Stationary Schwinn Bike

Stationary Schwinn Bike

That behemoth of pain,
torment. Sleek as a steed-
or the sleeve of armor
round a steed-iron horse

it’s dark weight of cast iron
and the deep impression
on the blue rug. It stays
silent by the window

while sore muscles awaken
in the bedroom- tortured
prisoners. How it holds
back all raw emotions

with its sterile silence-
like ancient sins hiding
in closets, or microbes
beneath frozen tundra.

Speak Anyway

Speak Anyway

I may not be heard, but I’ll speak
anyway. I’ll raise my voice above
the deafness, defend the silent, seek
ears willing to listen to my love.

I may be a one-man band, but I’ll play
anyway. I’ll blow my horn under
the red sky, listen to dancers sway
and clap in the dark like rolling thunder.

I may be an old man, but I’ll count
anyway. I’ll cast my vote beneath
The silver hair of destiny. I’ll mount
A campaign and lay a laurel wreath.

I may be losing the war, but I’ll fight
anyway. I’ll fire my canon into
the cold hearts of the night
I’ll protest tyranny until my lips turn blue

I’ll speak my peace defending me and you
For freedom’s sake I’ll always be true

Post Traumatic Stress

"This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow-

First chill, then stupor, then the letting go."… Emily Dickinson

Post Traumatic Stress

Great pain comes after a foe's been downed.
First a formal feeling and self-denial.
A dead enemy without a human sound.
Another terrorist killed, a bloody pile

upon the sand, a corpse of bone and bile.
A young soldier gapes at the lifeless mound
frozen and numb of an act so vile.
Great pain comes after a foe's been downed

and seeing a person dead on the ground.
A husband, a father, a man with a smile-
an entity like himself pound for pound.
First a formal feeling and self-denial

and days and nights of turmoil and trial,
of anguish and suffocation like a drowned
man thrown overboard in the murky Nile.
A dead enemy without a human sound

haunts nightmares and dreams. Around
each corner, in every supermarket isle
ghastly grins, ghostly visages abound
of other terrorists killed, bloody piles.

Home again, nerves on edge, easy to rile,
a lost soul waiting to be found.
A life ticking away like hands on a dial
Great pain comes.

I Wish You Love on Your Birthday

I Wish You love on Your Birthday

With wonder I feel your passionate skin
I see the love shine from your eyes
And desire to kiss you once again
With wonder I feel your passionate skin
And feel revived as the light goes dim
And birthday candles turn to sighs
With wonder I feel your passionate skin,
I see the love shine from your eyes

A Deep Sadness

A Deep Sadness (A Rondeau Redouble´)

There’s a deep sadness when I look at nature now.
My children will never see what I’ve seen,
and their children will never experience the wow
of American wilderness- deteriorating, picked clean.

There’s an elegiac quality in losing the mythic dream,
American frontier, our own timely tale of how
we came to be and what to others we intend to mean.
There’s a deep sadness when I look at nature now.

Almost a betrayal of our forefather’s sacred vow
to protect and preserve the quality, the bright sheen
of America’s heritage, the luster on the nation’s brow.
My children will never see what I’ve seen,

crystalline wild rivers rushing through forests green,
unpaved paths meandering like a ship’s prow
over uncharted waves. The vision of America is lean.
My grandchildren will never experience the wow.

Nature’s modern transformation I do sadly avow.
Through my tearful eyes her lost grandeur is plainly seen
I shall never become accustomed to the now
of American wilderness-deteriorating, picked clean.

I dream of decades past, lush, verdant, serene-
days long before the highway, bulldozer or plow-
un-crowded days where life was less obscene.
There’s a deep sadness now.

Fish Tales

Fish Tales

Oh fish that tease our lines, you who swim
Through every rippled corridor we cast,
We’ll hook your greedy gullet, once again-
Your freedom we will spurn and end this fast

And will you resist and fight to the last?
Along the banks are mossy walls where dim
The beauty that all dying might outlast
Oh fish that tease our lines, you who swim

And we mistake your life surreal, a whim
Of what we feel, or how the time is past
With rod and reel extended from our limb
Through every rippled corridor we cast.

We do not know what lies beyond the mast
And wish our hook sets to be on the rim
But whether they be substantial or hold fast
We’ll hook your greedy gullet once again.

And sometimes when in thought, deep within
The natural world, we hear voices of the past –
Urging us without the guilt of sin
To spurn your freedom and end this fast.

To recount old fish tales again and again,
Each behemoth grander than the last-
Ginormous creatures with gargantuan fins
Jumping like dolphins with every long cast
Oh fish that tease our lines!

Angry Old Girl

Angry Old Girl

Earthquakes in China

Typhoons in Myanmar

Volcanoes in Costa Rica

Wildfires in Florida

Tornadoes in Georgia

Rampant death and destruction.

Mother Nature has her game-face on today.

Nightfall

Nightfall

the dark
of near nightfall
eases through the window
magnificent clouds of shadow
swirling

tonight
almost as if
we have been here before
we pluck stars from the sky
and more

tonight
thinking of you
I almost remember
all that you have shared with me
these days

how our
hours of loving
leave me longing for you
beyond any sense of pleasure
I see

just now
the simple deeds
of a man and woman
who have grown to need each other
in time

Talking Heads

Talking Heads

Like ravens gathering over yesterday's
fresh road kill, talking heads chatter
nonsensically ad nauseum. They dine
on the carrion of dead souls, pick clean

the bones of putrid flesh with special glee.
Cocksure, pompous, they crow shallow words
in chorus-mimes of each other's thoughts, words
and deeds. One is all, all is one. Perfect clones.

Once a victim is devoured, the birds move on
seeking another, an unsullied idealist, a person
of principle ready to die for the cause. Preen
their bloody feathers waiting for a train wreck.

Weeble heads bobbing in the Impala's window.

Night Out at the USO

Night Out at the USO

Sailors went to the dance with high expectations

Loftus found a girl with black fingernails

Dancing around a boiling cauldron and

Heard unintelligible incantations bathed in moonlight

Todd tangoed with a gypsy in a candlelight cave

Covered with hieroglyphs- hovering hallucinations

Undulating unconsciously in an underworld

Kampsnieder clung to the known- a pretty thing

A blue dress with large breasts; a sweet breath

A clone of dear old mother and home sweet home

Sayre sidled up to the bar, antagonized the local

Anesthesiologist and spent a bloody night in the alley

Dreaming of dolphins in the deep sea

Williams wept at the widow’s tale- the wrongful

Woe suffered at a murderer’s whim

He made her forget in a welter of mists

They boarded the liberty launch after the bash-

All that is except Todd, who succumbed

To the gypsy’s spell and became a flamenco dancer.