EXCITING NIGHT

Exciting Night


Exciting TV drama
and the sizzle of steaks
breaks
the monotony of having a
like in a roof that
just drips
as long there's a floor
and a old carpet to ruin
with a seeping, creeping rain.

On the set
it's a show about
people
at work who wave their arms
and raise their
voices in the interests
of what the right thing to do is,
so much yelling in
the face

of your co-workers,
so much insubordination
because there
is so much principle at stake
as to whether to charge the credit card number
for the guaranteed no show.
The desk clerk berates his manager
while the bell man looks on
while straightens
his lapels and
looks vaguely haunted
in the awful light of
valet parking...

"...Damn it, Dan, we held the room ALL FREAKING NIGHT
and they didn't show
even with two
telephone confirmations.
I coulda sold that room
a hundred times over
if I could have.
We gotta charge 'em,
c'mon,
we gotta pay for the night maid..."

The music rises while the three of them freeze in place
while they squint
and rotate their jaw lines,
and then the commercial hits
the screen, and then
I turn off the sound,
fixating on the drip,
the growing stain
in the rug, I grit my teeth
and look at you in the other room
listening to
all five volumes of
live Johnny Winter
on head phones,
I am trapped in a house
where only little things
having no
sane description
effect the course of the night, the mood it takes
even as the storm rages harder and there is
the sound of continuous applause
through out the house, down the hall ways,
up the stairs and echoing against
the tile
and grouts, bouncing off the mirror I stood in front of this morning
licking a lip with a tongue that
needed to taste something that
was lost in the stubble of
a beard turning gray completely
only after the new century
has wrapped its arms
around the house
and its storyline and made sure
everyone knows
that where they sleep
is a roof closer to the one
we die under

In however much time it takes,
assuming we're in doors, in bed, after sex with
a woman
you 'vet loved since
before the beginning of memory,
assuming a life that deserves applause
like the way the rain sounds now,
crisp and demanding and rattling the
chains of heaven's
rusty gate

A gun goes off after the commercial
and I see
the clerk, manager and the bellman
still standing behind the front desk
while a guest they'd been ignoring
holds a smoking gun on them,
screaming words to the effect that his continental breakfast
gave him the squirts bad,
a situation not helped
by hotel plumbing
that's old and
clogged with the evidence of strangers passing through town
on their way to better shows,

you are singing
to Johnny Winter
real fine
"...It's my
own fault, baby
treat me the way
the way
you
wanna
do..."

You slide down the seat,
you shirt runs up
your waist,
you rib cage
rises and falls
with the fluid rush of Winter's blues guitar,

I dream of smoking
after we make love,
I dream of you
dreaming of me
in all the rooms
where there are ceiling leaks
on a night that
hasn't enough
bowls or pans
to catch every drop.

cloud cover

there are echos of songs
we used to know which
become deadened with
age and too much polishing,
like bright forks tapped against
the stems of long wine glasses,

but i see nothing beyond
the curtains, the day is a blur
as notes of sampled melody
leak from headsets attached
to thin, twin wires, it's a men and
women lifting glasses to toast
a union, the rising moon in the
middle of the day,

cars stall too long
at the fork of the road
just as clouds take away the sunlight
and make the shapes seen through
the curtain lace disappear
like water stains evaporating on
white sheets, there is smoke
from behind the dumpster
where caterers lower their trays
and light up their desperate unfiltered brands,

i keep being kissed on the cheek
and called 'sir' by small children,
i smell aromas, burned match heads,
the smell of your hair crosses under my
nose, i cross the room and open a window,

the band packs up its instruments,
valet service hands back the keys they've kept,

something happened today
just as the sun reached the top of the day
and the moon gave a smile or a wink
before ducking behind a cloud
passing as if it were in a cartoon
that plays when you leave the room
for a drink or the bathroom,

something happened
and I was there in the thick of it all
going down,

and there's nothing to report
when you ask me
how my day was
other than a shrug and a grunt
that mean i love you
every minute you're not here."

LANDING

there is not enough of you
to go around

even as the plane circles
airport a third and a fourth time,

a deck of cards in your hands
contains nothing but sixes and eights,

and there's only hard, dry land
under the wing span's shadow,

eyes closed, your head up,
head phones as usual, private music,

the rumble of engines fills my ears
that have just popped open

like corks flying
from carbonated bottles,

i wish i could sleep
as i imagine the city
does now as we approach,

i wish we were in an apartment
below us in bed and half awake
after making love, my arm coming
up to your breasts, complaining
in grating mumble that we have
to buy a house away from runways,
in the country or may be the mountains
they fly over,

my fingers grip the arm rests,
my eyes turn to the window,

the skyline comes on us too fast,
like everything in life,

it comes on us too fast.

John Paul ll Arrives at Heaven's Gate For Processing
take off the hatand put on some pants
take a seat,pick up a magazine,
you don't need a menu, sir,this is much stays true.
yes, there is band practice around the clock.sorry, but we like our brass section.
says here you liked to ski and travel.
wait 'til youget a load of the wings/
no more sacramentsgiven through bullet proof glass.
we don't need clockswhere we are.
that's why it's calleda waiting room.
no, it's not passed your bed time,you're dead, remember?
oh, you can blesssomething if you really like,but it's carrying coals to New Castle, really,
yes, everyone has to fill out the paperwork, yes , I know who you are,
I know who everyone is.

the last thing i ever did
was t

Gossip Carpet
Smooth be the mood for answers
Always crying, the thick gossip carpet
Being rather than perceiving
The brunt of emotion landing flat ina lap, legs unfolding.
Tailored for just this minuteR
inds littered on the alphabet promenade
Lotions make the hands look years apart
From wear and wrinkles that worry the flesh,
What a wonderful remark
About liver stainsthat allowed us discordance and beauty.
From here’ we see Ron reciting
Boy, did he ring the wrong number
I thought it was blue, but the water’s azure
There are many trains to Tarzana‘
Though has the couplet that rocked the boat
Ted would never be intimidated
By people staring as he hammers,
Bleeding into the font on the page,
That shirt from India.
Tailored from her see the carpet’ promenade
Ron wonderful and beauty
Many trains to azure Ted remarking
Lotions in Tarzana discordant’
Wrong number and the ring on her finger

Don’t just starnmer, litter alphabet couplets
Cover your wagonsAnd wash your decks...
I am not moved by the Tarzan yellAs might be vines divining in
Dining rooms or from diving boardsAnd see judge holding up wrong numbers
Called on account of alphabets placedOn the wrong buttons on each phone
In the House of Cards decked with
Bounds of Holly Stevens who
Cuts a rug and calls me to the carpet
To insure her father’s idea of
Palm trees limning the last edge of earth.

a cannon shot for Hunter S. Thompson

aim my ashes
to the mountains
and the cold, clear springs
pouring over polished stone
down to the towns
where my name
is on shelves
with other histories
of a peculiar species,

tell me i'm fired up
and ready to go boom
again in the night,
hold your hands
and interlace your fingers
as i cover the land
with the dark, dry essentials
that remain when
the baptism is over,
i will be the smear on
the stones, the soot
on the trees
as it rains
and i return to the
ground in converted joy,

remember me as a shriek
in the night
when alarms went off
and there was only
a rattling of typewriter
keys and ice clinking in a glass,
the deadline has been
reached at last,
i am here at last
under the wire,
son of a gun,
i made it.

Well, Yes

Native speakers are not the light
that brings the room it's glow,

going somewhere in time other than yesterday
will not make the mailman go away,

all your lovers have found something to do
with the lives you left them with,

well, no, I don't fancy a boot on my throat,
but would mind if I blew up one of your tanks?

As hard as I squint, shower curtains remain shower curtains
and somewhere a few thousand city worker vests are missing,

All anyone wants to do is walk with pride at some point in their
life time, which we pray is long and filled only with the routine
bad luck,

Yes, she says to me, this is another day that you haven't screwed up, have a hot slice of pie.

Warped Cassette at a Garage Sale

There are hours of old music
that needs to be heard again
that only decays into static
as the wound reel warps and writhes
around the plastic reels,
the longer these tapes lay
in the sun, in Tupperware bins,
priced four for a buck
the longer the drum solos
get in time signatures that
would baffle the sensors of Alien invaders,
Russians in missile bunkers at the fair edge
of the Ukraine would stop dreaming
of snow and vodka and rise themselves
searching for a red telephone,
Washington would shut down
as anguished saxophone improvisations
hobbled over the three legged race
of "Giant Steps" poured over the
radios and each broadcasting outlet,
mothers handed children toys and
told them to go to sleep,
ugliness such as this horrible screech
meant something was coming for us all,
there were naked people on the corners
reaching their arms to the sky
as if to grab a line, a ladder,
hitch a ride on a beam of light
that would come from cloud
you could not look into,
deliver you from static and screech, scorns,
the evidence of bad breath when reed players
don't ge their teeth cleaned,
the planet shuts down as
ruinous scraping of stiff Afro Combs on asphalt
continues until there is only quiet
save for moaning
and the odd car horn blasting in the distance,
the skronk has halted,
everyone rises their head, takes a breath,
goes back to work
as they take their seat with a notice
that no missiles for mercenary angels
are anywhere to be seen,
the cassette machine snaps off,
warp music ceases,
"Man , that is some funky stuff" my neighbor says
and I take his quarter
for the ruined Santana tape,
he says he can't wait to
play again
real loud.

4th of July

My love knows no spending limits,
the matter was always academic,
the lots from which fireworks were seen
could be viewed as check marks against
a scorecard that is invisible, behind the clouds,
the wind blows toward the land
you'd never get for a birthday.

Even if we stood here all night
the wind would taste the same as
it did last year as we light our fuses
with old Zippo lights, there were sparks
in the dark and flinty remarks
as the sulfur caught fire and the
curvature of the caved-in moon
gave us white, chalky light
to search for our eyes in the dirt
under the leaves and the blanket
we brought from home, the
threshold we carry ourselves over
like weight that shifts in assignments
of motion , water displaced and rising
as the moon leans to the shoreline
for a kiss and a sip of what we're drinking.

She rose a leg as though to dance,
he played a song the same as always,
you sang those words with those strange notes
that rustle the highest limbs of California fronds,
I am writing a novel with every pause in the chatter,
in my mind I'm at my desk laughing again as
all the words fill the monitor and fall off the screen
and onto the floor.

It was clear, this dream
I had, we stood here with our
friends with our sparkler
and glasses of wine
cheering the American Night
as rockets screamed across the sky,
risking our homes or at least car keys
that might fall from our pockets,
but there is only empty night
in front of us, a moon shining light
that ripples over the water
that moves toward land in
serpentine movements,
as I was saying,
"…if we stood here all night,
if we made a big, tall wish,
if we're good with ourselves
and our words we put into the world
that goes to sleep trusting
the rime of light to creep over
the horizon come dawn,
we can see where we might
live in futures where we all have our keys
and we all get to drive home
from the fireworks at the beach…"

In favor of steady work

Icing on the cake
was all it takes
to get me to follow
a rule rather than bend it
to what my moment of need
might happen to have been
if I were with a friend
who chided me
on losing my gravitas
in this tight circle
of rules and cash value,

just make it sweet
and neat
as a treat and
as if it were were
a cocktail at the end of a shift
of shuffling orders
and rubber stamping
receipts in big red ink,
rules as they are
are fine if there's a kiss
or at least a nod
at the end of days
when the light darkens
through our office
and retail windows,

pals sans skills
on pills
and copious quantities
of smoke and coke
can stand their corners
and thumb their nose
while they leave
their trail of
running hard luck stories
about how it
was a bit of bad luck,
misunderstanding,
a bad break
they couldn't shake
nor bake as truth fully cooked up
like it were a scheme
that was their dream of becoming,
it's numbing to think all this,
what's remiss in the speech
and dress and the place
where they stand
in a pride that guards
cracks in the sidewalk
as heads nod in sleep,
a respect for weather
that forgives them not
at all
because weather knows them
not all This Fall,

I argue at times
not a wit
nor a flick of
the wrist that
twists every bad note
like it were some
malformed melody
someone else wrote and played,
how long have
I stayed
above water
like an an adult
oughta,
it's a voice, a cash register sense
of the world,
a sales floor
flooded with creme filled donuts
oozing underfoot,
zoo animals charge past
the register stands,
bosses and their assistants
asleep in the front seats
of company cars,

none of this makes
me star or delivers from the Devil
but I am above sea level
and have reveled in
the music of screams of joy
and been blinded by the
coin of the realm
as it it glittered and glinted
while all of us
squinted
and made plans to
go to movies
plays and
dinners our wives and husbands hinted
were the places
to let the evening's big hands
crawl steadily to
another calendar day
spent parsing
the history of
every rotating mystery
and solving this problem,
right now,
big or smaller fork,
fish or pasta,
Coltrane or Satriani,

benefits easier to take
than
nonconforming
myself to oblivion
on a corner where
i would be the boldest
among the coldest.

Uncollected Grace

You see me large on the horizon
before the light dies behind me,
i look to be on fire on top of the dune,
clouds red with last bursts of sun
that turns my outline black, without
face or wrinkles, freeze flamed
on a the cold blue whispers of sky
that remain for mere moments
before my singing reaches your ears
and straightens your spine,
straight as a trapeze wire,
my arms are full of groceries
coming down the steps, my singing
flat like pennies after a train
has passed, there is no fire
this engine needs to be, I say,
handing you a bag, the television is
on the news and the sound is off,
the ocean before us goes black
and even the clouds are dark
with idioms and uncollected grace
as tongues of flame hang onto
their candle wicks just barely
as they bend to an upstart wind,
there is no food in the pantry
but there are cans in the bag,
actors making faces on the screen,
a plane droning over head,
oh those stars and the satellites,
you say
finally
as you turn a key, open a can,
i wonder how much they hear,
what all it is they see...

TED BURKE: writing and more writing

TED BURKE: writing and more writing

Hic Haec Hoc

There is no talk on the sides of book stores about when the pain stops and the living begins.

I breathe long enoughto have all the chess games I refuse toplay when fingers wave in someone's face in the check out line of the drug storeand cars come rare inches from each other when making hard turns at those corners gives new streets to get lost on, looking for something to do as sirens and school bells debate with their shrieks and trills about the stages of life in a city where each high risecomes to a point, a prod,a sharp stick or folded hands,what ever the songs on the corner seduce you with.

There are no songsabout where all the flowers went,we improvise a rosary of latter day insults and even as we speakof when a word meant its meaning,bullets fly faster than lettersin the mailand we leave ourcars at home.

It's the heat of a sun that I makes my brow a shiny and beaded furrow, worries that anticipates her needswith samples from the archive of good answers.

Generic cigarette smoke comesfrom around the corner.

We love our townand life that vanishes to keep the name pushing onbehind a hedge where people just explode as they contemplate buying more things for a house that has more roomsthan family available to live in any of them,a universe that feeds onits best designs, a crushing sameness to the days.

Scream for Heaven

We scream
for heaven
to allow through the gates
even though
we came
as we were,
in our underwear,
wearing funny hats.