Today I watched
a lump of rock
swallow the fire
of the sun
and tonight I saw
someone somewhere
toss a box
of diamonds high
into the sky
I swear
it's enough to make
a grown man cry.

hay came in rectangular bales
when I was younger, we used
to stack them and make forts
shooting imaginary indians or vc
depending on the weather.

sunny days we killed indians
rainy days were for killing vc.

the war ended and there were no vc
I grew to respect the indians
to learn their history, my history
watching the news, seeing
white men killing indians again
at a place called wounded knee
once again-wounded knee, dad said.

nowdays hay comes in round bales
the vc are our friends, and the indians
aren't worth shooting anymore.

r ~ 7/2/14

I thirst in my search
for words
that came first

in verse and in song
what's been here all along

since Peking (wo)Man
singing in the womb
at Zhoukoudian

when the first moon climbed
above branches frozen in time -

our rhythm and rhyme -
a memory of a memory
of the history

of how a poem came to be.

When I was young
I broke all the rules
Made up my own
And broke them too
My teachers and Mom
Knew not what to do
They implored to my Dad
Who simply smiled
And said "that's my lad"

Yesterday I headed west
I left the sea      gulls behind me
they cried    so did I
something strong was calling
me home   where sacred stones
are planted strong
with words carved deep
inside my heart
I'll plant lillies   lay a rose
tell my Mother   I am home
and my brother  and Dad too
I'm glad to see    they aren't alone  
as I turned away
I heard a bluebird say
Son, don't you come to stay
too long     for this earth is cold
when the winter comes 
the ocean's now your home
go breathe that warm breeze
until the sun no longer shines
and the eagle flies   the gulls
no longer cry    then you'll know
the time has come   for you
to climb aboard and sail away.

In my next life
I wish to be a saddle.
I love horses,
wool blankets,
the feel of old leather,
the comfort of a stable.
Yes, I love them all.
Mostly, though,
I love cowgirls.
In my next life
I wish to be a saddle.

r ~ 5/1/14

I am thinking of the dead
who are still with us
on their way in the rain
to meet lovers or brothers
and my sadness waves back
like grain in the fields
of lost summers and summers
before that, fireflies in the dark
still young and beautiful
like starry nights, but for them
there is no moon, and for us
the same news we do not receive.

I haven't drank in ninety days
Way to go you fookin' saint
You haven't killed in thirty years
But St. Zachary you ain't.

Her husband sells used broken cars
I get to kick the tires
While he gets soaked at all the bars
I'm putting out his fires.

I'm pleading down to purgatory
As Satan winks at me
Though punishment be mandatory
I'll not burn for perjury.  ;)

r ~ 4/27/14

I raise my glass
to you, dear woman
across the horizon
out where the water rises;
here's to all the years
I've spent waiting,
to all the miles I made
myself across, a life
spent wandering in haste,
wondering just how
your salt would taste.

The Salvation Army Soldiers
Should take on new roles
Be a little bit more bolder
Armed with their three poles
And ******* iron pots
Venturing across the world
To put out fires in hot spots
And demand the enemies
To turn to making plowshares
Place their indemnity
Bandoliers and bombardiers
Into those ******* pots
Manned by the Salvation Army
r

Night, I call you
the sanctuary of the lost
and the no-good,
like the hawk down
in my pillow case
full of forgotten dreams
that old hound time
tears apart like bones
tossed under the table,
so I pull on my new boots
and walk in the dark
with no place to go
but the road that leads
to the ferry by the river,
because unlike lost friends
and dead family, the cold
water will always take me in.

there's a picture on a shelf
of a former self

stuck between two stacks of books
looking for all the world
like myself

with no one else beside me
somewhere on a highway
going my way

hair and sand in the wind
sun in my eyes

looking free.

A stare
will become
a scar
if you don't watch it
like a hawk
and if you let it
loose darkness
will swoop
through the rafters
in the loft
while you lie there
letting night
swell into a wound
like the red moon
and your eyes
will fill with vines
of poison ivey
itching to be blind
and wishing
to pour the pain
away forevermore.

There’s a kind of grief
in a long leaf pine
with a scar cut deep
in its bark from lightning
that shines beneath
a winter’s moonlight
all alone out there
down by the water
like a man in a wheelchair
grieving for a daughter
at the end of the dock
hard and gray
old as the rocks
and cold **** waves
that break in time
along this god forsaken
piece of coastline.

Dying slow in the mountains seemed much easier than simply breathing at sea level.

I've been thinking that maybe I was happier when I was still drinking.

I tried to write a poem called Pointless and never made it beyond the title.

Dying seems easier than breathing at sea level.

r ~ 11/7/14

Solitude I wear
      like a second skin
my biggest weakness
       my greatest strength
   wading through 
quiet and tired 
    in seclusion
 as dawn draws
    her arms around me 
cold       and damp
    like the sea
           with no oil
for my lamp
       to light my way
through another
      dark    and lonely
November day.

When the seed
of envy grows
into a big tree,
the fruit is bitter,
and the tea
from the bark
stains your soul
and your poetry.

Two people are sitting at a table
in the afternoon, it is winter
and cold outside, dark in the room

She is dizzy and sad
from sipping the flat beer
of her own voice

He is like a stranger
who just blew in
she knows, if a man is sand
those who walk through
the desert are men

He is thinking of a stone
that flies in the dew
of the moonlight, an easy
thing for a sad man to do

I wonder if it was night
and they left together for separate
beds in different rooms

Would he think of her dress
falling down her waist,
or would she be in the jungle
making plans from the enemy's sleep

In a place like this, together,
looking into a table
wet from its own darkness,

What do they need,
what can they say?

What is it about September
Hearts aligned and remembered
Tomorrow the last day

Call me in September
Don't disremember
Remembrance one day away

Hearts can bind or break
Or forever to  forsake
Just one heart beat astray

Remember me in September
Forget me not in sweet surrender
For one more day

r

Shade, go away
knaves, your shadowy
hands are made of clay,
simple worthless dirt.

Darkness, be gone,
night belongs to poets alone
to cast their bones where they may,
worthy words, their poetry.

Life provides the contours.
Poets provide the shading and colors.

r ~ 23Mar14

The same sun
that gives life
to a chrsyanthemum
a red rose, a vine
climbing a live oak
also cast shadows
against pale stones
and tall white walls
of a mausoleum.

Here I am

by the sea

Shanghaied

from the mountains

a long ways

from loving

let the record read

I'm ****** if I don't

and ****** if I do

and let the moon

hide in my boot.

I'll give you shelter
before the rains come

September's settling in
like a setting sun

I can see the dark clouds
coming your way

Let's sit out on the porch
and watch the day fade to gray

There's lightning on the horizon
and thunder under the wind

Why don't you stay here awhile,
it's good to see you again

We'll go inside and light a fire
when the night gets young

I'll give you shelter
before the rains come.

r ~ 9/22/14

Once I used to drink
with this girl who told me
we could live on an island
if I never touched her

she had this way with words

sit at the foot of my bed
she said, like a ghost

watching the boat in the cove
lose hope for its shadow

these days she hides
behind the shades
still wanting me to find her

somebody to love.

She sews..her needle hot
Stitching her words
Into my thoughts

Repairing a tear
Here and there

A knot drawn tight
Nimble and quick
Thimble silver
Her verse sharp

A rip in the heart
Stitched in time
To stop the flow

My lips sealed
with silken gold
Threading gently
Into the night.

r ~ 8/21/14

Shiloh
In Hebrew " place of peace"
Didn't work out so
For brother Johnny or Uncle Reece
Nor many of Grant's Boy's in blue
Though now many a man
Does rest there in peace
On the field at Shiloh

r
Jun 9

If you squint just right -
there’s a new star in the sky
tonight - shining bright
- shining a light on suicide.

The ship is sinking
and the women and children
are still on board,
but the lifeboats have been taken
and the ******* Captain,
he ain't letting any more board.

One day soon
in this unknown country
where our dreams shout
and jump ship,
a train will come
and it will arrive full-steam
ahead, and full of resisters
looking to take the Captain's head.

There is a bluff
overlooking
the shipwreck
of love, steeped
in dreams best
kept in sleep’s
fog, shattered
and abandoned
on the rocky
hard shallow
depths below.

Did you see them take the green fields
one by one, now line by line on hills in echelon?

Still, holding ground held holy by their sons;
no longer marching to the smoke and drum.

Where bugler called the day to final rest,
now silence grows like lichen on the stones.

For those who gave their all at our behest,
our memories alone will not atone.

Do you see the fires burning at a distance,
and more hallowed ground broken day by day?

Each new stone laid a fading reminiscence;
each new bouquet soon fading into gray.

What better way to honor sacrifice
than to pause and speak their names aloud.

Until the gods of war are pacified;
until our flag no longer serves as shroud.

Did you see them take the green fields
one by one, now line by line on hills in echelon?

Still, holding ground held holy by their sons;
no longer marching to the smoke and drum.

Where bugler called the day to final rest,
now silence grows like lichen on the stones.

For those who gave their all at our behest,
our memories alone will not atone.

Do you see the fires burning at a distance,
and more hallowed ground broken day by day?

Each new stone laid a fading reminiscence;
each new boquet soon fading into gray.

What better way to honor sacrifice
than to pause and speak their names aloud.

Until the gods of war are pacified;
until our flag no longer serves as shroud.

Did you see them take the green fields
one by one, now line by line on hills in echelon?

Still, holding ground held holy by their sons;
no longer marching to the smoke and drum.

Where bugler called the day to final rest,
now silence grows like lichen on the stones.

For those who gave their all at our behest,
our memories alone will not atone.

Do you see the fires burning at a distance,
and more hallowed ground broken day by day?

Each new stone laid a fading reminiscence;
each new boquet soon fading into gray.

What better way to honor sacrifice
than to pause and speak their names aloud.

Until the gods of war are pacified;
until our flag no longer serves as shroud.

Did you see them take the green fields
one by one, now line by line on hills in echelon?

Still, holding ground held holy by their sons;
no longer marching to the smoke and drum.

Where bugler called the day to final rest,
now silence grows like lichen on the stones.

For those who gave their all at our behest,
our memories alone will not atone.

Do you see the fires burning at a distance,
and more hallowed ground broken day by day?

Each new stone laid a fading reminiscence;
each new boquet soon fading into gray.

What better way to honor sacrifice
than to pause and speak their names aloud.

Until the gods of war are pacified;
until our flag no longer serves as shroud.

my eyes:

intrusive,
are remote,

focusing on strangers,
and this neighborhood

isolated, in
their dimsighted faith;

no longer blissful,
which is
my true nature

scary, how blind i am,
how old, how
mortal

Silence
is sound
that comes between
sounds

It moves
upon the waters
between the waves
and is good

Do you hear it?

Silence
I know her
like the back
of my hand
an eyebrow
under a cross
of ashes
the cloud
I followed
for so long
now I listen
on lone walks
for the song
of stones
beneath the creek
I once called
home sometime
so long ago
I can't remember
why I ever listened
to her at all.

Silence comes
  from bones
that rot in the Earth
beneath a wet stone
with a carved name
   white as good teeth
in a hard jaw.

Silence is
  a homerun some kid
hit in Tennessee
in 1973 and a father
remembering the ball
  going like a bullet
deep into left center.

Silence is
  a brother grimacing
whispering your name,
through salt
  and tears on his cheeks,
one last time.

Silence, it just is...
  quiet, like pain.

Poetry
to me
is taking
my pain
and making
it sing.

Her eyes speak
the truest words
never uttered
They tell of the ocean
on a lonely shore
Of salt marsh days
and windswept dunes
And love among the ruins
Her habit worn
vow unbroken to the night
She smiles a wanton wish
of summer days
and a fair young boy
among the glades
She sighs
her dreams away
and polishes again
the bare stone floor.

r ~ 7/28/14

So precise
the lines
yet not
this painting
done for you
Wisps of joy
and sorrow
in their passing
I see you watching
as they trail
across a sky of blue.

r ~ 7/23/14

Another night  of oarless
boats adrift in white caps
and slow rolling waves
we hold our breath
like the clouds hold the wind
trying not to breathe on the trees
and Death changes his tune
so the songs all sound the same
turning up the radio
in his black Coupe de Ville
spinning his wheels, showing off
those silver mud *****
and shiny swan on the hood
running red lights and stop signs
all around town, up to no good
circling the block one more time
looking for a slow road
crossing dog to run down
I swear, where are the cops
when you need one to stop
trouble dead in its tracks.

homesick for the little things-
a hello, for instance
-how was your day

can i just say-
small kisses
would go a long way
towards improving
the manor

i remember when-

i remember
small kisses
in a friendly manner-

granted
and planted-
and love mattered.

r ~ 9/24/14

thinking only of work
- eating my own business
minding my food

and manners

people small talking too
loudly with mouths full

- best get back and busy

- all this talk of ebola
isis and clowns with machetes -

slender man and little girls
- kidnapped girls forgotten

collateral damage
- somewhere else
someone else's -

hard to concentrate
on  important things
like metrics and data calls -

site density- history
- work things and holidays -
you know

i should buy pumpkins
on the way home today

- halloween is coming soon.

r ~ 10/15/14

My son told me that I had a worse singing voice
than Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt and John Prine
all combined.
I just smiled and said "Thank you, son".

r