Spring

Picture of the umpire

fast ball never seen

rain soaked grass

math tracks on empty fields

Cracked neck thunder on oak trees

broken branch the gardener’s concession

Forecasts and footstools

waist high benches

chaise lounge knee deep

Diary of bodies dust cloud backstands

mirror handed thumbs

lopsided slides

curved stiched blankets

push carts striped suits silver rabbits

home safe

Rubber Vendor

On roads from here to never there is a rubber vendor

a receiver and a sender

a map inside his shoe

A decal from a ball-gum dispenser

a service call from a ghost

a set of keys and a route

Note cards from a deadman’s chest

a box for the boss in the trunk

a message for a not so great pretender

A code for the road

another county to cross

another location just can’t be lost

Balloon man don’t fall

watch the sink don’t come off the wall

when you stand on it to reach the nixpix lock

and refill the slots

and sharpen the tooth

Watch the keys in your pocket don’t fall

and crack the pins till you can’t back in

A slug in the slot

a bump on the head

down off the sink

the snow is falling

into a jammed mechanism 

the machine is working and back on the wall

another service call down the road 

rubber vendor 

Mostly Movies

It could be real-life

but it doesn't sound like it

The cigarette lighter you saved to forget her

the 39 steps it took till you met her

The phone clicks like an old see-saw

a seed-pops in the popcorn bowl

There is a car-radio book behind your couch-- inside out

you talk to me

I ask you to read nine number dial-tones and smoke

you offer me one then ask me to leave

to turn out the lights before I go

or else stay till the end of the late-late show

Seems more like make-believe

but there's nothing in the sleeve

If the programs don't change

we can sleep while footsteps creep

and shadows get rolled up like sleeves down a black and white hall

A match is struck

mostly movies

Straw Goblin

You spin a wheel in a mystic key

that turns every word 

from straw into gold

It spins past what you are sweeping

and what you are thinking

The light in your coat 

rolling off the static

twisting around the poison

seeping through the windows

losing count

I couldn’t stop

if I tried and tried

Straw Goblin's dry

but it won't let go

It stays in the dark beside you

you can hear the breathing

Skeleton key and amnesia

maybe I just need her

Gorbyblock

When I start to feel defeated

fed up w/ microscopes and cell-fate

I take my bicycle right down the stairs

into the city streets

I'd open my eyes just to invent you

find a disguise I can see through

White mice and iodine...? maybe another time

aah... a sweet and sour molecule

moving like a galaxy

a book of recipes

a breath or two and she was just like smoke to me

I saw you turn a corner at Union-Square

I'm pretty sure you saw me standing there

I tried to follow you but lost you after several blocks

down a street that once was called the Gorbyblock

We stopped and watched the block become the Gorbyblock

It's so hard to find your body and soul

cause I lost you in the crosstown traffic

Bring your body to my soul

Deliver me from this spiritual insecurity

I saw you ridin' through the street like you're swimming in the ocean

Your voice sailed over cars and cabs

It sounded like slow motion

You see me standing still and staring at a tree

looking at the way you made a picture out of me

i felt so drawn...

When i turned back from the tree to the city streets you were gone

Take this message to my soul

Deliver me from my

surrealistic, cabalistic, synesthetic,

  kaleidoscopic, rocketscienced, cell-fated ride...

September Blues

Something's troubling a girl in a white dress walking

through the syrian rue 

night sky falling

in the burning city

A language she can't read

Dark constellation unhinged from its black ice

A new alphabet of stars and bone

She cannot stop to rub her eyes

The moon's rising now through her black hair

Foreign Music

Talk sad master of goings

play the joke of the painted corner

Grave consents forgotten constantly

Lost inside the Blue Triangle

Drum to hum the guru’s brain

Breath to breath

Bells through a pounding near

Silently disappear

Round again

Black coffee around again

Pause to pass the tack test of critical thumb

Bounded in icy water

Cotton caves, garden waves
Painting corners, dreaming all day

Returning what is going

The Oblong Song

In her cabinet she had often left

what she never could before

and she was very sure

in the afternoon she made other plans

For a moment there was nothing more

The look in her eyes was a fading reminder

The knock on the door was a total surprise

The crumbs in the kitchen

the map on the wall

For a moment that was all she saw

She sat at the table and folded her hands

closed her eyes and remembered the song

A story from another land

Nothing's left behind but what's gone is gone

A breath is a breath in the oblong song

Breath in easy breath in long

Witch Cake

It starts with water and a wooden bowl

shake up the spices outside the bowl

Wrap up in paper

Burn up the paper

Mix in what you know and what you’re knowing

There's only breathing that remains

No way to tell what will remain

just mix the dry up with the wet

a hundred years is a long long time

So breath it in and what remains

is often not what you expect

A junkyard fire

or a sacrament

If it wears you out and

you don’t know where

and you can’t resume

cause you cannot hear

What is left unspoken

in a code of smoke

or sealed up in an envelope

You can see within

what is rawley baked

Remove it soon or it will be too late

Wall Paper

She sat by the window

The closer she looked at it

The farther she got from it

cause the thought that she brought to the window

got lost in it…

The stars are no closer

or bleeker or dimmer

Each eye that is closing is an opening eye

The part that’s uncovered is the one that remains

Dark doorways

Unfixed and out in the hall

Stirring back the feedback

one page at a time

Scribbling orbits

Planet gravity and low light

You are not who you are not

You are the star that does not remain in the windowpane

and the one that does remain

Astral Must

Turn on the light in the middle of the night

just step outside yourself you said

Do it backwards and forwards

Breath in the astral must

You can see what I don’t

turning over and falling away

A lost child face to face with day after day

What you see is what you’ll see

Bullwinkle and Houdini --- it’s Rocky at first to me

The soul fills the whole and not just the center

the outside body calling in

The rabbit in the hat was gone in a second

The light in the night was never a trick

It jumped from the center flew off at your knuckle

Clawed into the ceiling curled onto the floor

Paper Wall

There is a paper wall you were saving for later

on the other side of your coming and going

with a shelf full of letters and plants on the left side

a painted mirror on the right

Moon whip Ice bone

Rose wing, Skull tree and Spindle

Bookworm

Her arctic mind

ice cold attic window

Her desert heart

a toy in the basement

Holy sand the dreaming way

a record sleeve rung frozen played

Ringing icy hill, snowy olive bell

don't hold your breath for a second or less

underwater is no place to breath

With a pile of dirt in the palm of your hand

you can find yourself in the wrong place

Plug in the wires

a mechanical dream

moth webbed morning hours

cold eyes

shine little bookworm

Chance

The first eye ends wetter

and blacker

under a closing lid

Forgotton like a little buried wheel

hissing it's last bit of air

spun numbers stirred

beneath her skin brimming

sour slides and flooding

False landing promises

lonely cashier rung glasses

lost off the pocket side

dialing prints on window blinds

loaded dice in lucky hands

Wire Doll

Wire doll called me in her way

on her ouija phone

even when I wasn't home

yeah, she made me feel that way

Wing-worm--took it slow

no point in rushin' or talkin' about it

no , she never talked about it

she just sewed a button on my shirt

yeah she sewed the way the caterpillars rise up from the dirt

Wire-worm--- you broke in two

headlines, going down

a garden wire

left out below

an open gate

not so long ago

In the back of a trance

Wing wood

Wire tree

a ticking wire heart

a burning hexagram

a wire book of chance

in the wire fingers of her hands

Wire doll

called me in her way

even when she lost the plan

A wire-dream

two little wings

she made me feel that way

The Boss

In the 1980’s and 90’s I worked quite a bit as a free-lance pianist. One week an agent booked me at a club on Bay Street in Staten Island. I drove over the Verrazano Bridge in my V.W. Dasher, found the club, parked, unloaded and set up around a little upright piano before starting to play what I thought would be just another gig. After the 4 scheduled hours I unplugged and began packing up when the maître d came by and said:

“Wait! The Boss has really enjoyed your music and would like you to stay and play some more.”

I had another gig in the morning and didn’t want to get home too late, but I plugged back in for the overtime. After the set, I attempted to pack up when I was again approached.

"He wants you to keep playing. It’s ok if you need to take a break."

I thanked him, but said I really had to get going since I had another performance in the morning.

"He’s going to take care of you!"

I thanked him again but graciously said I wasn’t available.

“You don’t seem to understand. The Boss likes your music, and he’ll take care of you. Please do yourself and everyone the favor of setting back up.”

So, I set back up.

During the break the valet who was rather cold when I arrived seemed really interested to talk to me.

“Where did you learn those songs? I think I know how you got so good…I’ve been playing guitar for years.”

I decided it was time to play and started another set. After about 20 minutes the crowd was thinning out and I just assumed that would be that, however when I started unplugging after what was already a long night, the maître d returned :

"Play another set!"

I’m sorry but I‘ve got to go. 

"The Boss will take care of you."

I understand, thank you, but I’m already half packed up and nobody’s here!

“I don’t think you understand, it’s not up to you! Don’t worry he’s going to take care of you.“

I set back up and played another 15 minutes or so as the last few customers left the club. At that point The Boss emerged from the office with a girl half his age and took a seat at the bar near the piano. The maître d then locked the doors from the inside. There were now several drinks and a pistol on the bar. I was worried. The Boss looked like pictures I had seen of Scarface but he really did seem to enjoy the music.  He talked privately with the girl for a while longer and playing it like a full house I thanked the crowd of two and said goodnight.

“Before you go... I want you to play 3 more songs.” not even asking if I knew them. "That Old Black Magic, Lady is a Tramp, and My Way."

I played the first two but didn’t know the words to My Way. After Lady is a Tramp I became the center of attention and heard The Boss say to the girl:

"Now listen carefully to the words of My Way, cause it’s MY life. "

I noticed the revolver on the bar, and thought to myself, ok...

And now, the end is near….

I heard myself singing,

And so I face the final curtain…

Despite the fact I was sure I couldn’t remember the lyric I guess I passed the audition cause he handed me several hundred dollars and I was finally allowed to leave.

The agent called Monday. "What did you do there?!  They want you to play steady weekends!"

I never went near the club again – however I remember not long after that reading in the paper that the place was destroyed and The Boss had been murdered.

Frank Zappa Interview

In high-school a friend and I went to see the Mothers of Invention at a small theatre in Pittsburgh's Oakland district (near where the Pirates used to play at old Forbes Field). In a successful ploy to get backstage and meet Frank Zappa we announced that we were reporters for the high-school newspaper. We snagged a bespectacled girl (who actually knew short-hand) and asked if she would transcribe the interview to make it look more authentic. George Duke warned me personally before entering the dressing room:

“This had better be a real interview!“

Zappa: Would you like some malted milk drops?

Wow! Thanks, can we have more than one?

Zappa: No response.

Thank you for talking to us - Great show tonight!

Zappa:Thanks.

Were you trying to resemble Ringo Starr in 200 Motels?

Zappa: Is that supposed to be a humorous question?

Now that sounds like a humorous answer?

Zappa: You can take it any way you want.

How would you characterize the difference between a hole and a bridge?

Zappa: Everything is everything and that's the most philosophical thing you are going to get out of me.

At that point three girls came to the dressing room door and introduced themselves as Rose, Gerry and Mary. It was hard to understand because they were giggling. My friend suggested it was Roger Maris which completely diffused Zappa who thought the reference to the great Yankee slugger was very funny.

Have you ever studied music formerly?

Zappa: No, I used to go to the library after school and read books on orchestration and composition.

How did you like working with Lennon? (I asked, not knowing what a disaster it was for Zappa).

Zappa:(trying to underplay the experience)  I've played with lots of musicians...

Not satisfied, we asked several more Lennon related questions but I don't remember any direct answers, just an unwillingness to talk about the subject.

I love Let's Make The Water Turn Black from one of your early records. I didn't know it was called We're Only in it for the Money at that time which didn't seem to bother Frank however and he became animated and enthused when we mentioned the song. 

Zappa:That was a true story!!

How much drug use is there on the road?

Zappa: I never use drugs.

End Interview, or my memory of it. I was told years later that Frank said he'd given only two interviews to high-school journalists. 

I do remember that nobody including Duke ever kicked us out or even asked us to leave, so it seemed a little awkward when we decided it was time to go and left on our own.

We did take a few more of those malted milk ball drops for the road.