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Who would write that line?
Someone who had a soul?
Someone who wanted to hurt his soul?
What would cause you to hurt your soul?
Do we know what souls look like?
Does a soul have hands?
Does a soul have nails with cuticles
you can shove toothpicks under?
Can the mind shove toothpicks?
Do souls scream?
What pain’s deeper?
If you have ever considered doing that,
you know.
Originally published in Mad Swirl
Part of baseball is being bothered
by stuff that doesn't really matter--Joe Posnanski
These old bones and eyes
rest now, slouched
on the couch, watching
my favorite baseball team,
headed for another bad year,
try to hit and pitch
above their ability.
We did win two pennants
and one World Series
over my long life.
I used to rant and rave
at the errors and strikeouts
and home runs given
more than received.
Now in my home stretch
I will see the sphere
speed and curve,
drop and slide,
driven to a shortstop,
blasted to the river
behind a stadium.
Just biding time, soon
The Fan Hall of Fame.
Originally published in Western Quarterly
You have moved far away
by the ocean.
We cannot have a cup of coffee
in our neighborhood
as we did for so many years.
But we can walk in the rain
by the sea with the wind
whipping our umbrella,
sup mussels from that irascible waitress,
drink thick, foamy Irish Coffee
and watch memories toss on the waves.
Originally published in Passion Fruit
So I can’t be sued by none of youse, as you always said,
wouldn’t care much about suing except to spit the word out like a curse.
But thanks guys for what I learned about how not to live life.
Ernie Bigush used to spit a lot more than he talked
when we were a gang--the Falcons--
with tough Porky as our fierce leader. His side kicks—
Ernie B., Sharkey, Kranns, Buttface?
Where’d they wind up?
I last saw Porky working at a gas station
when my Dad filled up to take me to college.
Porky grunted goodbye noting, it seemed,
the separation between his life and mine.
At our senior Homecoming football game, drunk as life,
you rose up, took off your helmets,
pounded the other team’s line until the refs stopped
the offense, threw you all out of the game.
Wrecked the annual student tomato fields fight
near Hays High School, a ritual turned into wanton mayhem
when the crowd smashed that fruit on neighbors' cars.
And you guys forced young Bonic to join
in a liquor store robbery, tossing him his share
of cash and booze, even when he started crying,
squeezed between Bigush and Kranns in the back seat.
But youse went to jail and Bonic didn’t
so my good-bye to Porky from Dad's car was more
a sigh of sadness than any single fond memory I ever kept.
Originally published in Cacti Fur Magazine
At twelve years old, divorce
put me on the plane,
a summer with my Mother,
who gave me to my Father
because he made her afraid.
I was afraid of flying too.
Even my popping ears
scared me despite
the wad of bubble gum.
Planes were small back then,
loud propellers were seen
out of the window.
Imagined them falling off,
bursting into flames,
closed my eyes,
saw WWII movie crashes.
Lifted off into the Arctic clouds,
the vast, impenetrable whiteness.
Descending.
At last! At last!
Why are we going up again?
Planes land or crash.
Gravity goes down, not up!
Descending again,
gripping the seat tightly
like every trip on a Ferris Wheel.
Safe! In Rhode Island. In Mom’s arms.
Mom exclaimed about the landing gear.
"They were not down on the first descent.
You were saved by the radio tower."
On and on she talked
as if the landing
triumphed over my arrival.
Now, summer in Rhode Island.
Providence.
Originally published in Corvus Review
We had to do everything differently,
we hippie/radicals, changing the world.
Our hair ever long then,
gone from legs and arms of the women.
We sported beads, ratty jeans,
colorful tops, without bras.
Smoked pot and hash
instead of cigs and booze,
dropped acid and MDA,
protested that horrid war,
marched with our Black brethren,
just flat out opposed everything.
So at Roberta’s birthday,
cake candled and lit,
about to sing the Birthday Song,
Danny shouted out: No!,
that is bourgeois!
Our country sings it like God Bless America!
A pox on that. On to our own song.
The candles burned lower.
What, could he be that stoned?
Beams of anticipation.
We smiled and sang.
We all live in a yellow submarine,
A yellow submarine, a yellow submarine.
We knew that tune like
we knew the old birthday one.
We warbled that in our clique for months,
every time we celebrated our youthful days.
Don’t remember when we changed back.
We did live in a yellow submarine
all of those exciting years,
swam in the underground world
of our refreshing culture.
We sailed around the sun
beneath the sea of green, below
the waves of the America we despised
and our friends were all aboard
as we welcomed more and more
from next door to both coasts.
Revolution without end!
Believing the fantasy—
we created a sea change
made everything better,
psychedelic dreams to justice ideals.
Older now, we still float
there in our minds,
happy for what we did,
sad that it sank.
Originally published in October Hill Magazine
In Memory of Alastair Sims
In A Christmas Carol, Dickens described the holidays as “a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
Did you ever wonder what Scrooge did after he converted?
Invited God right into his heart and turned it around.
And some fancy ghosts scared him into Christmas.
Indeed, he really knew how to do Christmas well.
Raised Bob Cratchit’s salary yearly. Hot coals and punch all winter.
Uncle Scrooge blessed Tiny Tim by paying for his schooling.
Found a high-level apprenticeship for Peter and attended Martha’s wedding.
Drank tea and befriended dear Mrs. Cratchit.
Located the “marvelous, wonderful” boy and apprenticed him as a butcher.
Gold crowns for Mrs. Dilber, Christmas presents for her kids.
Sent Fred’s Sally to seamstress school. Loaned Fred money to build his business.
Visited Old Joe. Helped him remodel and hire the charlady.
Waltzed every Christmas till he couldn’t, then sat on the couch and clapped.
Ate Christmas dinner with “his sister’s boy” every year, fat turkey and all.
Railed against Poor Workhouses and wretched prison conditions.
Poured money into Ignorance and Want all of his days.
Placed a tombstone above the Fezziwigs:
They danced life the best of all.
Sought out Alice and made peace with her.
Met her every need and were friends to the end.
Why could Old Scrooge, who always got more bread
for everyone from then on, do all of this for humanity?
Because he had money till he died.
May we privileged do as well.
Originally published in October Hill Magazine
Read: India, 58,000 deaths from
poison snake bites last year,
mostly rural men, women and children.
G
Read: 2,000 Afghani pregnant women
housed in tents in Germany.
GO
Read: Thousands of Haitians
crushed by earthquake and storm
flock to the border to be sent away.
GOD
Read: Millions die world-wide
from a virus that re-creates
itself with different masks.
GODO
Read: Pollution devours air, soil, water,
and spits fire across the land.
GODOT, still waiting for
Originally published on Mad Swirl
A huge hawk flew across my mind.
The accident flung every detail
aside—how much yogurt to buy—
I was writing a grocery list
when the call came—
stars thrown into a sky so black
I can’t even see the dull light
points of your life anymore.
My mind fell limp, like
watching someone drown
when I can’t swim a lick,
or plunging into a cave
with bats, moon and sun
obliterated all at once.
The hawk drags away words—
leaves nothing to say.
Originally published in Young Raven's Review
I fully intend to read all the books I’ve purchased
and complete my task on my 592nd birthday-Anon.
Tiptoeing into this poem—
I know—to cast aspersions
on book readers is heresy, traitorous.
But I have noticed book worship
become endemic, post after post
declare the more books
you have the better you are as if
books were the gold of Midas.
Yesterday some wag chirped:
“How many books should you
have at any one time?”
30. On your bedside table alone.
Ah, the great pleasure—who has not—
stormed seas and souls with Ishmael,
ridden on National Velvet,
played the fool with Quixote,
heard Ivan rail against God,
Thoreau nest in Walden,
Rachel decry silenced Spring,
been Chaucered, Shakespeared,
Whitmanned, Eliotted, Emilyied.
Frosted and Pounded,
Faulknered and Hemingwayed?
I get it! I love to read
and devour books like
a starving man feasts.
In 1974 a conference to end hunger
was conducted in Rome.
Hundreds of scholars from
all across the world, millions
of words written and spoken.
Proposed myriad solutions.
Kissinger said: “In ten years
no child will go to bed hungry.”
Illinois Governor Otto Kerner
wrote a blueprint
to improve
housing for the poor in 1968,
a national best-seller, read
by everyone with concern.
But not much changed.
People of good heart strive
to feed, heal, build.
Answers all in the books—
read and read and read,
flipping pages, burn fingers.
The world rabidly prints
more books, more books.
Hurry up—Please,
it’s time for more books.
The hands that hold books,
could do more—Please.
I say: Do not kneel before
the book idol unless
we better the world.
Originally published in Down In The Dirt Magazine
Over a few days, these happened.
A woman, accidentally bumped
as she was picking a lotto card
from a machine, caused her
to push the wrong button
and win 10 million.
The next day, a mechanic
found some paintings
in a dumpster worth a fortune.
In the Derby, a horse ran
because another scratched
the previous day, won
as the biggest longshot ever.
Now we know the key to life.
Pray, beg, scrabble about,
be superstitious—you know how—
or defy superstition. Smash
mirrors, rescue black cats,
step on the cracks break
your mother’s back.
I’m not going to tell you how—
figure it out yourself.
But get luck somehow, someway,
wine and dine that Lady
by crook or hook,
and you’ll be fine,
but avoid the Black Spot,
Billy Bones did not luck out.
Originally published by Bindweed Magazine
Drop my 79 year old younger brother off
at the local airport, small and unstable
like an old stagecoach stop,
sending him to California to join
in the celebration of his son’s 50th.
Remember my first flight
on a prop plane to visit
our divorced mom in Rhode Island,
the tower telling the pilot
to bank around again because
he forgot to drop the landing gear.
My brother won’t have to deal with that
on this memory trip to the Golden state.
But I made it and he made it.
He had a stint spying on Vietnamese
in a War he came to hate,
as I, stateside, wore my boots down
protesting that atrocity.
He became a skilled carpenter,
building monuments of furniture
in homes all over the area.
I taught special ed children,
making them special despite the ed.
Now both with fifty-year marriages,
we fish in a local lake,
root for different teams,
bond in a local poetry club,
turning our long lives into verse.
Aches and pains travel with him,
heart, iron, energy, leg problems,
but he rolls on as we always have,
fighting through the age
that ain’t for sissies.
We realize we are close to sending
each other on a final flight
from which we won’t return,
joining the angels who will make sure
the landing gear is down,
accepting our forever wings.
Originally published by Bindweed Magazine
He woke up in the dark and knew.
He already knew but now New
touched His face, moved His head
slightly to the left, opened His eyes,
a crack of dawn, a tiny crack of dawn
spiked from the tomb door, soon
footsteps, and He knew his own
would walk eternally with the others.
Originally published in Foreshadow Magazine
Is there silence anywhere?
Do we always have to actively seek quiet,
hide from the noise,
even beautiful sounds,
cacophony more powerful?
When I was a child I read a Golden Book
about Mrs. Flibberty-Jib and her husband.
City noises drove them batty so they moved to the country
for the quieter moos and chirps and that helped.
But they did not get away into total silence,
just quieter, just better.
The world is pandemonium,
the loud clang of history
deafens our hope.
The gurus of the world
demand isolation, quiet breathing,
shutting out the world, even
muting our own heartbeats.
Jesus stole away for the silence to pray.
There was a great silence in Heaven about half an hour
before the seventh seal opened. Was it truly silence?
Do we have to wait for God’s Promised Return
before Silence reigns, when God can finally sleep
because of the deep sound of peace on Earth,
and finally good will between all men, women,
children, animals and Nature?
Seems so. Wake me up gently when it comes.
Originally published in Poets Of The Promise
What better thought can a retiree
muse about close to the end of the road
than what Heaven might be like,
which I did one dreamy day.
I rested on my back patio
when the sharp scream of a siren
made my heart clutch, as I knew
something bad had happened—
fire, accident, hospital.
That blasting sound signals trouble
and I figured there’d be no sirens in Heaven
as I’d be blissfully lounging
and no wail would pierce the air.
Then I thought of those other Sirens,
women who lured men into perdition.
They won’t sing come hither songs in Heaven,
neither will men spin wiles
at innocent, young, beating hearts.
With a nodding thought about
whether motorcycles or football
would roar in Heaven, I dozed off
with time still left to dream.
Originally published in Lit Shark Magazine
For most of us, we friend our body and the feeling is mutual.
We do not notice her or him when we are well,
walking peacefully hand in hand like true companions.
But not for all. Stillborn, early death or sickness throughout life.
So far I have not been one who suffered that way.
I weep for the others, guilt peeps in on occasion.
Now, my body, I wait for the end of our friendship.
Unless an accident takes me, a car, a storm,
a shooter, a plane, what organ(s) like a Judas(es)
will betray me when one day you abandon me?
Without apologizing he or she will begin the breakup.
Too many ways to list. Why scare ourselves?
So, my body, I want to thank you for our long friendship.
I will try not to be angry or spiteful as you leave.
Originally published by Highland Park Poetry
I wish you were only white rock.
I wish they didn’t June moon spoon
gush all over you as if you were magic
could conjure love, always beautiful
full or slice.
I wouldn’t be so angry she left,
pulled away from my last kiss
in the dreadful light
of you, Moon.
Originally published in Poetry Hall
Don’t know they are weeds.
Flowers plucked
gently snipped,
not ripped, pulled hard,
flowers bouqueted,
arranged and ribboned,
not pitched on a pile.
If weeds were sentient
like women,
they might realize
things are treated
differently in this world.
Originally published in Poetry Hall
Unless you aren’t
you’re one of those
who lives a stove burner life
your stove as big
and wide as you make it
the number of burners your choice
more or less
yes, life ignites some
unusual ones you don’t want
but have to tend
frantic running
from knob to knob
adjusting, adjusting
don’t let that one boil over
make sure that one is on simmer
shut that one off!
when turn it back on?
low, medium, high flame
oh, the phone rang
your grandson crying
running and running
back and forth
turning knobs
that one boiled over
that one burned
that one perfect
until your stove tamps
goes cold and they
turn all the burners off
you’re done cookin’
Originally published in Mad Swirl Magazine
You, the wife of a handsome English prof
who made literature sing.
We, the hippies who lionized him.
We came to your porch evenings,
drank and smoked dope,
marveled at his insights,
e.e. Cummings to Shakespeare.
But I felt a weird vibe.
As the prof drank more and more,
he began to ogle the hippie chicks,
flirt with them, stare at their braless breasts,
letch at them and ignore you.
Mrs. B., an Iowa farm daughter,
your teeth turned your face ugly
compared to the nymphs
who oohed and aahed at your husband
who unabashedly played to them,
left you, mouth closed, lips protruding
rooted in your church shoes,
sipping a Coke through a straw
to prevent hand wringing,
a simple dress, revealing
an awkward body, hiding
a burgeoning figure, babies
asleep inside, unawares.
I’m just a repentant, old hippie guy
who did his own damage to women
back in the Day. Mrs. B., I’ve mused
about you in my retirement years.
Hope you fled to better off.
Originally published in Beatnik Cowboy