Author: Rex Sexton

BREAD AND ASHES

A shadow in a shadow land as
time goes on and memories fade
and you weather the years and
visit the graves, until your dream
falls asleep, too, and all that
remains of the ashes of winter
is the warmth you once gave.
A ghost, even then, in her faded
print dress, dusted with flour as
white as her hair, I used to sit at
the kitchen table and watch my
grandmother bake Sabbath bread—
a weekly miracle which I could
never fully comprehend. Her
wizened face glistened with
affection each time she glanced
in my direction. Her cloudy eyes
squinted for perfection as she molded
the mysterious dough and we listened
to phantom voices on the radio.

Back and forth, left to right,

like a moth around a candle,

like a bat in flight.

Hand and eye mesmerized,

watching the slash of blazing

colors criss-cross, collide,

slowly erasing and trace of

the screaming face that stares

at me starkly from each blank

canvas, like a maniac unleashed;

until it is magically replaced

by occult incantations and

voodoo rites which people

take for art – line, form, hues,

shapes, all rainbows in a

mindscape of amazing grace.

It is cold in the studio, dead

of winter in the windows, sky

a shroud, yet fever bright from

incandescent light.  I shiver and

inhale another coffin nail.  On

the canvas, faceless strangers

come and go, as shadows

sweep across a land where

mists envelope each pale

ghost lost in a nimbus about

to disappear like smoke, until

finally there is nothing, no

beginning and no ending. nor

anything in between, except

life’s dream.

 

CALL 911

 The country is upside down.

The three stooges, somehow,

got control of the buttons:

Mickey Mouse is in charge

of the House, Goofy the Senate,

Snidely Whiplash Wall Street,

and Timothy Leary the electorate.

Cartoon characters acid trip across

my cable news like narco-induced

comic strip looney tunes. The

Pentagon is under the joint control

of Daffy Duck and Attila the Hun.

Soupy Sales clones are in charge of

the cities, while the Nutty Professor

oversees the universities and the

Keystone Cops patrol the crumbling

neighborhoods. Call the cavalry!

Call the infantry!  Call Mighty Mouse!

Dick Tracey!  The lame, sick, halt,

blind, yearning to be free of misery

are about to be thrown out into the

streets when they lose their Medicare

and Social Security!  Call Batman!

Superman!  The Green Lantern!

Spiderman!  There must be a better

way to handle this situation, before

we all succumb to the disintegration

of life as we’ve known it and know

it should be! Where are all our

superheroes anyway?

 

BORN TO LOSE

Like a death rattle of wind chimes

playing the desperate cry’s of hard

times, through dark, despairing notes

across the shivering rhythms of their

hearts and souls, the lost generation

wanders the recession, searching for

salvation from life’s regression, hoping

too little, too late won’t come from

whatever can change their fate.

It’s the music sensation that’s sweeping

the nation – the beat of a dream’s retreat.

You can hear it in Chicago, in the Motor

City, in Philadelphia, PA, Kansas City,

down in New Orleans, all across the

country.

 

OUR TOWN

The streets, here, remember nothing

that matters.  Night and day, the

pounding of machinery from the

smoke-stacked factories, punctuated

by the rumble of freight trains, is the

dream-stream that babbles through

your brain from waking to sleeping,

and in a muffled way, dreaming to

waking.  Funerals, weddings, the

patriotic holiday festivities, vary them,

now and then, with small gatherings

of working class men, women and their

children.  But they quickly return to their

ghost-walked dead ends, amidst clouds

of smoke and bunkered down residents.

These are mean streets, at best, lost in an

existential forgetfulness, much diminished

from the times that created them, when

hard labor brought enough pay to enrich

them – days when the incessant pounding

didn’t take its toll on your soul because at

the end of each your life had something to

show.  These are streets which no longer

care to remember, but occasionally

reminisce about the good old days and

tales of lost bliss.  Memories, here, are

like pennies now, all from heaven, of

course, because life is precious, yet at

the same time worthless.  One each day,

perhaps for your thoughts, which you

lose as you collect them to the wishing

wells of Time’s misfortune, dreaming of

other streets you might have walked, long

ago, when legend proposed they were

paved with gold.

Factory smoke and fog along
the river. Kiss a girl and make
her quiver. Kiss her right and
you’re her lover. Lovers and
warriors are what women go for.
On the ground, head down, bodies
all around, Manning thinks about
his small town, as black smoke
billows from exploding bombs.
He envisions the lunch pail brigade
marching off each morning to the
factories, and women, like his mother
slipping on aprons and dipping their
hands into flour. He thought when
he left home to be a hero he would
find life sexier, surely better. The
mountain air crackled with staccato
gunfire. The earth shook under him.
The barrage kept pounding them.
Kiss a girl and make her sigh. Kiss
a girl and make her cry, when you
say goodbye and go to die.

Each day clouds race across the sky, a joy,
and at night, as you close your eyes to dream,
stars fill the sky, a delight. In between is the
feast of life: love, friendship, wondering, all
yours, everyone’s, and all for the savoring.