So far the story goes
Miss Place keeps everyone on their toes.

For her finding things is not an easy thing
Most of her possessions invariably go missing
Nowhere to be found are objects of her use
And the ones she blames find some excuse
That she is unmindful and blatantly unfair
Her missing comb is there only in her hair
To her desperate hunt for an important file
She's told she's sitting on it all the while
When she lost an earring and was sulking morose
It so happened they said she wore it on her nose
She wonders why her family should at all blame her
If her car keys are found in the dickey of her car
and why on earth should the blame be all hers
when her money is in a book and not in her purse.

Miss Place thinks she knows the reason for such mess
others' gross negligence in putting things in place.

I dream of a giant green grasshopper
clinging to tall weeds in Selma
Where huge fields of red clover
grew in the hot summer heat

I dream of Texas
where I made my first memories
And lived in a vastness for someone
of three seemed like eternity

I dream of the oceans of Florida
where waves made love to the sand
As I gazed across the horizon
life is forever in this land

I climbed the mountains of Washington
to the top of the snow covered peaks
I thrilled to the sight of the sunset
And felt the hand of God touch me

I dream of the tall grass prairies
I walked through in Kansas
Like a sea of grass rolling
in the winds of the Plains

My temporal eternity
lives on in my dreams
As I get older there is less life
And the more I do dream

For my last dreams
I dream of the future
May it be be as beautiful
as the eternity I leave

some believe in the deity
others in the sanctity of self
I think poetry is a religion
a soul unto itself
not a god
but close
and I seek her his its
calming words
wisdom
to get on my knees
and worship
every night
alone
here
in my sanctuary
like any
true believer

Eva comes home from work to where there are many flies
and slaps my brother side-headed because he left the back
door open,  she is bovine heavy and limps to close it.  We eat

Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and it is soothing like peanut butter
fudge or Pepsi-Cola.  Eva says do the dishes up boys,  goes
to bed and cries.  Me and brother go to sleep and I dream

of a burning house.

You were my perfect poem
Brief but of many lessons
Our life was the perfect paradox
For love I thought we could rhyme

You hated all I ever loved,I loved all you hated
You said dirt was clean and the sun was cold
You desired tears for years
And resisted all advances of happiness

All you hated I had to forsake
For our love was at stake
But like a toddler you had fun with my feelings
Leaving our blindest love in darkness reeling

Yet my greatest victory was losing you
My severest pain was my sweetest gain
You schooled me through experience
My all-time worst teacher

You were my perfect poem
Eternity would be short to describe the undescribable
For when my hand is strong to hold the pen
Then my heart is weak to pen the words