Mid-Century Modern

Image From Pinterest

 

low and lean
flat planes cut into
private horizons
sleek linear simple
descendants of Wright
and the Bauhaus
interiors open
admitting of freeflow
that purges the mind

keeping faith with a
modernist minimal
tenet that form must
perforce follow function
unneedy of ornament
external walls glazed
with a generous ratio
communion with light
outside inside exchanged

bespoke avant-garde
set with new ecumenical
social imperatives
driving new viewpoints
new unbending sightlines
envisioning futures
released from the past
two world wars
turned and burned

clash of classical creeds
complex radical curves
of disturbing philosophy
vanished in clouds
of political cordite
old misleading shapes
of existence erased
baring brusquely undressed
acute angles of truth

Habit

 

James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause” 1955

 

 

I turned to it back at too-tender an age
when a dollar an hour was minimum wage
when the white house was home to Mamie and Ike
and my ride was a nameless old coaster-brake bike

it was unfiltered Luckies or Camels I’d smoke
and it took a few weeks to learn not to choke
we’d roll up a pack in our tight tee-shirt sleeve
like James Dean before his crash taught us to grieve

it’s quite likely that every word I ever wrote
had a nicotine birth in the back of my throat
though I might gain some years if I cold-quit today
what the hell good is time without something to say

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

Car Hops

Image From pinterest.com

short skirts and roller skates
burger-sized grins making
friends over milkshakes
where muscle cars
flex all their flame-painted
horsepower attitudes
radios rocking the latest
and greatest with ketchup
on fries zipping crisscross
from short-order cooks to
car windows courtesy paid
to each agile swift ingénue
slowing her down with a
handful of countable coins
that allow for ambitions
to flirt in the linger of
hand-to-hand tingle and
waxed paper hopes for a
mutual crush in the offing

 

(originally posted January 2014)

50s Vignette

Photo from pinterest.com

 
streetcorner Sundays
guys meeting their girls
preaching pinballer poetry
milkshake foam mustaches
winking with rhymes
doubled over themselves
sweet as muscle tees
tucked into cigarette packs
cool hair combing arms
warming poodle skirt waists
bootheels caught nonchalant
on fat chromium revving
through smokerings exhaled
from world war two zippos
while backpocket comics
curl superman capes
brushing unwanted innocence
hard against wishfulness
straddling headwaters
running with hormones
round rocks of confusion

Doo-Wop

From pinterest.com

 

streetcorner sultans

lift harmonies

over the tenement transom

returning the reverb

they pray earns them fame

their signature sound

 

59 Caddy

1959 Cadillac Convertible
Photo from cartalk.com

sweeping sleek from her regal medallion
gently tapered along to her sexy tail
svelte animal taming testosterone highways
on fat gleaming wide whitewall tires

a hood you could dance on all night
capped her deep-notched two-layered grille
eight classy front lights sculpted into
cool elegant cowls of glistening chrome

tailfins racing with length and flown high
couching dual pairs of red bullet taillights
rear v-grille that echoed the front
topped her bumper-ports bold twin exhausts

mirror-deep black as could ever be black
encased rolled and pleated red leather
hydromantic three-ninety V-8 laid her
twenty-one feet and her near seven beam

had accelerant power to make rockets smile
she gave effortless high-speed smooth cruising
I loved best to drive with her top buttoned down
and a curvy blonde’s hair in the breeze

I always thought she would obliterate all
those new foreign imported nuisances
ugly scurrying rodents just got in my way
though it seems I was damn surely wrong about that

but, man oh man, let me just tell you my friends
what a car! what a year! what a time!

Anticipation

1952 Catholic School Classroom
Photo from thedailysuse.blogspot.com

I can still smell the day
my soft leather bookbag
fresh oiled with linseed
looked after no less than
my trusty old baseball mitt
pulpy brown paper
for covering textbooks
the redolent shavings
from sharpened new pencils
ammonia laced water
cleaned fountain pen nibs
virgin black and white marble
clad ruled composition books
cracked freshly open
clean crisp and awaiting
new knowledge and penmanship
heady with hopes and
excitement imagining
teacher and classmates
who’d make for enjoyable
days amid chalk-dusted
blackboards and inkwells
although it’s all well more
than sixty years gone
I can still smell the day