To Be Happy

To Be Happy
you do not need to be
psychoanalyzed
rolfed
estered
altered
spayed
neutered
fixed
mooned
acupunctured
meditated
massaged
cayced
yogied
new-aged
astrocharted
holisticized
computerized
megatrended
therapized
androginized
evangelized
converted or even
reborn

Trust your senses-
Your common sense
your innate sense
Of justice.

Be loyal to your family
Your clan, your friends-
Your community (Let the
Nation-state go hang itself!)

Defend the stupid, the crazy.
Love the earth, the sun,
the animals. Avoid endless
disquisitions of suburban

hocus-pocus, Toyota dealers,
self –loathing intellectuals,
male predation, lesbians
in bearskins-embrace Jesus-

Oppose injustice
Defy the powerful
And speak for the voiceless.
Follow your star.

Benazir Bhutto, In Memoriam, December 27, 2007

Benazir Bhutto, In Memoriam, December 27, 2007

In Rawalpindi her ashes glow
The dying embers burning low
To mark a martyr’s final breath
To serve her country to the death
Her spirit survives this fatal blow.

She is gone. One short day ago
She lived, smelled flowers, was the main show,
Adored and was adored, and now she’s dead
In Rawalpindi

Carry on her war against the foe:
Wherever freedom needs to flow
Her legacy yours, hold it high.
Her death must be your battle cry
You must not slumber, while ashes glow
In Rawalpindi.

Faux Pro

Faux Pro

Nowadays he wears a cap-
always with "Titleist" above
the flap. Each day a different color; coded
like a drawer full of lady’s inscribed panties.
Mondays are green, Tuesdays yellow, Wednesdays
Red, Thursdays blue, Fridays Orange,
Saturdays mauve and Sundays purple {for
the Sabbath). His shirts match his caps.
To look the part describes his art. He fools
some of the people, some of the time. His
is a supreme sublime, his colors always rhyme.
He’s a sycophantic mime

Chicken Dinner

Chicken Dinner

She placed it flat on an old tree stump
after wringing its neck.
Limp, it flopped around like a
beached trout. Whack! Grandma’s
ax chopped the young rooster’s head.
clean off .“They don’t feel
nothing,” she said. Still twitching
she dropped the thing in a boiling pot
of water as I ran into to the farmhouse
bawling like a baby. Got no sympathy
from granddad who told me not to worry,
dinner will be ready pretty soon. Besides
“They don‘t feel nothing.”

Memory of the Mint

Memory of the Mint

When I visit the Russell museum
Where Charlie’s paintings hang,
I become ten again, selling the
Great Falls Leader to the cowboys
playing poker, puffing cigars
in Central Avenue’s Mint Bar,
“Waiting for the Chinook”
to thaw their hearts before they
die like the starving antelope
In the smoked-stained Russell
painting hanging crookedly
Above bottles of whiskey, gin and
vodka. Passed out at the end of the
bar an old Blackfoot sloshes
through the snowy mountains
on his painted pony dragging
a deer carcass, dreaming of the thaw.
I can hear my child’s voice calling out
“Leader Fall’s paper, read all about it,
Paper mister?” I hear the curator’s voice,
“Closing time” and like frozen ice in the
warm Chinook wind the memory disappears.

The Old Man's Advice

The Old Man’s Advice

Grandfather said, follow your bliss
Don’t be afraid of snakes in the weeds
A golden rule that can’t miss
Grandfather said, follow your bliss.
Don’t be deterred by that and this
Be happy in thoughts, words, and deeds
Grandfather said, follow your bliss-
Fulfill your wishes, dreams and needs

A Holiday for the Rest of Us

A Holiday for the Rest of Us

Today December 23rd is Festivus
A holiday for the rest of us
A relief from times that get the best of us
far away to the east and west of us.
Trying times that create a test of us
that zaps the vital juice and zest of us.
Today, December 23rd , we celebrate Festivus.
Please make no demands or requests of us.
Today we walk among the blessed of us.

A Fish to Remember

A Fish to Remember

Drifting the float at first light,
half asleep when a bright steelhead
mouths the jig and violently
dunks the bobber and lunges
clear out of the water. Walks, it seems
across the riffles, then splashes and disappears.
Line limp, I stare into the water as if
a ghost had just appeared. Well, it did.
And it occurred without witness.
I take this apparition with me everywhere,
Wherever I go. Even in my dreams at night.
Even out here in Nevada,
in the great, arid southwestern desert- my
home now. When I contemplate the river
and the loss decades ago, I’m amazed
how vivid the memory of a singular moment
of a fish flashing furiously then disappearing.
At night, asleep I listen to the river
and the splash at first light, over and over again.

Playing

Playing

He played in the dirt.
In the sand.
In the weeds.
Or in someone else's grounds.
He played in cars, buses, in merry-go-rounds.
Played at night.
Played in the farm yard,
Played in Hussman's Billiard Parlor.
He played by the river.
By the falls.
In the A&W root beer place.
Played in a Cadillac, and in an old truck.
Played in churches.
In prison.
In girl's hearts.
He played in rail cars, and once, in Madrid.
Played in the snow.
In the freezing sleet, he played.
On snowshoes.
He played on stairs, brothels, sleazy hovels.
He played eccentric music all of his life.
Now he plays in a wooden box.
Plays on and on.
Like a naughty boy

Christmas Memories

Christmas Memories

Tears fall and the river rises.
Today the memories warm me rather
Than break my heart.

Years and years of memories,
all my loved ones past
come together at Christmas.
Tiny children opening presents.
Oh the joy! How to possibly
recreate that, now that I am old?
I know! I'll have kids again! Not!

When the tears fall and the river rises,
I remember the reason for the season.
It’s not about me or my memories-
that soothing life-saving force.
What is Christmas all about?
Fear not, and think on this!

-And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven,

Christmas Week at Squaw Beach

Christmas Week at Squaw Beach, Agness Oregon

We followed bear tracks
through the snow
to the fishy green
water’s edge
and found them there-
the first winter steelhead,
lice-laden, ocean-fresh,
Kamalopsis wilderness
Rogue natives unaware
of the lurking lures. “Tis’
the season to be jolly”,
my partner whispered.
“Ho, Ho, Ho”, I replied.

December 2007

December 2007

December, and everywhere the first
of the Christmas spirits
have arrived again.

Snow fills the sky with coldness

What’s missing here? Sleds, children’s voices,
and the yellow lab not far from my easy chair.
A hearth warmed by Douglas fir. And even now
ringing in the memory, invisible faces
inexplicably appearing .

Bing Crosby’s “Silent Night”
plays on the radio.

I listen with my mind far away.

Grandma Always Said

Grandma Always Said

December is fruitcake weather
time to crack a bowl of nuts
and have a little get-together
lollygag in shopping malls
decorate the walls with heather.
December is fruitcake weather
when all the nuts gather.

A Page

A Page

Life is simply a page
a brief stage- markings on
the gauge of time
which neither rhyme nor
Supreme Sublime ever elucidate.
In the wait, the questioning
of great minds always fails
in the details of swirling wind-
strong gales, questions of belief,
blindness without relief, like
a thief in the night
undetected, without light
A slight silent awakening.

Confusion

Confusion

On the coast there's fog
Always wet fog, not just today.
Uneven whitecaps endless misty
Waves in the ghostly vapor spewing breath.
Rain is still falling at the end of May.
Fish begin to spawn in early July.
And here am I, alone by the tide pool,
Searching and searching, but I can't find myself.

Salvation Army Donation Box

Salvation Army Donation Box

When the SUVs pulled up
to the Salvation Army
donation box at Wal-Mart
I felt proud of Americans-
generous people, caring
folks, sharing abundant wealth.
Unselfishly bighearted
liberals driving shiny new
Toyatas, Escalades, Jeeps,
Humvees, Navigators-
all manner of high-end
expensive flashy rides.

Then weirdly, I noticed that
most would take instead of give-
rummaging like wharf rats
through piles of donated stuff-
clothing, electronics, cookbooks,
broken dolls, space heaters, an
array of eitchen midden-
a mound of domestic refuse,
a muckheap of human waste
passed on to the needy.
Like scavengers in a Tijuana
landfill, they’d quietly steal
away their new- found treasures
in the bowels of their shiny
cars and sneak away. I guess
the rich have always stolen
from the poor at Christmas time.

When the Neighborhood Bully was Sentenced

When the Neighborhood Bully was Sentenced

If we’re patient of ordinary things-
like a baby’s cry, or elderly ladies
slowly blocking the supermarket
isles, or deaf old men needing repetitions
of simple words or directions, or wives
burning our Sunday dinners, perhaps there’s
hope for us yet.

The patience of ordinary things is not
a given, a birthright; it is an art
learned at the apron strings of a kindly
grandmother, or in a fishing boat
listening to the gentle voice of a dad
guiding us through worm-threading
lessons. It’s a gift that not everyone
receives.

The patience of ordinary things is
intricately tied to words like kindness,
consideration, love, courtesy, reverence-
boy scout kind of words, words never thought
of in my neighbor’s household. Theirs was a
house of the impatience of ordinary things-
rudeness, yelling, bullying, arguing. No one
was surprised when John went to prison for
crippling Martha- his wife over a shirt stain.