Chica Baca laca maca....et cetera,
Where the lady sunfish are gold,
And  are truth tellers,
And the chain pickerals are bold,
And truth be told,
Those chains could not hold,
For Chaca Baca laca maca... whatever,
As Lake Unabash is known,
Was more humble when it was cold.

Baca daca lacka Baca Goo,
In the native or Lake Unabash will do,
The green male sunfish had electric gills,
Like neon lightning went up through,
But now wear a pumpkinseed coat,
So fall color is always new,
And the lady bass jump in the boat,
To tell the skipper where to go.

Shooka booka lacha nooka....
Or just Lake Trudeau,
The old catfish still fly their whiskers,
But only at night in bubble whispers,
For all the show is during day,
When a mother musky eats a duckling on its way,
Then to a fisherman turns to say,
I am a truth teller,
And you men have had your time!

Chaka ooka alla moola,
Or just Lake ****** truth be told,
Was more humble when it was cold,
Now the water recedes the lake,
And with summer lasting later,
"Hey how ya doing" from a stranger,"
And now new to Lake Annoy,
The alligator fills the void.

"Retired at 59, what now?"
Once you drive back my rv,
I will travel.
"Fort Myers Beach looks nice,
if only you could wake up before 3pm,
But we made the sunset, and some girls--can't get over facing the ocean on the other side,
different from Mass."
I know, my brother said the same thing.
"I forgot you had a brother."
He drowned in Aruba, his wife waived his autopsy.
"When do we have to be back by?"
I have a doctors appointment on Tuesday.
" Nice you can get some action getting naked for your Doc."
She won't even touch me, but always schedules me for checkups.
But everything checks out okay.
" Anything run in your family?"
Aside from being boozebags nothing.
" yeah you said your father died at 82 that's old."
My sister got him killed.
" What , ha, what the ******* talking about?"
She was his hospice nurse, and didn't bathe him.
He got an infection, and sent him to the hospital,
Listen the hospitals will only **** you, they drugged him up and sent him home, and he died.
She had one job.
Same thing with my mother, throat cancer, then the nurse gets paid to watch you die.
"Ah,  Check out these girls, thongs."
You should go talk to them, girls love you.
" yeah right, I don't need their love."
Jen loves you.
" Ha yeah Ok, she loves everyone."
Did you text your mother you landed safe?
" Ha, no, why?"
She doesn't get concerned?
" It's a plane ride."
You don't think that roof is little dangerous to do by yourself?
" ****, killed many an irishman."
I'm serious, that house and hill is nuts.
" Eh it's fine."
If you fell, who would see you?
" The sunset."
What if you died, what about your mother?
" She would see the sunset on the other side."
Alright, let's get some beers and watch the bruins.
" I wish you could wake up earlier,
it's already dark, cant get over the ocean being on that side, i keep thinking its east."
Stop complaining, it will be bright in the bar, try to have a good time.

Excuse me, its the law,
And it is on the sign,
As water flows uphill,
And your kayak is in my eyes,
I dial 9 1_1- just fine,
For what I cant stand,
Is lawbreakers in my land,
For my eyes are chimes,
Swaying to my closeted crimes,
If you ring my bell and run,
Dont think that you have won,
I will wait for the slight breeze,
And for a petty-crime you will be hung,
For upon the law, and to wit, I do tell you a truth,
I peer out a vertical slit,
But it is my chimes that gather my proof.

My room overlooks snowy hills,
On a house sky high,
I hear my father descending stone stairs,
my mother creaking up attic pine,
My father coming to pick me up saturday morning,
My mother in the attic on a saturday night.

I once saw a mans foot dangle from the clouds,
The roofer above my room outside
A discounted price no doubt,
Tho the roof is above the pines,
The front door is below the stone,
Cant build like that anymore, due to code.

Barely remember anything below 8,
I guess my father used to stay out late,
Sometimes i  would awake to the summer day,
With knocks at the door for brunch,
Down the stairs flying i would go,
Only opening to the night, the stone and the cold.
The meanest dreams I know.

The snowy hills can play tricks,
Like the day I saw a fox,
Outside looking over the pines,
Something distant, rubbing my eyes,
Coming so close I see it trot.

I know she is carrying memories,
When I hear those creaking stairs,
I snuck up to the attic once,
And those windows rattled in that jetstream air.
I found a photo, diagonally ripped in half,
A hand on the shoulder of a boy about to laugh,
It looked like the boy was smiling to the darkness,
Due to the album being black.

These snowy hills can be cruel,
From the attic I can see that fox,
It comes so close, in that leafless distance,
then it suddenly stops.

Ah, only to be an artic squirrel,
To sleep till the cold sword past,
Dreaming of green--
Below that cold artic slash.

Only rousing self when the sword hits my sleep,
It pierces my burrow,
Slaying the colors and the maiden,
With its merciless degree.

Ah, to awake to darkness, but with light coming from the door,
The cold sword is sheathed,
And my dreams are restored.

A man adrift out at sea.
A plan to drift to the shipping lane,
hoping to be the merchant's gain,
He speared a dorado with his gaff,
broke and stuck in ,she almost sliced his raft in half.
The solar stills not working, dehydration pain,
now have to keep pumping up raft, 30 days insane.
Almost to the shipping lane.

Patch the raft, just in time,
at night it is a waterbed of prodding sharks,
the rubber rubs your wounds with added salt.
You fall asleep then are rammed in the dark.
Looking to "throw a brick at the temple"*,
But there is no brick, night ocean resembles,
And there is no Diane on the moon in wane,
Only drifting to the shipping lane.

Sun and storm, random waves,
Reptilian blinking, forty days.
You have reached the shipping lane,
your flare goes out, their massive hulls cruise by,
accepting death with the starry sky,
Seeing lost souls in moonlit streaks,
wrecked catamarans, submarines, and fishing fleets.

Drift and drift, days and days,
Like Homer Winslow's '"Turtle Pond"
"Hey Mon"
You have found the colors of the Caribbean.
A young poor fisherman's face--
and though you have nothing valuable to trade--
saved by a small poor boat outside the shipping lane.

Now it is just this old house and I,
for the most part, we see eye to eye,
I keep the house spare and tidy,
and the hallways perhaps are clear,
I still set her plate,
as when we had our first dinner here,
it was a summer night,
and she made my favorite in the Navy,
cranberry, meatloaf and gravy.

I need to pack, only a week's worth,
sitting on the floor,
because my knees begin to hurt,
I can reach a bottom draw,
long forgotten it was there,
but as I begin to search,
some crickets loudly chirp.
I am sitting on the kitchen tile,
on the stove's metal I don't recognize my face,
my panic subsides to sorrow,
as I see her empty plate.

The hallways are spare,
and no photos on the wall,
paint or wallpaper I am unaware,
and in the staircase I can never recall.

They are picking me up 0700,
it is a calm cool night,
all is quiet on the street,
all the kids are out of sight,
I cannot get this hose on this rusty spigot,
the night produces a lonely cricket,
her garden is fallow,
and rotting from last year,
she is gone,
the cricket chorus is all I hear.

I fold my clothes nice and tight,
my thin bones in slim Navy whites,
chirping coming from the draw,
a knock at the front door,
" We found him folded
over his suitcase on the bedroom floor."