I wanna have lunch with Poe,
at Burger King,

because I'm sure he would appreciate how ghoulish that King in their commercial is

I don't want him to recite verse
while we fill our medium cups with corn syrup nectar--a giant leap
down from laudanum

I do want to ask about the Cask of Amontillado and being walled in slowly, for eternity

for to me that is creepier than all the crimson cream in the Masque of the Red Death

I want to know if he likes the fries--will he dare to dip them in scarlet paste we call catsup

mostly I want to know if he remembers the alley where he was found,

not yet a legend, consumed by consumption and delirium in equal measure

and if there were rodents privileged to hear his last whispered words--or even a gasp

I am buying, Ed, so grab that Whopper with both bony paws and tell me terrible tales, evermore

I don't hide under rocks
the way they say we do

I find a cool linoleum floor
in a condemned house

and hope it ain't got too many cracks
or no rat will come while I'm asleep

a popped fire hydrant can be a gift
from white gods

but as soon as they come twist it shut
I dry fast and slither off to shade

even if it's behind a dumpster:
Damon's got good trash

had me half a cold rib eye
from that heap last night

and a good nap 'til the city come to
dump the bin this rude dawn

now I'll be on the prowl but only long
enough to beg for some silver alms

only long enough to get red wine and find the next spot out of the sun

for these August streets are too hot
and make my cool blood boil

you've been on the same branch
on my Hackberry all day

in shade; though I don't know the glare of a star
means the same to you

for me, the arc of the Texas sun is measured
by Mercury and the clock

for thee, time, heat, and light are perhaps pulse
without calibration

I only know your mate has been in the shallow grass
beneath you...

prostrate, still, silent--since well before
this dawn

and you ain't gotta dig too deep
to find it

it's right behind your eyes, in that picture
you see

of Mama runnin' half naked from the house covered
in blood and snot

and crack crazed daddy chasing after her
with a butcher knife

before the man come and gunned
him down

it's there in that lump throat memory of grandad telling you his own Papa got the whip

for standing tall against a bulldog
Alabama sheriff

hell is being sent to Granny
for foster care

and her telling you she ain't got enough
food for herself

it's wearing shoes so tight
every step is a jab

a reminder everything you do
is gonna come with pain

what Hell ain't is what that fat pastor
claims it to be

some fiery place I can't even
see

buried so far down I can't feel
its infernal heat

hell, hell is right here on my black
and blood painted street

they could see the Rockies on most clear days

though their ranch was as flat as any Kansas cornfield

the slopes cursed them with wicked storm now and then

but other than a few shingles off a roof and a steer or two struck by lightning, their place was no worse for the wear

Father and Son ran this place as did two generations before them,

and after chores one eve they watched a flood they thought only God could command

they flipped a coin to decide who would take a truck of supplies and who would stay to tend to the herd

the boy won the toss--just as well the old man figured; his spirit was not as ready for the road as it once was

he helped his boy load all the pickup would hold and his only son left on a clear dawn

he sliced the Oklahoma Panhandle while most folks were still eating breakfast

Amarillo was in his rearview by lunch; he had a hunch he could make it all the way there by sunrise the next day

odds are he would have, had a fleeing Houstonian not fallen asleep at the wheel and pulled into his lane under a midnight sky

the doctor from a Texas town with a name the father wouldn't want to remember assured him his boy went fast...and didn't suffer

once the father got his son's mangled body in the ground,  the old man took his grief straight to the store, filled up another truck and left his stock to fend for themselves, as he took a journey his boy was not destined to complete

he didn't shed a tear while he unloaded the supplies on a new coastal plain, amid scores who did not lose a son

though surely he was not the only one, he thought, who would cry himself to sleep that very night

where waters his son never saw receded,
far from where the mountains meet the plain

I didn't pick my name
anymore than I asked for all this rain
to fall on my streets

I thank the good Lord above
Amelia didn't live to see this--me
in this chair, a leg lost to
the sugar diabetes

her cat disappearing
in the night

the water's to my waist now,
but I ain't cold--just hungry
and dog tired

last night with Noah's flood
arisin' I could have sworn I saw
two water moccasins slithering
around my one good leg

I did prayin' a plenty
and didn't sleep a wink

dawn came quiet--guess
the neighbor's rooster run off
for high ground

if there is any left on God's green earth

my ears are goin'
but I know I hear an outboard

someone is coming to save me
to pull me from this room turned to toilet

someone

the sound of that motor's fading...
they'll be back

in the meantime, I'll keep
calling for that cat

there's high spots
where she could be

and I could swear I saw
a ray of sunshine through
those clouds

and when they come for me
I'll tell them my name

give them a good laugh

Dickinson, Texas, August 28, 2017

penning a poem in his Oakland
flat, he was stuck at double nines
each of the lines was fueled
by a Winston, each stanza, cheap
red wine, and quiet desperation

outside, the beat of bongos, the pop
of zip guns and the wail of sirens; if
the summer of love was hot at Haight,
nobody told the Panthers who crashed
in the pad below his

he wanted to tell the world this,
epic style, an odyssey on asphalt
a choreography of elbows breaking glass,
and boys running fast, in 'hoods where
every mother's son died too young

but he couldn't weave the right words
to end a story that started with **** filled
hulls of ships, the crack of whips, a war
of bro against bro, and Jim Crow to keep
the nightmare alive in the light of day

now the "Man" snatched them up
with draft notices, turned boys into men
and men into monkeys to be mowed down
in jungles in a question mark on
a map most had never seen

stanza 99, where were the words?
another Winston, another swig of sweet
red wine, though nothing came, until he
heard it--a baby crying in the night
and he picked up his Bic and wrote:

Here you are, coal black child of a distant star
calling out in a language as old as time, "I am hungry!
Hungry for more! Fill my belly with mama's milk,
my lungs with god's free air, and let me grow strong,
straight and brave--brave enough to dream through
all this dreaded darkness."

Oakland, August, 1967

we started school during
the Korean "police action"
like extra syllables made
murderous mayhem more
palatable than calling it
another dreadful WAR,
half a decade after we won
the last one

those of us who survived yet another
crazy Asian WAR are now fading fast

I take in news of our passing
with my morning coffee, reading
the obits like they were the sports
scores

and every one I see whose numbers
are smaller than mine remind me I
am playing Russian roulette with the clock,
every hour

were it within my power,
I'd spin those hands backwards
to a day before cybertime

when Donny, Johnny and I went
to the park to toss a hardball into
well pocketed gloves, and discovered
the delights of peanut butter and
marshmallow cream sandwiches

back, back to a day Ike was pres,
and I would watch The Twilight Zone
with religious fidelity--back, to a time
so ancient Maris had not yet slammed in
number 61, chipping away
at the Babe's immortality

some told us the end was near,
and death by fierce fire was a reasonable fear
long before the missiles of October
and JFK's intrepid blockade

but the mushroom clouds never did appear,
and here I am with Medicare card in hand,
living in the same land where men with funny
hair make ominous "tweets"

and Manchild dictators with tiny peckers
lob missiles into the sea

wishing Clark Kent were still around
ready to don his cape and take a leap
and a bound, and save us
from ourselves

but first he would have to find a phone booth
in which to change...

only three days ago,
you blotted out the Sun,
casting as many spells
as you did shadows

tonight, you're but a sickle;
shaved to that anorexic shape
by the third stone from a ball of fire,
which couldn't make a dimple
or a pimple on Canis Majoris,

still I stared at you, luna
imagining the ancients, barefoot
on this same rock, who saw
magic in your pocked face

how far we've come
in scant millennia, making tubes
with their own blessed fire, to blast
us from the bounds of earth

so we could look back
at our spinning blue orb
and compare small steps
to gargantuan leaps

nor Horace--my Ars Poetica was ars psychotica,
cannabis my myrrh

though I must have known Homer, for my thumb
took me across vast asphalt seas

where I was tempted by sweet sirens, and didn't resist, while others crouched crowded in desks and read tales of two cities

unaware I was ever there, hungry, road weary, far from their land of oblivion

while millions of eyes were on
the skies, I looked to the flat earth:
there, shadows shapeshifted, and
like scalloped creatures crawled

they were but ephemera, photon art,
of which my silhouette was a part: under
sacred penumbra, which augured other
light and darkness I will never see

two squirrels and one crane
on this baked plain, where the spare
prairie grasses give way to a creek fed
stubborn stand of mesquite
and hackberry

I saw them, but only after they
saw me: the furry tailed rodents
ran for the brush; the great grey crane
flapped but a few times to take flight
into the white glare of the sun

not one of them knows, nor cares
a peculiar alignment is about to occur
where a cold cratered rock--measely tide
master--will blot out a star, for a
photon funneled spec of time

they'll go about their business
as if only a cloud lingered a bit
above the flat world, changing
the hue of their grasses, while
it passes

billions of us will turn our eyes
to the skies, witness to an event
monumental, or so we math mongers
must believe; though not those creatures
I encountered under the same sun

when you left,
I heard your voice each night

days, weeks droned on, and
your words became more faint

on the anniversary of your passing,
you came to me only in murky dreams

sound, it seems, is as impotent there
as it is in deep space

will another revolution around the sun
make you vanish for good

will I be there with you, wedded to black,
listening without ears

to creation's eternal command for coughing carbon
to return to dust

will there again be an us, in that place
where nothing escapes,

save wondrous waves that whisper
the ghostly story of our demise

I can't stop thinking about them:

the dead squirrel,

the doves whose droppings
dot my freshly painted fence--a graffiti
in scatological code beyond my ken

the unmarked graves of Sham,
Krishna, and Chauncey--loyal pets
who never got the needle

the Zinnias up from seed who feel ambivalent
about being alive--one day drooping, the next day
appearing to thrive

and the jacuzzi,
empty now except
for her memory,

the daughter whose name
I will not say, who fell asleep in that hot tub
and did not wake up

perhaps seeds sewn so near
don't know what to make of warm water's
perverse powers

from a eulogy, by a poet, of a poet:

she rewinds the years for the dead

to a time he sat around a campfire with the ancient ones, singing,

"old songs written by broken men in love with their own vanishing nature..."

and it hits me, I am now among their ranks

proudly proclaiming, I am Natan Lupan, the grey wolf

yet seeing more a shivering coyote in morning's mirror

no noble howl to greet the day, but scripting what I will say,

to a world of faces, without whose feigned graces,
I would be put out to pasture

they see the white beard, the thinning mane, and wonder why I am still among them

then they decide where to go to lunch

without me, but I do not lament this loss

broken sons, long lost lovers, buried friends, and a Medicare card trump such trivial slights

they know nothing of my pitiable past

nor do they care--they weren't there
when my Elysian dreams and grandiose schemes
were born, and died

now a darkness approaches, and I fear I face it alone

though a borrowed line reminds me,
others have been there before...

sitting around a fire in the night,
mesmerized by flames that flap gold wings for short flight, then become red embers when men take sleep

when morning's cold ashes are lifted by the wind, I hope the songs we sang will be their celestial waltz

my cell phone, my Kindle, my desktop
if I die intestate?

what will willfully addresses the solemn secrets of silicon?

(and woe be to me if my last call is a wrong number, my last Facebook entry an unanswered political jab)

will anybody bother to delete my files
after I am deleted?

or is that the new immortality--for apoptosis does not apply to photons,
electrons and "lol"s

I bet when limbo, heaven and hell were conceived, not a soul would have believed, a hard drive in the sky would one day keep us all alive, indefinitely...

dead doe on the baked prairie grass,
buzzards circling overhead

we're in lawn chairs, downing Buds,
waiting for the feeding to begin

but Donny is impatient, expecting
the birds to dine on his schedule

NOW, this very second, while they
are riding the currents above

watching, waiting to see if we move
closer to our ****

Donny curses them: **** dumb
birds, I shot that deer for you

he shoots at the kettle, but they continue
long loops, unperturbed

Donny again cusses the buzzards
and shoots the doe again

as if killing her twice will hasten
the descent of the birds

Donny complains sweat is stinging
his eyes

he pours the last of our water over
his head and removes his shirt

near sundown we are out of beer
and Donny is asleep

one by one the birds land, until the wake
is feasting before me

talons, beaks at work, tugging, tearing;
the eyes the appetizers it seems

I don't wake Donny, though I know he will be mad
for missing this meal

hungry as he was for a blood mass, but,
I'll let my brother sleep

while the shadows of skillful sculptors  
grow longer on the plain

and the fawn becomes a crimson work
of art Donny would never appreciate

I did not hear
the owl call my name,
nor the hawk squawk
before it dive-bombed me
from the tree line, not
twice, but thrice this
white hot prairie day
yes, there are those who
will say, I came too close
to its nest, and with the rest
of species I must share this space,
but had my staff been swifter the
third time it dove, there
would be a grounded raptor
in the grove, this less than
lovely afternoon

I found your solitary grave:

a "t" bound by twine--two sticks from a mesquite

no name, your eulogy likely the
high desert winds,

and perchance a disappointed caw from a vulture for you were covered well

deep in dirt, hard work for any steel,
but after the toil

your grave digger took time to craft
a crucifix

otherwise, I would have stepped on your
grave,

an ignorant desecration averted by love's anonymous labor,

and the ancient blood on the cross

you were there, smiling,
greeting me with a handshake, a half hug

your band was preparing to play
for a wedding, a celebration within a celebration

the chair was never there, the one
you kicked from under your feet, forty years past

I wish...but we know it was,
and we know a young bride found you hanging

suspended in a time we called simpler
though it wasn't--suffering still our common denominator

but last night, in my slanderous slumber  
I defied the fates, brought you back to life

one where the chair, the cord were never
there, and you didn't take this life's longest leap

the thirty three inches through a silent
air, where you landed with muted screams

only to return in dreams, to say you were
doing well, without the woe of all these years

the rest of us were left to endure

little remains
of my grandfather's house:
raw rafters, warped planks with hints
my uncle invested in paint

the windows all gone, time
and twisters took them, and much
of the roof--what is left of that sags,
a silent submission to gravity

a woodstove survives, cold
to the touch, with no memory
of the fire it once birthed, the precious
prairie timber which fed it

now it knows only mourning
doves' song; winged squatters
unperturbed by my presence, as if
they know I lay no claim to now

the old boards have stories
I will never hear: the birth of babes,
reading the Word by kerosene lamps,
the last breaths of men

the songbirds may know,
but they woo the living in flight--a
future of nesting and fertile eggs; they
owe no belated dirge to long lost kin

so keen were his senses he could
discern differences in grains of sand,
hear gulls' calls long before others, and
recall the number of footprints
he left on his stretch of beach

yet he spoke not a word
since she passed, stolen from him
by a fever he felt from across the room,
while others had to lay hands
on her to know

the doctor would come
and go, whispering words to his father,
not realizing the boy could hear: "typhoid"
lay in his lexicon along with "suffering"
and "death"

then the priest and prayer
too late for the woman--there
for the father, son, and her ghost;
beguiling words like "comfort"
and "eternal life"

the boy did not reveal
being mute was of his volition
allowing less sentient beasts to believe
his silence was a manner to grieve
"ruse" he also knew

months did pass, and the
others implored him to speak;
he would return again and again
to his shore, where he heard
wings and winds and more

but there no creature
asked for his tongue to move;
his naked feet in the surf were enough
and when his tears wedded the waters
the sea made not a sound

lone falcon high in flight, what grid of ground
is magnet to your sight?

what engrams form in fine folds
hidden in your skull?

do you recall all that passes below
on a fleeting flat earth?

do you see my shovel fighting
the stubborn caliche?

to put my wife and child in dead dirt,
before you or your brethren dive

perhaps you will take pity on me, and see
you have other places to light:

the parched prairies around me,
where I pray the creator has left
you more tantalizing temptations
for your talons

a flock of them we call a ******,
though not what I did to ****** men
I shot on the Mekong, who did nothing
but startle me a muggy morn  

I watched them float,
face down in primordial mire,
not far from the wire, which
split their world from mine  

birds came by noon
greedy passerines perching, pecking
on black clad backs; they sang not a word
of thanks to me

though I had made a meal of men,
for those who drop from blue skies--not even
when the flesh pulled swiftly from bone, and
blood flowed silent over their talons

July 4, 1970, Mekong Delta, Vietnam

he looks to that place
hidden in the grey folds and
white matter where the words
and images are birthed

all he sees are blue beans:
jelly beans, frijoles beans, kidney
beans--all as blue as robin's eggs,
strewn on a pitch black field

he waters them to see
if they will grow, for surely
this field is of magic or
at least dreams

but, it seems, nothing
sprouts; the fallow field remains
the same: a bed for countless
beads of blue

he lays his stylus down,
a sword he wielded for naught,
closes his eyes for a final view,
and all he sees is blue

when he
was a young man,
come round up,
they would hit
the trail dead dark
before daybreak;

without a morsel
of moonlight,
he would follow
the rider in front
of him, watching
the glow of the cowboy's
hand-rolled,

while
he puffed away
on a store bought
Lucky Strike, to guide
the cowboy
on his tail;

this beacon,
a bead orange  
in a sea of black,
allowed for silence
among men

who listened
for the lowing
of the beasts
they were charged
to capture, and brand
for slaughter

broad daylight, a narrow highway...
what brought you there, sans your sour nocturnal song?
a racing rabbit I couldn't see
but you could smell?

and could you tell
how close my bumper
came to you when you scampered
across the road?

you had to feel
the wind of my wake
and hear the heavy hum
my tires make

though that did not signal
a close call with death to you;
only a sound you couldn't decipher,
and a tickling of hackle hairs

how delightful to be unawares
of the fickle sickle of mortality
that could have chopped you to pieces
on a hot stretch of asphalt

the boy enters when he knows
others will not be there
in prayer--their silent entreaties
to a god he is not sure
listens or cares

morning after mass is best;
the bouquets are fresh
he can smell them once
the scent of the early
worshipers fades:

the pipe smoke from the old man's
coat
the widow's perfume which lingers longer than the ammonia stench
of the holy homeless who is there
every day

Christ watches over this:
a white marble man bolted
to a cross, witnessing
this spectacle for millennia

long before this cold statue
was placed in this cathedral,
he was there, the slaughtered lamb
cursed to die again and again

that is how the boy sees it;
not a promised life eternal,
but the same death anon,
anon

the pounding of the stakes,
the blood offering: the old man, the woman, the mendicant
all crucifying him again with
each plaintive prayer

once their odors fade,
the funeral sprays, the bouquets
remain--cut, dying flowers,
a fragrant impermanence
with no expectation for life
beyond their time in the
vase--no imploring a godhead
for forgiveness

no demand for blood
and perpetual death

only a little water for their brief journey
in fragile glass

I see his pick up in the yard--the grass is dead
from the heat anyway

he is nowhere to be found, except
passed out on the seat

with one of his feet touching the turf
the other still in the truck

afraid if it joins its partner on solid soil
it won't be a happy marriage

he is my child--all quarter century of him
and he won't bring in the paper

I am sure he rolled his truck on top of it...to protect me
from the news of an awful world

I hope I wouldn't smash my thumb
or throw it

through the picture window, like my neighbor did,
just yesterday,

while I was mowing my grass
which is yet half high

because I had to watch while the police arrested
my hammer heaving pal

who hates his unfaithful wife, his yapping Chihuahua,
and his life;

the spouse and spunky canine
are just fine it seems,

fortunate there was glass to shatter
on a Saturday afternoon

roadkill diners
Texas highway cleaners
a swooping trio of you--a blue
black choreography

what
had you spotted
on the hot
asphalt?

in a decade
of seconds, you
vanished--or actually
I did, leaving a wake
of you in my own
wake:

a shimmering heat mirage
in a rearview mirror, a memory
more mythical than your feast

I watch them
walk in: slow, not quite *****

white beard on one,
double chin on another

I estimate their seasons--an
appraiser assessing damages

of gravity and grief, cells
dividing, multiplying without relief

I was a lanky, lurching teen
when they were yet in diapers

soon, they'll be clad
in such humble attire again

I'll be there waiting, already
accustomed to such leaking humility

they dine there Saturdays;
once the dire discussion of
which entrees to order is over, there
is mostly silence between them

and a candle that burns

on every table--wax trails
on the wine bottles which
cradle them; creating a grand grotto
of paraffin they take turns fondling  

gone are those nights

when their hands locked
across the gingham, their eyes
seeing through the fire, blind to
any shadow it cast on the other

the light remains,

though now they see
only beneath it, a biography of
burnt offerings on the wine's empty
flask,  a meal soon to be forgotten

the gardener you hired is outside,
his ******* tools roaring:

the heaving bellows of a big bear
the whining of a radiated hornet

when the quiet of Monday morning
returns; I lay down my book
to take a look

he is yet here, snipping the
neighbor's Oleander

yes, it's still eager to climb over
our fence

he is stepping in the dormant beds
I told him not to desecrate--the black earth
where your petunias lived

I buried both your cats there,
with little ceremony

just as you requested, your last Monday

he lay in a bed at the Salvation Army
the last in a row of bunks he knew well;
through the window, he heard birdsong

not the lugubrious refrain
of mourning dove, but a song
he did not recognize, sad nonetheless

the captain brought him ice chips
and let him stay, for he knew this was
the closest thing to home the old man had

this and a spot under the bridge
he shared with bats, most springs
summers and autumns, until the first frost

never again would he be outside
never again would he see the bridge
never again would he leave this bed

how nice to have music
in your final hours, he mused, how nice
to have a bed and pillow to rest his head

outside the window, sitting cross legged
on winter's dead grasses, a girl played her
flute, unaware of the audience she entertained

she was young enough to be his
granddaughter, but was not, for his only child
had died of black blood cancer, when she was nine

in all his years he'd heard myriad
birds' song, chanting chirps wedded to
the winds, winsome, but not like today's trilling

what he now heard faintly, as if through
warm water, soothed him, lulled him closer to
a deep sleep, one he knew would come soon enough

he did not fight it--take a nap he thought,
when he woke, the lullaby would still be there,
white winged creatures would yet make song
though now in great flight, far from this bed

be hovering above
your body after death, a
floating purgatory

which does not desist
when they cover you with dirt, or
make quick cremains of you

you get to hear what others
say when you're gone, first scripted
testimonials, of your laudatory life

later, when the food is being crammed
in overloaded fridges, and the ties and tongues
are loosened, other words emerge:

"he was never good to his wife; you know
he pulled the plug on his father, but wouldn't
let them do the same with him"

"he didn't seem to pass peacefully, all
that labored breathing -- perhaps he was
missing his boy he hadn't seen in years"

"maybe he felt he didn't earn his way
to salvation, or even an end to suffering
of this life of flesh and bone"

and you know not if this is heaven or hell
this place you are doomed to dwell, though you
wish you could now be deaf to these words

an endless biography composed by
all your regrets and transgressions, a book
of your life you would choose to rewrite

but no one, you lament, has that privilege...

they pass each other on the paths
histories trailing behind them like
smoke from their cigarettes, which
most gave up eons ago

some wield two sticks, to stave
off the inevitability of their demise;
arms, legs, zig-zagging like
cross country skiers

others have the blessed cane of age
a teetering tether to this world, their
backs bent forever making a question
mark, a parenthesis at best

yet others have staffs, shepherds
of invisible flocks, ones they tend to
now in a world only they inhabit, looking
backwards at grazing apparitions:

lambs of their lives they
long ago sacrificed, sheep they
sheared--wool woven into coats
for other old men with sticks

who have their own histories, their
own fleeting flocks, their own encounters
with stick toting strangers, their own
walks on well worn paths

two legged beasts choked
in afternoon's haze, days all rated
like pain, 1 to 10

3's admonitions were to the
elderly, the infirm; lucky 7 still said all
but necessary travel was verboten

9 was malign enough for
the bug eyed masks, and even indoor tasks
were advised with caution

double digits meant doom,
stay in your room, with equal measures
of oxygen and prayer

outside if the scale
really read the ominous 10, fears were
of fire igniting in the skies

but some days were yet a 2,
when masses moved about enjoying
a respite from wrath

though 1 was remembered as if
a dream, with skies a strange hue, most
thought it was once called blue

plants, trees, were taxed without exemption,
mixing molecules, a chemical coughing in silence,
their belching of atoms, our salvation

and there were those who ventured
far enough into the fields who vouchsafed they
had yet seen daffodils, wilted but alive

we* try to guide *you through some you's

(how you are, who you are, why you are)

we are there with you
hunting for an epiphany

(which rarely comes)

if we fail with reflective notions
we have some magic potions

(though)

you won't be painting like Picasso
once our chemistry does its trick  

(perhaps)

a line from a classic flick,
or a paragraph from your favorite book,
would be better feeding for the soul, than
talking time spent on our couch, with us
unraveling your psychic ouch

on the shore again,
away from all the lol's, the ***'s
and especially the brb's

because he doesn't want
them to brb, or fret they have
revealed the dreaded TMI

he wants all their cryptic
and crap-tic codes to disappear, to be
erased from memory

and he can again be on
the Pacific, with his dreams and illusions
making tracks between the two

knowing they too will be
washed away at high tide, as evanescent
as an imho or a ***

though not birthed by silicon gods;
created instead from sand between his paws
and washed away by sea and salt

he waits until his feet
hit his dirt floor before
he thanks the Great One
for allowing the sun
to rise again    

he walks through
well worn weeds to make
water, and again gives thanks
he could pass the water, and saw
no serpent in the grass  

this is a blessed day
for he has yams and fruit
left in his hut; he finds little
mold on these gifts from the
ground, the trees    

he looks to the sky
for omens--it is mauve
with morning, but the clouds
have no foreboding shapes
again, he gives thanks  

before and after his repast,
there are the prayers, then the silence
in which he has learned he will hear the voice
which commands all, its words in cadence
with the slow beating in his chest

this river is all that remains of the great floods which carved these canyons

the old ones tell us this is where time began--an emanation which knows not its own source

yet this crafty creature creeps up on us, an uninvited guest.

and spirits were born with time:
the hawk, the fishes, the bear are the vessels for the soul of time

their gift though, is the unknowing, the ignorance of time's mortal measure

we flat earth walkers, we talkers, are burdened to tell the tale--one of beginnings and endings, of birth and death

the winged ones and the water dwellers see the same sun rising and sinking

though for them, the stream, the canyon, and all it births have always been and will always be,

for they are not cursed to see, the awful arc of this light

they are spared the specious rhyme and rhythm of day and night, the repeated reaping and sorrowful sowing;

the knowledge of the end of days, for everything which had a beginning

those folks hired white help,
maybe a Mex to tend to the yards
but they let old lady Latty wash
their soiled sheets, bath towels
and undergarments

they sent out their fine clothes
for that new process called dry cleaning,
a magic Latty would never fathom--how
you gonna clean anything without water
steaming, lye and labor of love

but Latty knew those folks
whose ****-stained drawers
she was scrubbing had more secrets
than money, and she knew to keep
lips God gave her closed

for nobody need know about
the joy juice that was on the sheets
when the man of the house was
gone, and the towels covered
with the seed part of that

weren't none of Latty's business
what sins were seeping under the
cracks of those fine wood doors, or
what other rich as Croesus gents were
walking softly on the polished floors

Latty was off Mondays, but
not on the Sabbath, for it was
often the eve of that holy day
when the most soiling was done
and that didn't bother her none

for Sundays the folks was mostly
gone to church, and whatever sinning
was to be had took its rest like the Lord did,
unless sitting in a pew with a man
you never loved counts as such

Tulsa, 1908

called, "when I am dead"

and what came to mind, while
pecking away

were thatched roof cottages, hedgerows
all along a cliff,

and waves below whipping against
earth's spine

farther out were great swells
and black ships foundering

sea serpents were darting through
the green depths

this spectacle was silent, the screaming
men, the crashing waves

even the charcoal sky, threaded with a
thousand bolts of lightning

birthed no thunder, though I didn't
wonder why

I was supposed to among the dead
where vibrations abound

though none pound against
eardrums

such silence, I was told, was tantamount
to solace

but men were drowning, and fires leapt
across the waters

and no passage led up the cliffs to home
and sanctuary from this terrific tempest

and the eraser, so I can
clean up messes with a bit
of magic rubber

this **** ink is indelible,
even if it's scrolled on a page
in ephemeral cyberspace

delete doesn't count once other
eyes have made a meal of your meaning,
digested and crapped out your words

I long for a Big Chief tablet
and the art gum magic I could perform
with nimble fingers and clear eyes

I was in no hurry, for he was
past this world's impatience, there
in that quiet room, prostrate, manicured
so we could "view" him

before I cleared my driveway,
I saw a white dove--was this an omen?
until this eve I was not sure such a creature
existed--still no verdict on omens

at the first stoplight, a Harley, straddled by
a horse three hundred pounds soaking dry,
caught my eye--shorts and pink ubiquitous
breast cancer awareness tee (really)

at the funeral home, there was not
a space to be found, so I parked at the
Baptist church across the street -- I doubt
the lot knew the deceased was Catholic

in the entrance to this place of grief
and peace, and artificial flowers, two men
in twin black suits were arguing -- I heard only
one sentence, "His wife doesn't need to know!"

then, of course, I decided not to go, but did
stop for a Big Mac and fries on the way home, wondering
if the bulky biker had been through the line before me,
and if the mythic white dove was yet on my lawn

he sits on the curb
all twelve years of him,
waiting to be a teen

when he'll have to pay
adult price for a movie ticket
or bus pass

he usually has no cash
for either; but wishing and waiting
are art forms to him

he's learned to move
the brush of time slowly on life's palette
while he watches others whizzing by

on their store-bought skateboards
and Huffy ten speed bikes, while he has
only one gear for two feet

which now are clad in Keds
from the thrift store, and planted
firmly on the cement

by the drain gutter,  where he
last saw his favorite possession, a Super Ball,
get ****** into the sewer

when the storm ended, he yanked
off the manhole cover and crawled into
the dark, but the ball was gone forever

when he came back into the street,
yet lamenting his round loss, more boys
on bikes buzzed by

their circles safely spinning
on asphalt, far from the gutter and curb where
he once again sat--wishing, waiting

Baltimore, 1965

freeze like that self assured fool London gave us
in "To Build a Fire"

so do I avoid the wild Yukon, or learn to ignite kindling
before I succumb to the deep sleep?

maybe I just write a different tale

before the fireflies
made an appearance

about the time cicadas
began their buzz

when the men were lighting
after dinner ****

and moms clanging dishes,
a noisy resentment

I was on the street, with brothers
named Harry and Johnny

playing baseball, mostly
missing our catches

it had not registered in our grade school heads
dusk was not good light for hardball

nor had we learned what it was like
to see anything die

save the bees we suffocated in jars
(forgive us our sins, Father),

though that night, the last day of school,
the stars were all aligned

IF the creator wanted us to see
mangled mortality:

he came around the corner of
Vandenburg and Vine

in his graduation gift--a hot new Chrysler,
all chrome and crank

the telephone pole he hit didn't see him, or
complain--it remained straight, tall

when the driver went through the windshield
and his skull introduced itself to wood and pitch

my dad was the first to come through
the door, though other fathers followed

I recall colors, though muted
by the fading light

red, red, pink, even white and gray and blond--his hair,
flattop still in place

well, it was on the half head I saw
from across the street

where Harry, Johnny and I were conscripted
to stand

my mother brought a yellow towel,
to stop bleeding I thought I heard

but my father never used it, telling her
instead to bring the green army blanket

which he draped over the boy's body the very second
before we saw the ambulance lights

by then, the fireflies were beginning
their dance

we were told to go inside, to hide our
eyes from the body on a stretcher

the slamming of the ambulance doors,
which I watched through our window

while my father used Lava soap to wash his hands;
then my mother pulled the drapes

blocking from view the pole, the crushed car,
and the glow of fireflies drifting above it all

who taught children,
asked for nothing,
and died last night