Todd Fabozzi

Below are sample poems from "Crossroads"

hanging out

shop talk in the glimmering sun

only words to string together the days

and empty pockets to hug empty hands

we stand and watch the cars go by

sipping cold cans

and sharing old stories

because they are the only ones we know

we offer a chair

if you’ll join us while we wait

and only ask that

you’ll laugh a little

even if it hurts

tell us your old lies again

tell us why crying won’t solve anything

tell us what you didn’t find

on the hard road to Eden

tell us why every car that passes

knows the same stories

and why they look when they see us laughing

as if there’s a secret they might miss.

more

right about the time

they first sat up

they started hearing secret messages

about want

they were weaned on

illusions

enticing desire

electric emanations

in bright merchandized colors

and the curvy contours

of nurtured need

they were assured

happiness was

to have and to hold

and they exclaimed, “I want that!”

pointing at the TV

they were persuaded

that products

had transcendental properties

so consumption

became their metaphysics

they were encouraged

to buy now

and pay later

live life in a flash

before the lottery ticket’s scratched

they were taught

to keep up

to aspire

to acquire

status

in material acquisitions

that symbolize

their class position

they believed in trophies

and misread myths

and their patriotism

was a shopping list

and a civic duty

to spend

maxed out

and mystified

in the hazy maze

of fruitless pursuit

blind to the faraway crimes

and deaf and dumb

to the limits

of our hacksaw dominion

unable to see the simple stuff

they can’t buy, right there

in front of their eyes

unable to see the fallacy

and tragedy

of celluloid dreams

and stock option schemes

unable to grasp happiness

drowning in desire

always longing to acquire

and more

and more...

dignity

who is that person

behind the mask?

who is that woman

who makes me change

with her older eyes

and weary smile

and her sadness barely hidden?

who is that man

who says, “can I help you?”

surely several someones

before it came to this?

is there dignity?

are they able to accept

circumstances

as they are

not as they wish

and summon the power

to overcome

an unresponsive god

and still smile?

maybe they just keep from

stepping too far outside themselves

so they don’t have to look?

but what about those with wings?

what do they do?

yes I stand

and break the cornbread of my soul

with the original aborigines

first to settle and make love to this land

I lend my fingers to

the descendants of people made property

so that opportunity and dignity

may live again

I stoke a memory of fire

so that a new and true knowledge may be

passed on like an incendiary baton

I wander the broken streets

and sleep under bridges

so that I too may taste the bitter fruit

and understand

I grow my hair like a willow tree

and apply for rejection

so that I too may taste discrimination

I climb the burning bush

and hold the broken nest in my hands

the shattered shells and wilted leaves

so that I too will suffer among friends

and I stand in seditious solidarity

with the suffering siblings

of repression and exploitation

and together

we say no!

no to chains and whips

colonial contortions

and the progress of poison

no to gunboat intercourse

and gunpowder

to define our course

we say no

to cages and barbed wire

and reject the programming

of sham desire

no to the hunger of the dispossessed

and no to suppression and censorship

we say no

so that when the new map is drawn

it’s drawn with erasers and clasped hands

and a new consciousness wise enough

to remove the lines that separate

and hold back the day

when we can stand and say

yes!

the mystic road

to those who must leave

for leaving’s sake

to travel distant shores

calling visions awake

how does one whose feet don’t touch

find peace among the halted duty?

for the tug of the horizon

like incessant tides

always beckons

the siren voice of destiny

in whispers slow to die

when the anchors hide in child’s eyes

the stake cannot be dislodged

without rending the heart’s unending cry

so you wait the days knowing

where you are

is where you should be

biding your dying time

for the day when

they too will grow wings

and then

after all those whistles you heard pass

freedom’s train will stop at last

and the conductor will ask:

where to now, Old Eyes?

haven’t you found fate’s destiny

where you stand?

or is there another leaving

for leaving’s sake

to chase the dream

not yet awake?

inner workings

I love the sleek curvy body

and I know how to turn her on

that’s easy enough

you just stick it in

and twist

pump it a bit

and the juices flow

she heats right up

purrs like a pussy cat

so I work it up

get her really cooking

till she starts to wail

and whine

I take her for wild rides

over flowing mountains

into lands of beauty and sorrow

dark canyons of ecstasy

and fields of joy

down steep declines

all bruised and scratched

and elegantly

worked out

and wasted

but when it comes to

understanding

her

inner workings—

forget it

when I pop the hood

and look inside

I don’t know where to begin

I never learned

these rudiments

in high school—

too exited

to jump right in

never learned about carburetors

never learned about gear shafts

never learned about transmissions

never learned how to fix

the broken inner workings

so I always junked it

and got another one.

a token of gratitude

he put on a show to change memories

and sugar coat the trail of his tragic bootprints

he sat smiling for interviews

with his mandible drawl

prattling the recited script

penned by those who handle the deposits

and his hollow words were

firm in their evasions

no remorse or revised course

no sorrow for the twisted path

or faltered past

it was right, he claims

to unchain the hungry machine

and feed it its needed blood

to quench its implacable thirst

for perpetual spoils

to render bodies like oil

and blow bombs into greenbacks

and allow metal mouths

with breath like gunpowder

to devour history and souls

to split civilizations

with the axe of pious righteousness

dripping fear and spilling tears

mounds of bleached and battered bones

blasted across the radiated desert

soaked by uranium-tipped raindrops

to nurture a hatred forever hardened

in broken caskets of resurrected vengeance

and sectarian senselessness

he smiles at the high crimes

looking for the lost keys of justice

that leave accused doors forever locked

and he winks at the new freedoms

issuing kingly decrees inscribed in invisible ink

and he stares off in mystic wonder

distracted by tribunals, renditions

and waterboard reasoning

yet confident in the celestial voices

that whisper in his ear

and guide his bloody sword

so he leans to the mic

with opaque face

waiting for an embrace

but only a chill

and undeterred will

as he tells them that

things are working out fine …

just stay the course … stay the course …

I know that war is hard … but it is necessary

and as the chump chimp

peddles his perfunctory jive

a journalist with hell-bent eyes

checks his shoe size

and offers a parting gift

like a farewell kiss to accursed lips

but the monkey has instincts

and ducks just in time

bobs and smirks and

thinks thanks that

the rubber sole

just missed his

sorry soul

but there were millions of people

who wished it hadn’t missed—

who wished they could have seen

the leather smack him square

right between his flapping ears

and beady-eyed stare

and then, maybe

just maybe

he’d finally see

how happy they really were

how appreciative and grateful they all felt

for gunpoint liberation

riddled with pain and exile

and their blood splattered

and still flowing

in the streets of empty sacrifice.

Here are some sample poems from Umbrageous Embers:

the last wave for my city

it’s the last wave for my dying city

and I’m riding it

running out of time to turn the tide

to make the dry rot subside

or watch it take over

the tipping walls

and caving roofs

with sliding shingles

that leave black eyes open

to blue skies

like empty cups to drink pouring rain

and I can hear the slate slip and slap down

and see the shards splinter to the ground

returning to earth

and the plywood pounded

over windows no more

and the phantom factories

with workers no more

and for each fallen porch

and broken stairway to nowhere

you see nature taking over

engulfing

reclaiming what was hers

the crunch of broken bricks

like red crumbs beneath my feet

reminds me that time waits, patient

and relentless

to have lived a life here

is to hear the whisper of bygone voices

echo through these empty streets

and as I walk alone among old ghost homes

I hear warped wood creek and groan

in the clutch of rusty nails

pulling and popping

giving up

and letting go

and the mist of memory

fades like a brittle picture

slowly vanishing

and every day

is a history less remembered

today, less than yesterday

when there was

but now

there isn’t.

witness to the ticking clock

they document the world’s contours
in simplified space
telling us where

once by hand
now coded in fast double digits

they are witness to the ticking clock:
a bird’s eye view of the cliff’s edge

they demarcate the material:
the growing footprint
like a spreading fungus across the landscape

they conjure the unseen in themes
of social strata made manifest
the bright color demographics of our inequality

they can see with eyes from space
which reflect back our misdirection
in numbered squares

and they link disparate data
to connect the dots of pending tragedies
like species loss
like climate change
like resource depletion

and these simplified pictures of a changing world
reveal a complexity otherwise unseen:
the web of life’s relationships taken for granted

and if maps are power
then every updated atlas
is a record of our power to destroy
and our powerlessness to reverse course

yet up on the clouds the mapmakers stand
with rainbow legends to illuminate
to foster understanding of the big picture
trying to move us beyond the looking.

wake up

it will take waves
lapping at doors

it will take wild winds
blowing trees through windows

it will take basements
filled like swimming pools

it will take whole houses
crushed like toothpicks

it will take tidal waves
and plagues
heat waves and starvation

it will take total deprivation

before people wake up
and ask, what happened?

and even then
they won’t ask
unless it happens
specifically
to them.

bankrupt

welcome to the land of more

where we never have enough

it’s a place of enchanted images

dangled from a screen

insatiable needs

manufactured to entice

youth, fame and fortune

sweet beauty for a price

there’s a dream house

that should be yours

and a fancy car to envy

there’s a trophy wife

with big fake boobs

and sugar daddy spending

there’s the neighbors talking

and you hope they wish

they were you

all trying to top each other

in the race for something new

and if you can’t afford it

you can borrow

and pay tomorrow

and if the debt is crushing

and the repo man is calling

and if the power

has been shut off

and you just feel like bawling

don’t you worry

you’re not alone

in the land of not enough

where all the best consumers

of my generation

have gone bankrupt.

mutants

skinny, wrinkled, bespectacled

with a long white coat, and

in his hand, the glass flask glistens

as he lifts it for their inspection, and says

this tap water

is just like the water

millions of people drink every day

in it, a vast array

ignored by regulators

these untested waters

pure to the eye, untreated

and deemed safe by the rules

are a glistening cloak

choked with a cornucopia

of pharmacological effluvia

the list includes:

nicotine

antibiotics

anticonvulsants

mood stabilizers

sex hormones

and a slewy soup

of over-the-counter

drain-dumped junk

he says, people take pills

people secrete

and people flush toilets

he says, we don’t test

so we don’t know

the cumulative impact of exposure

but our initial analysis

shows alarming effects

shows we might want to

watch what we flush

and start treating what we dump

so the reporters take dutiful notes

and publish hardly-read stories

while the public drinks up

unaware of the three-legged frogs

leaping through the coal mines of progress

and they never question

the scrambled-egg organs

the mutant features

like milkless mammaries

and shrinking testicles

or the shrinking brains

shrinking in blind unawareness

shrinking and never noticing.

just like that

he spends most of his life flying
from one place to another
like a bird without feathers
this is his life, his job
always flying
taking care of business

he’s a lonely one
with no friends
and no one to miss him
when he’s gone

he’s like lots of people
who spend their lives
in the hopeless pursuit
we call making a living
flying from town to town
waiting in airports
waiting in line
getting searched and scanned
in their sox
bored and tired
dreaming of excitement and meaning
wondering in weak moments
if today is the day when
it all goes down in a fiery wreck

sometimes it happens
just like that

one minute you’re reading the paper
or dreaming of sunshine
or just minding your own business
and the next moment
you’re begging the god you’ve neglected
to spare your sorry soul

but the lonely flier never had such thoughts
never contemplated loneliness
or mortality
or the cruel hand of fate

he just went about his business
until that fateful day
when his life was cut short in a horrific crash

it happened just like that

and there was only one mourner at the funeral
only one person in this wide world who noted his absence
and that was me…
the one who saw him explode
in a blast of green and yellow mucus
here today and gone tomorrow
in a splat across my windshield.

black gold

it bubbled up from the ground
in a black oily ooze

they stuck their fingers in it
and licked it
and smiled with stained teeth
because it tasted like gold

so they poked big straws in the ground
to suck it out
and bottled it big barrels
for everyone to drink

it was packed so full of history
eons of condensed rot
that it could spin a dynamo
with supernatural powers

and the supply was endless
or so they thought
a creamy nougat center
spurting to the sky like old faithful
so they built their whole system
to depend on it

and they ignored the dark clouds
on the smog shroud horizon
accepting pending doom
as a fair price for black magic

and they ignored the subterfuge
in the places it was buried
accepting war
as the necessary price to control it

and with furrowed brows
they dealt with deprivation
as despondent dependants
had their pockets picked
for mobility
and eventually
they were sent back to square one
when the bubbles stopped bubbling
and they were forced to chose
between cornflakes or black gold for breakfast.

I am

I am adrift
            in a world of wonder
even in tragedy
            I find love

I am lost
            on a straight path
but in the web of crossroads
            the fork is my comfort

I am standing
            strong bodied
learning strength
            without it
learning to accept
            time

I am a vessel
            for ancient gods
who call rhythms
            through my hands

I am a voice
            of warm unreason
a contrarian
            to cold logic

I am a mirror
            to my society
reflecting shadows
            to give them light

I am a branch
            on the oak of the world
dropping acorns
            and scattering red leaves

I am a patriot
            wearing wolf’s clothes
howling cries of freedom
            from a hill with no flag

I am a son, a brother
            a father, a lover
a neighbor
            and citizen of the world

I am a connoisseur
            of chaos
peddling conceptual
            contemplations

I am a manipulator
            of signs and symbols
sending smoke signals
            to singe your soul

I fling love notes
            from rooftops
like postcards
            from paradise lost

I am searching
            for sensitive visions
seeking salvation
            without religion

I am a teacher
            of subversive logic
painting pictures
            with indelible ink

I am a star
            among a gazillion galaxies
burning bright
            and already dead

and if there’s a reason
            for stars
please tell me
            so I know
the reason
            I am.

sometimes

sometimes we hold hands

and walk in the moonlight

sometimes

we smooth out all the wrinkles

with smiles

and soft tones

sometimes

when we embrace

all the troubles of the world

seem to drift away

like mist after fallen rain

and sometimes

we invoke magic secrets

with the sensation of our skin

but there are other times

when you can hear the plaster crack

and glass shatter

when nails on blackboards

replace sweet melodies

when a slammed door says, goodbye

and a look of hatred says too much

and the icicles on the cold shoulder

hang like sharp daggers of doubt

ready to break off

and pierce all hope

but most times

they just melt away…

languid pools waiting their turn

to become new icicles

or new mists of love.

have a nice day

there might be days when

you want to give the whole world

the finger

when your asshole neighbor

driving on your grass

making all that noise

leaving all that mess

deserves the bird, not a wave

but don’t do it

there might be days when

that grinding commute

that cut-me-off jackass

that escalating fill ‘er up

make you want to

jump right off the bridge

but don’t do it

there might be days when

that dreary parking lot

that dreary cubicle

and the dreary drudgery

of your daily paper push

make you want to

tell your boss where to stuff it

but don’t do it

and there might weeks and weeks

when it seems like nothing but

dark clouds and cold rain

when everyone you count on

is sticking it in your back

when you feel like

you’re all alone in this wide world

which makes you want to leave it

but don’t do it

because somewhere

behind all the bullshit

is a sunny day

a good time

a kind word

a decent break

a tasty morsel

a warm body

and a sweet smile

somewhere

so have a nice day.

Todd Fabozzi

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