"IN THE LAND OF WONDERFUL DREAMS"
                      *Winsor McCay

Can I be Little Nemo in Slumberland,
For a while? Need all I do, then, be dream?
Or, perhaps, just open a window and wait?
The world is a fun place, but so is the mind,
And which is which you may not find over here,
Or there. Where is that boy, or Impie, or Flip?

As you ponder, watch out!- for your bed may flip
Over, turn into a car. In Slumberland
Anything can be anything. You may hear
Shurmurings of night, or murmurings of dream?
You may find you may not enjoy what your mind
May do, or leap to. Dream's a terrible weight

On the moon. You see, often, it will not wait
For engagement- it may just flutter and flip
Through a dream sequence, like a fly through the mind,
On its way, to a shantytown. Slumberland
Has its- there are poor people- even in dream.
But you can escape it. Dream is never here,

Nor now. As a funhouse mirror cannot hear,
Its reflection, neither does dream pass its wait
Alone, or not. If it did, what would be dream?
And what of that rapscallion- mischievous Flip?
Green face and gross lip may fit in Slumberland,
But what of the real, and what waits to be mined?

Is the mined the miner, or the mined the mind?
Sometimes the wind winds its way through that you hear,
And sometimes Little Nemo in Slumberland
Needs to be reminded that the truest weight
Of idea cannot be measured by the flip
Brush-off of dream, even as it dreams adream,

And explodes its own meaning. "Perchance to dream....",
To quote some long dead bard, who should never mind,
Is the credo of the liver, not the flip-
Sided dreamer- "Say, pally, 'dja ever hear
The story of the boy who would sit and wait
For dream?- he died!". Miles shy of Slumberland

the boy flips from his bed, waiting, not to hear,
minding Mother's lament: "Poor Boy, did you dream
that you were Little Nemo in Slumberland?"

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider

                         MACARTHUR
                            A Romance

                      Somewhere in 1944
                   Sometime in the Pacific

Who errs not tries not, and so I have tried
through these months of my missing my army,
left to rot and fester, in the jungles
of Corregidor and Bataan. I said,
"I shall return!", and so I ply daily
over the maps of northern New Guinea,
while behind me, in Brisbane, lay my son
and my Jean. And the continuing blue
of oceans is the seducer Circe
knew lures the weak. I saw Admiral King,
a few months ago, and the bastard wants
Formosa first; they believe Luzon can wait.
They can go to Hell! The politicians
and their armchair generals, their yes-men:
Yes, I remember old Black Jack, himself,
denying me the Medal Of Honor
I deserved, because I went over the top,
with my men, in the French trenches, aglow
with poisons, and the unburyable dead,
a human paste of humors gone rancid,
under the recreant eyes of players
of games- This is not a sport! This is war!
Where my men breathe is my life! I shall be
there by land and by ocean and by air
with the might of America ere long!
They have all tried their best to contain me,
but the miles dwindle into each morning.
It was when I got word of the Death March
that I redoubled my resolve, and tempered
it with the knowledge of no thanks in the end.
It is a lifetime since New Mexico,
and Geronimo's surrender. Father,
I see you in my deepest hours of woe,
and bid your knowledge and comforting hand.
Am I that kind of man you wished me to be?
A man ordered to withdraw, while my men
huddled like moles in the Malinta Tunnel?
I think of you, laid out in Arlington,
in a banker's dress- your refusal to bear
your slight to eternity. Am I that man
you so sought out when you tamed the Wild West?
The desert is done- gone on fifty years,
and my brother has joined you- Mother, too.
She would implore: "Grow up to be a great man
like your father, and like Robert E. Lee!"
Then, I see you, at Missionary Ridge,
in Tennessee, leading your charge, against
the Rebels, to reason, and the flag awave,
in the twilight of a rendered nation.
That was generations before this war,                                        
and, sometimes, I wonder a million summers
beyond this one- will they remember the loss
and sacrifice of the many for the few
who will see its benefits in their lifetimes?
It was three days ago the children played
their native games in the perfect waters
off Hollandia's coast, uncared of the waste
of time, and of life, in the grownup world.
They are devotees of the liquid. I hear
its call, as the ocean paws at one's soul,
much as in the days of Odysseus,
lost for the nonce, as I was with Quezon,
playing chess and plotting, till I took to wing,
with a newfound ardor of aerial might
brought to me by Eichelberger at Buna.
Let Nimitz and King dream of Formosa,
while I fly over the furrowing brood
of full seas, uncared of the flesh we feed
it, unmoved by the blood on ascendant lands,
where the shape of silence has known no form
for over two long years. I have thought of them,
and Wainwright, gallant lad- that should have been me-
giving aegis to my men, and suffering
the smite of the enemy, not the will
of cowards like Henry Stimson- "There are no
good times for men to die!" In the broil
my rudest of muscles reminds me of you-
Dearest Dimples- and the unending wealth
of your soft wet tongue, in the Penthouse Suite,
of Manila's finest, and the flesh of nights
lost to excess, when you called me "Daddy",
and I gave you my girth, in equal parts
tenderness and temper, humor and haste.
But my past is my flesh, now, and it is old,
but not yet older than the songs of vengeance
which dull the pacific, yet fill the men,
with noble purpose, ecumenical,
in this theatre of war, this Pacific
which redeems me- that night, in which I left,
through the mine-filled brine, my face white with shame,
the peninsula dwindling behind me,
lousy with Japs- it was then any trace
of my Romantiquarian vision
set, as with the stinking sun, hung over
the margined lives of my men, as my own
unmargined existence brinks near some end,
for I have the slim victory of name,
and accomplishment, and accompaniment
of kings, none of which can avail my men,
left to ignorance, much as my Rainbow
Division, debarking in 1919,
from the murky wastes of the East River,
when that urchin asked us, "Have you been to France?".
and I knew the civilian apathy
my father loathed- I am eighteen, now ten,
now only three years old, upon your knee,                                         
again, Dear Father, how I long for the sands,
and the pale Novembers of your presence,
still in me, which shuns me, and my actions.
It is in your eyes I truly grew within-
you said, "Douglas, all that is good and great,
in these States, is of the military!",
for only it recognizes true merit
over birth, and knows where instinct is genius-
a light fills me with the sounds of summer,
younger than memory, an unknown light,
much like deluded Louise, who never knew me,
nor my passions, which lay outside her bed,
and beyond the remorseless lyric of death....
And I think of those men unfit to live-
both Marshall and Bradley, and the best damn clerk
I ever had, now, over in Europe,
well behind the lines, while I sail onward-
Excelsior! To the bounds no laurels bar!
Comforted crudely with the chill knowledge
that there have always been times as these,
when the presence of a neverness set in,
although I suspect its obsolescence nears,
and dream of a day when Shanghais and Nankings
are a figment of the past, when nightmare ruled-
Yes, I hear them! The growl of the bellies,
of "The Battling Bastards Of Lost Bataan"!,
to be reclaimed soon with a hundred thousand
men from America and Australia;
all that can be given- we ask you to give-
so a better world shall emerge from the waste
and carnage of this past, when the far end
of history is gone, or coming anew,
and know that our faith, and my fortitude,
has not weakened, nor succumbed to despair,
nor the easy satisfactions of vengeance,
and strive with intensities unfailing!

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider

                        MAGRITTE NUDE RECLINING

"No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence,
                    or whose attitude is patronizing."- E.B. White

As he lay on the bridge the seeming solidity of
movement was what he objected to  The strands of
stuff that would hunker down in to that which is
not here  But there  on the page  it seemed to
all relax him  and the lion which sauntered by
Often  in times like these  he discovered it was
best to grant illusion its due  pay the piper
and all that  This was the source of thought  of
reason  of creativity  i e   creativity is
opportunism applied  not inspiration divined
Furthermore  it was not the overwhelm of clouds
that is the subject of this bit  nor the beast
nor the bridge  rather  it is the simple fact
that you cannot give another a dozen eggs if you
only have half

. . , , , . , , - , . , , - . . : , . , , , ; , .

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider

                               NINTH MURDER: FACE OF EVIL
                                                           or
        A SPIC TAKES ON A NIGGER: YOU DECIDE WHO WILL DIE!
                                                    A Ballade

That which consumes us consumes us fully.
I thought this as Joey and I looked on
as an ugly black drug-dealing bully
beat the piss out of yet another Juan
who took it at first, then not, then turned on
a dime to rage, with a blade. Now, dark joys
would be had by all, as we boys looked on
aloner than a girl amongst all boys.

The shadows of forgotten ancestors
looked over our shoulders, and greased our skid
into complicity. We nursed our fears
as the two scumbags did what scumbags did
in such situations. Neither punk fled
for such shit is faggotry, and annoys
even dishonored men, as this. One bled
aloner than a girl amongst all boys.

They both stumbled backward, and held their guts,
with smiles that crafted oblivions,
sickly and demurely. My pal went nuts
with anticipation, like in a trance,
till I shut him up, and explained the dance,
as they gathered themselves, lost to all noise,
till one discovered he had not been lanced
aloner than a girl amongst all boys,

as the other fell dead. He took his chance
and paid. His face now ever in a poise.
Which shit-ass died? You decide! Do your dance
aloner than a girl amongst all boys!

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider

                              PERSEPHONE IN FALL

Her pelvis rested on the radiator. Outside
of her apartment window, as Wanda watched inside,
the autumn twilight gathered stealthfully,
on the ground, a whirl of leaves harvested
from elsewhere. Wanda noticed.

It seemed as if a malevolence was behind it,
momentarily, battering the column of leaves
against the steely filter of schoolyard fence.
In the city it was rare for nature
to make itself known. This was natural.

As if a living thing, the burl of leaves
retreated from the fence and blew into the alley
by Rosen's BIG Little Store, and seemed to cover
old Grady as he slept next to the green
dumpster, as if a swarm of bees drawn
to the honeyed chin of a man trying to form
a beard- something she had seen once or twice
on a t.v. show. The evening darkened.

The leaves took off, backed out of the alley
and slithered across this near-desolate street
in p.m. Bushwick and into the community pool
swimming with green algae from three weeks of disuse,
where only Wanda watched, or could.

As the leaves seemed to find their end in the water
a sudden ray of light broke over Manhattan
and into the swimming pool, agitating what seemed
to have been an end into a bright beginning.

Waves bobbed and crashed from end-to-end
and rose up- nearly sexual- to form a column
of unrippled being, one with the unliving
water and detritus in light, and the hovering night.

In this moment Wanda was agog. With her brother
still at school and her parents at work, no one
or no thing could have prepared her for this.
The shadows lengthened, and Grady slept,
and the column took unusual shape.

Indrawn about its middle formed a waist, a pelvis,
and lower- the legs of a woman, and upwards-
the breasts, shoulders and face of light;
the dead leaves now the burn of her hair
swaying in the breeze and shaft of light,
mere moments ago unrealized, unknown.

As a second passed, Wanda grew fearful, hid
behind her curtains, instinctively as the leaves
did their whirl, yet ever peering, drawn to the beauty
she deemed all in her head. She knew she would one day
   be a writer, an artist, or explorer of things
   beyond the pale. Her vision would lead her.

As she peeked, the water-being- with eyes transparent
as tomorrow, caught hold of its voyeur. Its smile
uplifted, from its gaze arced upward,
the courage and the wonder of the child.

Slowly drawing upward, the water-woman became a column
and rose three stories, one with the sun-
light and over the roof of the decaying tenement
   (closed since Mr. Millstein, the super, died in May)
to reform herself and head for the flowerboxes, neglected
for months, and nearing death. A second second passed.

Under a younger eye the new being, suddenly seeming beyond
any call of years, whispered, "You are the reason for all of this.",
and poured herself into the boxes, especially the sunflowers.
All that was left on the cool tarpaper roof was a coiffe
of leaves and several wet footprints. Another second passed.

Wanda withdrew into her reality as the minutes gave way
to her family's return, and on things went. The days grew colder,
and Grady occasionally moved, as Wanda spent afternoons
by the window. The pool was soon covered. The rooftop remained.
The flowers lived no longer than they should have, not even
the sunflowers could lift their gaze, and the sun came and went.

Soon, Wanda came to realize her inward boredom as the cause
of her delusion, and resolved to never give in again.

But lightning need only be singular.

An industriousness seized the girl and never let go,
all through the years of work and marriage, motherhood
and reflection; all the influence of an outward thing.

And one spring morning, in her eighty-eighth year,
Wanda- just weeks into retirement- found herself
in the country, walking arm-in-arm with her teenaged grandson
past a cottage and its windowbox, apparently untended
for weeks or months, and drew close to its weeded interior-
a small sunflower alone to its doom- and smiled,
as the flower bent backward in her breath,
and whispered, "You are the reason for all of this.",
and spat as much of herself, as an old woman could,
into its box, then turned to her puzzled grandson
and lifted a smile as they continued their walk.

And, now, the sunflower lifts its gaze to you.

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider

                       "POETRY ITSELF"
           "You are not the poet I love most...."
                         -Marina Tsvetayeva

There is the feeling beside that which is felt,
as if a great artwork beyond consciousness,
whether gazing a church tower, or being sifted through its panes
like alluvial photons. There in a bowl of opening roses,
made majestic by a slice of sight reflecting
the spoke of sun upon a slab where something dead may lay,
is an abstract of insight grown well within your wreath of verse,
brief episode of touch, still opening endlessly and growing,
self-illumined, silent paladins of the muse,
like nothing that ever was:
                  I know nothing of life.

Yet handfuls of this distanceness flash subtle signals
kissing gently my eyes, my mind which wilders yet prompts
the words which core, then filter, sweetly a stumble of laughter,
themselves into the subject's smile, removed from thought,
as if you, inflaming the gestures of what may occur within,
as if still seemingly supple to God's will,
the many illusions of its breath:
                  I know nothing of it.

And then this love- of life, of it, of you-
as if I were what you are, so strangely
itself, like you:
                  I know nothing of you.

Then, as if newly formed and felt,
                  unexpectedly.

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider  [HEAR THIS POEM READ ON OMNIVERSICA SHOW 8!]

A video of this poem can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MbWtstWdBc&index=1&list=UUN5kTfj5u8XcTBg51Z65EKw 

                        "PROPERTY IS THEFT."
                                 -Pierre Joseph Proudhon

I did not know you could buy books. When I was seven
I first denied the library its place
in the firmament of being. It was
given to me, then: the knowledge of bookstores-
and I fall like a rabbit into history,
or a ballerina to a weak-armed partner,
where no trace of lending is to taint
the inexorable pull of wicked genre.
                                                     And astronomy
            is the greatest science. The How And Why
            Wonder books say so. There are millions
            of reasons to favor underwear, and who is to ask,
            "Is today today?", but the man behind the glass
            peering not at the stars, but in
            the third floor window across from DeKalb Avenue,
            where children bustle in to Tony's,
            for the latest update on The Incredible
            Hulk, and the bargains that are
            Sea Monkeys, buoyed by the politesse
            of Memorial Day. Who cares
            the dreams of the French? I
            must remain plaid. I must
            leave a step away from then
            and it. The bookstore is
            a universe and you are
            too weak to remember
            the blackout in '65, or too ill-read.
                                          The library card
      is expired and you owe twelve cents. When it is
      time for this cosmos to end this poem will be
      done. I withdraw from the library (myself, my possession)
      yet am drawn to the commerce. When she awakens
      the wino the librarian will be you.
                                                       Then I woke.

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider

                  THE AL CAPONE CANZONE

(1)
September 20th, 1926, Hawthorne Inn

"Praise the rightness of murder! It's all we got,
Franky, to keep us in the good life, like this!
The Hawthorne's my favorite
place to have lunch- reminds me
of the ritzy places I'd pass by when I
was a kid. Except, of course, that this cafe
serves beer and vodka and gin!"

Then, the tommy guns blasted out the windows,
as the furniture was made into swiss cheese,
as Hymie Weiss and his boys
did their worst. Not near enough
to take me down. So, now it is all-out war.
But, how'd they get so deep into Cicero?
This is a fight they can't win?

"Weiss's signed his death warrant!
No one takes on Al Capone
and lives to brag about it!
Get me Klondike, the Camel, and Machine Gun
Jack! I'll show those Irish boys how a real man
takes care of his enemies!
A real man don't endanger
innocent kids and ladies.
Now, they got me mad, Franky- Hymie will pay
for this. I will hunt him down till he ain't got
no hole in Hell to hide in!"

(2)
April 12th, 1916, Delancey Street

"Laws are meant just for those who can afford'em-
right, Lucky? Me and you know damn well they are!
Look at the Rockefellers,
and look at the Vanderbilts-
how many piss-ugly pugs did they steal from
over the years? And not one of them got caught!
Yet, they call us a disgrace.

Me and you, Lucky, one day we'll show'em all!
Yes we will!- Six-ball in the corner pocket.-
And when that day comes, my friend,
everyone will know the names
of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano.
Then we'll have respect- Hey! Watch where you're going-
you sweet little pantywaist!

Oh!- Really!- Yeah? Is that so?-
Oh!- you wanna pull a knife
on Al Capone? I'll teach you
a lesson!- Hey, Lucky- watch me carve him up-
little Jew-boy!- Ooh! Missed me again....again!
Take that- and this- you bastard!
You kikes don't know how to fight
with a knife!- Heh-heh!- Look'it
this Hebe, Lucky!- Look'it him still come at me!-
Ya' faggot!- Hey Lucky!- watch me show this punk-
Oh!- My face! My face! My face!

(3)
November 12th, 1910, Williamsburgh

Fear is the heart of any good discipline.
Miss Hathaway knows that. Look at her ruler.
See! The little Jews and Micks
fall into line, all the time.
But not me! Not anymore! That filthy whore's
whacked me for the last time. Come on, bitch! Try it
again. Whack me to the bone!

I ain't one a' them foreign-speaking Dagoes!
I learnt proper English right out in the streets.
And I'm an American!
And I know about my rights!
And if you whack me with that ruler again,
bitch, I will show you the heart of discipline.
Just leave me the hell alone!

But, no! You still call on me,
and laugh when the answer's wrong;
your little "guinea bastard"!-
I can read your eyes- you lonely virgin cunt!-
I'll show you what can be done with a ruler!
There you go! Callin' on me
again!- I don't know!- Don't laugh!-
You did. You did it again.
"Fuck you!"- Ow!- Now you're gonna learn how it feels!-
Gimme that!- Here bitch!- Take this!- Again! Again!
Again! “I am Al Capone!”

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider

A video of this poem can be found here: https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=CsUvy9YXclQ&list=UUN5kTfj5u8XcTBg51Z65EKw 

THE SHATTERED

*For Helen Schneider (9/3/22-5/25/09)

It was only five weeks ago we learned

of mama’s emphysema. How she yearned

to put, on the top shelf, my favorite plate,

the one with green trim, from which I did eat,

for thirty-plus years. It, faded by food,

made everything better, just as it should.

There had been a farmboy, sleeping the day,

under a tree, in a field, far away,

with his straw hat cocked. He would never wake.

As mama reached she gasped, started to shake.

The grasp of decades, and their violent pull,

slipped from her fingers, as everything fell.

She wept, as she spoke of, in broken time,

for a long-faded plate, and its green trim.

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider

                                              WAR COMIX # 1452:

"IN LIECHTENSTEIN THE WAR WITH THE NAZIS WAS ALL PURE HELL....”

[Captain Armstrong ponders his perfect gaze
in a mirror. A man looks for himself
in a mirror. A woman looks at herself
in the album behind the dashing young officer
preening himself for battle. The man finds himself
in his eyes' benday glint. In a moment
the olive-toned woman will drop the album.
She will succumb to his certain future and thrust
her brunet love, a gesture of appeasal,
on to his blond manhood, like young boys
surrender their plots to the bitter
TAKKA-TAKKA-TAKKA of machine guns....she will
love his pink unscarred body for now....the silent
lucidity of love will fill her eyes....unalone
in the empassioned air's embrace....his death
will be a last finished panel to the selective genius
of war....the transcelestial flourish of honor....denied
to those who only carry justice on their tongues....]

      Armstrong to mirror:
      “....FOR THE LOVE OF MY COUNTRY...."

Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider  

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