Friday, November 30, 2007

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.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

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

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

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

Monday, November 26, 2007

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.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

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

Monday, November 12, 2007

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.

Friday, November 09, 2007

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

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

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.