Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Speeding in Idaho

Speeding in Idaho

Walking down the road at ten below,
the children were lost in deep deep snow.

Let out of the pickup and told to walk
by a meth-crazed father who couldn’t talk.

“Git to your moms” this scraggly fool said,
little did he care if they were alive or dead.

At the two mile mark she could go no more,
laid down in the snow, frozen to the core.

Brother kept walking, only eight miles to go
along that icy road in Boise, Idaho.

Lucky for him a stranger passed by
and took him to emergency before he could die.

Little Jim lost a leg, a home, a sister that day
while the old man snorted their lives away.

Monday, December 29, 2008

The Book of Me

The Book of Me

Sixty-nine pages,
one for each year.
Some are smudged

vague, unreadable;
others deliberately concealed,
cloaked in secret.

Sixty-nine pages,
each leaf a fragment
of works and days

shrouded in mystery
between mundane chapters
beyond ordinary understanding.

Sixty-nine pages,
years of battles, scars,
memories, tribulations

cataloged in the library
of life, awaiting a fresh chapter
a new beginning, a seventieth page.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

New Year, New Trails

New Year, New Trails

The first day of this year
we wipe the slate clean
of last year’s failings, prickly
like cacti of the Nevada desert
or nettles clinging to empty
purses of losing gamblers,
and while migrant birds
open their melodic mouths
like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,
the two of us peer through the window
shouting “Hallelujah”!
From the rooftops
of all the ancient shrines
holy men sing the year’s
praises above the grateful throngs,
voices clear as footprints in the sand.
January’s message, the first
hint riding on the icy wind.
Snowplow blades churn the drifts
of last year’s significance.
December departed, a give and take
of memories, then November,
October, traditions and leaves
changing colors like our thoughts.
The summer months, oppressive
and delightful in heat waves
across the arid sand.
We biked the Zion path
in that rocky terrain,
our self imposed barriers
knocked down, our silver
strands of hair
blowing like bliss
in the breeze.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

It's All About Them (a holiday rant)

It’s All About Them (A holiday rant)

Insensate stones, devoid of feeling.
They don’t acknowledge the gifts.
Neither wisdom nor material goods

penetrate their shallow world,
gratitude a foreign tongue, so
much gobbledygook to suffer;

so much bother to reply with courteous
give and take, a simple thank you,
a small gift or a peacock feather.

Expectation without reciprocation,
without mutual interaction crushes
the spirit’s civility, the spirit of love.

Caring is sharing, living is giving-
the letting go of the “I”, the self;
freeing the caged bird within.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Grandma's Pie

Grandma’s Pie

The tree extinguished
Presents gone
Dinner leftovers-
Christmas spirit wanes
Family stupefied by gluttony,
Dazed by the TV’s glare
Sprawling like discarded
Gift wrapping in Grandma’s
Living room: Matt. like wilted lettuce.
Luke, like a tired runner, Paul with
Head on a pillow, eyes half-closed-
The three magi after a miracle,
Weary and sated, praying they left
Some room for apple pie.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice

Under the lids there are mountains jutting up
Small outbursts at the ridges,
And eagles hovering in the current of milky cataracts.

It is December. The nation has slept for eight years.
City streets were paved with half-truths, the Capitol
Was full of blind pigs, and minds that embraced every scam

Now we stir, and open our eyes. And drink coffee!
Sun shines through the crest of the cornea,
Fog and ashes rising, the whirring of chainsaws in the forest.

Now we dance and sing love songs by the crackling fire,.
Our entire being like a slave that’s been freed;
We know that the dictator is leaving us for good

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Guided Shoes



Guided Shoes

Shoes, contemptuous beasts
dissing enemies, foreign
presidents and irksome neighbors.

Shoes stinking, dirty, filthy rascals
tromping around in dog feces,
waiting for a head to bash in.

Shoes surreptitiously covering
terrorist feet, ticking time-bombs,
fanatical weapons of mass destruction

Shoes lying in ambush on nasty toes
licking arches of radical heel-chuckers,
anticipating the Evil-Doer anti-speech.

Shoes the guardians of the state,
like guided missiles, ready to launch
at a moments notice.

On Cloudy Days

On Cloudy Days.

When you are sad and tired and full of woe
And dozing in your chair, wake up and write,
And softly sing, and ponder the bright light
Your smile once gave, and of its brightest glow

How many adored your shining happy face,
And adored your look of hope on troubled days,
But I have adored the rebellion of your ways,
And adored the warmth of your embrace,

And sitting here under the rising sun
Whisper, a little sadly how time passed
And vanished into the clouds at last
And left its print on everyone.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning

There were many gifts
sleeping under the tree
still as statue.

And many ornaments,
round and oval,
multicolored and square,

Strands of silver tinsel,
candy canes and shepherds,
stars, miniature animals.

An angel that could save
a soul perched majestically
atop the fragrant pine bough.

The oak manger lighted,
its plain and humble stable
surrounded by gifts of magi.

Christmas stockings hung
over the crackling hearth, their
fine woven yarn-names,

intricate as the threads of history,
leading us through the confusion
of this year into the next.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Streamside

Streamside

From the middle of the forest,

Where the moon rises. Where the moon sets
On the treeline that blankets the woodland floor

From the roaring waterfall. From the clear river

Beside the worn deer trail. At the edge of the road. By the cabin,
the woodcutters home, the useless rusty chainsaw, the stacked
redwood logs

You thought I'd succumb to rejection.
But here I am. I look in my heart. And my heart is strong

Monday, December 15, 2008

Having a Bun in the Oven

Having a Bun in the Oven

I do not fully understand my poem.
It doesn't belong to me now. Like
A gestating fetus perched in the womb,
It arrives in its own time, fully developed-
A child of the magic of creation

Friday, December 12, 2008

Letting the Mind Wander

Letting the Mind Wander

these days, these times
of upheaval, and uncertainty
requires a certain style,
a letting go, an immersion
into fragmentary diversion
like a stargazer captivated
with heavenly bodies flickering
in far off space.

Letting the mind wander-
a task for dreamers, disillusioned
idealists disenchanted, disenfranchised
dodderers doodling in inner space
mulling over esoterica, the secret
arcanum of hidden ideas shared
with brothers and sisters of like ilk,
Masons of the mind and spirit.

Letting the mind wander
panning for gold in cold streams
like the Forty-Niner’s, like gamblers
playing the lottery, hopeful aspirants
seeking a new day, a new life,
sifting through the miasma of fool’s gold
in the great vein of the brain’s mine.

Letting the mind wander
over the plains, the vast emptiness
stark and startling, a blank slate
staring straight into one’s soul,
interrogating the interstices of grey
matter like a secret agent unlocking
furtive ideas of a hush-hush culture.

Letting the mind wander
reborn a child without preconception
or prejudice, flexible, pliable as heated
glass blown into tiny unicorns.
Malleability requisite to fix a broken
world. A planet made of peanut brittle.

Let the mind wander.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Lets Get Us a Few Camels Mate!

Lets Get Us a Few Camels Mate!

Feral, Camelus Dromedarius
like soldiers on a million-man
march, wolf down the outback,

ravaging quandong, native peach,
scarfing succulence from sweet trees
like starving bears after hibernation.

Plentiful as America’s former(Now extinct) bison,
camel hoards chew away Austrailian
plains, suck juice from indigenous plants,

ravage the land. Imported from Las Islas
Canarias, mangy critters, stinking from their
own piss, avenge man’s stupidity.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Too Many Hobbies, Too Little Time

Too Many Hobbies, Too Little Time

Passion burns-
Interest wanes-
Passion burns-
The fires cool-
Passion burns-
Winter arrives-
Passion burns-
Eclectic horses
Galloping full
Speed ahead.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Delaware Day

Delaware Day

Were they hoisting tankards of Sam Adam’s
Winter Ale when they congregated at Batell’s
Tavern in Dover on that frigid day?

Did the fife and drum band play till closing?

Were raucous barmaids tickling bawdy chins,
Coaxing the old boys into misbehaving?
After the ink was dry, did they swagger down
The cobblestone street, arm in arm beneath
The gas lamps singing and shouting “America
The Beautiful?”

Could they have foreseen fireworks in Pearl Harbor
memorializing the occasion’s anniversary
on the same date? How about the wars, the uncivil Civil,
wars one and two, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf-chapters one
and two, Afghanistan, and the myriad of other battles
lost in the interstices, between the cracks of history?
Were they prepared for the carnage?

Did it turn out as they imagined when they signed the
ratification? Perhaps they were having a Monday night football
moment, steeped and pickled in happy ale, floating between
the goal posts.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like

Red nose
Red cap
Red sleigh
Red lights
Red star
Red suit

Dress rehearsal for the big night
Fly to the east
Fly to the west
Fly to the south
And back to the north

Practice, practice, practice

Fill the bags
Fill the stomach
Fill the sleigh
Feed some hay

Time has come
To fly away

On Dasher
On Dancer
On Prancer
On Vixen
On Comet
On Cupid
On Donner
On Blitzen
On Rudolph

With your nose so bright
Guiding Santa’s sleigh tonight.

Christmas everywhere I go.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

The Blind Horse

The Blind Horse

Moved by your friendship, I feel like
the blind horse I owned as a boy in Montana
that a farmer had abandoned and somehow
left to suffer in my uncle's pasture.

I don't mean to say that I'm a derelict- broken,
discarded or deserted. In reality, I'm unsure
of just where my life stands. I'm more than
that old orphan in the pasture who knows
it's blind, wandering from corner to corner.

Perhaps I'm a thin shadow of my former self.
But caressing me, I know you are the good
hand moving across its tangled mane.

How can one describe that feeling when an animal,
Even with its clouded eyes, begins to neigh again?

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Shopping at the Peshwar Bazaar

Shopping in the Peshawar Bazaar

Shadows rush through the old city
Greetings from brass peddlers- ah salaam alikum…

Too early, we wait by the chapatti-maker's tent,
Search through the faceless silhouettes

Then in the near distance, the Tonga horn blasts its warning;
We gather our booty and take off running.

Through the bazaar, past the fruit stalls,
Sandaled feet crunching on loose gravel,

Exhausted hearts pounding
We dash towards the horn's blaring cacophony

Huffing and puffing, we yell wait at the Tonga driver,
His sagging nag gives a welcome whinny, just for us-

We smile, welcome words filling our mouths,
The wagon moves on, hooves clicking on cobblestones