinthe contest with the best of Val-de-Travers in Solothurn, the Absinto Orkestra playing live at Palace Besenval – we are all Gurten Bears that escaped from some bear pit. We know the way out, and the technique back in before the bear keeper finds out. Though, some in Canton Solothurn play by special rules that enable these things to happen. They never sleep in a bear pit, they do hibernate, but never do they think of life as false, or without meaning.

Every day is a new day in Solothurn.
It’s a new day, still rings in my ear, and struggles to be understood again.

Where do these sequences of nature unfold that allows me to see him down unconscious and also the next day, when the festival is winding down early Sunday night at 8:00 p.m.?
And the Swiss-French couple of their years of 80’s in Val Bedretto. All perfect sequences that allow us to keep meeting, time after time by accident. The caccatiore in the Alps, then later sipping a café at the osteria. The bus that comes around the corner to pick me up in the alps, the second I come down the alps in a huff

All perfect sequences of nature. The sequences unfold in perfect sequence with little information than the moon provides when it rises to the same spot for one moment each night. It sits bright, iluminating, then moves on, or our eyes move on.
The absinto orkestra, all wild eyed and mad, plays their music violent with abandon. We have left the universe and are now in some kind of spiral.

I ask the winners wife where she stays tonight.
“Vous reste dans Soloere se soir?”
She smiles and answers nothing, but with a smile.

I ask again different, innocent- just small talk.
“Je suis balancier,”
She repeats this a few more times as we did not comprehend until she became unbalanced.
I did not realize she was married as she shows me her “bague” on her finger.
“Je fait un facile dialogue,” I joke high on 5 absinthes and walk away as her husband, the winner of the contest laughs at me.
His recipe for success is thirty years old and never changed any ingredients or methods.
This contest is no joke and operated with justifiable certainty. Overseen by the Schnapps Group of Switzerland. All the top absinthes that had enough criteria were sent to a scientist to measure the thujone amounts in the wormwood.
Nothing is overlooked, and the goute, with Roger Liggenstorfer, owner and developer of Due Grune Fee sipped and spit out each entry to develop this pallet without becoming over-absinthed into oblivion.

Read more »

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perfect Moment Soledurn

“Das Regenbogen uber St. Ursen Kathedrele”

This day after 20 years of waiting

the perfect moment arrives in Solothurn.

Over St. Ursen Kathedrale, a Regenbogen.

Teenagers laugh at me for my

salvation over life and the perfect

moment. This Regenbogen, pink, red, yellow

maroon stretched in a arc perfectly over

St. Ursen Kathedrale, as if G-d’s hand

took a paint brush, and said, ‘Ecco,’

Io dai la perfecto naturale per voi.”

And the people lamented, and the older Swiss

German man agreed with me and called it a

“mountain,” and the teenagers laughed at

my language barrier, and the Regenbogen spilled,

and the saints and statues wept at

having their backs turned, missing

what they have waited centuries for.

~ ~ ~

Read more »

Spring Poems – 2009, 2010

Cherry Tree falls down Celery-Root Cellar Door

If poems are just

something, a test of time,

then the one who judges life

can judge a poem, then a

Chestnut tree is not a tree,

nor a birch, a cherry tree,

then a orange is a grapefruit,

a apple, a brown pear.

Then you or I are

just a something the breeze

blows. A misquote lies dead,

the last of the prehistoric dragons

from long ago.

Laying dead on a plant,

things die same as they lie.

~ ~ ~

Painting, oil – By Sammy Al Mongo

Misquote of Nature

If life has misquoted you

then live the rest of your life

in a final bow to the audience,

who never purchased a ticket for

your live show, some people never

get no ticket, just fell out of

their hands, and they went to a

different show, someone else

can take a bow. We just become

trees that bend and bow by the wind.

Better to speak loudly the first time,

that no way, life will not misquote.

Why bark peels off trees,

dogs bark at night on a yellow moon.

~ ~ ~

Lucia Steel, Painting by Sammy Al Mongo, oil

The Cardinal and his Wife

Same cardinals, husband and wife

flit on this 45-degree angle

across my property, as if the same

leaf blew by the wind.

The end is always the same,

must spring happen each time

for the cardinal’s vector

over the same branches,

where these cardinals sleep

in winter is where a bird’s dream

goes on forever, some night

inside a tree waiting

for my eyes to open each April

~ ~ ~

Painting, oil, by Sammy Al Mongo

In the minds eye

a whisper thought,

then spring is something

unnatural from a misunderstanding

between light and dark,

that space where a baby is

born from, a huff and then

earth just sits still, as if

breathing and birds swooping

means the same thing

~ ~ ~

If only spring could last forever,

then our life perpetual in non-decay

would never notice what happens,

humbles an old tree,

its limbs cut down by

storms, so wind that blows

chimes each night signal.

Another star that died in space,

storms that come from behind

have no barrier to keep things, our lives

in place. Spring comes and goes, so as the winds say so.

~ ~ ~

It’s just me…

I

It’s just me and the Trees.

There’s never been people, or love,

just still trees standing upwards.

piano notes, wings that sift

murmur come and go.

People come and go outside my

window, stark leafless branches

sway not to wind, just moving

to a murmur of my unconsciousness love

to nature, and the sap that bleeds

from a bulge

It’s just me and the trees

nothing else, no one’s love but

this branch, animals, life

answering like a song and chord,

sung long ago, a blood line cut

so no one listens or looks.

It’s just me and the trees.

II

Forty-eight years looking, climbing,

dodging falling trees.

There’s a message in every

fallen limb, every branch

cracked by  the wind, each

stump flowers and weeds grow

from something someone thought

was dead, a nuisance, where

what only cares is the flower

coming from seeds cracked open.

The old trees shade the younger trees

between this stands me,

ever evolving. When a young tree

snaps a twig, it grows again

each spring. This old tree where a

limb snaps it becomes my

broken finger, always crooked,

never to be stitched back by nature.

III

Each tree has stumps growing,

a bulge where animals burrow,

leaves in the spring bud, shade for

insects in the summer, firewood for

any cold bones in winter.

Slow growth is a good measurement of time.

below ground level, where roots are just branches

seeking opposite of sunlight,

something for the earth to

hold on when an old

tree lets go.

~  ~ ~

Jamaican Baptist Funeral

Compelled to drink absinthe on a full moon.

Aggravated to take a day of from the world.

We all live in some escape world while in captivity.

At a Jamaican Baptist funereal they laid

the old man in the earth. The brass pole

spun slowly to allow the casket lower.

These brass poles creaks an old spiny

long, endless squeal, same as a lifeboat

being lowered from a ship. We all listened to the rolling noise and allow time that ends

in a slow creaking. It’s always making that noise, we only just hear this

at the end.

The oldest Jamaican man in his 90′s ambled up the burial plot late,

a woman said to him:

“Where is your Johnny Walker cane?”

“Who dat der da oldest man not sitting, where’s your Johnny Walker cane?”

He smiled and stood there knowing he

would not be next.

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SWISS TOILET POEMS, AND WHY MEN FAIL

 

On draining into the this

porcelain commode from the

1860′s, my host told me it’s customary for

Swiss men to sit on the toilet

when peeing, out of respect

to Swiss women.

This is American women who

clean the dribble spots on

toilet seats from American

men each day.

~ ~ ~

This a culture where men

sit in honor of women,

who are not under but

over things that are intangible,

things that are not meant to

be understood by lower animals.

Men from other cultures may

think Swiss men too soft

to sit on the seat every time,

so it may be the Swiss women

who also sit down every time

they make love out of respect to the men.

~ ~ ~

What does it say about the

men who sit when they pee

out of respect to women.

What does it say of men who

don’t sit when they pee.

This is what life is when people

are living with real people.

To when people are not living.

This is what the clouds rain

when it falls, it just falls

where it may on Earth.

This man

This woman

are not clouds that make rain,

but the Earth, and dampened moss

that absorbs water, land masses,

people, rainwater and wet

cobblestones, where a man sits for

a woman.

~ ~ ~

Epilogue

After 20 years I will never truly

understand the Swiss men, who sit

when peeing out of respect, maybe

it is I who does not understand myself

standing, spraying the toilet seat and

expect women to wet themselves

in my honor. It is women who are

always being sprayed by man,

left with nothing to rinse, these women

stand naked before us, pleading to have

warmth, but are left without, only

a wet toilet seat left by each

man who came before.

~ ~ ~

Restaurant Schoengrun

9/18/10 – Zentrum Paul Klee

Inside this gourmet restaurant

glass encased, the husband and wife,

rich American women, and Swiss-French man,

never said a word the entire lunch,

5 courses, until it was necessary to

comment on the other couple that

was talking the entire meal,

to make fun that she was black, and

he was white. She was poor, he was educated.

He was lonely in love and moneyed,

she in need of something better.

Then they regressed back into

their silent dinner, empty marriage,

as the other desperate couple, talked,

talked of love, and each other.

~ ~

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Sommascona

If Sommascona really

exists then people can live out

through anything, remains on
a bluff looking down at life.

These are some cows with
souls so big
they stare right through you.
Funny how I end up on private farm
again, they built a mot, pit, to keep
bull away from the cows.
What can they build to keep me
away from Sommascona,
just another village to contemplate.

~~~

One knows birds chirp
at daylight. In Val Bedretto,
where Franca coughs at night,
birds also sing at twilight
as the baby goes to sleep,
they say the same celebration.
Don’t we talk for no reason?

Why birds chirp
they just do
same as we,
same reason we live,
Why be silent.

~ ~ ~

Sommascona

Just another village
to contemplate
whether to go up
to entrap myself in
another mystic
farm village
that never
changes
like you and me.

~ ~ ~

Olivone

If you know life, and Rosario
with all the tractor people
here, could Rosario drink
himself out of jobs?
He actually drinks himself
into them.
Everyone who works real jobs
on the streets, the campagna,
wear ponytails are hard-driving drinking.
They all work, and drink to work,
and work to drink.
Rosario’s just another man in the village.

~ ~ ~

Olivone is a place
where tiers
restaurants
people,
the drinkers
all fest
day by night,
as if wine
was day, beer night.
If ever was
reason to believe in
boredom, the best way
possible, come here.

With so many tractors
per square layer in Olivone.
You would think Rosario’s
jobs would lose away.
“No.”
There are plenty of jobs.
jobs for Rosario,
tractor people,
you never notice them
until they see you.

~ ~ ~

At Arcobaleno, Rosario sat
at the table 11:30 a.m.,
white wine at his hand,
talking the “eh jah” dialecto.
He would have kept talking,
talking the tractor talk, if I did
not slap him on the back.
No one even looked up that much.
This is just another mountain outpost,
fancy is the hotel, but these are mountain
workers, as hard as they be, Olivone,
is nexus Swiss. These people are
really just people being themselves
In a place where time makes
everyone like an old painting,
still moving.

They dress modern, but each
glance and unique moustache,
these are wild people drinking
all day as if the Alps
gave them permission.

When you know a friend
whose father scales down
Luzzone Dam
Swiss Alps
playing accordion, this is
aria, falling between
cracks where life
lets us fall.

~ ~ ~

Luzzone

Rosario’s father scales down
dam Luzzone playing
accordion, this is how life
is played out.
Only Rosario’s father
could imagine this dam,
first place.

~ ~ ~

La Festa Della Mama
Val Bedretto is
two-day event, Sunday, June 15, 2008
annex Monday National holiday.
Even Rita’s son came by today,
tough man, hard eyes crunched
me as okay, as Rita said
goodbye, even her son comes
Monday,
He left the wood
messy on the front,
rainy, wet wood,
same way Rita left
after her Chemo treatment.
Rita’s a mother.

~ ~ ~

Bedretto

The old men wave at you
with their arms, their canes
flip up with their arms,
they’re not saying hello,
they are yelling at you
dialecto Italian.
“Get the hell out of here.
vai touristi, stranieri.
fai hai basso strato desotto.”

They’ve been waving at me
for six years. You’d think they’d know me,
straniere.

~ ~ ~

All Acqua

When one person alone
in Alps, Festa Della Mama
family extended, 4 dogs,
share Coca-Cola, wine at All’Acqua.
on the way back, I passed them
by the strata.
Time, space bend between
arc where people stay
tethered we know or not.

Today in Italian,
they sung the song, “I’m a believer”
by The Monkees,
Earlier they did, House of The rising
Sun Italiano.
It never stops
infectious Rock

~ ~ ~

Two Nights of The Scoppa

Fact that family showed up to play
scoppa 2 nights in a row
Osteria Novena is a testament
to family ties after last nights
blow-out, when Doriana
blew out her vocal cords
at her father.
“intenso.”
They are back for another night.
Father, daughter, brother and Aldo.
Don’t mess with Aldo,
he says nothing but a quick
comment at end of game -
careful motion.

~ ~ ~

How many blow-outs
after Festa Della Mama can
this family have in Val Bedretto?

Tethered lives play card
games all night.
Franca listens, watches, serves
all day. No one knows
work but her.

~ ~ ~

Quiet is the empty time,
Val Bedretto before Nuffenpass
traffic crosses
over by the thousands.
Today, nothing
but dead-enders
like me.
Soon hordes of German lovers,
motorcycle clubs, sports car
exhibitions, all race down.
Story is
only families
silently whisper Festa Della Mama.

In the Festa Della Mama
is not a fest for everyone –
some never had, or buried
mama, only silent quick
points touching between
what was
what will never be
La Festa Della Mama
is not always a festa.

~ ~ ~

Olivone gardens

They celebrate families a little different here.
They sat out under
umbrellas at the hotel
garden
17 old ladies, live band.
Little celebration mothers
don’t get all year
all year round no
where else.

~ ~ ~

La Festa Della Mama

People treat their mama’s
different here, like how
mama’s are treated long
time before people
invented universities,
mama’s taken out
for brunch.
Everyone else –
this is not your day.
The Sunday drunks leave,
wood tables get clothed.

~~ ~

Arcobaleno

When too many times
word Arcobaleno is
seen, heard, worked
eaten at, there is
No more reason
to learn after all
life’s lessons are given
over and over again.
Then the student is
the teacher.

~ ~ ~

Franca lives
winter complete
solo
in Ossasco.
No one does
that in these Alps
unless you are
a mountain.
I never knew
a mountain
that can cook
so good.

~ ~ ~

These types of European
teenage girls should not
dress like that with
those bodies inside
hotel cafeteria,
Hotel International au Lac.
It will take me all day to recover,
or finish rejoicing.

~ ~ ~

The bats sweep by my window
again, different city, different
window.
These bats are small devils.
the bat that flew in my room
in Gruyere was a monster,
vampire bat. Something
in a movie, King Kong, and
I am lost on an island.

~ ~ ~

We all know the Alps
feed, cook us dinner, but what of
these people that stay lonely
to their thoughts all winter,
enough snow, close the Alps
for months.
Franca don’t care,
that’s a vacation from Idealism Alpine.

~ ~ ~

If you want to find Rosario,
you have to know where
to look, it’s somewhere
between the cracks, sitting
at a table with other Swiss-
Italian men, drinking white
wine at 11:00 a.m. Sunday.

You can find him in Olivone
by asking anyone else
between the cracks, sitting
at a table at Il Centro Bar.
Same way you find anyone.

~ ~ ~

Sbiti’s universe is a glide
from scene to scene, where
every entrance is pain, every
entrance pleasure.
Bern’s unsung artist suffers at Les Amis
all night, disappearing back to his den, triumphantly
exiting Paul Klee Zentrum. His art will hang in special expo
3 weeks, that never happened,
so Life does imitate
life, acorns, street artists,
so all nature, work unknown things to be discovered.

~ ~ ~

Sbiti always has art for
$ale, at Les Amis,
he hunches
over, smoking, talking, if ever an
artist’s life was invented all before.
After, Sbiti decided to
give starving, struggling artist life a try,
As if a ‘living art form.’ It worked, he’s
Booked at Paul Klee Zentrum for a
Gallery show, nicht.
As he exited knowing me from drinks at
Les Amis, he unfurled a
Large work rolled up.
As if Paul Klee exited, and sold
me his masterpiece for 30 Francs,
imagine.

~ ~ ~

*self-portait, photo, reflected from bar across steet- Cafe Des Pyranees, Bern, 2009, September

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Mai 2008 (and ‘07 poems) – Switzerland (Zurich, Solothurn, Gruyere, Ticino)

*These poems, prose, were written with same voice of Absinthe Trinker (Absinthe Minded Journal), some writings were excluded from the book, and other poems that came in 2008 after finishing the never-ending story…(photo, le pont at St. Ursanne that inspired J.R. Tolkien’s bridge:

It is my life to live
as is my own
given to me by forces
unknown.
Taken away by forces unknown.
so unknown I live my

life, my own center

revolving around other universes.
This golden creation called
gold love is within,
away from everyone
to capture this golden
                                                                      heart may take a lifetime.
                                                                      For some, only one day
                                                                      a Life that is my own.

~ ~ ~

There is quietude to Zurich
between the trams, kinder
laughter echo away.
We are really quiet
animals, we make noise
we make machine noise.
Our hearts stammer a
quiet murmur as
boat rocking in its moor
tethered to water, air
love, a floating smile.

~ ~ ~

Amidst the promenade of mankind marches a parade one hundred miles long
alone in life marches a soul, infinite both weak and strong like a rustled leaf,
a tiger, singular one thinks thoughts as rain patter, forlorn love sticking
to a tree like sap oozing, bark crest keeping a storm away. So soul, mind and body
run together down the street, keeping stride with what we want, what we have.

~ ~ ~

L’etage Trosieme
9/4/07

As if it takes a lifetime
to know one’s life
Thomas Aquinas laughed,
cried through super natural
growth, a spiral shell encased
time, as in youth
we bubble, toil and sprout.
in middle age, we remark
on how we bubbled
when young, but knew
nothing,
and that is better
to know nothing, breathe.

~ ~ ~

When beauty knows not itself
it knows itself not beautiful
then, therefore no longer a beautiful thing,
but just a thing alive, natural.

~ ~ ~

In the fury of our lives we forget ourselves. Is within this forgetting, we are able
to live, forgive and find a suitable fashion to continue. Therein, lies the beauty of entrapment,
the fly catches the fly paper – this fury keeps us within the tip of a candle ever burning the
wax away until the bottom, we are spread flat, encrusted, dried up for someone’s
putty knife to scrape away insolvent. Though bodily impure, we make ourselves
judges of good and bad, right and wrong, so there will always be someone to judge us.
Better to judge ourselves – in lieu that no one should no you better than yourself.
If you don’t, then
know thy self.

~ ~ ~

Feeling alive again, the senses awaken, people become alive, there is trust in the land.
Laugh inside the belly-roll of the planet shake, gyrate rising circles of joy
when man is used up, nothing left to hurt, there may be a little left, a small kindled
fire almost snuffed out, lack of oxygen, as once comes around a planetary orbit where the sun of
Soleure can warm my face, then there is hope that a man, human can find a center
again, one just needs to be oneself to find oneself. Lost within a crowd, this human race
exacts a price seldom not paid by a few.
In the end, we never get what we really want, to these chosen few who are
lucky enough to keep within their lives and still reign supreme. For this small solace in
Soleure, I am able to see myself as I truly am. I can be a blade of grass, unstepped on, wavering
for all to feel what trees, flowers know – I only for their moment, a sentinel-light seen only within.

~ ~ ~

There lies a soft murmer
hearts feint, talk of love,
such things it knows will
never be, never was, this heartbeat
throbs for a touch, a hello, then
goodbye that really never means hello
in reverse because “goodbye’s
are really never sadness when someone
you may never see says hello
for the last time.

~ ~ ~

Solothurn turns to sleep Sunday.
The Cimarron roofs peel to
a fountains trickle. What happens
to life when Sunday is needed to slow the parade down. In
Solothurn, this sun dwelling
life’s pivot needs no showing,
only faults of life is some places
go fast and slow the tempo all
together, life’s perfect symmetry.
~ ~ ~

Room #337 is an artistic
epiphany, just sit and stew, the
light will show the way.
The fountains trickle will wet
your dreams, the maidens in your head will do the rest, put
paint brush or pen, life’s image
is stages encased, spate of time,
unknown person, time light,
life’s floating rise fighting gravity.

~ ~ ~

Inside the jazz mind of free
spirit lies an artist tasted
like life’s tongue on a breeze
chesa house, dinner cooking.
Who is gong to taste this
morceau of life, time after time?

~ ~ ~

Life is a maelstrom
within this turmoil
escapes to places, a ville
where you are known,
unknown, there best to
sip your drink with a straw.

~ ~ ~

Unknown textures, life offers
better to feel the difference
with your fingers, not a glove.
Sometimes a photograph of far away
looks close, pictures up close
are far away
this is why texture is felt only.

~ ~ ~

This tentative frail human side
looking, feeling, being bewildered
as if nature keeps us off-balance,
pushing us over for the next wave,
spring, a season, to life, us
living, our day
takes a step forward.
Life is for the living.

~ ~ ~

Morning mastery, cusp

before Alps – all come alive
another day to exalt. There a
sound is grand bowl every
crank, swallow, wisp of wind
So the tree learns to talk
after all, these leaves are dead,
alive rustling in my dreams
every night

~ ~ ~

There is a stillness in the night.
Ancient quite before man had
ears to listen, a void before
the universe creation, where
only a tap on a lonely heart
is found. All the Earth,
things, a fish brain small enough,
big enough to know silence.

~ ~ ~

So the Saints Urso & Remus
were executed by the Romans
On the River Aarhe. It was always
harsh in Solothurn for
those who fight to the end.

~ ~ ~

Street noise Solothurn sneak
up, a voice singing a city sound
scrape, hammer hiss, sweep, roll.
Cobblestones reverberates reflections, cymbals
all day long until you add the pitch.

~ ~ ~

In the fields of evermore
mist-laden grass
where nymphs lay, life is really
what we make it, whether
heaven or hell, inbetween
always chases us.
Here, I lie asleep in poppy fields
beyond a dream where soul
awakens, cusp of joy, a ladle
not tasted much by man
anymore.
~ ~ ~

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The Story of Marie Therese

Please let me tell you the continuing saga of the Absinthe-Trinker, who always seems by his own misfortune and lunacy to find the greatest of human kindness. Through our errors and being lost sometimes we can find this special spark known about the Swiss people. Take me, Absinthe-Trinker, arrived in Solothurn for a much-needed vacation, after 18 months of continuing work, and arrived especially for Nachtschatten Verlag’s 25^th anniversary extravaganza in Interlaken – an event, I am still shaken and stirred to this day.

So Americans, this American, we routinely work too hard, and within 17 months of working without a real vacation or escape, I was very ready and ventured back to Switzerland to party, and wander the Alpes. The first night will be in Solothurn.

Not intending to stay in Solothurn my first night, but my hosts in Zurich had an ill child, so I could not take my normal first night in the quite farmhouse. The quite postcard setting of Hausen ZG was replaced by Solothurn’s Friday night. It seemed like a full moon, all kinds of people were out in force.

What is the depth of human kindness, and what is the depth of lunacy and too much drink and irresponsibility. There is the absinthe-trinker, freshly arrived from America. He is tired and burned-out like a dead star from absorbing too much America: too much greed, too much pollution, too much lying, misrepresenting foul people.

Then there is Marie-Therese Dorfler, proud and regal owner of the Die Krone Hotel. Die Krone is the weight of the ville. The weight starts with the St. Ursen Kathedrale, then spills off the weight of Die Hotel Krone, and through the little shop keepers, Bohemian apartments to drown in the River Aare.

Take the absinthe-trinker, who was not even supposed to be in Solothurn that first night, August 29 Friday. Since Zurich was cancelled, it was off to Solothurn, the next destination. Better to be in the free village of Solothurn than the cold, granite stone of Zurich, and its myriad of traps and police roadblock controls.

This to sweep up lost tourists and the mischievous lot of Zurichiose night life.

I told myself, ‘try and go through the first night without any Absinthe’ since the mind and body are attached to door hooks in different rooms.’

At Die Grune Fee, I met again my publisher, Roger Liggenstorfer, who was not expecting me that night, yet graciously accepted my geshank for his 25^th anniversary of publishing. We hung out for a few drinks and merrymaking, and it was a grand first night. I had two absinthes, whoops?

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