FROG

I chop and split the frog

bloody fingers place a rock on the biology book

wiping hands on my overalls.

I take to the task with a zeal
of a scientist, unconcerned.

The frog still lives. Such is science.

Such is an eight year old boy.

My father assumes its place on the board
pinned with carpet tacks.

There are no eggs in the frog.

I reflect, I had been an egg.

Not much different, and a pollywog
about the same at my beginning

composed mostly of ancient sea water.

The frog stops moving. I prod it

with tongs hooked up to a battery

I borrowed from the model T Ford

in the machine shed yesterday.

It jumps, eyes popping. I turn

throw up as I do when I see my father

beating my mother, sister screaming.

Again I wipe my overalls

mixing bile and frog blood

hot and cold to my fingers

feeling like a ghoul

I worked further diagrams done, notes recorded

as the day climbs over the barn

I took my homework from the abandoned chicken coop

light too dim to see my writing.


SUNDAYS

we went to the Angel Guardian home

To see my sisters; my father and I.

My mother wasn't there;

signed into a straight jacket to the mental

ward at Bellvue hospital

By my father screwing the

mailman's wife downstairs.


Mom got infected by his cruelty

over the nasty drunk years

he snapped and snarled,

until her sick fear foamed to rage.


Today, a Prozac would do.

Then--they strapped you down,

nuked your brain, insulin overdoses

Thorazine d her into a vegetable state for fifteen years.


What she ever wanted I never knew.


All she ever did was worry about us kids.


I couldn't figure why. No one gave a

shit about anyone.


The three musketeers,

the old man called my sisters then.

I called them better off.

We walked the grounds, they

pointing out the names of statues

of saints, gobbling candy bars

the old man brought.


He was the only one who cried;

Piels beer tears, Brooklyn bottled.

I wanted to grab his face

poke his eyes out.

We kissed awkward cheeks, and left.


Once we got there late, and a Nun

told us we blew it. Next week be

on time she said through the crack in the door.

I saw my sisters dressed up and ready, fidgeting.


The old man said, Those nuns are tough.

Nah I said. “What she needs is a good fuck

To put a smile on that sour puss, three minutes late, my ass..


“Don't talk like that!” , he shouted.


Or what! I said, too old to throw against a wall.

He was buried in Calvert on Cemetery.


Living I a veteran's home for disabled soldiers.


A military funeral with gunshots and ceremony


A corporal handed mom the flag draped over


his coffin folded into a fat V


“I don't want anything of his, John.”


I took it, still have it.

The girls are OK. A little fucked up,

but, hey, they went through a lot.

Mom didn't have to worry about


jailbird brother Billy either,

he’s out and hot-walks horses at Belmont.


THE SWAMP BIRD

Skunk cabbage odoriferous

in sweet morning mist

I pluck next to rhubarb.

Ripe smells

of swamp water recede

and my mouth

fills with tastes

of ancient life;


I feel its call

from distanced pools

touching me,

a million years

spun in

perpetual rotations

to find me here

mystified...


UP JUMPS THE NIGHT

The scared is back.

Whispers slither on

the window panes.
Branches creak.
Is someone climbing up?

Up the shingles?

Is the windows locked?


Witches come at night.

They takes the innocents.

They turns them into things,

then rides them in the night.

Then they takes them back.

I'se not going sleep no more.
Stays awake I is and am.
Not closing these eyes tonight

with witches stayin close.

I feels them in my bones.
(soft and low:) "Mommy?"

Better not. Get em mad.

Might be pokey pokey.

He'll snake me with his belt.


Smilin, closen the door

over his shoulder sayin

"I'll put em ta sleep sweety, be right back."

I sees the limp wee wee
rubber hangin like a wet
noodle stikin his thigh.

I points and laughs and

snake, snake it hisses, his belt
"Ohooo!" Punch Punch.

"You fuck with me motherfucker,
I'll cut your balls off."

Tobaccowhiskeyrottedteeth.
Mommymommymommymommymommy.


UNTITLED

In response to Jean, who said she could critique

any untitled poem in ten minutes on her computer

and title it for a fee. I said I’d give her the moon.


FOR JEAN

There is no vampire in the ashes

only the terror...and death.

The trigger. The trigger. A sense of naked. A bullet.

Quarter the pig and quietly freeze the affectionate wind.
Crush the symphony of leaves with a scream. Huddle and shake.

Become the tree in the storm, roots in mountain rock.

Nowhere to hide love. Nowhere to go.

It's silliness catches us unaware

crisps our cookies, lets us keep the vagabond dog in

put the house cat out, and go to sleep.

2:00 A.M. the cat's howling on the fence, the dog's

pissing on the floor, chewed the couch

and you're in the middle of a wet dream

while a vampire is looking at your jugular.

Work this out on your computer, Jean.
I'll have the moon delivered, U.P.S.

MABEL HAD FIVE

one at a time

over a period of weeks

in the bed of straw she rearranged

into a suitable nest

three times this year.

One egg didn’t hatch

one fledgling smothered

dumped into the bottom of the cage

with the unhatched egg.

One thing about Mabel, she’s consistent.
She lays five, keeps three.

Maybe she knows she can’t feed four or five

or doesn’t want to.

Her mate stuffs himself with millet
regurgitates into her mouth

and she into theirs

Forcing it open if its not wide enough

her beak’s terrible shuddering jack hammering

shaking tiny boneless bodies

like rag dolls until she’s done.

She’ll draw blood if you’re not quick enough

lifting the nesting box cover to peek in.


PEACH FACE LOVE BIRDS

Heads capped in red,

Faces peach colored

Vibrant green and blue tail feathers

Chatter and shriek

--sounds like a tropical forest.

They pace back and forth,

complain about the cage,

want to fly, not just stretch

and flutter wings--

really fly, in an open space.

I tell them they’ll get caught

by a cat and be eaten.

They don’t want to hear it,

ignore me, and screech.

They never saw a cat

can’t imagine it,

even if I growl and hiss,

pounce and claw at them,

show them pictures of cats

birds in mouth.

They continue to complain

until I want to eat them,

feathers and all

and pick my teeth with their tiny claws.


PACK IT UP

Pack it up and deliver it to.

I have too many of them hanging


If I manage to fix my space problem

Without getting rid of especially

Or all of them being lost forever


Move to another place with more

And the take all my

In fact the substance of the space problem

is imaginative or intuitive because my issues of

Along with the ability to focus on a specific

Or even Generalized ability to perform a

In a reasonable amount of

Even if a closet queen can garnish

The question of space and

Of course I could move to a

But moving is expensive and also very very

Nonetheless it is another decision

And what about this

Rent or sell always is a.....


I HAVE SEEN


I have seen Walt Whitman floating on a raft

built of young boy's bones

bound by sterile bandages

tightly tied in knots by a gentle hand.

He waved to me.

I yelled out, “Walt Whitman, what the hell are you doing over there.“

He replied: “I am seeing this part of America

and I shall see it all until it is done with me.“

His shoulders shrugged and waved his hat

as the yellow morning mist blew in from upriver

and he disappeared as quick as a humming bird's wings in flight.


I have seen funerals of family and friends

The smell of death pervading all the flowers

seeping into the carpet, the cloth of chairs.

I have been a lion in my youth

but courage left when reason prevailed.

Weighing of risk against failure

A simple cold, a headache, a stab in the side,

And death comes  crawling out of the night.  


Death, some say, should be greeted as joy.


I see no joy in dying, returning to earth.

I want to stay right here, in all the seasons of my life.

asking nothing of the world, or God, or authority.


I have seen old men looking out at streets

from open windows, eyes hungry for youth.

Oh! To be young again, to eat with healthy teeth,

not dentures that click against each other

and to walk again without a shuffling gait

to run, head against the wind in appreciation

of all that lies ahead, fine memories still in sight.

I have seen the boredom of evenings

felt the burden of age creep up from my feet

to my balding head, curve around the fractured night

as a worm crawls around itself in fright.


When you and I are alone with the dog and the birds.

Will you love me as in the passion of our youth?

If you agree, please tell me now, so hard it is to ask.

She says, “I will, if you will walk the dog

and bring back a bottle of white Zinfandel

and a pastry with whipped cream for two?


After drinking and snacking, we make love, slow

Delicious, done, she holding me, I her, I pass wind,

Loud, as the the dog besides the bed barks.


MY BROTHER

died one dark morning at a mowing
when the sky turned black as blood.

His name was Joseph.

I called him Child of the Sun.

That night the moon hid behind desperate clouds

thundering and lightening until dawn

when rain started rotting the hay in the field.

The old priest came into the room they locked me

in because they were screaming and said I was out of control.

They could not bear to look at my dark eyes no tears no tears.

I asked the priest; Why did God take

a child when he could have a boy?

He answered: God wanted him in heaven and

now you must take care of your mother,

this poor farm with two goats, chickens,

one field’s hay to mow to trade for a living,

and your father who drinks grape all day all night.

I answered in a far away voice like my father’s:

His name is Child of the Sun,

just for your records, take it down that way.

God might forget he gave a child to my mother.

You should walk the field at night--Father,

in your black robe find his soul somewhere under the truck

that must sit in the field to rust forever and remind us where it is.

The priest glared and said nothing.

I went out to the field and asked the sky:

Did you see the soul of Child of the Sun?

The sky moaned. “They are bad luck for you.

Do not look any more or blood will fill your mouth,

seep from your eyes. And avoid priests at all costs. They will lie to you.“


The next Sunday, I went back to the priest

saying mass in the church on a broken altar.

Behind him blood poured from the eyes in the statue of Christ

as the congregation wept and wrung their hands.

The saints were black all black and turned their backs to me.

A cock crowed until first light that night all night and the chickens clucked

annoyingly until dawn. Worms crawled out of red dirt in the field at noon.

So many worms the grass was smothered and never

grew again except under the truck that never went anywhere anymore.


When I was old enough I left my grieving mother,

the rusted truck, my broken father who still

sat in the kitchen drinking all day all night.

He did not notice I was gone until he was dying and cried:


My son, my son, where are you?

I answered across the years, across the barren field:

I will not tell you dear father,

but I give you the entrails of a chicken

to teach you of life and the quickness of death

and of raising yourself up out off the chair each day to walk out into the

field, crawl under the truck and breathe the sweet smell of grass,

and know it is always greener when the sacrifice of blood spills on it.

And while you are there breathing the grass,

look around for the soul of my brother.

If you find it, tell him I’m not looking anymore.


But I still love him and will always love him.


THE FERAL CAT AND THE WINDOW

The Cat smiled and said:"You bring those dogs near me I'll scratch Their

Noses."

I answered, "You try I'll kick Your Skinny ass into the pond."

The cat stuck her head up and pranced away saying" You're not worth a

whisker to me."

Home I looked out the window at a red cardinal, The window smiled and

cracked a joke

Knock Knock

Whose There?

A winsome window shined a ray of light

That's not a joke.

Sure it is it's a window joke

No this is a window joke

knock knock

Whose there?

Winsome.

Who?

Winsome loose some.

The window laughed so hard it cracked.

Damn. I'll never listen to a window again.


PART OF GROWING UP

A sense of snow

Snow man. Strawberry snow cone

shaved lemon flavored

In a cup 5 cents

Charlotte ruse 10 cents

Flavors and scents from

childhood


A belt beating for taking a tool

Rusting in the yard


A turtle caught put in a box

On the back porch.

Box empty

Turtle soup for dinner.

I threw up.

Slapped in the face

forced to eat.


Parochial school

Crush on Sister Michael

I Stared at a starched white collar

Under her chin to her shoulders.

“Why do you always stare at my neck John."

"I wonder if they shave your head."

She laughed. Undid her collar


Shook her flame red curled hair out.

I got hard, blushed brick red.

She laughed again and put her collar back on.

The bell rang. Time for recess.


Money Talks

A quarter, a nickel and a dime and a penny

Rolled down the asphalt street complaining about loss of value

When a silver dollar rolled even to them.

Why complain when no one listens

And you can do nothing about anything.

Keep a positive attitude and you will not tarnish.

It's all right to you to say that, wealthier than I

said the penny. They are going to do away with me

And start with a nickel. All the kids at school

Will not pinch me or put me in a piggy bank.

I'll be forgotten, never existed. I want to cry.

Don't be sad said the dime, shine like me

You will be worth more than any coin, even a

Hundred dollar Bill. Rare is what you will be.

After a number of years, you will have more fame

Than any other currency, revered by collectors.

All over the world you will be bartered and bought.


The penny said Thank you dear friends. I will shine

Like the Evening star And the rising sun. I will shine!

SHINE! SHINE!


A young girl ran into the street, scooped them all up

Ran to a soda shop, bought a Chocolate ice cream soda

A triple Strawberry, Vanilla, and Butter Pecan waffle cone and

washed it down with an egg cream

Finished, she wiped her chin and burped.


She ran outside and threw up all over herself.


Let Us Go now, you and I

in the dark November cold to the old house

on Fish Hollow Road, do not say the distance is too far.

We've spent three hours thinking of what to do.

Please don't say there is no time, or this is not the time.

No time is just a shadow of our fears. Places we go through,

hills are painted to take your breath away.

Maple sap boils in copper pans, milk cans full on smoky outdoor fires.

It fills the air with sugary aroma’s

that will make your mouth drip.

Skies are luminous with the fire of leaves,

and a scent not ever designed as the smell

of that celebrated harvest.
Insects all, drunk with heady aroma,

none would bite or sting,

mellowed out in lazy muttering

buzzing in slow motion,

gliding in air, on ground

iridescent as in a precious museum collection.

As we go, we must be careful of the deer.
They bolt across in day, by night,


freeze in headlights, and no way to die

is by fear on deserted country roads.

The white mist that swallows the road in valleys

descending, then upward rolling

will take us down to twenty miles an hour

and oh, what things to see, so calm the road

or a Jack-O-Lantern night that might surprise

and thrill--us too, as we drive by.

We've spent three hours thinking of what to do.

We can make up slow-downs in the hills

where moon and stars cast a silver eerie day-like night.


But shadows are connected to something.

A sense of unusual--phenomena, uncertain.

Her body English spoken quietly, said I was not right.
Your eyes said something else

before you turned away, I said.

“I cannot listen, this is strange, this trip and your story.”

What is strange is that it is not the usual. It is

change, a movement out of a pattern, that restricts and chokes.

"I am not choking.” She said with disdain.

You know. You know what I'm saying, in the
sense of breaking habits, all our life they deny us.

“Yes, yes, but now? The cold, icy roads, mist to rain and storms?”

If needs be, we'll rent a truck up there, or hire a horse and buggy.
She laughed. “Like Central Park? Frozen champagne, fingers?”
And body heat under piled blankets,

hot chestnuts and brandy in crystal glasses.

"We were young then, in love, innocent, daring.”


I feel younger than I am, and daring in my way to seek

changed directions, as an extraterrestrial--quick and sure--

moves to new worlds on horizons.

Oh, do not let me pass this by.

I feel the season in my heart beat burning,

but not forever, I think, as it goes with me.

Please, Please, do not be the denier of my desire.

Not you. Not you. Not now.

“All right! We will go! I must have time to prepare.''


No. No. That's the point. To go drop all thought except our purpose

to be on the road in a half hour time; enough to throw together a bag of warmth, ,a

thermos of coffee and off to adventure.

The point is---of--not--caring. God we've planned enough in life

and now to glimpse our youth through direct confrontation with habit


that cranky apathetic hum-drum dreary flight from imagination--

This is a time I may not get again.

Or you! Or you!


We stop and have breakfast at a roadhouse

watch the dawn chase the fog down to valleys

through the curtained window

as we feast on pancakes, crisp bacon, white eggs

until the yellow spreads when broken with a piece of toast.

Across from us a young girl in a frilly white dress giggles

as she drops a piece of bacon in her milk, pulls it out and

says, "Yuck."

Helen watches her with a smile turned to longing.

Done-- outside, the sunshine breaks

over purple mountains--A deer grazes

alongside the roadhouse.

I knew what her mind was.

She will always think I deprived her.


God how she let me know.

Before I'm too old, she'd say Just one, a baby girl.

When people say not now

it's no, even if they mean tomorrow.

Tomorrow cannot keep a promise or a secret wish.

It dies in the night, unborn.

That's why I'm going back. That's why we'll never

have a baby-- too old--too late

nature man and woman give up

wishes for plainer things.

Things of great value like canasta, monopoly

plastic things, paper things, things of magic

and mystery that brown and crack in the night

like a branch outside that wakes you

and you heard it sleeping, awake

and the feeling persists in silence.


She said from the car, “Are you coming?”

Yes, I said, I'm sorry, I was thinking of something.


The ride was like starting out again, quiet

no real talk, except to point out some sight or sign.

We passed the farm twice, then remembering

the geography by the next one, we circled back

and drove in on a strange graveled road

that turned to red dirt.


A cruel wind whipped down the valley

A red dog came running, wagging its tail.

It looked like my dog, as a child, a lab-shepherd mix.

An old woman came out clamping a man's hat on her head.

A bearded man followed her. The dog growled.

“Behave you slut!” She yelled in a strong voice.

“Hi! Here for flowers?”

Flowers? This time of year?

“In the green house, up the hill!”

No, I used to live here, before you bought the farm.

“Billy? Oh my God! You were up to my knees.

I saw pictures of you, holding a calf, up in the attic.”

No. John, two years younger less a month.

“The one shot by a hunter?”

Yes and no, my brother Bill shot me, a hunting accident.

“Well, lay me down and fry me up.”

She laughed, a hearty booming bar room laugh.

“We sent you coloring books in the hospital

never knowing who you were. and your Grandpa

he died right after.

And then that poor baby your brother died

Must have been hard.

God knows we had ours on this farm.

We sold the mountain after my husband left us

nothing in the bank, and a mortgage behind.

Me and the kids, I mean, three I had

and we sold the stock, kept one cow for milk

then the horses went. The kids cried but understood.

Then the mountain, after the survey

had marble and Granite, silver and black

so we got a windfall.

The bank was thrilled. They got their money

not all at once, but over five years

and well, we didn't get rich because

my husband showed up and gouged me for half.

And oh my God, I'm so sorry

You must want to walk through.”

I took my wife's hand. We walked through the house.

The room I stopped in as they continued, was my bedroom

where we napped together, was not changed

except for linen and, a leak stain in the ceiling.


Hearing their voices through the walls

distant in echoing hallways

I ran my fingers over the pillow

and sat lightly on the bed.

His presence was there, still--after the years.


My mind revealed as home movies scenes long forgotten.

I watched myself and them, as if in a darkened room:

In the drenched sleep of a summer day

The marrow of my bones chill.

I jump out of steaming sleep

The buzz of a bottle fly blasts out the open window

finger nail digs into the lump of poison

tearing flesh as my focus drills

on my brother's presence missing from my side.


I leap from the bed, , please, please!

I unlock the bedroom door, flee barefooted

across pine floors through the kitchen, the back door

over the porch around the house, turn to the sound

of farm machinery in the hay field.


I see death on the cab of the truck scream ! Stop!
The sound of terror dies in the roar of the engine.

I run.

She lifts my brother up to the running board.
Death slides down from the cab and waits under the truck.

I run.

He pulls the door handle, it goes down.


I run.

The small sweaty hand slips from rounded chrome.


I run.


He falls.

I run.


She trips, falling into him in flight

as he thumps to ground, he rolls.

Truck wheels roll over his head.

How was the window open?

Each time I told him stories I locked it.

We would nap in afternoons, legs and arms entwined.

We were of the same soul, blood, bright, deep

flowing through brothers. I bathed and dressed him.


For thirty five years I see death sneak beneath the truck

and wait--brother or sister? And then the taking.


To reach out to a robin's egg, not touch it's frail shell

and see him question the pale blue, the mother's red breast.

To watch him run from a spitting honking goose

turn with a stick, defiant being embarrassed

chase it back to the barnyard in zigzag pursuit

then stop to cry, throwing the stick down

walking back to the house ineffectively punching

and kicking me, sobbing, I was scared. I was scared.

I laughed, soothed, calmed him,

as we walked back to lock the geese pen.


These come to me all times, along with the shadow
under the truck, before and after, as I fill my barrel

with tears, empty my heart until hollow,

and want so much to change it. I would have

dove under that truck to stop it, or push my sister,

my father, my mother, older brother, anyone, a stranger,

if I could have. I ask people, sometimes

if they would give their life for another.

When they say yes, I say to myself, too bad

you weren't there. Is this selfish. Yes it is.

In the field, clutching my coat the wind muffles

all sound but its own. I try to find the place

where the faded blue blanket covered him,

already sponging his life.

The wind denies me, in the change of this place

and its fierce buffeting scrapes the tears from my face.

l and scream in the sanctuary of the wind.


The smell of snow is in the valley.

If it comes before the wind subsides

it will be a blizzard .

I turned my back to the wind, walked to the house

shook the sand from my hair and face, and walked in.

They were in the kitchen.

She said I missed the tour, but would show me through.

I said no, I prefer to remember it as it was, and thanked

her three or four times for her hospitality.

I was glad they had the farm.

For Me the Farm had died a long time ago.


Leaving the farm the storm stopped

After we got home, we made love on the couch

I listened to her murmurs of the child,

praying the seed would take, after, wiping some off her thighs.

Maybe we'll get lucky, I said. She smiled.
I carried her upstairs and we made love again,

slowly caressing with lips, fingers and toes

falling asleep holding each other.


BIRD SONG
I wake up with a chill from a bird's song
look out my open doorway
see it's a yellow warbler
drop crumbs, invite the bird in.

Eventually, it pecks my kitchen floor.

It gobbles up each crumb.

must have escaped its cage.

I slowly bend, slip my hands on its throat,

feeling wing bones

hollow, fragile,

feathers soft as dandelion puffs

able to fly free, as I never could.


I peer into black bulging eyes,

feel the rapid heartbeat

know my power,

open my hand.


"Never trust mankind," I say.

It blinks, shrugs, peeps E sharp,

and flies out the doorway.

Later that night the bird's song cuts through the dark

shatters my windows, tears down walls and roof.

I stand in the debris as free as he.


I'D LIKE

to get inside someones body; for empathy

to feel what a big nose smells. Is it stronger, or the same?

If I had long fingers, would I play a guitar better?

If I were taller, would I feel the same about tall people?

They intimidate me, slightly.

Would I feel the same about people my size, then?

Or would I look down on them?

I don't now. If I was big and heavy,

would I be a bully, or a Teddy Bear;

from my own perspective?

I've known more small bullies than big ones.

The small ones piss me off. The big ones scare

the crap out of me.

I guess size is a factor about how we feel about people.

Maybe, if they're big and gentle, we love them more,

because we're afraid of their power, not them,

maybe, we take small people for granted more to be nice.


I'd like to feel what a big belly is like--once.

Or a fat ass. I bet they're more comfortable.

Especially sitting on hard things. Or laying on them.

It would also be nice if our arms stretched.

Then we wouldn't have to bend to tie our shoes.

Or get up from the table to get the butter we forgot.


I guess I'd like to know too much.

Or have too many questions that have no answers now


but you know they say a little knowledge...is a dangerous thing,

And I'd like to play it safe.


Smoking Dreams
When you smoke your dreams in a hamper
getting high in the dark,

there is only you to share them with,

as they burn to acrid ashes in your eyes.

You peer through the mesh to see

sun on the rim of the toilet seat,

rainbows on soapy mirrors,

the shining porcelain tub,
that promised but never delivered 99% pure
when you scrubbed skin raw.

You bow your head and scream into the drain,

pray no one hears your naked shame,

look up to see the hamper open, cringe at discovery,

but it's just a pair of smelly socks caught on the edge

to give you pause not to scream or whimper,

but stop breathing long enough to realize you can't.


You pound your temples, jump out of the hamper,

run to your bed, squeeze under it and sleep.

You dream an angel speaks to you

yet there never was an angel but that one time

you tore her wings off.

You couldn't bear for someone so Innocent to love you.

The scent of rose petals fill the dark

fading as last winters leaves,

telling the tale of unending loss.

Love left a while ago.


You weren't paying attention.


THE CAT'S BIRD TREE

was littered with delicate skeletons,
once the bird's, singing freedom songs.

Notes died in their throats, clawed into silence.

Over time, they left. Now My murdering cat

sits at my door, howls at their denial of her rights.

She seems to say in her particular queenly arrogance,

I must do something.

I clip her claws. The birds return.

They sing their songs again.

She watches, remembers, licks her chops,

paces around the tree, jumps, claws,

bewildered, falls, again and again,

until in defeat, she moans, meows mournfully,

and subsists on scraps from my table.

She struts across the yard, and as a leaf falls,

she crouches, watches. tail twitching,

leaps, swipes the leaf, batting it back and forth,

flipping, turning, jumping,

rolling in a primal dance.

She snatches another in mid air,

her prey, an icon, her skill, deadly,

as the afternoon wanes on her

battlefield of vanquished victims.


IF LOVING IS FIRST

who loves giving less

expecting more back

can never wholly love you.

wholly to be yours

while the world's a distraction,

stirs me.

To be with and share

is kinder than knowledge, girl.

I swear by all laughter don't frown

the most I ever mastered is less than you

laughing clapping your hands, calling me

to share what you've been gifted.

Love's not a secret to keep ...


and death I think, is no tattletale.


BLINK

When someone opens the lid

and light pours in

you blink a blink so long

when you open your eyes

you see black.


Out of the black

a single note chimes

once-

yet echoes in the dark

until you hear it in your heart

a thousand beats later

ears no longer able

to listen

to so delicately fine a tone.


Even a dog's ears cannot hear it

but your heart can

stirred

by the tonal strobe of your soul

so sensitive to the sound.


MORNING

Scissored, the compressed coffee's brick

sighs and melts as my fingers move inward,

as on you, your sweet breath on my mouth.

The smell of coffee sweating through the Coffee pot

hot as my hands on your body

whispering in your auburn hair

wanting you to feel loved.

Our closeness is as grains of coffee,

combining in the heat flowing through

the water to be richer with cream

sweeter in the mouth, on lips,

in goings and comings,

Words must work hard to express morning’s awe

in the kitchen, the bedroom,

within the soul’s deep cup.


SIGNS

If I seem unending in the pitch of a moment

it is a rolling still repeated over until I stop it.

I feel I am fragile as hollow bones of a sparrow

that pecks in the dust for a grain or two.

But I never make my body weight

and fall away in minuscule ways.

I hide from this world in my words

kinder than calamity, boredom and illusive pith.

Oh pith thou art a synonym of me

the heart bone of my words.

I am in a warren of signs to follow

and do not know where they lead

The terrible hardness of unknowing

does not callous, but hones to a raw

awareness of knowing how little

this humble man really does know.


It refreshes my nature in an effervescence

that flows in and out as the wind in the wings

of a bird, a sail, a pinwheel.


What else is there for me but signs

that take me where I should go?

What else worthwhile, fulfilling?

Nothing...nothing......


SHE FELT HER FEELINGS

Men were not enough,

betraying her more than once.

She loved men, and sex,

but they put her down

in their deceit and domination,

or business was the mistress

they loved more than her.


Still, they said no woman

loved them as she did.

Fourteen men

still no Champion.

She moved in and out with them

of houses and apartments,

packed and unpacked fourteen times.

Wanting something stable,

an anchor in the chaos,

She bought a house,

a tank, some fish,

got a cat and litter box,

fed them every day.

went to therapy,

went on drugs.


She loved her house, fish and cat,

and evened out her life.

She dated lots of men,

four five at a time, always

knocking on her door.

Everybody envied her independence

and the way men sought after her.

She was secure and stable at last,

except when with a man, when she

lost her marbles her breath, and

bewitched by his charm would love

until exhausted in his arms, sleep,

awake in the morning and think about

how she could find one who would be enough.


INSPIRATION AND THE MUSE

Inspiration is not coming to me.

Which means my muse betrayed

Me for another poet, so who cares

Not me. I will write without the bait

Of her smell or sense or being

Prove to her and her poets befriended


So I shall begin this poem and end it

Without my muse and illusive inspiration

And I hope and pray it will be an obsession

Of all poets who find themselves in this situation.


THE AFFAIR

The wives that didn't understand the sleight

Of hand the cheating man that left them,

Alone in bed reading a book or magazine.

Without the warmth or touch of another body.

Not relegating to sex vibrators or rubbing

Herself where he licked or rubbed his thing

On her before he entered her with his thing

Hard yet soft and smooth on the entering

Within time she found another man to play


The game better and more accomplished than he.


Her husband turned on again to her flushed face

And gleaming eyes with an independent attitude

He had never seen in her. He took her on a date


Worshiped her again and dumped the cheating.

She bore him a lot of children and he found his place

In life and never looked at another woman in envy.

Of course she still had her lover on the side

Some of the children looked like him and he

The husband never noticed the difference in their faces.

Never had seen the lover kept in wraps on the side.


There is a morale for this rhymed story

But it doesn't matter here for they are both very happy.


THE MADDING BOYS OF SUMMER
I see the summer madness in their eyes,
the rock and rolling Bad Boys of the night.

I see the summer rotting in their rolling eyes.

I see the summer burning in their skies,
the rock and rolling Bad Boys in their flight.

I see the summer madness in their eyes,

their crotches hard and heavy on their thighs,
the rock and rolling Bad Boys spread their blight.
I see the summer rotting in their rolling eyes,

when they mount to brawny vixens lusty sighs;
night mares riding through their fired flight.

I see the summer madness in their eyes,

the look of wicked whetstones on their knives;

the rock and rolling Bad Boys of the night.

I See the summer rotting in their rolling eyes.

I see the growing madness in their women thighs.
rock and rolling on their mares in heady flight.

I see the summer madness in their eyes.

I see summer rotting in their rolling eyes.


Bell port Unitarian Church Sunday Poetry Workshop

November has so far been kind
easing the island into winter
yellowing grass
still green by the fence
under scrimpy dressed trees

whose brown and yellow leaves
desperately cling to lower branches
in afternoon sun

Wind presses saucy buttercups
to bow and scrape the ground
bobbing yellow heads
cup leeward
toward the rolling bay
erect, browning stems anchor
frail petals, waving mischievously,
as wildflowers
white-pale-blue
shorter

dance erotically in place

three and four to the bunch
an orgy of color
in a final dance.
Suddenly a leaf's torn off by a gust
of wind whirling in a short
burst of freedom
rolls, tumbles, swerves right, left
to snag on a blade

of a stiff brown weed.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 19.01.2011

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