ramblings

What I Know

I tilt at whirligigs
We could shuffle to unheard music
You and I

I have a gecko
Living the good life in my garage
I will give you a pink hibiscus for your hair

I coax prickly pears to bear fruit
Behind yellow flowers
I would feel privileged to await you

I had a ghost sit next to me once
I just know I will never be believed
Was that you in a pre déjà vu appearance

I have a lemon tree
That just grows thorns and no lemons
I have white crape myrtle blossoms for you

I could swing and sway with you
Across a small space of our own making
I could dance to the music of your voice

------------------

I Never Knew

I watched the moon set
Out across the Gulf
To the other side of Mexico
At four thirteen in the ayem
Whippoorwills and owls my only companions
As the tide comes in sounding lonely hisses
Small wave after small wave
I know it is too early where you are
But maybe you watched it rise
Over the Atlantic earlier
As I watched it rise through our oaks
Are you even near the ocean or
Do the mountains crown the view
I feel as though I am a faded horse
On a broken carousel going up
And down without going anywhere
A lonely pelican swoops and glides across the bay
Is it looking for food or companionship
I never knew I could miss you as I do
Everywhere I turn I am reminded of pairs
Mama and Papa Blue Jay brought Junior
To the feeder in the backyard and left him
I believe I know how he feels
He looks lost

------------------


The Wonder of Being

Palm fronds rattling
At the moonlight
Shadow dancing
With elusive Elves

Tinkerbelle hiding
From whippoorwills
Among the fireflies

Golden-eyed owls
Watching, pondering
Clouds tumbling
To the horizon

The wonder of being
With lovely you
This enchanted evening

-----------------------

Lucky And Knows It

I sat on the front porch
Sipping a sweating glass of iced tea
She patted the swing seat
In beat with the creaking of the chain
Asking me to come swing with her,
I shook my head no
And raise my feet to the wicker coffee table
I heard the chair creak
Itself into a comfortable position
I could smell the salt on the evening
Sea breezes wafting through the oaks
Thunderheads were hurrying sundown
Ruining a possible beautiful sunset
A green tree frog had staked claim
To the philodendrons near the birdbath
And was croaking out love laments
To the approaching storm
She got my attention
Swinging her legs up onto the swing
When I looked her way
She looked back with a come hither look
I knew the frog wasn’t alone
In his way of thinking

------------------------
CAROLINA

While buzzing
about the Carolina coast
I came upona Venus fly-trap
lying there,
open,
beautiful,
and inviting.
She waited
receptively
letting me
make all the moves

until I touched
the trigger hair
trapping me in
her embrace.

--------------------------

THE SONG

I was thinking of some love song
I could write about her
I could hear the rhythm guitar
Strumming, strumming

I saw the beautiful smile
I know as her
The lead guitar sounded a note
Sliding and bending

She winked on top of the smile
Sending my thoughts chasing
The scales and notes of the piano
Maybe a ragtime or countytime ballad

She reached over the pizza rinds
Littering the tabletop to pat my hand
In time with the beat of the bass
Playing my knuckles and fingers fretlike

I could see in her face
What I felt in my heart
As it kept time to rimshots
And highhat cymbals
And brushes sliding on drum skins

-------------------

Unnamed Outcast

I am doomed to wander along the fringes
Of this river of life flowing through the sea of humanity
All because of the lack of a coin to pay
The current incarnation of the ferryman, Charon.
I can tell when you look through me you see a non-entity.
I can tell when you look away I am seen as a lost soul.
There was a time when I knew
All I had to do was crawl up on the beast
Grab a handful of mane and ride 'til the bell
But with the bucking and jumping,
The spurring and the calliope music
The chances of being loosened are enhanced.
Until I landed face downIn the barnyard-like churned dirt of society,
Only to be saved by some clown.
As I stagger these black forests of rejection
I can tell you notice me by the way
You turn your nose up and your face away
Your grand gestures in treating me as the shunned one.
But you don’t know the reasoning
Behind the reasons why I wear crossed staves,
Tattered pea coat, fatigue jackets,
As I share pigeon encrusted park benches,
Sleep under bridge abutments
And converse with those other lost souls
Those damned to the unlocked corners
Of my mind that share my daily existence.
I saw you not notice me this autumn day
As I fought a losing battle to keep the demons at bay.
I could place the blame with you, shifting responsibility.
I could accuse you of being tightfisted.
I’m fighting a major battle and losing by attrition
And you, in your fancy shoes
That have only traversed carpeted halls,
Cannot come off a lousy quarter.
Ignore me, and the others of my ilk,
But remember to your dying days
I give you justification in your pretentiousness

--------------------

The Shirt

He could feel the soft wind of death
Creeping down the collar of his shirt.
It had been the shirt to buy in its time,
But now it was just a shirt.
An old white dress shirt yellowing with age
And fraying at the collar and cuffs,
A shirt that accepted cufflinks with a dignity.
A shirt that had been to the Cotton Club
And rode the IRT subway;
Been to the Opera House
And the off-Broadway shows of the Village.
But now it was just a shirt,
A shirt his wife, of all those long years,
Kept saying she’d use for rags if it weren’t so thread bare.
The best things that could happen to the shirt,
She told him was to be thrown out,
preferably with him in it.
But he would hear none of her arguments.
He knew they were just words
To fill the empty spaces in their life.
He knew he would accept death in this shirt,
Whether it would make the trip to the everafter
With him in the coffin was another story
But he would wear it with the dignity it deserved.
And the knowledge it upset the little woman to no ends.
It would be a nice shirt to wear out on the ice
Come the Spring thaw.

------------------

She took her birthday off
An overcast and dreary middle day
Of the week spent in bed
She told me she had a headache
So my nice card and gift went unnoticed
In the hall on the small table under the mirror
Where she silently asks “Mirror, mirror…”
I know who, but stay my voice
She decides this beautiful day as hers
A replacement for the lost one
But you cannot decide to take it off and enjoy later
That was your day and you get what is offered
Some are beautiful, cherished, and remembered
Some cold, dreary, and overcast, yet remembered
Because it has been decided and you opened your gift
That is the mystique of birthdays
She has her teasing waysSoft pats and come hither smiles
She has her iron fist and cutting glances
She has a pig’s ear for a purse
And me for a one-eared husband
Sunshine matches her smile
And I am but a cheap candle
I stop in to buy another card and small gift
I pencil in a dinner and a movie
I know of the way of the winds of love

-----------------------
Out Running Wishes

He sat on the sea wall
And watched
The tide recede
Boats pulling at their anchors
Like they wanted to run
Chasing after the dolphins
Following the south wind
Outrunning the darkness
He sat on the sea wall
Knowing how they all felt
Wishing he could slip his anchor

---------------------

Mister Nobody

Most of the mail, most of the neighbors,
Even the super, know him by Occupant.
He can dance freely in his socks and underwear
On Sunday morning, any morning
Because there is nobody there to care.
His garbage is full of strawberry ice cream cartons.
He’s perfecting his next years’ Halloween costume ready
He’s going as an unloved Homer Simpson with a rug.
He carries a large wallet on a chain
So he can pull it out of his tight jeans.
He wears suspenders to match his socks
And a belt to fill the loops.
When he can get someone to listen
He shows them the picture that came with the wallet
And tells them it is his wife.
Thank God for computers.
For now he has a family
Two boys and a girl to go with his wife
His world is so make-believe
He doesn’t even know reality anymore.
If he were a writer he’d be Nobel Laureate in any field.
He doesn’t take drugs, nor smokes, or drinks
Because he likes to have a hand on controlling his destiny.
And when Mister Occupant shaves in the mornings
He is happy with his lot in life.
As he was leaving Walt Disney World the other night
He was mumbling about how he forgot to tell Mickey something.
A lady who thought he was cute said, “Here tell this picture.”
But he couldn’t because it wasn’t the real one
Then he showed her a picture of his family.

-------------

THE IMPLANT

The bug up my nose might have been implanted by aliens.
I have had nosebleeds since I was a young thing
And I’m inexplicably drawn to the Dog Star and the night sky.
Just thinking of shooting stars that might land
Amid sounds and colored lights gives me chills.
One midsummer’s eve before the Age of Aquarius,
Just south of Miami, I saw into the Milky Way:
The night sky was white with stars.
I am always looking and expecting the aliens
Who put the tracking device up my nose.
But with the fever and chills I have
An Earthling put this bug up my nose.

------------------------

I Remember St Augustine

I remember Key West
The Seven-Mile Bridge where we almost wrecked
All because you wanted a kiss
And the guy selling green palm frond hats
You tried to cheat on Duvall Street
The hugging in the Florida Straits watching
The sun go down with feet in the Atlantic and Gulf

I remember New Orleans
Bourbon Street and Creole Food in the off season
The open-air market and standing on the levee
Watching the paddle wheeler we didn’t go on
I remember St. Francisville
And the toll ferry coming from Natchez

I remember St. Augustine
The Bridge of Lions, Anastasia Beach and coquina stone
The walking along the small streets hand in hand
And looking in courtyards thinking about
Key West and New Orleans and Bird of Paradise plants at each
The Fountain of Youth where I drank and you didn’t
We have had our good times you and I
And I think of you when I remember good times

-----------------------

I Have Been Told

I’ve been told
I act like a downhill racer
And that I was a pisser
I’d like to ride the Space Shuttle
Just once, maybe, for a start
I’ve gone off with beautiful women
Who left their ugly sister in their stead
Sometime during the night
I’ve been told I was funny
And not know how they really meant it
I’ve been taken on some dates
Out of kindness I suppose
I’ve run headlong into stonewalls
Some of my own making
I’ve spent hours on making the perfect lawn
To watch better grass grow
In the cracks of the sidewalk
I’ve lain on my back for hours
To watch one meteorite
Streak across midnight skies
I’ve been told if she finds out I’m crazy
She’s going to think about the alternatives

-----------------

I Dream of Stairs

I dream of stairs
Yet neither ascending nor descending
Only standing
Comfortable and ready

One side is blue sky colored by clouds
The other mountainside and rocks
Gray granite veined with dark impurities
It’s like I’m in some Zen Buddhist’s
Rock Garden
And I’m afraid of tracking
In the freshly raked sand
So I just stand and dream

I dream of beaches
At the edge of the shore
Yet neither entering or exiting
Only standing

Before me is the great wide sea
At my feet tiny foam lines
Marking the edges of waves
That rush up over my ankles
To hide in my jeans
Dorsal fins dissect
The blue sky and purple green gulf
But I stand and stare
Nowhere to go
Nowhere to be
No tracks on the sand

I dream of life
A trackless expanse
I’ve traversed without leaving a mark

----------------

Hunting the Elephant

We were together and she was talking away
Like she does each and everyday.
So I went off to hunt the elephant
With pith helmet, bush jacket and jungle pants.
I was scouring the brush with an eagle eye
Overlooking nothing as I went by.
I had just come upon the track
When her shoulder punch jerked me back.
You weren’t listening to me.
Yes I was, I tried to make her see.
But it was no good, I had to recant
And tell her I was hunting the elephant.
Over the years many times I’ve been hunting
And the thousand-yard stare I am fronting
Has given me away to her, riling her fur.
Making her call me an ol’ mongrel cur.
But when things get boring I just can’t
Seem to stop hunting for that elephant.

---------------------

“Do I Dare?”

This is a FantasyLand like no other.
One to make Mickey, Goofy and Buzz Lightyear and
The Mad Hatter’s Tea Cup Spin all seem normal.
I have bought my season ticket to unlimited access.
I have seen the present
And it is wrapped in beautiful graphics.
No more do I spit out assumptions
As if they were watermelon seeds
To get three or five with every mouthful
Nor do I mark wishful and hopeful deeds
As did J. Alfred with coffee cups and spoons.
Once you have bought your month to month ticket
And joined this stationary road show
Of actors and actresses who have chosen
Their character as they play a role of a lifetime
In this off centered off-off Broadway production.
You can be anything or anyone you wish to be.
You can take someone’s name and domain it as yours.
I saw on “Jerry” a man who met the woman of his dreams
As they chatted each other up in some chat room
Only to find out that neither was what the other truly expected.
So how can anyone be seen as they truly are
When they choose a name they think fits
So how can anyone be seen as they truly are
When they don’t even recognize themselves.
Today I think I’ll be a clone of Buzz Lightyear
As I pay another visit to this Magical kingdom
And I’m sure I’ll run into another Mickey Mouse.

--------------------------

Dawn Is Hinting

Dawn is hinting at the edge of the world
I am awake listening to the clock
As it ticks away my life
It is one of those cheap windups
That ticks back a half a second
Before moving my life around the circle

I hear dragons calling me to battle
I am going to beat my plow shares
Into broad swords and sharpened pike heads
As I follow a Joan to the battlefront
Without chain mail or French Knights
But the same voices calling cadence
Over the ungodly silence of the dead

My dreams are hallow and haunting
A black&white film of mental darkness
Where I am lost and unknown
Searching a yard sale of memories for a bargain
The clock ticks in beat with my heart
Ticking my life away

She was singing one line from a popular song
And I was wondering how to live up
With my heart turned all mushy and such
But it only took a second to turn
As hard as old concrete
An unconscious word, one small act
And I am alone screaming the same ungodly silence
To the cold darkness in between the stars
And the ticking of the cheap clock

-----------------------


Tuesday Afternoon

I was sitting at a small table
Under the overhang at The Java Cup,
A hip-looking, and missing, little place where you
Could get a cup of java and surf the internet.
I found you didn’t get decaf but only what’s available
And you paid high price for the condiments,
The sugar, the foam, and the flavored creamer, and such
They sweeten the instant coffee with.
It seemed their internet server was just as bland.
I sat and watched the thunderstorm rumble up main street
Blowing the debris ahead and washing away what was left.
She eased in beside me and wrestled
With an inside out umbrella
And wrestled with what come-on line to use.
Finally she asked if I knew
How birds feel being watched by cats.
I shrugged a negative.
Let’s go home and I’ll show you, she replied.

---------------------

Friday Late

I’m standing on the jetties
Rod and reel in hand
Line out into the outgoing tide
Four middle aged guys from Georgia
On a weekend fishing trip
Keep crowding me
Like I know where all the fish are
I have nothing better to do than feed red fish
And tell whopper lies to these four guys
And watch a cargo ship loaded to the line
Ease its way through the pleasure boats
Into the sunset and out to sea
Another ship has left without me

------------------

Another Day Squandered

She walked down
The Grand Concourse
Into the friendly skies
And out of my life
Without looking back

I turned and walked away
Smile to smile
Not waiting to hear the droning
Of the departing plane
I had places to go do things

In the mourning sun
I found myself
On the jetties casting my bait
Into the incoming tide
And feeding the big ones
Headless shrimp at $5.99 a pound

I squandered the rest of day
Sitting in the sand without sun block
Staring off to where the sea lanes
Of old intersect the sky
Looking for ghosts of Pirate ships
As they sail past flying the Jolly Roger

Maybe I could capture the wench
And make her walk the plank

--------------------

Purple Zinnias

It stands tall and proud
Among the other bedding plants

When I see her
I think thoughts uniquely male
In origin and direction

Perfect petals petal out
Around a center that silently calls to bees

She strokes and fires me
As if I were an old steam engine
In origin and direction

And as that flower calls to bees
Her essence calls to me

---------------

A Mature Woman

She is a mature woman
With mature ideals
And a mature way
Of seeing things
Through enhanced mature eyes.
She drinks herbal teas
For her maturity
Brewed in teapots that whistle
To help her mature hearing
And to remind her mature memory.
Yet she has young teeth
She only got them Tuesday.

------------------

The World Situation

This is the way it began
This is the way the world began
This is the way we all began

Between the evolution
And the BIG Bang

Between husband and wife
Between sun and night
Between brother and right
Between a sigh and a whimper

Between it all
We wonder why it is all awonder

The first family
Was the epitome of dysfunction
They ran around their garden
Naked
They were evicted
Because She went with a Snake
And talked her mate into doing
A thing He knew was inherently
Wrong

Between a sigh and a whimper

What about brotherly Love
Children committing unspeakable acts
One child killed half the children
Of the world
And one-quarter of the people

And we wonder
Why are we like this

This is the way the world began
Between a sigh and a whimper

----------------------

IF

If I were God
I would not trod
On unsure sod.

------------------

Birds

I am an artist
The dealer of illusions
The poacher of images and thoughts
I am Vonnegut’s canary.

I am a honey bee
Trapped in a house
Full of plastic flowers
I am Poe’s raven.

I am a runaway train
In a switching yard
Of random track changes
I am Casey’s owl.

I am at Pandora’s party
On a scavenger hunt
For the belonging of her trunk
I am Adam’s vulture.

I am lost.


----------------------

and Despair
dogged his heels
like the dirty child
of no man
begging alms

----------------------


BLACK HOLE HEART


Do not think absence makes fonder hearts
It’s hollowness, a void, a black hole
Where heart and soul used to be,
And mankind, as a part of nature,
Abhors a vacuum.
Slowly
As eternities pass into moments,
Into days, ad infinitum, memories
Are sucked into black heart holes

Until:
It is as if she died long ago
And the times we had never were.

---------------------

Chasing calico cats
Under Cassandra or Cassiopeia
It is late summer and I’m not sure
Which constellation is peaking
Sometimes one is over Cherry Street
A couple of streets over beyond the oaks
Sometimes the other is over my street
According to the season I sometimes
Sit on the stoop and watch the night sky
Some nights I dream dreams of childhood
Space pirates and far-flung adventures
Some nights I look in wonder at what I have become
The adventures I have had chasing calico cats
For the girl who kept me from Space Pirates

------------------------

Stranglehold

I’m sitting in the airport parking lot
Listening for the sound of just one plane out of many

The clock is working its way to the touching of hands
The moon is high over head and the wandering stars
Have all wandered off the horizon

I’m listening to a song that takes me back to my youth
The hardcore driving riffs playing with me
Just as if I were the strings to be plucked and bent

I don’t know how long this song is
But I’m secretly hoping that the plane is late enough
I’ve missed her, her touching presence, but…

I hear the plane, I just know, and the song plays on
The mental calculations begin under the bass line
Time verses actions, wheels gripping the pavement
People shuffling down the aisle, down the corridor to Customs

I’m a betting man; I’m also a cautious man,
I have been a lonely man these past double handful days
But I wait on, listening to the bass and the drums filling time
The song releases its stranglehold on me

I look up to the heavens as I lock the truck door
A silent prayer, a will-o’-the-wisp on my lips
And I see a cloud pass over the moon
I take as a wink and a smile
As I hurry to the baggage claim

----------------------

Crystal Centers

The world looks
a little different
today
Not that it has changed
only the ways
I view it
It is with softer edges
blurred centers
Crystaled sights seen through
tear stained eyes
Yet, though I have
cried outand I am
cried out
The more so nothing
changes nothing
I have reached out
For your departing shadow
And pulled the empty absence
to my heart
I am using the coldness
as a punishing comfort
To justify inane actions
into softer centers
blurred and crystaled

----------------------

Even Between

Mountain streams
Sunny shores
Wild flower bouquets
Long walks
Silent talks
What is love all about
Why eternity is long lasting
Moonlight shadows linked
I do not know the whys
I do not seek any answers
All I know is little things
Like loving her
Even between the seconds

--------------------
I Think Things

I think of the things
I could have been
And the things I haven’t been.
I think of all the things I promised you,
Promised myself I’d give to you.
I think of all those things
And other things I shouldn’t think
When I think of you.
I have lines across my forehead
And around my eyes
From staring off to the distant horizon.
I have surrendered
To the gray surrounding my ears.
The sound of your voice has been my lighthouse.
I look around at the life you and I have.
I sometimes ponder that life
And what I have had with you.
I think things I would have been without you;
All I see is a layered clothing look with shopping carts.
I think these things and know

--------------------------


A Couple of Songs

We were together
This woman and I
Once upon a time
We sang a few songs
And danced a couple of dances
It could said
We made music together
Yet in the end she said
You are like a singer
I heard on the radio
Some of your songs
Are pretty good
But I don’t want
To buy the C D

-------------


Nineteen Sixty-nine

I know there was a blizzard
in Trenton, New Jersey.

I know the New York Jets
won Super Bowl III

I know Viet Nam
Is 36 hours from Trenton, New Jersey

I know Japan is an hour and a half
from Plieku by air

I know I heard the Beatles
‘The White Album’ for the first time

I know April on the fifteenth parallel it is hot
and in Japan it is cold

I know I found the Allman Brothers
on a mountainside without any trees

I know I turned twenty

I know those unforgettable days
Are on a vivid, nocturnal loop

I know there is a calendar with that date
my mother has one with those days marked off

I know that it was all a dream, Kafka-like,
and I know I am really a year younger

--------------------

BOB HOPE

I never did get to see Bob Hope
We were supposed to rotate back to Plieku
To see the show of the Goodwill Ambassador
Spreading jokes and Playboy Girls
On a world tour to weary GI’s in far flung places
We were going to get hot food out of a mess hall
Take warm showers lasting longer than five gallons
Get clean new fatigues with unit patches, rank and name
But most of all clean new fatigues
And we were going to get to see Bob Hope
But some Major said, don’t you boys know
That there is a war going on?
So I spent the show in a three-foot hole
Covered with a poncho to keep out the sun and or monsoon
I didn’t get to see Bob Hope but I did see Combat
It came on AFVN on Tuesdays or Thursdays
And starred Rick Jason and Vic Morrow.

---------------

It Was

It burned
It pushed
It pulled
It shocked
It screamed
Something screamed
It overcame gravity
It slammed
Dirt and ants
Leaves, brown and rotting
Into his mouth
It was honor
It was fear
It was failure
It was horror
It was a little boy
Who wished his mommy
Could come halfway
Around the world
To kiss the booboo
Blossoming in his chest
And makeIt go away

--------------------


JOY

When our eyes first touched
The northern lights became
Dull and commonplace.
It was as if I’d passed
Through the gates of Eden
And here was my Eve, my Venus.
Her voice twinkles like
The silver buckets Elves use
When ladling out the dew.
Her eyes sparkle and gleam
Like fresh melt
Rushing over granite.
Her smile, never quite gone,
Beckons like a ray of sunshine
After a violent thunderstorm.
When she took my hand
And said my name
I knew I was home.

----------------------

Just A Cat

Aloysius Thomas Alleycat died
Sometime during the night.
I do not mourn for him
For he had a nice life
But I will miss him
For he made my life nice.
He and my wife
Had a lot in common;
When I worked in the yard
They both would find
A comfortable, shady spot
From which to supervise.
He would curl up and watch me,
And the doves above
A feeder overflowing with seed,
With those large yellow eyes of his.
Whereas my wife would point out
Those things I had yet to do.
We both would look at her and blink, slowly.
Alley lived a long life; thirteen years at best guest.
As I said, I will miss him
That is a long time for a friendship
Even if he was just a cat.

------------------------l

ife is great

life is great
in the world of Tom Sawyer
and the Bowery Boys and Hop Along Cassidy
and bubble gum and no girls
life is great;
but, alas, Tom Sawyer
turned into Hess and Vonnegut,
and the Bowery Boysand Hop Along Cassidy
became late night—early morning old John Wayne movies
and wine replaced Bubble Gum
and when the Bubble Gum was gone
there was nothing else left to do
but get involved (sigh);
life is great

------------------

Magical
She is magical
and mystical
She can heal
with a touch
She can calm
and excitewith a look
She is wonderful
in all things
Yet sometimes
she upsets me
So
I forget that I am
the luckiest man
alive.

-----------------------

M’LADY GEORGIA BLUE

I call
She looks
I step to her
She runs
I look
She hides
I chase
She runs ‘round roses
I shortcut
She detours
I ignore
She comes
I catch her.

--------------------

Notes To An Insane Man

Buy a notebook
Learn a cryptic shorthand
To keep your truths in order

Remember what face
You put on this morning
And keep it with you
Throughout the day

Just think
Who Love’s Ya
And why
And what do they want

When she’s smiling
And waving at you
With force and energy
Count the fingers

Remember your wedding day
And be thankful your hips and knees
Will not let you do that to yourself

Sometimes when you are treated
Like you should be wearing
Short pants and shoes
With a Kid and Dog in them
It is for your own good

---------------------

Perchance To Dream

She wants to sleep like spoons
I sleep like a butter knife
I like to lie on my back
Sometimes on my side
She likes to lie on my chest
Her thigh across mine
So when I awake my leg sleeps on
Making me hobble around the bedroom
Like some sort of crane in a mating dance
Sound effects included
She likes to have it arctic-like when she sleeps
In her flannel gown and socks
With only the tip of her nose barely seen
Whereas I like to sleep
In the outfit God gave me to wear
Even though old and wrinkled
As I dream of South Sea Islands
Blue skies and puffy off-white clouds
And other warm places of the heart

----------------------

Significant Events

No significant events
Are scheduled
For the near future
Won’t you take my hand
And we’ll go see nightrise
Sitting on a seawall park bench
Evening breezes blowing
Sun sinking through clouds
To slowly reach the water
Then disappear in a blink
Moonlight on a calming bay
Nothing to say at all

----------------------

In Between

He is somewhere between
An Infidel and a Heathen
At times closer to one than the other
But never one over the other
Even though it seems someone is always
Trying to convert him to their ways

He found through personal experience
During the stylized rituals of war
That either God and Jesus wait in the bottom
Of a trench, a bunker, or a foxhole with open arms
Or there is something akin to the hollowness
So apparent in those who have lost faith
Who profess their agnosticism vehemently

He picks and chooses his tenements
From different books and beliefs
And tries to live up to the best of his ability
Without accepting all the trappings and applied guilt
Just to smile and nod at those with converting ways

He may end up like Pepin the Short
Who was the father of Charlemagne
And accept his faith on his deathbed
After living the life and style he is afforded
Yet on goes life as he knew it and enjoyed it
And will continue however he decides

------------------------

Language

A means of communication.
The use of words,
The little tote bags with designer logos,
To convey ideas
Is all fine and wonderful.
But, and there’s always a but.
The language of chemistry.
The language of mathematics
Where one plus one equals two
But the square root of one is not one.
The language of flowers
And of Bees and Ants;
Where the bee tells her sisters
Where to go and how to get there
With a little dance,
And the ants with their touchy-feely
Way to communicate.
But we humans with our
Language of diplomacy,
Our broken English,
Idioms, local dialects,
Pidgin English, gibberish.
Our polyglot vernacular jargon.
Our language of colors
Where I say blue but you see
Aquamarine, green, maybe that purplish blue
Only available on Easter Eggs.
And the prominent characteristic of language
Is the relationship between a linguistic sign
(In it’s little designer tote bag)
And its meaning is arbitrary.
On most we speak the same language,
Seem to understand one another.
We agree with the semantics
But other times we’re like mountain Rams
Knocking heads over the same thing
By using apples to explain oranges.

------------------

Labels

Soup can labels
Labels on blue jean pockets
Labels as to origin
whether a “made in …”
or a language label
Labeled as Victor or defeated
“To the victors go the spoils…”
Silently labeling old ladies
who don’t know foreign countries
Labeled as ‘wordsmith’
Labeled as a genius
or possibly an idiot
It all renders down subtly
That no individual labels itself
Its parents labeled it
with a name
maybe a new name
maybe a used one with a Jr. attached
A doctor to label itas to sex
Schools and friends
as to herd position
So, my friend, accept the inevitable
For you have been labeled,
Both silently and loudly…

----------------------------

STAINLESS STEEL

It’s a Stainless Steel world Baby
There just ain’t no room for maybe.

Lovers come and lovers go
Friends arrive and friends leave
Questions come and answers are no
And there’s no one thing to believe.

It’s a Stainless Steel world
Full of food for squirrels.

Bills come and bills don’t go
Relatives come and forever stay
Governments come and what do you know
We’ve all lost our bloody way.

It’s a Stainless Steel world we live in
And not a damn free thing is given.

Scientists come and help us live longer
Help us exist better in some forgotten corner
But what can you do not getting any stronger
In a Stainless Steel world without a mourner.

It’s a Stainless Steel world Baby
There just ain’t no room for maybe.

--------------------------

THE HORSE

A cow and a horse were
Standing out in the middle of a pasture.
It was a government pasture, public domain,
Because it was enclosed in barbed wire with signs saying,
“Government property. No trespassing.
Use of deadly force authorized.”
The horse was munching
And the cow was chewing when the horse said,
How can you chew that crud?
The cow just looked up with large, sad brown eyes
As if to say you wouldn’t understand.
As they were enjoying the day they saw a human
Walking the pasture with a rope in its hand.
The horse said, Well, cow, the human has come for you.
It is going to take you to the slaughterhouse.
It is going to eat your meat and strip your hide
For shoes and belts and the such.
And the cow replied,
Yeah, but it is going to break you.
It is going to put a metal bar in your mouth
And tie it to your face with pieces of my hide
So you cannot spit it out,
So you will go where the human wants to go
When it tugs your head around.
It will kick the air out of your lungs
So a saddle can be buckled to you
Then the human will climb its fat ass up on you
To ride you in style anywhere, anytime, it wants.
By kicking you in the side with metal spurs
It will ride down by the road where it can be seen on your back.
Yes, they are going to kill me, quickly.
But you will be rode for the rest of your days
Until you are sway backed and broken down
All because you look like a large dog,
The human’s bestest friend.
When you are of no more use
They will make glue out of you.
And unless you went to the human
And specifically asked for this
You are broken.
To be rode.

---------------------------------


The Permit

Orca came to Neptune
And said, There are too many
They interfere with my life
And spy on my pod

Dolphin came to Neptune
And complained
They are too many
And constantly they net us

Sand Flea and Coquina
Came to Neptune and cried
They are too many
They walk over us without a care

All the fishes of the sea
Came to Neptune
To complain of the overcrowding

Neptune thought on the matter
And knew there had been
Easy winters and the shores
Had become over populated
And polluted with their kind

So he told Shark
I will offer permits for hunting
Just to ease the herd
To thin overcrowding
It will be open season
But no Shark may take more than one

Neptune opened the game preserve
Along the Gulf Stream
And the sharks did hunt

------------------------

Would You Believe

If I were the paranoid sort
I would believe I was being followed.
I first saw him outside my home
On a mimosa branch calmly
watching, watching.

I noticed him only because
He was somewhat out of place.
Yet I had things to do
And a train to catch
So I promptly forgot him.
I saw him again at the station,
Then on a R/R Xing outside New Orleans
watching, watching,

And a couple more time on the trip north.
I felt I had lost him in Chicago
But there he was in Galesburg
Watching me as I looked for Carl.
Then he was on the roof
Of the men’s room
watching, watching,
In the Painted Desert of New Mexico.

I noticed him once more in a juniper
On the south rim of the Grand Canyon
When he cawed out to me
watching, watching.
It appeared he’d gained some weight
With all the exercise between Florida and Arizona.
The tour guide said he was Raven.
I don’t care what his name is
This black bird is following me.

-----------------------

Sunrise Service
As I lay here
I hear

Flight Nineteen
Droning down the coast
And out into the Gulf
Again lost

Tinkerbelle
Trapped at the window
Beating against the screen
Does she want
Out or in again

Legions of Army
Marching down the hills
To the sea
From the sound they must be
Infantry

Turtle Doves
Cooing territorial rights
With Morning Doves
Over the feeder

I hear the poor bird
A near sighted woodpecker
Mistaking aluminum siding
For somethingIt is not

Two kittens
Playing race tag
And using me
For home free
As I lay here

Wishing I had nowhere
To goI truly enjoy this
Spring Sunrise Service

-----------------


Things I have seen

I have seen antelope, mule deer, flat-tailed deer,
White-tailed deer, doves, ravens, crows, magpies,
Condors, hawks and an eagle or two,
Ducks, mallards, wood ducks, geese and a swan or two,
Pigeons and sea gulls, prairie dogs, red squirrels,
Chipmunks, starlings, wild turkeys, prairie chickens,
Buzzards and turkey buzzards.
I have seen sunrises and sunsets that amaze with wonder.
I have watched night skies from mountaintops and train cars.
I’ve seen cows and bulls and sheep but no buffalo as of yet.
Yes I did, down in Arizona on the Grand Canyon Trip
Some Navajo had a few penned for show.
I have seen mile after mile of wild sunflower
Large ones, small ones, daisy looking ones,
Wishing I could get out and pick a bouquet for Sheila.
I have seen Navajo, Hopi, Apache,
Flathead, Blackfoot, Sioux and Cheyenne.
I have seen the Gulf of Mexico,
The Mississippi River,
The Red River Valley, The Rio Grande, The Pacific,
The Colorado, dry washes, drying water holes and quail.
I have seen lava flows in three or four states,
Something I never expected.I have seen petroglyphs on lava and granite.
I saw petrified forests, a painted desert.
I saw the Valley of Fires on my way to Roswell
To see aliens and ufo’s, and buy souvenirs.
I have seen mountains that took my breath,
Both figuratively and literally.
I have seen sea fog and mountain fog in valleys
And forest fires on ridge tops and smoke clouds.
I have seen big cities with building to the clouds
I have been on mountains above the clouds
I have seen the big sky and felt small
I have driven Interstates and two lane back roads.
I have seen ghost towns both forgotten and ignored
I have seen ghost towns as tourist attractions.
I have seen thirty states and the District of Columbia
I really enjoyed myself to the utmost of my ability
I have fallen in love all over again with my country
My countryside, my fellow countrymen, all of them,

------------------------


Committed Fears

I am afraid of running out of coherent words, syllables even,
And I will end up grunting extensive sounds
Associated with Cro-Magnon Neanderthal types.
I am afraid I will end up in some cave of a nursing home;
Dark and dank, smelling of alcohol and urine;
Where I’ll have drool and pabulum in a slow race down my chin
To pool in the outlandish hand-me-down clothes
My heirs will designate I be dressed me in.
I am afraid my wife will not precede me in passing
And will not only allow them to persist in this pursuit,
But will even get to the point of choosing my clothing for the day.
I am afraid I will end up an old coot
In too large pants with a broken zipper
And an extra large shirt surrounding a much too small neck.
That I will be tied to a poesy chair
Unable to whack them with my cane.
I am afraid my loving, gentle wife
Will spend the rest of her eternity paying me back
For all those small forgotten slights
I didn’t know I was committing.
All to be topped off by some tell all book.


---------------------
Thunderbolts

When the signature of the elusive deity Zeus
Is graffitified across midnight skies
It captures the soul like octupi on oysters
Plays with fears as if it were plankton on white caps
Sends some children scuttling to mothers
And others to pull under covers like hermit crabs
Makes brutes shiver like reef coral in sea breezes
It excites and delights like shells and sharks
And I am pulled to dirty bay windows
Like the sea pulls at the shore
To see Zeus’ name etched in sky, water, and glass.

-----------------------

Understanding

I am made
To think
That I need not
Know
What the poet thought
In the choice of words
Used
That I need not
Understand
What the poet meant
Only that I read
And enjoy
The story