Vic Cavalli poetry

 As a Poet I Brush My Teeth

 This morning

(like one of Homer's ancient past dawns recalled

in Greek fire of song, there Apollo riding

in car in air ablaze with azure tissue flaming

pink flame and sapphire dust ethereal,

powerful, O sky of morn)---

I brushed

(as great-armoured Hector brave of Troy brushed

the sky with his war-helmet's fierce ridge

of horse-hair purple fire, that hair which

moved horrible beneath his heaven of gods

and frightened his wife-held child, son

of his loins, whom he was smilingly kissing

goodbye prior to his dying by Achilles)---

My teeth

(those which I first picked as Aeneas did those

of Turnus with his great iron spear big,

which shattered shields, and jaws, and heads,

and so rained an epic slaughter worthy

of the co-founding of literature)---

And I

(like celestial Artemis clean bathing in crystal

elemental fire cool, that is, water)---

Rinsed well.

 V. F. Cavalli

DEEP PURPLE LIVE

 When I was 16 I saw young Mozart

At a Deep Purple concert.  The hot crowd

Was a pulsating blanket and the loud

Ear-bleeding roar and throbbing tried to part

Wolf's glued on pink woven wig.  They started

"Highway Star"-the bass kicked in-he cowered

At the sheer vibration, then seemed to bow

As if aching with a wound in his heart.

Amadeus snapped and shook it all out

As the strands of the band fused and cut free-

"Nobody's gonna take my girl..." yeah, BOOM, tight,

Can't be no tighter. He started to shout

During the organ solo and screamed FREE!!!

As he collapsed into the white strobe light. 

 Vic Cavalli

[In an old folks' home with Jeff Beck]

 In an old folks' home with Jeff Beck

Would be the ultimate elephants' graveyard for me;

Old Jeff 86 and me 80,

Him in a wheelchair

And me lamely pushing him from the dining hall

To his amplifier 3 times a day; 

All of us old timers nearly deaf,

Jeff slightly buckled in his chair

With his worn white Stratocaster across his knees,

His fingers a bit stiff

But man still a nasty slider;

 And there, hauled up by 4 swampers

And pressed next to the wall

And snugged up nearly to the ceiling

Is his old double stack Marshall-

Black and worn

But still full of guts;

 And Jeff 3 times a day saying to me:

Turn it up.

And then that grin

And BEAUTIFUL-

OUCH-

The whole gang of us half deaf geezers and gals

Are cut

As a massive dying animal rips through the speakers to gnash at our rubbery old ears.

 And 3 times a day

The nurses rush in to calm us all down before we

Die.                                                        

Vic Cavalli

Moose crash towards God

 In the cool lake-edge mud their hooves sink as they soothe

Their bitten ankles, knees and bellies.

            Down from the thick

                        summer-forest's shade they

                                    are driven by insects by the millions.

They escape snapping off limbs and trampling young jack-pine

            in their frenzy for relief.

            Down from the infested summer woods

                        they crash fierce with longing

                                    for the water and cleansing wind.

They wade deeply in the clean cold; they drink and eat

            of the succulent greens which rub and are

            balm to their wounds.

There they rest their nerves and heal and feed.

The moose come to the lakes for this miracle. 

Vic Cavalli