feed corn in field for weeks
to fatten them up for the ****

from stands of live oak, hackberry
they would come, fawn and doe

leaving tracks in morning dew
to and from the scattered grain

I slept through their feeding, then
followed their trail into the copse

where I found fawn gutted
by the mythic mountain lion

I did not believe existed,
until that morn

I pulled the carcass to the edge of the wood,
in view of the stand

where I waited with rifle and starlight scope
for the great cat

who came with the waning crescent moon
and did not know I shot him

through his red river heart
as he crouched to finish his meal

(Cross Timbers, Texas, 1991)

I wrote a poem
called feather light

in which a man
took flight like raptors

from a ledge where those creatures
were known to perch

for a minuscule morsel of time
the man felt feather light in his free fall,

but that didn't last--soon the grave grip
of gravity made its presence known

though before he landed
on the pine green canyon floor

the sluggish tug of memory
yanked on him rudely, and lumped his throat

dispelling the manic myth one's life
passes before one's eyes in that final moment

all he saw, save the tree tops
and the shimmering river

was a door closing, the one where she
was on the other side, suitcase in tow

and he was left with a tear drenched face
and aching heart--a lover jilted, again

yes, that was what the poem was about
(but my PC ate it and crapped it out into cyberspace)

it seems awkward October is when
the days march into a haze,

unaware of how the sultry nights of August
evaporated

and left us with falling leaves, lime lawns,
and adulation of harvest moons

even if drought has murdered every
sprout planted in hopeful April

I keep a big calendar on my breakfast room wall,
and another in the hall

to remind me a freakish frost has not signaled
it's December

and feel blessed to remember, All Hallows' Eve
is not yet here,

for when it comes, the neighborhood ghosts and goblins
will yet knock on my door

expecting treats sans tricks--I'll pass out candy
with a tepid smile

knowing all the while, November
is a sleepless night away,

dragging in another day, colder, when more
living things pause their pulse

and I turn the page on two calendars
to see if it then seems November

I didn't choose to be son of a scared Jew
and angry Irishman

who never laid a hand on her, even when
she turned the butcher knife on him

when he tried to stop her from slashing
her red wrung wrists

this spectacle in plain view of 5 children for whom "woe is the world" was daily refrain

I recall Father's blood trail on the concrete between our house and the neighbor's, a surgeon not expecting a bleeding Sunday guest,

but my mother's madness didn't rest on the Christian Sabbath, nor on her own

after that, the shrinks did their magic: Mom did the Mellaril march, the Haldol hop, the Stellazine stomp, and the less alliterative Thorazine shuffle

none of those chemically induced dances did a thing to increase the chances for my mother's salvation

soon she was behind the locked doors of "Ward 30," where I visited and Mom told me she had found Jesus

a befuddled revelation since I didn't know she was looking for him--her kin had hung him from a cross and taken the heat ever since

the doctors released her to the street, where she made misty retreat to the hills of Saint Francisco's bay

though she found faint solace in Pacific waters, she would never again see her sons or daughters

half a lifetime later, I found a long lost cousin my mother agreed to see, though not with me, for I was too much a reminder of scars which never heal

she sat with Mother near the end of days, sharing silence, the scent of Salisbury steak, and a view of the distant shore

as my patient cousin rose to leave, my mother finally spoke of a sea she watched turn from cerulean to indigo dusk

childhood beaches my mother did recall: the castles she did craft, the crawling ***** she did follow, the sun bathed sand where she made her bed

far from the one where she now lay, the one in which she would go smoothly into the night, perchance returning to blue waters, where hot blood trails cannot follow

I scroll
mad missives
to the world

I rage against the good night
waging a farcical fight--against chronos,
its mechanical machinations

without these spinning spell
breakers, would the moon and the stars
be my finite measure?

****** if I know,
though I am compelled to write a history
of which I am a clockwork part

as if its epilogue applies to all but me,
denying me the curse to see, a winding down
of the great spring,

a coil well disguised--its tension
measured miserly, by ticks and tones
I hear but will never comprehend

in the paper, online, carved in stone, I see them:
some strange, some strangers, some friends,

all still, all gone, all with a minuend, a subtrahend and a difference;
what difference they made, I can't calculate

but their numbers are smaller than mine, tempting
me to believe I'm on borrowed time

extra days, hours, that will themselves be smaller numbers--smaller than those who will witness the mute math of my life

not supposed to be used as a napkin
to be coated with red blood ketchup

or yellow mustard custard from a dead
dog's bun

though it is, and while flown at half staff for a fallen hero, some cool cat on a Harley has it between his legs,

the stars and stripes a candy coating for his gas tank

but that guy will sure let you know
he's a prideful ******' part of the Patriot Guard,

trailing behind a casket and grieving mama, defending them against all enemies, fantasized and domestic

so get your ***** up when a $uperstar
sings the hymn--an anthem for ****** youth,

or an inspiration for further folly,
whether it be Khe Sanh or Fallujah,

all who fall get a banner folded in precise proportion

kneeling is for "sons of *******,"

or maybe a medic under fierce fire trying to save a buddy,

who didn't make it through the "perilous fight," and  gives less than a **** who sits or stands

as for me, I no longer salute--long ago excommunicated from that proud command

but I guess I'll place a hand on my heart, not sure if I do so to follow the code,

or check to see if it's still beating in the land of the free, the home of the brave

so keep those flags a comin' and keep the cannon fodder drummin'

those who stand tall tomorrow, will do little to assuage the sorrow,

of those who paid for the privilege to take a knee, or sing songs mindlessly with thee or me