Lovers disappoint each other in time
The protestations of eternal love
Those breathless kisses on a summer night -
They leave no lipstick on a shopping list

Lovers disappoint each other in time
The protestations of eternal youth
When even the sell-by dates have faded away
From the shopping lists of our yesterday

We mourn the lips we’ve kissed, the lips we’ve missed

But still…

Would you leave lipstick on my shopping list?

A young mother cradles her broken child
Amid the fragments of her world, her soul.
Blood drips.  Rain-sodden insulation drips.
Stillness between storms.  The trees are all gone.
A dark Sargasso Sea of shattered wood,
Bricks, clothes, books, toys, rags, glass, papers, bodies.
In the gasping heat the rot begins now.
No houses.  No lights.  A helicopter
Floating valley boys with plastic boxes
Taking cruel pictures and O-My-Godding
For the telescreen (between soda ads).
And in fortresses of personal affronts

(Safely far away)

Keyboard commandos leap into inaction:

People who choose to live there deserve it.
We told you that global warming is true.
We didn’t have these things ‘til they kicked Jesus
Out of these here schools. And paddling, by God.
It’s Obama’s fault.  Or is it George Bush?
It’s the Republicans. Public schools. Gaia.
British Petroleum.  Coal.  SUVs.
Suburbs.  Not reading the Bible.  Comets.
You’re stupid. Well eff you back.  Eff you more.

While in the second lowering line of storms
A young mother cradles her broken child.

Saint Francis is depicted in fine art
In great museums and in modest homes -
And you can find him too, down at Wal-Mart,
Between the plastic frogs and concrete gnomes

Chaucer and the Lightendyten 1


“The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales
Grinds from the photocopying machine
And thus the casual observer, he wails
That technology produces the scene

And yet good Chaucer wrote in the long ago
Rhymed rhythms to instruct and to delight
The copier came later, as you know -
Our pilgrim was the first these tales to write

Or was he?

So here is a problem, which I you begge:
Of which came first, the cicen or the egge?



1 There was of course no Middle English word for “photocopier” so I cobbled one together from “lighte,” to give light, and “endyte,” to write.  Chaucer said it was okay.

These are not tears of sorrow or joy;
These are tears from allergens, m’boy.




(As Tennyson did not say)

Whose breaths these are, oh, yes, I know
And on the laptop they will show
With lines and graphs so all can cheer
Each breath of mine I huff and blow

My little dog must think it queer
To sleep with a machine so near
Sighing all night without a break
Every evening throughout the year

She gives her collar bell a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the beep
Of mechanical air intake

Breathing is lovely, counting sheep
And I have life to love and keep
And hours and hours of healing sleep
And hours and hours of healing sleep








All honor to Robert Frost, to the scientists and medicos who invented CPAP and BIPAP machines, to the makers of those little life savers, and to all medical workers.

In the cartoons and in family lore snoring is amusing; in reality snoring indicates a lack of oxygen to the brain and the body’s struggle to make it good.  Snoring = oxygen deprivation, which leads to stroke and / or mental issues, and a too-soon death.

A sleep study involves no needles or indignities, only a night’s sleep with some flat little electrodes taped to one’s chest and extremities. Early in the morning the nice technician will bring you a cup of fresh coffee.  Now that’s my kind of medical care!

“Weaponization” has been weaponized
So that a shutting down may be shut down
By weaponizing a shutdown’s downside -
And let The People shout “Absolutely!”

By weaponizing one’s feelings and whims
There is projected a transparency
That calls for a personal comfort snake -
And let The People shout “Actually!”

So please shut down the shutdown; that’s the tonic -
And let The People shout “Iconic!”


A consideration made after reading Alan Glyn’s thoughtful essay, “Conspiracy Fiction Once Helped Us Tell the Truth. Now It’s a Weapon for Liars,”  in Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/can-conspiracy-thrillers-work-under-a-conspiracy-presidency.html.­  

The title is preachy and too long, reflecting the heavy hand of an editor, but the essay is most interesting.