I want to believe forces above
desire to arm me more than the Contras,
embroider me with stylish flack-jackets.
Short is our stay in prayer & prosperity,
and tonight a storm knocked power out in N.E. Pennsylvania –
neighbors came outdoors, retrieved garbage-cans,
checked toppled-over tomato plants,
kept watch for gang-lords interested in taking advantage
of darkness.
Darkness is our friend when power goes out;
every minute I am reminded of a blind man
poking a stick ahead,
his seeing-eye dog frightened by thunder,
the blind man felt rain, a Philly Cheesesteak on a grille,
he remembers something the Iceman ((6′ 5” Mr. Richard Kuklinski was a Jersey City-“family man,” logical, become contract-killer, took credit for 200 murders. He was proficient at using cyanide and sending people to “meet their maker.” It occurs to me the Iceman would not be troubled about noose tightening around the 2nd Amendment. In 1986, Richard was arrested by NJ State Police, and an interview with him can be easily accessed on You Tube, no viewer-I.D. Needed, “picture paints a thousand words.”)) said
while dancing in a dim-lit gay-bar.
What did the Iceman do?
Where did he get all that cyanide, spiffy yellow outfit?
Internet acquisitions? The Iceman hated taxes
Neighbor-dogs were still inside, on-couches, attached to leash,
fearing thunder, breathing hard, ‘huh, huh, huh, huh…”
I examined smoke rise in the east, the far east, Manila burning?
Has St. Ann’s Monastery taken a hit?
Is a new Pope elected?
Might smoke be residual from a Saigon monk on fire?
I do not know, I know not, I trust no one.
Suddenly, evening warmth returned, heavy security at London Olympics,
I could could not stand fire of no air-conditioning anymore.
Dogs bark, they are are in good health, but hungry.
They sense everything including invisible-ink upon 2nd amendments,
smoke rising from 1905, Tsar rifles on Bloody Sunday.
Those days, Algeria burning,
things were difficult for even fake-dogs
like the one beaten in Camus’ The Stranger.
Old Salamano tried taming his dog with kicks & punches,
took it by jugular, made it stand at attention,
piss on yesterday’s Paris newspaper, fetch sticks,
do tricks like Bowser at Abu Ghraib.
In the end, Salamano’s dog just wanted to be like others,
protect its owner, bark when trouble’s around, lights go out;
I never believed such fictional dogs ever become free.
At dusk, town-lights turned-on.
I saw acrid-gleam behind window-shades, T.V. Screen flickers,
a Presidential spokesman does not know Israel’s capital?
Ha, ha, ha… dismounting an extended-lift, telephone pole,
a Pennsylvania Power & Light lineman told me,
“Sir, it was much easier to remember Nicaragua’s capital
back in the 1980s.”
It is alien to not know the Alamo and Iceman’s whereabouts,
& a noble-minded rabbi, part-time Scranton pediatrician,
knows the apocalypse-capital of Armageddon, Kiedjdany district –
half way down 2nd Amendment, in fine-print,
Luke Chapter 14, born to work a garden, get voter I.D.,
weightless, low triglycerides, Stealth-winged,
I want to arm Sino-Siberia border before dawn.