Whatsamatta on the 11th Anniversary of 911

“Ram Dass was the master of the one-liner, the two-liner,
the ocean-liner.” — Wavy Gravy

Buttoned-down button man Lansky was my least favorite gangster.
Enjoying few of the vices I admired growing up, today most Bugsy
Siegels and Charlie the Cripples try to blend in as Meyer dybbuks —
humdrum Abe Cohens in gun-metal blue blazers and mincing khakis.
But some Kosher Nostras can’t keep their heads down or britches zipped
lining their pockets. Dead giveaway ski caps and clip-on sunglasses,
cocksure consigliores come on like a fruit cocktail of Vince Lombardi
and terrorists; jocks bulging with socks, they stand out as nutters.

Compared to these fawned over sitting-duck Bronx schmucks,
new swag on the block looks like a stag under candelabra headlights.
Feigning wet-behind-ears “Where’s Times Square?”, the Brighton Beach
bear of a crew chief’s Odessa beard makes him appear veritably Amish.
Fresh from filing false teeth and tax returns on Volga borscht boats,
Isak Doe won his cred in a power-packed game with Kim Jong Il’s
successors: a decade’s white rice to Pyongyang’s reigning kleptocrats
(enough to procure Darth Vader Tasers) in exchange for one crystal ball...

Porridge gray jogging suit lopes through NY Port Authority unfrisked.
Filched Star of David hung ‘round bull neck, hummed Caucasian melodies
concealing a very black op, the gangsta capitalist’s off-center gold crowns
disarm the TSA with Tolstoyan palaver. “How get bus? Moscow pipes freeze;
that happen Queens? You want Russian girls?” rattles on as hair-trigger
tick-tock quantum mechanics get ready to set off a container world
of pain after Doe’s gone silent. Under a forlorn bench, one AMF (АМФ)
dirty bowling bag cradles a subatomic shell game of special relativity.