I'm of two minds
These days.
This is a sobering thought.
One fraught with yesterdays,
The other with tomorrows.
Today,
I'll give my duality a rest.

Two lads, I'd say, of thirteen, just passed;
One in barefoot with a backpack;
One in shorts, shoes and black socks,
Pulled up over bloated calves.
One athletic, lean and gearing;
One more leaning towards academia.
Both waiting to enter high school.

They met in JK.
They slept on their towels, in their tents,
At each other's house on weekends.
They served together, lived as one;
Their mothers loved them as sons.
That's how close they'd become.
Their worlds will change,
Once this season's done.

One will be the talk of his circle,
The other, the talk of his;
But there's a Venn where the rings entwined
Before they turned thirteen.
Their hybrid youth,
Their cloned friendship,
Memories already determined.

Around fires and bells,
Or a covered porch on a rain - washed day;
They'll dig up some old moments
Of the other when they were young.
Buried treasures for days of leisure,
Apart, yet part of their sum.

My search
For a higher power
Eluded me;
Thank God
I found our
Poetry.

There's two ways in
But one way out,
Be a visitor,
Not a fixture,
Put 'em up
And fight.

What we are aiming for
Is a good ways off; in the clouds;
Someplace yonder in the boonies;
Beyond our reach, or, in the middle of nowhere.

It is a pipe dream we’re lighting,
So remote we don’t see the smoke.

Our goals are far-flung;
Like another world’s offerings,
Where the deep blue skies are unattainable.

We are reaching for the higher fruit,
For a single bed in the Ivory Tower.

Visionaries are blinded beyond the pale;
Beyond the bounds, a good ways off;
Instead of grasping for the unearthly, the Utopian,
We must look next door;
Not at the moon or Mars or some galaxy
A million miles away,
To find what’s in our reach,
And grab it.

Uncle Eoin walks his fields
At odd times day and night;
When I visit he's asleep,
But not his cows and sheep.
The cows low blithely,
The lambs bah lightly,
There's no cause for alarm.

He's adding on the years,
And since my Granny died,
Eoin lives on his own,
Childless and untied.

Eoin tries to maintain health
With little money
But awash in wealth.
He doesn't worry
As we do,
Being mortgage free,
Debt-free too.
He always knows
Where to eat,
His white-washed house
Still burns peat.
The stone wall fields
Mark creation's expansion,
From first to last dimension.

He rises when I call
From outside the house:
Time has little meaning,
No matter what the season.
He calls down,
Who's there?
Francie! I yell  back.

You'd think my accent,
My singular name
Would tell him it was me,
So I'm surprised
When Eoin replies,
Francie who?
To me.

He rumples down
To the blue front door
That doesn't quite
Reach the floor.
Rot has eaten much.
It swings quite well,
Considering,
It's balancing on one hinge.

Eoin wears similar clothes
I saw him wearing
Years ago.
He has a robust crop
Of hair,
As thick as smithy steel,
And snow-white
And grizzly fair.

He dips his ***
Into a pail of water,
Boils it with
The tea bag in,
And stirs it with
His finger.
The mug he offers
Needs a sledge and chisel
To chip at stains
Thick as Irish thistle.
I accept resigned,
Knowing Jameson
Comes with time.

Eoin is himself again,
After tea and toast
And insulin.

He carpets his rough floor
With red-dotted slips of paper,
Used checking his blood sugar.
They're the only color
In a room,
Black with soot,
Still dark at noon.

His sitting room is 12 X 10
With an antique cooker
Not lit since when;
A string of socks above the stove,
Hard from drying, yet never moved.
A propane burner against
An outside wall
Provides some warmth in winters;
But missing window panes
Defeat the warming currents.

My stay never last too long,
An hour, seldom two,
But Eoin never leaves my thoughts
Across the miles of blue.
Don't sympathize with Eoin,
He's turning ninety-two.

Crime scenes
Aren't as clean
As a blanket tossed
Across
A lost one
In a room.
Antisceptic on the screen.

The victims rarely seen.
Those who've linger
After,
Share pain and suffering
That can't be screened.

The covered relief
Gives no evidence
Of the gravity
Of the grief.

Our skin is a thin veneer
Plied over masks
That put a face on
Our many selves.
The visible outward features are shallow;
Beneath, we are change artists
Vigilant through eye holes.

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.

You may not agree
With their point of view,
But you must concur,
Unbelievers can write
Some **** good
Ungodly love poetry.

I heard Tarzan
Swinging through the jungle
Calling the wild ones,
The fringe dwellers,
With, Ungowa!
They answered,
Dragging their knuckles
Along the I-94,
Then stampeding to crown,
Their *King of Apes.

Uniformed and re-upped,
We are the mind sweepers,
The navel gazers moving lint,
Waiting for the image to strike.

We are the missals
And the launchers,
Looking through cross-hairs
From think tanks.

We captain verse vessels to shore,
Unload and return for more.

We are the Romantic
Ancient sub-conscious mariners
Stitched in hammocks.

We are rocketeers.
A force
To reckon.

Don't look in the rear view.
It's there, in front of the windshield,
That looks to the immediate future.
I sit between the two,
With the past in the mirror,
And the simultaneous future
Over my hood,
And my wheels spin,
I'm moving.
Trees and people jostle
From front to back, continuously.
Road signs are a blur
As the air pushes the world aside
Like lace curtains,
Like love,
Enduring through unintended consequences.
A simple gesture,
A mustard seed,
Growing.
Like crystals, connecting,
Dissipating into one.

Well outside my circle,
Beyond my paltry reach
Of influence,
Nasty, spinsterly, unforgiveables
Happen.
Across from The Farmer's Market,
Just two days ago,
Two young males were...
You've no doubt read it.
Before that, a young teacher
Was kidnapped, stabbed and lit,
(can't believe I just wrote that)
Well, she was ******* lit... burned...

Who can live like this?

Then, I remember Tom's mother
Who invited me on family picnics;
And Crazy Jack,
Who put the chain on my rear sprocket;
The Squires who actually cleaned-up the yard
For the Downie sisters.

The befriendings in neighborhoods.

Mrs. Tethercott, probably the oldest woman
To ever live on a street, once handed me
A hard red candy through the green pickets.
Just me. The sibs never saw it going or coming.
An especially special treat that has stuck with me
For decades after her death.

But the Mayor arriving in full Santa regalia
On the trunk of a sleigh-red car,
With burlap bag slung heavily.
What a first memory of Christmas.
Daddy burned his leg
With diesel oil
On the job site,
Far away, in Kapuskasing,
During our first winter
In Canada.
Did the Downie Spinsters make the call?
What unknown friends reached out
Beyond their circles.
Who aspires to such a height?
I can't let it stop me.
For now,
I carry a hard candy
For just such occasions.

I'm up to my
Funny bone
In winter.
If I don't laugh
Insanely,
I will avalanche
Into madness;
Go whirl crazy
In the vortex.

My life has always been about us.
Not a group us,
But the me in us.
The I, me, mine.
Wear my things, I strike out.
I buy duplicate gifts,
Compliment with vacuous airs of envy.
Invitations are scarce. A dollar a stamp.
Then you appeared
To show me the you
In us.

That field stone bridge, as bridges do,
Waits over brown waters, joining roads
Where Legions marching, marched on.
Her waters breached the ocean, bringing back
Bottles, birds and songs.

In the morning between the columns,
The water breaks from sloping bends,
But under the evening light, when the house
Across the bank shimmers,
They return, marching, dipping, flowing.

Time and time the ebb and flow disturbs ripples
In my mind.
Reflections change from foundations and windows;
Boots and birds go by with the Usk
To deeper waters.
The same tidal waters.
My time here joins roads with the bridge I walk,
Feeling leather below my knees, as Legions did
Before the dig.
Their shields and spears resting,
They bend over fires
And drink clear water that cleverly flows
In and out beneath the bridge.

These same waters,
Ripe in paradox,
Keep days and nights still;
Where past and now meet
In diurnal echoes.

I accept atheism, agnosticism,
Transmigration, reincarnation,
Obliteration and nothingness.
These beliefs include all religions,
Yes, Voodoo, Satanism, Witchcraft,
Judaism, Christianity, Muslim, Hindu,
Shintoism, and Buddhism
(even Scientology).
Some sects aren't polite.
I won't mention the one that rhymes with:
Vileness, truthless, bias, noxious, menace,
Hubris, vicious, ****, prejudice, malice,
Callous, darkness, heinous, carcass or badness.
I might lose my head, or something.
But all the others,
They're based on humanitarianism,
And isn't that what it's all about?
Us,
Not them.

We're misrepresented
(We male Caucasians),
Who don't indulge
In bigotry.

If I showed you a picture of her,
All else becomes background.
Before the Eiffel, she towers high;
She is the Alberta Foothills to the Rockies;
As curvaceous and meandering as the Amazon;
More story than Bunratty Castle;
The most intriguing smile at The Louvre;
More endurance than The Spirit of St. Louis;
As mystical as The Shroud;
More amusing than the Park;
More striking than lightning.
The sun diminishes behind her;
In any room, she is Feng Shui.
It's futile to compare.
She is the globe, all else is alien.
The last breath of winter's glory,
The first open flower of spring,
The coolness of a summer rain,
The palette of autumn's color,
These and all others wither
And fade behind the foreground.

A true Valentine's more
Than a rhyme
That ends
In chocolate couplets,
Or written in flowery prose.
A real Valentine
Smells sweeter
Than your dozen roses.
My Valentine
Gives me her time,
And that's
How she shows it.

Beat it
Into resignation.
Flog it
Into degeneration.
Disparage it
Into decomposition.
or
Leave it
To wither all alone.
These are some choices.
There are others.
Embrace it
To become integral.
Surround it
To become enclosed.
Adopt it
To be your mantle.
and then
You wither alone.

Walking the strip
As though I were a pinball
In a giant arcade game.
Showgirls posing,
Gamblers jostling
With over-sized flasks
Hanging around their necks.
The streets are festooned
With picture cards,
As numerous as confetti,
Advertising all the pleasures
And prices of escorts.
Vegas, Baby?
Keep it there,
Not here.

This flower
In the dark
Of night,
With petals
Of carnal delight,
Like Venus, snaps
To hold one tight;
Repeats
The feast
In morning light.

Some people can wait
     Before they die;
Hold on for a loved one
     To say Good-bye.
To have one more Spring,
     Or any Season,
For Love or Closure,
     This we reason.
Now many can leave
     This coil of doubt,
Guilty they heard,
     On all thrity-four counts.

The vaporous air clings
To my winter window.
I draw a childish happy face
With my *******,
And press my nose
Where Happy's should be;
Thinking to transfer a smile,
Subtlely,
As Veronica.

May I take this opportunity to be plain and simple.
I've learned by speaking less, listening little,
Reading and watching more.
Let's begin with the beginning, something simple,
Birth.
It's universal, a de facto truism.
We've caused it, done it, feared, dreaded, cherished it.
Birth is like unto us a parable.

Which brings me to religion. From being ditch water
to the moon landing and beyond, we've pursued the ideal through
knowledge. One  of our earliest stories tells we paid dearly for it
too; otherwise we'd have grasped thunder and forgone tresspassing on foreign lands.
A favorite quotation convincingly talks about turning into dust. I've seen the hate and violence, and the bodies unearthed weren't even dust. The ragged clothing looked more like us. I think the most confusing quote is about being in an afterlife with your body.
Why? Who you gonna swim with?  

                  Vestal ****** ******. Maintains an Eternal *******.

The poet said, Why worry about death. There's nothing to
worry about.
Hmmm!

So, then, what's up with death?
Well, what I know for sure, is that it's a lot like birth,
With one fatal difference.

I was well-armed,
And I dug in.
Bolted the garrison gates,
Posted my defences on turrets
Of pity and self-loathing;
Attacked with self-righteousness
And posturing.
After the expected one hundred years,
You retreated and fled,
Yet I awaited another on-slaught,
Sharpened my sticks,
Mounded my stones,
Prepared for a signal.
The Keep has long fallen,
The moat is weedy and dry,
But I've left the drawbridge down,
Dismissed my guards,
Examined my scars.
I am a veteran of domestic wars,
With no benefits.

I've been at hundreds of funerals
Standing beside Fathers
Soon to be posted to Peru
Or to missions for black African babies.
They'd sprinkle caskets like Spring rains,
Burn incense to smudge the dead
With rising smoke signals.
Sounding the advance.
I witnessed pain in the front pews,
The kneelers with thin cushioning.
I prayed fervently for a whosh of wind
To sweep behind me,
Billow my soutane,
  And lift the lid;
Prayed for the candle flame to flare,
For the body to rise
As Rathgar did.
He was a faker.
Not like what I saw.
Up close.
On Friday mornings.

As in all Partici-Poems,
You're invited to add your own.
Based on Fake News and False Hope,
There's nothing here to help you cope.

Covid-19 is China's Beta version.
The real pandemic is yet to come.
They now have a one year head start.
They've proved they can isolate and destroy
Without leaving their country.
The Sleeping Giant has opened its eyes.

It's the Real Rich people's way of getting Really Richer.
It's a deal maker.
You're Hired.

It's all about Government Opportunity.
Remember Get Smart and the CONTROL Organization
For whom he worked.
If the shoe fits, GPS someone.

If we send young healthy Jimmy (who tested positive)
In to see all the Grandmas and Grandpas,
Think of the resources we'll free up.

Manipulate the markets.
Tell people Russia and the Saudis are friends.
But tell your family first.

Hydroxychloroquine
Not only will it cure you, but it promotes
Natural skin color, whether black, white, brown or orange.
This is supported by the WH Medical Dream Team.
It's a miracle. Deus ex machina.
Will also give you blue eyes and blonde hair.

And please use a clean syringe when injecting disinfectant.

SIEG HEIL

__________________­____________________­____________________­____________________­__________________

This winter's first snow came tonight,
And it falls like moon feathers,
No wind to sharpen the edges,
A snow-globe pillow-fight,
Streetlights smudged,
Rockwell houses, tundra streets.
Known as the ****** snow,
No squirrel or footprints
On my porch steps;
I need re-fill my gas can.
I'll give it twenty more minutes.

If I'd written
My love poetry
Years ago,
When our passion
Covered college sheets,
When we were sleek
And bared our bodies
Boldly;
When we wore our hair,
Your ******* unbarred,
When we rolled
In your backyard,
Wetter than the dew;
That's one verse
I'd write for you.
Scratch out lines
On your legs,
See Venus rise
From the nubile shell,
Type stanzas
To compare your eyes,
Your neck,
Your lips,
Vis a vis;
The tender terror
Of our first kiss.

Between the vaxxers
And the anti-vaxxers;
Between the dearly educated,
And the poorly educated;
The lines are blurred,
But clearly visible.

It may take too long a time to write,
For the anxious future's now the past,
But the words are flowing out at last.
Composing verse on love and hate,
Death and youth,
And all of nature,
First and all loves,
All relations,
The beauty in all of creation.

I'm pleased to share
My P.O.V.,
On myriad subjects
That interest me;
A perogative poets share
At all stages.
We take liberties,
Endure indignities,
Being the voices
Of all ages.

I must walk away
Til I reach a place
Where the world ends;
Where the sky meets.
Especially at night,
I'd see shooting stars-
Brief as they are.
I'll start out barefooted,
Bring coffee and some cigs.
So, I begin.

Distance dwindles,
I focus on a silhouetted outline,
Always, as a dream...
Just ahead of me.

I recognize a gait from behind.
Siren-like, then me.
And I walk to catch-up,
Walking from everything,
With the end of my world.

While you're romanticizing the setting sun,
And conjugating all the figures of speech
Such a metaphorical red orb produces,
Allow your eyes to wander over
To the duck,
Waddling westward.

Observe his tail feathers.
Notice how preened and coiffed they are,
With a tinge of midas gold.
See how the breeze gently whips
The wispy wafting plumes,
Swaying right to left,
Exposing its avian chute.

Look,
All you who gaze upon the re-minted
El Presidente,
Donaldo, Don Come Mierda,
Who does indeed have the uncanny resemblance of
The East End of a Duck Walking West.

Leaning on a wall,
Standing on the fringe;
Wall people
Are people,
They're just not too sure
When it happened.
There's no tower or steeple
As HIGH as wall people.

Here's a few legitimate refugees:
political, poverty, drought, war, and religious.
They're right in the top drawer zone,
But who gives a flying Whoopi
That Miley will claim assylum in Bali Bali;
Or Rosie will fly over camps on her way to Switzerland.
I hope Cher,
Doesn't apply for residence on Cape Breton Island:
We don't want you, Babe.
These are the celebrity refugees,
Bailing out on the touted
Greatest Democracy on the planet.
****, if you don't like what you elect,
Look to history,
Stove pipe hats,
And the wonders to be achieved
Before the end of this decade.
They got enough cash for space,
For Mars!

Don't touch my poetry
Unless you're a plagiarist.
It's infectious.

Cold sores never leave the body.
They are grafted into the being,
And become a hybrid life,
A symbiotic thing, perhaps a protective shield
From the unwanted, unsolicited other.
A wart, on the other hand,
Can be frozen, or, with the likes of you,
Repeated Compound W.

O, Mammy if you'd met her
She'd take your breath away;
There's peace in her demeanor,
There's joy in her at play.
There's affection in her movements,
She's you in many ways.

Her eyes are lighthouse beacons,
Her skin is sculpted clay;
Her little hands seize my heart
With vice-like claws of love;
Oh, Mammy
Do watch over her
As you watched over us.

You and I
Are water and salt:
Needing one another
Separately,
To live,
But dying of thirst
If taken together.

Years past,
We strung
String,
Twenty feet long,
Between two
Campbells soup cans,
Like conches,
To get sound waves.
Now,
There are no
Strings attached,
Yet,
I hear you
Loud and clear.

When I waxed poetic,
And compared your eyes
To emerald stars that breached
Their spheres, you said,
     Can't you just say
     You just like my eyes?

I don't listen, so
I compared your full red lips
To two blooming roses
On a singular stem.
     Man, you said,
     You mean you
     want a blow?

Not paying attention,
I compared your *******
To ripened melons
Waiting to be peeled.
     You like my ****?

I realized you were no poet.
So, I remarked,
     I like your gorgeous ***!

     Must you be so crass!
I heard.

We are stars
Above the sun;
No one hears
Or sees us come.
But surely as
Your sun
Will wane,
We'll shine brightest
To light the way.

This world is moving fast.
One thousand miles per hour.
Quicker around the sun.
Faster around the galaxy,
And fastest into the universe.
No contraction. Just expansion.
We agree, it's infinite in time and space.
Is there a nucleus for BOOM?
Does time go in only one lateral direction?
Was there more than one BANG for the buck?
More than one universe?
Creation isn't an asterick,
Exploding in all directions,
Like the rays of a sun.
Time may have no beginning, no end.
But stories need a beginning, middle and end.
My story does.
The universe doesn't. No story.
Not without a start and an end.
Just a middle, with crises, conflicts and looming decisions.
This is the illusion.

You don't wear black face.
You'd never do such.
You don't wear white face;
Do you Kabuki?
Mime, non? Mime, oui?
But every March,
Millions of others,
Attired in green,
Some painted like Celtic warriors,
Affect terrible brogues,
And get sotted, some must disgracefully.
That's what the Irish do, think they?
I won't wear a yarmulke on Yom Kippur,
Not a burka on Eid al-Adha,
Or lead the parade
Up Fifth Avenue.
Slainte