At first,
Love is a Choice
To act,
Not in emotions,
Nor perceived rewards,
Done from duty as duty,
Because we would be
Loving.

Love may mellow
Over time,
See traits worthy of surrender...
Take root,
Become reason of itself
For pleasure,
For staying true.

We performed the ritual courtesies:
Reiterated "Love yous,"
"Thank yous,"
Farewell prayers,
Hugs,
Waving good-bye,
We hoped our window tint
Hid relief shining in our eyes....

And then another farewell,
A mother crippled, old,
Bent low by time and widowed,
Gentle now, and grateful
For our shortest stays.
This mellowed love we would desire
When we have nearly lived our days.
Smiling tears and long embrace,
Juxtaposed these loves that end in sighs
The differences in love's good-byes.

Cold settled in deep
On him and their son,
A poor fool, lost in his own world,
Scarcely aware his mother was gone.

The boy's father couldn't cope...
Tried, but hope with her had died.
Bankrupt faith, spent in futile prayer
To cure the failing heart,
Restore the lungs...
A silent "NO" hung in the air,
And she was gone.

Her ashes flew home beside him.
He went to pick up his son,
Stopped for three fifths of Scotch...
Proceeded to disappear,
Proceeded to disappear,
Proceeded to disappear.

The house suffered under stench:
Old *****,
Excrement,
*****,
Spilled bottles,
Cans scattered on the floor;
Everywhere a sour putrescence.

His son floated in and out of vision,
Autism and inebriation:
Two forms debilitation,
No hope of equilibration.

Neighbors made some calls...
Social workers came,
Took the son away.

Death seemed a reasonable option.
Leave the mess.
Join his wife.
End this ******* life....

Revolvers favor simplicity:
Load the chambers,
Snap the cylinder in place...
Aim closely to remove his face.

Muzzle up,
Open mouth,
Squeeze the hammer down...
Only a clicking sound.

Unusual, this...
Aim at the ground,
Squeeze off a round...
Ears ringing from the sound.

Raise the muzzle once again,
Bite ******* steel,
Squeeze the trigger down...
Again, a clicking sound.

Aim at the ground,
Blam! Potent round...
Set the revolver down.

"Hello. 911. What is your emergency?"

"Come get my gun;
I'm trying to **** myself."

Police arrive.
He's still alive.
Drunk and numb...
They take his gun.

Six weeks later, still in a haze,
He's told his story.
We are amazed,
But still he's found no calm for grief.

We struggle beside him,
Waiting for some sign,
Some reason why a gun
Should fail to fire...twice.

If you should read these words, my friends,
Please speak a prayer for a lonely man.
Ask for freedom from despair,
For peace and letting go,
For comfort and the hope of friends,
For better ends.
For better ends.
For better ends.

Snaking around the bend,
Idle and steaming in queue,
Vap'rous auto line.

Steel, plastic, rubber,
Glass, fogged in the morning chill,
Shivering beasts stand.

Signal lights command
Constant comings and goings,
Senseless though they be.

Algorithms smooth
Trafficking in human lives,
Timing everything.

Hunkered here, I chafe
But wait, believing my turn
To be imminent.

It's not that I wanted to step away from the mic,
Nor wander away from the words;
It's this monstrous paper I'm trying to write
That keeps me from seeing you birds.

So, summer is ending, and I'm sixty-plus pages in,
With twenty or so of references done,
And a chapter or two I have yet to begin
Before I can rejoin the poetry fun.

I'd best step back out before gendarmes
Arrive to see if I'm even alive,
Locked up in this office with silent alarms
As I struggle to finally arrive.

Dissertation resembles gestation;
The fun was in passing exams;
Now I'm paying the past years' tuition
By proving I didn't just cram.

Can't wait to join you all in a few
...months?

Don

The cells in my fingernails contain atoms enough
Their own whirling systems
To form ordered constellations in layered universes....

Space between solids goes down and down and down...,
Around us mostly nothingness
Down and in and down and in....
On and on and on.

Do we need to look outward
For outer space?

Didn't Robert Burns tell us that fleas have fleas and fleas have fleas, and fleas have fleas that bite 'em?

Infinity runs hard both ways.

The stalling plane fell,
A toy, yawing back on its tail,
Tilting left and down
And down.

The boy’s dad at the stick,
Frozen,
Face immobile,
Almost careless as they fell;
He, his mother, and his father,
And a stranger, next to him,
Tumbling above Montana
Prairie hills surging
Nearer
And nearer.

The stranger clenched the boy;
The tail dragger impacted a rising knoll.
The engine clanged and broke,
Dirt enveloped the shattered cabin.

Silence smothered cacophony.

Conscious of being dragged
Through a **** in the fuselage
Out into open air,
The boy saw little,
Couldn't make out the stranger's face.

His mother came through the side of the plane
A Cesarean section, reversed,
The boy's hope reborn
At the emergence of his mother.

She appeared dazed,
He thought, unruffled,
Dusty with a smearing of bright red lipstick
Stretching up from the corner of her mouth
To the edges of her right ear.

The boy knew it must be blood.

His father lay,
Crumpled oddly,
Head twisted between
Stick and dashboard;
Right arm somehow
Lolling through the fuselage.

Blood smeared the arm, the head.
Everything still,
Motion slow...
Echoes.

The stranger moved on hands and knees,
Inspected the boy
His mother,
Pulled them away
From wreckage,
Surveyed the scene.

Turning then to the man
Twisted and still,
Grotesque within the shell,
The stranger gazed.

Gasping,  the boy jolted.
Saw,
Thought he saw,
His father’s hand ****,
Move up and backward to his face.

The boy heard,
Thought he heard,
His father sigh.

Fear surging
The son,
Caught in a wave,
Realized his first response,
Horror,
A sense of ******* returning,
Having glimpsed,
If only for a few seconds,
Freedom.

A farm screen door latch
Should slam with the urgent drumming
Of a man or woman going off
On urgent business:
To see the cattle fed,
To till the fields,
To clang the dinner bell...
Should sing relentless songs of returns,
Not stand and wait for days...
Sagging as the hinges sag,
Lonely in waiting those who've left,
Forgetting to come back.

A door is meant
For entering and departing,
Handles on both sides.

Door latches that see
no leavings nor returnings
Are kindred to handles on coffin lids,
Opening containers only....
No longer home....

South Pacific 1944,
Our ship under attack,
Men at the guns,
Zeroes coming in.

Smoke and bedlam,
We three at our turret
Loading the gun:
Projectile.
Powder,
Fuse,
and slam the door
to belch explosives
at the sky.

Man the post
Keep on firing

But then I knew I had to go
And turned toward the hatch.
"Good-bye, Paul,"
I remember someone said.

Half in - half out the door
We took a hit
Direct
That blew Jim's head
between my knees
And on the deck.

Two died instantly
And there I stood
Wondering
About
Higher Orders.

I remember endless miles of dusty gravel,
My bus rider's sweaty hands
Leaving muddy grime,
Gripping rigid seats,
Dreading the monster in back
Whose sudden summons meant abuse:
Swearing,
Spittle,
Thumping heads,
Nameless dreads.

Cruel laughter
From the helpless others'
Deep-drilled belief
That no one cared,
That living through grade school
Meant being scared,
Meant pain in the gut,
Meant years of climbing
Out of isolation.

==================
Brought sweat to my palms as memories returned. I have dedicated my life to providing safety to my students in part due to hard time I spent traveling 80 miles per day over dusty Montana gravel roads on an old yellow bus with a monster in the back seats.... Nearly 50 years later, I may tell the rest of the story, but not yet....

I came exhausted
Out of the blistering gray,
Lungs choking dust,
Tongue parched,
Body swollen with heat.

Your cool gardens saved me.
Basked I in the tender greens of spring;
Nurtured, I lingered in the shade all summer;
Warmed, I stayed near your embers in autumn.
I would not leave the blazing logs in winter.

Dry and desperate my early plight.
Parched and stumbling,
Clogged by dust,
I found your water;
Drank and bathed,
Found solace in body and mind,
Found time to rest, to heal.

I wonder at the restlessness
Howling outside your gates.

Invades the finite,
When IMMORTAL
Usurps the mortal,
When OMNISCIENCE
Hovers over finite sentience,
The mortal man I am senses
TRANSCENDENCE,
Stirs uneasily,
Shudders uncontrollably, or
Rises, silently in bliss,
Unable even with a literate mind
To ask, "What meaning lies in this?"

Thinks she sets aright
Some problem universal
In her leveraged might....

If the ******
Thinks that in ****** rage
Satiation lies...

If the Thief
Thinks in stealing pieces,
She takes home peace...

If the Bully
Considers righteous
His abuse of power...

Or if they do not care,
But run to evil deeds
Because they're there...

They do not think beyond
Commission,
Forget the list of victims
Includes themselves.

Aftermaths & Consequences
Force lives of guilt
Penned in fences,
Pending dooms,
Self destructions...

Perpetrators penetrating
Their own souls,
Destroying their own lives,
Believing devils' lies,
That no one has to pay;
No hell awaits to have its day.

Praying again today.
These are the long days,
The ones spent in the quiet pain of waiting,
Of thinking through the things we’ve said,
The things we need still to say.

Bull headed stubborn, never conquered, he...
My Father.

A hearty laugh, with anger never far away;
A choking voice; emotions had their way
With him, and when he sang alone,
Heading for the barn, he sang Handel
So we heard him clear in every valley.

When only grass and leaves were "Green,"
He saved everything he thought might be of use:
Red tape from old banana sales,
("Never know when tape will come in handy!")
Bagging string wrapped on a stick,
("You can't have enough string!")
Rusty wire in spools from some old fence,
("Carry some with you for emergencies.")
Dirtied engine oil in metal barrels,
(To soak wood posts and make them last),
Scrap iron by the ton,
("Boys, weld these into fences!")
Semi loads of **** seed screenings,
("Cheap and adds protein to the feed!" )
Even burned out light bulbs...
(He never gave me a good reason;
One bulb's enough to **** a sock.)

"Never know when this may come in handy!"
His constant motto.

A complicated man I never could unravel,
Honest to an inch, sometimes, yet shrewd to miser-dom,
Then crafty in some deal that left me blushing,
Only to turn around and sacrifice to see a neighbor thrive.

Drove sad old cars no one would want,
And made us work for most things that we sought,
Then gave such gifts to others
As would stun my mind to thought.

I have him by a hundred pounds,
Am taller by a head,
But deep inside, I am convinced
I'll never measure up in height or depth.

I'm not sure that I want to.

On another note:
Rocks worn small form other stone,
Melted or crushed or aggregated
Into rock, again;

Trees from ash piles rise,
Requiring heat...
Seedlings released from cones,
Redeem the land in time.

Lakes do evaporate,
Their empty cups await
Rain or swelling springs
To come again.

"Hope is the thing with feathers,"
Our lonely Emily said,
And I hold fast her words,
When all seems dead.

Peace and Encouragement to You!

I drove four miles this evening
Down the road to see the miracle
Of pastures greening.

They'd come to life this Spring
To lick the rivulets of melting snow,
Lichens before wild grasses, glistening,
But then a blistering summer blow
Came to patch their roots.

Just last week a quarter inch of wet
Fell from a Treasury on high
To tell the famished carpet,
"Wait a while! Storm clouds are nigh!"

And yesterday a full wet inch
Of heaven's grace and mercy flowed
From the billowed Throne's high bench
To rally grassy supplicants to grow.

"Who is," I think,
"To say which of Time's seeds will stay
And what their harvests be?"

The spiteful word,
The slamming door,
The choice
To sit or flee,
To stop or have one more,
To speak cautious words or bold,
Harvests all must reap,
And each in their own time
Reveal the ends of germinations,
The husbandries of choice,
Fertilizations or starvations
Through growing seasons
Moments, Hours, Years, Centuries long;
But always harvests bountiful or spare.

Frost's Way leads on to way;
A word becomes a deed,
Born restless from a thoughtful seed.
A gesture bright with hope
Might lead to revolutions
Or end its journey on a rope.

A word of kindness, Aesop said,
Could save a lion in a net;
A mouse he'd spared
Could not forget.
Neither now
Should we.

Young trees stand in clumps,
Bursting forth in tender leaf,
Chattering in the early fall,
Silent in the early spring,
Tender shoots alive,
A school yard thriving.
Thin bark, food for winter starvers,
Antler rubs for summer bucks...
A stand of youngsters
Waiting to be thinned..

The old trees root down,
Twisted, misshapen,
Root masses exposed,
Bolls huge at intervals
Intermittent.
Solitary veterans of Time's war,
Arms twisted and split,
Cracks in the roughened old skin
Letting strangers at the heartwood,
Grown sponge-soft,
Home for squirrels,
Sleep-seeking 'possums,
Note-leaving lovers.

I like it not.
Some actors' stumbling lines
Or patient yawns
Leave Shakespeare's thoughts delivered
Barely breathing or still-born
While others' jousting runs the play
Unchecked, unfettered, and yet un-free.

Mercutio's fitful rantings smoulder some,
Then, tired, lose their place,
Extinguished fire that nearly casts
A plague on any houses
Before a lingering death brings
Sweet relief to all the house.

Old Capulet, more bored than angry,
Tirades only tiredly at his daughter,
The last in a line of several disappointments.
We wait his piece to end,
Endure the hanging and begging and starving
In the streets, while Juliet entreats...
Gosh, I could use a bit to eat.....

O God in Heaven!
Give us up a little leaven
From this acting now so leaden.

Sadly, young Mercutio's dead,
And soon, Paris, and young Romeo,
Followed by young Juliet, and then Old Capulet....
The priest's alive, so we can fret
What further mischief he may still beget.

Stopping on this spinning orb,
I rest a moment in a limbo room
Waiting to see my eye surgeon.

See him, I must.
I have no options.
The appointment was scheduled
Prior to surgery,
Prior to the removal by suction
Of a lens growing opaque;
Prior to insertion of magical plastic,
Now clipped behind the cornea,
Compensating for myopic astigmatism,
Allowing me to see the whole earth
And this waiting room
Without spectacles,
One eye alive,
One eye yet blind.

I have set upon a two-eyed course
One eye finished,
One eye waiting,
"Stepped in so far,
T'were as tedious to go
Back as to go o'er,"
And though Macbeth
I am not,
I am stepped in
And cannot retrace
The course of two weeks
Past or future.

I am waiting in a room adjacent
A place of temporary fixes...
Arrested momentarily in my flight,
I see a glimpse  
Of life-long fixations,
Not a few delusions....
I am suddenly aware
The sensation
That I am resting here
On a planet that is
Only a waiting room....
That when I leave this room,
I will not have left
The predestined course of life,
That I have not avoided
Coming events
Scheduled just outside,
Set in motion by my choosing.

Autumnal Wanderings

Summer's heat leaves us wilted,
Potted tomatoes drying on the deck.
Water helps, and evening's shade
Reminds us of the coming dread.

Ash trees drop late summer's shed;
Yellow leaves litter grass now lost;
Dog days oppress us as we yawn,
Ennui of heat turns our desire to frost.

We are not content at summers' turning fall;
We miss the verdant greens of spring;
We dread the snow, the wintry cold;
No longer young, we fight our growing old.

To all of us:

Those for peace and those who war,
The healthy and the ill,
The satisfied and those who beg for more,
The pauper and the millionaire,
The valley folk and hill,
The ****** and the *******,
The husband and the John,
The mother and the father,
The daughter and the son,
The rake and lonely celibate,
The lion and the lamb,
The quiet and the loud...
Some day will reach the quest...
Rest will come to all of us
Somewhere between the cradle
And the shroud.

Nature rang.
She wants to know
What are your plans
For volcanoes.

I think I may be coming
To a surprising change of mind...
After all the drumming
Against censoring of any kind....

I've read some poems on this site
That gave me food to think...
Not talking about explicit *****
That I can skip with just a blink.

The one that someone wrote a week or so ago
Asking what the world is coming to...
That little children grow up to see and know
The things not even adults used to.
(That's the one that made me stop to think.)

We have uncanny access now to things
No one twenty years ago could have predicted
And every sense and deep desire can have its fling
Which leaves our children open, unprotected.

I won't go rated R or X in this, my turning point,
Just want to lay a few thoughts out...
And grow some dialogue around this joint,
So here goes nothing...please don't pout.

Censorship, it's odd, somehow has ***** connotations,
And every person has the right to make a choice...
But children, innocent, don't know the dangers they are facing,
And we adults might raise protective voice.
---------------------

Were I invincible or perfect or omnipotent.

But, I am none of these.

Chill wind, shivering frost, cruel sleet

Drive autumn changes in the breeze.

Tilting Earth announces endings,

Announces beginnings at her antipodes.

Death proves itself beneath the sleeping trees...

Feuille-morte beauty of the fallen leaves.

While the world
And I
Mourn Kobe's passing,
On nearly the same day
Jihadists invaded villages...
West Africa,
Burkina Faso,
Alamou.

Villagers ordered out
Into the open areas
Gunned down,
Slashed,
Murdered.

An attendance question opens,
"What happened in the world?'

Kobe Bryant is gone.
Private helicopter crashed.
The world is on its head.

We hang our heads
In mourning.

Jacque's turn:
"My village was
Attacked Saturday.
Forty people killed.
My wife and children...
There.
The people are fleeing
To the capitol,
Ouagadouga."

[Awkward, this revelation.
How will I ever justify
A week of Edgar Allan Poe?]

We bow to pray.

My brother is a pilot,
Not just any old pilot...
A tail dragger pilot,
Champions
Cubs,
Super Cubs.

Planes made of spars and fabric,
Held tight
By screws
And dope,
And glue.

Airframes part wood,
Part aluminum,
Part steel.

Fuel tanks sloshing in the wings
Either side above our heads,

Set the mags,
Hand crank the prop,
Turn on the fuel,
Hear her pop
And roar to life.

We strap in
Single file,
Controls fore
And aft.
And rev 'er up
To join the winds.

Once up,
He yells, "She's yours!"
And I am piloting,
Or rather gingerly sliding her
About the blue,
Skidding right or left,
Holding my breath,
Wondering how much I dare
To tip her up there in the air.

"I've got the stick!"
He yells, and I let go.
"Don't be afraid to fly it!"
"It's just a machine!"
"Make it do what you want it to do!"

And we are diving toward the ground,
Then bringing her up and tilting 'round.

"Give her fuel when you tilt to turn!"
He demonstrates, and we are standing
On the wing,
Perpendicular and looking to our left and down.


I know he's right,
That I am timid in my flight,
And he is brave with years of joy,
A pilot fearless since he was a boy.

"You want to land?"
I hear him say.

"No, that's alright!"
"Not today!"

To prove how safe it is to fly,
He touches down,
Then bounces high,
And vaults us back into the sky.

We flit across the fields,
And then,
He flies beneath the power lines,
To show how spray planes catch the ends
Of fields.

He skies the plane at either end,
Then bee lines it to the badlands' edge
Where suddenly we are swooping down
Between the canyon walls, and sinking low,
Then, rising, turning to our right,
He sails us toward sun's dying light.
My only hope is that we will land
Before the night
Erases all our sight.

And sure enough,
The air is calm.
The night is coming on.
Gusting breezes are all gone.

We gently settle once again,
Back at the ranch,
And I help wheel her, then
Into her waiting hangar pen.

Life can be lived all in a panic.
Fear fills us with a lingering dread,
But we should live our lives.

Just like my brother said.
"It's just your life, so make it do
Whatever it is you want it to!

If you laugh, my love,
What will I do?
I'll see the world in brighter hue,
And I will laugh with you.

If you smile, my love,
What will I do?
I'll rest easy, seeing such a view,
And I'll repay your smile to you.

If you frown, my love,
What will I do?
I'll never rest to see your frown,
And I'll run fast to hunt it down,
And when I do,
I'll bring a smile right back to you.

If you agree to hold my hand, my only love,
What will I do?
I'll take your hand and share the hold;
I'll hold your hand while we grow old.

And if you die?
What will I do?
I'll wait in silent memory of your laugh;
I'll wait my life to seek your smile again;
I'll hold you gently in my memory's hand;
I'll wait, of course, and see you once again.

weather breaking
                                        on the heartland
begins in other places
                                        minute-changing phases
threads and traces
                                       give the air its faces
gestational solitude
                                        hovers and broods
streams of space,
                                       solidifying in pace
before the thunder
                                      before the hail
storms begin as
                               whispers
                                                   breezes
first a zephyr
                            then a wind
                                                        beco­mes a gale
a force of power
                                         from breath to HURRICANE
indiscernible at first -              
                                          at last unstoppable

Waking and sleeping our way
Past our losings of you,
Thinking you forgotten,
Ourselves we fool.

Proof lies in dreams now common:
Your brother sees you in one house and then another...
Happy times as though you've never left,
Your mother sees returned embraces,
Powerful reunions, tearful faces,
Embraces flee morning alarms....
Who knows the dreams to come?
My convolutions mix beyond my ken;
I have no will to stop them, else I lose all memory
Of your face, your happy laugh, or rebel yell;
Losing sight of children, a father's constant hell.

Weary days and dream-filled nights
Toss us as we pine,
A daughter and a sister lost,
An aunt that we can't find.
The past seems never far away
What can be done, we do...and pray.

Melody,
I brought you red roses,
Just opening in glory
Because you felt this morning…
That you weren’t
Beautiful...

Because
I saw you
Standing
Tentative,
Three times
Before the
Mirror.

I,
Your greatest
Admirer,
Know that
You are
Beautiful….

Of lesser beauty,
These roses belong
In the presence of
Your Beauty.

Love always…
Your Admirer,
Don

Chill fingered knife,
Ice laser penetrates epidermis,
Cracks the brittle sternum,
Then only gives a tickling touch
There at the porches of the heart;
Aortal rhythms pause and tense,
Resting, moving on...
Pausing, resting, moving on.

Slow wintering this...
Six months past death,
The heart, still beating
After that last breath,
Is mine.

The beating in this winter cold
Rejects fear's hold,
Melts the blade of ice,
Reserves the final breath
Until another day,
Provides me reasons now
To love and to be loved.

So it is that here in winter
I **** my head to hear
A trickling song of melting snow,
A thawing fear, a warming hope.

Seasons come and go, and nights and days
Revolving take each other's place.
Life and death for us still in the web of time
Hold constant power until
Eternity steps in and takes us home.

"Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow,
I will fear no evil, for Thou, Oh Lord, are with me."
---King David

Before the sun
With his bright face
Puts angles on the shade,
Before old darkness slinks into his place,
I leave the house...
This morning off to work,
But slowing in my run,
I lean to see....

East and high above, a shypoke pair
Take leisure in their flight,
Wings creaking prehistoric,
Feet streaming back on boney stalks,
A trailing nuisance in the air,
Yet perfect for deep water walks.

The chilly air is still;
Dew hovers on the edge
Of giving up on hesitating summer.
Winter is not yet so far away
That crystal forms
Have been forgotten.

Dogwood, leafless yet, and bleeding red,
Begins to glow along the path
The joggers take before the morning sun.

The early light is best
To seek perspective on the world
Before the morning paper,
Before the morning cup;
The early light is best,
As long as we are up.

Trees forcing sap to bursting buds
Giving leafy glories up to God.

Birds whose winged flight returning high
Fill northern skies with glory cries.

Soft calves and lambs in meadows skipping
Give glory in their lowing and their bleating.

Young stalks' persistent way through old decay
Announce green and growing glory be's along the way.

So you and I with sweet spring sighs
Hear and see and feel Nature's glory cries
And echo in our human tongues,
"All glory be to God!"

All Glory BE!

Who found he had
Nothing
To Say....

Alicia,
Brynde,
Braden,
Kate,
This one's for you,
My children....

Alicia came upon a wish,
Surprise, surprise!
Our lives could never be the same,
Bright and pretty,
Intelligence to stun....

Brynde followed within two years
To join her sister,
To make life full,
A way with Daddy's heart,
A feisty soul,
And willful charmer of bees.

Braden's entrance brought me joy,
To join me as our only boy,
A melancholy son at times, but sharp
At math and quick debate,
Able bodied little man now tall and strong,
I am so glad you came along.

When Katelyn joined our band of five,
We both were stunned, and yet the joy
You brought us with your winning smiles,
Your brains and voice and dancer beauty
Cannot be measured, can't be bought.

As I am growing old, I've cried my share of tears,
I've laughed and raved and mourned the years,
I thought my work was in another place away
From you, my bonnie bairns, but as the years come on,
I must give thanks for you...each one,
And count myself a man so blessed
To have four children safely born,
To have a loving wife,
My only love, and Mother of you all.

On my way to you,
I found a shoe,
A lonely soul without a mate,
Tongue hanging out,
And half a lace,
And a wrinkled look
On her holy face.

Time has rounded in the world of men;
The winds blow hard toward Anarchy,
While raving sailors hoist their leaking sails
To gather, jubilant upon the floods.

Howlers peer into the burning winds
Seeking ****,
Spread indignant fire,
Seeding hate,
Burned with desire,
Drowning protesters
Die between tides,
No chanters chanting peace,
No aspirant hope of love,
The baby's in the gutter with the bath;
When mobs exhibit wrath.

Tear old history from dusty shelves,
Forget true hymns that honored God,
Forget the tired Truth,
Or rather Truth of which we tired;
Rules now only Chaos,
Fervent fuel of howling mobs.

Riot in the streets;
Ride the lawless swell,
No plan for reconstruction,
No lessons from the past,
No vision for the after glow;
Discordant voices chanting
On the ****** road to hell.

Yeats proclaimed the Second Coming
Must surely be at hand between World Wars,
Yet still the Second Coming holds its fire,
While ranters tear the old ways down,
Dictators ratchet missiles toward the skies,
And our leaders twitter platitudes and lies.

Bellies up, paws out
Dead nomads lie appealing
Road **** suicides

Through lanes of autumn splendor
We rode, top down, against a blizzard
Gold, and red, and brown,
Leaves diving and cavorting
All our car around.

Western sunlight glimmering,
Causing fire-like glow,
Beauty stunning in our traffic flow,
Forcing glory in our vision
The falling leaves cascading,
Foretelling coming snow.

When a town goes bad,
It's a bad apple,
Wormy and unsound,
Unwholesome,
Spreading infectious pus
To towns nearby,
Until stench goes up
And out to Heaven.

****** *******,
Immorality,
Weakens and pollutes
The people,
Victimizes the weak,
Tears away civility
To strangers,
Be they men,
Be they angels.

Blight is cleared
From the orchard
By fire....

So ***** and Gomorrah
Went beyond the bounds,
Scoffed at external law,
Imagined no limits...
Were burned by
Falling fire.

No one names a village
***** now;
No cities named
Gomorrah.

A shibboleth,
The uttered names
Of two joined cities
Invoke wisdom
Invoke humility,
Invoke repentance,
Invoke solemnity
Before the tempting
Of  Almighty wrath.

Near frost early morning,
Packed bags squeezed
Into the old Oldsmobile,
Ready to leave for college.

I kissed my mother,
Said good-bye,
Held her tight.

My father passed us,
Moving over stones,
Carrying two buckets
On his way to cows
And milking.

I couldn't see his face...
Had no idea.

"Art, are you going to say good-bye?"
I heard my mother say.

The words arrested him.
All movement stopped.
Shoulders hunched,
He slowly set the buckets down.

Turning was agony,
I saw,
As though his efforts
Somehow jarred the world,
Disrupted natural order, and
Acknowledged chaos come at last.

Forty years later,
I still see my father's face
Coursing silent tears,
And watch his shoulders shake.

Then we embraced,
We two,
And both were torn
With my leaving.

I knew with certainty
My father's love
That morning,
Leaving home.

Love demands Truth.
Love that bends and lies to pacify feelings
When Truth stands, resolute, cannot be
True Love.

It may be frightened, maudlin, corrupted,
Or many other things, but it cannot be
True Love.

Some, hoping to change the shape of Love,
Would pummel the footings of Truth,
But they haven't shovels enough,
Nor dynamite powerful enough,
Nor lies lasting long enough to dislodge
True Love.

True Love stands resolutely with Truth.
This relationship has always existed, always will,
While the Resistance has a beginning,
It must eventually meet its end.

      (DB, meanderings, July 10, 2023)

Hair flying like lace all undone in the wind,
Flaxen and golden and fine in the sun,
Scented with hay mown fresh before dew,
A laugh on her breath and the mention of you.

She came in from the chores
Bearing Dolly's warm milk in a pail,
A tabby young kitten threading her heels,
And baby was greeting his mother in squeals.

She came in with the cold, blown by the wind,
And shuttered the heavy old door.
She stirred up the coals in the rusty old stove,
Cheeks all afire with the ice and the snow,
Stamping her feet by the fire's warm glow.

She came in from the spring,
A pail in her hand, and butter, packed in a jar,
Humming a tune with mud on her shoes,
A meadowlark's call on her mind,
First signs of green and new life on the wind.

She came in from the walk,
Frown on her face, mail in her hand,
Letters from home, black ribbon adorned,
News that made tears find their place,
And saddened her heart as it raced.

She came in from the fields
Weary and worn, old from the sun and the wind,
And she settled herself by the rusty old stove,
And she rocked in her battered old chair,
Reflecting a life both bonny and rare.

She came in from the fields,
And she'll go back again
When the evening sun makes its way
Round the flickering stairs to new day;
She'll rise just a bit before dawn
To stoke up the dwindling fire,
And go feed the new lamb
Whose mother has left her alone,
Whose mother has left her alone.

Is upon me now:

Of plowed old corn
Turned beneath the soil,
Disheveled roots clawing at sky

Of seagulls, far inland,
Crying "Scavenge!"
Out on lonely fields,

And smoking brush smouldering
Useless now, for human needs,
Hazing a clouded sky,

Of chilling, two-wheeled rides,
The windblown miles rushing
Past towns and scattered farms,

Of fetid morning steam
Rising thick above the lakes
Hunters crouching,

Of calls rising from the mud,
Flaring foolish ducks
Swooping low to their own harvest.

We have not deeply thought
Just yet, of coming snow,
We, in this cloven spot in time;
While all around us
Leaves slip their summer greens,
To dress in colors bright,
While migrant birds begin to keen
For warmer, bluer skies.

I sense that Autumn has begun,
And I am discontent;
My garden's done its annual  run:
Potatoes, scarred and round are dug,
Tomatoes in and canned,
Nearly leafless, blood-red beets
Stand their pockmarked rows;
Onions dry in braided twists.

New Winter's not a long way off,
Though Autumn's looking bright,
And sadness makes impossible to doff
That "certain slant (our Emily once said) of light,"
So I must find a quiet corner soft,
And I must dream somehow...

Awake,
Asleep,
The scent of autumn
Is upon me now.

Scoring at the genius level,
Never a thing he did
That was worthy of his high intelligence.
No teacher whose IQ could match,
No vocation and no calling
Worth the time to spend in college.
What could they teach him
Anyway he asked,
In his superior knowledge?

A depressing world to one so keen
And so he focussed inward
At his liver and his spleen
An alcoholic blizzard
To numb the boredom and the pain
Of such imperial wit
As years rolled by the bar door
He wanted none of it.

And now he's old and hasn't been
And likely isn't going to
Because a fool so long ago
Bowed low before his IQ.