American society loves celebrity
But I am quiet and shy
Don't like public speaking
Do like Life of Pi

All the news is bad again
Kiss your dreams goodbye
In my solitude
Exoplanet Sky

Yo soy un isolato
Why Judi Why?
Silently Shinkansen
Ay! Ay! Ay!

the future is female, it read
a sign in my hometown

the races mixing and mingling
so the future also is brown

exoplanets above
stars keep swirling around

if aliens also inhabit
future fantastic renown

Tokyo to Kyoto
Upon the Shinkansen
Not really a question of if
More a question of when
I think about this often
Nearly every now and then
Will I too disappear
Like I’ve never ever been?

so much exclusion, hate, fear
  though often excluded, I still hold dear
       weak, weary, quite unclear

  nevertheless, nevertheless -  I silently steer.

hot ***, not Pol ***
    tonight’s wondrous starry sky
             beautiful, she’s from Taiwan
                
               eat, drink, and be merry
                    for tomorrow we die.

Plato banished the poets
He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't right

I keep on writing
Last lone American night

I drift, I drift toward death
No goals, such consternation

Ravenstory stamps
Northwest elevation

       I keep waitin' ...

Sacramento when I was young
Lovely Ms. Kathryn Orr
California sun
Sacramento Bee

Basketball with my friends
Top 40 radio sung
1980s well begun
Distant memory

             xie xie ni

perhaps I die ignored
            silence my reward
                   neither from nor toward ...

                                  but waiting.

my at times excessive momento mori
  so today we play, swimming story
     cucumber sushi, not yakitori...

                      arigato

tired, long and lonely
grateful for the rest
ambiguity
even at my best

European trains
Sunlit Italy
Latin, a little Latin
Shakespeare's tragedies

                JMU

Coincidence again today
Once more Lenore on June 19th
Gets my attention
Thank you, Andy Dove

Unwelcome thoughts
Often unwell
Hospitals and jail
Only hope is love

My son, my son, my son
Africa in my heart
Wait and watch and wonder
Virginia push to shove

No shoes, just walkin' onward
Brother, he called me brother
Dr. Boykin Sanders
A little help from above

                   Richmond!

That quote out there, I say
Edmund Burke still true today

Not much you can do about evil, he replies
But like Zacchaeus, give up your money ties

I mention Fr. Greeley and madness
No way to know if he knows my sadness

My mind anxious, troubled, fairy-filled
Illusion? Confusion? Mystery - willed?

Still unsure, but the Book of Kells is divine
Like to think they might give me a sign

                          ☘️

           Good luck in rhyme!

The time of science fiction
The time of science fact
The time of aliens?
How would we react?
I post a bit of Facebook
I mail my Uncle Jack
I take a few steps forward
Sometimes I do look back

              I attack.

I'm bipolar
Which means I'm sick a lot
Wish to be a wounded healer

Haven't seen her
In almost 30 years
But yes, inside I feel her

Poetry is honesty
It crosses every border

Frodo Lives!
Sam does too
The Ring destroyed in Mordor

A difficult to manage gift
Says the Nurse re: bipolar disorder.

Sincerely,

Todd Witherell

The architecture in DC is interesting
Politics, influence, beauty, money
City at Night! City at Night!

Worth the drive
Worth the cost
Gratefully my son

Michael Gerson is thankfully dead
George W. Aging
Andrew Greeley was right

53 and she still wears boots
Maybe a sportswriter turn the paging
The Valley of the Gun

                       Protection!

mestizo shamans in the shantytowns
up to the sky, from the Abyss that’s down
     souls grown sick, trouble all around
         ecstatic kiss, health rebounds

Midnight train to Georgia
      Atlanta aquarium
        hello, old friend

Americans living in mortal terror
The invasion force within

Residing in the Empire of Error
Trump their Evil Twin

The Other they hate is themselves
Walled within their sins

They had their vote, the world took note
Isolating the ICE they’re in.

The Jesuit kicked me out
No more Catholic book club for me

I posted Mr. Markson
He didn't like to see

Got my car to travel
Travel quietly

Just live my little life
Prince and Sting cds

No cosmic battle
daily destiny

Soon to see my 3!

Lifelong religious obsessions
But religion not for me

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
In Seattle 2 did 3

Springsteen in Louisville
Dylan in DC

I walk alone in solitude
My children yearningly

             Cedar tree

The ascetic medieval saint
Noticed Mr. Chesterton
Is indeed all skin and bones
Much like other religious men

But if you look quite carefully
You may become surprised
For in his evident torture
You see he opens wide his eyes

His gaze it ventures forth
A world is what he sees
He kneels as Christians do
But when he rises from his knees

He walks upon the Earth
Sees creatures large and small
And if his name is Francis
He loves them each and all

We have mysteries within
I can feel them too
I revere true Buddhist wisdom
No dualism between me and you

But Chesterton is quite right
A mystery most profound
When we open wide our eyes
Being itself indeed abounds

The very Soul of the Universe
Still yet another name for God
Contracts and then creates
Gives birth to things so odd

Hummingbirds and herons
Chartres cathedral found in France
My uncle Marty, a man for others
Beautiful women who love to dance

We awaken in a world
We ourselves did not create
We gaze in wonder for a brief moment
And with joy we patiently wait

What will we discover?
Are cosmic seas near distant stars?
Do they also teem with Fish?
Is their Creator One like ours?

My despair
My desperation
Dread sensation

Life of Pi
Yann Martel

Roman coins
Wishing well

Will we survive?
Time will tell

Bon Scott
Highway to Hell

Goodnight, sweetdreams
Israel

Kali lives, watches melt
     time decays, she’s not svelte
            amidst despair, Hope is felt


resist, resist - as Kaepernick knelt.

All these poems
My mind in turmoil
Yearning
Seeking rest

Snow today
My feet are cold
Loneliness
Qualyxian Quest

        do my best

2 nights in county jail
           Sallyport
   This too shall pass

Poets live, not critics
Making in the night

Wait with private patience
Wait upon the light

Centuries may pass
Centuries. They might.

Rescue me, dear reader
Hummingbirds in flight

someone to love you
in all your damaged glory

someone to listen
to your most intimate story

someone in the Silence
when the angels do implore Thee

                              yearning!

Not doing a whole helluva a lot
Waiting for something that never comes
Bored. Tired. Angry.
Wishing we could talk

Brown Buddha statue
Kamakura snow
O we O we O
53 and falling

Mind on the month of May
54 and forming
Quiet green couch
Long live Lina and Doon!

Death comes for the Archbishop
Si San Salvador
Cam plays indoor soccer
Only silence. Lamplight rain.

                   Beltane?

I don’t deny delusions
not all who claim do see

but I do perceive the love drops
come from the Cosmic Tree

I ask not for perfection
far less for certainty

just adventure, moonlight, sunlight
music’s mystery

despite my fears and failings
Mother Mary, Let it Be!

From one perspective mental illness
From another mysticism, synchronicity
                  One not-two

     The doctors cannot separate them
                        Can you?

I slowly drift towards death
The sadness comes on strong

Not sure where to go
Not sure where I belong

I have no career
I like the old school songs

I am 52
Am I late along?

we meet at the playground and converse
      Ramanujan, Ramayana, Bharata
          Sanskrit and Latin connect
              Thailand and Ireland
                          as well

we share, a bit more aware, and disappear
              into the grey blue rain

                 temple song refrain

                  towards the sky
                      Quinlin Jai

      O graceful heart, grant us victory!

Rollin’ and Tumblin’ on Farrington Road
Who could have known future-foretold?

In Corvallis it started
Marijuana was sold

Been drunk just one time
Victor quite bold

Jeffrey Dahmer, she threatened
Then God bless you, she told

Weird mystic madness
And still I grow old

Don’t know what it means
But the moonlight - Behold!

Incomprehensible life stories
Ponyboy, stay gold!

Fibonacci sequence, Dali’s curious kind
          Last Supper lingering
     our photo there easy to find

The Golden Ratio in nature
         galaxies, hurricanes, cones of pine

Which clearly leads to the question:

     Is the Universe an Idea
           In God’s mathematical mind?

Cabeza de Vaca
In Galveston

Journeys on
To Mexico City

1537
Leaves for Spain

Unusual
May his tale remain

                         Unexplained

amidst my life’s mess
      to put myself to the test

daily work, daily rest
      Galaxy Quest!

Says Bob Dylan

work we speak of Scotland, Turkey, Spain

   the Pope is in Panama, me in the rain  

 the broken grace of Leonard Cohen again

                 his words, my soul
              strong Hallelujahs roll!

I quote T.S. Eliot
Saying that true poetry
Can communicate
Before it is understood

She says
It doesn't have to be understood
True poetry
Is a kind of shared privacy

Perhaps. Probably so.
But I still reach out, dear reader.
She once thanked me for reaching out
But then said I romanticized First Love.

Capital letters can be Platonic
The Form of First Love
Exoplanets spin above
My hands, her gloves

               Andy Dove

3 days in Vienna
All that beautiful snow
2 days in Tel Aviv
A wedding, doncha know

Don't really have friends
Grateful for my dad
Time tick tocks
Sweet Sir Galahad

Vegetarian nachos
Basketball tv
In my solitude
Wasn't meant to be

            3733

awake again at night
awake again despair

my son in precious sight
from my depths I care

this world is a horror story
pain on pain on pain

been to Portland, Oregon
never Portland, Maine

o my sons, my sons!
you keep me from insane

my parents from Toledo, Ohio
but maybe you to Toledo, Spain

              Ole! again.

It can always get worse
And it most likely will

George W. Lied
So that he could ****

California sun
Mansions on Fire

Suffering, Suffering
Caused by desire

Zen Center silence
Distant is Rome

Hagia Sophia
Kublai Khan pleasure dome

Philosophy fails
All is unknown

Americans make you
Go it alone

           Apophis!

sensitivity, despair, weakness
timidity, internal terror, freakness
love, pain, philo Sophia, meekness

                        agonia
                don’t know whya

I'm not an Academic
Cannot give a lecture
When I die there will not be
A Witherell Conjecture

Once I was a teacher
Teacher of the tweens
Now I live alone
Rothko blues and greens

Women are unkind
Smoke gets in your eyes
I.P. Freely
George W. Lies

2 prayers for Chicago
3 for Susan Meek
7 for my sons
7 days a week

     ****. Nerd. Absurd. Geek.

When you face eternal Nothingness
There is nothing left to say

Once I walked the Dawn
But dawn goes down to day

Like the Buddhists and the Daoists
Solitude is my Way

Keep on trying, Ponyboy!
Though nothing gold can stay.