On Charles Bridge

Before my half-open eye
A golden berry, glistening, immaculate and dripping wet.
Suspended in the greymist mingling
The black running river
And Charles Bridge bulk.

Eyes half-closed, half-open
I see water, rain, wet blackstones.
My eyes follow a glimmer of light
On a sharp branch from the dark bank
I stand gazing at the twisted branch and blink.
And remember golden days when sunlight fell
Like drops of honey on berries
Glistening liquid glowing
Immaculate shiny flowing
Dripping, falling into the river.

I see a white Christmas berry speckled in red,
And hear childhood campfires crackling;
Merry bells ringing,
Dinging, donging,
So long ago.

With open eyes I gaze on Charles Bridge---
Slow, slurping river
Dark stoney expanse.
Gulls gaggling
For bread balls
From black-gloved girls’ hands.

Bridges’ passengers pacing,
Clopping, thudding, clicking.
Voices in language rising and falling.
So many faces
Saints’ stoney stare
Frozen footbridge eternal
Neverchanging, glaring
In the mist,
In the fog.
I hear a melody rising from my feet into my heart;
Symphonic melody pulsing all around me.
No more walls, the thundering from the sidewalk,
The roar of dull rhythm rises
And squanders my fragile sound.
In the corridor of calmness I recapture the melody but it is caged and small.

I walk out once again on Charles Bridge
And hear exact nightsounds in all of their beauty and squalor,
And keep on walking.

Salvador Dalvador

Reality schmeality
Porky picka pie
Crab a black crow
Melt your money in the dough
Pillsbury punks
Cripple the preacher---
Nothing is as it was before
Death is not a liar
Death is not maiden fernfoil hair
Life alone a beacon
In utter pitch and void
Candles’ fires cannot dim.
God, a dealer of cards,
Catch them as they fall!
And coil ‘round the till once more.

Serpentine round
Better to drown
Better the snake to bite
Frosty venom sunk like a tarpon.
Flesh, flesh!
Screaming, stinking pigs in the muddy fields.
Sacred cows whose glassy eyes radiate and absorb my love.
Tick tocking ripping the calendar
Slipping, greasy serpent time.
Wild flurry oak leaves clatter,
Turn and assail me in some distant symphony
Whisper to my waxchoked ear
Finer thoughts of beauty
Like powder drifts and mutilated mushrooms
Witness man’s slaughter in cool wet grass.

I alone witness the mountainous crime.
To shoulder the guilt alone and smile
On the leaf wet streets of late October
Panty girls hefty breasty bestial dance
Halloween’s candy choked children,
The dead, the glaring moon
All holiness and bliss
All love and love’s love above all!