There are great periods
In our lives; passages.
Agreed. Truism.
I'm at that age, where,
In an average life-span
Of one, such as I,
Either one or both parents
Are gone. Are going soon.
I know, there are many
Exceptional, wonderful,
Depressing and ******
Stories,
But the aggregate is
Right on with this.
So, if you're young,
Twixt, middle or aging,
Go give Mom, Dad,
Granda and Granny
A hug, a kiss, a handshake,
A touch, and
Just tell 'em you love 'em.

What does it mean
If I dream
My pen leaked
Down my shirt pocket
Designing
A Rorschach heart?

I was told if I ate worms,
I could fly.
Ever since, I've stepped over sun-baked sidewalk worms.
I recall eating an orchard apple from the ground.
That didn't end well.
Rockwell suggested frying them.
Hamlet punned about worms travelling through a King.
Don't be called a worm.
Don't worm your way in,
You'll likely find a hook.
I'm forever grounded.
The worm hasn't turned.

Our world is in bits;
Hawking has it flipped.
There isn't a theory
Of everything,
Everything has
Its theory.

I'm ******* with Robert Frost
And the guy who wrote Paradise Lost.
I ain't happy with Aristotle,
And especially John, the weird Apostle.
Don't mention, please, Shelley or Keats,
Blake, Byron, or that poser, Yeats.
Each and every one you see,
Lifted their best themes from me.

Don't look aghast,
Don't tsk and titter,
Their thievery's made me
Mean and bitter.

Just because they said it first,
Doesn't mean I find it just.
It doesn't give them ownership
Of my themes and authorship.
I write of Roads, Good and Evil,
God and Satan, love and leaving.
I know I'm internally bleating,
But I can't abide this metric beating.

Although they're  now just dust and bones,
They still don't have the right to own
All the great lines I have sown, like,
The best laid plans of mice and men.
(I thought that up before Robbie Burns).

Let me make this poetically clear;
If I was there, or he were here,
I'd sue the *** of Will Shakespeare.

I've a lingering scratch
In the throat,
An irritation
As I spoke;
I coughed, I choked,
And spewed out the last
Off-coloured joke.

There was a ringing
In my ear,
A clappering sound
You rang for years.
I blocked and stopped
And turned away
To silence the slurs
I refuse to hear.

I've black floaters
In my eyes,
The only colour
I surmise;
Other shades now subside;
I'm looking forward
With clear brown eyes.

Have another round, boys,
The time's on me.
Use the good time
While you can, boys,
In morning you will see.

Don't ponder vain dreams lads,
They thicken in your blood:
Leave it on the rocks, sir,
For there it will inspire,
For certain something's sensed.

          Keep me alive
          Don't let me die
          Tonight.
          If I stayed at home
          I wouldn't be
          Too tight tonight.
          Sensing delight in drinks
          Tonight's by me.

Let your insights falter,
Slip another disc.
Stay seated where you are boys,
Don't bother to resist.
Thrill your lungs
With tapered incense,
The myrrh of barroom bliss.

          While rambling through
          The ale and lager
          We remain serene,
          And all too soon
          I lie alone
          In sober company.

I have stashed my Glenfiddich
And Marlboros
In the basement cupboard,
While settling in,
At Ground Zero.

Maura gave me a watch
Many Christmasses ago;
Time and again its hands
Moved me.
It had a crystal face,
Nickel-plated case,
A golden crown,
Calendar window,
And a dial with Arabic numerals.
A ten dollar Timex
That made me feel like a million.
The brothers didn't have a watch,
But I had a second hand
For accurate readings
Of who could **** the longest,
Hold their breath for two minutes,
How long it took for the kettle to boil,
Or a snail to crawl.
Everything could be timed,
And timing, like my watch,
Was everything.
I was the timekeeper,
And took duties seriously.
I wore it on my left arm,
One day the sweep second froze,
The big and little hands stopped.
A spring or something broke;
The date was a constant
Grim reminder.

If your heart
Is racing,
Rest between
The steps,
Breathe between
The pulses,
Respire with desire,
But don't
Miss a beat.

For some,
Death's a doorway;
For others,
It's a lid.

Lilian hit eighty-five,
Shot nine holes for forty-eight;
Drives her car not to be late.
Man alive, she's eighty-five.
That's not far off, Bro,
A few thousand weeks,
I ride my Shadow,
Shoot thirty-eight.
That's not far off, Sis,
A few thousand hits,
So I'm shooting for eighty-six,
Playing with my ***** and sticks.

Yoko wrote it, once.
Lennon was off the ground
Reading it.
It's the minimalist's grail.
My pen can dry out.
I've found a tranquility
Like the last seat on the bus home.
It can't be copyrighted.
One word, not one's word,
Isn't plagiarism.
Can it be mine, please,
Just this one time.
It has internal rhyme,
And the end rhyme draws out
To an external rhyme,
The universal poem.
Put it on the curriculum
And school kids will memorize it,
Gladly, gleefully.
My One Word Poem:
            *Yes

They carried us
Through gestation,
Or adopted
Without hesitation.
Our coming
Was a celebration,
Mothers are our affirmation.
They deliver.

When we're quiet
From travails,
She makes time
For school-yard tales.
The warmth of sunshine
Shyly pales
To her prevailing arms.

She fostered us
Til eyes dried out;
Cried alone
As we left her house;
Waiting by the door,
A balm and living cure.

When Moms do well
All can tell
The Madonna-like connection.
No need to forgive them,
We'll always grieve them;
Mothers love us
From conception.

I'm an electron
In a nuclear family;
I'll take TNT.

Scribbling, never stopping,
Spinning stories you criticized;
Tales you'd call lies.
My truths born from my fiction,
A character of my creation,
The protagonist of my plot;
Making you the antagonist,
With minor characters conspiring
Towards my denouement.
I am the author of rising action,
Embedded in the argument;
Conflicts arose, decisions made,
The crises ensues,
You got saved.
And I am but an afterword
In your novel life.

What is my operative word?
Go?
Stop?
Never, is it Yes.
Always it is No!
Sometimes in a gesture,
Occasionally in a gait;
If I were blind
And read by braille,
My fingers might feel Wait.
And we've met some
Who don't have
An Operative at all.

I always wanted
To be a sage,
Have ears attentive
When I speak,
Have listeners sit-up
In their seats.
Sadly, this only
Comes with age.

I always wanted
To be a looker,
Have heads turn
When I walk by,
Hear my name
In whispered sighs.
Sadly, this only
Comes from hookers.

I always wanted
To be a lover,
Have women oogle
Like no others;
Call out my name
When they scream.
Sadly, it happens
In my dreams.

I always wanted
To be rich,
Have everything at
My fingertips.
This is one
I got done,
My wealth I found
In my children.

The Olde English poem,
The Holy Rood,
Was mystical and new.
The courtiers liked what they heard,
The troubadours sang out their truth.
Then Beowulf gave it design;
A plot with characters,
Some nearing divine,
With beasts and bravery bounding;
A new literature was sounding.
Soon Canterbury clopped along,
Lyrical poetry became song,
And morphed into Paradise,
Lost and found in common meter,
With angelic imagery, good and evil,
Undone in metaphysics.
Round the Lakes the poets roamed,
Windermere, Grasmere, and Dorothy's home.
They walked in beauty, day and night,
Warned the world was too much with us,
That nature was our friend.
Gave intimations of our end,
We still need listen to.

You have the handshakes,
I'll take the slaps on the back.
There's no estate, no kids.

You have the helloes,
I, the good-byes.

No mediator is necessary,
I've medidated on this
And concluded,
Bro,
This friendship.

Try not to think more of yourself than others.
Try not to think less of yourself than others.
Don't think less of yourself more,
But more of yourself less.
Sometimes, think less of others more,
And you won't think less of yourself.
But do so with charity and courtesy,
Lest we forget.

The death of a somebody
Is life affirming.
My favorites attend
In the ante-room,
Eyeshot from the shell.
They appeared to be telling
Off-colored jokes,
Childish giggles, anxious glances.
Others talked nervously on their health,
Their swing and trips, car salesmen, and politics.
Violet remarked on the wedding, the bride's redolent dress,
Brocade and settings.
The vows were personal and promising.
Funeral Home is an ironic euphamism;
But the coffee is strong and bitter,
I burned my tongue.
I didn't see much black, mostly pastels.
It's a multi-media presentation of family,
Old and getting precariously older,
Cavorting at the cottage,
Sitting under Christmas trees,
Holding up scarves and mittens.
Everyone smoked then. Everything's hidden.
Someone's grandson touched his hand,
Then recoiled into the nearest waist.
Except for the flowers and box,
There was vibrancy and planning
Where to meet following the graveside,
For a drink and toast to why we're here,
To why any of us are here at all.

My translucent skin is looser now,
I'm loosing my gray hairs;
Teeth are kept beside my bed,
My ears aren't on my head.

At times I wobble when I walk,
I creak across the floor;
At times I drool when I talk,
I'm venting so much more.

My fingers gnarled;
My belly barreled;
My back is bent from care;
My toes are crooked,
My nose has hooked
(Did I say I'm loosing hair?)

Friends are disappearing,
Like scenes in my rear view;
Once there were so many,
Now scattered,
And there's few.

I'm resident in my lazy boy,
Watching old re-runs;
But I have reels inside my head
Of desires once well-fed.

So I sit here,
And see you there,
With gray cardigan and gray hair.
But in my theatre we're in a field
Of long grasses and long hair.

A fool and his heart
Are soon parted.
Sounds flippant
And distant;
Unless you're the fool,
And it's your heart.

The factory gates are locked,
And there's no work today.
The line-up's getting longer,
And the soup kitchen's closed.
The cardboard box was recyclable
As a home above a vent;
My children have no clothes,
I hear my school's been closed.
Then I hear you call her ****
Because she won't sleep with you.
The lake's been closed, no swimming,
And the park soil is contaminated;
I think we're underestimated.
Clear the area
Before Gilligan removes the head,
Or Hawkeye looses his arms.
This is not a false alarm.

Peak experiences are now
Flashes of allusions;
The universality thing,
But not spiritual or metaphysical,
The minute and grand have equality,
Or none are equal.
The tree is free from adjectives,
A birdsong nest is superfluous.
Nest will suffice.
When I hear your name
We are together again.
I can't pass a hedge
Without  remembering the push,
The old gap;
It's the push.
There's the poem.
The push.
Each thought a particle,
All particles experiences.
Try it now. No descriptors.
Eyes. Airplane. Clouds.
     (but the story continues):
Airplane. Sunshine. Kiss.
     (there's the peak)
Each word a peak experience.

What you perceived
When I deceived
Was symtomatic
Of my disease.
What other reason
Had you for leaving?

We made promises
When first out,
To be one
In sickness,
Or in health.

It's clear to me,
I've been deceived,
Now that you're
Found out.

Tergiverate.
You're talking.
Equivocate.
I'm listening.
Prevaricate.
They hear too.
Mask it,
Cloak it,
With pretense
And disguise.
Truth seeps out
Throughout
Your pattering
Lies.

Trailers don't give away the entire plot.
I've been watching for years
As an active actor
In various melodramas.
  
     The good guy is clean shaven
     Beneath the lather,
     Emotes empathy,
     And never snickers.
     A straight shooter.

The other guy needs a blade
As cutting as sarcasm,
And aims when you turn.

     Then there's re-runs
     Whose endings never change.
     The prophet gets arrested.
     Tara burns. Ice bergs floe.
     I am under Lowry's volcanoe,
     Or leaving Las Vegas.
     28 Days is only two hours
     Of wine and roses.

The trailers just reveal enough
To give me hope.

Red prints are scattered everywhere,
On the wheels of industry,
The ballots of democracy,
On the clothes we wear.
We left them on initials,
At ATM's and One-armed Bandits,
In stone, I'l leave mine chiseled.
I saw them on the beggers's cup,
He wasn't asking for so much,
When I looked back, I saw my tracks,
Outlined in red retreat.
The message is on the road maps,
The vericose veins of land,
The arthritic grip on sanity
Is dripping red demands.
Dark rooms of photography,
Invisible ink and trickery
To get you to sign,
On the dotted line,
In red.

I knew her in youth's folly;
The fumbling hands,
The tumbling wills,
The limbs entwined kind of peace;
The dinner glances,
The unbridled dances,
Commando skirts,
Deep knee squats,
What one thinks
But will not say.

I've screamed into an empty barrel,
Ran barefoot where I shouldn't,
Slid rusty things under my nails,
Touched my eyes with sharp sticks,
Ground my teeth with electric power,
Scorched my skin beneath the shower,
Turned informer on closest friends;
Drank turpentine and kerosene,
Mercury and gasoline,
Tore my skin, rend my entrails,
And other parts clearly unseen.
Include, if you wish,
An immortal soul.
My spirit, ****** as well.
Call the prayer, sound a bell.
That was heaven,
Now is hell.

Next time is indeterminate.
Sometimes it never arrives.
This time is the right time.
I've offered buckets of promises,
Boxes of apologies,
Truck loads of regrets,
Warehouses of chances,
But there is no next time.
The crystal's broken,
The hands are frozen.

Each year we lose
One heart beat;
That's less blood
To our heads and feet.
This means my breath
Is fading too;
But I'll keep beating,
And I'll keep breathing,
Yes, I'll keep living
Just to bury you.

I'm not unhinged
To consider gates,
And which side I'm on;
Who's allowed in, or out.
If a gate's open,
Do we rush or seep in?
Uncle Frank's gate leads to his plush meadow.
That's how I envision the Pearly Gates
With a slight squeak as they slowly close
On all the lies outside;
Souls sticking a foot between the gate and the post
While banging on the bars.
But the toes don't lie.

I've been reading about you.
Every word, though a short piece
I keep in my wallet
To look over now and then.
The page folds across your breast
Where I was wont to be.
It's a good likeness of a girl
With style, and eyes and flowing auburn tresses,
And a smile that makes me smile
Recalling summer.
Could we start again, please.
Perhaps a different ending, please.

For three years she has moved me
Through the wonders of her eyes.
Flowing wells that glisten,
And beckon within.
     Her sudden movements
     Change direction
     To challenge or outwit
With the wonder of her eyes.

Furtive corners in the waters
Of her eyes, looking out:
A blink, a wink or shying tear
Disturbs ripples in my mind.

     My heart's flow rises
     When she smiles:
     She is the well-spring of  my life
With the wonder of her eyes.

Her hands direct the steerage
Of her course.
Sandboxes swell and dip,
And change to wonderous seas.
Her real dimensions are
Refracted, movements and directions,
Then defracted from my sight.

Imagine, her young colours
Looking out
Through the wonders
Of her eyes.

I wear your likeness
Like a scapular
Around my neck.
Your mannerisms
Complete my mosaic.

From behind, we look
Like Jews' harps
Standing with
Hands hanging by
Thumbs in  pants pockets.
These familiar traits
Trickle down and sprout
Anew,
Like Granda, I hear.

Seeing you, one would think
Great thoughts fill your head,
As you stare
At the ***** garden.

My sibs **** their heads
And tsk too,  running
Their hands from front
To back
Through thick black hair.
I recoil at the drops of sweat
Falling from the tips of their
Noses.

Sarcasm drips like venom
From your words.
The cost of a glass of water,
Or a phone call,
Always
Had my friends laugh,
Nervously.
They never knew how
To take you.
I was surprised
By your grudging
Facade when help
Was asked.

I enjoyed your silence.
Even now,
As entropy
Has its way
With my garden.

She calls me names
You never mouthed;
I hear the unfamiliar, Sorry.
And *** stings my ears.
You called me nothing,
Or anything;
You knew no need
For words of endearment.
Today, you're loudly missed
By the sounds of your vacuous absence,
By the atoms we once crushed
In the melding point of names.
Do you squeeze out terms of entaglement,
Now?
False hope on rising pride,
To hold the darkling years ahead,
To keep him in your bed?

Enjoying being alone
With first snow falling
On my lawn,
Covering Spring
Til distant dawn
With mini mellows.
Beulah, my new magnolia,
Will ring the bell in May,
But resting now,
Beneath the warmth of winter.

A new third world ******* emerged.
South of the U.S.
North of Mexico.
On the Gulf Coast.
Flag: Cantor, Black; Field, Black
Bird: Raptor
Flower: Fly Trap
Motto: Your Body Is the Body Politic.

Breaking a mirror won't bring financial ruin,
Unless you keep breaking them.

Carrying a rabbit's foot is just weird.
Ask the rabbit.

If you walk under a ladder,
You're ringing the wrong rung.
Enrol in a Health and Safety seminar.

If a black cat crosses the path of your vehicle,
Swerve,
You might clip it.

Pulling wishbones.... see Rabbit's Foot.

Bad news comes in threes,
And fours, fives...

You can bang on my wood anytime.

Lucky pennies don't exist in Canada.

Spilling salt is safe, and cheap.
If the price increased 1000%,
We'd still buy and spill.

Wishing on stars, candles and such
Is like holding air in your hands.

If you find a four-leaf clover,
Use EPA approved **** killer.

Don't step on a crack,
Don't sell crack,
Don't smoke crack.

Good Luck!

So, the tabernacle curtain ripped
Over the pallor of your eyes;
The wall of reliance has a crack,
Every level has it's fault,
Cement gives it strength.
The foundation's well-worth building on.
Leave the tools on site,
Tomorrow make it right.
An abandoned house,
Whomever lived there,
Collapses on itself.

So, is this what the owner wanted?
Brush on a new coat,
Hang floor length drapes,
Sweep away the refuse.
Bestow a second chance
On the sinner,
Not the sin;
On the wrong,
Not the doer.
Climb the steps again,
And knock,
Someone's in.

I notice tadpoles
Wearing push-ups
To look like bullfrogs.

Columns of water smoked over
The lake last evening,
Leaving a sun-soaked
Wet-dog pungency. But wagging.
Fatted newborns are
Claiming trees, digging holes.
The worms are doomed
Beneath the green.
Snouts are grovelling
Where they belong.
This was a blithe storm
Passing through.

My sun is eclipsed by you.
After a calming period.
Especially after seeing
You again, seeing you're happy.
That's a rising barometer
For you.
I see it in your hands,
On your ring finger.
Being congenial is different now.
But I am persistent
With my lieu time.
I will be resistant
In my windbreaker.
I have learned
To wait in queue.

The past is safe where it belongs,
Gathering dust between my brain and skull.
It has no business in the present.
Recent publications are now on the shelves,
Sharing space with crisp HD shots.
Keep it from invading tomorrow,
Which belongs to the kids,
Who'll have their own burdens and joys
That need no comparisons with past lives.
Their present is in the forefront.
We'll be rightly blamed for this unpredictable world
Of warm Gulf streams, war posturing and threats.
Troubled places belong in the past, safely stored,
With warning labels,
Away from the twelve year olds.

What's ours yesterday,
Is gone today;
What's here today,
Will be gone tomorrow.
That how it goes
For joy and sorrow.
Balanced on a teeter-totter,
These highs and lows
Of our see-saw charter.

She's posted a picture of her son,
Sitting on a swing I assume is moving.
I wonder how this Spring day moves him.
The sun stretching
From his head to his toes,
As he arcs to and fro.
I'll never know.
It's a picture of her son.
Does he read, write, paint, build?
I'd like to see his photography.
Perhaps a picture of his mother
Sitting on a swing;
But it's him, sitting there, still.

There's good reason to forget infant memory.
Too many colours, sounds, and faces back then.
My upsets were soothed with a soft hand and a healing kiss.
It wouldn't be fair to compare,
I would feel weak to compete
With those faded images and feelings.
It's bad enough with my adult recall,
Stories and pictures that bring on palpitations, clamminess and racing.
My school is an empty lot, beside an empty rectory, and an empty church.
My childhood avenue is derelict, like Mockingbird Lane.
My Triumph Herald is still baby blue in some photo.
With each memory, I feel the nausea.
Look at this one. All ten of us.
Five still.
I'm already beginning to feel queasy.
If I were five still, I'd forget.

They're struggling at the water hole,
It's really getting rough,
Jackals nipping at the heels
Of the rhinoceros.
The ***** lie in the grass
Waiting for what's left,
But the water-line is dropping,
And the wild ones face the test.

The struggle spills into the street,
Into the houses of the weak,
Where it's getting stronger.
There's less light in the daytime,
The night's are getting longer;
If this is a Safari,
Do you think it's going well?
Or are we holding baskets
In the long line-up to hell?

I awaken to the lonliest sound
Heard on the Seaway:
The plaintiff fog horn,
One continuous, wayward hooooom.
Again, it sounds travelling
Across water dunes to another
Holy town, lights blinking.

J.W. left a brochure;
They knocked on a locked door.
The rain erupts on my deck boards;
There's dog droppings on my lawn;
Birds are singing in the morn,
And I open my door.

Imagine, a new by-law prohibiting
Backyard rinks;
There are no icicles,
No tongues extended palate-like;
No salt lines on my boots;
And I haven't seen a one horse sleigh
Or heard harness bells.
The North Pole and Santa have been exposed.
I have a Christmas wish,
And I'm ready to use it.