We Golfers A Very Odd

We golfers are so very odd!
We pitch and putt and lose our minds
Over a small white ball perched on sod;
We golfers are so very odd!
Often invoke the name of God;
To be  Golfer it takes all kinds.
We golfers are so very odd!
We pitch and put and lose our minds!

At My Age

At my age I think a lot.
Much dreaming in the dark night
When only the barn owl is awake
And children fast asleep
With all their dreams of yesterday,
I ponder about tomorrow's plight.
Not for fear of the deep
Or the ebb and flow of a new daybreak
Touching upon the mountain lake,
But for all the things I've wrought.

Yet for all the wisdom I've been taught
A raging recess gives me fright
A fissure from a shaking quake
Arouses me while fast asleep
Gives me pause to face the day,
Instills doubt of what I seem.
At my age I need to pray
And think of history in my wake,
Remember Adam and the snake
Who never got what he thought.

Noise Abatement

Noise Abatement

Like an incoming tide
the dishwasher is roaring
and just when I think

that it is the only sound
in the building, a woman screams
below me. The condos on

both sides of me suddenly
awaken with music and chatter
men shout at their wives

and girlfriends. The racket
multiplies. The woman next door
is teaching her goldfish to sing .

The parakeets are restless
and peck their beaks raw
against the cold steel cage bars. I too

am fidgety and think
the sound beaming from the television
the limit of my patience.

Were you here, I would not
hear the goldfish sing ,
nor restless, angry birds.

We would dance all night,
your hair sleeping across my chest.
In the morning, I would awaken you

with my warm hands and say,
“I’ll make some coffee”!

A Glass of Wine

A Glass of Wine

Here is a glass of wine from my vines
It tastes of sweet grape and pungent earth
It is the best I've grown, from early times
and it is precious, and better than new rain.
Maybe someone will visit this vineyard one day
to sip and be refreshed, and leave happy,
a traveler in deep depression as I was
before I drank down sweet wine from a glass,
sipped a deep-red hue to keep me sane,
after the blue cloud had disappeared.

March

March

A thirty-five mile an hour wind with no relief
Our days upended...the blow enormous and

indiscreet, shakes loft and limb to rafts of leaves
The onerous gale leaves an ominous dark

with no respite. We nail the shutters
as the weatherman suggests. Neighbors follow suit.

Danger captivates us. Stay indoors.
In the distance, a throbbing, muffled noise

a cyclone, whirling round its eye
seeking a random victim.

Afternoon Heat

Afternoon Heat

Sometimes
when we feel a tinge of heat
fevorishly, an afternooner happens,
we grab an hour of love while lumbering tortoises
crawl over sandhills, seeking respite
from the desert sun.

Birth of a Salmon Smolt

Birth of a Salmon Smolt

It was born in the morning
Groping for life
Its fins wriggling and busy,
Groping too, its smooth scales
A meek, measurable weight
in a new world. Where is she
that birthed this minnow?
Its life has come in solitude,
The lonely must fend for themselves.

Life Beyond a Cell Phone

Life Beyond a Cell Phone

Plugged-in, they drop out of nature
like zombies on a moon walk

Plugged-in, their nervous systems evolve
like crack addicts lurching for a hit

Plugged-in, they forget the color of the sky,
the sea, the backyard juniper trees;

they eat and text, ballooning up like bloated
cows at an alfalfa festival

Plugged-in, they deafly call and dumbly listen,
robotic responses from robot minds.

Plugged-in, and connected, they disconnect
from all but a narrow screen, a stream

Of nothingness infused with meaning by peers,
sanctioned by parents eager to please

Plugged-in, they spiral earthward, numbed
by indulgence and self-gratification,

staring into cyberspace, androids waiting
for the next message affirming existence,

fearing an unplugged universe full of
stars, planets and possibilities.

Home Again

Home Again

After absence the homing instinct
kicks in, gravitational pull of love
tugs the tender heart succinct ,

prods horses with a gentle shove
after a hard day beneath the plough,
bound for home like the morning dove

or homing pigeon's flight from bough
to bough, along a chosen path.
After absence, home seems sweeter now-

a warm respite from life's wrath,
a getaway from labor's harms,
a familiar meal and a hot bath.

After absence, nature works its charms-
resets the clock of hearth and home,
with welcomes wrapped in loving arms

Trees Have Muscles

Trees Have Muscles

Exercising in the strong wind,
The trees swing back and forth
in unison like ballet dancers.
Pliable limbs strengthening against
each swirling gust in nature's gym.
Until today I didn't know that trees
had muscles.

The Art of Being Second to Last

The Art of Being Second to Last

Never last, but penultimate
Out of the gate
Second to last
Not very fast

Penultimaters play their part
A special art
Ahead of one
Under the gun

Almost like a wallflower's first date
Penultimate
They never lose
Just wear slow shoes.

Bitter Tea

Bitter Tea

Wispy wusiness, waffling of words,
Cliché-ridden conundrums
Salacious sloganeering,
Sans substance
Characterizes the crassness
Of totalitarian tea-baggers
Bandying about banners
Of bogeymen, faux
Commercial-fisherwomen
Fiddling in fire, gaggling
In gibberish to crowds
Of classless coneheads
Following the flock
Like extinct bison
Behind a herd bull
Leaping to sure death
Over a buffalo jump.
Rappelling to repeal is
Hazardous to Health.

When I Awake

When I Awake

The poem, my fix, begins the day
Takes me away
Rights my ship
Without a blip

The bard's word my inspiration
Pure elation
To soothe my soul
Render me whole

The poem, the sun, a perfect pair
In air so rare
I find my way
Above the fray

Spring Arrives

Spring Arrives

Lord give us pleasure in the changing season,
And let us not dwell on any reason
As the uncertain future filled with fear
And lessen hope in the spring of the year

Give us the courage to be as a child
Smelling the lilacs and running wild
Listening to meadowlarks beckon the sun
Over meadows where cool rivers run

Oh give us contentment in our lives today,
And let us not to the distant stray
As the fickle future always unknown
Hears only its own voice and tone

Oh give us the freedom to fly like a kite
To weave up, down, left or right

Invasion- March19, 2003

Invasion- March 19, 2003

Seven years to the day it began
Without a plan
Persuasion
Then invasion

Proclaimed victory short and sweet
Then came defeat
And gaping jaw
Of shock and awe

Saadam fell and then was hung
The Shiites sung
Victory songs
Righted some wrongs

Seven years to the day it began
In shifting sand-
Our blood remains
In desert rains

Red tide

Red Tide

I smelled an odor by the sea
As if my senses knew,
I longed to touch it, waft by waft,
But could not find its hue

The scent beneath I sought to pair
Close to a life I knew
But connection simply was not there
Like red within a sea of blue.

Desert Cycle

Desert Cycle

Yucca is in its springtime bloom
The arroyo gulch is dry
Under the April crescent moon the desert
Hears a coyote’s cry.
Upon the shifting sand among the dunes
Are natural love tunes.

My seventieth season has come upon me
Since I first left my home;
I know before I am well -finished
I will surely roam
My heart has not grown old
Passion and love remain, still bold

I have gazed into these luminous decades
And now my soul is calm
I’ve changed since first seeing this skyline,
The desert has become my balm
The night –sounds of crawling creatures in my ear
Creep with a lesser fear

Unhurried now, minute by minute
I dabble in my art
Inscrutable schemes in rarefied air
Images straight from the heart
Emotion and intellect fuse where they will,
Depend upon a thrill

And now I glide on the shifting dune,
Beautiful, mysterious;
Above the music, ever so faint
As the season finally serious
Blossoms into full bloom
Before inevitable doom

A Blue Day

A Blue Day

Today is dark and bleak
The sun hides behind the hill
The soul is starved and weak

The quiet river dares not speak
The body feels the cold chill
Today is dark and bleak

Your warmth is what I seek
For my emptiness to fill
The soul is starved and weak

Needs gentle hands. A meek
Touch to restore the broken will
Today is dark and bleak

Shadows cover the swollen creek
Birds quiver on the windowsill
The soul is starved and weak

Without the company I seek
Awaits your presence to fulfill
Today is dark and bleak
The soul is starved and weak

On Discovering My Family Tree

On Discovering My Family Tree

More like a forest than a tree
My lineage spans generations
Family spreads from sea to sea
Like an ocean of crustaceans

Features a lot like you and me
DNA passed through celebrations
More like a forest than a tree
My lineage spans generations

Pioneers in the land of the free
Living on high expectations
A respite from dark tyranny
They came in waves of migrations
More like a forest than a tree

A Soldier Returns to Afghanistan

A Soldier Returns to Afghanistan

That Sunday, I felt sad leaving again:
Up until about
Five-thirty in my tortured brain
Did my almost-full- plane pull out
All engines roar, all seatbelts on, all chance
Of seeing her again soon gone. We flew
Over the tops of mountains, crossed a peak
Of raging snowstorms, felt the aircraft dance.
The cloud's even drifting breathe soon blew
Where sky and love's desire and war reek