A Prayer Under the Blue Moon

A Prayer under the Blue Moon

Lone Guardian of the blue moon, protect me
from myself in this New Year: instruct me
to be calm in turbulent seas: support
my creative efforts:friendship and writing.

Do not abandon me in the throes of despair;
allow me peace daily, delicately direct my dreams,
temper my intolerance with a gentle air,
a jaundiced eye against despair.

Extend me periodically the charity of your hand.
When every pore bleeds in pain, take away the crutches.
Open your heart to my plea.
Let me walk unafraid in the shadow of death.

Foul-tempered I am sometimes with friends:
insult their souls with rage: Forgive me Lord.
harmonize my fractured spirit,
Lone Guardian of this blue New Year's Eve moon.

Words Rendered en Plein Aire

Words Rendered en Plein Aire


Shapes and colors, presidential suite
In a copper canyon
Sun's rays atop Big Chief Sleep EZ

White Mormon steeple, lonely desert spire
Calls to church all good people
Over midden of ancient Piute fires

Artifacts and bones of native hunts-
The mulch of modern man
A blending of cultures

Virginal sacrifices on the Virgin River
Spirit on spirit- piling on of eons
A divine power emanates from the earth

Shaping nature's clay, guiding the painter's
Brushes, unspoken freedom- flourishes
fully in the December desert.

A Homeless Iraq Veteran Explains

A Homeless Iraq Veteran Explains

The homeless are familiar with the street.
They trudge in winter snow and ice,
find themselves without shelter or heat,

are acquainted with every form of vice,
common as the air they breathe;
common as a scalp filled with lice.

The homeless have no luxury to grieve,
preoccupied with looking for a meal,
a bed, a drink, a simple reprieve,

a respite or a sanctuary to heal
from the heartless wounds of war-
a place of love, an even keel.

The homeless are like you and me,
one break away from being free.

Snowbird Christmas

Snowbird Christmas

Cranky as the trailer's space heater,
I groan and grumble in pre-dawn chill,
wait for the coffee pot to finish playing
reveille to my numb mind.

Shuffling around the RV Park,
elderly snowbirds make mischief,
cackling like contented
chickens under the Arizona sun.

A grateful respite from grueling
gray cold fronts of Great Falls,
Saskatchewan, and Denver.
A time of celebration and decoration.

Christmas lights, ornaments, nativity
scenes, Wal-Mart Santas and reindeer,
a plastic Jesus or two adorn motorhomes,
trailers , old converted greyhounds.

Christmas Eve, wrinkled faces gather
in the clubhouse by the artificial tree,
reminiscing of Christmases past,
speaking of children in childish voices.

Christmas in Summit Park

Christmas in Summit Park

Christmas day I got up before the dawn,
put on my thermal clothes in the frigid air,
then with old bones that ached
from age and sub-zero weather, shoveled
deep snow under the driveway floodlight.

The house still slept as I fed madrone logs
into the fireplace, made coffee, warmed-up
the cars. No one noticed. When everything
was cozy, I'd awaken them.

They spoke sparingly to me, me
who had heated up the dawn,
and scraped their windshields as well.
What did they know, what did they know
of a dad's loneliness and love?

Massacre at the Kabul Bazaar

Massacre at the Kabul Bazaar

It was quiet except for the birds
They wouldn’t speak or want again
After a massacre there are no words
It was quiet except for the birds
It’s a theater of the absurd
Like the silence after rain
It was quiet except for the birds
They wouldn’t speak or want again

Short of Breath

Short of Breath

The scent of sublime
wafts in the air
at nighttime
the scent of sublime
permeates the mind
and the fragrance of her hair
the scent of sublime
wafts in the air

Alzheimer Days

Alzheimer Days

We remain in limbo but
We do not notice
How can we notice?
We don't remember
Yesterday

We've lost our history
And found ourselves
Adrift on a solo raft
And who remembers now
The stories we heard as children?

We are accustomed to solitude
We hardly detect
Our emptiness
For most of us
There is no solace here
No comfort

Not even a memory
To stir the ghosts
that haunt us

Humanity
You have abandoned us.