Home bound after work
near 12:30 am
just a few minutes from checking my email
then retiring
as us old folks like to call it

from the North side of route 7
at a slight angle
there and gone in half a second
was the biggest meteor I've ever seen
if that's what it was
so big that I slowed and listened for a boom
but nothing came
I have no idea how far it went before touching down
but this isn't about the meteor
this is about the fact that when I got home
and thought about who I would tell...
there was no one that came to mind
I've seen so much crazy **** in my life
that the stories have grown old
even the new ones
I breathed life into a dead woman one morning
then faced the fact that I couldn't save another
hit by a truck on my way home
just after midnight

on the day before the great Russian meteor
I saw 2 objects in the sky on fire
and not moving...
in broad daylight
I've been touched and spoken to
by spirits or ghosts or phantoms
take your pick
I saw 3000 people sacrificed in the name of what?
and as a child I witnessed a president murdered by those supposed to follow him
I've grown to see the young know nothing of that last President who actually had a vision and a spine

and when I quietly leave this life
there will be little to note...
a brief glance
of my obituary
by a few sad souls

I often think of a quote I heard as a young man
by a comedian; George Gobel
who was on the 'Tonight Show'
Dean Martin and Bob Hope were also on that show
and unknown to George, Dean was flipping his cigarette ashes
in George's drink as he was telling his humorous stories
this caused the laughs to come out of sequence...and finally a confused George said; 'Did you ever feel like the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?'

they roll in like storms
upon a quiet shore…
these memories
unforgiving in their clarity
yet i protect them
nurture them
your twisted, unwavering distrust
enveloped me in it's pain
and fed your misguided cruelty
i lived to enable you
for a glimpse of love
would appear from the shadows
in those rare, quiet nights
when you allowed yourself to love me
the few moments i remember
being alive

cherry blossoms
swirl through the streets:
a ghostly veil
to help replace the men
who have left for war

(4/4/4/6/5)



February 24th, 2012

honking recedes -
last shadows of geese
bend on the frost

kids use toy guns
to wage make-believe war -
a soldier looks on

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.