ANIMAL CRACKERS
                
                    for the ruffians at LUNGFULL
 
 
Ah yes by mystic heavens!
These are the brats with whom I wish to join
This is the company of mischievous ruffians
Who pull their pants down and moon the citizenry!
 
But are they closet voters at the ballot box?
Are they not republicans from Scarsdale on their night out?
They look very suspect to me living in single rooms
While all their possessions are in the attics of great estates
I take that back!  It is unworthy of me to have such a thought
Of course they are genuine!
 
O holy lungfull!  One of the great!
Haven to all the disaffected, home to the richly endowed
Despite your antic dispositions I bow to the Hamlet
Who takes the stage in each of you
 
And wows his audience with the stars of heaven
Aye, and woos his or her queenly Ophelia
Amidst the primordial splendors of Alphabet City
High on the parapets of broken ancient tenements
Princely Hamlets with their more than beaten poems
 
Little did I know when I ate my animal crackers
I was entering a new linguistic age
Where the crinkled page, stamped, spit on
And stained for luck, finds equal entrée
With the prettier submissions
This is my kind of journal where a salami hero
 
Is liable to be pasted in the centerfold 
Hurrah for the editors of Lungfull!
You can b--l your hearts out from dusk to dawn
But in this city of damped down pollution
You are right to be concerned about a breath of air
 
Humanity cannot live by words alone
But must cleanly and clearly speak them
Through God's heavenly bagpipe
Planted in the chest of each of us.
 
 
2005
RJQ 



THE RAPE OF THE QUEEN

You are the one
I am all lust for you savage and unholy queen
I am all lust for your round and bonneted bottom
I know not what the gods had in mind
when they made you such a furry and corseted delight
Though I slave in the galleys among the wretched workers
I am all lust for those recesses my stinger would love to enter
Tell me my queen when will you favor me among all the unfortunate
I have buzzed my brawny back on endless nights but we all know
You can only choose one, only one can have the infinite delight
Of all your treacherous words for we have been taught
From early in your schools that only one can be enfolded
In the steep thrilling sanctum of the hive, that only one
Is somehow turned after you have peppered our fractious bums
With stings of orgiastic pleasure too deep for any to comprehend
But by the profoundest osmosis of your Queenly female will
We the skunk-like workers may at last emerge as drones
Worthy to p--k your highness into happiness
I know you Queen Bee and your raucous female proclivities
I have observed how you have been long upon the couch taking the pokes of all your gallant studs
Each waxing more glassy-eyed than the last, stumbling out into the lonely precincts of the hive
In noxious dreams of affluence and power, the devilish proboscis of each worked totally into silly
Exhaustion, poisoned nearly to death with your love and pleasure
And though I clearly see the fate of each of these stuffed and potted drones
I can in no way resist the same lusting after you, the same pining for your treasures
Of doom and devastation
Yet another drone has passed in a state of near collapse down the sulfurous corridor
But we are all breathless with anticipation as again your highness roams
The galleys looking for who shall next merit her condescension
Her extraordinary vituperative embrace, let it be me queen, let it be me
I am ready to pound your wild bottom for love and splendor
I shall have you screaming shamelessly in the night
My little stinger inserted all, all the way up, even into your Queenly snout
Perhaps I shall do what no little f------g bee has ever done
Give you the final f-----g night of your life Queen Bee and make you squeal out
Secrets you have never thought and can never undo once they are done
At the command of my holy rod
So you see queen bee, even the most lowly of your workers
Keeps verily the possibility that one day you shall be undone
By the mastery of a good working class f--k
and no amount of royal repentance or remorse will ever undo it
The hive on that day will buzz no more
All the bees will have finally been set free
To go find their own honies in the world of flowers

2005
RJQ



A GOOD DEATH


It’s okay, it’s okay
not to have a great and fancy tomb
not even an ordinary tomb
it’s okay really
there is a freedom
in being finished with such constraints

I admit there is also a certain ignominy
in being stripped of your identity
and dumped before the door of a hospital
lying there shivering naked under a dirty blanket
the first passersby stepping over you
nobody wants this responsibility

But you can embrace even this death if necessary
laying your head gently on the hard stone
even in the fury of the cold
Something in us is equal to all this
so you are worn and ill and without a dime in your pocket
and you will not get the most exhaustive medical help
it is possible that there are options that could have saved you
which they will not mention or even think of
really no one deserves these options
with the scores of the sick and neglected everywhere

You are only being spared what isn’t even available
except to those who throw their money down
in vain efforts to live a few more months or years
They will have a funeral that they planned
You sir will accept what humanity has the heart the offer you
and if nothing is possible on that day
if no one has effort or mercy to spare then so be it

You die a free man in a ragged blanket
head on the stone and mind and stomach empty
it is a philosopher’s death
and the greatest will take it every time

Of course should some angel of mercy come
should some Mother Teresa appear at the final hour
Consider yourself richer than all the wealth and pomp of the world
she will hold your head and steady you to die
and there will be no fee for services either
when she kisses your eyes
closed with her lips

2003
RJQ


SOLDIER

Where were her parents when she fell in love
with this god?
What god?
The foul god of war!
Somewhere she crossed his step
And was taken by him
Now we see her coming to birth
Out of his womb
Firing on and killing the enemy
Fired on herself and heavily wounded.

I fell in love with the god of war early on
His exquisite features drew me
The feel of his body,
The high arch of his muscles,
Once he touched me
I lived in a swoon
And there I was
Delivered by his touch
To the battlefield
With shells dropping violently
And blood in the air

I was his perfect lover at that moment
And fired my gun on the figures that advanced
Watching them fall to the side with their arms
Half-raised in surprise
He was at my ears whispering
I wanted to turn to hold him
But I was already being held he said
As a figure came up and stabbed a knife through me
Before I could get my rifle up
And I slid down the armored
Plating of the truck
With my lover holding me
And something with terrific impact struck
My legs and back
I was gone upon my lover’s bed
For the long night
When I awoke I was surrounded by the enemy
Some kind and others hateful
But my lover had fled.

2003
RJQ



FISH
 
And she said: you write like somebody else
And I said: that ain't true I write like me
But the wound she dealt me had been fatal
She had stabbed me with the knife of influence
Plunged it in all the way to Pope or Yeats
Did I write like Pope? I didn't think I did
But on the other hand I had to write like somebody
It was probably that I wrote like someone I didn't know
Or didn't realize that I had always been writing that way
And here I was all along thinking that I wrote like me!
But it is true that when other people write like themselves that I don't like
I say how can that possibly be them writing like themselves
But inside it hurts me their writing that way
It hurts me so much (it shouldn't hurt I guess) but it hurts me so much
Then I want to put my pen down and stop writing forever
I want to give up this curse of writing especially this curse of writing like someone else
And I only want to go and hang myself somewhere from a nice tree
And let my body dangle there and let my corpse rot
What good is it trying to explain to people anyway?
Nobody understands anything about anybody
We all only swim together like a school of fish
And some of us happen to make the same turns
But it has nothing to do with understanding
And then one day the wind blows
And everybody I mean everybody changes direction
And then some who are very fancy but whom I admit I happen to hate
Start talking a different way and pretty soon everybody's talking that way
But as for me as far as I'm concerned I write like other people too
Only I don't know who they are they must be making the same turns as me
Or I as them out there in the murky depths because I don't see them anymore
Or perhaps it is that I am the only one left turning
Out in the dark dark waters the only one left turning
You know I swim awhile thinking I am doing real fine
Of course all my buddies are dead who would normally be doing
This swimming with me but usually I do not realize that and then
And then the wind blows or something pops in your head
Or is it in the air?  Or somebody takes a hotel room or your tooth breaks
And you find yourself turning and turning
 
1997
RJQ




WOLF

Is you or is you not
The big bad wolf
Is you in fact the wolf brother?
Is you in fact the wolf?


Now of course you are in my chicken coop
With all the wonderful hens
Yes, and you have your hen’s disguise
Cluck, cluck, cluck
Now children, you understand how nicely behaved I is
With all the due respects, and all the good healths
And I can act so nicely courteous, when I get my grizzle inside this here coop
I can doff my cap and curtsy and do all kinds of nice things.
That’s what it means to be a wolf
To have the ability to wear my sheep’s clothing and get clean away with it!
Though sometimes my grizzle drools, and it downright salivates
And then my long unruly tongue slobbers every which way
And hangs over my sharp teeth, pearly white, and just spoiling for a good meal
Now children don’t you all pay too much attention to that grizzle of mine
And especially don’t let it put a fright into you
Don’t let that grizzle scare you away from being peaceful and quiet children
Cause all grandma wolf wants to do is sit down and talk real nice with you
O by the way, is there a Goldilocks in the house?

2006
RJQ





DADS

Father, father
Did we have to talk?
We should have talked dad, we should have talked
And now you fill my thoughts, you fill them
Forgive me for not visiting your grave
I was about to say “not very often” but hardly at all
Except for that first morning after they buried you
I thought I was going to visit you everyday
I knelt at the stone almost happy
You were never so real, so intense
Your death was searing, you went out
Like a meteor, almost too brilliantly
But after that first morning
It was years before I returned
I guess I was shaken at the thought
You buried under the stone
With grandmother and grandfather
As in life so too in death with your parents
But never sufficiently enough together
So never independent finally of your families
But drawn like sweet satellites around great suns
You both fell back at last into their waiting arms
You could not break the orbit set by God’s will
Or universal law, the simple rules of elementary physics
It seems Dad you never quite broke into your own world
Though perhaps I am being so unfair
And maybe there is always a world of things
Fathers and sons do not discuss at all
So when Robert tried to discuss with me last night
And I cut him off it seems unintentionally
Trying to spare him I thought
But not giving him his chance
To express some real concern
His tongue loosened a little by alcohol
The hour very late, the place away from home
A far and remote beach on Montauk
The scene a little pathway beside
A row of bungalows pitched on a cliff
Thrust over a serene moonlit ocean
A good moment you would think
A good moment, I reflect
I should have let him talk
But lacked myself the discipline
Is that the way it was with you Dad?
Is that the way it will always be with dads?

1999
RJQ






I WAS A THROWER

I was a thrower when I was a kid
There was nothing thoughtful about me
Yes, the school was right to choose Hensele
over me, you could see he was a thoughtful man
Baseball was actually a great opportunity for kids in high school
especially for pitchers, for what kid has a chance
to express his character, the way he does as a pitcher?
And so my man Hensele, I can still recall the fine games he pitched
He stood on that mound with command, and he gained mastery
In would come the curve, in would come the fastball
and every other mix of pitches and deliveries
I was aware enough to understand how good his games were
but I don’t think ‘thoughtful’ ever reached the threshold of my mind
I would concede that Hensele was a good pitcher
but I didn’t really understand how good or why he was good
this remained a mystery to me for many, many years
for too many years--you could say correctly
that I was underdeveloped, and the thought
as it occurs now is liberating to me
It saves me finally from the baggage of self-pity,
of walking around thinking I was the better man
but Hensele was chosen--Jim Hensele
who loved to stick his tongue out when he made a tight pitch
I loved this guy Hensele, and we were friends enough
I had to catch him once in a rec league for 15 year olds
for I was a utility man who could play anywhere
that was indeed one of my virtues,
that probably got me nominated in the first place,
outfield, infield, behind the plate, on the mound
but I guess you could say I never excelled at any
though pitcher was my chosen vocation
Now this Hensele, this great fellow,
He was so damned cool and poised
He never gave himself up to emotional outbursts and he was steady
I am reminded of the Yankee great Eddie Lopat (Steady Eddie) in later years
though Jim on the whole seemed a much stronger, a much bigger man
and his fastball had steam as I can tell you from having caught him
which brings me to the one episode I must brag of when I caught Jim that day
which occurred on a runner stealing off Jim’s wind-up
and I-- being the scamp I was and quick to take the challenge
mindful there would be no time to catch the ball with a glove
--jumped forward and grabbed Jim’s high hard one with my bared
Hand, firing down to second in one motion
did I get the runner? I cannot even say, I was so pleased with myself
Remember, I told you I had not been very thoughtful, maybe am still not
anyway, I certainly made a play since my arm was strong
but Jim did win that school election for best-all-around
which all my life has always been a chastening reminder to me.

2009
RJQ




BIRD

Aye foolish bird bulging out your neck
And running down the little sparrow
Do you not know what a life
Of hardship she will cost you?
You are a living proof bird that
Life is not for security
For the devilish pleasure you may gain today
You are surrendering all your rational prospects
For that little sparrow will keep you busy indeed
With her tiny wings aflutter and her tail high
She will push you to the edge often bird
Out of sheer love of you,
She will taunt you with her little fanny
And her nest of tiny ones
All cheeping for the worm!
And when you do not deliver readily enough bird
She will ravage you and fleck your brilliant feathers
With the pecks of her sharp beak.
Your greater size will matter nothing then
But only make you an easier target
Until one day bird she ousts you from the nest entirely!
Shawn of your feathers and the pride of your desire
She will trample you underfoot
And strip your carcass into shreds to feed
Her little chirplings,
Then bird you will know what it means
To have a wish never to have been born!
But cheer up I see your little devil is having fun
Indeed on the sidewalk today.
Hurry on bird with your bulging pride,
Little miss sparrow lies in wait for you… patiently.

2003
RJQ




MOUSE

mouse you have had a long run
the master’s boot has kept you out of sight
but all that is changing now
you have become much too pestilent
to be permitted further freedom
a cat has been brought for the task!
mouse finally you are
quaking in your tiny boots?
the master you could elude
no matter how much he boomed in the kitchen
yes I could not get my hands on you
though you looked an easy enough target
but would scamper across the wooden floors
or dart between the iron grates
while I crawled after you in rage
you have done it at last
eating the very heads off my family photographs
you and your little ones munching frenziedly in the attic
you think I could not hear you gnawing your way
through a whole mound of newspapers
in the very midst of the most freezing cold!
you thought I not willing to chase you down
though wrapped in blankets before the fire
what was I to do? leave you to eating my life?
so yes I have brought in a cat
eh mouse you will tremble now
cat shall make short work of you and yours
and he shall play with you into the bargain
he shall exercise his full barbarity over you
he shall stripe your fine gray coat
though he tries to draw his claws in when he pets you
he shall take the smell of your fear upon his paws!
and at a safe distance he shall play with you
while I the master am entertained
by your silent desperation
thinking of all the gnawing you have managed
this winter in the stubborn cold
rather than give up the house
making my life into an utter misery!
so when cat decides to finish you off
in his due time I shall be a patient witness
and before you are completely spent
I shall separate him from his prey
to have the luxury of myself killing you!
yes cat will be violent with rage
but I think in this only to spare you his dismemberment
I shall snap you neck in mercy
and then perhaps in compassion
I shall offer cat your still squirreling tail!

2004
RJQ






MOUSE 2 (AFTER LONG SILENCE)

The silence has been long mouse
The silence has been long
You was once very loquacious
One might even say you were once a big mouth
What has happened to you mouse?
What has happened to your loquacious ways?
Has the cat come along and bitten you?
Yes, the bite of the cat. That would silence you.
The vicious bite of the cat
Into the fat of your hide I bet
And sank his teeth so sweetly into you!

Yes, mouse there is much silence in that
But mouse we must get you to speak again
It is imperative
Loss of the tongue is extremely serious
Unless in fact cat has bitten it off on you!
You have a good tongue mouse
I pray that has not happened
I was so serenely serenaded by you mouse
Your squeakings were so euphonious!
Has the cat killed you after all?

I shall miss you mouse
You were not half so bad as I had thought
I shall miss the tracings of your whiskers in the dish at night
Aye! me! perhaps I can recover you still
Perhaps you are lying somewhere near to the end
On your back with cat’s fangs still in you
Perhaps cat has dragged you off
To package you for the winter!
Still I must attempt to recover you!
Hold on mouse, hold on!
I am coming to find you!
O mouse what have I done to such a fine friend?
Shall I ever be forgiven?

2004
RJQ




OWL

Hey owl
What a fine creature you are
Tearing out the guts of mouse or rat
Pinned under your merciless talons
These poor creatures will
Never see their families again
But what care you or I
Hypnotized by your bright eyes
Seduced by your calm feathers
Mother nature has been generous
Making you a pampered favorite
Allowing you to gaze boldly forward
A masterwork of perfection
With whom no rodent can compete

But owl
There is an animal more gorgeous
Who can strike even more quickly
Than you can dive
Who is no mere warm-blooded creature
But an animal spawned from prehistoric instinct
Who can set your armored feathers aside
And find your fragile body
Soft beneath the snap of fangs
Now owl you go the way
Of all those miserable creatures before you
While we on the roadside
Witnessing your scattered
Bone and claws
Withdraw our honorific gaze
Reserved only for those still
Beautiful and victorious

2004
RJQ





PAGLIACCI

This is the way I’ve passed my life in the world
In degrading merriment, dressing my self like a clown in rags
Sing Pagliacci for your audience, take your bows, grace the stage
With your passion, with your unhappiness, with your by now
Too familiar despair, sing Pagliacci in a voice powerful enough
To shake the ceilings, to bring the whole assembled house
Down in ruin, sing as you head out for the final act, no time
To spend with those backstage, who may congratulate you
With a happy eye, a quick pat on the back, as the crowd waits
In expectancy, and the music returns before you appear.
Walk out there clown in rags, this is your part and
Your performance, years in the making, thousands of hours
In the preparation, this is your part, this is the final act
My brave, my dear Pagliacci, your voice will not falter
Sing for every ear that hears you,
Sing in your full dress, the final note
Of the final song on that last, final night
Do not hold anything back, let them be overwhelmed
Overwhelm yourself, and then, and then, as the curtains crash
To a close to the last thundering ovation,
Step back into the darkness.

2006
RJQ

HARDBALL BOB

So what happens next Hardball Bob?
Everybody is slowly taking aim on you
The gunmen are coming for the bounty
What can you possibly have up your sleeve?
The gods are not going to get you out of this
They have walked away washing their hands
You have reached the end of the known text
Well you reached that end a long time ago
Back when voyages were still in fashion
You thought you had sailed straight off the end of the earth!
Only to discover so had everybody else

You were never very much on love
But you fell hard in the opening act
She bore you to hell where you proceeded
To register as a lifer
You spent the next decade in a library
Trying to establish your antecedents in a tidy line
But the clock is running down
And you have entered the end game
You have spent your life on the board
And have become a master of the play
Here comes the queen bearing down
Nothing frightens you about the game
Only your sadness at realizing
Most of the play is behind you

2005
RJQ

DEATH OF A ROACH

I
Roach! Roach!
Thy final hour
Does approach!

Know it not
That I can crush thee
To a tasty
Meal

Lip smackin’ good!

Thy legs & limbs
Ooozing down
My chin

Savage savage roach!

Dark useless disturbed creature

I shall finish thee
Ignite thy nature
With my higher sprite

Know me not roach
Thy tormentor!

Dark and ugly thing!

My greater reason
Perils thee

Turn thy hideous eyes roach
And flee

Thank the ignorant gods above
For thy disturbed
Miserable
Mother’s
Love!


II
Hey roach!

Not that way!

Not around the corner
In open view of human civility

Our patience we forego
When we get a view of thee


Vile mashed up pitiful thing!

How shall you vie with great humanity?

We are the lords
Reason in us does prevail

Usually!

Unless we see thee scampering across the floor
On a wooden stair or a pantry shelf
Down a greasy wall or an animal pelt

Ah! Yes! then we are unhinged
And chase thee down hysterically!

A ferocious spray
Of gaseous poison
In the hand
Pellets of corrosive
Malice
In the air

We come after thee
Mouth salivating plentifully!

Especially if you be popping from the stove
Heated to scalding & pumped with noxious fluid

Leap high roach to save thy life!

Almost to the kitchen sky!

But we have thee now

bathed in executioner’s fuel

Useless our reason now

For thy death
We ecstatically drool

Thy loathsome nature become
Our one true delicacy

Roach give it up!
On my plate your tortured limbs have dropped!!


1997
RJQ

4 HORSEMEN open reading at Cornelia St. Cafe Monday Sept. 15 at 6 PM.
Signed readers for the event

ROBERT GIBBONS
EVE PACKER
OCEAN VUONG
FRANK SIMONE
MADELINE ARTENBERG
IRIS SCHWARTZ
MICHAEL COOK



READERS for Sept. 15
IF INTERESTED contact bobquatrone@gmail.com