Show Tune II
That's the long and short of it
now you know
how I've been waiting all these years
where I'm coming from
that's the long and short of it.
That's the long and short of it
now you see
just how hot hot jazz was
how it turned about, my bookcase
that's the long and short of it.
That's the long and short of it
now you know
that my arrest record's
not my best record
that's the long and short of it.
That's the long and short of it
now you see
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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The Wet Monkey l
Nothing like that had ever happened before
at Casa Verde-the name Aunt Salome gave it
soon after it was built, all of native mahogany
with a no-more-than-expected number of windows,
so why the name I'm not exactly sure,
Unless you count the time the anaconda got in-
not a very big one, but feisty all the same,
with a fine sleek head, breathing scales, a slide-out pink tongue
and soft, sable-on-ochre markings looking like infinity signs.
It seemed to scrawl its name in the shallow pool
'anaconda, anaconda' starting ripples up
that doused themselves out at the rim,
til it slithered up the dropped-in stick ladder
and quickly disappeared toward the forest,
flattening the grass as it swam.
But this was different: a mammal.
How did I get mixed up in it?
Well I heard the whole thing from the start,
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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The Nightingales Of Platres 2
Explode into the air and ferry back
home to the dark hill-forests
beaks full of mortar to shore up their nests,
patching up gaps and fissurings
worn there by the weather, where the moon shone through,
and so, so burdened, shuttled to and fro
threshing the night air with their blunt wings-
their masonry a cause for celebration
though some would claim it merely love's elation
that made them whistle, toot, bray, invisibly;
mew, shoot songs from the splays of crofts
in wild runs and eerie scales, aloft;
arpeggios trill and antiphons, quite manically,
acciaturas equally as frantically
whether you heard reclined
head bent back against the stead
marvelling, half-asleep, upwound
in an unwinding sheet, or whether, instead,
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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The Penitant Cat On His Deathbed
I've been a pretty good pet
overall and done what's hoped of me
I've sat on a tuffet with frigging Miss Muffet
all the livelong day
and never run up a tree.
I've kept the tiger at bay
that paces in my heart
back and forth and back;
never sprayed or clawed the furniture
but mildly mewed and looked up;
I never bit the vet
or killed a bird
but ate the putrid food
that probably made me ill,
pretending to like it alot;
Caught an occasional rat
and, though my pupils swam
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Toast
'Toast', he said, (drily) , 'toast'.
Then a third time, 'toast'.
Only then did the quivering figure on the sofa seem to hear
How he wished it would stop, the quivering, that is,
And the babble of questions.
They were watching 'New York Law And Order'.
Not a good thing for his brother to be watching, perhaps,
Given his state-what had the doctors called it?
Psychotic depression, complicated by alcohol withdrawal,
Complicated by cocaine withdrawal, complicated by what?
Malnutrition? How could a person become malnourished
In America today? In New York City, with all those delis?
With all those pizzarias?
Johnny enjoyed the show, he told Timmy
Though the noise and violence were scary-
It had a strange way of getting under your skin.
(Timmy especially hated the sirens)
'Toast' is what Miguel would become, Johnny explained,
Soothingly to the figure propped sideways on the sofa
If he touched a hair of his head-here in Center City
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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In The Bistro
Valentine's day just a few days off
it was charming how after a hefty meal
of coq au vin and greasy frites
and wine enough to raddle a pancreas
you shot that loaded straw my way
me leaving, from your battery behind
the bar. Harmlessly the paper slip fluttered by
filled, assassin, with the breath of your lips,
before coasting to rest on the floor-
well before that fine day when Loves'
dart burns the air, seeking a warm breast
in which to rest and germinate song.
Discretely, though it was late and diners
few, I stopped, picked it up, flattened it out
drew it under my nose as though it were
a rose, a scented billet doux, and dropped it
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Museum Of The City Of...II
Behind their frozen forms, behind
the ribbed webs of their flipper-slippers,
in the distance dim
a stern-to-bow-with-garbage-laden scow
calmly plows the current-riven stream.
One unseaworthy old ark, 'way off-
(an obvious ancestor of the Circle Line)
triple-tiered and crammed with fun-seekers-
over whose rail a few vigilants hang
frozen in open-mouthed surprise-
(bringing to mind Auden's 'Musee des Beaux Arts',
but that's neither here nor there)
-to see three wet-suited men dropp from the skies:
eternally expecting a splash that never comes;
and wouldn't a bully pleasure yacht
cruising nearby reveal itself whole, but for that
misadventurous plunge into the frame,
cropping it in halves.
Up in the sky a twin-engine out of La Guardia,
props awhirl,
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Unfinished
What a strange mood's looked me up
as if I had stared too long into the pond
of a moonstone and by its chilly light read
by night while the heater hummed
some overlong epic of a lady and a knight
quite to completion, as the hours fled,
sharing only with the cat my rumply bed.
Goldengreen flecks dance before my eyes
glancing off the slightly curvilinear crust of the
earth; vision flings itself coldly spaceward;
trajectories skip from its vertices
past asteroids leaded, brushed and ignored
by the fiery tails of comets you couldn't hope
to avoid. There on a stage, I
grasping and tragic, am doomed, spat-clad
Gatsby veering to gloomy Rodenka among
many things, or savagely-stricken Eurydice
at the crossroads of her undoing
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Randolph
That night as Old Man McCoy fled through the woods, the trees in his path refused to budge. Their branches batted him like hands and smacked him in the face and chest and groin. Behind him the screams of his wife slowed his pace, as did the agonized pleas of his sons. Tears streamed down his face. But the gunshots urged him on faster, toward help, justice, he wasn't sure what. Over his shoulder he saw whorls of whitish smoke against the dark, and a corner of the sky lit up orange from the torched cabin. He'd known something awful was going to happen when he woke up, this morning. Lying in bed last night he'd heard two wildcats fighting. All day long it was too quiet. Then, catastrophe-fire and hot lead. After mid-night the trees turned to men and crowded in. As he ran the twigs snapped underfoot and he ran until the lights of the town came in view and he remembered it was New Year's. There would still be a few revellers at the tavern. He would round them up and return to what was left of the cabin. Nothing could persuade him not to. His poor wife! He was so ashamed. But, alive. Alive to make them pay. Alive to get revenge! So he ran on toward the light.
poem by Morgan Michaels
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The Plants
One sun becomes them all,
one heaven above.
Feet have all in common soil
different though they be
so oddly will they show their tolerance and love,
their eagerness to grow
tangle, mingle and divide,
bloom, if they can, conditions meet-
So have no fear-
give them room, the boon of water
sunshine's glinting glance
and there's little you can do to hinder,
even if you would, them;
watch them wind and tilt
and appose their lips
or lift their leafy wing tips
from an earth they cannot quit,
that down about them stubborn clings
good guests, good hosts
the least to do to make of it the most
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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