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

the words won’t come out…
it’s as if they have shut my metaphorical spout--
truly nothing verbally fruitful will sprout
maybe I am having a protracted senior moment
where nothing creative will attempt to foment
perhaps I really never had anything important to write
or my neurons have given up the fight
and my imagination has taken flight
and left me with thoughts of where to go for lunch
or whether I’ve had an accurate hunch
about where the market will close tomorrow
sad that I once could write on the nature of the Tao
and now scribble numbers about the falling Dow
tomorrow may bring more creative flow
but for now I’ll decide where for dinner I will go

her parents would have nothing to do with the z,
naming her Elisa Beth

which few got right in her 65 seasons, for their habit
molded an EliZabeth every time  

we presume it mattered not to Elisa, Elisa Beth, because she was
born blind and deaf

her record of birth got it right, but her social
security card did not,

the checks were cashed by caretakers, who cared not
whether the letter snaked or zagged

her parents' obits also claimed they were survived by
an only daughter, EliZabeth

when she "met her reward," some two years past
there was no legacy in print

save a death certificate, which again blasphemed
her appellation with the alphabet's final figure

but on her gravestone, curiously, she was Elisabeth once more,
though what flat, mute slab could even such a score?

just another day, this eve of May
with April's abnegation of her title, the queen of time
just another day, when the mother marked an "X" on the calendar,
holding her breath with hope, her coffee in one hand
and the red pen in the other, the hand she used to make two slashes
to bring your boy a fraction closer to home

he was to arrive alive and well in a fortnight,
neatly packaged, like a belated  mother's day gift
a reasonable thing to expect, the eve of May,
since you, his father, had arrived the same way,
after her same hand, younger, more dream driven,
had brought you home with the same crosses

but you, the man for whom she waited, all those eves ago
were wrapped neatly only long enough to see April's thirty crosses,
May's eager ambitious start, and you came unwrapped,
leaving your uniform on the bedroom floor
in a heavy heap you said reminded you of what you left behind,
not in the steaming stench of Mekong’s paddies,
but in the quiet lanes of your hometown,
in the high school where you met her, the church where you married
and where you were sure you would be buried

‘twas not yet to be so, your eve of May passed,
along with thirty five more, though you were there,
walking the same streets, to you, the crumpled green garments
were still in a heap on the floor, even though
she had buried them in a drawer years before
you did not mark off the days, for they made you
wonder if their end meant your homecoming
and not his, an infidelity you felt

you watched March march by, and April finally relent
when “they” came to the door, neatly packaged themselves,
***** and filled with well formed words--you did not hear them,
though you saw their lips move, and you watched
your wife walk past, to the ancient kitchen,
the kingdom of the calendar,
and make a final "X" this eve of May
just another day, when another mother's son  
who was crucified in the desert
would become a mystic memory

I carried you
through a minefield, past ***** traps;
though the mortars lobbed their lethal loads
and the rifles spat speeding streams of death,
all was silent, until we reached the end of the field,
and I lay you on the grass

you thanked me, and asked me
to hold you--you were so cold, you said
I put my arms around you, and looked back
across the field--a stretch of fire now, blazing
the night sky, casting eternal light on you and me,
two young brothers I spied, prostrate,
still, on the other side of the field
we had crossed…still

on the other side

they acted as if I was not there  
alone with my elbows on Formica, only six feet from their booth    
she said she wished his mother was not moving to town  
“I wish she had not outlived Dad” he said,
his eyes looking through the window  
like he expected to see her appear  
or perhaps, through the old glass, he saw his father
stretched out in a dark pressed suit, silent, supine  
while his mother sat tall in the first pew  
feigning agony for the loss
of something she never found  
her face hidden in her hands
while the priest prayed, and
spoke of the man he did not know,
one who had only come to his church  
after time had silenced his days  
and the embalming fluid filled his veins  
but mother wanted the mass  
mother wanted a glistening casket
a shining home he would not even see  
“Dad did not believe”  
“I know” she said,
stroking his hand that held an indifferent cup
from which he had not drunk a drop  
“I know, but it was for the family”  
“*******, we are the family” he said,
pulling away, sitting upright in his own pew  
again looking through the glass  
I knew, he must have been back
with his father, when they sat
together for the feast,
or that moment in time when his father  
released his grip from the bicycle
for the first and final time
setting him free to spin down the roads
his father knew too well, perhaps
even the one that ended in this café  
where on a mournful Monday  
he and his wife would lament loss
over unbroken bread, and let a stranger
hear their tormented tale

we
all sit by the tree, waiting
taking a grave stroll now and then
seeking the moment
between past and future perfect
but all return to the tree
to wait for Godocalypse

many are sure he will arrive
and some believe they will be alive
swooped up by some magical mystical hand
to a permanent never never land
four horsemen will gallantly gallop by
their demon defying dust powdering a skeptical sky
but the unwashed will be “left behind”
relying on the wretched rest of mankind
anticipating the cataclysm and the clash
and a singular blinding flash
seven years of trials and tribulation
and I suspect a Jew-less jubilation
if the ultimate One does arrive

for now, we all
(jew-gentile-heathen-hindu-buddhist-muslim-infidel-gay-straig­ht-rich-poor-black-white)
sit by the tree
waiting for Godocalypse

that's the road trip
the boy wanted, once he discovered
the universe was that big

he asked Dad, the closest
god he could find, what was outside
that 93 billion light years

the father did not know
but was open to the notion vast space
was but a bubble

one the lad saw in his bath water
the night before; a mystic mass the boy tried to grasp
but vanished with a finger's touch

I found you, in a stack of photos:
the 2D you, I can't touch, taste or smell

the first thing that came to mind was sharing a joint with you and spilling the chocolate ice cream cone on your skin-******* shorts

and sneaking into the Woolworth bathroom, and our freaked frenzied scrubbing of fabric with nimble fingers and pink powdered hand soap

and how we couldn't stop laughing
until a woman older than time caught us
before we could consummate

which we did after running the entire
200 yards to my van, wet white shorts in your hand, with me looking over my shoulder for imagined narcs and other freedom snatchers

when we finished, we shared my last Winston, blowing smoke rings in the gathering gloom

your shorts were dry, and our high
had worn off--you didn't kiss me goodbye when I dropped you off

between your pad and mine,
I hit a black mongrel pup wandering on the dark asphalt

I scooped him off the road
with my hands; lifeless, light he was...

I found you, in that stack of ancient
photos--that was the day we conceived a son, one you had shredded in a doctor's office for $300 in illegal tender

I see the messy ice cream, your naked nineteen year old flesh,  smoke rings disappearing, the poor mutt dying

though not for lack of trying, I can't see the child you had executed in utero--without trial, judge or jury, save an elusive dream
of freedom

Albuquerque, 1967

he runs not for the finish line
for he knows the setting sun is
only a melting chat between dark and light
between dreamy sleep and wakeful flight

his eyes tell a tale not of what he has seen
but of what lives in the space between
what can be and what cannot
and what can be sensed, but not taught

when we speak to him of earthly ways
and our conscious counting of finite days
his eyes can only partially conceal
what dreams we are about to steal

our chiseling chatter is meant to teach
but his drifting dreams are beyond our reach
and one day soon he will slowly awake
to the sorrowful sound we are forced to make
when we cunningly convince him his race must end
and that all his dreamy glory was just pretend

left her standing at the altar
though 'twas not his fault

his ship was to arrive the day before
but a U-boat sunk it off Iceland

prompting louts to make
light of his dark fate

saying he failed to make it to this chapel,
because he got cold feet

Londonderry Port, Ireland, 1917

the sea had shown me mercy,
though I had asked for none
it had been cruelly benevolent
oblivious to my pious intentions

instead of a pummeled, pocked and putrid body
I stood ironically whole on the soggy sand
on a parched piece of land
with only sharp rocks for companions

so now rather than a few wretched gasps and gulps
and a smooth blue descent to sleepless sleep
I could slowly bake red on this barren isle
and be a feast for ***** after an eternal while

hitchhiking was common
in the summer of love
guess we thought we were guarded
from evil
by some mystical power above

my thumb was my plea
to generous humanity
to carry me to glorious heights
and other ethereal sights

many souls obliged me
both young and old
only wanting to be told
where I had been and where I wanted to go
for we were all part of life’s flow

so it went for many a dreamy mile
and after only a little while
I began to think nirvana could be achieved
as long as we all believed
in the love we called free

until one summer night
when my thumb was seen
by him
by him
in his old Olds
with his slick head of hair
why
did he
turn right on that desert road
that wasn’t the way to…
why did he…?

he stopped the car by a shallow ravine
where it could not possibly be seen
by other dreamers under the same dark skies
and pointed the blue stinking steel barrel
at my shaking face
“out, out!”
out, out brief candle I wondered?

I did not run, not from his gun
and when he pulled a shovel from his mysterious trunk
I can only remember that something sunk
my young heart? drum like pounding
and his vile voice sounding
like I would imagine an imp from hell

he leaned the shovel against the car door
and was about to ask my body for more
until I grabbed the grave digger with a frantic paw
and swung it wildly until I saw
him lying in the hard desert dirt
with his greasy head starting to squirt
the blood
the blood…
(later I wondered
who else shared this blood?)
but on that night
and in that dream
I only remember the blood
turning the sand from gray to black
and him lying on his back
and weak feeble gasps from his foul mouth
and me silencing his guttural pleas
with another blow
and another
and another
until
he was still

my arms ached when the sun began to rise
and I finally could open my eyes
to see him nowhere to be found
(except under the gritty ground)
and my deed was done

I awake
again and again
to wonder
where I really was the night before
and if there was really such a thing as settling a score
with the man who opened my childlike eyes
or for me, who closed his
forever

three years I worshipped
in the red brick cathedrals
by the ugliest lake on the planet,
but I was cast out of the holy halls,
with mounds of Mellaril, and other sacred potions in pill form  
to see the “outreach caseworker”, though I never knew
what she was reaching for  

my husband had divorced me,
both my sons were in Dallas, dealing cards
at Wall Street casinos,  holding the aces for themselves or a chosen few,
like I really knew anything about what  
filled their days  

my sister took me in,
fed me finger foods, had her maid bathe me  
and invited the ghosts from my past into her house  
they all hugged me and told me how nice my hair looked  
now that I was no longer yanking it out by the fist full  
and choking on it as it went down    

they smelled of sycophantic scents from Macy’s
and Neiman Marcus, and I longed for the odor of my cellmate,
who had to be submerged in a steaming sea once a week, after
they had pumped enough of Morpheus’ brew in her to
mellow a mammoth    

I missed her, and her truculent silence
and the way her arms writhed in her jacket,
like so many snakes squirming to be free,
or perhaps those were the last sin eating serpents
in their death throes, but I would never know
for in 1000 days and 1000 nights, her jacket
was never removed, for the white ones feared what  
black storm waited inside, so they allowed it to hide  
someplace in her fetid carcass  

now when I look across the charcoal stillness
of my room, cluttered with dead distractions,
I imagine her there, on her cot, producing anthems
on mad marching afternoons, or singing lullabies
in evenings last gasps, all without making a sound,  
then my eyes well with tears, for I know
she would miss me too, and worry
what I was doomed to hear and smell
now that her mystic music and stench
were stolen from me

Langston* said what happens
when dreams don't come true:
they fester, stink, or explode

but hell, hear what I say
colored girls ain't got no dreams,
what we got is schemes to make it
from here 'til tomorrow

and we don't drown saggin'
sorrow in gin, or the big H--least ways
not all of us do

it's true, the man done piled
on ****, high as it can be stacked on us
but we don't all ride no pity bus

the streets don't weep for the weak
or those of us who spread our legs to get us
a baby--a toy all our own

cause when he's all grown, he ain't
goin' be there to fill our empty bellies
or make us proud

so go on say it loud:
black girls don't need nobody
show 'em the way

and one day, we goin'
take what's ours--we just don't expect
to reach for no stars

we be fine with settlin'
for someone callin' us by name
and not feelin' no **** shame

Covenant Avenue, Harlem, 1968

you did not recognize me
I am glad you did not  
maybe you did not see me,
standing by the salad bar,
sentry over the slaughtered greens
but I think you did,
when your blue eyes met mine
they did not pause  
surely they would have
if you knew it was I  
my blonde hair about which you wrote verse
is now as gray as the winter sky
the same sky that gave us cause
to hide in your cozy room
roll in each other’s arms
and believe those silky moaning moments
would last forever
forever, though we never said that word
I  w h i s p e r e d  it, watching you sleep  
knowing your dreams were not of me,
perhaps they were of the mountains you climbed,
the men you had to ****, the mother you never had
whose ******* my own could never replace
but you cradled and caressed them
like they were treasure,
like you had supped from them
and they sustained you
and allowed you the exquisite vulnerability
I saw in your young eyes
forever, I must have whispered
but  
you were of another time,
barely older than my spawn
and now under florescent  firmament
with other anonymous dreamers drifting by
pausing only long enough
to choose their own fruit or bread
I watch you become smaller with each step
watching you again with a w h i s p e r  
forever,
forever,
though you did not know
who I was
on this...winter's eve

I have nothing to say
because nothing is new under the sun
except sunburn

from which I may get
vitamin D, cataracts, wrinkles
and maybe skin cancer

that stole the life
of my fair cousin, one fleshy slab
at a time

so she had abbreviated time
to finish her one long tome about five years
in Morocco

where she had taken
a French lover, who took his life with her pistol
and left a suicide poem

blaming her in iambic pentameter
for his demise, but leaving his small fortune
to her just the same

giving her time, she assumed,
to write her memoirs--unlike I, she had
plenty to say

but there is nothing new
under the sun, except sunburn, which gave me
a tan, and her a death sentence

so now neither of us has anything to say

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

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
withdrawing,
allowing
p­eeks
into
dreamless
darkness,
practicing
for
nothingness

too old to walk
the aides wheeled him into the sunshine each day, for their peace of mind  
his eyes were clear, one gray but the other as blue as a robin's egg  
he cackled more than talked though everyone understood what he said
which helped get him rolled onto the lonely concrete each morn,
in all weathers

I came Thursdays to see my aunt, on the way to the office
I, her only heir and she still owned the office, the firm yet bearing her husband's name, his first name the only word that came from her mouth the last two years, some strange protein eating her cortex, her body playing a cruel joke on her by keeping her organs pumping away masterfully....she didn't even **** her pants at ninety minus one

when they wheeled her out beside the cackler
he began his sermons, citing chapter and verse
usually from books I had not read--he also said,
for every hour you read, you add 89 minutes to your life
fishing, he said, was for fools who wanted to live forever;
he would settle for purchased words
and the 29 minutes in change

he had stopped reading with both colored eyes he claimed,  
but he calculated he had added seven years, three months, and four days to his life, and he would, unless he took up reading again, leave the earth seven Thursdays from when he told me the tale--then he began quoting Melville I think, if he is the one who hung the poor stuttering Billy Budd

I kept returning Thursdays to ignore my aunt and listen to his words
and when he was yet alive on the seventh one, I asked if this was the day,
"the day for what?" he replied, and he began his cackled verses, from Poe, or Updike or maybe Hemingway when a bull died mid sentence, and  
my aunt SPOKE that day, telling him goodbye

he was not there the next Thursday,
but neither was I

the jagged edges which gashed
his bare feet on the trash trove of shore by his trailer
slashed the folds of his memory as well

he chooses to tell no tales of that
hungry, motherless time--sharp years when he prayed
his dad would be passed out when he got home

and he usually was, there
on the cat **** sofa, splayed out like some beached whale
while he scavenged for food, and old pop bottles

a lifetime now from those foul filled days
he is a continent away, yet living on the shore,
with a fat portfolio and thin wife

who both protect him from "intrusive thoughts,"
though still he hunts for treasures on the sands, not
the nickel returns that bought his daily bread

instead, he seeks more ancient relics, glass
made smooth by the round chisel of time--soft, cool, full of color,
with no recollection of the fire that forged it

the only sounds, the sloshing of our jungle boots  
and a cricket symphony

the air affluent with the odor of  the paddies  
oxen dung, rice-rich stagnant water

a lone golden cloud I see has two lives--one in the western sky;
another on the water’s face

and it suffers two fates, in unison, as light fades, while sky
births crimson before it morphs to black    

in its silent death throes, I see the cloud melt from the heavens
but on the water its departure is less graceful    

blurred, convulsive from our mad marching, our soles slaughtering
a would be perfect reflection of  firmament

by a great churning sea
said to have no memory
we passed a sunny afternoon
and a blue cold dusk
like pacific pilgrims in a new land
making our first prints on ****** sand
but
what we bravely said in the fading light
quickly sifted into the eyeless night

what dreams we painted
long ago became tainted
by ambiguous ambitions with dollar signs
and other equally jaded earthly designs
that did not clutter or cloud our speech
on that seemingly primeval beach
where all still seemed within reach

now I have but a colored frame
and likely only me to blame
for falling farther from Eden with each passing day
when I repress what we three had to say
on a sandy summer shore
in the land that is no more

we took turns toking,
holding the tent pole up
while the rain battered
the canvas

dawn crawled
over the great rocks;
a synovial silence
after the storm

still ******
we finally succumbed  
to sleep, for an eternal
minute  

until awakened by Huns
on horses, hoof beats ricocheting  
off the hard stones, echoing
in the canyons

worse than that thunder,
the eerie emanations riding
the backs of the staccato waves
from the beasts’ shod feet    

words flung from the riders’ tongues
slapping our ears, bedeviling our weary wits,
these time traveling tricksters, transporting    
us to a world at war

Hueco Tanks, Texas, July, 1969

for I ate all my peas,
minded my masters at school,
then learned to march manly,
and straight

to these trenches
that surely are maps of hell;
if there be such a place
beyond here

in this dead, grey pasture,
pocked by shells, and body parts
strewn about like pieces of a puzzle
that don't fit

Father said go, make England
proud, but I know you would not wish
this fate for me, or any of the children hiding
in these pits, waiting for the command

to become fodder for the Gatling gun,
the cannon; you would shed cataracts
of tears for all of us, if ghosts above
yet weep for the living

the ****** who will soon join you,
though none know when; surely you
will hear me cry your name, the way I have
seen them all do, with their last breath

she sits by her window to write,
ever fond of the morning light;
not a day passes when she fails
to pen an epistle to him

she envisions him pulling
the missives from his saddle bags
perusing them a second time, a third,
admiring her chancery cursive

a year now since she saw him:
steady on his steed, his regiment
waiting, eager to join the fray, to ride
north under his proud command

perhaps at eventide, she will
write another letter, in case she
forgot anything she intended to say
this morn, or just to reach out again
before the setting of the sun

a cloud passes as she signs
her name, another as she folds
the paper; soon it seems, a gathering
storm--she places the letter in the
envelope, its traveling home

she turns the candle to pour
the wax, then presses the seal;
another story from her to him
ready for its long journey

the stroll from her room
to the mantel in the parlor
to the pile of paper that grows
higher above the hearth

a cold cavern of late, for
without him, she eschews all
things warm--for she knows
he must be freezing in the
cruel ground where he fell

(Spartanburg, South Carolina, Winter, 1863)

the skulk was mostly *****

hens were haunted by either gender

the farmer's wife also feared them

though small and they ran from most two-legged beasts

the farmer shot the foxes for sport--guarding chickens not his concern with a thousand acres in corn

the farmer's son had trapped a red Reynard

it perished in captivity, starving itself

the night of the caged fox's demise, the rooster crowed tirelessly

for good reason, since the leash gobbled a dozen hens under a waning gibbous moon

the creatures prosecuted a moral symmetry it seemed

while the farmer was febrile with the grippe, the son fast asleep, and the wife dared not make a peep

witnessing a crimson carnage she likened to war

in its aftermath, a naked sun rose on waves of white feathers and scarlet trails of blood

perhaps 'tis not good to trap a wild thing, the farmer's wife mused

then she made her way to the coops, fetching enough eggs for breakfast

all the while the skulk watched from the thick brush

watched and waited, without will as we know it

but with a red reckoning ready, should they again be victims

of man's folly and sin

I could say I understand
and I do say "I understand,"
with my Oscar winning voice
with my imploring eyes that ask you
for more, while subtly looking, at your crusted scars
I imagine some catatonic feline, curled
in your gut, waiting stoically to make the next cut
the next surgically precise silent scream
joined by other equally ferocious growls
that only you can hear, if you are lucky enough for them
to drown out the howls of your heaving heart
I can say "I know what you feel,"
you with your sacred steel
I can wipe the blood from your thighs
I can smell the stale silence of your cries
all the while looking through your soaking soul
mercilessly forgetting, your slicing red chants,
were meant to awaken a deaf mute world

I dreamed
of your funeral
someone told me
to remove my hat,
in such scared space
with all those amputated flowers,
***** pipe moans, and
necromancing neckties

you spoke; you assured me
I did not have to expose
my naked head, or any other secrets
for you knew them all, as did those
among whom you now "walked"

others yet stared at me
with chastising eyes
admonishing me to uncover my head
for I was still among them they said…

they could not hear you or feel your breath
making the hairs stand on the back of my neck,
if they could, they would have let me be

they would have known
you did not demand truth
it was all around you, and even stripped of my hat
and forced to endure the sun's glaring revelations  
we woeful walkers would yet be in darkness,
in this waking dream, imagining light
from a place that had none  
I dreamed of your funeral…

the third day of spring, pear blossoms fall like snowflakes
then disappear in the new grass

this blanket coming green after a russet winter
during which the old man took shovel to earth
to bury her last Retriever

the runt of the litter, yet it grew strong
and outlived her by only a fortnight, after sniffing her dormant beds, lying at the foot of her lawn chair

as if the canine divined where he last saw her:

lounging in the yard, reading Dickinson under early March light,
sipping a mint tea, scratching the pet's ears;

she passed there, under the same trees, winter's survivors
not yet in bloom

though full of budding promise, unrealized, unseen, but there even as they lay her in the ground

in your dark eyes
disguised
as stardust
is spirit rust

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

the same, again, again

I am in the bunker
the wire is crawling with them
like so many black clad snakes
spewing venom at my brothers and at me
and I am out of ammo, my M16 magazines
empty, caked with mud

everyone is looking to me
for salvation, for a salvo of rounds
at the VC, and I find a twenty two
Ruger pistol, the same one I used
to **** a buzzard for sport, one
sinful desert day; and now I aim
at the enemy, firing over
and over, hitting them
dead center, but they
keep coming

I never run out of rounds
but the impotence of my fire
burns inside me--I reach for my empty M16,
but it's still empty--they keep coming

even when I wake, even when
the morning sun has blotted out
the black dream

they keep coming
I keep reaching, reaching
for the empty gun

I need to write a letter, in curling cursive blue,
and mail it to me, it doesn't matter what the words say
I just want to see them scrawled on the page, to remind me
I am seventy minus eight, and my symmetry in script
is increasingly askew

I know this
when I press ******* the pen,
when I fold the paper, lick the envelope,
and drop it in the blue metal world where its flat life
commingles with strangers until it comes back to my red and white box,
into my black and white life, where the average of the two is gray,
the growing, groping color of my beard,
and the hair on my heaving chest.

I need not even open it to know I have forgotten
what secrets I writ...the name and address suffice,
showing me not who I be or where I be, but how slanted and sloping
my world has become, no matter how vainly I endeavor to keep things straight,
of late, and more tomorrow, my dysgraphic lines
tell the truer tale, in the simple scribbled letter
I wrote to me

thirty years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty 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

paler than her skin, was the scar
on her chin, a two inch memory phantom
at a forty-five degree angle

that, I recall most of all,
the lady beside me at the deli, the Saturday
before my daughter was born

I know I looked at her twice
in the flash of time it took to order,
two pastramis on rye

both of which went to ruin
since my wife went into labor
the moment we sat to eat

we made it to the hospital
in twenty minutes, though I don't remember the ride,
my hands on the wheel, the traffic lights

we hit every one, my wife said,  
yellow then red, and those were perhaps a portent,
an omen of what was to come:

thirty hours of breathing, heaving,
fetal distress, a caesarean section, a beautiful
daughter, who lived thirty minutes

I can't usually see her face, except
when I close my eyes to sleep, and then
as a small circle floating above our bed

her visage smooth, baby pink, full of light,
though it lingers but a moment, before I see the scar
on the woman's chin, the meal uneaten