I am not dead.
Somedays I am angry about their interference in my choice.
My friends and colleagues stare at me and walk by in silence.
My grandson sings “I am a zombie” songs;
My daughter texts  her boyfriend at the dinner table; and
I try not to criticize and enjoy a moment of peace.
I breathe another day.
How did I get here?
To the land of hopelessness;
Daily cases of death by gangs and drive by shootings;
Neglected children with multiple parents and grandparents
And mothers who drink in bars while their children wait in car.
The finger I put in the **** could not steam the flood of
Souls that did not have a safe harbor.
Oh if only I could have shut my mouth and cut out my eyes
Before I learned.
There was another path I could have chosen.

Shredded wheat; Cheerios
Minute rice; Frozen meals
Hot dogs; hot dogs;
Snappy, kosher, ball-franks;
Spaghetti night with warm bread
toast; butter, sugar and cinnamon  
soda, pop, energy drinks-

gum disease
Scurvy in America

In the sullen light of an inauspicious day,
I wake knowing the same story will be told
once more just as it was told yesterday.

Waking to dress, eat, and work,
strong women raising children without
fathers who think it enough to visit

while kitchens are empty of the warmth of old stories
stories of how love survived various hardships
stories conveyed by a glance and smile;

love is found in the curl of the hair on his chest
twirled between her fingers
the warmth of his legs against the cold of her toes
the matching of the rhythm of breath
at the end of another
inauspicious day.

Your off
To deliver babies
in some old Spanish colony
to care for the poor in some other land
because the poor here at home
asked for it
should just go and get a job
are lazy
just want a free hand out

after all in america
hard work always pays off
with a house, picket fence,
and chicken in every ***

White haired man
Asleep
With no one to wake him

if every sentence ends in
you don't listen or
I am ******
when does the heart harden
and it no longer matters
when a tree falls
and no one hears
did it still die

Again today
People lined up
Not looking
Not seeing
Faces blank
Mouths shut
A million thoughts
unspoken
a million lives lives
behind the mask

Midnight calls again
Racing thoughts of you
Wondering if a visit will cause
More harm than good.
Even in the last days of your life
You yell at me for living mine
In a way that you would not.
a daughter instead of a son
So many years I thought of you
So hard to please, so hard to impress
I lived my life for you
Only to find my life never pleased you
Sacrifices made for a love that
Never came
Still I wonder if I should visit you
One more time before you are gone
Strange love that is always angry
I wonder if a visit will only cause
You more upset than it is worth
For either of us.

a soda bomb
on my laptop
an electric surge
a interior fire
all my words
all my contacts
On internet sites
Without landlines
Without roots
Tethered to a cloud
Between the atoms
Which form such things
As paper and pen
Will my children find my footprints
In cyberspace.

The last loon glides
cooing to the warm waters
colored leaves fall.

Nests heave under
Ice drifts on burdened shore
Loons gone south.

Welcome nests rise up
From pond’s melting shore
Loons Home to roust

Loon dives deep
To the water’s weeds
To eat trout.

HIS God;
He preached : we have Satan under our feet.
He preached:  abundant blessings, if you tithe.
His comment from the altar: here is a quarter, call someone who cares.
God said “What was hidden shall be disclosed”
He is arrested for ****** abuse.
his victim, his daughter, condemned from the altar.
She must be a liar; she must be bi-polar;
She must be a *****;
His conviction brings a public apology.
His conduct tears into the heart of his flock.
Where is God in this?
His church moves on repeating the same themes.
She is left alone to find another God.

You bet
All
On something
uncontrollable
How is it that
You can trust
a force
Beyond
A compassionate God
Who only speaks in signs
That are not seen

It was only a party
While she studies for exams
It was only a party
With five of his favorite friends
It was only a party
But she asked him to leave
It was only a party
But she did not understand
She must be such a …
It was only a party

Between
Cars, trucks, buses,
semi’s, RV’s, diesels,
motorcycles, economy cars,
jeeps, humvees, motor homes,
lays a
long yellow line:
an unending parade
of sound and fury.
The wind
In between
Blowing wild and loud
putting out careless embers
thrown thoughtlessly  by drivers
of the never-ending machines
each one bringing me closer or farther
from home
which is empty without you

Next to the USA flag, they still fly
The MIA flag,
As if MIA was a separate country,
Driving my car becomes a song filled place
A place where joy abounds
A place where you are still here
I drove for hours today
Just glad to be free to love you
I just wish I knew where your final resting place is
So I could talk to you and
Not have to drive alone in my car.
You are forever young
I wonder when the MIA flag will come down
You would be almost seventy by now
Could you have survived so long
I am surprised by my gray hair
If you came home now,
How would I explain the woman I became.

Peace within
A quiet place to live
Far from the maddening
Crowd of people
And their stories

she travelled the world and brought back
Dolls from faraway lands
Stories told
In her smokey room
Over red tomatoes

Do you still taste of salt?
You, playing tennis in the hot sun,
and me, in my office working.

Lovers with two separate lives
Until I got tired of being your workhorse.
Still, I miss the taste of your skin.

ice melts on the shore
tugboats bring in the booms
robins search for twigs to build nest
life begins again
to those who count time by seasons
it is mud, flowers, celebration and
a chance to return to old friends
who all hid from winter
the snowbirds return
tan and thin to greet
their hibernating friends
who are just waking from
their snow induced sleep

Every Sunday afternoon
I curled up on a couch and watched,
While he sat on the couch trying
To remember who he was, or who I was.
I listened to his five stories again and again-
repeated and predicted conversations
He did not remember me;
I did not remember him as anyone other
my sunday man.

For fifteen years of Sundays
me and my sunday man enjoyed
a peaceful respite.
So when he collapsed and an ambulance
took him away,
It felt  suddenly, unexpectedly, and surprisingly
Shocking
he was gone,


the doctor kindly said that we did a yomen's job
and could do no more; His frontal lobe was gone.
They transferred him to a nursing home

The last Sunday I saw him; he knew me, for
One brief moment, he smiled and winked and said
He would meet me upstairs with the big guy.
Then the smile closed to a vacant stare and
He was gone again.

Sounds of the morning dove
Outside my window
Heard just briefly before
Gear shifting cars
Drown out the softness of
The new day
Sounds of the northern geese
Returning from winter’s lairs
Heard just briefly before
Electronic emails erase
The joy of a change in
The new season
In the cubical forest
Taping on keys
Humming of machines
The constant moment

Between

Cars, trucks, buses,

semi’s, RV’s, diesels,

motorcycles, economy cars,

jeeps, humvees, motor homes,

lays a

long yellow line:

an unending parade

of sound and fury.

Fairies inhabit our dreams
Were you there at the fall of the wall
The Russians moved in next door
They read the federalist papers
and admire our constitution
They believed that America was a land of freedom
Until they found that the public schools
Did not teach freedom to its own
reading lists consists of Harry Potter
or anything that a child finds pleasing
Capitalism can be a ruthless master
cogs in a wheel, unthinking of the individual

A fifteen foot wall of water
Shattering, crushing, erasing
Everything in its path
227,000 souls gone
The earth quaked
And the water moved
Are the Gods angry still?

when was the dream
Lost and found—In:
things
              words
                    tears
                 smiles
           ­ lies
       truths
the vastness of the sky,
            of you,
                    of the
space between us

How are tornados made?
Easy answers to a seven year old’s
Curiosity are found on utube;
grandma feel so smart until,
the videos show the dead bodies of
people caught up in tornadoes.
The fury of weather terrifies a young boy;
Now the questions are about death
And whether we ever get tornadoes
In our back yard.
Still, he charms her with a
“lets watch more videos tomorrow”