THE HOLLYWOOD RAGE PAGE

He grabs fistfuls of feet while lying on his back like he’s receiving telepathic instructions from Swami Sivananda. His eyes widen like a Barrymore close up and he smiles like a hobo sleeping on a puffed-up bindle dreaming of a cup of Joe and a sinker. His arms circle daddy’s neck like a Pashmina scarf who he nuzzles like a limp prom date smitten with trust. His hair is a soft brown pelt the color of rich soil the kind that trappers coveted He drools like  the world is made of pie and gabbles in the idioglossia of Nell And here I am Grandpa of the faraway anguished in the sad-eyed ether of distance evicted from his touch exiled on the Main Street of the quarter moon just like The Little Prince who knew that if you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky because then all the stars are a riot of flowers.

What must babies think, As they wonder why their Push pram rocket ship Which on most days thrusts them Into the universe of the fiery sky ball and chatter filled park Sits mothballed in the corner Staring at the wall like White-haired bench people Who always seem so Sad and forgotten? What must dogs think The Wal Mart greeters of the Animal world Who use the sign language Of the excitable nose and tail To communicate their borderline insane love for anything that moves When they trot out first thing In the morning like they’re in competition at Westminster Only to discover A show of silent concrete? What must jets think Who usually cannibalize people Until their bellies are full When the only in-flight meal Is a flight crew Two pilots And 900 steerage ghosts Who sit Without hope or destiny In the kind of Quiet That follows anyone Who has ever walked Away from a grave? What must birds think The cocky pigeons The Blue-header vireo Or the Y...

I feel like I never wake up I sleep But the reality of the Real world Seeps in Like Flint Michigan Water And contaminates My dreams The after hours flop Sweat scenarios Are all the same For example I’m the only passenger in Steerage on A plane There are no flight attendants No pilot No parachute No toilet paper No hand sanitizer No food No work McConnell, Kavanaugh and Pence Are in first class Getting foot rubs By underage interns Saturated in olive oil And Trump is in the tower, on the mike Talking about how great he is And then suggests that it’s Perfectly safe To open the hatch And re-enter the world. And then My eyes open at the Speed of a whack-a-mole And I look like the close up Of The Madness of King George Bailey when Nothing in Pottersville makes any sense. The world comes into Half focus And the all the news That gives us fits Of Good Mourning America Offers up flop sweat Scenarios that Are identical to my rust pipe night...

The city My heart Is knocked for six Silent as a chapel  After business hours. Buildings Stand stony-faced As solemn As the dust bowl faces Captured by Lange There’s no hustle No bustle No hoy  No polloi There’s only fallen Starbucks The occasional baffled dog Azaleas born unattended Suddenly orphaned art And ghosts waiting in the wings Listening for their cue Which is who we all are right now Ready to Look upwards Just as we have rehearsed For months now For the all-clear flare to  Suddenly streak across the sky Like Superman Which will signal the return of The pizza oven slam The barroom crush The Louisville crack The saxophone wail The taxi cab flurry The hymnals  The prayers The vendors The hipsters The know-it-alls The lost The found The wanderers The free-wheeling ramblers The cacophonous rumblers And most of all The kiss Which just may complete you...

We’re the crew of survivors Aboard The Cumberland The Re d’Italia The SM U-10 Tormented by the  the nautical circumference of an interminable forever Clinging to the rails of the ship Watching in helpless horror As our beloveds Are  dragged  down To the very same  terrifying  depths That once upon a time Strangled us  Like the suffocating  tentacles of mythical Kraken in the heart-racing panic-stricken    threat of the night time nursery When we cried out Like the howls of frightened cubs For the life and death rescue of  a hand-delivered half-full glass of water As we stared  At the sliver of foyer light  Which peeked in on us like God through the steady as she goes crack of a barely opened hatch As we squeezed onto the rails Of our quickly sinking cribs And prayed from the Depths of our souls For our nocturnal captain  Or first mate of...

I owe you a kiss And not just any Kiss THE kiss The one that forewarns your Heart to race Like a stalllion Set free In the wide open prairie of your heart The one that transports you Back to the Moment That Kickstarted it all Which made you Realize In a burst of Spring rain wonder, A sprout of sexual wisdom And the mad scorched flow of sensual curiosity Which made your head spin Like the Jardin de Luxembourg Carousel That there was Something far more thrilling Than our day to day everyday that suggested That we could taste Things that were As Sweet As chocolate And As deep as Christmas Whose memory Would Be easy to call up Like soldiers eager to fight A hundred years from now When we are Older And so very, very far away.

The child washed up on shore In the same position That he assumed When he slept Beneath the downy plume of a blanket In the nighttime tranquility of a nursery Which was regulated By the barely perceptible sound of his little boy in and out breaths Being only 3 He may have confused the sand for his crib And the rolling music of the ocean For a lullaby Or the heartbeat of His favorite bear. He wore a red shirt Shorts And a pair of shoes That had barely gotten acquainted with the ground. His family had been denied exit visas And their application for asylum in Canada Was rejected Even though they had family there Because that is what Governments do In between Spitefulness And golf games. Fearing for their lives and the atrocities of war Even though the mother had a mortal fear of The ocean The family decided to sail to Gr...

I’m certain That angels Do not look Anything like Bob, with his button-slathered  VA cap,  who is Putting the squeeze on a potential Melon In the Piggly Wiggly Or, say, Maureen O’Sullivan In the movies Anymore than  Jesus looked Like Dan Fogelberg In his prime Because 2000 years ago Not having  Advil People  Bore holes in their heads Or simply wore Dead moles as migraine hats  So as far as I am concerned, I am so on my own. In lieu Of dismissing any form of God entirely Over time Which seems to move faster Than any Ford Or Ferrari I find that  The spiritual part of me Finds satisfaction Not in the invisible Speculative Part of faith But rather in the far more tangible Molecular miracles of my everyday Modern existence Which serve as  proof positive of a higher  Power That include things like The a cappella opening of “Because” The feeling tha...