“Puce”
is what Bobby Joe
would yell
as we lined up
at scrimmage and
dropped down into our stance.
He meant
he was going to take
my guy on a
crossblock. I,
I was to get his.
Somewhere around
the second time
Bobby Joe yelled
my guy began bailing
out.
Bobby Joe, he just
retired from the FBI.

“Puce”
Said Bobby Joe as
He laughed and then told me
He’s the one who stomped
My hand in our last football game.

“Puce” says Bobby Joe at our thirty year reunion,
As he smiles and seems so absolutely sure
That this is a war we can win.

As
Yellow Ribbons gather on the trees and,
Yellow ribbons garnish their sleeves.
As blood becomes the red
You spill in war
And colors are what
Dead eyes can see
No more.
So yellow ribbons
Wrap the trees while
Bombs blast the sand
To its knees
Countries begin to sew
Yellow ribbons to the body bags,
Let yellow ribbons become
Refugee rags,
And remember that dead yellow
Eyes can not see their
Own toe tags.

“Puce.”

Time

. . . and applied ethics
measure out the daze
while I have amplified
both inner and outer gaze.

A Wish

There is nothing scary about a wish, except that sometimes
it comes true. It’s as though, by sheer will power, we’ve changed
the rules.

The future fraught with what we thought.

Getting our wish, we may have made someone else sad or angry or
count for naught.

Wishes are selfish and dangerous and a lot like hopes.
Hopes are what make us keep going.
Hopes are dreams brought into the
Light of day.
Hopes are games we need to play.
Hopes are humankind’s
Real way to pray.

I wish . . . ?

Robert Ardrey posed the question for the ages
When he offered up his treatise on rats in cages.
As space recedes, said he, the pace of life leaves us no
Time to breathe, crowds in, forces us to cross against
The yellow to red light, doesn’t wait nor hesitate.
While the breath of fresh air becomes the fetid exhale,
Heat, the result of speed,
Expands each encounter’s
Press
Sure as a cavein cuts off
Light
Turns day into night, begins the claustrophobic’s fright.
Crushed against each other, each instant seems longer and so the
Press
Sure grows – We move – Race against
The red light or even more (maddeningly)
Cruise through it at the end of the line obdurately refusing to look left or Right.
You know this truth even as you sit in denial waiting for the last car to
Hurtle
Past and the cars behind you begin their honking cry
All ready to race to where the next lights lie. And even each recognition of this act of speed compressing,
Instead of giving us peace,
Becomes another form of the press
Sure to push us even faster.
Ever closer to the edge that’s despair. Consumed, subsumed . . .
Our terror turning ist.
And meanwhile, there it is blinking, the cursor light winking,
With it’s only eye – telling us
That it’s Pentium (TM) process can take us there,
Race us there out into inner space,
Our gameboys palmpiloted.
Our implanted synapses
Imploding at Warp 8.
Which seems great, until
We realize like the Star Trekkers we so wish we were
That that is the speed at which our universe begins to disintegrate,
Begins to un relate.
And only Super (the person that is) man can reverse our fate,
Can retract the boarding gate,
Can reinvent the late great time when we all had a little  SPACE . . .

Glad Roses . . .
I can fix sad roses . . ., she says

And her smile confirms
Like rain on the earth
That indeed sad roses
Is familiar turf.

But it’s not so easy
This task in my mind
The world with its roses
Is definitely blind.

They’re scentless you see
And sad for that reason
These roses I give
No matter the season.

So it isn’t the wilt from
Stem to the hilt
Nor the mad range of
Colors that drives me so sad.

But the lack of a scent
And the image it recalls
That hammers at my heart,
Raises my walls.

I can fix sad roses

Her smile supposes . . .

As she arrays them in a vase
Then turns and pauses
At the frown she can see
Is still on my face.

So she takes my hand and
Pulls me in a way
That suggests dancing
As we begin to sway.

And it’s then that my senses
Pick up the scent
Of timeless embraces
And memories well spent.

I can fix sad roses.
I can here her voice murmur . . .

And her smile is my smile
As we waltz down the aisle

And the laughter we hear
Is from a child at play

Or a family gathered
At the end of the day.

And the roses are real
Red, white, and yellow
And the music is moving
And her touch smooth and mellow.


And its night on our porch swing
In a light breeze
And the roses are shadows . . .
With a backdrop of trees.

Not much to own these silly words
Not much to own thoughts like baby birds
So eager to fly.