To Be Happy

To Be Happy
you do not need to be
psychoanalyzed
rolfed
estered
altered
spayed
neutered
fixed
mooned
acupunctured
meditated
massaged
cayced
yogied
new-aged
astrocharted
holisticized
computerized
megatrended
therapized
androginized
evangelized
converted or even
reborn

Trust your senses-
Your common sense
your innate sense
Of justice.

Be loyal to your family
Your clan, your friends-
Your community (Let the
Nation-state go hang itself!)

Defend the stupid, the crazy.
Love the earth, the sun,
the animals. Avoid endless
disquisitions of suburban

hocus-pocus, Toyota dealers,
self –loathing intellectuals,
male predation, lesbians
in bearskins-embrace Jesus-

Oppose injustice
Defy the powerful
And speak for the voiceless.
Follow your star.

Benazir Bhutto, In Memoriam, December 27, 2007

Benazir Bhutto, In Memoriam, December 27, 2007

In Rawalpindi her ashes glow
The dying embers burning low
To mark a martyr’s final breath
To serve her country to the death
Her spirit survives this fatal blow.

She is gone. One short day ago
She lived, smelled flowers, was the main show,
Adored and was adored, and now she’s dead
In Rawalpindi

Carry on her war against the foe:
Wherever freedom needs to flow
Her legacy yours, hold it high.
Her death must be your battle cry
You must not slumber, while ashes glow
In Rawalpindi.

Faux Pro

Faux Pro

Nowadays he wears a cap-
always with "Titleist" above
the flap. Each day a different color; coded
like a drawer full of lady’s inscribed panties.
Mondays are green, Tuesdays yellow, Wednesdays
Red, Thursdays blue, Fridays Orange,
Saturdays mauve and Sundays purple {for
the Sabbath). His shirts match his caps.
To look the part describes his art. He fools
some of the people, some of the time. His
is a supreme sublime, his colors always rhyme.
He’s a sycophantic mime

Chicken Dinner

Chicken Dinner

She placed it flat on an old tree stump
after wringing its neck.
Limp, it flopped around like a
beached trout. Whack! Grandma’s
ax chopped the young rooster’s head.
clean off .“They don’t feel
nothing,” she said. Still twitching
she dropped the thing in a boiling pot
of water as I ran into to the farmhouse
bawling like a baby. Got no sympathy
from granddad who told me not to worry,
dinner will be ready pretty soon. Besides
“They don‘t feel nothing.”

Memory of the Mint

Memory of the Mint

When I visit the Russell museum
Where Charlie’s paintings hang,
I become ten again, selling the
Great Falls Leader to the cowboys
playing poker, puffing cigars
in Central Avenue’s Mint Bar,
“Waiting for the Chinook”
to thaw their hearts before they
die like the starving antelope
In the smoked-stained Russell
painting hanging crookedly
Above bottles of whiskey, gin and
vodka. Passed out at the end of the
bar an old Blackfoot sloshes
through the snowy mountains
on his painted pony dragging
a deer carcass, dreaming of the thaw.
I can hear my child’s voice calling out
“Leader Fall’s paper, read all about it,
Paper mister?” I hear the curator’s voice,
“Closing time” and like frozen ice in the
warm Chinook wind the memory disappears.

The Old Man's Advice

The Old Man’s Advice

Grandfather said, follow your bliss
Don’t be afraid of snakes in the weeds
A golden rule that can’t miss
Grandfather said, follow your bliss.
Don’t be deterred by that and this
Be happy in thoughts, words, and deeds
Grandfather said, follow your bliss-
Fulfill your wishes, dreams and needs

A Holiday for the Rest of Us

A Holiday for the Rest of Us

Today December 23rd is Festivus
A holiday for the rest of us
A relief from times that get the best of us
far away to the east and west of us.
Trying times that create a test of us
that zaps the vital juice and zest of us.
Today, December 23rd , we celebrate Festivus.
Please make no demands or requests of us.
Today we walk among the blessed of us.

A Fish to Remember

A Fish to Remember

Drifting the float at first light,
half asleep when a bright steelhead
mouths the jig and violently
dunks the bobber and lunges
clear out of the water. Walks, it seems
across the riffles, then splashes and disappears.
Line limp, I stare into the water as if
a ghost had just appeared. Well, it did.
And it occurred without witness.
I take this apparition with me everywhere,
Wherever I go. Even in my dreams at night.
Even out here in Nevada,
in the great, arid southwestern desert- my
home now. When I contemplate the river
and the loss decades ago, I’m amazed
how vivid the memory of a singular moment
of a fish flashing furiously then disappearing.
At night, asleep I listen to the river
and the splash at first light, over and over again.

Playing

Playing

He played in the dirt.
In the sand.
In the weeds.
Or in someone else's grounds.
He played in cars, buses, in merry-go-rounds.
Played at night.
Played in the farm yard,
Played in Hussman's Billiard Parlor.
He played by the river.
By the falls.
In the A&W root beer place.
Played in a Cadillac, and in an old truck.
Played in churches.
In prison.
In girl's hearts.
He played in rail cars, and once, in Madrid.
Played in the snow.
In the freezing sleet, he played.
On snowshoes.
He played on stairs, brothels, sleazy hovels.
He played eccentric music all of his life.
Now he plays in a wooden box.
Plays on and on.
Like a naughty boy

Christmas Memories

Christmas Memories

Tears fall and the river rises.
Today the memories warm me rather
Than break my heart.

Years and years of memories,
all my loved ones past
come together at Christmas.
Tiny children opening presents.
Oh the joy! How to possibly
recreate that, now that I am old?
I know! I'll have kids again! Not!

When the tears fall and the river rises,
I remember the reason for the season.
It’s not about me or my memories-
that soothing life-saving force.
What is Christmas all about?
Fear not, and think on this!

-And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven,

Christmas Week at Squaw Beach

Christmas Week at Squaw Beach, Agness Oregon

We followed bear tracks
through the snow
to the fishy green
water’s edge
and found them there-
the first winter steelhead,
lice-laden, ocean-fresh,
Kamalopsis wilderness
Rogue natives unaware
of the lurking lures. “Tis’
the season to be jolly”,
my partner whispered.
“Ho, Ho, Ho”, I replied.

December 2007

December 2007

December, and everywhere the first
of the Christmas spirits
have arrived again.

Snow fills the sky with coldness

What’s missing here? Sleds, children’s voices,
and the yellow lab not far from my easy chair.
A hearth warmed by Douglas fir. And even now
ringing in the memory, invisible faces
inexplicably appearing .

Bing Crosby’s “Silent Night”
plays on the radio.

I listen with my mind far away.

Grandma Always Said

Grandma Always Said

December is fruitcake weather
time to crack a bowl of nuts
and have a little get-together
lollygag in shopping malls
decorate the walls with heather.
December is fruitcake weather
when all the nuts gather.

A Page

A Page

Life is simply a page
a brief stage- markings on
the gauge of time
which neither rhyme nor
Supreme Sublime ever elucidate.
In the wait, the questioning
of great minds always fails
in the details of swirling wind-
strong gales, questions of belief,
blindness without relief, like
a thief in the night
undetected, without light
A slight silent awakening.

Confusion

Confusion

On the coast there's fog
Always wet fog, not just today.
Uneven whitecaps endless misty
Waves in the ghostly vapor spewing breath.
Rain is still falling at the end of May.
Fish begin to spawn in early July.
And here am I, alone by the tide pool,
Searching and searching, but I can't find myself.

Salvation Army Donation Box

Salvation Army Donation Box

When the SUVs pulled up
to the Salvation Army
donation box at Wal-Mart
I felt proud of Americans-
generous people, caring
folks, sharing abundant wealth.
Unselfishly bighearted
liberals driving shiny new
Toyatas, Escalades, Jeeps,
Humvees, Navigators-
all manner of high-end
expensive flashy rides.

Then weirdly, I noticed that
most would take instead of give-
rummaging like wharf rats
through piles of donated stuff-
clothing, electronics, cookbooks,
broken dolls, space heaters, an
array of eitchen midden-
a mound of domestic refuse,
a muckheap of human waste
passed on to the needy.
Like scavengers in a Tijuana
landfill, they’d quietly steal
away their new- found treasures
in the bowels of their shiny
cars and sneak away. I guess
the rich have always stolen
from the poor at Christmas time.

When the Neighborhood Bully was Sentenced

When the Neighborhood Bully was Sentenced

If we’re patient of ordinary things-
like a baby’s cry, or elderly ladies
slowly blocking the supermarket
isles, or deaf old men needing repetitions
of simple words or directions, or wives
burning our Sunday dinners, perhaps there’s
hope for us yet.

The patience of ordinary things is not
a given, a birthright; it is an art
learned at the apron strings of a kindly
grandmother, or in a fishing boat
listening to the gentle voice of a dad
guiding us through worm-threading
lessons. It’s a gift that not everyone
receives.

The patience of ordinary things is
intricately tied to words like kindness,
consideration, love, courtesy, reverence-
boy scout kind of words, words never thought
of in my neighbor’s household. Theirs was a
house of the impatience of ordinary things-
rudeness, yelling, bullying, arguing. No one
was surprised when John went to prison for
crippling Martha- his wife over a shirt stain.

Working for the Old Man

Working for the Old man

Today it rains, the old man’s snoring
Dreary day, cold and boring
Just sitting, staring through the glass
Time to get up off my lazy ass

There’s much work to be done
Forget about last night’s fun
And the beautiful red-haired lass
Time to get up off my lazy ass

The pub last night a raucous crowd
We drank; we danced, stomped out loud
Got a little drunk and full of sass
Time to get up off my lazy ass

Dreaming of Shirley, Alice and Anne
Won’t put bacon in the frying pan
The old man’s waking, passing gas
I’d better get up off my lazy ass

Sunday Flight to Baghdad

Sunday Flight to Baghdad

Forty-eight hours before your flight
Two long days, two long nights
We wait in silence before you go
Denying what we already know

Pretending life is as before
As we pace across the floor
And hear the wind loudly blow
Denying what we already know

Never easy this wartime leaving,
Always on the verge of grieving
We try to keep emotions in tow
Denying what we already know.

When duty calls you have no choice
Your life represents America’s voice
We wait in prayer before you go
Denying what we already know.

An Epistle for Paul as he Prepares for the third Iraq Tour

The armor has been shipped
Humvees, tanks, ambulances
readied for round three of war.
Shoes shined, camos pressed
almost ready for the door.
Minute details attended to
letters written, messages sent-
prepare last will and testament-
Every soldier knows the drill.
but yet the heart won’t be still.
The road ahead long and sad,
children alone without dad,
wives without the man they love,
no respite from travails of war
life goes on just like before,
or does it? How many times
must we be called to serve
for freedom’s sake? Leave our beds
for cold bunkers of Baghdad?
Be away for Christmas Day?
The list goes on and on and
on, but I will not say what
is in my heart and thoughts this
day as our son departs to
a distant land, rifle in hand.
God speed our boy you’re
in our hearts, thoughts and prayers.
Our faith is in the man upstairs
To keep you in his loving care.

.

Stream Full of Redds

Stream Full of Redds

Red
Gills are
Like fresh wounds
Moon-shaped cuts
Openings on the salmon’s
Throat allow cool water
To propel the silver-side
Upriver like a speeding freight train
Accelerating down the mountain-
Its final destination certain death

Restlessness

Restlessness

How are you now? What lies under your shell tonight
What will your thoughts dispel tonight?

And I The Coach only am awake to tell thee-
Eve sobs in my arms. You can hear my bell tonight.

Autumn rains fill up the old cistern well.
Asleep, she tosses and turns in her hotel tonight

Rabid television evangelists sell prayer-
Transfixed masses under a spell tonight

From the Abbey of Gethsemane, voices yell
Thomas Merton and compatriots raising hell tonight

Discombobulated, Keith’s life is like a ground swell
His love’s away and the earth is pell-mell tonight

Sonnetina for Solace

Sonnetina for Solace

Some days good, others bad for you and I
Most days filled with kindness and love
Usually those when you don’t think of you

And the times that I don’t yell at you
Angry days, misunderstood days when I
Feel like you doubt and question our love

Lonely periods of impossible tough love
Where all roads and thoughts lead back to you
With little room or time for you and I

Simple are the caring words I love you.

Savage Rapids Dam (On the Rogue River)

Savage Rapids Dam (On the Rogue River)

Passage obstructed
by blocks of stones, turbines
tame savage rapids
in sedimentary pools.

Providence said in
darkness at low tide only,
passages-obstructed
by blocks of stones, turbines

The salmon’s side
of access, sin barriers, or locks, barricades
lost signs of right, of gallantry
in sedimentary pools
Passages un-obstructed.

The Caricature Drawing Above My Bed

The Caricature Drawing Above My Bed

I awake and stare at the smiling face
A cartoon caricature drawn at the mall
A celestial light shining from space
My love beams from her place on the wall
Her eyes like beacons that light the way
As if to say “follow me to the sunshine ball,
Please get up I say, come out and play!”
Each day her happy visage a wake-up call

The days seem empty when she’s away
Like bleak, cloudy times with endless drizzle
Shrouding ghost-like ships on the foggy bay
Or when one’s fondest dreams begin to fizzle
Her presence fills each day with love
While smiling from the picture above

Grandma's Tattoo

Grandma’s Tattoo

Tattooed ladies like weathered billboards
knit from creaky porches, pearling afghans,

their bodies-sentiments of a bygone era
adorned with wrinkled art like old Burma-

Shave signs or painted ads on ancient
red barns- a grand display of body colors.

They flaunt their asses, wave their arms-
cackling old hens on a Sunday afternoon.

Puget Sound Nursery Rhyme

Puget Sound Nursery Rhyme

The Sound- large ocean inlet, deep bay habitat
harboring hoards of silver-sided salmon
eerily shrouds our anchored vessel, thick-sponge-
soggy-fog soaks us,

evoking womb-encased primordial images
through a miasma of tall Seattle skyscrapers
jutting upward like erect phalli, waiting
to fertilize the day

Anchor lifted, ghost-like, we navigate through
a welter of mists, blips on a radar screen
chopping through rolling waves,three men in a tub
Oh! rub-a-dub-dub

It's Heating Up

It's Heating Up

Some there are who say that the finish is near
and the white bear is a display of evidence;
some, glacial melt; some would say smog, but I say
none of these matters

to troubled masses. Time is a ghost that hides
in the light, blending into a crowded market
like a shy child hiding behind a mother's skirt
waiting for a treat.

Stewardship is difficult, ignorance easy-
simply overlook the signs, bluff like a blind man
or embrace immortality like a God
with olive branches

Night Thoughts

Night Thoughts

Usually the thoughts recur at night, when
dreamers
freed from the intruding schemers,
toss and turn in welcome familiarity on a feathered
pillow, alone and weathered
dark dreams speaking to you in the night. Perhaps the ideas come before
sunrise, when the imaginary seashore
seeps from an ancient space; maybe the dream is the bed of
origin, where you wonder, instead of
knowing. Whatever the reason, you will sense it—in visions
deep within the psyche , or by decisions
silently wrought out in the dim shadows, or by lurking
thoughts of danger, or working,
alone with a view, in a cavernous mind. Soon, though, the sleep
ends to shatter all your deep,
awake and aware with the fear and fright given to you .
How you handle it describes you.

Weight

Weight

Gravity

Pulls the muscles

Weighting down

An aging mind,

Tired body-

Like lead sinkers

Drowning in the deep river

As Our Light Dims

As Our Light Dims

Going down hill
The future seems so much bleaker
Going down hill
our eyes reveal no joyful thrill
As the fading light grows weaker
Silence becomes the featured speaker
Going down hill

This is for You

This is for you, the girl on the tractor

sweating in the Montana sun, dreaming

of soft Parisian twilight, strolling down

The Champs-Elyseé , basking in the shadows

of the Museé de Beaux Artes.

This is for you, on your sixty-eighth birthday

counting the growth rings on the tree of life,

yearning for the soothing salve of the Rogue River,

crystal water running through your veins, seeping

purity into the soul’s solitude.

This is for you, the war-weary soldier

seeking solace from a surfeit of ravage,

scavenging through rubble of mosque-mania,

weeping for the massacred children,

questioning sacred duty under the guise of freedom.

These words are for you, and you and you,

Thirsting for nostalgia, simplicity; shunning

Complexity and derivation, reaching for clarity

Of thought, embracing beauty for beauty’s sake,

Loving the light shining through the window.

Our Connection

Our connection, a safe harbor, a warm womb

encapsulating our turbulence , stilling us against

roaring waves crashing the shoreline.

Too safe perhaps. Lingering in the interstices

the need to create without compromise, suffocation,

erasure- afraid of losing self, freedom.

So we struggle between holding on, letting go-

balancing between need and desire

like pre-pubescent teens in turmoil.

The Drawing

The Drawing

Her face- squirkels, hatches, cross-hatches-

shadow values of light and dark drawn from dreams;

her depression drearily depicted, like the gloomy drizzle

Of a rain-drenched day; lines of lassitude detail the comatose

torpor of sadness, the sorrow of trickling tears, cold charcoal

lips blended with graphite tips, rendering real his art, light

evolving from dark.

Time Change

Time Change

The clock

Sure and steady

Springs forward

Like a hungry robin

If only time stood still

Something for Nothing Man

Something for Nothing Man

Always he does things on the cheap

Free and easy his battle cries

Cobwebs line his leather purse

He fleeces friends like woolly sheep

Free and easy his battle cries

A coupon-clipper extraordinaire

Give him gratis or give him death

“On the house” his favorite words

Cobwebs line his leather purse

“Free of charge” his favorite tune

Low-price bargains make him swoon

A gratuitous, something for nothing man

He fleeces friends like woolly sheep

When the check comes and it’s time to pay

He runs like hell the other way

Well fed, foolish and friendless.

Birds and Bees

Birds and Bees

It's profound
she said as I spun my deep yarn
It's profound
she said from the loft of the barn
where I told her there's no harm
for birds to sing and bees to swarm
It's profound.

Expletives Undeleted

Expletives Undeleted

Mother fucker.

Mother fucker

Fiddlesticks,

Fiddlesticks

Gosh, darn, golly, gee

Caught his thumb

In an old car door

And went sailing out to sea

Motherfucker

Motherfucker

Shit fire

Shit fire

My heck, holy crap

Stubbed his toe

On a jagged rock

And felt like such a sap

The mothers came a-running

The fiddlers kept a-fiddling

And every time some hurt arose

The expletives kept a-dribbling

His words a sort of code you see

When nothing else will do

Forgive him mothers everywhere

He doesn’t have a clue.

Smoke Rings

Smoke Rings

She always smoked afterwards

arching her fine cat-like body

while gently squeezing the softening

member with her free hand. Smoke

curling in perfect ringlets. Volcanic

her O-shaped lips still tingling from

the taste of love. It was always like that;

him gently snoring satisfaction; her silently

blowing bands of hazy smoke rings

over their cooling bed of love.

Terrorism

Terrorism

overwhelms us
fretting from fear and anxiety
overwhelms us
terse terror in a society
a troublesome child's variety
catastrophic sobriety
overwhelms us

The Church that Granddad Built

The Church that Granddad Built

The old deserted church, sits by itself, weeping,

faded gray its time-worn wood and drooping cross,

its saints long-gone and living it up in another world.

If you listen carefully, you can still hear voices

of the choir, singing through the peeling shutters.

Sacred hymns riffling through broken down rafters.

Soft chords remember solemn, but happy Sundays.

Silent specters sing of joyful, love-filled days

of warm Sabbath mornings and long celebrations

of birth, marriage and death. Now the deer, the raccoon

the nocturnal owl-new parishioners worship through

broken windows and musty air of the silent altar.

Remembered and Reminded

Remembered and Reminded

Your card

wishing me a Happy Birthday

came in today’s mail.

I welcomed it like

the draft notice I received

on my eighteenth birthday.

The Map behind My Desk

The Map behind My Desk

Push-pins plaster the map
Behind my desk. Pinpointed
places, dream-travels. Places
to carry me away from today.

Flaming Gorge
The Red Sea
Old Faithful,
The Great Wall
The Great Barrier Reef
The Lesser Antilles
The Smithsonian Institute
Tutankhamen's tomb
Custer's Battlefield
The Las Vegas Strip
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Anyplace but where I am.

Letter from an Ex

Letter from an Ex

Like a guided missile, your epistle

shooting through thin layers of tears

strikes my heavy heart, a thistle

tenaciously sticking to my fears.

Often your letters make me bristle

and drown myself in many beers,

but today’s tome makes me whistle

and forget about these lonely years.

You remind me of when first we met

holding hands by the little pond-

loving, gentle without regret

sharing dreams of far beyond.

The kids, no longer you say upset,

school is fine, they’ve moved on

and find comfort in Gus, the new pet.

Seems they’re busy dusk to dawn

"Oh by the way, the new man I found-

you know, the one I left you for;

well he’s gone, turned out to be a hound,

so I kicked his butt out the door.

I kind of wish that you were around,

but I guess that’s too much to hope for.

At night the house is an empty sound.

Gotta go, the dog is scratching at the door."

You tell me to write sometime

or stop in for a hot meal.

You even have my favorite wine.

Sorry sis, I’d rather swallow turpentine

Why Did I Log-on Today?

Why Did I Log-on Today?

Your e-mails always surprise me-
Fast moving trains they arrive and
disappear like specters smearing
the clarity of my consciousness.
Unable to grasp the rat-a-tat-tat
of your machine gun thoughts,
I settle for the pure music and sound
of your cacophonic words dancing
in my mind.

Postcard from San Diego

Postcard from San Diego

Ran into Jorge at the post office today
We were wondering about you
Must be nice to have friends that care
Jorge and I had a cerveza together
He told me he's returning to Mexico
And he asked for your address
So he can send his mother's tamale recipe

Memo

Memo

I didn’t eat my yogurt today

We went to the casino

And ate a ham steak slam

In the afternoon I noticed

It’s time to go on a diet again

Dear Alice

Dear Alice

Went to the funeral after all

Because I thought somehow

It would make a difference

It should have been a solemn time

Like a new beginning

Though the healing never came

Instead I started chatting with old friends

And we started remembering

And eating crepe Suzettes

She’s going to a good place

And she knows I won’t change

I will though

Haibun for a Small-Town Marine

Haibun for a Small-Town Marine

Their son was a jokester, easy going and popular. He loved golf and vacationing in Myrtle Beach, S.C. But there was a serious side too, and his parents said he believed in serving his country. As a bonus, he thought military service would help him one day get a job with the FBI or CIA. Before leaving for Iraq He showed his girlfriend the giant American flag flying over the car dealership on highway 79 and said “That’s why I joined the Marines.” When they brought his 18 yr. old body home, the hearse passed by the same flag.

A small bee returns

Seeking sweet nectars

From the same flower

Expiration Date

Expiration Date

Life doesn’t retire, just expires

like obsolete goods in a store-

fades into grays of distant shore.

Aging douses the burning fires

like obsolete goods in a store,

out-of date, like worn-out tires.

Aging douses the burning fires-

fading flames that used to roar,

out-of date, like worn out tires-

Old and not of much use anymore.

Fading flames that used to roar,

the King of Beasts in full attire-

old and not of much use anymore.

Deserted child without desire-

the King of Beasts in full attire.

His regal growl a softened snore.

Deserted child without desire,

quietly drifting, drifting ashore-

fades into grays of distant shore.

Life doesn’t retire, just expires.

An Omelet

An Omelet

She was the cheese

I, the egg folded around her.

The perfect omelet made to please.

She was the cheese,

tasty bait to make old cats purr.

Now she’s gone, my life’s a blur.

She was the cheese

Biology 101

Biology 101
Gasping
Giggling
Squiggling
Squealing
Squeamish girls giggling at gasping toads
Squiggling squishy in squealing fingers

Amereican Idols

American Idols

American idols, icons of generations

Fulfill dreams and aspirations

with song and praise, athletic feats,

salve wounds of life’s defeats

humdrum changed beyond its station

transform dullness throughout the nation

lend credence to the spirit’s sensations

as honey to bitter tea makes sweet

American idols

Heroes of the heart’s creations,

emblems of heroic aspirations

where hope and heart often meet

under a lamp on a common street

America Idols

Blink

Blink

Blink, blink again

Minutes marching before your eyes

Blink, blink again

You don’t have time to take it in

Too soon the day will come to die

There’s no time to sit and cry

Blink, blink again

Studying a Female Nude in Playboy Magazine(a parody)

Studying a Female Nude in Playboy Magazine (a parody)

What I notice are not the breasts
jutting like headlights, not the buttocks
where they jiggle like bowlfuls of jelly,
not even her Venus staring like a steamed clam
in a chowder of thick soup.
It is the seductive puckering of red labials
that means a kiss has been formed.
It is her power, full, supple, lethal

Hindsight

Hindsight

I.

At success’s brink: how is it-

In the ring of a winner’s circle, standing there

Among faces of cheering fans

Roars and roars, far across the track? Din-

Exhilarating and loud-

Fills the air and your

Admired and new-found fame amorphous,

Limp. Mr. President,

Can we lend a hand to help

Through spheres of haze

By seeing your life so clear,

Who welcomes us stoically and certain?

II.

At success’s brink: how was it-

In the ring of the winner’s circle, looking back

Among the faces of cheering fans

Back and back, far across time? Success —

Insatiable and cruel —

Progged the air, and your

admired and long-gone fame went missing,

Lost. Mr. President,

Could we have lent a hand

Through spheres of darkness

By seeing your life so clear,

Who welcomed us stoically and certain?

Chandra Madash (The holy man) prays

Chandra Madash (The holy man) Prays

Ganges

My mother

Polluted

Filthy

Woman

Your water

Flows in my veins.

Raw sewage

Seeping through

The core of my

Spirit.

Your timeless

Ablutions

Wash away

The sullied

Sins on my soul.

Your gentle tears

Irrigate my sorrow,

Though dirty

I love you. You are

My mother.

One Good Eye

One Good Eye

There is an old man at the poker table
with a wrinkled face and a glass eye.
His hands clutch a pair of pocket aces
One is red, one is black.
His face shows no outward tells.
He bets at the pot with a sleepy face,
but his heart races with a sense of danger.
He means to live on the edge until the end.

Another Wonder of the World

Another Wonder of the World

Something exists that doesn’t adore socks

That makes them disappear without a trace

And hides their woolen partners in the night;

And leaves a cohort, upon the icy floor.

The work of thieves is something else:

It can be explained by simple greediness

Why they have stolen things, the this and that

Of ordinary possessions acquired,

To feed their starving brood. The sock I mean,

No one has seen it leave, or heard it leave,

But at week’s laundry time-we find it gone.

Vanished, a UFO without the slightest hint.

Perhaps the answer, never clear, lies deep

Within mysterious air like

Aliens, astrophysics or aardvarks.

Nostalgic Blur

Nostalgic Blur

I remember when America's
Places had their own faces

When each and every town,
a unique watermark impressed

upon the landscape's stationary.
Held up to the light, its own identity.

I remember back-country roads, small
cafes, mom and pop stores where jaw-

breakers sold for a penny and giant pickles
soaked in a briny barrel. I remember ten-cent

double-scooped banana splits at Baylor's parlor,
admiring the way you savored the sweetness.

I remember when Butte was Butte, Helena
Was Helena, Fresno was Fresno and

New York City was paradise, Hollywood
a fantasy. Yes, I remember well.

I suppose the blur like my failing eye sight
is inevitable. Lines between places distorted

Like the yellow arches, the chicken buckets
Or the little" te quiero" Chihuahua's home.

Or the endless sterile bypasses connecting
Wal-Marts with woodland wayfarers

caught in the headlights of progress. Driving
home today, my thoughts are of yesterday.

Madwoman

Madwoman

Lucid
Placid
Rancid
Acid
Screaming in the lucid, placid night
Her voice rancid, like burning acid

Moving Beyond the Margins

Lifting the latch,

moving beyond the margins

of one’s own doors

unfolds a greater paradise-

a river, a place of many voices,

travelers drifting along

in the crests and falls of waves.

None is timeless, all historical.

Everything in the end passes.

We desire to be liked, contemporary.

My words are nothing new. Creation-

an imitation of what already exists,

already admired. To be contemporary

is to rise through the scab of the past,

like fire in the mountain, deepest heat

born to carry a new idea

into the rarified air.

Blur from the Red Feather Bar

Blur from the Red Feather Bar

A vagrant worm, Indian Joe Gans hoists
his head From the strange pillow, prodded by

The buttons on his bloody, rumpled shirt.
A hypnopompic yawn gathers saliva

around the whiskey-dry mouth.
Agog at the odd-looking woman rattling

pots in the distant kitchen, he contemplates
the ramifications of yet another lost night,

another meaningless one night stand, another
deception. "How would you like your eggs Sweetie?"

Progged from his reverie, he replies "Over easy,
real easy Kathy, or is it Marge?"

What I'm Trying to Do at 6 a.m.

What I’m Trying to Do at 6 a.m.

I try to mirror the mud and leaves.

Show the darkness of honeybees,

the brightness of black holes

and light fires for the cold

where the graying ash that gasps its

last breath upon the fire grate and

the graying ember that hears its sizzle,

re-kindles and shines its light into

the dark corners of obscure night.

To release the laughing grass

and boisterous clouds and bury

the dead in living shrouds.

I try, try, and try to hear the shoe

in the closet licking its wounds.

Ms. June's Daydreams

Ms. June’s Daydreams

Librarian

Shy and bookish

Stacking books

Like cords of firewood

On dusty bookshelves

A girl scout once

Brave and loyal

Selling cookies

Like tokens of love

If only he’d light her fire!

Coup d' Oeil

Coup d’ Oeil

Today,

a cricket chirped

On the baseboard

right under

my sleepy pillow

and a song

of Pinocchio

entered my dream

Yahoo Advisory

Yahoo Advisory

Today the screen
advises

Smoky the brown
bear

against eating
burritos

from Taco Bell
trash

Widower

Widower

After the passing
his way of life fell
into drink, the golden
years, and that which should
accompany an aging man
as respect, love, agreement,
scads of friends, he couldn't
look forward to; but instead
torments, not shrill, but deafening.

Great Falls Elementary Schools

Great Falls Elementary schools

At Emerson all the children have

Transparent Eyeballs

At Whittier they are snowbound, cheerless

and gray; December days are brief

At Lowell they wait for rare

perfect Junes with golden spurs

At Longfellow They sing of Hiawatha

with simple and fresh hearts

In Montana they all ride the yellow

school bus with poetic winter spirits

to bardic-named schools, appellations

carved in granite like tombstones.

In the Name of Love

In the Name of Love

Hair in rollers
Antennae atop curly dome
Hair in rollers
Gone the way of silver dollars
Archaic as the afro comb
Your hair tonight is like a poem
Hair in rollers

An Alphabet Anthology

An Alphabet Anthology

The N's use the N-word
to describe their own
entities and jive jokes
using the H-word
in the name of comedy
to speak of my sister.

A Texas mayor in Hicksville
wants to make a new law-
a law of no N-words in the
H-tonks of the dusty bowl
of no N-lovers.

Senator Macaca forgot he
was a J and denied ever
Using the N-word at a frat party.
After all Jose was an S not an N.

In May all the N's, H's, J's, S's,
And even the G's grow in my
garden in perfect harmony and peace.

Fear of Discovery

Fear of Discovery

All my life
up to now,
I've played the game
without much gamble

pretending to be a player,
a risk-taker
in the arena
of daredevils.

All my life
up to now
I've been afraid
I'll be found out.

Caught in the Act

Caught in the Act

The deer smell me.
They twitch their button noses
into the gentle breeze
of night air. They sense
probable danger. I am
encroaching on sacred ground.

The thoughts in my mind
are to lie still under the canopy
and position the scope of my rifle-
to catch something by being quiet
a little while, but with a sharp
eye of focused attention.

But the deer hoist their white tails and slip
away silent as the night.
And I must leave now-
they've recognized me for what I am-
No lover,
No friend bearing gifts.

Night on The River

Night on the River

At the Rogue’s edge

the moon falling

bumps its yellow nose

on the cattails

and brown frogs

spew melodious echoes into

the deep pools

beneath the ripples.

A blue crane is perched

like a blue cloud---

or a mood of remoteness

in the grasp of some odd power

while all around me the red salmon

are splashing upstream again

from the bubbling beds

of black gravel.

In a while, I’ll think about

what I’ve observed---

what it could mean---

what poetic thoughts I might

write about it, and so I think

I will go sit before my keyboard ---

I shall rest in my thoughts ---

I will reflect

into the vast nightfall

in which I am swimming now,

like a silver fish,

so easily,

so gracefully,

I am almost the salmon ---

almost the crane fading over the river

on black clouds of night.

Sixty-nine

Sixty-nine

The good news is sex remains alive.
Thought it would be over
at the fading age of sixty-five.
Simply a hazy memory, like
the chocolaty taste of a Snicker bar,
or an Uncle Sam poster declaring
"I want you" or the mellow sounds
of Paul Desmond's sax soothing from
the nickel jukebox at the A&W.
Gone like Scarlett's wind or Elvis'
pink Cadillac.

The bad news is sex remains alive.
thought the end a given
as I celebrated number sixty-seven.
Now approaching sixty-eight I can
hardly wait to hear your footsteps,
the soft patter of feet, slipping quietly
through the garden gate.
Last night was divine. If I keep
this up, I surely won't reach sixty-nine!

In Praise of Ms. Moore

In Praise of Ms. Moore

Their voices sound

like replicating memes-

dissonant as barnyard

roosters competing for crumbs

of stale bread, envious of free

pheasants foraging in fertile fields

beyond the fences.

Better to be a chicken

with ones head

cut off than to be

derivative, unintelligible.

Autumn Pastoral

Autumn Pastoral

Lowing Angus in the valley

Lend excitement to the fall;

The brilliant colors of autumn leaves

Flood the black pasture.

Within a portrait such as this

I still feel your soft thighs.

Rousing

Rousing

Without eyes, the forest is dark

Without voice, the lake is silent

Without love, my heart is stone

Without that spark, my life is bleak

What compelling power in the stars

ignites us before we wake up?

Doggerel Days

Doggerel Days

More childish than philosophical
An imbecile among the wits
Irreverent, somewhat agnostical
I'm prone to awkward rhyming fits

You say "cheese" I say "sneeze"
Tomatoes soon become potatoes
An ass for assonance ,I please
The ear, rather than the likes of Plato

I'm insignificant and trite they say
Unable to control my strange addiction
I wish it were some other way,
Perhaps a foot-fetish predilection

Collecting stamps a bore, dead insects gross
I refuse to monger among the whores,
Or suck on pretty ladies toes.
Alas! My doggerel ingrains, evermore!

It Ain't Over Til it's Over Baby!

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;…Shakespeare

Henry V

It Ain’t Over Til it’s Over Baby!

On the flattop’s deck

Bowing his neck, George

Said “Heck, it’s over!”

As helicopters hover like

bees in clover overhead.

Declares victory, “They’re dead”

The terrorist dread done

The task won. Wars

are fun. Silly grin

upon his chin amid

the din of cheers,

mugs of beers and

loyal seers shouting praise,

hallelujah-hands raise high,

a maze of American pie

as mothers sigh relief

and cry with joy,

while hoi-polloi-common

men enjoy the win,

the smug sin of pride-

the thin red line

grapevine of cold, lucid

premium wine from dross

Like a true boss

No loss of flavor

But to savor inexcusable

Horrific behavior while dead

Strewn about, lead coffins

On beds of sand

honor a band of

brother's dance to a real end.

Abreaction

Abreaction

They went too fast that fateful day

The car sped over clay and rocks

I saw her pray beneath the wreck

and pick glass from his neck. Sliver

shards , bloody specs like ladybugs

mixed with tears and hugs spackled

the tire’s lugs. Beneath the crush

a soft moaning, a flush of air, and then

the siren’s rush above the spill

the penetrating chill of fear,

certain thrill from death’s allure-

a gruesome guided tour of circumstance

like some poor pilgrim’s first sighting

of a scalping, bone-biting fear,

transparent lighting that reveals

oneself in dark that heals panic

against turning wheels of self-doubt,

glad when able to shout, It’s

not me!. It’s about the living-

alive, among the dead and dying.

The Resident Dissident

His words become cliché

with each day, promises

shaded gray like clouds-

obscure shrouds blurting

out loud –false alarms

voodoo-like charms, curses

of harms way. Content,

a politician’s bent, his

time spent spinning tales

and covering trails avoiding

strong gales. We present

The President- the resident

dissident of the house

that Thomas Jefferson built.