Thanksgiving Dinner
Home for the holiday from New Orleans,
with Mother and Father at the tiny
drop leaf, brown rosewood, mahogany
table with the gold, grinning claw feet;
Father, choler- red-in the-face, short-
sleeved white shirt and cane, says the blessing
as Mother brings in the turkey and cranberry.
Then Mother asks, " Won't you have more ?' and father :
"Do you think Moll Flanders was a ***** ?"

(I have suffered and bleached my hair blond. )
I am silent before their replies.
Mother sighs. "I can scarce speak to her."
And Father, too, quotes Shakespeare. (I am thin
as paper and the rose- colored bowl
of blown glass sitting on the silver stand,
half- filled with water. )

" How shaper than a serpent's tooth it is
to have a thankless daughter "


John Hyland's Best

I hung a painting of one of John Hyland's best
nestled in the fabricated forest of unrest
I dwell beneath the sod of circumstance
unaiding the way seems hard & fierce

through the waves of reason,
it maybe the changing of the seasons
a true artist paint his heart in its piece
captivated with a brush stroke of knowing

to develop a following
below the gauntlet of thought & reason
come away with me through a parting scene
hills and valleys with a loving cosmic debris

life is a bit messy
as if in the tropics with a tone of logic
breath deeper then ever before
the social injustices can effect so many

now here's the part it gets a bit messy
not to mention sweet charity
we look at our lives through such a dull lens
do we give in well it all depends ?

vanity has moved through natures prowess sleeve
start spreading its disease
in the highways and byways of the human heart
you shall light the spark to what it is I have been searching for




My Sweet Rosemary

cling to me my sweet Rosemary
among the leaves cascading & fading
upon a crimsome shade of belief
chosen vine by a great enough design

filtered through a song with an added yawn
look how precious is the lovely fawn
basking in the lawn
she clings to a hope of a distant memory

chosen of the scope inside of thee
My sweet Rosemary paints to her astonishment
inside she decideds what will transpire
getting down to the wire

solace proclaimed upon an empty shade
enough time the source to make the grade
loves the simple things of a new day swing
bringing lulabyes and dandilions to the front

cadence to the simple
on Rosemary's sweet dimple
radiate with times solvent
empty's herself inside its swell