After Thanksgiving - We Are One Debris

A paper napkin with a turkey on it
Discarded outside by an errant child
Culturally appropriates among the leaves
It seems to want to join its fallen brothers

Raw and natural in their native state
In multicultural deconstructions
Like, you know, all spiritual and stuff
Becoming one existential leaf-mold

Filtered through November’s hipster glasses
A paper napkin with a turkey on it

Thanksgiving – Places for Everyone

Somehow there are places enough for everyone
A tectonic shifting of tableware
A tsunami of saucers, plates, and bowls
The good Thanksgiving and Christmas settings

A rare bottle of Chateau du Supermarket
Gallons of iced tea, and soda for the kids
So many at the children’s table this year
And who will now sit in Grandfather’s place?

This year he dines at that Table in Paradise
Where there are always places enough for everyone

Chris’s Little Shop of Sonnets

O sing of gasoline, **** oil, and grease,
And chemicals too, incorrectly stored,
And may these toxic wonders ever increase
In service to Harley, Chevy, and Ford

O sing of tools, milled from wood, steel, and brass,
Aluminum, copper, even bits of string,
For forming function, volume, shape, and mass
In cylinder, piston, rocker, and ring.

O sing, old radio, those Beale Street Blues
In tune with that engine, and make it smoke,
Shake that rusty icebox all full of brews,
In Chris’s cave of motorized Baroque.

Sonnets and workshops are messy (it seems)
because
Iambs and wrenches build truth out of dreams

Borodin’s  "On the Steppes of Central Asia"

Lost in a remote province of the mind
A youth attends to the cheap gramophone
Again: On the Steppes of Central Asia,
A recording by a mill town orchestra
Of no repute.  But it is magic still:
While washing his face and dressing for work
In a clean, pressed uniform of defeat,
For ten glorious minutes he is not
A function, a shop-soiled proletarian
Of no repute.  Beyond the landlord’s window,
Beyond the power lines and the ***-holed street,
He searches dawn’s horizons with wary eyes
For wild and wily Tartars, horsemen out
To blood the caravans for glory and gold.
A youth greets the day as he truly is:
A cavalryman, a soldier of the Czar,
Whose uniform is stained with victory.

“Thank You for Being
Such a Valued Customer”

From the Satellite Provider

And, oh! Have we got a deal for you!
We looted a channel, we’ve raised your rates
We know you’ve paid, but you’re still overdue
We teased you with some weekend movie baits
Which ought to be included anyway
We’re the worst service in history’s annals
We fu(dge) your contract almost every day

And

We want you to buy even more channels!

The Greatest Gift of the Enlightenment

A merciful machine is the guillotine
Empowering a compassionate society
To actuate therapy efficiently
Imagined by a diverse team of dreamers
Who saw what was why, and asked themselves why not
This greatest gift of the Enlightenment
Built using the latest technology
Sustainable wood from certified rainforests
And recycled metals crafted by artisans
Places the consumer at the center
Enhances higher order thinking skills
And promotes community values
Authentic ecosystem solutions
Embrace the needful progressive experience
A solution addressing social needs
And building teamwork across the spectrum
With voices for the voiceless voiced with love
And it all began with an idea, a dream
In someone’s kitchen, dorm room, or garage

The Sea-Road to Constantinople

                 For Tod on his Birthday

A coastal lugger wallows in the waves
Almost adrift in its poor steerageway
Slow-yawing northeast from the blue Aegean
Into the soft-murmuring Marmara.
Athens is in the past, and soon, ahead,
Constantinople’s walls will catch the dawn.
Our sticks, our packs, a space upon the deck
A book of verse, a cup, a spoon, a bowl,
Some prayers the priest was pleased to copy out
For us poor pilgrims who with weary feet
Were pleased to board a northbound boat at last
And rest through sunlit days with pipes alight
And words and prayers afloat among the sails,
Among the gulls that circle ‘round the mast.
All travelers pray for their hearts’ desires
To wait for them ashore at journey’s end;
For us, ours is to serve the Emperor -
A little further, there beyond the stars.