There is always pastry by the water.
Small wooden men tending cork boats.
Hooked shadows and light knives.
Another bloated body found unbuttered.
A meager crowd of infidels resurfaced.
Specialists and wharf rats hone their chops.
Inevitably, a prayer is smoked.
Peace gods summoned arrest the damned.
And the tide converts each magic stain.
I’ve misplaced my stack of adverbs.
My adjectives have all gone moldy.
Nouns abound, like circus clowns.
But most of my verbs are long expired.
I’ve always been anti-pronoun,
And prone to conjunctivitis.
But I still have several gerunds,
All residing in nursing homes, however.
Bernard Herrmann, Bernard Herrmann, Bernard Herrmann,
Wasn’t German, Wasn’t German, Wasn’t German.
He grew up in New York City, New York City.
And his music wasn’t pretty, was it pretty?
It was Psycho. It caused Vertigo. It made the Earth Stand Still.
It was a thrill, It was a thrill, It was a thrill, It was a thrill.
It was The Wrong Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Who Knew Too Much.
It was a White Witch Doctor in a Garden of Evil on Dangerous Ground.
It was shrieking Birds and Khyber Rifles, Twisted Nerve and Endless Night.
It was an Obsession on a Mysterious Island At the Center of the Earth.
It was the Snows of Kilimanjaro at Farenheit 451.
It was a Torn Curtain on Cape Fear Beneath the 12-Mile reef.
It was The Ghost and Mrs. Muir in a Hatful of Rain.
And it all got started with Citizen Kane.
Citizen Herrmann. Not German. New York City. It was Pretty.
Mantle’s dead.
The world is upside down.
Drunk on fastballs;
missed the hanging curve.
Now no more facades.
Gone the oil and leather.
Left to limp alone
this outfield stretch
of time.
Warning tracks
in the mirror;
shadows of the switcher.
Rounding third,
head down, for home.
Shake with Frank Crosetti,
Yogi at the plate.
Steps are full of Enos,
Moose and Gil.
Got a run for Whitey.
Grim is in the pen.
Smiles again, and
shyly tips his bill.
From the cannon shot
off Ramos to the
knuckleball of Shultz
all the way to Denny’s
freebie five-uh-oh.
From drainage ditch
to abscessed hip,
through bottles
and beyond.
A seven etched
in the heart.
Slow motion dreams
of gray pinstripe.
The Mick’s no more
around.
Old Casey
sent him down.
The perfect drag.
The comet
run aground.