I woke up 35 today.
Thought it wouldn't feel
Any different from 34, but
This time...

I'll buy an extra few flowers
For my mother.
It's her day too.

I'll buy my dad a cigar and a
Cold one.
For all the gray hairs.

I'll thank my brother for
Being
Just that
For 33 years,

And my girlfriend for not
Minding what we
Both think
Might be the earliest whiffs
Of an 'old-man-smell'
On me.

It's the first rainy day in weeks.
I'll have a
Few beers too many tonight,
And just stand in the downpour.
I'm an adult now; I don't
Have to wear a raincoat.

It's my party and I'll
Laugh hysterically

If I want to.

Ours was less an Arab Spring
and more a half-hearted coup d'état.
There was no immolation,
no burning desire on your part;
no passion in the streets of you.

You stole in at night
through a window I'd left open,
a crack in my need
for something more than mere
existence.  From me there was
no resistance.

I let you lead, and followed blindly;
my voice I raised on your behalf
against all that I had known before.
Your words, your whispers
alone could incite me to storm
against the strongest walls.

Now, as summer comes
and this sectarian affair,
this spring uprising
that we called us has ended,
I sweep the streets of our debris
and wander down
the empty avenues
of you, half-hearted.

r ~ 6/5/14

Painted ponies of the Paiute
Run against the sky
Cracked lightning lights the orange fire
Desert winds stoke whipping flame
Eagle flies blind to the sun
Scorpion strikes out in vain
Antelope leap crisscrossed arroyo
Coyote calls across the sand
Thatched huts explode in maelstrom storm
First People’s shadows smoke the ground
Clay pots crack and break in time
Fire-cracked stone in communal circles
Markers of forgotten stories
Great Basin parched to cracking lines
Full moon wanes to yellow bone
Awaiting dark clouds quenching rain
And painted ponies once again.

r ~ 6/4/14

"In the beginning was the Word..."

The voice of the Creator
awakened the universe into being,
a Word spoken out of nothing that
echoes in eternity.

A sound that collapses time and place
and brings forth the Word to echo
infinitely through all the ages.

The Word chose to dwell among us
in the form of a vulnerable human being,
who was flesh and blood like me.

You and I share the imago dei, and
like the Word made flesh can yearn
for unity with the Creator.

The Word echoes in our flesh,
and reverberates through our hearts.

We encounter the Word knocking at our door,
when we welcome the stranger.  

May the sound of love echo through my soul into yours.
May these words speak life into mine and to yours till
the sound vibrates into a we.  

No longer separate and alone, but home.

Baseball was my passion
that year when the world
still seemed like a safe place
to hang my hat.  Dad was
buying horses left and right
while Mom shook her head
and kept her silence knowing
this was just another one of
his wild-*** hairs that seemed
to get a little crazier each year.
Credence Clearwater Revival
was hot and singing songs
about rain on the radio.  
School was out and I would
go over to the creek to swim
after I finished whatever chores
Mom had me doing those days.
Sometimes I would lie on the
Devil's Bed rock next to the
little falls where the biggest
trout liked to feed and listen
to the bugler from the Army
burial detail playing taps for
that days funeral. I wondered
what it would feel like to be
the son of the soldier getting
buried up on the hill having
to wear a suit and not cry. It
always gave me a lump in my
throat. My brother said it was
a shame and Johnson should
be shot instead. I always agreed.
We all watched the nightly news
together after supper and before
Hogan's Heroes came on.  The VC
were handing it to our guys in
a place called Hue and Mom cried
when a South Vietnamese officer
pulled out a pistol and BANG
shot that dude in the head
right there in front of god, me,
Mom and everybody. I went to
bed that night and  decided that I
wasn't going to pray any more.
We lost every game for the rest
of the season and I didn't care.
I've never forgiven that officer
for shooting that guy dressed
in black right in front of me,
god, my Mom and everybody.

r ~ 6/3/14