What Child is this WHOP!  WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP!  WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP!  WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP!  WHEEP! WHOP!
WHEEP!...
In Mary’s lap is sleeping…

“It’s okay, folks; it was just the muffins.”

Whom angels greet…
                                          “I don’t want a muffin, thanks.”
With anthems sweet…

You were

7 or 8 years old

and all

that could

be heard

throughout the

house was

dinosaurs

dinosaurs

dinosaurs!


not just any dinosaur

we had to go

twice a month down

to the San Diego

Natural history museum

for a $40.00 Carnegie

collection dinosaur.


to say in those

days that that

put a dent in

my beer

budget and

golf money is

an understatement,


but each month

just like the moon

following the sun

they came.


I might not of

been as tipsy

in those days

as before,


and my buddies

often left for golf

without me,


but I would not

of changed a

thing.


to be intoxicated by

the joy on your

face with

each new dinosaur

we bought,


to hear you struggle to

say each new

dinosaurs name

over and over again

until you

got it right,


these moments

with you

became the

bearings of

my life.


and even now

you at 34 years old

we still talk about

our treasures and

you have each

and every one,


and I can't wait for

you to have a

son and to

hear the

echo in

this old man's

heart.


dinosaurs

dinosaurs

dinosaurs.!


and answer "yes they

are my beautiful

grandson,


yes they are".

A Manifesto Against Manifestos

          “You can silence me, but you can never convince me”
                    -graffiti on a bulkhead in Viet-Nam

I am not woke; I am awake. No one
Commands me how to see and think and write
I am not one of The Masses.  I am.
I am not one of The People.  I am.

I choose as my teachers Dostoyevsky
And Byron, too, and Shelley, Keats, and Waugh
Ahkmatova, Shakespeare, Chesterton, and Lewis -
Not some embalm’ed face upon a screen

I am not obedient, and no one
Commands me how to see and think and write

i lay stargazing
silent as the absent sun
gravity grounds me
like the touch of my woman
like the very thought of her

In the old French barracks, shelvings of cots
No ventilation – that was for officers
The night was hot, wet; sleep was difficult
No one knew anyone or anything

A siren. Life paused. Should we do something?
We barefooted outside in our skivvies
Hot. Silent. Still. Stuffy. Respirations
Is this a false alarm? Is it over now?

BLAM!
                                
Boom. BOOM! Boom-boom-boom-boom. BOOM!

And during a pause

a small voice said, “I don’t think they want us here.”