The snowshoe hare hid
In the whiteness but the wolf
Even whiter pounced

Rivaling gunfire
ten pairs of rock dove wings boom
and greet my presence

Shift begins: look how
Slow those seconds crawl: Shift ends:
See how they speed up

I went to a European restaurant recently
and it may have been in Europe too
It wasn't a bad meal
And the waiter presented me with a bill crowded with euros
Or maybe pounds
I looked at it
Then said to him
"How about paying me the bill you owe me?"
He gawked at me.
"How about paying me the bill for serving as your pressure valve. Do you know how many insurrections, how many assassinations we prevented by taking in your frustrated and disaffected?"
He continued to gawk at me.
So I continued.
"No, really. Do you know how much you owe us for saving you from the Kaiser, from ******, from Mussolini, from who knows how many more crazies?"
He gawked, not knowing whether to call the gendarmes or reach into his billfold.
I continued.
"How about the bill you owe us for showing some restraint? You know we could have hanged every **** and Fascist officer over colonel at least? But we didn't. Instead we turned them into Siemens executives and Fiat general managers."
He still gawked, poised to jump for a phone or maybe just shout real loud.
So I continued.
"How about the bill for making your mediocre artists into rich men and women? You know it's us who turned Abba into stars. It's we who built the Scorpions' mansions."
He finally said something.
"Scorpions don't live in mansions. They live in nests."
I got up and left, then paused outside,
rested the left sole of my Ferragamo shoes on a Ferro Concrete wall
And waited to get arrested by cops without guns

I walk these streets
Where my grandfather walked
From a town on the other side of the state
I walk these streets
Where my father walked
From a town on the other side of the country
And sometimes I can hear my grandfather shouting
Saying, "Do you think this concrete ever gets softer?"
And my father -- his son in law -- turns around
And even though the two of them never met
He replies
No I don't.

“Oh, my husband has been ill. He just got out of the hospital.”

An unneeded apology for the elderly man's labored pace

I didn't but I should have told the elderly woman that I was in no hurry to collect their newspaper subscription.

I stood patiently

As 40 years passed

And somehow I remembered that old man and old woman in an apartment complex set back in the
desert

Reading about the fall of Saigon, the Mayaguez, Ford to New York: Drop Dead

Fading away

Their names no longer spoken

Like Saigon, Mayaguez, Ford

Only New York persevering

In the same place maybe where

I spot a flicker and a shadow

A young boy and young girl holding hands

Twenty-five by eight on the muddy water
She steps from rocking wood
to solid land
Looking forward to dry dirt, not mud and water
on her gingham dress
Five thousand square feet off
W. Evergreen, the Weedstreet District
"Can you believe all these people," he says.
"I thought they say no one has money."
And Rod Stewart replies, "Billy left his home with a dollar in his pocket..."
And then outside
She looks up in the sky and marvels:
"Hey, the Sears Tower is still there."