Halloween at Camp LeJuene

So those storage tanks
the ads of late-night-- all talkin' about
some thirty-five years a-leaking like...
some aplastic benzene-apocryphal river

Horror!
tastes like chemo Kool Aide
forever in the mouth
washing over parade route
seeping into boots and wombs
of cadets who can't hear the music
over a child's laughter-- ever

over failing livers
lined up like lawyers marching
onto glyphosate green
to Parkinsonian cheers
to Taps-solos echoeimg off the stone-
of mind and memory

Flags!
Flapping-angry!

“No (wo)man left behind
on the multiple ways to myeloma
Miscarriages
of justice!

A silence waiting

an eternity
of tiny infant cries
emptying....
into Love Canal

There will be...
NO JUSTICE!

Only billions set aside
for funeral-ic devastation

“Significant compensation”
--being read in a woman's face
in a woman's voice

“...suffering from any of these....
after drinking the water at Camp Le Juene”

at the hands-down
heads-turned
greased palms of

     silence

being owned
by military-corpporate
“channels”
of secrecy

...of Pharma-to-government
medical-backwaters
laundered to-governments
of banana republics

Mercenery chemicals
Medicine with missile launchers
strewn
among military over-runs of...
…of high power rifles,
night goggles, and F-15s

What am I missing here?

...about the rubbery clots and myocarditis?
Has it finally come round to us?

How could I not see!

not recall?
How many years ago--
since I could hear?

the rapid fire!
“The toxic Leaks!”

“...suffered from any of these...”
...feeding tube terrors
Time's tumors
downgrade to errors
deferred...
Now beside the grief as amputees
--take the field of parade
While Misplaced Rage
pages through abortions of blame
in the chemical caldron
where they ****, shower, and shave

...then towel-dry their babies

or not....

Where are the rapid-fire rats and bats
when we need 'em?

Semper Fi!

You might be surprised by what people read
at the kitchen table
in the evening
with dinner to the side

As for where to die?  
At the kitchen table
like my neighbor Betty—

slumped over her newspaper
arms above her white and lonely head.

Smokey the Bear tried
to warn us
not to play with fire
nor matches
Never any carelessness
so near the flames
A Bunsen's burner
licks the glass
cesium
rubidium

I listened
till the dare
undid the bear
Consumed us
with its hunger
for the science
and the gases
instability
of it

Flicked us out the window
of a sunny day
Cricket dry
the grass
Knee deep in *** butts
in litter
by the underpass

Flames trespass
explode beyond us

“Indian burn?
Let me show ya”
He
assaulted my arm, my mind
at once

Cannot protest
or change the scream

of blinding stairwell-

Double-cross

Descent 
of knowing

I will avenge 

will take revenge

at my first… 

blinded spurt of rage
Rebirth as renegade



No age

ever!
forgets!

To the hopeful poet

Then there are the wrong words
the ones out of season--
the ones that harm

Though my words are few in the everyday
they have their reasons
At times, been a gift--
of a second thought
a dream
a chance
Never taken
lightly

The sound must be right
and every implication
"The tongue, unruly
is set among the members--

a fire...."

Your first line is cryptic enough.

The Poem Knows

Where its spine is
How with sinews to the bone
its muscles do attach
Where
its finger and its toes goes

How its eyes have seen
and ears have heard
will recognize the voice
that strikes the soul
like latter rain
The poet knows....

The poet
in the secret of the earth
with all the creatures signs her name

Out of last light
to be called
with all her failings
to forgiveness wrought
for her
The love designed
A salve
for love denied
through all those springs

To finally
in God's call
to hear her name
to know him

The last shall be first
and the first last

I imagine there is no place that I could go
where you haven't imagined me
Something, someone
that I am not

Before 18
Never smoked, never kissed, never dated
Never touched, never danced, nor wanted
“Below average student”
Unsuccessful in every way

Vaguely plain
probably poor
as things go
From undistinguished family
Big name
Wrong branch
Below budget
"You can always spot the clothes
the wanna-be's
the losers linger last-- hoping
to be chosen

Mercifully not

under-performers
hangers-on
The underside
So outside
til only now....

Somewhat silly
Too ready to do whatever it took
to be even liked-- a little

But too deeply shy
wandering away
to be loved another day

Probably not--

Not about all this....

Never!
Never look strength
straight in the eye
It must be born of something... someone... somewhere

I need

...but have been too long alone
untouched by desire
the presumption of love
in joints of dust –the lame of lust

So...

Unseen
Years creep by
Silent, numb

No one remembers
who I was

Raising my eyes
to the window—
–a flock of sparrows rise as one
into a gray sky
of mind

Beauty left by the back door of day
unnoticed in fading light

A dull ache
is all

Golden

Two blocks away
between the houses
the sunset smolders golden
through an oak

Cold creeps behind it

The infantile moon
With its smile of mischief
just short of malice
among the waves she drags along behind
A single diamond
glittering
in her navel
below

The rest of her
left
to the black sky
of my imagination

To Be Read over my grave

But what can I say?
    He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this.
I will walk humbly all my years
    because of this anguish of my soul.
16 Lord, by such things people live;
    and my spirit finds life in them too.
You restored me to health
    and let me live.
17 Surely it was for my benefit
    that I suffered such anguish.
In your love you kept me
    from the pit of destruction;
you have put all my sins
    behind your back.
18 For the grave cannot praise you,
    death cannot sing your praise;
those who go down to the pit
    cannot hope for your faithfulness.
19 The living, the living—they praise you,
    as I am doing today;
parents tell their children
    about your faithfulness.

...In honor of my red maple, cut down yesterday
and one from my childhood
________

My father had the tree cut down
Drought finished it... after a couple years of blight

A hundred seasons
Spreading sweetness
commanding grace

Mom took pictures of it
coming down
Neighbors with lawn chairs
Ring-side seats
for the aerial gymnastics
this circus of snarling saws
Dad joked about selling selling tickets
backyard picnics-- a Red Sox game

While silent photos watch
she surrenders her shadows
to the terms of light
stumps, dust
stages of death
the good-bye of a friend

What must that Yard look like now?
A shadeless glaring lot

Excuse a few silly moments to mourn a tree
to remember lying on flagstone
after sweeping them off
(They must have circled her trunk once
kept finding more as I worked with a broom)
building a sweat, a fort, my private place
under the tree that offered shelter

My father worked too
Trimming, raking, mowing, cursing her keys...
Maple keys...
that when you stamped
had that satisfying snap
of plastic bubble packing

Says he's gonna buy a new one
...sterile, hybrid, keyless kind
...so I was tired and lay down to watch
white clouds float in the bluest sky
I can remember...
...daydreams...interrupted... Air Raid Warning...
..Noon...
Then clouds again
...and I was with them

She talked in leaf language
and had much to tell
When her song part came, I slept somehow...
Since then years of singing in my head

At the end of the world
when the young man left
I lay on a hammock under her

When music turned...Savage
Hers?   The same...
presence... yearning...rooted... direction

this letter says. “She's fallen”
a slab of trunk for family members
A neighbor will have firewood for years

Her memorial?
...in my front room
to set coffee on...
to lay magazines....

But I will find the rings that belong to us!
Cut her song from tangled voices
in anxious traffic
on clearer days— when clouds won't float
but grasp, instead
a sky attempting a silvery-blue
...the cooler shades of memory

From the lawn chairs—groans, apology!
“ Not many trees like that one!”

Not many lives have majesty....

I used to think the wind was born in her arms
...then spread to all the other trees

Keep trying to remember what she said...
but there's only her hush

...and the rings that belong to us

I think about you...
Route 84
How many times we traveled
to get home

...by the side of the road
that winter day
fumbling with your phones
as we hold one
to my father's ear
So he could hear
Good-byes and Love yous
in your voices
too far away....
to drive
in time

for one last...
your voices
in his ear...his mind

A ball of blue fell from the sky
to indifferent grass

I fly into panic
along with Henny Penny
trying to save it
Because I've always known

she wasn't crazy

It has happened again
While I'm not looking...
Snow drops and crocuses
tumbling into tulips and azaleas
The slow muted understory of color on the snow
Traipsing toward the waking sun
that herald robin
V of the geese
ever-pointing the direction
out of darkness
into life

...to reach the crescendo, yet again
Leave behind the bud ~
exquisite ~ Hope
of mere possibility
of dew jewels scattered in the green

And never grow tired of this procession

to love life
to love life

Love ~
Inexpressible

Love inaccessibly fragile
fool of a child
we always long to be
Love ripped apart at the V

"****** of crows"
Yes, that too~
The dysmorphia of an aging body
struggling to try on dresses
struggling for some semblance
of age-appropriate beauty
has-seen-a-better-day

Mother-of-the-bride
captured
for a photo
hugged by lycra
Arthritis crying from every joint

More like carcass-by-the-road

Why does the room smell flowery
like spilled wine and longing

I rub the damp mop along the oak
darkening its grain
Beautiful in ruin
again

She pulled the tie from her hair
releasing the avalanche of gray
Handfuls of snow and mud
tumbled from her tangled
Tired
like the end of day
curtaining
restive eyes
Beside quivering lips
and over her shoulder
as the earth's unforgiving boulders

Called her to fall again
and again....

Bound to Downward
___
Trickle--
bound to downward
  faceted presence of light
   weedling its yielded way
    to a lower level
     Smoothly pouring payment
      to tributary
Now creek is bludgeoned
by sudden stones
Stone remains....
Water is stunned plunder
     carried off
      toward hammering bastions

The moon smiles
wrapped in its bunting
of innocent blue
with fringe of coral and pink
borrowed from the ends of day

Wish I knew why
it's happy
Nothing new, exactly
Same old route across the sky

Same old moon
I don't ask why
but I can tell July
the moon is happy
with the stillness of stars
Fireflies decorating  
its dancing shoes!

Why do we go back to our saddest moments
when we need comfort
Maybe to bathe in tears...
a baptism
of rage
to blow the sides out of sorrow
to come to terms
with helplessness?

To get someone
to hear
maybe to listen
to loss?

When I am sad
I get quiet

simple

Shake a little
on the inside
leaking to my hands

I get sad a lot
Hands shaking so I can barely write
Off somewhere inside
to some distraction
computer, ****, sleep, TV

There are no veins to open
words to fight
drugs to fix

Dying has a long-term contract

When I get sad
I get quiet

simple

I forgot that we share nothing
but the sky at night
O wait-- not even that
The clouds are here
but not with you-- so
sometimes?

We have nothing
not even blues
or clouds
to hang on to
...or songs of love
No

Leonard's song, “Suzanne”
was always his
for me
I wonder if he ever knew
How much...
when I didn't even know?

He named His daughter after me
where he left his memory

My heart told me he was gone
to graver places

As I wrote
of love
in decades hence
I would mourn
brief moments by the sea
Go on! Go on!
Your life awaits!

while distance does its thing
along with time and rhyme
and white noise and music when I'm drinking
by myself

and
for a moment
you--
are here

I know the truth

...my wonderings
what you look like
doesn't mean a thing
your covid smile behind a mask
you take the only pictures
every trace
of puppy
strange proclivity
my darling curiosity
of art and thought
You take....

I wonder
what your breath would feel like
on my neck
should we share a moment close enough?
to know your scent?
and how in God's name
would I
love you?
Not a clue
what it's like to know your eyes?
were they for me?
some guy?
some girl?
And all the questions of--

Another memory
for time to rub away

But I forgot
that we share nothing
Not time of day, nor sky
a simple glance
nor graceful dance
What is this room that we are in?
And does it matter?
Anyway
If you are here
But no, you're not

but I forgot

Can I return you
to the shelf
Closed, Collector
of dust
to be thought of
now and then
when some reminder returns you
blood red and rampant?

Like outta control alliteration
***** so sweetly

A blue jay
Cries in deep background
of robin's qweedle day
A breeze moves the curtains slightly sun-
light scrawls
it's shadows
Soothing brighter
Lolling on a cushion
Late afternoon
of mourning dove
calls
to it's mate
meet her
on the edge of sleep

Some Northeastern PA red wine
on my darkened deck
a dog barks
a toad sings
to find his mate
I am something of a toad too
and drunk enough
I will sing with him
when you've lost everything

the song of toad will do

On Days Like Today

On days
When the thrush curls his song
among the buds unfurling
Lilacs float their fragrance
Past the trees, among the bees, between the roofs
Only distance makes it bearable
to be

...so called
Spring
in the chimes of breeze
Bent by the force of life
in disbelief

of its always
leaving

behind

the apogee
Now, past--

The fatal
wound of spring

It snowed today
May snow on green?
The growl of winter
threatened Persephony
if she raised her song ...
She'd be dealing with December's death
Who will not back away
from threats to everything
Still standing in his debt
Demeter
and he have a deadly agreement

I am officially worried about you.

The night is ink
It moves around me
with it's broken heart

A weird fascination with swirling water
Paws on seat
he peaks over edge
to watch
the coriolis of his day
wash the concerns
of corona
a world
of death—
away

Commit
Three small tokens of remembrance
wrapped in copper, silver, gold
Oddly shaped that qualifies
as curious
They would like to see your dreams open
on Mondays
in the morning
I tell them
spring is only
painted upon waking
Bend the air for us
they plead
I tell her
how words come and go
Ideas the stuff of stumbled over
Strewn without a thought
to where they land
Tangled in the sheets
of unmade distance
to the bathroom
and back to bed
I want to linger here amidst
the ephemera
littered
Loss of words

Good Friday 2020
_____

The wind groans with reluctance
Sends April snow in squalls—
a tossed and careless shawl
worn long and tired with this Day
No glimpse of sun
A dirge of snow surrenders on the grass
Winter making one more pass
among us
gray with grief

Due east of Rat Island

alone

Appropriate in name
Appropriate to this, the day

surrounded only
by the jealous surf
with hateful waves
surrounded by the howls of “crucify!”
“He is not ours!

They are not ours!
We are not ours!”

Send them all away
They belong to the island
to the ground
from which they came
Not for us to cry and claim

Their abandonment

Wooden boxes fill the
trench—
A Babi Yar
of our own doing
so it seems
and yet again...
Golgotha

In the bitterness
of heart there is

an island--

Hart—I think they call it
Both a prison and a graveyard
of NYC

A place “despised and rejected”

rejected of men
an island of sorrows...
and acquainted with grief....”

      “...I see myself an ancient Israelite.
       I wander o’er the roads of ancient Egypt
      And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
      And even now, I bear the marks of nails....”
                                   --Yevgeni Yevtushenko

...inscribed on the palms of His hands....

Again—

There is an island
where scores of the forgotten lie
He knows them all by name

Today it binds my tongue
with bonds of sadness
It has traveled in the tides
of time to find us

Our Babi Yar has come for us
to take us to Hart Island

Unmarked
Unloved
Unclaimed
_____

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BabiJarravijn.jpg…

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged that more people are being buried at the city's potter's field, but stressed that only the bodies of the unclaimed would be buried there.

In my mind
They bloom always
...along the fence
of Mr. Chauncey's yard
who cut and bundled them
for us to give to Mom

And suddenly
purple has a fragrance
I can see...
and another name
that follows me
forever
infusing home
Insisting on it— everywhere  

...though it wavers
in the years
in clouds of Lilac bubbling
Memory's palest purple
amidst the golden-green

...I am a child again
running down the hills of May
dizzy
in bee buzzing
Floating
in the lush warmth
and parachutes of fluff—
Next year's dandelions aloft
in the ends of this year's spring

Turning ferns to wings
twisted into tee shirt sleeves
We fly by sheer will to do so
Pretend to hide our nests
in forest of the lilac

Raking Under Forsythia

Who knows what stops the heart of a song
I take note

of tiny thud—
robin in the wheel well of my car

the limp head
of a cat’s prey

Sigh of wings
defrocked by power lines

Baby starling’s fledgling flight
falling short of a pond’s edge

That slate morsel unearthed
by the tines of my rake

…and the world is vacant for a moment

Grief ***** a womb of air
but how it lives— I cannot say
Upended creature of us

Stops the throbs that herald life

I plant seeds each year
a fool of hope
in hopes—
another life will bloom
taste as sweet as I recall
when I was a young

Supple curls
fluid swirls
the rows of lettuce
poised upon the earth
To snap a bean
bathed in butter
tossed in breadcrumbs
Can't you just taste!
robin breast tomatoes
throw their greening arms around the sun
Its roots to siphon rain
absorb the turgid strength
of storm
of life
so ruddy now—

without
consumed
within

Spring signed her name
with the breeze
Sipping the moon
from a goblet of twigs
Gazed out across her path
Through the streets
By the houses of sleep 😴
Not in a hurry
Maybe no one will see her
dressed in silence and silver

Night noises rather know
How to snap
fingers
for heat
While wind
hears puddles shudder
Bashes chimes
all to hell
Rocks the house with no one
in it
Rain pits a heart
Against ungodly hour

To all the families of this loss: POEM
______

People I don't know
except for watching basketball
with a friend who loved the sport
The squealing of sneakers on floorboards
That airborne grace of long- limbs...
go on forever... stopped only
for that photo
His daughter's head, against his shoulder....

A recluse has no reason
No effect, nor place to go
No place to catch the eye
Nor show 
that I am ****
effortless....
in baggie jeans and ragged sweatshirt  
Beauty is for the forest
the ocean and the sky
I am an odd and solitary bird of brown
Only
beautiful in nature's eye

The wine, the fire
before me
in the still
night

...in me
behind me
through me
I sit here
running....
in my head
my heart

I will escape
it
to the truth
that some of us will make it

after the fire

I want to see
your face, your eyes
Through the steam of our coffees
Know
every line
of your smile in sunlight
Trace my words along...
every micro-expression...
Every hint of hesitation
The fault lines
of our desolations
of our hopes

Desire--
of our fears
And, in all our failings
The apology of years

Yes...
We need all five senses
on our hopes and words--
to really know
how to make dreams bloom--

We need the sunlight of a touch
the water of a whispered
wind through apple trees in spring
to give the fragrance flow
Yes...

and add to these
the rhythms of love's ocean
that yet again  
and always--

Touch...
that sudden blaze
in catch of eyes across a room

Lost with you
Lost without you

I don't understand
so much
but the grief-- that's real  
Unexpected
Grief often comes that way

I lost the you I knew

Misunderstood-- the ways of you
Uncontrollable-- the heart of me

What do I do?
With all the love?
Leftover?

You will have to ask this now.

At first light
it comes unbidden

Mourning--
clenching deep
enough to sound your soul
Stone on string
sent to tell the depth of drowning--
in the tears
without a cry
weary beyond the sigh

No act of will
This weight--
gives no resistance
to the gravity of ocean's metal-gray
They seep along a sloping cheek
in silence

“Only lovers ever go this deep
It's strange,” they say

It is right
that the day is gray
that the sun is not prying
No one should see me
mourning

If I didn't love you
What are these tears
in free fall

...what I don't understand--
what seems a sudden unexplained cultural shift
related to who can afford it.

Whenever money is in the agenda,
my back hairs stand up

It is only by asking questions that others can grow to understand.
I have been following the news on Transexuality since it first appeared on TV and magazines.  It was a story about a little child feeling misgendered.  I was sympathetic to her predicament.

I Was Under the Impression that The First Amendment Was Important Here!