THE LAST TESTAMENT OF CHARLIE NOTHING by M.L. Heath

If all the maidens grieve a death
that will excuse the imprints of life
Who’ll stamp my papers of mistaken identity
At the final border for which I strive?

Where across the plaza is convened a sentence
that will be debated for years
how will be divined my infinite longing
and staunch these obstinate tears?

When romance loses pace of its judicious taste
like a barfly at quarter to two
And the latest young beard with a parlance spat weird
Makes for expressions threatening to you.

I never play cards so trips to Reno are hard
With no cowboys or drag queens around
So just give me cruel fingernails on strings
And an honest blare of sunshine in sound.

Where muffled Rota trumpets queue
along with rampant seagull guitars
joining K.C. stride and Sturgis ultra-glide
boarding Sun Ra’s ninth rocket to the stars.


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DICHOTOMY by M.L. Heath

–for S.A. Griffin

In my perfect dreamtime world
On the corner of Geary and Fillmore
I sit and listen
Contented, lucid even
As on one side
in the Boom Boom Room
Captain Beefheart makes his comeback
From paralysis
Accompanied by the ghosts
Of RL Burnside and John Lee
Where Iggy Pop restrains himself
Long enough to sit in on drums

And on the other side
On the steps of The Fillmore
Lenny and Hicks share a smoke
And the only thing
Louder than the ovation
Saying hosanna to
The Velvets leaning their guitars
up against their amps at eleven
Then skulking offstage
Is the sound
Loud enough to make you come
What Flipper does to those guitars
when they arrive onstage

But then I wake up
Take my last twenty dollars
down the corner store
For beer smokes and breakfast
Inside my building, echoes
of the all night aliens upstairs
bitching about the androids moving in down the block

And the landlord pounding on
A neighbor’s door, yelling,
“You’re violating your rent agreement!
I know you’re harboring poets in there!”

Then a stumble
past the sparechange skeletons and sleepwalkers
The carnivorous commuters in couture
Fondling their copies of today’s issue
of the Daily Hell
With the headline screeching
RUPERT MURDOCH BUYS VATICAN

Finally replenished, I listen
to doves on my window sill
and try in my way
In this way
To make some sense of it all

For, as
this carma bum from the Southlands
said to me the other day,
‘no effort in the service
of truth beauty and the Word
is ever
unnecessary’

May Day Year ’07
S.F.

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