Poet's Corner Perspective

Poet’s Corner Perspective

Lush, verdant, a small spot tucked
away in the woods, The Poet’s
Corner a hidden gem amongst
the ordinary plethora of words-
forgotten, unappreciated in a world
of commerce, befuddlement, baseball.
A nugget concealed deep in the veins
of a dark mineshaft awaiting discovery.
A poem, supple as a mother’s breast
to nurture the child within.

Come Along With Me

Come Along with Me

I want to take you home
Where we can make love like
Howling wolves under big sky
And hear the blue heron’s song
From the mighty Missouri

I want to take you home
And eat huckleberry pie
In the Bitterroot Valley
Or explore the trail of Lewis
And Clark; inhale fresh pine

I want to take you home
To visit places of my youth-
Emerson school, Sun River,
Augusta ranch, the white church,
Gibson Park- my beginnings

I want to take you to home
Where the buffalo roam
And the skies are not cloudy
All day- home on the range-
The treasure state; Montana-
My treasure

Vanishing Act

Vanishing Act

I have always lamented the slaughter
of the great bison. Massive herds
like raisins on white cake once
dotted The Great Plains.

I have never understood the paltry
salmon runs that once filled Rivers
as gnarled traffic in LA at commute-
time.

I fail to fathom diminishing rain forests,
which once covered massive portions of the earth
like thick hairs on the head of civilization,
filtering impurities, sustaining life

I cannot conceive of a world without
flora and fauna, trees and animals
speaking in mysterious tongues,
whispering my name.

Montana Guy

Montana Guy

Drinking two six-packs a day,
counts as almost abstinence,
in Montana, the cowpokes say,
(Although that’s utter nonsense),

but it’s true they like to chew
and brag about their favorite stew,
and hunt deer in deepest snow,
and ride broncos in the rodeo

and they’re rarely heard to whine
(Even in the dead of winter)
or when crippled from a splinter
or hung-over from cheap red wine),

Hard to pigeonhole a Montana guy
who lives his life under the Big Sky.

Patsy's Surprise at Thirteen

Patsy's Surprise at Thirteen

Girls steeped in blackberry winters
like decorous snow women smiling
from frozen firs

Proper girls, obedient, asexual
groomed from girlhood for
matrimony; docile and compliant

populate Our Lady of Lourdes
school yard amongst the sisters-
stern-faced penguin women,

pallid creatures of the cloth,
doling discipline and dogma,
mathematics and music.

"Where are the boys?" Patsy asks
on enrollment day. "It's an all-
girls school dear", Pop said.

"OMG, I think I'm gonna die!!"

Dim (A Sonnenizio)

Dim (A Sonnenizio)

“But how shall I improve the
swiftly-dimming hour”…George Johnston

Headlights grow dim in waning hours.
Dying dimwits dull bright senses.
Wilted lettuce dries dim-gray decisively.
Our dimmer moments fade with despair,
diminished we clutch and grasp old truths
in the dim light as we deteriorate amid
bucolic dreams with dimming memories,
gather in our fate, dimly seeking respite,
grateful to be lucky during dimmest days,
knowing what we now know, diminutive
our significance in a grand dimpled scheme.
Our world now spins on a dime,
less inclined to rage against dimming light,
contented, one-dimensional without much fight.

Bloomsday in Dublin

Bloomsday in Dublin

Irish dance a jig on Bloomsday
Joke of doomsday
Speak Ulysses
Over kisses
Swig sweet Red Breast Irish whiskey
Act too frisky
Ape Leopold Bloom
Sixteenth of June
Honor great Joyce
Sharing his words with brogue-bound voice
And lilting tongue
Beloved native son

Seventieth Birthday Appreciation

Seventieth Birthday Appreciation


Your selfless gift is unsurpassed
I’m left aghast
My place is clean
It is a dream
I could not ask for any more
Kisses galore
And a big hug
A heartfelt tug
My gratitude
Because of you my attitude
Smiles like a boy
Filled with joy

Impulse to Silence

Impulse to Silence

Rendered mute by what he saw-
a tongue frozen by the trauma,
nerves honed, sensitive, raw-
muddling through his inner drama.

The soldier's life becomes surreal,
an un kept promise, a broken deal.
Images of death, destruction, pain-
a steady playback in his brain.

Memories of blood and gore,
lapses into a world of silence,
shuns questions asked of war,
an inner voice suppresses violence.

It's "post traumatic stress" they say.
He wishes the voices would go away.

Summer Run

Summer Run

Early June, and somewhere the first
of the silver salmon
have returned from the sea.

The moon tugs the tide ashore,

What lies ahead? Rivers, deep riffles
and osprey, close to the mind.
A school struck by waves.

They exist as they are, I exist
as I am-content, and that is
enough.

Impact

Impact

Young and drunk
I didn’t have time to care.
I wanted to play.

When Norman the neighbor
boy was killed by Walt,
another neighbor boy

accidentally while hunting
rabbits at The Goat Lady’s
place in the sand hills,

I shrugged it off and
never thought about
it again until now-

sixty years later,
waking from my dream
in a cold sweat.

A Letter After the Rain

A Letter After the Rain


I have tried many times
To tell you some things
and have failed:

How
life can be like a child-simple
and uncomplicated.

How
with its wounds, it
scales mountain after mountain
on slick ice.

How
the warm evening, gray
like a breeze, has persuaded
our old tired bodies
to protect each other.

How
when we try to believe everything
the believing muscles
of our minds soon tire,

and make us weak and we
don't believe the simplest
of truths then.
Simplicity is our survival.

I made coffee this morning,
and it rained last night. Today
along the palm-lined street
a southwest roadrunner-
wet-feathered
but intent on its prey
scurried along the asphalt
like a frantic tourist
in a frenzy
without a road map.

What Am I Worth? You Ask

What Am I Worth? You Ask

You are as in the soil a brilliant gem
At twilight, when all the rays descend
Upon the earth, a rainbow blend
Of golden colors, a seamless hem

Hidden beneath a haze of anthracite
Just below the surface, dull bright,
Your luster longing to be mined,
Released from earthly ties that bind,

Unearthed, polished to a high patina,
Displayed proudly in God's arena
Basking under earth's brightest star-
A precious stone without a mar

Your value well beyond some measure,
A best kept secret, a hidden treasure

Grandma's Photography

Grandma’s Photography

You see yourself in the viewfinder
as you were half a century ago.
The ties that bind you and bind her
are ties of bloodline and love that glow.

A small clone of you this tiny girl.
Her radiant smile, red hair, wavy curl-
the silly grin upon her face,
her beauty that nothing can replace.

You are her, she is you, but merely
through the camera’s focused eye
can you capture your lives clearly-
and look upon her with a sigh

and say “Smile for the birdie,
Ah! My darling, you’re so pretty!”

El Puerco, the Mexican Flu

El Puerco, the Mexican flu

It arrived late in the afternoon
On the porch with the evening news
Without fanfare or a warning tune
Silently, on tiptoe in ballet shoes

a tragic villain, plotting chaos
In the corridors of useless dross
Floating into space an undetected
Virus soon to be resurrected

Assaulted my large intestine
Leaving me prostrate and very ill
The doctor came, prescribed a pill
Left me ravaged without question

Pallid, washed out, an old rag
I'm still alive, but I'll not brag.

The Question: To Tell or Not To Tell

The Question: To Tell or Not To Tell?

Hidden in the crevices
often clichéd as skeletons
In the closet, our dark

secrets, cling like parasites,
chewing away at the fabric
of our freedom. The world

is too much against us. Grief,
like a stealthy ninja
waits inside us for a door

to open, for a hand to release
the caged bird of suppression,
for a “Let freedom ring” moment.

Confession like porous petrified
wood yields only to moments
of sadness, or madness.

Runaway Bride

Runaway Bride

Her lie waits within her for a chance to escape
Her lie is impatient as a rabid bat.
Her lie is a rabbit pulled from a hat.
Her lie is that innocent, sweet child
Building sandcastles on the Jersey
Seashore. In her younger years
She would dance and sing. She was virtuous.
She was kind of “naïve,” they all said.
It was June, a time for brides and weddings.
She’s been out of my thoughts for a long time.
Lies take everything and leave us naked.

Travel Advisory

Travel Advisory

A warning to all travelers on vacation!
Avoid crowds, kissing, hugging friends.
A virus has invalidated your vaccination.
A swine flu in México has pandemic trends,
Fear has paralyzed the entire nation.
Don’t take the plane, the bus or train.
Avoid museums, markets, public transportation,
Petting zoos, public parks, walks in the rain.
Cancel school field trips to the local pig farm.
Wear a mask and always wash your hands,
Follow health rules to escape great harm.
For the Ballet Folklórico change your plans,
Or throw caution to the winds, say “What the Hell,
If the bug don’t kill me, I’ll get well! ¨

A Wake Up Call

A Wake Up Call

It’s that blurred feeling of fear
That creeps into you
Waking up in bed alone
At dawn, thinking, this is unreal
Living by myself, surrounded by
Neighbors in the sleepy first-light
Of morning, that must be

Someone else in a catatonic
Fog trying to focus his eyes,
Stretching his stiff aching body
Over the bed, thinking, this
Can’t be real, waking to the birds
With the other neighbors, slowly levatating
To percolate coffee with the hardiest
Early morning risers, yearning

To be somewhere else, wishing
That I was anywhere else but here,
An old man looking in on himself, as if
From another planet,
Flipping the switch on the pot, smelling
The coffee, waiting for the early news

Feeling himself sliding downhill
In a sluggish stupor, looking past
Years wired in the memory’s hard drive
Years which seem hauntingly blank
And odd,
and abruptly thinking
With a new rush of queasiness
This isn’t real, waking in this place
Feeling as if I were about to decompose

In the desert heat, that must be
Someone else, staring out

At his elderly neighbors, on a normal day,
Which begins like every other day
With a man waking in an empty bed,
Feeling himself alone and trying
Not to fade away

On the final leg of the journey
When the fruit and the sweet-red wine
Seem to ripen under a pale moon
And the heart fills up with delight

Mesquite Days 2009

Mesquite Days 2009

The faces of the town have changed
Remnants and names remain.

Progeny recapitulates phylogeny
Hughes, Jensen, Leavitt, Adams,

Bowler, Woods-pioneer names,
Founder names, Mormon names

Sprinkled among new immigrants-
Jones, Browns and Dragesoviches,

Refugees from cold climates
Seeking the warmth of tradition

The security of small town life,
A friendlier place to live and die

Strangers, changing the face of history,
Won by the hard fight of pioneers

Who carved a future from a hostile
Desert with sweat, blood, tears

Fulfilled a prophet’s dream
Broke new ground

And left the children a legacy-
A niche in small town America

The faces of the town have changed
Remnants and names remain.

From My Rooftop Patio

From My Rooftop Patio in Ajijic, Before the Fiesta Begins

Trucks loaded with children dance together
After the music begins.
Engines vibrate between Mariachi bands.
The old women- las viejas, spread flowers
Over the carretera.
A brown burro, it’s soft liquid eyes
Glassy with lagrimas, brays in Spanish
And invites pairs of señores y señoritas
To dance on rough cobblestones.

Temporary Insanity

Temporary Insanity (I think)

A small spot of loneliness
resides in every mind.
A dark spot, unexplainable
like an incomplete sentence
lacking sense of connection
to meaningful context,
on its own, floating freely
like debris in a tornado.
Helter-skelter and random,
rising and falling willy-nilly,
hither and yon, settling down
when it takes a mind to.
Today my dark spot, my
loneliness, settles on me
like dust on the rooftop.

In My Dream

In My Dream

My somber heart seeks you always
I love your happy body, your rich, soft voice.
Dusky butterfly, sweet and sure
like the wheat field, the sun, the poppy, and the water.

Your savage hair blows wild today
Over the meadow of my dreams
Standing in a field of yellow sunflowers
My somber heart seeks you always

The nectar of my soul’s sweet blossom
Simple syrup for a lovable life
Your presence fills the days with joy
I love your happy body, your rich, soft voice

Soothing, reassuring in troubled times
I love your happy face, your glad, warm smile
Flitting here, there and everywhere
Dusky butterfly, sweet and sure

Covering days of sadness with flight
Masking sorrow in the sun’s bright light
Natural, thoughtful, at ease with me
Like the wheat field, the sun, the poppy and the water.

What Remains, Remains

What Remains, Remains

The sign in the road screams
“Dead people’s things for sale”

No “Estate Sale” euphemism
For these good old southern folks.

After all Grandpa Fred can’t
Hear the cuckoo of his old Black

Forest clock from his grave.
Might as well sell his shit,

Pick his bones clean, and recycle
Some of the love he displayed

Fawning over his collection
Of thingamabobs, doodads,

Gold watches, old books,
Bronzed baby shoes, and

Aztec funeral urns Acquired
from yard sales in Mexico.

So Much Rides on a Healthy Breakfast

So Much Rides on a Healthy Breakfast

The neighbor at the house across from mine
is complaining again. Her voice, pursuing
the heels of her husband, screeches loudly
each time he opens his mouth. Life

and the world with all its vagaries
might experience apocalypse as foretold
by Nostradamus, but what about
this woman chasing this man

in the middle of the morning,
Sweet Jesus he caused no harm
to anyone, and while he was eating breakfast
only wanted a banana on his Cheerios.

Semana Santa

Semana Santa

The parade
Of saints waves from narrow streets
Celebrates the suffering
Holy tears of Our Lady de Guadalupe
Flow like fresh lava

The children
Of Ajijic ape ancient rituals
A blanket of white robes mounted in
A pageant of adorned brown asses
Clopping on cobblestones

The nerves
Of Mexico crawl up her spine
Indifferent to the elements
A mantle of bougainvillea scarlet spreads
Over her gnarled hands

The dirt
From her garden, like Wednesday's ashes
Nourishes the heart
A blessing of Pascua Florida
Renews lost hope

Paradoxical Sleep

Paradoxical Sleep

I have been wakeful at night
And words have come to me
Out of their deep caves
Needing to be remembered…Wendell Berry

The noesis of my learning
Follows me everywhere,
Overrules the depths of sleep,
I have been wakeful at night.

I toss about in a sea of knowledge,
Pitched in a tumultuous storm
Neurons flashing like lightning,
And words have come to me

Images of the perfect poem
Fly around like rabid bats
Chasing air- breathing arthropods
Out of their deep caves

Syntax and substance are drowsy,
Yawning in these early morning hours.
I jot notes, lest I forget half-asleep, words
Needing to be remembered.

In Praise of the Short-Lived

In Praise of the Short-Lived


Exotic, romantic- life in a foreign land
like a poem or a song, brief and ephemeral.
Solitary women dream of Latin lovers
serenading, crooning “Cielto Lindo”
among fireflies and bougainvilleas.
We praise the transitoriness that impresses
possibility and gives joy to dreamers.

The Dog Park

The Dog Park

They parade their dogs upon the grass
In finery fit for Easter Sunday
Showing off their royal class
They parade their dogs upon the grass
Poodles and schnauzers full of sass
Out for a stroll, a canine fun day
They parade their dogs upon the grass
In finery fit for Easter Sunday

War Sings Only One Tune

War Sings Only One Tune

“You cannot sit on bayonets
Nor can you eat among the dead
When all are killed, you are alone,
A vacuum comes where hate is fed”
…Delmore Schwartz


You cannot sit on bayonets
Leisurely smoking cigarettes
While making faces at the moon
Or bowing cellos in string quartets
The seat of war sings only one tune
You cannot sit on bayonets

Nor can you eat among the dead
Converse with souls who have fled
Or stroll along brick parapets
Where the soldier’s blood flows red
Cursing the guards in high minarets
Nor can you eat among the dead

When all are killed you are alone
With the silent desert, far from home
Pensive, reclusive, without a plan
In the shadow of a mosque’s bright dome
Iridescent in the wilderness sand
When all are killed you are alone

A vacuum comes where hate is fed
Devoid of matter, an empty bed
A time when a soul is forced to choose
Between the living and the dead
Finding the heart to win or lose
A vacuum comes where hate is fed.

You cannot sit on bayonets.

Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise

The loud songs
of the doves
of spring
disturb my sleep
with mating calls
of passion.

Withdrawal

Withdrawal

The things we care about
are suddenly disappearing
and we don't get it.

We've been too busy
writing blogs, searching
Google, indulging fantasies.

Lately have you noticed
how talks are one syllable grunts?
An uh-huh and a yup!

In and out of our lives
friends disappear, reappear,
disappear like spring blossoms

no time to inhale fragrances,
or nurture with chit-chat
lost in the clamor of cyberspace

mesmerized by the screen's glare
our world shrinks as we stare
into our own narrow gap.

The Bells

The Bells (Las Campanas de la Iglesia)

On every roadway, two paths-
One follows darkness, one light
Usually we choose neither.

Usually we wake up to the alarm,
roll over and re-close our eyes,
drift back into dreamland.

But the church bells----a wedding ? a funeral?
Or did you think it the sounds
of another Mexican fiesta
beatifying a new virgin towards sainthood?

In Memory of My neighbor's Son

In Memory of My Neighbor's Son

In the bright, conscious sunrise of the day
a loving voice-the voice of one wide awake-
calls to me from the gate, where near the stake-

the wooden marker divides the land our way.
Here on this spot we always commune, have our say.
Always through friendliness as neighbors we make

country chit-chat, of cows and sheep and the lake
where her young son drowned a year ago May.
There is a headstone in the distant grove

that, grief-defying, on its solemn hill
reveals a song of joy upon its face.
Such a song composed of a mother's love,

a season's test of passing strength and will,
a melody that neither time nor memory can erase.

Dance of the Micro Brew

Dance of the Micro Brew

Gold-colored beer
Wheat-colored beer

beer with velvet hands
or beer with warm eyes
beer,
blessed hops
of earth,
beer, mellow
as an aging love child,
warm
as a lustful wench,
beer, Olympus-honored
and filled with power,
ardent,
earthy;
never has one stein limited you,
one dance, one woman,
you are festive, extroverted,
at bare minimum , you must be praised.
Some days
you feast on immortal
longings;
your wind transports us
from near to far,
travel agent of bawdy voyagers,
and we laugh
raucous chuckles;
your
marvelous
summer ale
unparalleled,
blood pulses through the veins,
tremors excite the skin,
nothing challenges
your indisputable soul.
Beer
blesses the days, happiness
shoots to the surface
like a dolphin
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as more beer is born .

The Waist Manager

The Waist Manager

Waist management was her main job,
handling the garbage of daily life,
avoiding excess, becoming a blob.
Waist management her main job.
She’s no civil service snob,
determined to become a super-wife.
Waist management her main job,
handling the garbage of daily life.

La Cantina

La Cantina

“Para todo mal, mescal; para todo bien también”…anónimos dicho de México

Raúl slakes his thirst when he is sad or happy.
El gusano (the worm) in the bottle ignores
the mood of the day- is indiscriminate.
Pure agáve azul jump starts Raúl´s heart,
soothes his soul like native aloe balm.
Sunup to sundown Mescal modulates the
two poles of his bipolar existence,
one high, one low, both stupefied.

The Poet Laureate

The Poet Laureate

Mesquite should have a poet laureate
to laud the town, praise its name,
speak at the high school's baccalaureate,
spread the word about its fame.

Mesquite's poet should have vision,
a sense of a history, a love of song,
a man or a woman with little derision
to extol the city's virtues, loud and strong.

A poet who discovers life's possibilities
in the tiniest branch or the greatest tree,
A person with finely tuned sensibilities.
A poet who is identical to me!

Forsaken

Forsaken

When you are jilted
You take up bungee-jumping
from high bridge towers.

You ride Brahma bulls
at the State fair.
You wrestle live alligators.

During Valentine’s Day
you speed down the highway
erasing the memories.

The Bicycle Tourer

The Bicycle Tourer

Oblivious, the motorized world whizzes
by, senses numbed behind the glass,
smell deadened to the lilac breezes
high above the windy mountain pass.

My bike and I ascend long hills, steep
and slow we make our way,
inhale the clover, talk to the sheep,
wave to the farmer baling new hay.

We flex our muscles, stretch our sinews,
test our bodies in eclectic terrain;
slowly focus on the distant hues,
cycling through wind, snow and rain.

All our senses fill with splendor.
Separateness diminishes with each mile.
We’re free to fly like the great condor,
my bike- Rocinante and I, travel in style.

Day in Court

Day in Court

The stern judge looks downward
Two glaring eyes
Burning holes in my resolve

My wife spins yarns like a weaver
Slick as black ice in the driveway
Eager to provide a fatal skid

Truth and Justice finally prevail
Turn Hell to sweet, warm Nirvana
And I can breathe again

Poker Face

Poker Face

The smile you give is weak and bland,
it doesn’t feel like a friend to me.
I thought you’d try to understand.

It isn’t kindness or a helping hand,
it feels like a meek plea-
the smile you give is weak and bland.

Where’s the old you, my one-man band?
What happened to my loyal tree?
Are you taking some kind of stand?

My feet are shifting in the sand.
They have no comfort, no idea, no key;
the smile you give is weak and bland,

You carefully avoid discussing plans,
you seem too ready to dismiss me,
I’ve really tried to comprehend,

but now it’s clear, I’ve been banned.
I watch your face, your eyes as we
chat, your smile so weak and bland,
I thought you'd try to understand.

Kóan

Kóan

Truth a noble intention
One can clearly use-
Fabrication also useful
with varied colors and hues

Shut In

Shut In

Like an insect he carries in his heart
the dreariness of winter; turns inward
and exists on small pleasures.

He ignores a splendid law of natural
rewards: he who gives receives, he who
only cultivates avaricious appetites,

afraid to share with others, loses his
humanity, dries up in the sunshine,
becomes loneliness itself.

My Timid Mother

My Timid Mother

She speaks too much of danger,
afraid of life’s natural, healthy risks.

Don’t be afraid I tell her,
poison ivy grows outside the door,

The snake coils under the porch
and the eagle’s talons cling to the roof

but the sun goes on, lighting the sky
and our lives tread upon the earth unscathed.

Candy kisses

Candy Kisses

Oh your smile is like a sweet, sweet kiss
That truly tastes like love
Oh your smile is like a small bird’s coos
Perhaps a morning dove

And sweet you are my lovely girl
To yield your precious lips
And I will want you still my love
When you’re old and the scale tips

Till the scale tips, my love,
And the moon falls from the sky
And I will want you still my love
Until the day I die

So keep the trust my dearest girl
there’s nothing that’s amiss
your suspicions are unfounded
and your smile a sweet, sweet kiss.

Help Wanted

Help Wanted

I’m literate, shy, but no way a nerd.
Playing golf with demented friends is just great.
I’m looking for a new job, something to do with words

My application for work is not really absurd:
High salary, long vacations, perks and medical.
I’m literate, shy, but no way a nerd

Want a quiet setting, away from loud herds
and indiscriminate, biased co-workers.
I’m looking for a new job, something to do with words

I like a boss who doesn’t give damn, a civil service bird.
I have gray hair, poor eyesight, a bulging paunch.
I’m literate, shy, but no way a nerd

I’m sixty-nine, white, retired. Salary diminished by thirds.
Searching for work, any type, anywhere, ideally suited.
I’m looking for a new job, something to do with words.

No Scams! (Some offers have been absurd).
I hang out on a bench, near the library.
I’m literate, shy, but no way a nerd
I’m looking for a new job, something to do with words.

Inauguration 2009

Inauguration 2009

My Mexican friends coined a new verb
for the inauguration. Obamanos (Let's Obama)!

Passing the baton, a delicate moment
in a relay, adroitly transitioning,

balancing two acts simultaneously,
racing and handing off, separating

winners or losers, successes or failures,
victories or defeats. It is poetry-the rhymes

and meters of the will synchronizing
to the music of the human spirit.

Obamanos!

Chanticleer's Domicile

Chanticleer's Domicile

This old rooster thinks connections
between his cock-a-doodle-doo
and the sunrise.

Awakes the sleeping flock,
this cock-of-the-walk squawking
his cacophonous reveille.

King of the barnyard, fair fowl
most magnificent of them all
irascibly proud, standing tall,

an impressive regal resident
whom, if ever runs for office
would surely become the President!

Aw It Ain't So Cute!

Aw It Ain't So Cute!

Dog walkers stop on my grass
they 're sneaky it's early morning
they hold small bags they're looking
over their shoulders they don't want to be
caught they hate
picking it up
sometimes these walkers don't care why
are they so arrogant the old men's
jaws get squared they give you looks
which are often angry looks
made for enemies in the
heat of battle

Sometimes I step outside
the yappy mutts
get excited become territorial
and snarl like their owners
I gently remind to take
the waste post haste to
be kind to the little beast
of burden to be careful
what you ask for it might
just drag you all over the
neighborhood before breakfast
before lunch before dinner
before anything

January Voices

January Voices

January, and the voice of the winter storm
howls over the pallid passes
before dawn. The Douglas fir, the pine,
the Engelmann spruce snore
at the first soft clues of morning.
A frozen day,
I think, yet it will arrive
amazingly, daylight
ascends from the arms of boughs, streams
silently from the hearts
of pink clouds.
The Great Horned Owl screeches
from its branch, shivers,
and flies away. The grizzly,
asleep for winter, growls in his dreams
and swats salmon in the river. My head
races in the memory of a trillion fallen snowflakes.

I hunker by the fire waiting for a warm chinook wind.

War Work

War Work

Three long rows of instruments
arraigned meticulously on a mayo stand,
ligatures speaking the language of silence.
Under the light, I in my ghostly mask
suturing the fragmented intestine,
as big around as the thick casing
of a Polish sausage. “Right here
is the critical part, saving
this soldier’s life.” We work in shifts,
morning, noon, night. First bright
sun’s rays enter the tent, I
pause after the last suture
to take in the new day reaching
outside and beyond. Daylight
bathes the standing and moving
rows of armored tanks; fresh gusts
of desert wind blowing, battered
buildings, fallen palaces of Saadam
and sons. As far as the mind sees
a rolling cloud of locusts as dark
as death brings the wounded in.

Coin Flip

Coin Flip

Sometimes I hate this place
Sometimes I hate the winter
Sometimes I love this place
Sometimes I love the winter
Sometimes I hate the summer
Sometimes I love the summer
Sometimes I am loved,
Sometimes I am hated
Sometimes I am over
Or under-rated.

Louis S. Cohn Inc.

Louis S. Cohn Cigar Inc.

Ever since my childhood,
the wooden Indian has protected the smoke shop
from his porch-front perch.
Inside carries all his wampum:
small cylindrical beads, polished shells,
peace pipes, Prince Albert tobacco tins,
aromatic cigars from Castro’s Cuba ,
carved Meerschaum bowls
seasoned to perfection.,
jawbreakers in a glass fishbowl,.
snuff tins, Bugle Boy papers,
imported stogies, climate controlled
in the walk-in humidor,
Phillies Cheroots 2/$.50,
The old warrior grimaces and stares
over his reservation, over and over
beneath the blue Montana sky.
He is old and cranky.
Please do not bother him.

The Short Happy Life of Things

The Short Happy Life of Things

Purging the old, seeking the new;
curbs lined with treasures headed
for the local landfill.

A microwave here, a stained sofa there,
some Dr. Seuss books across the way
accompanied by an ironing board.

Down the street a bicycle, wheel missing
in action nervously awaiting the crushing
compactor blades of the trash truck.

Every curb contains midden, disposables,
impermanent goods of lives disinterested
thrown away to make room for new clutter.

Gleefully I lift my treasure from the heap;
a black forest cuckoo minus the pendulum.
I imagine bird songs in my sleep.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

The Song

The Song

When the darkness comes,

I will be in a cool stream,

When the darkness comes,

I will be at Trail Creek Tavern
on Saturday night.

When the darkness comes,

I will be a bright light.

When the darkness comes,

I will be smoke from a cigarette.

When the darkness comes

I will be the loud voice heard
over the choir,

And will sing like the
tenor at the Metropolitan

And I will sing like the frog
kissed by the princess,

And I will hum, the world will hum
also,

And I will chant, the people will chant
also,

And I will drink, with vestiges of light
seeping slowly through the cracks.

It will be Saturday night

And I will leave in an old car,

My head eased of pain,

My thoughts free-falling,

Free as a puff of smoke
from the smelter stack,

Identical now to the smog
and clouds,

As the tide turns and recedes,
back to the beginning,

The music fading away,

And the streetlight, on the corner,
waiting for sunrise.

O Say Can You see

O Say Can You See

I like touching here and there on you,
I like gently rubbing the, heated ions
of your atomic skin, tracing the
perimeter of your voluptuous labials,
tasting the now, the how of you,
inhaling the drink of your liquor,
gulping your essence more and more.
I like holding this and that of you,
I like, mostly feeling the, red rockets
bursting in air of you.

Biggie Spice

Biggie Spice


I’ve grown so big

I feel like a pig.

I think that I might explode.

I’m more than twice,

maybe thrice

the man I used to be.

Sometime, somewhere

in the past seventy years

I began to grow

rather than shrink,

and now here I sit

in this monstrous chair,

just a blob

of fat and bones.

I have grown so large

in no time at all,

I almost don't miss

the slender waist,

the thin firm butt,

I once so proudly possessed.

And now here I sit

like an old twit

who will fly

like a balloon

from the chair

to the moon,

disappear in a cloud

and float above

the endless crowd.

I’ll visit awhile

With other big things:

Jumbo, the elephant,

Hannah, the hippo,

and Mack the huge truck.

Then I’ll soar through the sky,

very far, very high,

to find

a new beginning.

Cowboy

Cowboy

Cowboy likes to go to his ranch.
At the corral he can disregard
The problems of a troubled world.
He almost gets it,
Musing over the range at the cattle.

He loves to daydream.
“We’re pretty far away” he says
To his Secret Service man.
“I wonder if we can get further away.”
His entourage looks puzzled.

Back in the East, the Market plunges,
A Suicide bomber blows up a school,
His cohorts are convicted.
How much better it is at the ranch!

Too bad January is so far away
Too bad the everlasting war goes on
And some crisis or some republic
Awaits your intervention,
Your solution to problems
Of your own creation.

“Why don’t we ride a while longer?”
Cowboy would like to say to them.
If you live on a ranch, nothing goes on
You don’t even hear the footsteps.
He almost gets it.

Synergy

Synergy

All night long, wind
whips nightmares
through the hazy glass,
sleep succumbs to terror,

half-ripe apples cling
hopelessly to broken trees,
sirens wail and scream,
But what matters?

Let autumn disappear.
let the weary year
shrivel to the length
of a holiday,

old people haggle
in their constricted worlds,
and every last leaf
on the aspens redden,

wither and rot.
I need no one
today, but you
Peaches,

caressing the shape
of my face. Sadly
poor us, neglected
like lost children.

How wealthy we are,
growing away from all that,
one door closes and another
opens.

Fall Colors

Fall Colors

An October day, and guys my age
all over the world
are trying to recapture lost youth

by foolishly riding bikes up slopes,
running in neighborhood hills,
hearts pounding beyond the safe zone.

Aged, overweight men who feel the need
to prove that they still have it-
the magic exuberance of adolescence,

the liveliness, excitement and energy
that once dominated their very beings.
All over the world they are dying,

fighting the apathy of sedentary living,
Courageously they fight themselves,
warriors waging a losing war against time.

Home Again

Home Again

After it’s over, it’s just begun.
A trick of nature, this parenting

thing. Just when we exhale
with a deep sigh of relief

the phone rings and once again
we’re comforting a crying baby,

intervening in a sibling crisis,
explaining bad behavior to

the school dean or pacing the hall
at the hospital awaiting the worst.

Whether we know it or not, want it
or not we’ve signed on for a lifetime

of upheavals, crises, responsibilities-
infinite turmoil, a world without end.

They return and leave, return again
like the ebb and flow of the ocean tides.

New problems, like fresh sea urchins
wash ashore with each incoming swell,

leaving us exhausted in their wake.
Our lives forever controlled by the moon.

Lost at Sea

Lost at Sea

Diminutive the deleterious heart
of the downtrodden sailor
shanghaied in a bar in Spain.

Ghastly drunken visage, paler
than the gypsy’s thighs
the night he tried to set her

adrift in a morass of odd lies
through waves of his hallucination
amidst the moans, the groans, the sighs

distorted storms of intoxication.
The bell tolled twelve, he disappeared
in a clamor of vivid creation

lost among unfamiliar sneers,
lost at sea in a drunken trance,
too hazy to confront his fears,

forgotten yesterday’s lively dance
the ghostly ship carried him to sea,
sunk to the bottom without a chance.

His chosen path, straight and narrow,
his dying words, “Yo Soy Marinero

A ride to the Park

A Ride to the Park

Like a Dolphin in the sea
the blue helmet undulates
over the rolling bike path.
Freedom beams from her bright
smile as her inner child inhales
the joy of re-kindled youth-
a brief respite from the pain
and woe that accompany
most days and nights.

The Modern Bazaar

The Modern Bazaar
Sunday at the flea market
Pasty-faced elderly sellers in Monday work clothes
Sweating under the bright umbrellas of their booths
Stoop over goods they've gathered from everywhere
They gawk out onto the throng of potential buyers
And point with gnarled fingers to today's bargains
They shout out in loud seller's voices, hawking
Their wares as those wares were hawked in ancient
Exotic bazaars among the smells of spices
Beside caravans of wondering nomads in forgotten lands
That only the history texts serve to tell again
Reaching out to a time long forgotten
Where nobody remembers now

None of us has winced at the sight of
a slave auction
young girls for sale
none of us after arduous days
on smelly camels
and moving through hostile lands through dark of night
have been recognized by the hordes of huns
that were bolder than anyone living
so in the market, we mimic the style
that has long been forgotten
we barter in booths for the midden of others
turning trash into treasures like primeval wonderers
connecting to a time that no one remembers.

Charades

Charades

Nothing is clear, straightforward
When family is involved

Always twisting and turning
Putting on a tragic mask

Spinning tales beyond belief
Innocent faces shrewdly

Manipulating the truth
Of the latest dilemma

Time and again they return
To the nest, birds of prey,

Scavenging bits of carrion
From the elder bird’s larder

Unwilling to fend alone,
Like independent hunters

A dependent generation
Lost in self- fabrication

Neglecting the Obvious

Neglecting the Obvious

Today it rides in on a full moon
Appears suddenly without warning-
Takes away the dreaminess of my dream

Exposes me to the truth of the morning
Leaves me afraid and unprotected
An unexpected apparition, adorning

the pangs of pain that I've rejected
Fills my thoughts with dread and fear
Reminds me of what I've long neglected-

The deterioration of my aging gear,
Tenderness, soreness, throbbing pain
The downward spiral throughout the year

That goes away and returns again
A messenger of great persistence
And messages with the same refrain

Listen to this simple tune
Today it rides in on a full moon.

Winter Ground

Winter Ground

All the necessary fine points
of harvesting and
churning the fallow ground
are completed.
Crop-free the bare earth
hibernates in a deep
winter's sleep.

The Perimeter of My Prayers

The Perimeter of My Prayers

I have sung the praises of the Lord
I have ventured into belief—and out of belief
I have out prayed the deepest religious soul

I have listened to the saints from deep grief
I have walked by the pauper begging alms
and looked aside like a common thief

I have raised doubts and felt my sweaty palms
when distant sounds, unfamiliar voices
floated in the air like ancient psalms

uttered not to save or give redeeming choices
or to once again forgive my sinful soul
with melodic refrains while the heart rejoices

glorifying some inner heavenly chord
I have sung the praises of the Lord

Sonnenizio (On a line from Wyslawa Szymborska)

Sonnenizio (On A line from Wyslawa Szymborska)

Maybe there are no fields other than battlefields
Forgotten fields of Cro-Magnon wars
Remembered fields of Gettysburg or bloody
Battlefields of Million-Man marches
Maybe the violent fields fertilize the future,
Forecast the folly of battlefields to come
Recapitulate fields of history, repeat
Stages of evolutionary battlefields
Persistent codas of adeste fideles
Maybe the field generals of tomorrow
Will figure out the battlefields of peace
To be whole or sole is not to be torn asunder
There are other fields than battlefields
Time to stash away the swords and shields

On Times I'm Not Myself

On the Times I'm Not Myself

I whiz down the mountain path,
a young man cycling boldly
on the old rail-trail, former
route of the Great Northern rail,
home of grizzlies, mountain lions,
trout-laden rivers and streams.
I crank over trestles bearing
old bridges like an ancient
steam engine chugging away
through old-growth forest redwoods.

I draw beautiful images
and paint exotic pictures
imagined from the comfort
of my seaside artist's lair.

I stride the final fairway
at Augusta with Tiger Woods
one stroke ahead for my first
Master's championship as I
inhale the fragrance of
fresh magnolias, consume
the buzz of the maddening
crowd cheering me to victory.

I write nonsensical verse
meant only for private eyes
and ears, discovered after
I'm gone to make some sense
and published after the fact,
etching my name in the book
of immortal and forgettable
bardic scribblers and sages

I catch and release the fish
of my dreams- old iron head
to spawn again, release genes
into the genetic pool-
ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny, evolution

I stroll with you hand- in- hand
young lovers on a country lane
seeking a hide-a-way, our
secret spot, where desires find
fulfillment and dreams become
reality. Where trouble
disappears and what might have
been comes to fruition.

I become myself again
capable of inventing
dreams, escaping the now
reveling in imagination
celebrating the mind-
a most enchanting thing,
bright, like a rock star's bling.

Oops!

Oops!

I've come to realize
that most happy days are fraught
with fear interspersed within
our joy; jaded angst beneath
a smiling surface, the dread,
the trepidation of change
like a small rock pegged through
a kitchen window by an
unseen mischievous boy
shattering the tranquil bliss-
control beyond the reach of
human capability.
Just when things are going well
Shit happens in bunches.

3.14 Times the Radius Squared

“This ramshackle, this unwieldy, this jerry-built assemblage,

this unfelt always felt disarray: is this the sum of me,

is this where I'm meant to end, exactly where I started out?”…C.K. Williams

Alone, wending my way, seeking something

unguided, without a compass or a map

drifting parentless, an odd orphan out of step,

out of tune, out of luck, out of breath.

A wilderness trek to nowhere.

In my beginning is my ending spews

the sage. Full circle, my personal mandala

connecting the dots of one existence, one

small life, a speck of sand in a vast desert.

The circumference of a journey measured

in more than pi formulas, measured in sweat,

blood, tears, joy, laughter-a short jog

around the track of my being and I’m back

where I’ve begun.

Copenhagen Cycle Chic - Streetstyle and Bike Advocacy in High Heels

more about "Copenhagen Cycle Chic - Streetstyle a...", posted with vodpod

Dear Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. Clinton, et al

Dear Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. Clinton, et al

Trysts of politicians
Like those of day laborers
Are testosterone-driven
Not a betrayal of constituents
But raging libidos gone awry
Pheromones prancing like ponies
Easily enticing alter egos
Eager to ejaculate erratically
And deny ever having sex with
"That Woman".

Dolphins Will Sing

Dolphins Will Sing

Strong winds will come, and the breath of the sea,
and seagulls squawking with their voices off-key;
and fish in schools jumping around,
and untamed waves with a roaring sound;
dolphins will sing their favorite tune,
meeting their mates on a high-tide moon;
and not one aware of the war, not one
will care of a dying daughter or son;
not one would notice, neither fish nor sea
If human beings ceased to be;

All-Knowing

All-Knowing

The life my children lead
A hidden life-
Separateness I cannot share
Slightly underground, unaware
That I am here and there
Fully tuned to their despair
Omniscient parent in the air.

Jackson Lake/Tetons

Jackson Lake/Tetons
Originally uploaded by hombreciego

Jackson Lake with the majestic Tetons in the background is too breathtaking for words. God must vacation here!

Camping it Easy

me
Originally uploaded by hombreciego

Just about to enter Yellowstone NP from Grand TetonNP. Nice young couple took my pic and I took theirs.

In Midstream

In Midstream

I am thinking of rivers.
They are one of the things that I love
most in this world.
Many of them I have fished,
though many of the ones I have waded
produced nothing but memories.
The icy water of Yellowstone’s
Fire Hole River flows around me now.
Tomorrow she’ll be a memory like
the memory of the Rogue, the Madison,
the Missouri or the Deschutes- all waters
that have felt my waders, tasted my fly,
lifted my spirits, and sung to me.
Tomorrow the swift current
of another river will bless me,
baptize me in her roaring riffles-
connect me to all that have flowed
before and after her.
I listen to her tenderly.
She calls me with her music

Fireworks

Fireworks

Bursting in air
At the county fair
They give us pause
With oohs and awes
Wide-open eyes
And deep surprise
A lump in the throat
A chance to gloat
Bombs bursting in air
At the county fair
Rockets shooting high
On this Fourth of July
Light up the evening skies
Like beautiful fireflies

Aquarius, the Water Bearer

Aquarius, the Water Bearer

Haunted by waters, I
sense the spirit of life
lingering in each riffle.
Freedom to flow over
mainstream impediments
I am as the Chinook-
both fish and wind- thawing
the frozen pathways,
seeking warmth and sudden
death and renewal- “Rise
Up O Spirit, baptize
my soul with holy water.
Heal my pain, make me whole.
Cleanse me for the new run.
Warm my blood in morning sun.
Melt the frozen sea within me.