IN AMERICA EROS IS A BLACK LIMOUSINE by J. Stevens In America Eros is a black limousine Traveling toward an international airport Driven by a Negro chauffeur packing A ham sandwich & a gun & before this poem zips itself up That ham sandwich will go off & almost Kill Janis Joplin while the gun stays warm In the warm shoulder holster of History's driver Who can usually be found, this time of day Idling outside the Shoreham, in Washington Earbuds in, reading Chekhov -- an actor studying ? Or waiting for the lone gunman The gloved assassin There's always one around somewhere Sidney Reilly. Mark David Chapman Everything is timing In America Eros is the poster of a shark Watching a girl swim naked in the dark Dark shape hanging low Under the billows Watusiing in the slow slow chop. It's not just a shark it's not just a poster Old fish knows only one thing But it's a big Thing In America Eros is a room full of neoprene pelts Identical models hanging in the vault of a futuristic furrier A whole wardrobe of new selves Every thirty years you turn seventeen Get brand new download of love Grown in petri dish or infernal machine In America Eros is lights in the high desert night Outside Palm Springs --too dark To see the limo but this is big A whole convoy rising up from a nowhere You might call the middle of nowhere Ground zero zero hour swift silent men Easing out earbuds in sober alert Apprehensive grim, are we ready For what this is the return Of the alien or only the un Loved assassin In America Eros is a shark Cruising into a pickup spot It could be McGregor Park or Dayton's Old arcade that corner up in Bellingham Any lonely place where out of the dark A cute ham sandwich fresh buns lotsa mayo & meat a yum yum twink earbuds in Comes watusiing over to our cold Clear mirror hanging there in time's Slow dark chop about to learn One big thing. Maybe two I'm 55 this is America What do I know about Eros You're out in the billows every day The shark rising & falling Waiting for the black limousine That's waiting for Janis Joplin Who's giving head on a bed In the Chelsea Hotel to Leonard Cohen While outside in the street the nothingness Takes care of business with its usual Quiet intensity Hey maybe those French existentialists Were onto something Maybe life really does have meaning Only when you carpe diem & catch The black limousine carrying Sartre and De Beauvoir to Orly to Lisbon To Havana to dinner with Fidel Stories of Che fat montecristos On the Revolution’s tropical verandah But what kind of meaning is that We're nowhere No where we know or recognize Sun in Scorpio Mars in Aries. In America Eros is always a metaphor for war and more These sheets must be storm clouds Not fine linen Last night they rained A beautiful woman ♦♦♦

SONG FOR BAUDELAIRE by J. Stevens Write a book about drugs People will want to give you drugs My advice -- take them straight Try not to get too mixed up There are no casual trips But a good buzz will always be A good buzz & has been Since we became foodsharing apes In the Miocene Full bellies, music, safety, laughter But also risk, luck, danger Raise the festal energies where and whenever But never neglect the particular Time is more than a million billion rhythms And almost nothing is random Except how seldom we notice Any pattern & when we do We want to hear it all the time That line of Bowie’s Turn and face the strange Lovely suggestion Don’t think I’m like this With every new woman I meet But eighty percent of you feels unique And the other twenty percent If it were a car It would be a very small car With lots of room in the back seat What does it mean When the first thing you notice About a perfect stranger Is their perfection ♦♦♦

THE MADNESS SONG by J. Stevens Let us be perfectly clear When the madness comes All the edges disappear You can’t prepare for this feeling of no there there You’re here And a lot of what was elsewhere But how much & for how long Will depend on your education That’s here too And whether you are taking your medication This is a complex fluid not impossible Situation You need to wrap your arms around some facts That have been hiding behind your back When the madness comes The word you want is elusive Those things that elude you and those that grip When the madness comes try to enjoy The way you & the bullshit part company No logic to their slipperiness Oh my god! The tether’s just been cut You’are an astronaut When the madness comes so does the sadness Of all things that drift apart The continents drifted apart Lets pretend we don’t feel Their sadness every day Our astronaut falls through time’s tarry mirror Dressed in a suit or armor that once cost more Eons ago than most of history’s smaller wars that we the taxpayer Also paid for. Talk about the horror When the madness comes Power is still only a six gun or for arguments sake A fountain pen Same story different versions When the madness comes hate Is everything you do not expect which is everything Which is this thing and this thing And this thing The same thing In all its variations When the madness comes that’s the zazen Keep it compartmentalized if you can When the madness comes love is the same Always the same green fuse That drives the rain’s brief But infinite flowerings I don’t pretend like everyone else to just follow the news I’ve got thoughtful views on American idol & the human genome to pick two at random From the multitude I could subject you to I really do But it is the signals you can not not Pay attention to but won’t remember When the excitement begins That gives moments like this Their importance When the madness comes The eyes put you wise Or so I’ve heard You see it you’ll know it It can’t be disguised Nature herself is pretty damn loco Whether we are talking about an instant A lot of the time Or an eon or some in between To understand anything fully is always an act of the imagination I don’t pretend to know Whether the door to this metaphor is locked Or not But we are trapped inside something burning and hot The window the others dove through is blocked Just that terrible noise when things blow up What’s usually here is more than enough No knowing by what When the madness comes One of the first things lost Is your sense of loss When the madness comes That crack where the light got in Pompei was buried under a fine hot ash Wind volume mass You do the math Even the most luxurious diet of emptiness When the madness comes Love is the same always the same Green fuse that drives the rain’s Brief but infinite flowerings Your weight looks good Your color’s only adequate Won’t make all the appetites vanish To stay on top of this maybe can be managed….just To prepare for that feeling of no there there Lets pretend there’s no way You’re here And a lot of what was elsewhere But how much & for how long Will depend on your education And whether you are taking The word you want is elusive One thing is perfectly clear That’s here too Your medication First the edges Disappear This is a complex Fluid But not impossible situation That’s the zazen Keep it compartmentalized If you can ♦♦♦