'Street Eulogies'
 
1.
the crucifixions have moved from Palestine to Park Avenue
the high pagan altars where virgins were slaughtered have
left the pueblan plains and come to the city streets
demagogues bark from steelblue loudspeakers
cursing the gods that play in Central Park
augurous pyramids we scaled as stoneladen slaves
have crumbled under dizzying highrise tenements
the faithful bleed purple in pews while
the slavemaster cum broadcaster exalts the empty skies
but we cant fly with roughclipped wings and blinded eyes
and still we hide when the lightning strikes
smell the burnt bark inching closer to the caves
while we wait in the thickening mists
whimpering
for the rains to come.

2.
men raving madness at streetcorner signs
their stark ragged fists shake clutching
with bloodied hearts and cardboard cutouts
the bygone artists of a bygone age
the crowded marshmallow clouds 
drift blue through gray cherry blossom heavens
while silent dawn denizens and
phrenetic taxicab cyclings
streak the petrol square below
monstrous glasseyed katydids
come rumbling to breed confusion
while hopheaded peddlers
with ounces of talent
brew black gold grooviness
for ten talents an ounce

3.
fatcats graze on forcefed goose livers

while rambling prophets tear their eyes out

underneath the 59th street bridge

fatted calves and bedraggled

blacktar junkies soothsay forest dreams

that bounce in echoes through

tangled jungles of concrete pyres

swaths of greencrowned arbors cut

paths down boulevards and battlements

termite drones strip sunsoaked husks

vomit their viscera

and brown bile animas

they rush to deliver a butterfat sow

to a butterfat Caesar

in a tengallon hat.