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The moon was chiseled milk

last night

Swinging in fuzz

smiling at

the low-flying stars

over Century Boulevard

Terminal One

Where I used to kiss you goodbye,

cry

Now the marine layer

cloaks the road

Fog rises up, thick

Slick lights

Ghost town of nine million

Happy moon,

fire waiting at home,

cradles herself

warm

over our town

Where babies

and bears

and Pesach

will come

We’ll cradle them

like the moon, warm

in flannel and bath

Freesia and folds

High over the ocean

With a view of the moving stars

Lights twinkling beyond the fog

Paul Elia (The Drummer)

PAUL ELIA
(THE DRUMMER)

Just good old fashioned
fun
like in the old days
when kids danced in the streets
bopping to the live musak
of course
and the teenage rebels
Him
with cigarettes in pocket
and oooh
a comb


And who grew up
into Paul anyway?
Suited corner-boy at the dance?
Now whose beats
through the body
--cold wind under dresses
hot breath on ears--
Throb beneath a suit and tie
and crease in the pants
which hides the real mystery
and rhythm

Girls Always Fall for the Asshole

A room that holds unexpected intrigue
--like climbing a flight of stairs in January,
the air from me cleaved,
ribs sink in my chest
with just a profile--
(Sharp nose, elegant neck
soft cheeks, glasses)

I once read of it in my dog-eared sixth grade
treasure book;

He is
mean
unattainable
cordial

But needy enough to glance my way,
reserve his laughter

He would not, like other boys,
follow me to the kitchen should I need a slice of lemon
(oh how I wish he would)

but did offer an arm
down the hill
--and though twenty times up and down it
this the first my breath pleasantly lost--
And at the bottom touched my face
gently
purposefully
unobtrusively

and declared me
an exaggeration
After which,
all I could do,
was say goodnight

And pray for dreams of him

A sunny little poem

MENINGITIS

Indigo spiders, silent
invisible 'til break of day
Later tube-fed and
sore
Marking even spaces
on his arm
My friend lay--
black mines for eyes
and fistless--
Three blocks from the
Leister where I burned myself
And dying

Lying
like sand
crumbling into a starched cotton sea
And me
across it, eating
or sleeping; without the
corners, crisp
or confinement
of brain-melting beds
rolling heads
And foreign nurses who smell
of mint

Waking with a jolt in the night
suddenly I can't breathe

Not exactly "Masters of War"...

Here's a little something I just found. I wrote it right before the war began in Iraq--shock and awe, indeed. It's silly, but I guess that's the only way I could think of it at the time. Thanks a lot, Mr. Prez.

CANADA NEXT THURSDAY
Can’t go on a trip because
you’re winking at the world.
Well I’ll prop my eyes open
I’m not that kind of girl.

I close my ears and flip the switch.
you can’t laugh at me.
They’re voting in Siberia
while the British take their tea.

You’ll force me out? Well, okay.
My palm trees all have rats.
The world falls around my haven,
what kind of Malibu is that?

The hippies they’ve got offices,
the Southern Democrats are dead.
You call them crazies in the streets
and people got orange up in their heads.

Yellow, orange, red, your flaming trick.
How did you make the story stick?
Girl scouts in a desert tomb;
they’re gonna choke; I’m gonna be sick.

I’ll pack my bags while you scorn the count,
the press waves me goodbye.
Goodbye to life as I’ve once known
My mother’s gonna cry.

You’re winking at the world,
you’re smirking on the screen.
But the world’s not laughing back,
nothing’s as you make it seem.

Lord knows I hate the snow,
but the Yukon now seems warm.
You think you know what I don’t know?
I’m getting out before the storm.