Tami Miami

by Robert Vaughan

Tami Miami I’m not over Sammy but neither are you
You know you entrance me and yet don’t romance me
it’s making me puke, Kohler 892
Tami Miami I’m hitting my zenith of tears for the year
I’m smitten, my kitten, so throw down the mittens. You’ve vanished I fear-
it makes me suck beer
I know you’re a shut-in, but please let me come in. Tami, that’s just a ruse
Do not toy, ploy or trick with my heart, way too easy to bruise
Tami Miami I’m no Marco Beltrami I don’t know the score
Have I disturbed you, or is there a boy who
well, he’s just a whore
we made out before
But I want you more

Winter

by Robert Vaughan


I write minstrel music

about clouds while you

lay barely

respirator clogged

the oboe solo wavers

off stuck in winter

drifts then buried

horribly all plans

waylaid the swan

who stayed

Zasu Pitts

by Robert Vaughan

A Brooklyn girl
I never really
screwed had a
damaged Dad who
loved Zasu Pitts. Well,
I stink, and it’s
my pits. They

pool when nervous
make me wonder
what I didn’t
do to her
so I blow the
kazoo while I’m
on the lam.

Rescue

by Robert Vaughan

Rubbing last night’s escapades
from half-baked eyes he
sits, waiting for nothing
as if it will appear

Thoughts thick like car
exhaust choke back
emotions from Kandahar
frozen memories

of severed experiences
The sun could calm
him normally but
today is dark, diffused

so starkly gray like
the insides of a
coal miner’s daughter
an uzi shot

heard round the
world this propaganda
in the form of one’s
dizzying dilemma

Regarding Kay

by Robert Vaughan

She sits there just
waiting just sitting
and waiting...

She talked two lifetimes
worth in fifty years
despite his insults:
blabberpuss, motormouth,
and so on
and so on

In one ear and
out the other

she followed siren
screaming fire trucks
to their destinations
she had a drive
about being perfect
and two critical eyes:

you're not wearing that,
do you have to be such a slob?

A gifted pianist
she would yell corrections
A sharp! Or E Flat!
preparing dinner as
I practiced daily lessons

She couldn't live 
with him
but she did
just as she had
with her abusive father

she couldn't live
without him
but she did
she disappeared daily
more and more in 
his house long before
the home at St. John's

she held grudges
she could be kinder
to strangers than 
loved ones
her letters needed
deciphering with a
fine tooth comb
to discover any warmth
more like tombs
her words
in preparation of a

vacuum into which 
her life fell

she loved Frosted Flakes
W-H-A-M
quiet family walks
on Sunday afternoons
into Park Lane fields
later developed
raspberry picking for
her notorious berry pies
Swimming and
skiing keeping
her shapely and fit

her breasts shriveled under
husband's insults

Laundry, vacuuming,
cleaning was laborious
and we heard the
laments: the victim,
the oppressed, the
creative juices eeked 
out of her mundane
existence, reduced to
conversations with Rose,
coffee with Shirley,
or Sally

not the life she envisioned
as a promising young 
musician meeting a
divorced dapper doctor
at the ripe age of 21

She fought the move to
the farm in Macedon
much like she fought
the alcoholic husband or
the disappointment of
her children, or the
onslaught of a disease
with a german name
which would rob her
of her august years

not even able to protest
she slipped beneath
the surface of ice
into an abyss
I cannot comprehend
I did not know her
I never really knew her

no
I never knew her
although I am her
we are all her
in life, and in death 

Houdini

by Robert Vaughan

We're having beer
at Von Trier when
Vinny calls me
Felix, a far cry from Frank.
What did you say?
I ask. A pit

grows in my stomach
excited but morbidly aghast.
Focus on the
far wall.
Fake paneling.
Cuckoo clock.

Adjust my package.
Chalk it up to
Trappist beer. He is
quiet, hums, so I try a
direct angle:
Who the fuck is Felix?

The lines on his forehead
bulge. He stares like
I am Houdini. None
of your business, he fumes,
what the hell is
this, an investigation.

Houseboat

by Robert Vaughan

There is more than
water that concerns
me. The trill of slow
rocking, lilting,
rolling. Aurora
Borealis flashes in
the fire-worked sky,
a candlelight lamp
drips wax onto
your body. The memory
of the carcass weighs
heavily on the nape
of my neck. Wooden,
chained with responsibility.
Is it better to
forgive than to forget.