Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 5:47 am:

 
The Crazy Men Poems 
 
 
 
1.  War of the Worlds 
 
Each morning he comes  
in for the free cup of coffee 
the owner generously offers, 
 
a purple bicycle helmet 
on his head lined  
with tin foil to block  
the signals 
of the mother ship 
he says hovers just outside 
of radar range.    
                               Their plan, 
simple— beam him up 
each night, use his seed 
to create a new master race.  
 
Extraterrestrial amazons 
eight feet tall await, vessels 
of passion that glow like light bulbs 
wrapped in silver. 
 
But he’s too smart. 
He sips his caffeine beneath  
a crucifix tacked to the wall 
 
through which God 
whispers the secrets  
of how to outwit them. 
 
 
2.  The Barber of Seville 
 
Power-lunchers 
hit the sidewalks. 
Skyscrapers  
empty out  
like water draining down a straw. 
Thousands of people  
line each side of the street 
when he stops his car 
in the middle of the intersection, 
steps out completely nude 
and begins his solo before the crowds. 
 
A hairy aria fills 
the amphitheater of concrete, 
Figaro without a fig leaf  
spreading his love 
amid adoring fans. 
They gather around him 
in tighter and tighter circles 
like cuffs on his wrists 
until he is triumphantly 
escorted away by the men in blue 
in a procession of flashing lights 
toward an obscure five-star hotel 
where the opera will continue. 
 
 
3.  Gabriel 
 
Each day he stands on the corner 
of New York Avenue  
in heat or cold  
watching the traffic, 
the faces  
of the commuters coming 
in and out of Washington.  How 
they break  
in slow  
motion like glass, 
the rock at the moment of impact, 
shards  
collecting all their sorrow into hives  
around their eyes as they wait 
for the light to change.  
 
He’s here to harvest their illnesses 
a little at a time, burn  
the sickness up 
in his body that is made  
of so much light 
the human eye can’t see it. 
 
Invisible, he waves 
a branch of leaves 
over each car, chants  
his songs of praise to the Almighty  
for being allowed to mend  
these broken people 
with his gift of vision. 
 
 
4.  Adam 
 
He falls asleep 
in the rain, 
dreams 
 
of rain falling 
all around him 
like goldfish 
from the sky. 
 
Orange fins slip 
into his body,  
orange lips 
kiss the flesh away 
 
until nothing 
but water remains. 
 
He wakes  
to a clear sky’s 
reflection 
covering his body, 
 
feels tremors  
deep inside  
rise into volcanoes, 
dry ground,  
 
the first footprints.   
A lone bird  
in the trees calls out 
for him to stand up.