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?"