In life, does one stalk
Integrity and dignity

Choosing to hide behind and follow
As a Labrador Retriever tailing a pheasant

Or does one chase the prey
Like a Bluetick Coonhound gives chase to a fox

Perhaps one can fall upon goodness
Floating downward slowly as a fading magnolia blossom

Tell me, how does one accomplish a desire
Without knowing what to use to get there

Besides, is life better lived by being honorable
Is there merit to the rewards

Surely, the pursuit is what life requires
Instead of being in wait for what is in store

As though sitting on a rock, watching a stream
Reflect the colors of the sky
While playing a song for you to hear

There is a mood
That seems missing
In the public square

Morning lyrics ring
With truculent sounds
Unescorted
By harmonious echos

Discerning pundits
Wonder aloud
Why divisiveness
Holds sway

Where oh where
Has civility gone

Lost in a forest
Of greed
Submerged in
A sea of avarice

Every time I hear you utter
Snort an exasperation

I notice my flinch
Tension
An arising desire
Fix, solve
Help it go
Somewhere
Outside of you or me

Thoughts roam
Across my forehead

What if
There is another way
Accepting vexations
Chagrin does not stay
When I see that part of you

Nomadic tribes
Surviving off
Sacred lands

Settlements, touching
Each other daily
Communities

Houses and highways
Fields and byways
Interaction

Learning about one another
Good vibes, bad vibes, no vibes
Loving, ignoring, hating

Cities, nations,
Ethnic tribes
Why?

Why not love
Why not learn to live
Why not learn to live together

Learn empathy, compassion
Learn acceptance
Study self, accept
Study others, love them

He seeks reflections
In shadows on walls
expressions induced in others
sounds of praise
to clarify
his current illusion of
who he is

Are there mirrors
Clear enough
To find
A vision that
might become different
might be clearer

At her wit’s end
there is no destination
other than the road
leading back
to her beginning

Stepping into
her maddening pace
she feels wrapped
with thick, quicksand soup
covering her shoulders

She’s sinking deep,
drifting into severance,
life’s most resounding pain
cut off down here
drenched in warm liquid
molasses —  
her newest home

How wonderful to sit beside Phyllis
Fully there
Available, attentive
Unwavering support

She was selfish with her attention
On her search
for “balm for her soul.”

Phyllis would get great things to happen
Between the two or more of you
She could get everyone to be themselves.

Reading, meals with friends,
At lectures and during those unguarded exchanges
with trusted friends
Her life was a quest for balm for her soul

She would also find it
Among the poems, readings,
zoom talks with her children and grandchildren
Yet, she was always seeking more.  

She knew that when she let her mind run wild
and let the raucous kid in her play
She gathered balm for her soul
and became lost in splendor.

We, her friends, imagine that now
She is in eternal peace
Cloaked in balm
Enraptured in splendor

*We can balm our souls and lose ourselves in splendor (Jonas Altman)

Standing pretzeled
Hidden among the others
A scattered bouquet
Not wanting to be picked

Wallflowers are seen so briefly
Others skim over them
While reading the room

Wallflowers with camouflage personalities
Long for a low profile

Wallflowers are real
Thinking and feeling
Wallflowers live a life
Of unprojected desires

They blend and bend
To cover the wall
Fearful they will dance alone

Music is entrancing
Still, wallflowers keep their heels
Firmly in place
While swaying to the music
In their heart

Morning sun
Peaks through
The auburn leaves
Of the red maple
To draw the eye
Away from morning news

Trouble oozes from the page
Words written in anxiety font

Attend to the beauty
Of the leaves
Instead of the letter

What problem
Has your fret solved?

Reject agitation
Select splender
Resting before you
in nature

Each day they invade
Headlines against my small mind
Stories of pure hate

Shoes crunch onto the trail
Between the fences
Shortcuts, one of the wonders of life
Like discovering
the taste of a marshmallow

School is ahead
People, large hulking guys
Sweet smelling women
Teachers, mostly nice
Children mainly rousing

Stir fears, challenges
Sensations like one gets
When discovering a compelling
Book at the city library

Hand-in-hand
Meeting the day
Sibling love
Even better than marshmallows

Who knows

Not the best of us
Nor the stargazers
Not the book readers
Nor the book writers

Especially not the politicians
Who never stop
To ask the question
Or to ask any questions

Their nature is to accumulate
Pretend to lead
Pretend to guide
Still, their nature is taking

Some pretend to tilt
toward compassion
Toward caring
Toward altruism

Me, a grizzled octogenarian
Asks no questions
Merely wonders

Where has all of the wonder gone
Is altruism real
And if it is, why is
It ******* by greed

You say tomato
I say tomato

Black is white
Up is down

This is an insurrection
By and large
That was a peaceful protest

Masks save lives
Masks promote disease

He died of Covid-19
He died

Promote the common good
My freedom trumps
concern for others

Canards were shared that day
Pretend this story is solid true gold
Unfounded tales spun to defend

Political grenades
Are thrown from afar

From another direction
Come claims
That similar bombs
Are cast
Toward them

Will the center hold

We are living
On a political tilt-a-whirl
Exposed to unbelievable
Tosses and turns
Intended to throw us
To one side or the other

We are living
As though plagued
With a political psychosis
As though beset
With a political schizophrenia

Will the wheel slow
Will the center hold
Will our democracy continue
Or will the center fold

Pause
Start by awareness
What brightness exists around you
Give a welcome to this moment

Attend to yourself
Do your fingers feel thick or slender
Are your feet on the floor
How solid is your footing

Notice your breathing
Breath in and breath out
Count ten of these
Now another ten

As you return to your efforts
To pursue the tasks of the day

Turn out the lights
catch the night’s bequest

Train your eyes on the horizon
sunrise is approaching

Notice how blue is shading
from deep to pale

There are no shadows
Cast by the moon
Hiding behind the clouds

Sounds reverberate from
an airplane drifting
to a landing

Morning’s quiet
regains the stage

Until a Robin chirps
a wake-up call

Sunrise is approaching
advancing from east to west
lighting the sky

Rocks whiten to become obvious
against the pallid grass of winter
robbed of nutrition by the cold of January

No orb announces today
the sun is rising although hidden
behind dense condensation

The orange orb of the sun
will not flood the skyline

The fever of night
has become the pale of the day

To win every argument
Kindles feelings of triumph
Delight in obtaining a small victory

Thrills over getting the better
Of a friend, acquaintance or fellow-being

There is a warmth of self-satisfaction
Fueling persistence
To be correct
Regardless of fact or fiction

Simple daily discussions become
Debates, disputes and sparring
That must have only one outcome
You prevail!

There must be a winner
And it must be YOU

Each morning
He gathers
Those essential items
Left on the nightstand
Car keys, pill box,
jack-knife, and ball point pen

Pockets filled
With the necessities
For the day
He made a mental note
Find moments of stillness

Discover moments or places
To create a pause
Without sound
Or movement
Some short time
When he will inspect his
Surroundings
With noncritical awareness
Engage with the world
Like a wistful child
Who picks up a pebble
Rolls it over and over
Between his fingers
Studies it carefully
Before secreting it
In his pants pocket

During that moment of stillness
Perhaps he felt
Comfort oozing from
The stone or
Noticed the beauty
Gleaming at him
Reflecting the sunlight
Washing him with renewal

Surprise overcomes
Words seem nonsensical
Fact checks become
Daily headlines
Pure prevarication
Not mere vagueness
Untruths, shams
Two-faced attempts
To cheat to win
In a battle of ideas
Better still, flooding
Air-waves, all media
With bogus pre-text
That fend off
A battle
From ever being fought
Fabricated?
More than merely falsification
Calling truth a lie
Shout-downs over debate
A campaign designed to
Discredit, debunk and divide
* (back in the day we called this **** and bull)

Strong the desire to be unique  
To think in ways against the grain  
New, different is what to seek
Strong the desire to be unique
Courage to turn the other cheek
Be distinctive and never plain

Strong the desire to be unique  
To think in ways against the grain
Firm and willing to face critique  
Strong the desire to be unique  
At no time hesitant to speak
Only fly an orbital plane

Strong the desire to be unique  
To think in ways against the grain

* (Triolet Sonnet)

Politics is broken
Something is missing

Politics is polarized
Opinions are divided
Clearly we are at extreme odds

Perhaps Vernon Jordan*
Had his finger on the pulse
Of this confounding
Movement years ago

The panel was distinguished
Vernon Jordan spoke  
“In Washington, there is no longer civility”

Elected officials representing opposing camps
Engage in animus and grudges
Without social civility

Without civility
There is no healing
Nor is there compromise

Disarray surrounds him
In his antiquated
fourth-floor dwelling
Sheets of music, tablature,
Scrolls of data, reports of minimal finance
In stacks upon chairs, teeter
Precariously like arched boulders
Along Cumberland Ridge
Papers shuffle through his hands,
Which long for a keyboard
Where he shuns distractions,
Intent to share
what flows from his passion

I remember
parishioners entering
St. Luke’s enraptured by his piano hymns
As he praised his God

He formed his very own God,
One
of tolerance, love and compassion
He wished for approval
For his playing, his thoughts,
His longings and lusts

So different from those
Lining rows of mahogany pews.

I wonder if he is happy

In his heavenly spot

Where friends adorned
In colored shorts and flowery shirts

Play lyrics on golden strings

And parade their adoration to God.

Yes, a baby
Asks questions
By the act of pointing
Or making a quizzical
****** expression

What is this world
What is the world about

It is so easy to Imagine
A baby not knowing
It is easy to imagine
Not knowing because
Who knows

Not the best of us
Not the stargazers
Not the book readers
Nor the book writers

Especially not the politicians
Who never stop
To ask the question
Or to ask any questions

Their nature is to accumulate
While they pretend to lead
While they pretend to guide
Their nature is taking

Some pretend to tilt
toward compassion
Toward caring
Toward altruism

No longer a baby
One grizzled octogenarian
Ask no questions
Merely wonders

Where has all of the wonder gone
He wonders if altruism is real
And if it is, why is
It ******* by greed

To live is not counting each breath
Or even noting the time it takes to breathe
Living is doing, creating, exploring and manufacturing
Living is being in the moment with what you are doing
Living is never knowing when you will die
Never seeing a sure end
Any forty-eight hours can be significant
Moments in one’s life. Moments of proposals
Moments of sacraments, of discovery
Of learning, forgetting, remembering and re-learnig
The last forty-eight hours can be hours of passion
Of love-making, or of making one last attempt to do
the thing you never had the courage to do
The last nanoseconds can be of apathy
Like the many bits of boredom that wasted much of life
To live is not counting each breath
Or even noting the time it takes to breathe
Living is doing, creating, exploring and manufacturing
Living is being in the moment with what you are doing

Like a spider
Captures it’s prey
Viewers and bees
Succumb to the magnetism
Of pastel petal clusters
And long, whisker-like stamens
Petals flashing pink
Remenicent of the lips of
The girl who was
A first teenage crush
Delicate yet hardy
Center stage is cleome’s
Captured from black-eyed susans
Blooming hostas and mexican petunias
Perhaps it’s sinful to bask
In your radiance
Know that this
Is not a one season stand
Cleome will return next year
And the next
Loyalty is endless

We’re living in two disasters
Impacts are felt each day and night
One leads some to death
And many to fright

Facing fear and grief
Nearly every livelong day
We quarantine, we distance
Wash our hands and pray

Politics is a disaster too
Grid-lock in congress and nothing gets done
Executive branch takes action in sputters and spurts
News cast tell us which party has won

Problem solving seems somehow forgotten
Bi-partisian actions are seldom and few
Who takes responsibility for these messes
It can’t be me so it must be you.

Let me be who I really am with you
My eyes directly train upon what’s true
My realness experiences your realness
Avoiding deceit or pretense
Authenticity unimpeded
Open heart, sharing my opened mind
The real thing unadulterated
My words and feelings unalloyed
Let me be who I really am with you
An undisputed portrait of me
Meaning what is said honestly
Frankness displayed in every word
Candid truth is what you have heard
I’m the legtimate and upfront article
Let me be who I really am with you

“Judge not”

Harsh words

For most of us

Who judge automatically

When each new experience

Brings forth a feeling

Of this is good

Or this is  bad  

Unmuted feelings become

Judgmental thoughts

I judge

So, tell me

How do I “judge not”

Do I cover my emotion

With a shroud

So often that

I become unresponsive

Or do I learn to greet

Each new experience

With openness and compassion

Showing unconditionally

Welcoming acceptance

Ideally, learning such openness

Would come with ease

In reality it seems

To take a lifetime

When looking for
a perfect phrase
to describe
communication today

Not just in politics
not just in advertising
nor just in social news
or just in entertainment
consider mendacious propaganda

Mendacious the adjective
With many synonyms
For telling lies

Put together with propaganda
One has a shell bomb
A barn-burner of a phrase
For spreading rumors,
Passing on false information
And trying to influence others

Mendacious propaganda is like
A morning misting settling on the grass
Dew blankets everything
Likewise information
Fake is called real
Real is called fake
Newspapers have
A column to check the fakes
To tell you which print
You might trust

Sitting here seeing
A parade of thoughts
ideas, worries, and preoccupations
Passing by like vehicles
Streaming along a city interstate
Rolling around inside
And me
Without a map or particular direction
Sunday driving through brooding distractions

Mind watching prompts discontent
Something is missing
Seeking inside the breath
As it flows downward then up and out
A new feeling emerges
A feeling of being engulfed
Surrounded by calm
To carry me to a new place
Mindfully lost in thought
To discover moments
Of the peace that passes
All understanding

Swivel chair swings side-to-side
like a wind chime twisting in March's gusts.
Thoughts of the past fade in and out
reminiscent of film in a faulty projector.

Much is forgotten.
Denial of certain behaviors
shuns responsibility as whole
pages are wiped from his memory scroll.

Each night images play before him.
******, like a needle on a balloon,
burst thoughts of contentment
and feelings of tranquility.

How does one mute
static from past sins ,
to accept
the salve of forgiveness?

Seldom do I hear your three syllables
Ringing along the airwaves
Seldom does anyone fighting
After the war to end all wars
Consider you or think about
A cessation of arms

We even gave you a different name
Armistice, how did you become
So out of favor?

Let the world pause once again
On the eleventh hour
Of the eleventh day
Of the eleventh month
So we may sing, dance and discover
The joys of your three syllables
Ringing along the broadcast’s airwaves

Weathered turf
Fights against the steel
Clean sharp spikes
Penetrating hard packed soil
Struggling to fight off
Dandelions and noxious crabgrass
Growing in greensward despite
A lack of much-needed rain

Renewal begins as
Aeration creates holes
Spaced apart ready to accept
Seed flung across the lawn
By the cranking of a flywheel
Beneath the canvas sack of kernels
Destine to become blades
Of new grown Kentucky bluegrass

Re-seeding, renewal
Essential for lawns
As well as all living beings
Which regenerate
physically, mentally and spiritually
to fight off
Scars and growths
That disfigure and destroy

An exercise in line breaks.  See below

Give me notice (Version One)

Give me notice
For life is short
I might have more to do
Than rest on your doorstep
Hoping you will open the latch
Greet me with a smile
Suggest we spend the day
Viewing the community pond
Feeding the ducks
Cementing our bond

Give me notice
So I will not
Fall in love alone

Give Me Notice (Version Two)

GIVE ME NOTICE

Give me notice
Life
can be short

I might have
more to do

Than rest
on your doorstep

Hoping
you will
open the latch

Greet me
with a smile

Suggest we
spend the day

By the village pond

Feeding
the ducks

Cementing
our bond

Give me
notice

So I
will not
fall in love
alone

God is comfortable with diversity
God sees straight
As well as crooked
Black as well as blue

God recognizes
And appreciates each of us
Who walk on earth

Think of another world
Where judging others
Rules the day

What does it look like,
Look around you
It looks like today’s world

Might perceptions change
Where people see each others
With total wholeness
Respecting others
While dropping away
The compulsion
To categorize

Might perceptions change
Might people view others
With wide-eyes
Accepting crooked and straight
Black as well as blue
And become comfortable with diversity

Hosta’s blossoms fade
Mexican Petunia spread
Cleome endures

Few recall when the earth was scraped back
Over four score ago
To show the extensive gravel waiting to be abused

Horse pulled wagons consumed bites of earth,
One shovel-full at a time
To spit and ***** their contents
So no mud holes will grow  
Along trails black with mid-west loam

These roads carried us to and from places
To get what we did not need
For we knew how to be sustainable
Long before it became a popular movement
Long before progress discovered the quantity
Beneath the outer bones of the field across the road

So often he attempts
to change words
he has said.
Words that he says later
do not mean
what they convey

There will never be
enough blotters, or erasers
or black markers to cover all
that he would amend
or alter if possible

A secret disclosed
once redacted
becomes evidence
that he desires his words  
to remain unconfirmed

A secret is a secret
only if concealed,
totally hidden
and never unearthed

Redaction is an action
to revoke or nullify
words and actions that
may or may not be undoable

Dear indecorous,
Used only from time to time
The word for our day

You are exacting
Better than unbecoming
******, or ill-bred

Ungentlemanly
Incorrect, inappropriate
Unseemly, or indecent

I know I had a dream last night

The dream was the first thing I remembered
when I woke up

I know it was about a child
Perhaps a near baby

I was with a male friend
Though I don’t remember who

I’m sure that I was at a baseball game
Which I left before it finished

And I left the child there
With some people I met
Sitting behind me

I do recall being told by someone
Perhaps my wife

To go back and get the child

Which I was doing when I was awakened
By a noise on the street

I hope the child is okay

Without the label of a teacher
Nonetheless things are pointed out
With care and diligence

Comments meticulously exacting
As though there is a sixth sense
About what is detailed

More than busy, attention is thorough
Rigor seeps from every statement
Oozing inside the listeners skull

How much perseverance can
Be understood while feeling
Crushed beneath a microscope’s slide

One small gripe dropped
On me over our morning meal
Unusual coming from
Across the breakfast plates

Your grimace
Accentuated what was labeled
A slight beef
To begin the day
About last night
When all of our world
Was supposedly sleeping

Most of the covers
Gathered on my side
Of our sleigh bed
Tucked around me

At least this nitpick
Was something tangible
Unlike the night before
When I danced all night
With your sister
In your dreams
While you were
Left sitting
on the sidelines

With emotions
Protruding like spikes
On the ball of a flail

Her presence
Consumes the room

Even her voice sounds
Rough, pitted by
Adrenaline surging
Through her veins

Her mood
Is more than stern
As if bitterness
Rests around
Her heart
And all calm
Is hidden somewhere
Within her shadow

Mentally moving into
Where I will be
In those moments ahead
Brings anxiety and fear

Those minutes  
Of the future
Provoke doubt and unease

Similarly, the past is like
A rug stained with footprints
Of mud and grit and misdeeds
Spots best described as guilt

What peace exists resides
Here and now . . .

And in conceding that
Sadness and dark moments
Contain kernels of truth

I seldom learn about life
When walking fast along a path,
Exercise becomes the goal
Instead of understanding
Who I am, what the world is about
And why I am here

I seldom learn about myself
By reading the morning paper
instead of hearing the good morning song
Of the wren visiting
Among the feeders

I seldom learn about you
By thinking what I will tell you
Instead of hearing deeply
What you are saying and
What you are feeling while you say it

I seldom become aware
Until I feel my breath
Cascading in and out
Filling my belly and
Leaving my chest

Perhaps life is simple
When we experience it
Moment by moment
Instead of trying
To capture it
And make it ours

To follow her is to
Twist and turn through life

Attempt to squirm free
And once more
her exotic scent
captivates you

At least your suffering
Is keen and intense

Every physical contortion
Only constricts her hold

Most predict despite
Numerous gyrations
The end will be catastrophic

To breathe
Is but one of my
Entitlements

To rise
And walk
With the ability
To change direction

To experience
Feel, gather, immerse
Myself in each event of life

So, what are my
Entitlements in life?
To breathe
To rise
To walk
To immerse
To change

So far away
The shooting
The killing

So close
The anger
The hatred

Viral scenes
Confront us
If we click
If we open our eyes

Who is our fellow traveler
If not you
Both near and far

Produce stuff
Consume it all
For tomorrow
We may die

Some gain
More and more

Others do more
With less

What does
It mean
Essential

Fluff, excess
Surrounds us

The question is
Not who is dying
Rather the question is

What is dying
Is it
The planet

Here we roam
Waiting
Beneath the shroud

Within
stirs a persistent bane

birthed
while on her Mother’s knee

Now her bones
grate against the chair
amid her rhythmic rocking
that breaks the dim silence


Images reverberate

on the back walls
of her mind

Disquietude prompts alarm

as her obsessions claw
to unearth graves

of fears

she pretends are invalid

Her desire to flee

from reminders of falsehoods

and fake passions

nags her endlessly

like unforgivable sins

haunt a cloistered sister

Neither pleas, nor prayers
quell her ruminations.