Leo DiSanto - Poems

To Fly So Low

“You must be insane

to fly around so low”

a muffled voice declared

from under a pillow

and things busy punching clocks in distant places

suddenly became aware

of their own hands and faces

“You must be DERANGED

to fly around so low!”

well, whatever, why not?

who wants to know?

my fuselage may blaze and smoke billow

great black sickly chemtrails

from here to Amarillo

and future generations may not know

what to make of the craters

why wipe out the dinosaurs but leave the alligators?

with their fancy goddam purses and their shoes

so unhappy in their own skins

they can’t help but sing the blues.

OUCH.

“You must be bare-assed crazed

to fly around so low.”

well sure, I know

but I didn’t think you’d know.

so whaddya want?

some precocious, winsome ape man long ago

got tired of living in some land of snow

and walked across

some jagged strait or isthmus

just couldn’t keep minding his own apeman business

“You must be mad

to fly around so low.”

well sure, I know

but I didn’t think you’d know.

Warbler

The noises and the marks I make are warbling
but birds probably don't romanticize it as I do
Who'd want to listen?
The whippoorwill may fashion a sad song of his name
but if a longing lies curled in those marrowless bones
it is probably a longing for the sky
This, this is warbling
Sometimes it's pretty
though much of the time it's just so hopeless, so goddamn lonely
that I don't even want to open
the creaking shutters of my heart
wide enough to set it free

But that doesn't sound much like birdsong, does it?
Not the kind you'd want to awaken you
Not the notes that could call your face
home from Dreamland
to a pillow somewhere near my own.

Old Man World

When the down, dark, dismal blues set in

just imagine all the ages

Old Man World has been

forever games of cat and mouse

across the green-blue turning of his spine

the myriad creatures

in their lonesome spotlights

arising of themselves to shine

all the broken, crippled, lovesick, lungsick, hungdick

pervert, inert, and deranged

return in season

as tall, white, long-winged birds

casting moon-projected shadows

over town and mountain range

and how many mustaches do you imagine old man world has grown?

every salted, peppered length and style and color

ever upper lip has known

silverfox mustaches

brushing frost from rims of cold glasses of beer

browndog mustaches

soaked like ragged mops with lovers’ tears

when you’ve grown very old

and you lie down

with your hurts inside your pockets

and your stories and regrets

and it doesn’t quite feel

like it’s time to close your eyes

just yet

Old Man World may smile a weary smile

gazing down on you

with myriad shining eyes

and tell you,

“Ah, goddamnit…

oh, you are so young, so young.

Try hard to remember when you rise.”

Two Songbirds

Two songbirds live inside my chest

the night we met they built their nest

one brilliant gold, one misty blue

and both live but to sing for you

sometimes I find their nest a mess

of weeds and brambles, selfishness

twisted branches, thorny words

would you have me kill your songbirds?

they beat their wings in vain to see

if your heart harbors birds that sing for me

some nights I creep to lock their cage

they flutter, wake, and squawk with rage.

I’m teaching them to speak, your birds

may the muses of my heart find words

to sweeten their songs, quell their fears

to trust the winds that brought them here

if the birds in your chest won’t sing me songs

it’s not for me to deem them wrong

I would be gentle, kind, and strong

if now and then, my heart’s sweet friend,

your birds with mind would sing along

The Disloyal Songbird

The bird inside my ribcage isn’t mine

he doesn’t come back to me when I call

unlike stones weathered slowly over time

or autumn leaves undamaged by their fall

a shaking, quaking, breaking, woeful mess is he

who, though I beg, won’t sing to comfort me

but overjoyed to send me grief and shame

sings all night long a song much like your name

The Moon Will Kick Your Ass

Them’s the breaks kid, oh, you better believe that them’s the breaks

go ahead and shake, kid, believe you me

make no mistake

that moon up yonder, yonder moon

may seem a whimsical plaything

but believe me, kid, that’s no balloon

whose beams yonder hills are bathing

does that look like the face of a kindly old gent

peering out of yonder moon?

that’s not the visage of your sweet grandpapa

come to sing you to dreams in your room
you’d best be awake if he climbs down
that clouded stair from star to ground
To bedevil your heart and kick you around
kid, that’s the way the moon cheese crumbles

he’s pocked with craters deep and wide

filled with umbral shadow

that’s where sinister moon goons hide

watch out for them, me laddo

they’ll toss you like a wayward tide

if I were you I’d cower inside

it’ll feel like that Coney Island ride

that gives you whiplash, but with werewolves.

so let moon-eyed lovers rhapsodize

let troubadours croon lullabies

about old man moon, but kid, get wise:

the moon will kick your ass.

now off to bed

no, you can’t have a sugar cookie

sweet dreams.

Uncertain Bedtime Story

Nightbirds sing melancholy in the trees

borne up on limbs formed by uncertainty

uncertain the direction of the breeze

that blows the notes of night’s calliope

the stars rest like a crown of brilliant jewels

atop the balded noggins of the hills

and light years distant, we stargazing fools

can only guess if they are burning still

underneath the moon long shadows run

to netherworlds known but to owls and stars

don’t let them haunt your dreams, my darling one

these things are yours, uncertain though they are

Lunch Song of the Hudson River

How many tons of gangster bones

how many tons of gangster bones

lie down in your deep belly?

24 tons of gangster bones

lie down in my deep belly.

no one shoots up their parties here

bleached by the brine

and knocked against the piers

and no one has wept for them in years

way down in my deep belly.

how many golden coins from Spain

lie down in your deep belly?

a million golden coins from Spain

lie down in my deep belly

a million golden coins from Spain

that drifted down like shimmering rain

like gleaming tears from angels’ eyes

that watch men squander paradise

for love of metal, greed, and gain

a thousand golden coins from Spain

lie down in my deep belly

how many nameless suicides

lie down in your deep belly?

a hundred nameless suicides

repose in my deep belly

traffic cops and jilted brides

who wept and wandered by my side

I rippled, shrugged, and opened wide

the doors to my deep belly.

how many poets, pens in hand

lie down in your deep belly?

I welcome poets, pens in hand

to lie in my deep brown belly

they scribble in their little books

and take a step without taking a look

and then I swallow them for good

they won’t go home to old Penn’s Woods

they’ll lie beside the gangster bones

and Spanish coins, and suicides

the traffic cops and jilted brides

will welcome them with civic pride

‘cause this is New York City, baby!

even on the river bottom

savoir-faire, panache:

we got ‘em

make ‘em, break ‘em

eat ‘em, rot ‘em

man, I’m getting hungry

I’d welcome poets, my curious lad

melancholy, wild, and mad

the sweetest lunch I’ve ever had

to lie in my deep brown belly

A Riddle

It howls like the high wind

It goes and comes back again

and doesn’t tell where it’s been

But what is it, dear?

It acts out the fools part

It beats like a warm heart

It creaks like a horse cart

but what is it, dear?

It whispers, it fumbles

through dark ages tumbles,

and down dark roads stumbles with low lantern burning

It lives and loves dearly

prays for light sincerely

treads silently, weirdly a small planet turning

It loses you, finds you

forgets and reminds you

Its radiance blinds you

but what is it

dear?

It riddles, it rattles

It rants, raves, and prattles

and chooses its battles by tossing a dime

flaunts childish behavior

forgives like a savior

and rouses poor poets to rally their rhymes

It plays every angle

ensnares and entangles

It maims and it mangles, but what is it, dear?

It’s something that hearts do

and struggle and live through

though it batters them bruise blue

So now is it clear?

I think you know, dear.

Ode to the Pigeon Man in Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires

Surely it is the mark

of a character true and fine

to wear winged vermin

like a shroud of goodwill

keep your amigos closer, amigo,

feed them on kindness

and never will they fly from you

pausing in shining magnanimity

for a bite of ice cream to cool the throat

while the heart ever-warm remains

encircled with winged things

halos with dirty feet

"The Moon Will Kick Your Ass" and Other Bedtime Stories