I am sorry for no card
No flowers
No chocolates
I was sick but that is no excuse

I do love you
I do

I am the child
running through a sunlit field playing airplane
My arms outstretched
Taking me me were the wind points me
Singing la la la
While you remain firmly on the ground
Centered and steadfast
Eyes to the future

My arms always fly me back to you
To the warmth of yours
Because
Every day
For twenty years
You've shown me
That despite my failings
My shortcomings
The hard times
Lean times

That you love me too.

Cold seeps
through windows
through the places where door meets frame
through spaces between floor boards.
No matter how high the thermostat is set
cold will get through
and wrap itself
around my feet
like an unwanted cat
made of snow and ice.

Winter's end foretold
by two peculiar items
Woodchuck and Football

Bitter north wind propels beach sand across the shell of a late infant

Is it best
for your thoughts to become words
but pass from heart to mouth
instead of head to mouth
where the path runs
through brambled dark places
strung with webs
sticky from the pitch
of trepidation and uncertainty

Facts
are
Concrete
and solid
our planet is round
is one terrific example
a belief in an orange-faced comb-over won't change them

The old clay jar sits
tied to a tree with worn rope
a small arm sticking from its small opening.
The monkey sits
clutching an orange inside the jar
afraid to let go.
So they sit
both unaware
of the world beyond.
A world of tigers yes
but a world also filled
with more oranges that can be counted.

How do you split a memory
equally so that each can have an equal part?

And what of the memories that only one
shared with the departed?
Like the three years when I was the only child.
Do I get those?
What of the four years before the third of us was born?
Do the first two of us have to split those.

What of that trip across country,
we all were there with mom
in the car,
at that motel in Kansas
with the pet dog, cat and rat.
How do we split those?

I ask because splitting the house
Has been so difficult
painful
hurtful
and agonizing.

And it's just a thing
not a thought
or memory.

I'd rather we keep the memories together.
In a that faded blue cardboard box on the shelf
And when pain and hurt are washed away by time
we can pull them out
sit around the table
and share them together.

In a basement office
the thunderstorm is felt
not seen

Clowns amuse
when they're in circus
but when not
they can scare
like when they try to govern
and we cannot laugh

I breathe
My heart beats
I feel
I love

Then what?

After breath has gone
and beats have stopped
I what?
Am I mourned?

And if the answer is "yes"
Then how?

Is it a bit of jewelry?
I am not a bit

Is it a coat or hat?
I am neither

Is it a house?
I am not a house.

What I am is;

A tear in your eye,
a smile on your lips,
a sigh.
A memory.

I will always be that but
I am not things.
I never was.

Rage
is
a form
of blindness
of discarding one
of needs, wants and self interest
replaced with hatred and selective deafness of facts

Not unlike that famed giant of ancient Greek fame
but fatter and orange and blowing hot air
is a stupid and hateful fat elf with faked hair
So the beckoning torch woman snuffs out her flame
As the elf king through policy blots out her name
one pudgy small hand throws her crown to the surf
while the other one brutishly grabs through her skirt
While forgetting from whence his own ancestors came

"Pushed from my pedestal" in anguish cries she
Then sobs , "Keep safe the tired and poor
the non-white masses yearning safe to be
the suff'ring children washed up on the shore
save them as then the whole wide world will see
My light is gone thus slams the golden door."

Unraked leaves
no longer dry and skittish
no longer danced free by wind
sit
damp
cold
in limp piles
edges quivering in the evening breeze
reaching
longing to escape
decay

Peace shattered
by insanity
holds no promise of healing
just of eventual sorrowful acceptance

After two days of negative numbers
twenty two degrees
feels like spring

Those yelling "FREEDOM"
So they can stay with the crowd
Are not truly free.

In thirty seconds everything can change
For better or not.

Re-awakened grass reaches from last week's cut and for today, wins

If those who make the rules
about what kids read
and when
think that non-fiction is best
and that neither fiction
nor poetry
has a place in the lessons
of older children
then the chances are
they'll never see this
because this isn't factual comment
it's a poem,
that's all.
or is it?

What defines the line between
Like
and
Love?

Are there ranges of either?
We use the words a lot.
About people
food
drink
cars
TV shows

Do I love Salmon?
Yes

Do I love my wife?
Yes

Do I love Salmon as much as my wife?
I'd have to say no.
So there must be a range of love.

And what of like?
I like certain cars.
I like some of the people I work with.
Do I like cars as much as some of the people I work with?
I'd have to say no.

I really like cars.

Late season snow falls through warm air and briefly lies doomed by daffodils.

For months crushed by snow
Limbs broken, lie in a pile
Yet buds signal life

On the green of old hotel
carpet

Multi colored
snakes

gather like a
pride

of lions around
food

where only two can
dine

at once

As inevitable as
this departure was
I pack lightly
and hurriedly
taking nothing but
the clothes on my back
and the memories of us
that is enough
to sustain me
Forever

I gave up because it was too wordy.
I gave up because I didn't understand what the hell you were talking about.
I gave up because of the critique that made absolutely no sense at.
I gave up because I didn't have the time to devote to its pursuit.
I gave up.
I gave up.
Maybe I gave up too soon.

Louis Rey smolder bright
Your velvet smoke obscures my sight

It's been near year for me and you
I loved you so while in my youth

But mother's gone since last we parted
From cancer, wait, here's my light

If we get
Deep winter snow in March
Was winter "mild"?

Turkey Day has come and gone
with food
and dec'rative fittings
So it's down with the harvest
and up with the Santas
and a month full of gettings and givings

The deluge is cyclical
and the dry between gets shorter
The rain pours down
Sometimes straight
Sometimes slanted from the left
Sometimes slanted from the right
Sometimes from two directions
Other times from all at once

The only constant?
We can't help but get soaking wet.

Over time
the scar ripped through the ground
ragged and with menacing edges
becomes less so
dust settles in the tear
nearly filling it in
edges are worn smooth
and after a while
two people
one on each side
can meet again in the middle

You can not tell the truth straight out
it simply shant be done
It makes the people scream and shout
and build walls by the ton

But if you lead them there by "chance"
a chance you planned before
they'll grab it first in vict'ry dance
and love you even more

Little tea bag talking head
Your cheeks are round and rosey
But every time you speak your "mind"
We see what you don't knowsy

My hope for you

Is to grow
to have a life
out from under the weight
of legacy
of tradition
of the memory of pain and death
that surrounds you

But I can not make you see
the hope I have for you
if your eyes are closed to the future
while your heart is chained to the past

If your house is on fire
the answer is not to make sure
that everyone is packing
matches.

I'd
like
to see a
good talk
be

Things were done
well,
or badly.

Ok, I get it.

The answers I have
are what I have
and
just because
my answers
aren't what you want,
or need so desperately
to hear from my lips
to fit your view
or agenda
does not mean that
I am not telling you all that I know.

A small hungry train
mostly on its rails
chugs kind of quietly down the hall
To a midday fuel stop
with
many other trains
and
for each small car
of each train
a small tray
and for every car
it's own seat

If you give a man a fish
He'll eat for a day
but
If you teach a man to fish
he'll eat his whole life.

If you give a man a Twenty
He'll eat for a day
but
If you teach him how to print his own Twenties
He'll most likely be arrested
and sent to a Corporate Penal Profit Center

Fear
of new
is the cloak
that obscures
opportunity.

Counter to reports
Which place it's chance near zero
A lone snowflake falls

I was supposed to have auditions tonight
for a musical I am directing
but it snowed
the show is at the theater where I met my wife
that was in 1991
we were in a play together
I was 31 she was not
We both played witnesses
for the prosecution
It snowed then too but not at auditions

She was the President of the theater at the time
and they needed another body onstage
she doesn't like "onstage"
She prefers to be dressed in black
in the dark
with a notebook
flashlight
and headset
She's doing that for this show too

I've been onstage
I've sprung from a jack-in-the-box
been an aide to the Emperor of Japan
I've yelled at Stella
and hit a priest over the head
with a poker
I've been in a hospital in Burma
During World War Two
but now I prefer to direct
from behind a table
I have a big notebook too
I used to have pads, pencils and snacks
all over the table
but now
it's mainly computers, iPhones and tablets
and snacks

The first time I was onstage
and when I first fell in love with theater
was when I was in fifth grade
my teacher was into theater
and I didn't know it then
but the theater she was "really into"
was the one where I met my wife
the one where I was supposed to have auditions tonight
for a play I'm directing
but it snowed.

Happy day
Moving from
Old to new

A soldier's life's fleeting at best
fore in battle there's only one rest
The rest is unwanted
For field will be haunted
as under a stone cross they're blessed

A friend is a friend.
But after the wind has gone
a friend with power,
and an open door,
is a friend indeed

Spring, snow, spring again
Poor peepers are so confused
Ask now is it time?

Eyes make love
Heart is soul

Love
is how
heart and eyes
feel