BOSSY

At every turn,
my mind will confront
my negative emotions—
fear, anxiety, jealousy—
who are like a bossy Aunt
who moved in
after she blew her life
and had to live with me,
nowhere else to go.

It won’t do any good
for my mind to stand firm
with crossed arms
and a withering glare,
and say things like:
“Get it together,
Use your head,
Wait to see what happens,
Chill,”
or try to reason
with her
because she will
weep and scream
and declare
the worst could happen.

“Your dog might tear her leg again.”
“It most likely is cancer.”
“Your company could move overseas.”
“Probably your wife cheated.”

No matter how much your mind
tells her to pipe down,
she never will.

That bossy Aunt digs in, persists,
bound and determined
to make my life
as bad as it can be

Originally published in Mad Swirl

OUR LIFE AGAIN

In grad school behind a wall
of books, sealed into the words
of Poe, Stevens, Hemingway
Faulkner, Salinger, Albee.

Dominoes fall
and Goliath lies,
claims a David
from Viet Nam
dared sling a torpedo
at one of our ships.
We attack Communism
and those fierce, small,
black-clad people
as if our economy
depended on it.

In love with Lydia, a young nurse,
fingers as gentle
on my body and soul
as her patient hands on the dying.

That was our life.

I dropped out of school,
buried my love of books,
chose a love of marching.
Lydia nursed us through protests
to foment a revolution
that had no more chance 
than our nation could keep
from shooting missiles
at foreign lands.                               

Once again the world is at war,
this time another Goliath
against another David,
its own brother
as Russia attacks Ukraine.
The bombs fall and people flee
just as they did so long ago.

This is our life again.

Originally published in The Bezine

 STALIN: A SLICE OF DEATH

At twelve I was aware of the world.
News flash during Ramar Of The Jungle:
Joseph Stalin dead of a heart attack.
I jumped up and yelled through
my house as if the Devil
himself had finally been slain.

When he had a traitor executed,
the whole family was killed
like Achan’s tribe at Jericho.

Terrorizing the population,
sent his soldiers into big cities,
to murder a few thousand innocents.

Slew over half of his advisors.
Would throw parties, shoot
those not drunk enough.

Chased down Trotsky in Mexico.
Axed Leon, his comrade
who dared to oppose him.

Loved flowers but at the end
nightly commanded his gardeners
to decapitate every blossom
and replace the flowers the next day
for another pogrom of his garden.

Absolute power over more people
than anyone in history, estimates
of over 20 million slaughtered.

Why obeisance to the One,
allow One to dominate us,
allow One to kill so many,
allow One to hoard the wealth,
bend the knee to One,
kiss the ring of One?

Now his soul-less mate
Putin, replicating fear and complicity—
purges, poison, propaganda—
arises as the One.

Tyrants line the bloodstained
corridor of history.
Against all odds, heroes
defy the powerful,
battle against the One.

Originally published in The Bezine

OLD TRICKS

In our apartment building,
when I was a child,
old Mrs. Greta Shultz horrified me.
We lived by an airport,
every whining sound of jets
sent that creaky lady
scuttling under the kitchen table,
duck and cover every time,
air sucked in, moans--
for her an American Luftwaffe,
Slaughterhouse Dresden memories--
her mind recoiling
at the screaming sounds
from her younger girl day/nightmares.
Despite heart-felt pleas,
Greta was safe under the table.

After years of marriage,
we rescued a dog.
She had been caged
for months in cold wire.
We gave her our warm and safe home.
But when my wife ever went out,
Butter would mewl by the door,
shiver and shake
till the door opened,
de-plane on my wife's lap.
No coaxing mattered.

You can’t unlearn old tricks.

Originally published in The Bezine

DEATH BE PROUD!

Death be proud!
Be very proud!

There is no one like you.
No one opposes you.
You are uninvited to every
Single human endeavor.
You are never welcome,
Always there. No one
Ignores you. No king rules over you,
The king of every being.
On stage whenever you choose,
There is no script, no proper time.
With so many disguises,
The master of a billion faces,
Who can stand up to you?
Who will not lie before you?
You have all of history.

One makes you tremble.
Only One defeated you.
You know Him well.
The day will come
When you see Him.
He will humble you, de-claw you
Rip the laurels off your head.
O, proud Death, will you beg
For the mercy you gave no one?
It is not in your nature.

He told you
He would return. You chose
To ignore Him.
Then He will be there,
Knock at your door,
A vial of life in
His Right hand;
His finger pointing
Toward the gaping Abyss.
Your pride will drain
Like the color
Of the pale shrouds
You wrought.

I want to be there
Watching your demise,
Watch you crumble in fear,
Weeping, gnashing teeth,
Hands limp as they carry you out.

Death be proud now
Now is all you possess!


Originally published in Agape Review

TWO COUPLES

She’s like Mother Teresa,
he like Saint Francis.
But those angels
appeared a long time ago
and I’m telling you
this was a couple
from the Chicago suburbs
who came to our university
to study Psychology
and discovered something
was wrong with humans
so they found Jesus
Who agreed with them.

They wore used clothes
and lived as paupers
in a small apartment
among those who
they sought to serve.
Giving of themselves,
offering a “hand up.”

Accompanying their neighbors
in a fight for fair treatment
when sewage backed up
into their homes
and struggled for justice
for hungry children.
No children of their own.

Figured out that the Church
at large was only giving a pittance
to lift up people in poverty
as Scripture commands
and wrote a book
to tell the world about it.

Went nowhere and spent nothing
except going to McDonald’s
on Fridays for a weekly treat.

Didn’t save for a funeral
and we don’t know
what will happen to their ministry
when they die soon
because they are old now
and sometimes their faces
seem transfigured.

My wife and I are middle class
teachers from Chicago
who live in a small house.
Once our sewer backed up
and we hired a local company to fix it,
were frugal and gave to the poor,
volunteered at that old house,
tithed to the church,
let our cars go from new to old,
went on a few nice vacations,
out to nice restaurants some,
bought new clothes
when we needed them,
raised our kids to be successful
and are old ourselves now
with paid for cremations
and money for our kids to inherit.

Originally Published in Agape Review

sataN fell like lightning

You capitalize
the last letter of your name,
mock God’s first letter.

Lying, did you slink?
Dirt and dust for you forever.
Slither at cried: “Shame!”

Afraid in any way?
Wait in the weeds to delight
in depth of Fall?

Arrogance your name.
Hubris more than Oedipus.
Milton: “Bend the Knee.”

You tormented Job.
His trial equals mankind’s.
Failure will be yours.

Savaging at will,
an evil lion on Earth.
But your teeth shattered.

No sympathy here.
Snakes worse than spiders.
Calling you out satan.

Originally published in Agape Review

THE UN-CHOSEN

The Chosen people
un-chosen for one night.
Huddled in the dark
no fire
listened for wings
any rustle
prayed for lamb's blood
to protect them
from the Angel of Death.

Did they hear the wails
clutch their first born
in the middle of the night?

The Chosen people
un-chosen one time,
blessed.

Originally Published in Agape Review

GOD DIDN'T MAKE MONEY

Warned about the love of money,
the worst worm for the heart.

Praise to St. Augustine—
begged with the poor.

Praise to Jesus—
flogged the money changers
out of the Temple.

Praise to Zacchaeus—
climbed a Sycamore
to give his money back.

Praise to the Samaritan—
spent his silver to heal
when others wouldn’t.

Praise to tent-maker Paul—
sent gifts to the poor
Jerusalem churches.

Praise to St. Francis—
cared about creatures
more than gold.

Praise to Luther—
ridiculed Indulgences
to avoid Purgatory.

Praise to St. Damien—
lived with lepers
though he had a choice.

Praise to Wesley
loved the poor
not their tithes.

Praise to Teresa—
comforted the dying
for a dollar a day.

Praise to Jerry and Sue—
helped and supported
their poor neighbors.

Praise their hearts
full of Heaven’s Treasure.

Originally published in Agape Review

NINETEEN FORTY-FIVE

Tribute to Charles Simic

When my Father left for war,
Mother gave me a wooden Tommy-Gun.
WW II crashed to a close.  
Skeletal bodies liberated at Auschwitz.
Hoop Jr. won the Derby.

I leaped behind chairs, killed the enemy,
hoped to bring my Father home.
Audie Murphy awarded the Medal of Honor.
McArthur returned to the Philippines.
Liz stole hearts in National Velvet.

The radio our shrine,
bending our ears in hope.
Hitler married Eva,
suicide for a honeymoon.
VE Day.

My younger brother was born,
almost died in the hospital.
The US seized Iwo Jima.
Army captured college football.
Folic acid discovered in leafy greens.

News of my Dad coming home.
Dancing in the streets.
Steinbeck, Cannery Row,
Wright, Black Boy.
Lucky Strike Hit Parade.

Enola Gay and Boxcar drop the A-bombs.
VJ ends that theater.
Dad returns, kisses Mom a lot.
The Tommy-Gun left on a shelf.
Grand Rapids, first fluoridated water.

Dad and I glued to the radio.
Tigers whip Cubs in World Series,
creates celebration in 2016.
B-52 crashes into Empire State Bldg.,
forecasts 911.

We move into the middle-class,
a washing machine and Oldsmobile.
Wars continue.
I am 79 today.

Originally published in Green Silk Journal

THEOLOGY

You say there is no Heaven.
Fly with me now across the world
to a breast in one country,
as long as the people are starving.
It does not matter where.
A desiccated breast. Sere.
Clinging, an infant, boy or girl?
Doesn’t matter.
Sucking scarce milk from a drying teat,
soon to die, like its siblings, like its mother.
Doesn’t matter.
You say there is no Heaven.
You say there is no justice.
The universe just happened by accident,
just appeared, exploding into beautiful
us.

Outcomes just came out.

Fly back with me back to our country,
to a crib in the suburbs.
See my niece, dressed in pink,
a silver spoon in her mouth.
She will live to a ripe old age,
have a beau, have a baby,
maybe more for the nanny.
Boys or girls, doesn’t matter.
A plump, full breast or Silk milk.
You say: Too bad, too bad!.It’s just too bad!
That’s just the way the cookie crumbles in the milk.
I don’t think about the future, Heaven.
Doesn’t matter. I can’t think about those other babies.

Hand me a fresh diaper. Hurry, I have to go.
Meeting my hubby at the restaurant.
Hurry.

Originally published in Heart of Flesh

SATURDAY (AN EASTER POEM)

He is dead now.
He was so alive,
Buried.
We are scattered,
Huddled in fear
In various haunts.

Will we ever be fishermen again?
Peacefully plying our nets.

Didn’t we see the miracles?
Drinking the hilarious wine at Cana.

Didn’t we see the healings?
So many unblinded.
The centurion’s daughter dancing.

Didn’t we see the demons
Come screaming out?
The startled eyes of pigs and peasants.

Didn’t He forgive our sins?
Stones refusing to kill a fallen woman.
The tax collector scrambling down the sycamore.

When will they hunt and kill us?
Remember the agony of the tree.

We remember the days of Glory.
His face shining for days off the mountain.

Will we always remember,
The sound of His voice?
You feed them!   I AM…I AM…

That look He gave us
When we slept in the Garden.

Oh God, what will tomorrow be like?   
What will tomorrow bring…

Originally published in Heart of Flesh

MY LIFE IS SO MUCH THINNER THAN THICK

Like a playing card
turned sideways,
a King or Jack,
as thin as invisible,
I see myself sometimes
as the card they pull
to bring the house down,
to miss the goal,
spoil the broth,
muck the pile,
screw the pooch.

Please—
build my stack,
kick me through,
stir my pot,
rake me up,
just pet me.

Try again.
Mercy thickens.

Originally published in Mad Swirl

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT

Aunt hauled me around
with her on her adventures

when I was young.
She was a free bird,

never had a real job,
only errands for her successful

mother and older brother, and,
my parents preoccupied with their lives,

a father busy with adultery,
a step-mother hiding in movie magazines,

left me at loose ends.
Aunt Elaine thought I was bright,

she stimulated my mind
in ways no one else did.

Always stacks of books by her bedside;
I think she read the whole library.

But pages would be turned only until a book bored her,
like the half-smoked butts she squashed, filling her ashtrays.

On the adventures in her world—
the zoo, baseball games, hole-n the wall eateries—

we visited champion bowlers who were lesbians,
she a closet one I found out years later.

Never married but verbally abused
her one boyfriend (her shield)

because he was a pro-union liberal,
snidely calling him her Comrade.

She read Marx but was a Republican
who loved Eisenhower, loathed Adlai.

Dressed like and was a beatnik
before they were named,

always wore dark sunglasses,
even inside, sported a tam,

frequented bars with peanuts on the floor,
quipping until her humor turned

the bar flies’ laughter into scorn
as her words became mocking fire,

forged by her boiling anger.
Too often I was the target of her ire.

The last time I saw her
when a young family man

who visited her only because
I felt her loneliness over the phone,

she was sloppy into a crying jag,
taking shots from a variety

of schnapps bottles, a rainbow of flavors,
getting drunker and drunker,

pounding the table over and over,
crying and moaning harder and harder

for every failure
in the world and her life.

Why did I continue to see her?
Why did I tell you her broken story?

Because I know she loved me
and, indeed, I loved her too.

Originally published in Rat's Ass Review

GROUNDHOG DAY

Forty-seven years ago, we laid my Father
in a frozen Groundhog Day plot.
It would have been fun to only care
about the folly of a rodent shadow.

Instead, we buried
his rags to riches,
life-of-the party,
addicted, family shattering
short life.

Forty-seven years later,
on the date he was buried,
I held my new grandson.
Warm, swaddling clothes
displace frozen ground.
My years now way beyond his
who never saw my wedding,
or any grandchild.

The Groundhog’s shadow is dark,
the tiny boy in my arms
brightens the day.

Little boy, little boy—
Will you see the sunlight of a long, healthy life
or the shadows of that brief buried one?

Much more than desolate winters,
may bright Springs guide your days.

Originally published in Ariel Chart

ILLI-NOISE

Early in Moby Dick,
Melville, glorifying Nantucket,
loved that faraway island,
attempted to find the opposite,
the nadir to this crown of New England,
where ships launched for whales,
where quaint sea shacks leaned,
the dark blue of the North Atlantic,
boats like shining diamonds in the sun,
wild, rugged green grass,
necklaces of fishing nets,
shores planted with lighthouses.
Melville chose to pick on Illinois.

What did Illinois do wrong?
Was it a cosmic offense
sent the glaciers,
slowly scraping
across its beauty?

Where are the seas, the mountains,
any elevation at all?
Just fields, fields, fields.
Are long, deep furrows,
corn and soybeans pretty?
Yes, beautiful sunsets,
but everywhere has sunsets.
Does it matter that nothing
blocks your eyes when you see
the blazing colors of the only
work of art in the Sucker state?

Melville scanned his world-wide mind,
harpooned Illinois
as if it were a leviathan
never to escape
his words.

Originally published in Ariel Chart

HAUNTING

Stephen King’s dad never dreamed
he would bless his child
when he stomped out the door.

King’s unfaithful dad,
did a Melville and fled to the sea,
signed on as a merchant sailor.
He never even sent a postcard,
just left a trunk of horror
and science fiction books behind,
which young Stephen discovered.

Even if Stephen’s dad had stayed true,
Halloweened him, played catch,
skied or climbed trails, bounced
him off his heart’s knee, tucked
him in at night with ghost stories,
might King have become
the guru of fright anyway?

Perhaps inspired by this wraith,
Stephen imagined his own scary stories.
Wonder if they haunted his dad
somewhere on a ghost ship?

Originally Published in A Thin Slice Of Anxiety

MISGUIDED

A pilot accidentally fired a missile,
killed ten Afghan civilians going about their lives,
seven of them children, the photograph
of the grieving mother, arms pleading with the sky,
morphs into the napalmed, screaming girl
Phan Thi Kim Phuc, now an old woman in much pain,
fleeing on a Vietnam road so long ago.

Missiles have human brains and the mind
who misfired had to know
the air they breathed was always death.

What would he tell himself?
Was he hard-hearted? Murderous?
Was he truly defending his country?

When the heart behind the trigger finger
realized who he had killed,
was there any way he could make
this tragedy more significant
than the entire long and useless war?

Could he stand to look at the aftermath of his error?
Would that scene be printed and framed
next to his family photo on the bedroom bureau?

No, that image burned in his mind.

Originally published in The Taj Mahal Review

CASTOR OIL

We waited, shaking,
newspapers under the chairs
we sat on in case we vomited
as the Grand Poobah--
our Father--
approached with a tablespoon,
filled to the brim
with the smelly oil,
aimed for our terrified gullets.

It was the cure of our generation.
Should any child manifest
the slightest stomach ill,
down came the dark, brown bottle
with the yellow label,
maybe skull bones on it,
given without hesitation,
the cure for all gastronomic pain.

My brother and I
faced each other,
began to spit on the floor,
pleaded with our Dad
we were too sick
to imbibe the ghastly brew,
like drinking Quaker Oil
we cried.


To no avail,
avail did not exist.
But the cries elicited some mercy.
Mixed into orange juice
or orange soda.
"Drink it down fast boys.
It will heal you quicker,
not taste so bad.”

It took me years to drink
a Big Orange, quaff
the golden elixir of Florida,
suck on a Navel.

Even after castor oil
proved worthless,
the mere mention
causes a shudder
in my soul.


Originally Published in Terror House Magazine