IT’S ALL PART OF THE PUNISHMENTby

Jimmy A. Lerner

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Fence Skeptic appeared in the Winter 2000 (issue #14) of Rattle.

At The Hebrew Home For The Aged: 1957 appeared in the Winter 2000 issue of Weber Studies

Because They Would Not Give Me The Golf Cart, Convict Carping, How Shapiro Got On My Shit List and Writer’s Block appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of Weber Studies.

And Shapiro’s Little Dog, Too! appeared in the Fall, 2001 issue of The Massachusetts Review.

The Day I Forgot To Take My Prozac will appeared in the Fall, 2001 issue of The Cedar Hill Review.

I. The Punishment Isn't Working

1. FENCE SKEPTIC 2. WRITER'S BLOCK 3. BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT GIVE ME THE GOLF CART 4. CELLMATE 5. CONVICT CARPING 6. EX-CELLMATE 7. PENITENTIARY DISPATCH 8. HI! WE ARE YOUR PAROLE BOARD 9. IN THE PRISON WAITING ROOM 10. HOUSE OF FALLING DIMES 11. MASLOW NEVER MET MONGO 12. THESE DAWGS 13. EXISTENTIAL PUNK 14. DEATH ROW 15. YOU DIDN'T LIVE WITH IT 16. FELONIOUS PHLEGM 17. ONLY WHEN HE’S DOING HARD TIME

FENCE SKEPTIC

Mommy warned me not to do it –Jimmy, don’t put that bobby pinin the outlet –daddy drove me to the emergency room,mommy still in shock.

Daddy warned me not to do it –Jimmy, don’t touch the hot stove,you’ll burn your hand –mommy drove me to the hospital,daddy still steaming.

They say the fence here is electrifiedthat this is how some of us learn,beneath the guntowersbehind the razor wire.

I stroll the yard,my keen convicted mindwondering

if the fence to freedomwill really deliver 50,000 volts.

WRITER’S BLOCK

because I wouldn’t shut up,after 6 daysin Suicide Watch Cell No. 3the prison shrink pronounces me“sufficiently stable”to be entrusted with a pencil stubsuitable for 9 rounds of golf – dull,no eraserno mistakes!

and one blank sheet of paperslides under the steel door;the old terror of tabula rasa,the strain to say something . . .Significant(which has driven better men than meto unsupervised suicide)spawns this tired graffitoon the cinderblock wall:

THE WAY OUT IS THE WAY IN.

but my backup plan is better:an origami airplaneto fly through the cell doorand over the guntowers.

tomorrowI think I will askfor a bowl of chocolate ice creamand a golf cart.

BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT GIVE ME THE GOLF CART

or the chocolate ice cream,I spend the next four daysbanging my head against the wire-meshwindow of the cell door(How do you suppose they threadthat heavy metal gauge into the glass?)til my face is a tall ship sailinginside a blood-streaked bottle.

“What do you want, six-one-six-three-four?”The cop’s face coiled at the window,clenched tight as a waiting fistbehind a trick question . . .

What do I want?

Let’s see . . .I want a Presidential pardon,a Papal blessingfollowed by a ticker-tape parade down Broadway.I want 10 free piano lessons,high-speed Internet accessand a pony for Christmas.I want my head to stop hurting,a trip to Disneyland,an icy mocha Frappuccino from Starbucks.I want a time machineI want my mommyI want that magic summer whenSuzy’s sweet sixteen lips brushed minefor the first time . . .

Not for the first timeI answer:“Sorry, officer,I just wanta roll of toilet paper.”

CELLMATE

during the Jerry Springercommercialsit likes to boastof all the bitchesit has boned(and how they liked it)as gray underwear dripsfrom paper clipsit has tapedto the cinderblock wall.Later it will eatmaybe showerdefinitely shitthen wet dream of the girlwho reportedit.

CONVICT CARPING

in the convict chow hall(grapefruit and gravy)our pasts secure in ruin,we build the wreckage of our futureswith little plastic spoons.

“Cain’t even vote for prezdent”mourns Mongo(our reluctant recidivist)“cain’t keep no guns”(the litany unfurls)“cain’t get no god dameliquor license”

(like a fishing pole).

While I scoop out the grapefruit(it does not glitter pink)grateful that my childrenwill be spared the truth –the sight of Mongodrunk, armed, uninformedat the local voting booth.

EX-CELLMATE

Mongo swears there is a little green wormgrowing inside his head. Our prison cellis too small to contain such intimate sharing.

The worm feeds on his thoughts,bulks up on brain blood – once it glowsit will become a snakethat will tell him to domore bad things.

Because good cellmates should bond over time,I finally tell Mongo about the chatty yogurt-fleshed creaturesthat once lived in my refrigerator,razor-toothed and ravenousfor the little green wormsthey ordered me to bring them.

Mongo does not share with me anymore.The medication must be working.

PENITENTIARY DISPATCH #3

From the concrete cavesdeep beneath the surface of Savage Planet,your convicted correspondentstands ready to file his annual report –key learnings gleaned from a few dark yearsunliving among the tattooed tribes:

snobbery will get you killedalmost as fast as humility;showing fear will get you hurtbut not as fatally as compassion.

It’s best to go native in dress and speech –“Y’unnerstan’ what I’m sayin’, dawg?”Never refer to a tribesmanas a “punk-ass bitch,”even in jest.

Given enough timeyou can cultivate a bad-ass goatee,a Satanic demeanor encased in iron,worshipped at the weight pile.Lose your teeth (amphetamines will help),gain a tattoo- a small tasteful swastikaon the neckis the current rage.

When it is your turn to play lookoutat the Saturday night gang rape,hosted by a new reluctant guest,always bring some cell-brewed pruno(fermented oranges are a good choice)for the party organizers.Be generous to ensureyou are not hosting this event

next weekend.

Above all, tend to that secret holy place,the uneasy sanctuary of a soul in escrow.Sow the soil with half-remembered snatchesof songs and poems and childhood prayers,perhaps the gamy Sunday smellof your first-born kicking inthe winning soccer goal,or the sweet salt scent of a oncemagical lover.

For each of us it is as differentas the type of armor we wear –one man’s cliché is another’s epiphany –his love, her fear.

It is lonely here.Do not descend to the dark placeunarmed,alone.

HI! WE ARE YOUR PAROLE BOARD

You squirt out of convicted wombsconvulsing with grievances,contorting yourselveswith painful notions of justice,squalls of redemptionand born again nonsense,forcing us to severyour umbilical delusionswith the slow scalpelof supreme indifference.

So in the interest of full disclosure

let us make this as boldas the fresh tattoos that bloomfaster than your belovedbad-ass goatees:

This is about as personalas taking out the garbageon Sunday morning

and if anyone still does not get ittry this recipe for insanity:

Lock yourself in your cellfor one hour. Breathe infear, contemplating the conceptof fairness,then repeat –next year.

IN THE PRISON WAITING ROOM

The woman waits for her blue-shirtedhard mancounting the Ziplocked quartersshe will feed the machinesfor candy and cigarettes,the microwaved chicken wingsthey always share for lunch.

The man will kiss her and smile,will try to fill the years between themwith the sparkling promise of paroleand the memories of Prom Night,his hand brushing her cheek,a pale canvas for his glowing plans.

The woman will nod bravely,soft hands not strayingto her left breastwhere a walnut hardens

and waits,a last dancewaltz.

HOUSE OF FALLING DIMES

Here at The Penal Colonythe resentful guests luxuriatein manly martyrdom, blaming it all onThe Bitch Who Snitched Me Outwho also goes byThe Bitch Who Dropped a Dime (“on my sorry ass”).

Her name is Legionthis treacherous girlfriend/fiancé/common-law/wife,pronounced Be-Yatch (two syllables, say them fast)startling in her ubiquitythis Oz girl behind the curtainthat darkens a righteous man’s life.

The Be-Yatch will be there for himwhen he saunters out the gate,her skirt short, stretched tightas her smile,her eager pursestill burstingwith dimes.

MASLOW NEVER MET MONGO

who has a semi-privateprison cell,a warm dark placeto defecateand defile himself,the 13 inch TV

flickering like a cave fireof Saturday morning cartoons.

In a season or two, perhaps in Spring,his tumescent thoughtswill transcend TVand turn to Love –(the tough, unconditional kind).

Years later, slack-jawedand sated,he stumbles across the Discovery Channel –a special about crude paintingsdiscovered on cave walls –the precise moment when Mongo(tattoo gun trembling above his muraled chest)self-actualizes.

THESE DAWGS

buried alivebeneath the wirebelow the guntower,these wannabe hard cases(pale trailer trash faces)blaze alivekicking itwith their dawgstheir homies(“Y’unnerstan’ what I’m sayin’?”),craving dental attentionthey smoke and joke –Old Home Weekat juvenile detention

within the cave wallsthey chisel stone torsos

paint templeswith tattoo engravingstribal ravingssplashed on arms, legs, cheststhey etch the namesin blue, in blackof girls who have already fadedto Sanchoto Jodyand Cadillac Jack

but these are joyous dawgs!righteous dawgs,relentlessly prayingjackals brayingfor candy, coffee and smokes(“y’unnerstan’ what I’m sayin’?”)howling on the phoneup in the mixnever alonethese dawgs,once lostnow foundstill damned,these dawgs are home!

EXISTENTIAL PUNK

“Hell is other people.”Sartre

He went to college and wouldn’t believe it;went to war and still couldn’t see it. Even in prison,withered by the tyranny of routine,he thought that Hell was just places and things,like his 8 x 6 concrete cage orthe slow gray exhalation of days,the razored waste of sky.

It took more than books and words,

more than the war and the wire;it took the iron embrace of a cellmate named Mongo,300 pounds of pounding heatand tattooed sweatto convince himwhat every 3rd grader besetby the schoolyard bully knows:that Sartre was right.

DEATH ROW

One might mistake it for a holy place –hushed, cavernous,the walls moist with the tearsof a million unanswered prayers.

This is the place of unholy ghosts,the place of the shadow peopleshackled to the cave wallinsensate,beyond the succor of self-pityor God.

We gauge the time til lunchby the jangling of the turnkey,a death rattle.

YOU DIDN’T LIVE WITH IT

We heard you singing last nightsomewhere outside these walls,righteous candles raised to Heaven,you marched and prayedwhile they strapped him downfor the last time.

Perhaps you thought it was humanbecause it loved TV and chocolate and children,

enjoyed the blueberry pancakesthey shoved through the food slotfor the last time.

It could not read,but it liked to tear out the picturesfrom the magazinesof all the pretty girlsit admiredand hoped,one day,to kill.

FELONIOUS PHLEGM

The prison yard is dappled with itlike a shooting range wherethe ejected dead cartridges lie everywhere.At first I thought it was the chainsmoking, the harsh hand rolliescongesting the lungsor maybe something hanging in the barbed air where the desert banshees howl sand intosilent open mouthsor even (God forbid) the food,until years later impoverished by this abundance of timeand the futility of words,I realize it is just the Spartan languageof the powerless.

ONLY WHEN HE’S DOING HARD TIME

On certain nights his prison cell

fills with bright musicfrom across the lake, the laughter lightand young, skipping and spilling over the waterand the miles and the years,the waters rich and sparkling with promise,the girl’s voice calling to himfrom a sailboather legs tanned against the startling whiteof summer shorts and billowed sails,her voice a warm embraceacross the years.

He thinks now there may have been a time when they shared a secret languageand he could have called out to her,could have bound her to him with the right words or a clever touch, could have reeled his courageand hope and pride into a tight lineand yoked his life to hersbefore she sailed onand the worldmoved onwithout him.

II. The Therapy Isn't Working

1. ECT SESSION #3 2. HOW SHAPIRO GOT ON MY SHIT LIST 3. SYNANON DREAMS 4. THE HOSPITAL ALSO HAS A SANDBOX 5. AND SHAPIRO'S LITTLE DOG TOO 6. THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY 7. 13TH STEP 8. AT THE SUSHI BAR 9. THE THERAPY DIDN'T TAKE 10. BIMBO REDUX 11. MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST UP THE DOSAGE 12. WHY CAN'T SHE JUST WATCH JEOPARDY? 13. LEPKE AT 50: IN LOVE AGAIN 14. NEVER SAW IT COMING 15. THE HUSBANDS OF THE FRESHLY BATTERED WIVES 16. THE DAY I FORGOT TO TAKE MY PROZAC 17. LEPKE’S (NEWLY EMPOWERED) BRAIN

ECT SESSION #3

“We don’t call it electro-shock anymore; It’s electro-convulsive

therapy.”Dr. Irving Shapiro

There is a hushed room at the hospital,a shock of white and slumberingcold metalwaiting for Susan to surrenderher clenched secrets.

(There’s a tangle of them, the doctor whispers, twisted around her throat . . . her heart . . .)

Beneath the rigid sheether fingertips tremble towardthe bone bleached bend of her face,the temples razed and violatedso that the patient might live,kneelingamong the ruins.

HOW SHAPIRO GOT ON MY SHIT LIST

Now that we are a nationwhere all roadslead to confession –data highways of dysfunction,the unquiet mindthe memoir noir –I send The Wife awayto the marriage shrinkalone and blind

(requesting she returnwith insights

and a six-pack)

while I fondle the remote controlwondering where she has hiddenmy pistachio nutsthis time,already mourning her merciless return,resurrected,twitchingwith breakthroughsand pills:Dr. Shapiro says you’re insensitive,you lack listening skills.

How does a man explainthat we listenbut we can not hearover the musicresounding,this endless symphonyof self-lovepoundingpounding, poundingin our ears.

SYNANON DREAMS

of her howlingpast midnight and reasonanother Saturday nightGuilt Session.I flip over her hole card,Patty pulls the coverstil she weeps in the approvedprimal manner,the bloated bag of imaginediniquitypunctured at last:“Pity, pity, for love’s sake,”the needles pitiless,a spill of pain, guilt,

progress,she wiltscracking with the dawna new daystill unclean,reborn.

THE HOSPITAL ALSO HAS A SANDBOX

Her head a bundle of bandagesSusan plays in the backyardwith a ball peen hammerand a bucket of eggs. The tappinggentle, persistent,a clinical curiosity.

They give her a three-ringed binderto log the results - the key findingsafter seven years:hammer – 42,513eggs - 0.

Preliminary insightsnoted:

Whether the hammer hits the eggor the egg hits the hammerit’s always badfor the egg.

AND SHAPIRO’S LITTLE DOG TOO

Before Dr. Shapiropronounced her bipolar(“No cure”)she was just a crankybitch

I could ignore.

But a Disease,like Fashion,demands attention,even dignityfor its Victims

who wield their symptomslike manic swords. Tomorrowat four,I’ll take a fifty minutehourwith Shapiro –this is war!

THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY

the whore’s nameencounteredon a slip of paperwe found in The Resentment Boxlong after the blood trackeddown her white armsbeneath her shaved headeyebrows razoredinto the pot sinkmute, shunnedwe scrubbed our sinsfor 90 days(“the first stepis to touchyour own pain”)

til the midnight sisterscame for herbound her shame to The Chairscreaming(“cum-sucking maggotdope fiend piece a shit”)always behind The Lovewhich they taughtyou can’t keepunless

you give it away.

13TH STEP(with apologies to Bill W.)

Before the wondrous spreading of her cheerleader legs(dare I go there?)and always my cigaretteexhausted, after,the endless double lattesmy forced Starbucks laughter(the things an old man enduresfor love).

“Ain’t the twelve steps awesome?”she demands,(so pretty the mouth)“you must be a cancer;”(so lush the lips)“Perhaps a mocha”I always answer.

I’m a spiritual man –angelic eyes raisedto moist heavens,damp rapture in hand,but beneath her straining sheetsthe beast, unleashed –this cancerous old man.

AT THE SUSHI BAR

Gibbering with the glowof the Born Again,

this New Age nymphholding forth:

“Whenever a door closes,a window opens.”

Spearing my sushiI smile,swallowing the epiphanyof an open window –(the silent crowbar),two junkies tumbling throughwith VCR eyeswith butcher knives –best to leave the door ajar.

THE THERAPY DIDN’T TAKE

at the Anger Management classwe watch dull-eyedas the shrink, Dr. Nudelman,proffers punk-ass “options,”and “empowering alternatives”to the heatsinging in my blood.

(There are woundsthat never healwith wordswith reasonwith kindness –only the blood song)

I am learning againto count to ten,that the twisted thoughtis father to the deed –so I misshape a thoughtof Nudelmantwisting

from the meat hookin my garage,leaking optionsbetween screams.

“Count to ten – fast,”I suggest,so sweetlyempoweredat last.

BIMBO REDUX

This time the bimboassaults mewith mindless optimism,“the glass is half-full”she bludgeonswith platitudesover plates of steak tartar,the wine steward scuttling,a smarmy twitstalking my wallet.

No stranger to pretentiousreparteeI raise my glass(half empty)the crystal snapping:“What is the sound,my dear,of one handclapping?”

MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST UP THE DOSAGE

because the pills don’t workagainst a brain that flits birdlikebetween the nested pain of the past

and the certain wreckage of the future,Dr. Shapiro suggests I tryto Be Here Now,to Embrace Balance

a puzzling concept to a playful mindthat now wonders if balancecould possibly be that caged thingI sometimes passas I wing freelyfrom one extremeto another.

WHY CAN’T SHE JUST WATCH JEOPARDY?

for twelve hundred bucksSusan is the proud new ownerof a pre-owned mantra:Let go and let Godshe shares with mefor nothing

from the shocked carpetthe EMTs revive mebeside the remote control,claw marksstill on it.

LEPKE AT 50: IN LOVE AGAIN

this time with the semi-beautifulclerk at Kinko’swho sneaks smoke breaksbehind the Dumpsters,snaps her gum and snickersat customers like Lepkewho needs a new suit

a better haircutan appreciative wife,but for today will pay $227for two copies of the Manhattan Yellow Pagesfor the pure pleasureof watching her moveamong the machines,all the parts working in harmony –a priceless reproduction.

NEVER SAW IT COMING

My little girl likes to visit Mommyat the hospitalon Sunday mornings, the sun slashingthrough the blindssoft and whiteas the bandageson Mommy’s wrists.

Later we will build sand castleson the beach,my little girl’s plastic pailher small shovelfearlessagainst the coming tide.

THE HUSBANDS OF THE FRESHLY BATTERED WIVES

gather in church basements on Saturday morningto share their experience, strength and hopewith the Newcomerswho are always in denial:“The bitch had it coming,” they cry,“bitch needed a beating.”

The old Wife-Beaters, basement sages,shake their gray heads and smile becausethey know the therapy takes time. “Time takes time,”they like to say, between grim inhalations of Styrofoam coffeeand Lite cigarettes. They share their stories tiltheir faces shine with the light of better days,of bare knuckles bashing cowering fleshas the Newcomers tense forwardelectronic ankle braceletstingling.

THE DAY I FORGOT TO TAKE MY PROZAC

it seized me, gripping my chestlike another heart attack,but more frighteningfor its unfamiliarity

lasting just long enoughfor my Little League boy,my darkly troubled Bobby,to circle all the basesfor the first time,his small face a festival of lightsas I stop breathing.

This time I do not call 9-1-1or Dr. Shapiro(who summers in the Hamptons),because the heavy chest, a sinking ship,is heaving, buoyant

with a feelingwhose name I am trying to remember . . .

I think it rhymeswith joy.

LEPKE’S (NEWLY EMPOWERED) BRAIN

We are worried about our friend Lepke(who no longer comes to the Wednesday nightpoker game)whose mid-life crisis is different from oursin the same way that each unhappy familyis said to be unhappy in its own way.

(Lepke’s brain deletes the things it does not like;they say he sings himself to sleep at night.)

Lepke claims his wife left him shortly after his lasereye surgery when (for two thousand bucks)they burned away the myopialike trash at the curb,his imagination rising from the ashes.

(Lepke’s brain is building a brand new pastone searing anecdote at a time.)

Sometimes we walk by his house on Wednesday nights,the music rising like light from the rooms

like the woman’s dancing shoesand Lepke,soaring.

III. SO MAYBE IT WAS A TAD DYSFUNCTIONAL

1. RED-HEADED STEPCHILD 2. MAYBE SHE JUST MISSED THE BIG CITY 3. WHATEVER IT TAKES 4. ACQUISITION MODE 5. JIMMY HOFFA'S WHORE MEETS LEONARD COHEN 6. THE DWELLER IN THE CREVICE 7. THAT WOULD BE LENIN, ROLLING 8. GAY FREEDOM DAY PARADE 9. AT THE HEBREW HOME FOR THE AGED, 1957 10. DOES THIS DRESS MAKE ME LOOK FAT? 11. AT THE WAR MEMORIAL 12. A TRIBE, NOT OUR OWN 13. PRODIGAL SON #1: EXPELLED FROM THE SORBONNE 14. CALLE OCHO (OFF COLLINS) 15. HEATHCLIFF: HOWLING TO WAKE THE DEAD 16. HARRY LOST HIS FAITH ON DAY 49 1/2 17. BECAUSE I COULD NOT SAVE THE WHALES 18. HERE AT THE CORPORATE RECLAMATION CENTER 19. DECONSTRUCTING LOT’S WIFE

RED-HEADED STEPCHILD

Because loving youis not part of the job description,he fills the spacewith pinball games in the basementtoy soldiers bobbing in the bathtub,the attica whistle of trains.

In time you will learn to lovethe military schoolhe has selected for youfrom a tangle of brochures:lush walls of lazy ivy,Elysian parade fields singingwith boy soldiers.

Here, the misty embrace of traditionwill fold and lull youlike Lethe’s arms,like the ghost of your imaginedfather – his breathwhistlingdown the attic stairs.

MAYBE SHE JUST MISSED THE BIG CITY

The silk veiled woman on the midnight traingazes darkly through the glass,a flicker of restless beautychoosing not to wave. Shrugging,she lights a slim cigarette and exhalesthe tedious weight of the man’s love,her smoke weaving a soft shroudover this dying town,the deserted stationwhere he stands,hand waving,

eyes haunted –already a ghost.

WHATEVER IT TAKES

The new computers are wheeledinto our jaded cubiclesa week after the VP’s memoproclaiming a New Paradigm,our merger with the mantraof global competitivenessand converging markets.

We are now pronouncedfocused and purposeful,streamlined and empoweredto do . . .Whatever It Takes!

My old colleagues now crunch numberswith savage efficiency,pound and process stubborn wordsinto Communication Vehicleswhile I double-click on the hidden game,releasing a little red ballto bounce leisurely againstthe gray brick walls,unfocused, mindless,serene.

ACQUISITION MODE

We never intend to harm her(we never do)we just want the loot –her corporate resources ripewith low-hanging fruit.

So carefully we court herthis porcelain princess(publicly traded),so easy to seduce. Promise her rich synergies,hide away the noose.

At last she succumbs(they always do),chaste assets divestedher war chest stripped bare(first the dry goodsthen the wetware).

In the end we have to chain her up(we always do)behind the ancient Xerox,beneath the old mail room.

On fiscal Fridaysit is my turn to bleed herof secrets proprietaryof passwords secure,to feed her -first the mushroomsthen the manure.

Sometimes her old flamesflicker by:“Is she happy here with you?”they ask(they always do)“Is she happy nowat last?”

Ungrateful,she decays(they always do),her foul stenchscaring the janitor,bits of precious porcelainlitter the leveraged landscape.

Time to tempt another

because we can(we always do).“Perhaps it was the mushrooms,”suggests our Marketing guru.

But we blame iton the bitch herself,on the ingratitude,because we canand we always do.

JIMMY HOFFA’S WHORE MEETS LEONARD COHEN

Demanding an extra hundred bucksbecause she is not a whoreand these requestsrhyme with fetish,we agree on fortyfor just the foot thingif I promisenot to play that songby Leonard Cohen

(all night long)

then having to write a check(it’s always the same)for three hundred,cause I screamed “Suzanne”when I came.

THE DWELLER IN THE CREVICE

Before the mercy of the last axebeyond the first blood of mergerwe fester in corporate crevices(whispering the “T” word)swelling the cubicles(not whispering Takeover),feeding on chaos

waste and redundancywe dance the danceof duplicationof alternate scenarios.

We never go gentlyinto the outsourced night,we rave and flameover e-mails, over lunch,pagers chirping promisesof outplacement.

(We have always been with you)

How we thrive!(bureaucratic cells subdivide)like toxins on the corporate tittywe drain your budgetsquarterly, cheerfully,like hordes of the homelesscrashing the shareholder’s buffet.

Still we rise!your spawn, your sucklings –we have been downsized,streamlined, rightsized, restructured,repositioned and reengineeredtil at last we rise, Reawakened.

Now the hour of our god is at hand,The God of the Cube –we will come for youfrom out of our crevices, our cubes(plastic pocket protectorsportending pain).We will come for youwielding institutional memories andthe bones of your Marketing skeletons.

We will come bloody,slightly bowedand we will be billions!

for are we not your lifeblood,your inner tube of virtual progeny?

(Oh my brothers and sisters of The Cube . . .)

Arise! Up from your screen saversand logoed staplers!go forth and splatter the executive suiteswith endless memos, with white papersand eternal pulingtil even the Quality Divisionis buried beneath our carping,our perfected detail.

We are now the hard menthe wrathful women,impervious at lastto your hitman consultantyour cash flow flirtations.

We will come for you bastardsbearing our first-born,our first born burning,for the hour of our god is at hand –(the old religion)the God of the Cubicle –and our name,Our name is Legion!

THAT WOULD BE LENIN, ROLLING

before they bulldozedthe old Bolshevik bathsin Brighton Beach,my grandpa Heshie,sage of the shtetlsweated pearls

of old world wisdom(“moderation in all things,the Golden Mean”)

that he claims Trotskyforgotsomewhere in Mexico

in the jazzercise jointsthe righteous sweatthe immoderate sheenof stairmaster momsdreamingsomewhere in Mexico.

GAY FREEDOM DAY PARADE

They flood Market streetthe music of a half millionswelling with the sweatof liberation,early morning libations,colors exploding on floatsof rainbows andscarlet letter banners,everywhere the sharp incenseof musk, tequila, poppers

as I hoist Rachel on my shoulders,an innocent bystander to this peculiar American history,homages to Harvey,salutes to Stonewall –“Daddy, is this the circusand where are the clowns?”the wife smilingwelded to me by the wildingcrowd: “I love a parade,”she says every year,the leather boys nowthe studs and chainsblack tank tops

emblazoned with Glory Hole Bar,another gay Alamo,an Atticaof the mind.

Rachel tugging at my 49’ers cap:“Is it the forf of july, da dee?”as the Dykes on Bikesblast out of the Castro.The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgencecavorting in nun black habits.

This year we told Rachelthe terrible truth about Santaand the Tooth Fairy,“Yes, baby, it’s the fourth of July –look, here come the clowns”I lie,because betrayal can be borne bestin small dosesand this is not yet the time

for more truth –that our fathersdid not bleedat Valley Forgefor this.

AT THE HEBREW HOME FOR THE AGED, 1957

in the morning they wheel them outto the rec room soap operasynagogueso we do not have to smellthe sharp piss and Cloroxin the wrinkled dormswhere the taped namespeel off the lockerslike flags curlingtoward dusk,the old ladies fluttering

over grandchildrenwho hate themfor having let it come to this –a box of chocolatesa bag of oranges.

Better to have been rapedand killedby the Cossacksthan this slow deathof strainedSundaysmiles.

“DOES THIS DRESS MAKE ME LOOK FAT?”

Be very careful(But do not hesitate!)

because you are a newlywed,unschooled in the useof social lubricants, you may still harbor warm childish notionsabout the value of honesty(without calculating its cost)and fail to see that unlike the casualrelaxed curve of a questionthis is a poised ax,this is a demand, a test -and these are her eyesglinting steel deathas you hesitate before the cleaving.

AT THE WAR MEMORIAL

before the kids called him

“Jimmy the gimp”the 82nd Airborne promisedhe could kill some gooksonce he learned to sweat bloodout his goat-smelling ass,humping an eighty pound backpackup a hilltoward the sun,singing:

A yellow birdwith a yellow billwas sitting onmy windowsill;I lured him inwith a crust of breadand then I crushedhisfucking head!!!

so many timeshe couldn’t wait no morefor the killing -got me and Del to bust his legin three placesfor thirty dollarsand a carton of Marlborough

he smokes in the park,backpack on his favorite benchhumped with bread fresh from the mall,for all the birdswho do not weep,for all the names engraved on the wall.

A TRIBE, NOT OUR OWN

We’re rolling out the drums again,singing the ancient songsof Self

to the squeege hordeshovering like hungry ghostsover the weary windshieldsthat have looked outin clenched exasperationat these squandered soulsbequeathed breadsexand circuses;their tribal songstuneless,not our own.

We’re rolling out the guillotines again,loosing the holy firetil the subhuman croonfalls silentand we can sing againcocoon to cocoonchoir to choir.

PRODIGAL SON #1: EXPELLED FROM THE SORBONNE

Now that you’ve pissed awayyour fancy Art Scholarship,fouled your future like some drunkreeling and spilling at a banquet,you will be sentenced to your old room,your father’s scorn risinglike clenched heat,a hammer over the house.

After dinner you will impersonatea whipped puppy, whimperingyour ragged tale of Sufferingfor Art (or was it Love this time?)until father’s eyes fade to mist, to wish:

Better to have sired a savage dog,

a jagged bone stripped dry of pretensionthan this tangled bundleof troubled boy,his future,your futurea fountain of tears.

CALLE OCHO (OFF COLLINS)

(In 1980, Fidel Castro was accused by the United States of opening up

prisons and mental hospitals to allow inmates to leave for Miami from the

port of Mariel in Cuba)

Vaguely humanit fell from the mango treebehind Lupe’s gazebo.“Don’t touch it, dollinks,you don’t know where it’s been,”Mrs. Weinstein warningthe children,while I mix the margaritasin Miami sunshinefor all the nudnik neighbors.“Pobrecito,maybe is a Marielitoloss his way”as the children sharpen sticks,“maybe Lupe should callthe SPCA”

til an alien sun setson a bicultural consensus:the Jews drafting protestson santeria scrolls,long after the childrenhave paraded the creature’slast shrieks,the sharpened poles.

HEATHCLIFF: HOWLING TO WAKE THE DEAD

Her gypsy princess blood no longer raginglike a river of fire through your life,but pooling still and cool as her porcelain face,this bedroom dying strictly a private affair –immediate family onlyperhaps a trusted servant or two –certainly not for “dirty little stable boys,”not for dark gypsies such as you.

(Whose soft hand will hush your savage cries -and put the pennies on Cathy’s eyes?)

It is left to your coarse and common armsto lift her up and lay her down,a pale wisp enswathed in heath;left to your rough fingertipsto stroke and smooth her hair,left to you aloneto howl midnight curses across the moors(Damn, damn her eyes!)sowing the heather with unholy tearsand harsh prayersfor herunquiet slumber.

HARRY LOST HIS FAITH ON DAY 29 & 1/2

Now that Harry is heavy with Recovery,he has a new Higher Power

who answers all of his prayers:“In God’s time – not mine,”is Harry’s dry mantra.

(We tell him not to quit his day jobuntil day 30.)

“I’ll pray for you guys,” Harry threatens,his bathrobe and slippers trudginga spiritual pathto the living room La-Z-Boywhere he meditatesbefore the big screen TV:Breathe in God,breathe out fear

breathing out fumes of non-alcoholic beer,breathing in chains of Camels, hot dogsand railroad cars of Costcopotato chips –a 12–Step Buddhaunder the Bodhi tree.

After 29 days his holinessstarts to bloat and leechon our nerves. Out of love,we wait til he’s hungrythen lock him in the closet,where Harry tries not to prayfor a hot dog.

BECAUSE I COULD NOT SAVE THE WHALES

the last thing Susan says to mebefore hiding in the Peace Corps,“the last thing this world needs

is more bad poetry.”

I send a dark postcardto Africapulsing with rhyme,because someone has to do it,one last time.

HERE AT THE CORPORATE RECLAMATION CENTER

I.

We fix the broken people, the burnoutLost Suits who have strayedfrom the flock of shared values,forgotten the faces of thosewho feed them.

We are not doctors but we are trainedto watch for the first symptoms -cynicism is a progressive disease –a slight discharge of sarcasm,the poisonous spill of profanity.

II.

Near the end(right before they vanish)the broken people will neverlook you in the eye;they smile inappropriately,nod at nothing seen, eyes sunksomewhere beneath a soft glazeof gossamer, a feathered wispof neverland where the worldis made anew each dawn:

III.

The heavens heave shimmersof golden sheets above a greening earth soelectric the air crackslike clear champagne,the seas giddy with new life, with music that no human could make without dying first.

IV.

We are not doctors and we are trainednot to weepwhile we wait, watching for signs and rumors,listening, aching forthe music that haunts and wrencheslike a suddenly recalled kiss.We wait for more to be revealed -hints of majestyand the rumorof answered prayers.

DECONSTRUCTING LOT’S WIFE

What turned herwhen she finally turnedto face the fire and brimstone:a childlike curiosity before a Cosmic Burning?or simply the careless shrugging offof another holy injunction?

Perhaps it was a woman’s wearinesswith the ways of Old Yahweh,heavy-handed and hasty,like Lotwho would hurl her daughterslike pearls

to the swilling mob.

Was it a turningto the fireor her face forever turningfrom Lot,turning to bear witness,turningto the sweet blind pillarof justice.