Got Game

Casanova once said
a woman would give
a tell-tale gesture
indicating to him

whether or not
his conquest
would succeed...
(At least so claimed

an apologist author--
a woman, most curiously--
prefacing some anthology
of "love poetry"...

Last week, in court,
instead of finalizing my presentation,
I watched the red-painted toes
held in curved wooden clogs

of a Chinese-American woman-
a prosecuting attorney, i.e.,
allegedly of the other camp…
Beneath creamy tan slacks,

highlighting her sweetly-peared moon,
her toes curled like a princess
as she turned to and fro-catching
my eyes in glimpses…

Yesterday, I mentioned
to a woman I know
that Asian females have
the most beautiful feet…

Perhaps Heaven's way
of making up
for all those centuries
of feet bound in thoughtless cruelty…

Before the knowing
of that matter (some years back)
I was just another arrogant 19-year old
cruising Daytona Beach, Florida-spring-break-

on my new, California-license-plated superbike.
Light-greened-eyes luminous
in my sun-burned face,
like Casanova I played the rake…

And she just walked up to me,
my eyes lost over the sea's trembling color
(Dante's trembling color
sparkling like Eurasian sapphire).

She said, Hey weren't you dancing
at the beach disco last night?
Sweet, bright eyes of a Southern belle,
sun-bleached skin-peach fuzz stirring in the breeze…

Later, in my motel room,
I mixed the lime margaritas for us-
the too-expensive room equipped
with a blender and mini-fridge…

(Just three days later, running low
on my traveling money, I'd throw
my saddlebags out the bathroom window, into the
predawn alley…The motorcycle's gears whining, sans engine, as I pushed away…)

That night we drank and talked-
over the rattlings of the air conditioner,
spewing chemically-induced cold from the window-
how back in Corpus Christi, Texas, nobody understood her…

She'd never met anyone from California before-
especially not a man as road-rugged and handsome as me…
I played my role to the hilt, putting every male move
I'd ever garnered upon her wistful presence…

Then she looked up, saw the time
and gave a little breathless gasp…
(as she was a bit tipsy, I thought, Well
end of the night…)

What she wanted was to watch
The Johnny Carson Show…
I always go to sleep watching him-
he's like my father…

Afterwards, when we made love,
she was almost roughly eager…
Then she came, quickly, her cunt grew dry.
Keeping the chest her lithe hands had been caressing

from crushing her, I thought I heard her
softly cry…Some time later, her fine, blonde hair
silken upon my chest, she started awake,
cried out in large-eyed fear…

Will you turn it down,
I can't feel you…

Peregrine-auguring (Peregrine)

AUGURING
Hop, skip, jump to flight--
from the meadow grass
a seemly raiment of feathers
burst-great-hearted Mars
lifting large talons,
sinews pulling wings,
arcing (oddly, like an angel s)
falcon visage still...
Dark eyes fixed
ahead.

^

Biography

Tom Noonan has freelance'd from the Manhattan glass-officed canyons of "in-flight magazines" to the toe-up, sometimes mean streets of cabdriving "Oaktown" (Oakland, East Bay Area, California). Currently his "great ambition" is to escape the medieval wage-scale given those audacious enough to "shake-a-lance" for the shimmering-sand beaches of Maui...