Paddling Through Wheat Fields

Paddling through Wheat fields

After the flood of 1957
I found up in the pasture one spring
day a new canoe, with everything perfect
as it lay upright, swaying gently
in the mild breeze. I was twelve.

I loved all its mahogany finish, the
intricate curves, the exotic logo
etched on its bow; I sat in it quietly
among wheat stalks and paddled away
down the river of my mind. I was twelve.

Awakened, back nearer to myself, I heard
a pickup, just driving up, and I jolted upright
from my journey. It had a bed rack, for boats-
I helped the man load his canoe. He lovingly caressed it,
gave me five dollars, and sped off.

I wept. I was twelve.

She Wanted to Own Her Last Breath

She Wanted to Own Her Last Breath

Aunt Ethel spoke of being ill
Making a will
To share her voice
And make a choice

For final days of self- respect
To disconnect
The life support
To have a snort-

A farewell drink to bid adieu
To all she knew
A warm goodbye
Like apple pie.

Close Your Pie Hole Daddy

Close Your Pie Hole Daddy

I opened my mouth
inserted my foot
and then it went south
and I was kaput

what came over me
I’ll never know
I floated out to sea
and stubbed my toe

Sometimes we win
sometimes we lose,
and then again
sometimes we snooze.

Today it’s clear-
I was dead wrong.
I hold you dear,
like a favorite song.

I hope this isn’t the end,
and we can go from here.
You are my love, my best friend,
and today I shed a tear.

I misspoke, caused this pain,
wish I’d eaten my words.
If I could do it over again
I’d chew on giant horse turds.

Chemical Bond

Chemical Bond

Like Leonard and Virginia Woolf
we seem a natural fit.
My neurosis, your psychosis-
true symbiosis carrying on, two
separate organisms chewing on
on the same leaf.

Funny how we met through the
hazy biosphere of the asphalt
parking lot, amidst yellow school
buses, and my old camper- two
bees buzzing among the belligerence
of noisy schoolchildren.

Older now, our interdependency, like
the sun and the grass flourishes,
a photosynthesis of radiant energy,
a green going of goodness-our natures
melding, forming love and friendship
for all time.

Seeking Paradise in America

"There are always greater fish than you have caught, always the lure of greater task and achievement, always the inspiration to seek, to endure, to find." - Zane Gray


Seeking Paradise in America

He built his retirement dream
a cabin by a stream,
a place to live forever.
Before the roof was on,

he sold it for a song,
thinking he was clever.
He moved to way out west,
where living seemed the best.

Just a little slice of paradise
With green fields of clover,
then left before winter was over-
he couldn’t stand the snow and ice.

He took up a new profession,
Christmas trees his new obsession,
but when they grew to sprouts
he rented out the whole lot,

it wasn’t what he thought.
His head was filled with doubts,
so he headed south to old Mexico,
married a senorita in Calexico,

Left her there, headed for Alaska.
Now he’s home in Nebraska
on the homestead of his birth,
waiting to return to mother earth

P.O.W.

P.O.W.

I see her everyday from my cell,
remember days she was by my side
before my life became a living hell,
and the flame inside me died.

Is this how life was meant to turn,
decaying in a prison to yearn
for freedom before I die,
in a dark cage under a Baghdad sky?

In my dreams, she smiles, holds my hand
and gives me hope to stay alive,
reminds me of our future plans,
provides me reason to survive.

When she crawls up inside my brain,
for just a moment, I forget the pain