Golf courses and interstates

complacency at alarming rates

among the primrose and wisteria

a pest appears.

 

Chrome and pastel

political poker with a tell

among the wages of prosperity

a committee spreading fear.

 

Rocket ship to missile

four-iron in the thistle

keep your eye on the ball

or the alliance might fall.

 

For all that’s right

in the atomic age

we’ve muddied the way

buried the rage

in the spy speak of

the modern sage

that knows his place but

not for whom he plays.

 

Like Sputnik falling from the sky

espionage and Catcher in the Rye

American dreams will save the day

divert the eye

enhance the array

set the mind a bit astray and

take the sting from

the prices we pay.

 

Unmoved are they as the darkness gathers

when standard of living is all that matters.

 

-Danny Grosso

An agent orange in

a yellow war

draws a curtain but

no fire which is

saved for the poor

G.I. whose sufferings

are borne of

the vilest lie of

evil most mundane of

briefcase C.Y.A. filed

in a safe

in a safe room

in a safe city

half a world away

from the fighting.

 

Mac tied himself in

knots trying to

justify a plan with

unexpected results and

a government left to

painting truthful reportage

as traitorous

that old misdirection

once devastating now

landing with the thud of

suddenly unexplodeable

ordnance.

 

Behind the curtain

searching for an itch that

cannot be found the

arms flail and twist

entwining mind and limb.

 

Once the rightest.

Once the brightest.

 

-Danny Grosso

Promise is

a promise except

when a life is lost and

then it is a tragedy

forever and even

when the line

of sadness is

drawn out so far

into the years that

it loses its peak

the line remains

marking the border

between what is and

what might have been.

 

-Danny Grosso

Beginning again…

 

When Camelot survived

Secret Service man jumped

that big Lincoln early

took a bullet for his sire and

a year later

JFK is re-elected and

at the height of his power

he signs a civil rights bill in

Lincoln’s Springfield home and

he refuses to escalate the war in

Viet Nam

blythly skirting the red bleed

like only he or others like him can

those of his class

clad in linen and pique and

manners and assuredness.

 

By Tet in ‘68 he is done his

great mind elsewhere

working on a library and

a sailboat now and

what to do with Jackie and

Lyndon who hints he can

win the war by keeping us out

save for an espionage team and

some big money and

who seeks the prize he’s wanted

all his life just

like his opponent

old shadow on his face and

in his heart

Nixon’s coming again and

he’s coming up short again

to LBJ’s lie and a massive black turnout

in the closest election in

American history.

 

That Christmas

sensing an opportunity the

Viet Minh escalate and

press on toward Saigon and

by the new year of the

new decade the GOP

has painted the President

in soft pink and

the economy slows and

so do the polls

so LBJ breaks his promise and

sends in the troops

against a movement in ascendancy and

an army with momentum and

a war this messy can’t be

won in a year so

by ‘71 when the candidates are

beginning to prowl the

woods of New England the

fog of war has somehow produced

one clear idea that the

great nation is

losing the war.

 

The populace just wants the

fog abated and

the simplest fastest remedy will

do now because all of the

hand-wringing and

brain-scratching about

advising and

escalating got us a stalemate and

we want to be done and

that affable actor says he

can get it done

by force

in a year

without retreat

without recriminations

without really thinking it through

because government is the problem anyway

an unreasoning conviction

takes the stage embodied in

the affable actor and

LBJ trying to reason

around an enigma

is misplaced or

rather miscast and

his campaign flails at its

directive like a blinded soldier and

fails like a kind one.

 

The sexual revolution proceeds apace and

the Stars and Stripes is on the moon but

a dark mood gathers, molasses slow and

as if in an alternate universe

the affable actor tilts his head and

smiles.

 

Surreal to many

a new wave travels eastward and

as if the embodiment of and

as if enfeebled by

forty years of American history

LBJ’s heart makes it just past the

inauguration where he watches the

affable actor disown the status quo of

a welfare state and Medicare for all of

an allied defense and

back channels with the Soviets.

 

It all must end

the new president says to

a hushed crowd save for

Curtis LeMay laughing with

the profiteers entering

in stride at stage right as

the hardliners inherit

the Viet Nam war.

 

-Danny Grosso

 

Like all of life the

flame is fleeting even

if it cannot be called

alive or if it is

smoldering or

emberous or

willowy or

enraged in

its fulminous brevity

it coaxes and

canoodles

it draws us near

and

it is

a con.

 

When it burns it burns and

it will leave a mark.

 

-Danny Grosso

 

A heartbreak beat

an epoch of nighttimes

dancing in

blue lights

another world spinning

around us.

 

Wanna be a cowboy

the white coat versus

the black hat

statecrafting in the sleepless

gloaming up there

where the cold earth is

primeval and unchanged and

steam roars up from the

venerable landscape among the

shards of the ice age

they seek a thaw but

cannot coax the flame.

 

In the club a chorus but

not a bridge

it’s never enough.

 

We dance on through the

lack of weapons regressions to

a new order

Shellshock

and the irony of the

age provides a propulsive and

incessant back beat.

Keep moving –

it may all end soon but

don’t give up the game

until your heart stops beating.

 

–Danny Grosso

I made this world

as I moved around it

above and below

and of late

within

and also that one over

there the same

but different, has

deeper colored

storms

that sweep away the

remnants of my hand

only to

as in all these worlds in

time regenerate my legacy

each spin

a new brood of

my spiral

 

All these worlds

are stamped like this with

my and your

imprint and

no matter how we doll

them up

they will be insufferable

places

if we forget that

abandoning what one

makes is simply

indecent

 

The trumpet sounds

recede into the

distant rumbling of

souls stirring

and the colors

change in

all these worlds and

it is all so beautiful

 

The mother loves the child

and the planter her crop and

so love and all that it is

the hope and the desperation and

the work and the joy

beckons the power of

the winds in all these worlds

that push the storms

that must come the

quake and the tsunami and

the flood and then

the regeneration on

soils so ravaged that

they are suddenly desperate

to grow things

that are wild and free

like sunflowers

tall grasses and

trees, like children

summering by

the sea, like unrelenting

compassion

liberality and

peace

 

-Danny Grosso

 

 

 

White fog, flurry

winged messengers

confetti

tickertape chyron

magnified static

from video screens

once modest diversion

once a day

‘round the clock now

raining down

like Deckard’s L.A.

saturating

all we see

until we can’t

see

losing perspective

within the camera

lucida

we call the

Information Age.

 

Turn your face to

the torrent

in defiant acceptance

if you must close

your eyes

open

your mind.

 

Comes the storm that feeds

the ground.

Comes the seasons’

turnaround.

 

 

– Danny Grosso

 

 

In the dark of

the cold room

a fire burns

as the rapture begins

a body turns

 

Would it be so bad to

join the show –

is it not right for

a girl to take flight?

 

And I feel you singing

to me

 

Delusions that delight

or at least do no harm

are done out of sight

somehow losing their charm.

Would it be nice

if for all to see

you set out your tricks

by which you

bewitch me?

 

Outside all is crumbling

innocents falling to harm

and we have no insight

to call to arm

because we’re floating about

insides all alight

of a tale we’re told

that comes alive every night.

 

Spinning in space

ensconced in delight

too rapt to notice

something’s not right.

 

Yet I feel you singing

to me

 

The colors unfolding

bleeding over the blight

affliction may come

I don’t care if it might.

Set me here on a plinth

’neath some holy light

let me pretend

that the day is the night.

 

-Danny Grosso

 

 

Let the thunder

roll

baby

let the thunder

roll

over field and town

paddy and home

let it roll

back the pillars of

reason and the

legacy for which

we bled

long ago

before the silver birds flew

before the thunder

before the roll.

 

If the nepalm burns

let it roll

if the hueys abort

let it roll

time alone

in the fields or

Hilton cages

are steam from

the rice cooking

on our stove.

Nothing’s important

not you not

me

but the repute of those

that built this machine

that thunders

that rolls

over thrice-covered ground

that designs

then destroys

so a mistake can be

unseen.

 

-Danny Grosso