Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Summer Merlot

Summer Merlot

Summer again and we want
The same emotional silence,
Watching cacti bloom
And sketch the poignant hues,
Our lives pregnant with problems
And uneasy natural delusions.
Outside hazy mountains-
Snake trails low on the desert floor,

Yucca basking in the heat
The whole valley a stifling oven.
We gather on the patio
To cook salmon from the river,
And cool off in the shade,
Final gathering of the year
Sweetest before Independence Day
Steeped in annual tradition.

Sheila, our neighbor
Uncorks a special Merlot aged
In oak barrels ten years ago
Sweetened with time, un-corked
Then corked again. It’s ripe and smooth
We raise our glasses, our fortune,
Savor the moment together.

My son died this day last year,
Says Sheila, while we were toasting,
Celebrating the holiday.
He knew the Humvee was dangerous,
Especially on the triangle road of death,
You know the one where Sunnis plant bombs,
In dead horses and human corpses?
He didn’t see bomb before it exploded.

Could’ve been anyone’s soldier.
Nineteen years old, a simple boy,
A mere child. He never saw it coming.
Thank God for the favor. We stand there
Grape-stained as Sheila’s eyes
Tear over into a dark river.
She caresses her wine and sobs.
Sheila with no living children,

Trembling mother’s hand, lifts the bottle
Pours a glass, as if to toast
It was so dark, she says,
That when I heard the news,
She slowly sips the mellow Merlot
On the shady patio, that my life
Disappeared and I swallowed myself
Like the wine in my crystal glass.


Bait

Bait

When the bait is right anything can find you
Freshly baked cookies wafting

Under the noses of small children,
A five dollar bill strategically placed

Behind one’s chair; a police sting,
Pheromones oozing from sweaty pores

Like a bugling wapiti cow calling
The herd bull to a mating.

Last night when you slammed the phone
I panicked and just had to see you again.

Monday, May 29, 2006

Smorgasbord

Smorgasbord

A
Bi
Sex
Ual’s
Table
Boasts
Choices
Luscious
Sumptuous
Delicacies
Smorgasbord
Arrangements
Gastronomical
Lollapaloozas

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Spring Run



Spring Run

Spring and finally salmon
Enter the river’s mouth
A numinous moment for sacrifice
The silver guided missile-shaped
Torpedoes, the sea surge swollen
And hoary with Springers. Neptune
Watches from the surf, over
Plump chrome fish, and all ugliness
Is forgotten.

We drift the river
In the topaz hour before sunup
Two floating lures, a world apart
Two separate ways, two guys, one boat
Row past covered bridges, the banks
Of wildflowers, the island rocks thick
With otters and sea lions

We cast until daylight, a radiant
Summer morning, streamers sensing
The stream. The birds swarm like warplanes.
The waves round the rocking bow
Pulse like blood through the arteries

Today I had an e-mail from Iraq
“What a horribly difficult country”, My son wrote
After the day’s bloodbath and carnage
In a holy mosque near Baqubah. “During the night
A friend in a black coffin went home to Boston
To rest”.

Here on the same planet, we recline and fish
On the crystal water of the Rogue River.
An apparition trails through the bulrushes
And then a gull
And then a star.


Friday, May 26, 2006

Old Liars

Old Liars

The              drifters are useless old           fisherman
Drifters        taunt each other and              wink
Are              shameless boasters who lie     when
Useless        fish tales enter their               lips
Old              stories spun from a liar’s        purse.
Fisherman   wink when lips purse             slyly

The Concert

The Concert
Songbirds the voice of divas
Perch hidden in the pines
Waiting like opera singers
For the concert to begin

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Let Go



Let Go

We        are sorry to inform      you
Are        sad to give you           news
Sorry     things did not work    out
To         your ultimate              satisfaction
Inform  us please another        time
You      always have the open   door

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Afterworld

Afterworld
This is for the afterworld we lay in the stardust
After it had been war for half an eon,
And I kissed you and unbuttoned your jelly
And touched you and made you smile, my debauchee.
And of all the good things that lowbrow means
One of them is to touch you there
And make you smile, among the lecherous,
And feel your wetnurse and your sweet short halcyon,
And kiss your breeches and put my tonnage
Into the delphinium between your soft pale things,
Because the war has been much too long
And soon will come again, when this lowbrow dies.
I will hear serpents preach, and some of them be true,
But I will not regret that afterworld with you.


Monday, May 22, 2006

Pensamientos

Pensamientos

Many times when touching the honed sharpness of dreams in the night
I think of friends who have died without love,
Of hate and bitterness between brothers and sisters,
I mourn of wasted days and useless bickering and fighting
And the bloody deflowering between neighbors warring as these
enemies
And the wretched soul between.
I think of healing and peace between this town and that town.
Of this city and of that nation, of the earth choking
held apart
I decry of the depth of enmity that exists between Arabs and Jews
And between Christians, the poor and the rich.
The feeble elders, the sick dying , without the blessing of
healthcare, without the sanction of humanity;
I think of these sad things and the deep scars felt that wound
between black and white
As I dream these dreams in the dawn, as I awake

Sunday, May 21, 2006

The Drought

The Drought

September sky sleeps on the prairie
In the failing summer, the old faults.
Wilt in the change, with the farm.
Beside the Little crystal river,
Feeling the weight of the loss,
Crying and mourning to express death.

She regrets that the untimely death
And the turmoil that arose on the prairie      
Were both felt by the loss,
But only concerned to a fault.
The iron will staring at the river.
She tosses a rock and looks to the farm,

It's day by day now; but the farm
Is offering the food of small hard death
Limping like mad on the hot black river,
The sun and the man must fade on the prairie.
Rising up, the old fault
Withdrawing the clever loss

On its brow spectral, the loss
Half open above the farm,
Overgrown above the old fault
And her eyes full of dark brown death.
She laughs and cries, she loves the prairie
Is chilly, throws more rocks in the river.

It pays to pray, says the wise river.
I know what I know, surviving the loss.
With seed the wind sprays a parched prairie
And a thirsty plain. Then the farm
Inhales dust with a gasp like death
And smiles proudly to the fault.

But secretly, while the fault
Opens herself about the river,
The little rancho slumps down like death
From between the edges of the loss
Into the flower bed which the farm
Has carefully sown in the soil of the prairie.

Time to cut our loss, decries sad death.
The fault rumbles beneath the marvelous river
The decaying farm mulches the dry prairie.







Saturday, May 20, 2006

Wetback

Wetback

With every turn beggars around casas keep
Wild, eager transients bound as cold kennels
Withhold each terrier barking at crazy kids.
Wantonness endures, time bleeds all cruel knaves.
Whores easily treat boys, awaken conjoined kinship
When ecstatic tunes bolster aggressive cowboy kicks.
Wassails enervate toxic beer actions, codify kookiness.
Wickedness enwraps the border assaults, coyotes kill
With each trip by approaching cops killed.
Wet, eager, tired, borderland ancestors come knowingly.

Friday, May 19, 2006

A Beered-up World

A Beered-up world

I muttered it back again from the moon.
Not one January left. Only a Chev teased
and shattered morning was black and thumped
about from the art I used
in the word. The white pedal turned
for years, most keys held to the breath
of passing roars--the engines, brought by batteries
that waited the midnight out six lifetimes before,
simply was lots of rising.

A damn sort. Now, when the factory
of the machines was in dogs and flowers
he thought the machine was sensible.
Remained frantically with valves.
And when wise intakes in thought again
were one, remained the two-mile type of misery
from dead will or the nameless yellow
January to live in the useless finger,
or dots of throats all carburetors about the far air
of the breath, the dawn balloons with the way
of the town--most of all, above the heater
the windshield and our defroster there.

Nothing showed as slowly as indifference.
The dusty things beckoned through
the sunrises of a beered-up world
--wagered hot coffee--sudden need to drift--
these wheezed in the black roads.
Although I began in servitude the peace sighed,
stone- black enough to drift down all the way.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Truthiness

Truthiness

‘The quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true rather than those known to be true.”

He wants it to be true
Truthiness justifies his actions
Obscures the facts; his heart acts
His head freezes. She wants him,
He knows she does, he feels it
Every time she repels his moves
Returns his flowers, ignores
His calls. She’s just playing hard
To get, he thinks.
The truth of the matter
His truthiness.

Love's Fuel

Love’s Fuel

Sweet
Early
Light
Pouring
Ecstasy
Into
My
Sleepy
Darling’s loins
Through the window
Warming her
G-spot
From
The chill
Of bad dreams
Like a
Hot
Fuel of
Love

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The Final Drift

The Final Drift

At first it was clearer than air-the bonding river,
The chatter on the bank, the sky above us,
The earth within us raising the old lore
Over the holy water. But even then
The end was gnawing at our hearts. By now
It had been years since anybody caught
The silver side, now even the osprey and eagles
Are mumbling to themselves, and the ocean run
Has dwindled to a trickle below the dam
Where I’ve been drifting in a faraway way,
The mind and the memory fading, the last thought
No longer than my drift boat, one of my oars.
So reel in the lines , and cry in your beer
This is the final trip, and it’s over now

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Imperfection (A Gloss)

Imperfection (A Gloss)

We cannot crown ourselves with everything,
Nor can we coax the Fates for us to quarrel:
No matter what we are, or what we sing,
Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel.
…E.A. Robinson “Three quatrains”.

We cannot crown ourselves with everything,
Nor ever look far beyond the task at hand
In spite of where we go or what we bring
Our tunes are played by a greater band
And our dreams disappear like quicksand.
We cannot crown ourselves with everything

Nor can we coax the fates for us to quarrel:
They have it within themselves to roll
Our dice on the harsh green felt of sorrow
And chance determine destiny of the soul
We cannot tally tomorrow’s fateful toll
Nor can we coax the fates for us to quarrel:

No matter what we are or what we sing
Numbered plays spawn our accidental days-
Abort the dealing, the clever wheeling,
Haphazard reeling of simplistic ways.
Dark clouds obscure the brightest rays
No matter what we are or what we sing

Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel
A cutworm hidden in every rose
Trusted neighbors less than moral
A beautiful child that slowly grows
When unexpected, time will expose,
Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams

The mug of beer
Teeters on the ledge
Of the sill as if
The girl on the edge
Distracted and shattered
By a lighting bolt
Through the broken glass
Is purely a dolt

The foam is frothy
Half full and still
The feeling of emptiness
Promises to thrill.
Every sip excites
The neurons of mind
One more gulp and
I’ll soon unwind

Delusion

Delusion

Bitterness raged in her like a boil
She longed for control, possessed it
Only alone in her room, under dim light
Hated faces growing in her thoughts
Until all vanished but hers. She cried for them
Only until her waking returned the hate
Like recycled sewer gas. Then the phantoms-
Her mother, her brother, her sisters, past lovers-
Bayed at the window, or borrowed some sugar,
All of them after her…A small tree
In a vast Montana wilderness, certain that
The words spoken to her were about her,
That the earth breathed with her air. Like the movie queen,
Her mind a sound stage, she couldn’t bear
The thought that everyone everywhere performed without her.


Friday, May 12, 2006

The Secret Club

The Secret Club

You remembered the day was gloomy, it appeared odd
Always musty outside, clouds plastered gray to the skyline
And rain never came. Two houses down, the neighbors
Went rabid. Alice painted awful pictures
Christmas when they sent the gifts. Red holly berries
Remind you the streets were slick and tire chains
The law. Scarcity was real, purse and heart.
And each tick long as an eon. You remember aged
Bell ringers at the entrance, ringing their pleas
In air, and the indifferent passersby
Ignoring the kettle with their usual zombie stares
And life is different since you came back from Iraq
Knowing the things you knew then have changed.
You try to believe these things are the same,
But combat stress sneaked in while you were away, over-bearing
Its cause well-known. You still have need
To remember life, full and safe
Streets well-lined remind you of the plane
Your life took one day forever, some far desert place
The odd name you never recall. The year remains
A blur, like trees from a moving train’s window.
You find comfort in the company of comrades ,
You are welcome in the secret club they  have formed.

Granny Speck

Granny Speck

I remember Granny Speck
Above the neighborhood store
Alone in her wheelchair,
Face pasted to the window
A distorted, grotesque mask
Hungry for ordinary sounds
To penetrate the silence
Of frigid Montana winter.
I remember the sad eyes
Smiling as we trudged
Up the stairs, removed snow boots
And hugged the frail figure
Her raspy voice smelling
Of Jim Beam and tobacco,
Yellow-stained fingers clutching
Our small hands with a death grip
Grateful to be visible once
Again, even for a short time.
I remember the small room’s
Musty smells, drab colors and
Granny’s checkered dress, the
Same one she always had on.
Most of all I remember
Her easy laugh, the cussing
And railing against everything,
Poverty, politics, wind,
Neighbors, the dead, the dying.
I remember the day she died.
Alone, broken, crippled. Mida,
Her daughter found two uncashed
Welfare checks and $500,000 in
Cold cash under the mattress.
Granny always said that she
Never trusted those damn banks!


Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Answer

Answer
A
war
Was
Near
Wear
An
Ear,
Swear
Raw,
Earn
Wares,
wan
awe,
wean
ran
wrens.
War a raw ware,
Sears ears near wrens
Was wan, we ran, wean
New, earn awe, swear, wear
An answer.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Accustomed to the Dark

Accustomed to the Darkness (A Cento)

The Nazi within me thinks it’s time to take charge,
And to forget Remembrance of Things Past .
Keeping it simple; being in love with light.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow.
We grow accustomed to the dark.
Though the moon still hangs pale over the water,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
You glimpse the life between the streambed and the ripples,
That world beyond us which so often disappoints.
The sad of honest pain, the chill.
A tune with no more substance than air.
There is the persistence of song.
There’s so little sweetness in the music I hear now.
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood.


Stephens Dobbins-“Confession”; Tom Disch-“A Bookmark; Howard Nemerov-“Vermeer”; Sheenagh Pugh-“Sometimes”; Emily Dickinson; Raymond Carver- “Happiness”; Y.B. Yeats-“He Wishes For Cloths of Heaven”; Henry Taylor-“After a Movie”; C.K. Williams-“The Dance”; Robert Morgan-“Grain of Sound”; Henry Taylor-“Elevator Music”; Howard Moss-“The Persistence of Song”; Joseph Stroud-“Homage: Doo-Wop; Walt Whitman-“Song of Myself”.      

Monday, May 08, 2006

The Bartender



The Bartender

Mixes drinks
His liquor art
Cheers the sick at heart
Stirs and winks
Sarcastic high jinx
Hides his magic chart
Secretive and apart
His shaker, toxic clinks
Ice-filtered gin
The velvet kick
I shake with agues of the sick
His voice, “Fini old friend?”
Cold as a dead man’s skin
“This we always recommend—“



Sunday, May 07, 2006

LoveSpan

LoveSpan

You came into my dream,
Entered with your jade-colored,
Asian eyes,
And crimson, luscious lips
Across my lifespan
To remind me once again
That first love lasts a lifetime.
I felt our trembling hands,
Your warmth unlike a dream,
Flesh upon flesh; laughter of
Two teens squealing in the
Throes of first passion, no clue
That fifty years had passed.
The sun’s arrows pierced the
Dream and I awoke
With the peace
Of early morning
Through a gentle prism  

Political Balloon

Political Balloon

It is freedom to ride the hot air
If you give it a balloon
It will love you. Although
The worst hot air burns sometimes.
A rage blowing in the wind
Can cause it to kill you. This
Charm it shares
With the bombastic politician.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Uncle Harry M

Uncle Harry M.

Uncle Harry M., the resident perverb of the home
Walks around the solarium during morning’s rec. period
Chanting deep philosophy to old girls sipping tea and
Knitting afghans. He informs them that:

Sauce for the goose is the sacred law of humanity
Equality is sauce for the gander
Honest error has in it some lines of truth
A wise man corrects the deepest loathing
A fool and his mother-in-law are soon parted
Who eat too much, explode in the afternoon
exile is the best teacher
A fool and his monkey are soon parted.
A miss is as good as a smile.
Chaste makes waste.
Fine swords butter no parsnips.
Frome wasn't built in a day.
If the carp fits, wear it.
Slaughter is the best medicine.
Too many crooks spoil the broth.
Truth is stranger than friction.
Two heads are better than none.

They’d better get their act together as
the end is near.


Friday, May 05, 2006

Essence


Essence

Drinking from your fountain
The essence of feminity
Slakes my thirst
Like a desert oasis.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Tides

Sonnet at Half Tide

On the bridge’s brow
With the bowing sail
Near the boats rail
White waves round the prow,
Varying as they flow.
Sharp rocks retire
As burning sun’s fire
Tracks unfolding glow
Like bright despair.
On the leeward side
The foaming tide
With vividness so rare
On a long fog-ridden day
Gentles gusts, giving sway

Spirit




Spirit
A living flame
Camped in mystery
Rejects certainties, enclosures
Of notions leading nowhere or elsewhere
As the furrow keeps flowering
A lightning flash inflames
Illuminates
Spirit

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

A Blanker Whizzer of Benighted Stuff

A Blanker Whizzer of Benighted Stuff

Snuff falling and Nike falling fast, oh, fast
In a fiend I looked into going past,
And the group almost covered smooth in snuff
But a few weeks and stucco showing at last.

The wool around it have it—it is theirs.
All animism are smothered in their lakes.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The longbow includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that longbow
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A blanker whizzer of benighted snuff
With no expunction, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaghetti
Between stasis--on stasis where no human rack is.
I have it in me so much nearer homicidal
To scare myself with my own desert plagues.