I visited her cottage each month, never
staying the night

through her window by the oak table
we watched the surf

on days when the sea was angry, we could hear
the waves crack against earth's spare spine

those times I liked, for she would hold my hand,
tightly, like I was her tether to the wide world

I would leave as the sun set, the moment a million
gold sparkles vanished from the waters

when I found her, I pretended she was asleep
but her eyes were open and still

staring it seemed through the same window
I sat with her and rubbed her cold hand

I stayed until the sun sank into the same salty sea
wondering if the old tales were true...

if a billion tears had flowed into the blue depths
making a soulful brine

I know mine fell on the soggy sand, disappearing
in the dusk that swallowed my tracks

the ville was just women,
old men, young children--mostly gaunt ghosts
before my platoon arrived with our own dead
men walking

I gave the order to burn the village,
rout its dazed denizens and grease any
who offered resistance

only one woman did, clawing
at my boys like a crazed cat, going after Freddie
from Fresno with a bamboo stalk

I don't know who shot her
but I remember standing over her
with Freddie and Mickey from Milwaukee
who stepped on a mine within the hour

Freddie bought it too, but not until
that night, when small arms fire from the jungle
woke us from our dread dreams

the apparitions that haunted our heads
whenever we spilled the blood of innocents
or even the red devils' kin--perhaps
an equivalent sin

the next day we ****** back
to base camp, a twelve click hike;
as hours passed, and the earth dried,
our shadows became sharper, darkening
reminders we could run
but never hide

I was chicken
dropped only a half tab--a quarter before midnight  
and hurried back to my apartment
before the day changed    

from a Monday
to a ruby Tuesday  
where my walls melted
and music smelled like sassafras;
the flickering flares of light from two fat candles  
tasted like toasted almonds    

every eternal hour, or minute,
or so, I would try to tiptoe down the hall  
past the sleeping neighbors who were all dreaming
of me, skulking past their locked doors

but I never made it to the street
a feat that would have demanded
I stop giggling, and my heart stop thumping
for any pig or narc could have seen
my crimson machine pumping
ready to fly from my chest    

dawn did finally come--I was
coming down, down from the floor
on which I had lain from the minute
a ferocious fly dive bombed me
somewhere around three  

I walked to the corner grocery store
where I bought pan dulce, and was glad the clerk
spoke no English, for surely she would have asked me
to tell her how I survived such an aerial assault  
in peacetime

Etched in my memory is a chair in the Rexall Drug, Easter eve--me sitting on the edge of it, waiting

And the despairing look on my father's face while he too waited,  for some pill or potion to heal my big brother

Sitting across from me, asleep, was a woman--I believe the oldest person in the world

Together we were half this lonely planet, my father and the apothecary the rest of its survivors

Every other soul was gone, perhaps snatched early, by some unexpected rapture

Resurrection was nigh, but I was expecting only an egg hunt, and perchance a chocolate bunny


Across the street, a church sat in silence, its steeple cross barely visible through the Rexall's glass door

Thunder echoed through the night, and for a flickering moment, it was daylight outside


The druggist handed my father a small white paper bag, for which he gave thanks

He said, "Let's go, David." Not "Bud" or "Podner," and he didn't wait for me to get up

Even though it had begun to rain, he moved slowly through the lot to our parked car


Every time I think of that night, I wonder who was born the next day, to take my brother's place

Death I discovered, is not on a schedule--the doctors said he had a year, maybe more

Gods don't explain themselves to men or monkeys, at least not to the mortals I know

Easter was a good day to die I guess, but if my brother thought so, he didn't say

he dragged his feet
her veil scared him
she was not smiling

she bent over
the ******* box
he could not see
what was inside

her lips moved
but he did not hear her
he heard the big people whispering,
talking softly

like they usually did
when they were not singing
in this place, this room
with high ceilings, colored windows
and benches he thought
they called pews

he couldn't see him,
his daddy, though many
said he was there

he wondered what
was in the black box
and when his mother began
to walk away, he saw her hand print
on the surface, but no thumb

he dragged his feet again
she pulled his hand harder
he wiggled free and went back
to the box

Uncle Roy picked him up
to carry him down the aisle; when he did
he thought he saw his daddy asleep
in the box

and his mother's hand print
was still there, but now missing
*******

he knew that number
two--he looked back a final time
and saw other big people at the box,
walking, looking, perhaps being quiet
to not wake Daddy

white tulips
in moonlight, though silver
this night

they are near,
near, yet I cannot
touch them

nor catch their coy scent
but I smell nothing, hear
nothing

and, and this vision
of a forgiving bulb,
is fading

behind it,
in its shivering shadow
I see him

what is left of his face
what grace there must be
in this place

where the man I killed
the moment he killed me
and I, are now together

separated only by
silent soil, and a merciful
white blossom

dirt clods, actually
there were few stones
in the creek that separated
their apartments from ours

a creek, and income gap even we,
barely double digits old, could see
as clearly as the stream
between our worlds

in our battles, I missed
on purpose, as did most
of the Manor marines--never
did a clod hit me

our general, Rex, connected often
inviting obscenities from our opponents
but never did they cross the creek

if they had, it would have been
for naught, for we had won the war
before the skirmishes began

our pool, tennis courts, and club
were the arsenals that gave us the edge
and the Stuart Manor soldiers knew this
but chunked the dirt valiantly
all the same

your Colorado village was freezing,
even the eve of May

the bus dropped me there
you weren't waiting

I toted my duffel bag, now turned sixty,
to your place

you didn't answer for an hour; when you did,
it was not sleep in your eyes

we didn't fight--it was too cold in your apartment
for heated arguments

you didn't bother to say you were busy, or forgot
your father's only son had agreed to this visit

you had only stale bread, stingy swirls of peanut butter
in a cold jar

you left with a promise to get food,
and my last seven dollars

I waited for you until dusk, then dragged my bag
to a locked church

I put an extra ancient sweater under my coat, leaned
against the chapel's small west wall

I watched the sky turn from mauve to black,
until I fell asleep

and dreamed of a time I carried you on my shoulders,
under a warm sun

I hoped to become an eagle
soaring above amber waves of grain
seeking perch in rarefied air

a red-tailed hawk,
or even a garden warbler
would have sufficed

instead I metamorphosed
into a mosquito and found myself
skulking on a fine lady's arm

I could only hope
she wouldn't swat me
before I drank my red full
and took flight into dusk

or returned
to my pitiable simian self,
lice laced and  homeless, hunkering
in a cold corner, wishing
I could fly

at the market
in front of me, he was buying wine
and breath mints for later

he was short twenty cents
on his hopeful purchase; I gave him a quarter
he didn't say thanks

for later
when he would tap on the apartment door
and she would answer, eager

would she let him
all the way in, would he stay
the night?

I hope
the two bits I gave him
changed something for
mints may matter

a dad, two kids  
the latter running for the shade and shelter
of the picnic table--dad strolling behind,
with pizza and crazy bread  

one family of a dozen there
in 75 degree Texas sunshine  
mid winter, as russet leaves
and calendar attest        

now I recall my only picnic
a half century past, where I discovered
peanut butter could be made magical  
with marshmallow cream  

from this same walking
and waking dream, I see a star
hanging  between two oaks, and a sea  
of hip hippies dancing, rocking to
mystic chants of their own device  

for the music died
long ago, electric and eternal
though we thought it was  

today, in a sun drenched park,
it is calm breeze I hear, the sibilant sizzling songs
of my past are long lost in space, but the wickedly wonderful
white goop on that sandwich, I yet taste
with transcendent  joy

what remains here, after you,
makes sound only the finest instruments
can detect--waves
from deep space

the December blast outside
a summer breeze compared to dead air
in this heated tomb

quilts you left smell of us
wrapped in two of them, I'm still
shivering, staring at the
door you shut,

surprised
it did not shatter,
so bound by ice

not one
of the moon's mystic seas is filled
with their yelping  

though those
haunting harmonies save me from solitude  
on the naked prairies

the sky, cold, awash
with wispy clouds, carries their sour song,
a dirge no creatures emulate

like they, I howl at the proud wolf moon;
it ignores me as it does them, but  ‘tis regally round
for only a blink in time, then mournful
as it wanes to penumbra  
in earth’s shadow

the wild dogs and I
cease our serenade, but wait in darkness
to cast another refrain when the ornery orb again
filches the dying sun’s light

many have suggested fire
but I choose not to become cremains  
I want a plain pine bed
no magic elixirs
in my veins

why waste fluid
and time, treasured commodities,
before the *******

if law did not proscribe,
I would gladly let a stout stranger
toss me into a raging river

though my kin
may protest, fishes, crustaceans
would rejoice

after all,
lesser creatures
are always hungry
and grateful

each night
he would enter his boy's room  
Bobby's tomb, he had come to call it  
and turn the TV off  

before remotes, 24/7 programming
and the infomercial, plump with desperate promises
the tube gave a final hail, the stars 'n stripes whipping, the national anthem screaming, and an anonymous promise
to return tomorrow in a perfect world

it would not be perfect for Bobby,
no matter how much thoughtless Thorazine,
hazy Haldol, or mesmerizing Mellaril
they shoved down his throat

now and then
before flipping the **** to off
he would sit with his sleeping son
stare into the screen, listen to its hissing;
he would swear he saw something  
in the gray ocean of static  

not trillions of senseless electrons
busy bouncing, but a lone sailor, rowing away
in a foaming sea, riding raging swells,  
bound for a black horizon

one his tormented son
had reached long ago

after dinner on the porch
was the best time, he and grandpa watching,
waiting for the storms--a thunderclap
the sweetest note to both of them

sheets of rain rolled across
the big pasture, downdrafts made the boy shiver,
even cradled in the old man's arms

neither would speak, grandpa's good arm
would point, or wave, these movements a code
between generations, theirs at least

finally a twister appeared in the west
growing plumper as it spun across the fields,
spitting gray dirt from its base, a zigzagging
dancer without a care in the world

grandma and Aunt Helen
fled to the cellar, imploring the pair
to follow

though they didn't, for all their hours
gazing at the heaving heavens would have been
profligate had they hid in the ground,
missing creation's greatest crescendo  

the angry funnel ate a section of fence
wide as a football field, and felled a tree
not a quarter mile from the house--its roots
too shallow, grandpa thought

when the tempest passed, the sun made
an appearance, slipping between the cloud bank
that birthed the tornado, and the silent soil
in the devil's wake

in its final moments,
it glared at the interlopers on the porch,
perchance admonishing them the promise
of its golden rays was no sacred contract
but a fickle gift

"instantly" doesn't apply
though we use the word to describe
an eternity that passes
before one’s eyes

in the flash flesh takes
to surrender, when a bullet passes
through a heart, a skull is crushed
in a head-on collision  

let me pause a hand an "instant,"
to make the car key turn, or the foot fall
from the curb a momentous moment,
later

altering all destiny, by chance,
if I had the chance, to be master of a tiny cogwheel,
of one machine--I don't need omnipotence,
only the reins of time

rummaging through the ruins
of the landfill, his sole fellow explorer
a cur, content when his snout sniffed mold
blissful when he discovered a can

his aspirations grander than the canine,
he hoped to find artifacts of the ancients,
and digging deep he did, an Apple, one of Job's
first magical machines, the monitor
dull but without a solitary crack

then a turntable, its diamond stylus
long turned to nub, veneer half peeled
by the blade of time--its final symphony spun
eons ago, or at least two dozen years

finally a Dr. Pepper sign, an old as time,
its 10, 2 faint but still there, its 4 long gone
the masterpiece's artist never lamenting
its weathered fate: he too had his time
his labors filling his pockets, pleasing
his eyes, and immortalizing him
in the open bowels of the earth

in Ohio, Mother
hung our laundry humming,
clothespins in her mouth

in Texas, she made my father
buy a dryer after angry wet sheets whopped her face
more than one blustery afternoon  

scarcely a score before
Panhandle winds were often roiling clouds,
black as charcoal, laying waste to everything
that grew and breathed

old men at the feed store talked
about the dusters from back then
and about every drop of rain,
every white flake that fell

I missed going barefoot
and fast learned to hate goat heads,
and all thorny things that thrived
in that flat land

Mother despised the hot winds almost as much
as the cool stares she got from the church women
whenever she opened her mouth, revealing
she wasn't one of them

Mother ended words
with “ing,” the extra consonant considered
superfluous at best, blasphemous
to some

men and women both
sounded to me like they had grist
from the silos in their mouths

my father had lived there
as a boy, swore he would never return
the dreaded dust still clinging to his clothes
when he left for the war

oil money brought him back
but only long enough for his skull
to be cracked dead by hard pipe

his insurance settlement
bought us a place in the Buckeye State
as quick as the lid flapped shut
on our mailbox

Mother wept little
until our first night back
in Ohio, when a blizzard knocked out
the lights, and our two candles burned flat
in the cold

my uncle brought bread, butter
and warm soup, which we ate in the gloom
while Mother told my father's favorite brother
how much we loved the Texas sun

we clock in, out
every one of us--that has ALWAYS
been the contract

the Tyrant has us all working
at minimum wage; some complain
others don't think about it

though at one time
or another, we are all grateful,
and terrified, we have a job

beggars, billionaires both
servants to the hours, His strange
circular command

but I will be dead ******
if I'll give Him a minute more than necessary
watching the hands spin on a timepiece,
eternally there to remind us, we are
temporal slaves, every minion
under His reign

he crawled from the slime
of the swamps, like a creature formed
before god made light

coated solid with the muck of the earth,
the blood of those they slaughtered, and that
of his own brethren--though the feverish foam
in these ancient paddies had wedded forever
the sanguine sap of them all

the sole survivor
to tell the old tale--the fable of light
giving way so eagerly to dark

who was he to tell the story
spared the wrath of the flesh
what of those who lay behind him
now forever silenced--had not they earned
the right to be permanent patrons of light

who was he to speak of these things
but it must be, for in the beginning someone
had to utter, with thunderous certainty, the
greatest promise ever broken:
let there be light

in the sky, I don’t see him, the Big Guy,
the “G” man, but I found someone who did,  
posing the query, “What is God?”  

he answered his own question
with twenty words, plus one--no mention of the sun,
the stars, or how HE ignited the Big Bang  

but many
wispy words about love, glory
justice and joy  

I can't claim to comprehend you,
wedded to agnosticism I seem to be
though I truly would like to see:

something behind the
sunken eyes, bloated bellies of babies
covered with impatient flies    

something in the blood trails
of San Bernardino, Paris, Beirut
Khe Sanh, Iwo Jima, the Marne  
Antietam, ad infinitum  

who can read those red riddles  
and help me understand--maybe more
than 21 words are required  

though I am hardly inspired  
when the words to describe HIM/HER/IT  
don’t mention milk except as human kindness
or do nothing to explain our blissful blindness
to blood dripping from stakes driven
so long after Calvary’s crosses

he swore it was Sasquatch
who mauled him at his camp
when the last logs were but
hissing embers in his pit

others spotted them
in the Ouachitas--a pastor, constable
and my own son, likely high on hash,
said he heard Bigfoot's heavy rumbling
in a light rain

I was the doc on call,
when the man's pick up rolled to a dead stop
at the ER door--addled, he swore the beast
brought him to us, without ever having
been in his truck's cab

I hadn't seen such lacerations
except when self induced, but the man
did not waver from his story:

at quarter past four
on the clock, he was flung, down bag
and body both, into the deep snow

the creature made entreaties without words,
but his wild, sour moans, the man proclaimed, may
have been nothing but the beast begging to be left
alone to remain a mystery

one never solved,
kept alive around other’s fires,
by those who did not let them wane,
who fed  the blaze and kept it roaring,
to keep the beast at bay  

yet invisible, but alive another day
just beyond the fires' searching light
silent, eternal in the mythic night
Sasquatch, Sasquatch

I began with verse about Wyeth's Christina
but I couldn't see her face, and I've never been to Maine
though her twisted body pains me

then I flew to the opposite coast
summoned by the memory of a ghost:
my best friend at Bodega Bay, one fine day
forty Augusts gone

he threw a Frisbee to his Airedale
and we ate sprout sandwiches, avoiding the foul
karma from the slaughter of beeves,
hogs, he said

I would like to relive that day,
with its blue dusk, but the clock can't be rewound
and he is not to be found on the great Pacific

kin who barely knew his face
chose his final space--a hot hole on Oklahoma
prairies, not far from his drunken father
and others who never saw him watch
the sun sink gold into the sea

in my head I'll exhume him,
maybe return him to the waves
that reclaim all things

or introduce him to Christina
a continent away--he could help me know her
though her eyes face another world

thirty-five years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty-five years, passed
like a long sleepless night
that ends with taunting morning light
no brilliant sunrise grandly pronouncing
a glorious new dawn of man
although that would have been your plan
with your entreaties to give peace a chance
and imagine, imagine, imagine

now I kneel in this rain gray park
like a reject from some holy ark
a pilgrim in doleful disappointed pose
after seeing what your earthly brothers chose
was not to imagine a world of peace and love
but to wear reality like a cast iron glove
making mockery of your martyred chants
proceeding like a billion scurrying ants
deaf to your childlike pleas

across the soaked soil where your ashes lay
yesterday and today…and tomorrow
I feel the soggy sorrow
that you would have felt
if you could still see
all the rage of humanity

their walls pale peach, eggshell
tiny flowered paper in the dining room
wood panels in the den

but then, when the boy's voice changed
and hair began to stubble his face, he painted
his own space

eleven by a dozen feet,
all scarlet as Camara rose  
though the can said,
“Passion Red”  

when daylight shined
on these crimson plains, his mother swore
she saw flickering flames  

the boy told her there was no fire
but to extinguish her ire, he painted again,
a stark white, but in just the right light
she still saw a simpering glow    

off to college he went, a full day
she spent, pressing the roller firm against his walls,
extracting every red drop that remained, until
again in perfect light, she was certain  
she saw imps and fallen angels  
dancing in delight

kayaking, on the same lake
since college, two score before
by the tiny bay ice fishermen swore
was haunted--having lost one
of their own, only last winter

if the dead man's spirit lingered
he hadn't heard or seen it, and the bay,
though small, was deep, calm

he rowed daily to this big cove
a treasure trove of quiet and color
without a house or pier in sight

as the sun was sinking
into the lake one August eve
he heard a hissing from the thick
stands of pine

webbed feet, he did not imagine
could be as treacherous as talons
but the were, and the knobby beak
of this mad mute swan felt like pliers
when it yanked on his ear, ripping
nearly half of it off

it took but one sharp blow
from his oar to thwart the attack
and the giant bird disappeared
into the dusk

in its wake a pool of blood
and pain he had not felt since hot shrapnel
pierced his young shoulder
in that crazy Asian war

the battle lasted
but a few manic moments
as is the case with most wars of the flesh
though long enough to end his silent sojourns
on this still blue glass, now shattered
by flapping limbs of man and beast

his ancestor a coolie
laid the rails many long years  
but returned to Peking
to fight white devils  

this, the tale
passed through the generations
with the jade necklace which
never left his mother's neck

first born son
spawn of two doctors, expectations
were high he would practice
honorable healing arts

early in his years
he fueled their fears, and ire
coming through their sterile door
with bloodied knuckles
black eyes, fat lips

they tried various exorcisms:
confinement in the temple, lashings
and hushed cabals with head healers,
but none could shrink his will

much to their dismay
Stanford rejected him; he landed
at a community college, where he spent
an indolent year, before vanishing

a thousand tears and fears later
the PI revealed what a hundred
billable hours had reaped

the son was so far west
he was east, in a village on the Yangtze
stooped over paddies, his feet firm
in the mire the generations
had yearned to escape

I found you in parks,
camped out in libraries
bus depots

we shared road stories,
****, food, and whatever we had
stuffed in our pants, forbidden
by the man

you came from everywhere
and were going nowhere--except
California

a million dreams after
Steinbeck's hordes plodded west,
desperate to find the fruit

but you were in search
of grapes without the wrath:
there weren't any

you came and went  
some succumbing to the needle
others to the bottle, and more to the winds
which whisked you to another park bench,
another all night diner, in another
dead, gray city

I stuck around,
earned, or stole, greenback dollars
built red brick houses, had children and wives  
and almost forgot your scent

now, mostly when the lights are out,
I add the years of your evaporating biographies
and realize so few of you remain,
to walk our flat earth

3900 light years from earth
a mere 1.2 billion miles across,
makes me wonder who your master is
and what magic it takes to fill
your feeding bowl

I wish I could ****
the kiloparsecs keeping us apart
and see you, unleashed, maybe chasing
Frisbees left by the barking big bang

I hope you don't bite

he wallows in the slop,  
seemingly unable to stop  
alliteration is his biggest sin  
grimly gripping grand and grotesque lines alike
rhythm and rhyme are somewhere  
deep in the heap of crap
he cranks out  

similes are his favorites
but parsimonious as desert dew
when he hunts for one
that's new

metaphors bounce beyond
his reach, on harder ground  
than the pen he shares with hogs
doubtless the domain of dogs  
far bigger than he

black ghosts, white ghosts
line my lane, ether's balloons
watching the night,
calling to me

what does thou see
mourner in the flesh, others?
fainter apparitions, silent
even to us

you won’t find him, they say,
no soul stays close to home, we fell
in distant moors and this night, we are
the whispers in your thatched roof,
rain strolling down your old stones
fog rolling from the ponds

but, he will be
wafting over another's hedge,
far from the glens where you threw him
the ball, miles from the roads where
he road his bike

he won’t be near
the blackened stacks by the tracks
where a strange body found him,
transformed him into one of us
with a blade honed for
eternity…before
that night

one ever sharp,
even though it was thrown
into the Avon before your boy
was cold

look for your lad, your love
in the wild sea, in the shapes waves weave
blue on sunny days; he will be there
not black or white like we

you will find him, ever
near, though far from where
you look

through his window
he could see the oak planted by his grandfather
or his father, or his, however many greats
that would be

few obstinate leaves lingered
like refugees who missed a hegira
to the promised land, or to the
red, russet heap along
the stone wall

some of its ancient roots
had wearied of earth's deep dark  
and now streaked across the yard
silent serpents laying in wait
for another eve

he wanted to write
of his lifelong arboreal companion
but his fingers had adopted a stiff grotesque pose
some forgotten fall, when the leaves
had been long in their leaving

words were there, waiting,
perched behind his eyes, then sinking
in some grave fashion to his tongue,
though to whom would they speak?

nobody remained
who read his verse
still the words kept lining up
not quite knocking on the door
demanding exit to a flat
white world

as his tired eyes rested
on the tree, the words rumbled louder,
until they pleaded, who planted you,
where are they now, and when
will we join them...?

Will died intestate,  
which mattered little because
he had even less

a lake house
the county said wasn't worth
back taxes or a bulldozer's
brutish time

but they razed it
confiscated his truck
which was older than time when
I said I couldn't pay
his final debt

the pine box and small plot
came to two weeks' wages,
a headstone maybe three

they left his boat,
a tinny vessel painted with rust
but I knew I could trust it was hole free,
buoyed to his dead pier, the day
he passed

I took it to his
favorite cove, where bass
would hop into
his lap

for half a day, maybe more,
I fished but came back to shore
without anything
for my hours

save a solitary
memory of a time Will told me
ALL he had would one day be mine,
except his way with fine fishes
that eluded my drifting line
and hapless hook

I couldn’t manage a lotus position,
so I tried you, my bare feet reaching
for the stained ceiling of my apartment  
sitar music and stale **** smoke  
there with me  

like the dwellings
of a million mid-century bohemians  
who tried transcendence long
enough to get hungry    

when I now try you,  
Salamba Sarvangasana,  
I get a bit dizzy--spinning
a reaping reminder I have passed
nearly sixty-four years  

looking up, at cleaner plaster  
I no longer hear the music; the grass is gone,
replaced  by fumes perhaps more beguiling  

then I fall  
never able to pronounce your name  
ever aware my feet could not remain
airborne forever

first flight: your talons
in the grim grip of a teenager
belly filled with berries

dumped fast
in the back of an SUV,
long enough to find
a red brick nest

your guts quickly spilled
and you tossed in a black hole
for a long night with other avian creatures
black, big as pigs, smelly as well

at sunrise the hole rolled
but only long enough for it to be clutched
by a moaning monster, toppled upside down
the pigs sliding into its guts

but the wind rescued you!
gave you recycled flight, a full day
and night, until my wiper blade snagged
your white wings at 70 MPH

I could have dumped you
in the bin at the next rest stop
but you had a different vision
of redemption

instead, I dropped you on the road                        
where you would wait, without protest,  
for another gust

he's someone’s grandson
his body bag just like the others
viewed from the outside

inside with him
are stories, waiting to be told
over, over again by the mothers,
the mothers' mothers

who imagine they keep him
from the ground with their telling:
bassinets, bicycles, back seats with girls
finally bayonets with the boys

some of them
his buddies, beside him now
with their stories, waiting
to be told

oy vey
everyday, oy vey
Granny couldn't get through
an hour without a dour
oy vey

the woeful phrase I recall,
though most of all, I still see her
scrubbed raw, red paws, always
clutching a tissue, to keep
the ghastly germs at bay

the ones she believed
yet survived the camps
no matter how much time
and scalding baptismal
water had flowed

though far from the filth
even farther from the ovens, safe
she still said oy vey and held the tissue tight
perhaps to keep out the night
I never had to see
oy vey, oy vey

his mate fancied himself
Dr. Watson, or even Holmes,
in a past life, but with the name,
Jamsheed Razavizadeh, his friends,
who chopped the proud pronunciation
to J-Razz, laughed at such
a great notion

not Phillip, whose one brother
had drowned only last Hallows Eve,
which made Phillip a believer
in all things

from school, his mates walked the same lane
past the spot, where his mother still lay wreaths
every Monday morn, the vicar giving her
the tired ones each Sabbath

Monday Phillip took the long way home
not wanting to see the flowers, on their own
eve of wilting, a pitiable reminder
fresh things don't last

J-Razz was the only one who walked
the long route with him, his own brother
in the loam near Tehran, drowned himself
by fire, not water

each week, the wreath lay
but a day, and the two from different mothers
would again take the shorter path, where
they would find slight solace in silence,
their journey home often
in merciful miasma
near river's edge

brushstrokes, some broad,  
some as narrow as one fine hair,  
are often red  

scarlet and scattered
across the canvas, splattered
against a crumbling wall, where,
for no rhyme or reason, the artist
may place a wilted wreath of flowers,
pallid, yellow
      
horses and people, babes
and the ancient not spared  
their share of the crimson cream  
the painter heaped munificently
on their mangled remains

Paris, Beirut, Yola yet to be painted
but there is still time: in its abundance
someone else will need only lift a hand  
to spill the ubiquitous blood      

our palettes do own other hues
black for charred crosses, white,
the lightning streaked screaming sky
but  none so plentiful as the red  
none so plentiful as the red

a refugee from wealth,
he and his Dartmouth degree found the spot
farthest from his New England roots, and the first roots
he saw there were those of a banyan tree, giant gray tentacles
piercing the Asian earth, imploring the black soil
for atonement, he thought

the natives said the tree was older than God
immortal, but cursed with some blight that bedeviled them
and that prudent pruning of ailing arms would be wise

the man had only a Swiss Army knife  
with its minuscule saw, but soon he set about the task
of trimming the behemoth, one mad millimeter at a time,
and mad was all the natives saw

this white creature, high in the canopy,
often from dawn until the sun sank in the jungle behind him
sawing away, a half branch a day, treating the gargantuan arboreal
like a prize bonsai

villagers would come, hunker, watch in the shade of the tree
once in a great while, they would see a branch crash on the ground,
at which time they cheered the pitifully patient woodsman

many offered to help, some leaving bow saws,
axes at the banyans' base, but he would have none of that
over and over he received new red knives with their tiny saws
these parcels the only mail he got

even during monsoon rains,
the man's labors did not desist
though his audience waned

appearing to defy physics' uncertain laws
the tree was nearly felled, but the man disappeared
before his colossal task was done, the locals claiming he climbed
into the thinned canopy one day and never came down

not even a well worn blade was found
allowing the witnesses to aver he was yet high in the heavens
resting after love's labor had wearied his hands  
but perchance healed his heart

Fuji, Rainier, now to Africa’s pinnacle
she followed, behind a parade of sycophants  
marching, single file behind his greatness  

few made ascents with him  
she only Fuji, on a windless day  
though others made the trek up Rainer,
surviving a blizzard that hit halfway
down  

she told her lover
his faithful must have thought his presence
imbued them with immortality  
which he seemed to possess    

maybe it did, the lover said  
seven decades and one, still *******
old mountains and young women  
and she was still there, despite
the doctors’ bleak sentence    

she was painting, moving
while she still could, a water color
of Rainier in mist, hanging in some
haunted hall in his home

now a pale pastel of Kilimanjaro
for which he would spend a fortune, to hang  
somewhere he would not spend a minute    

when her extended contract expired  
she would be ashes scattered in Big Sur  
and he would still be climbing higher  
breathing heaven’s ether, a color
she never captured  

but her signature
would be on overpriced art  
which from the start, he commissioned
to keep her from leaving without
having seen rarefied air

my cousin liked to have breakfast
at an open air café, with his fiancée, on Fridays
the owner knew she loved French breads, having
been schooled at the Sorbonne  

the bakery made them at his behest    
he would tell his staff to keep one for her
and to bring a bag when served;
she always saved half for later  

rush hour was madder than usual  
that night, until the bombs blasted
and brought the synovial silence that comes
in the wake of wondering, what
has happened?    

the sirens screamed soon enough
and my cousin smelled the smoke  
cordite, yes, but burnt baklava,
Maamoul as well  

his fiancée came to him that night  
watched and waited to hear if anyone they knew  
was lost, their hands clasped tight, breaths shallow,
in the languid hush after the city slowed
to its mournful rest  

the sun rose, the skies clear, crisp, to their surprise,
and they went to the café, where the owner apologized
for the wicked, wicked world, and for not having baguettes
after the bakery died

the Siene does not run red
Eiffel still stands, though both
a million miles farther from our hotel
than they were at our last meal

had we not had a cancelled cruise
we would be listening to blue waves'
soft song in Nice

not now, instead
we hear the sirens' cacophony
premature dirges for the dead
wails of the maimed, yet
unnamed

tomorrow, their biographies will be
in print, their families numb in disbelief
longing for belief

and wishing numbers could be
reversed: 11-13-15, 9-11-01, 12-07-41
or perhaps AD plus one

when will this end, and
how much farther from Eve's
curious breach can we fall

I met him, a week short
of being a teen, his number one-three celebrated
on Labor Day that year

his father wanted him to understand
how the "A" word would impact his life
in a peopled world

I agreed, and soon
he explained tachyons, photons,
and other “on”s I can't recall, in my
twenty months as his "healer"

he needed no catcher in the rye
to keep him from falling off the cliff
for edges did not apply to him

not in his world of curved
space and time, quantum quarks, and
pleasing cosmic rhyme

when it came to the bend
in time when we were to say goodbye
he could not understand we would not
meet again, though he was leaving
city and state

for him, minutes, hours, days
were shapes and sounds I could not hear--no
I would never come near, seeing beyond
Newton's silly spheres

but he could escape
the gruesome grip of gravity
without blinking an eye

my final entry in his file,
was the "A" word he would need
fear: Adult, not Autistic

the roller’s creamy caress of the wall,  
a few brush strokes in close corners, trim
requiring the greatest finesse of all    
at that art I am past master,
but hell, it’s mostly plaster    

I would love to create a corner café  
its neon lights a beacon in the night  
for those in insomnia’s grip  

or fashion a woman sipping coffee
from her favorite cup, in her favorite easy chair
finicky feline purring in her lap--and I don’t
even like cats

Hopper, Munch, a thousand more
whose canvasses speak a million words
I would trade all but one of the years I have left  
to make palettes scream, or sit silent
in their beautiful despair  

instead I’ll crank out “Times New Roman” art  
black and white characters without sense or scent,  
sensing the reader will yearn for less, the oil’s
shallow relief so much more fecund
than my “deep” words  

‘tis not to be, for me  
I will have to settle for Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore
and try my best to not spill too much on the floor

his old arm points west,
so weighted with years, his crooked
finger aims down, to the cracked ground
more than to the setting sun

thrice in eighty plantings,
he's seen these droughts drench
the thirsty earth with white fire
but this one, he swears upon
creation, is the worst

holy houses fill with prayer
for rain--the man says this is in vain,
though the good lord hears all entreaties
he has always been miserly
with his mercies

this shall pass
he avers, but he doubts
he will see another warm summer rain
his baptismal to come as wind
from the scorched plains, one
that scatters but dry seeds for
tomorrow's harvest moons

tucked away in milky grey folds
of a blanket she cannot shed, bled dry
of hope, she hides

not once in this blue moon
has she smiled, made love, or
had Haagen Dazs, her last
drug of choice

for eons, she hasn’t moved
a muscle, but inside, the command center
is writing recipes she won't  
have the appetite to cook

if she could will herself
to sleep, to abandon forever
circadian clocks, she would

but that won't happen--she
would need to be truly alive
to really die