The Bat Night Moon Circles on All Hallows' Eve

sleepwalking thru a corn maze
where skeletons and scarecrows
play rugby w/ carved pumpkins
and apparitions keep score
while witches watch witchy
and their black cats find sleep
under tree-limbed gargoyles

Roman Number Time

On a Roman junket, I rented a red & black Italian scooter w/ a tag that read "Dante9" -- and on a Dramamine high, I weaved in and out of traffic along w/ all the other whining purrs of small stroke engines just so I could be first at the light. What a green-light anticipation I felt coursing thru my sight-seeing elation. I passed Harry's Bar on Via Veneto where Fellini filmed La Dolce Vita in stylistic grandeur, sped thru the Piazza di Spagna where fashion converges in a trinity of parallel streets, where Bvlgari and the queen of cashmere dwell, circled the ancient Coliseum where they crucified martyrs for spectator jolly, and steadied myself in the Vatican mileau in case the Pope stood on Bernini's balcony w/ proclamations of peace and speeches of divine order; speeches typed by an assistente who goes home to sing Puccini while his brethren prepare spaghetti Bolognese w/ Grissini Croccanti al Sesamo. At the return of my two-wheeled chariot, I saluted the Swiss Guard, and I felt bigger in Spirit than ever before. And always I will be inebriated of holy wine.

Birthday Boy is Four Blues in E

They say it's my birthday

I was born a big dog
I was born eating a lot
I like to chase soccer balls
and rabbits that can't be caught

I am too big for my collar
I am spoiled beyond belief
I like to show my smarts
to my masters' full relief

I like long walks
and to be in the lead
smelling and marking
on the grassy seed

I like to do tricks
and turn down the covers
I like to lie on my back
so there's no room for others

I like to be loved
I go crazy w/ my tail
It gets me attention
for I am the Alpha male

They say it's my birthday!

Doors of Saint Irene

Beyond this limewashed door, a Greek couple sit at a bronze table, etched w/ palindromes, pinching leftovers from the night before. They wait for the T-shirts and tourists to leave via hairpin turns so that they can go fishing on the wavy Aegean sea, governed by the touch of gods.

Beyond this door, empty calm except for the gilded sunlight that dances the hokey pokeynas over wooden beams and thru an empty bottle of Vinsanto. The tourists have fled down Penrose stairs, having spent their last drachmas on deified pottery; it's safe to come home, a home molded by a volcanic temper, the wrath of a devil.

Blae Heiven

Once standing under this Celtic cross with a friend
Now kneeling on this plateau of dirt for a friend