from the sizzling southwestern sun
we stepped into the beer stenched shadows
of the Blue Agave Lounge
left lizards in the street but there were plenty inside
lurking in dark corners, their bodies draped like the dead
faces in pools of beer on ancient formica

we were killin' time
and brain cells
and any lingering ambitions
that lurked in our dark corners

on the wall behind the bar
was a "Felix Garcia" original
some desert artist
who doubtless killed some of his own time
in the blue shadows
of the Agave

the painting, unblemished by the dying around it
was of a schooner
white masts full in blue skies
rolling on purple waves
headed to some blind horizon
far from the Blue Agave

drunken eyes digested this
and perchance wondered
if it reached some blissful port
or took men to a deeper doom

if we could only ask Felix
but he is not to be found
and he may not know
for in the Blue Agave
hidden from the light of day
dreams are drenched in darkness
and tomorrow is a land the lizards fight to forget

the man in the fine suit
gave me three hard quarters--those Washingtons were smiling at me, waiting to be swallowed by the machines at Horn and Hardart's Automat, where

there was but one old lady
standing, still as a statue, in front of a machine
her reflection on the glass staring back at her,
a haunting twin, from a different

mother. I could taste those ham sandwiches
waiting, but when that first quarter chinked its way into that dispenser, the old woman and her reflection turned to me, hungry

for something I couldn't taste;
so I gave her my other quarters, and hurried
into the night, chewing my food,
still hungry when done, but far
from her tired eyes, far

no bison on the menu
at the Buffalo; this diner
never served it  

Big Mike, long gone
named it for the high shelf  
on the prairie behind it  

where Lakota learned
to stampede beasts over the edge, massacring
hordes without bow or sweat

the gully below,
their forgotten bone yard,
left little trace of them

save half a skull
Mike exhumed and hung on the wall
in the time of polio

before the wide whizzing interstates
when truckers still landed on his dusty lot  
their rolling behemoths content in pasture

in a new millennium, the cafe highway is but
an accidental detour; the shack guarded by thistles,
long departed the Detroit steel

the truckers now in the ground, their bones
free from pillage, but the Cyclops on the wall remains,
eyeing the vacant prairie they all once roamed

I do not know why you moved to this side  
long ago, before your city became a **** zone  
maybe you knew something I did not  
you knew many things I did not, which I discovered
when you politely corrected my grammar  
though it was my native tongue,
and one you learned reading our newspapers,
watching our television
listening, more carefully than most,
to what the gringos said  
you told me tales of the arena,
usually after dinner, on your back porch  
when the shadow of the mountain covered our houses
like a quiet blanket, blocking out the blistering heat
of the desert day  
you would offer me a soda, always  
before my questions began  
your civility was strange to me at first,
the adults in my family barked and cackled  
your words rolled out like sweet liquid  
and left me wanting more  
I never asked why you had no woman,
you were as handsome as any man I knew  
later, years later, years of name calling later
I guess I understood,  maybe
that was why you left your home  
though the blind blood of bigotry
ran freely on both sides of the Rio Grande
and I knew you to be courageous
for when you told me the stories,
as the desert sky became violet and cool,  
and the few cicadas began their song,  
you boasted not of your dangerous dance
in the packed dirt of the ring,
but of the art it took to silence the beast  
the lost look in its red *** eyes
and the silent sadness you felt  
as the crowd cheered
another beautiful death

near the surface,
just beneath the sounds of our feet
among the bones, are arrowheads
maybe a spent cartridge from the bluecoats
who brought a strange thunder,
disturbing the a cappella birdsong,
deeper
hidden in eons of darkness, unperturbed,
until now, by the shallow, scratching efforts
of the creatures above,  
a black organic soup, remnants of plants
and animals who once breathed  
like we, we who now voraciously drill
through the tired but tenacious skin  
to reach a rich marrow, one we resurrect
to blaspheme in our mobile ovens
and scatter ashes
on a deaf and dying rock  

Post Script:
The earth never forgets.
Whatever we do to ****** it is recorded, often in ways undecipherable to man, but etched  permanently somehow, somewhere.
Does the earth seek revenge?
Or is it retribution, or a reckoning?
Anything that has the power to recall every act in infinite detail and in perpetuity has the potential to respond.
Maybe a propensity to respond?  
Is the earth an angry god?
I do not know, but
the earth never forgets.

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

she brings him tea,
a piece of cheese late morn  
for he has been toiling since dawn  
his plane shaving the wood reverently
the old oak speaking, though not complaining,
in a language the man does not understand  
a coughing code for loss, forbearance, acceptance,
redemption, he hopes, for the boys keep coming…
first from Ypres, the Verdun,
now the Marne    

before, he heaved hewn planks
for the hopeful homes, built their pantries
to be filled with the bread, the kind milk  
now the sawn boards are for those who once
watched his labors, but no longer hear the simple
sounds of sanding, sawing
or anything at all  

most of the lads do not come home,
their souls and bodies left to rot on the blood sullied grass  
or buried shallow, naked in the French soil, but all get a fine coffin  
thanks to the carpenter’s wife, whose babe was the first to fall,
who demands for them all, a holy horizontal home to be built  
and, empty or not, placed gently in Anglican ground

her husband
was not named Schrödinger  
though many days they did not know
if the cat was dead or alive  

now and then  
an offering, usually a small sparrow,
was found on the porch, and she complained
not once of mischievous mice  

from her kitchen window,
hunched over a ***, or mixing lemonade,
she would spot the black and white creature,
(who never was given a name, not even by three farm sons)  
stalking imagined prey across the yard,  
under the swing set, or in the corner  
by the white picket fence    

she could remember the day  
the neighbor brought two kittens,
asking her to choose--it was snowing lightly
she chose the smaller of the two  
the civil thing to do

she rarely saw
when it lapped up the milk she left,
or licked clean the plate with sardines  
but she knew it was he, taking a light repast,
a sabbatical from great mysterious hunts
in the green barn, or by the cellar door  

the boys were all in school then,
full of pink color, noise, and often
covered with rich dirt  

one by one they left…
pneumonia took the youngest
a day when the cat sat, statuesque,
by their black 1940 Ford    

the eldest
disappeared on a Saturday, into a lake
where large mouth bass were plentiful
and the waters clean, until his friends saw him dive
into the depths, not to be seen again before Tuesday,  
when his bloated body decided to come up for air and light  
the same day she saw the cat skitter up the lone oak
in the front yard  

the middle, her most quiet  
said goodbye from the bus depot,
saluting them as he turned to the bus door  
a year to the day before he was shot through the throat
on some horrid hunk of rock named “Iwo Jima”  
the cat was nowhere to be found that day  
but she swore she heard him meowing
all the night after they put her baby
in the silent soil  

her husband got the cancer
and drifted off on a Christmas eve
to some pasture she saw in the snowy sky
when they put him in the ground, the cat  
made no sound, though she saw him
faintly, moving in some faraway  
fallow field, following his own
soundless dreams

I
am
a creature
who
dwells
in
the
trench
Mariana
I
do
not
breathe
as
you
I
have
no
ears,
tears,
or
fears
I
do
not
love,
nor
hate
no serpent
tempted
my
kin  
I
came
before
sin
I
need
no
salvation

in the clouds, he saw
the face of god--heavy brow, two eyes, nose, mouth,
and long gray beard; then only one eye, nose,
half a mouth, as sunlight

shafts illuminating the visage,
began melting it away, until only
an eye remained, one he yet claimed
was god, watching

over us, deciding  
whether lightning would strike, or skies would clear blue,
revealing heavens he believed awaited us all
for the fall meant nothing to him

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

the only jeans with holes,
the polo shirt with "passionate peach" paint
from the kitchen remodel she wanted, the yard work shoes
these were the raiments he chose for his final drive, the one in "park"
in the garage, with the engine idling, its humming a monotonous lullaby
sung by compliant pistons

he wandered through the house
like a sated forager, looking at everything, for nothing,
old pictures on the walls--children, parents, one of himself,
the Yale mortar board tilting on a face who could
have been a stranger, and was, that last afternoon
books on shelves, mostly read, their stories now forgotten
even Moby ****, his favorite--eight silent vertical letters
replacing a white whale he relentlessly pursued with Ahab
a sink with one small plate and the disposal's shining ring,
the burial ground for his last, uneaten meal

those were the visions he chose
before writing his notorious note,
"BYE, ALL MY PAPERS ARE IN THE ROLL TOP"
taking the keys from the peg, and taking his final steps
into the cluttered gray garage, to his 2011 Volvo

when some hand turned the key,
igniting a welcoming flame, a few intrusive notes
of a Beatles song came through the six speaking speakers
yanking something in his gut, pulling his hand
to the handle to open the door, to return to the house,
the pictures, the stories on the walls, but the other,
the right hand, ejected the CD, rejecting the beguiling voices
that would have him stay, for another dull, deaf day

he folded his hands in his lap,
allowed his chin to rest on his chest
where his eyes could see the holes in his threadbare denim
taking solace in the fact that he had chosen the right clothes
so those still in the house, yet in the blur called life
would have only whole and clean reminders of him
to fold neatly, and leave on the porch
for the Salvation Army

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

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

what grand abstraction
lies behind your words,
word weaver extraordinaire?
I see only a concrete grid,
a stenciled number, and glass bulb tears
some evidence of your years--tire tread trails, a pothole here and there
a worn fence to keep intruders at bay
but no cars resting
is that why you weep?
does being alone
with your number take its toll?
if I stroll your pages,
will the answer be revealed?
or will I yet be wandering
on an empty asphalt plain
trying vainly to gain, access
to some invisible door?
could you not have named your tale
with more banal words?
could the hero not have been
a John Doe sweeping the weeping lot
or a Mary Doe painting a happy ending?
was not to be,
I see, for
when I begin to absorb the light
of your pages,
I forget the tome’s beguiling name
and what the crying lot once had to say

the car seemed to be gliding on glass
the last inconvenient instant before impudent impact  
the mangled mass of metal and his black crisp body
a spectacle for the masses, all 4 of them  
2 volunteer fire fighters and 2 EMTs
later, his father, blind now in one eye
from America’s diabetes, had Ramona  
drive him to the spot, to the dead oak
as big around as an oil barrel  
dead long before Paul’s 1996 Ford Escort
decided to take a go at it  
daddy had to see the place  
that infinite space between  
yesterday and the tomorrow
that would never come, even though
he had already seen, through his one good eye
his boy’s charred carcass at the county morgue  
resting on a silver slab, the clean and cold bed  
where he would spend his last night
before the fiery furnace,
Ramona and he could keep his ashes
no need for a big service, no money for one either  
but Dub, “Paul's boss down to the auto parts store,”  
opened his wallet as wide as it would go
for the cremation and a nice urn  
Paul would be missed, by Daddy and Dub  
and once in a great while, in the fast and furious world
of the flat gray town where he lived and died  
someone would ask, whatever happened to
that old boy at the auto parts store  
the one who limped a bit as he walked,
the one who rarely talked but always
smiled through his yellow teeth
when he placed the goods carefully
on the counter

Desert and mountains merge into brown haze
in my recollection of those days.
The smell of gunpowder or paupers' fires
could ignite a conflagration of memories
if I would not extinguish them
which I do.
But one burns ever clear, even in the fickle fog of memory
—the mongrel and her pups
scrounging for scraps around our camp
and the Afghan village below.
We watched them in their scavenging and their play
until one crystal blue and frigid day
when Randy captured the runt of the bunch
and fed her some of his meager lunch,
and placed her inside his jacket
where she slipped into rabbit chasing sleep
and did not make a peep
until I heard her whimper
as the bullet that sliced through her gut
lodged itself in Randy’s young heart.

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

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

leaving tracks in morning dew
to and from the scattered grain

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

where I found fawn gutted
by the mythic mountain lion

I did not believe existed,
until that morn

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

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

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

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

(Cross Timbers, Texas, 1991)

the boy leaned his head back
and proclaimed the clouds looked like
a dog in a pond

when in his three years had he seen
a dog in a pond? who taught him you could see
anything in the heavens?  

trees spouting marshmallow blossoms  
white angels in a kangaroo choir, dragons
breathing scarlet fire   

who would tell him he saw but vapor
and light? who could make his hound drown
by ******* dry such a beautiful blue?

blue moon, once in
your light, I will be
shed of the heat of this day
free to stalk my prey
tear flesh from bone
feel gravity's gift
slide it down my gullet
sate me for another night
until one more slower beast
crosses my path
in lesser light

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

that summer, Born to Be Wild
and Mrs. Robinson were on AM,
A & W Drive Inns served frosted mugs    
and Tet’s blood had not long dried black
on Saigon streets

my thumb took me from the green tipped tongue
of western Kentucky across the wide world
to a café in Santa Rosa, where I spent my last
eighty-five cents, on a tuna sandwich
and chips

a bus bench was waiting for me  
when the cafe closed its doors
at 12:10, the old waitress giving me
a generous extra dime of time,
knowing I had to face the night  
and the bench, or the New Mexico road
I chose the latter and headed south  
under coal dark skies    

only eighteen wheelers passed, their screaming lights
robbing me of what quiet vision night’s monotony had granted  
they saw my thumb, but not one stopped; they did not know I had walked
a dozen dark dead miles, and had not closed my eyes in 60 hours  
nor did they care, about me, or my shadow on Highway 54  

I talked to pinyons,  cedars that dotted the mesas
and moved about like mournful buffalo, stirred to life
by a sound or a scent, perhaps my own foul road bouquet,
though they were mute, even when I asked them
if I was seeing god in their measured marching
across my desert dream  

long before
the dawn I begged to come
I saw him, dead center on my highway
so black he was blue, his eyes like two emeralds
hanging in some ethereal space, staring at me, the rest
of the absent world unaware he was there, growling
the rumble so low I tasted it, as he might taste me,
I felt our nostrils flair, as his would when
he devoured me,  I saw the blood feast
through our eyes, the last morsel of me,
a pale art form on an asphalt palette  

as he swallowed the last of his meal
the eighteen wheeler came, its high beams bouncing off him
only long enough for me to see his mouth was dry
and his belly empty, before he vanished
into the blue night

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

it is now an anniversary in some places
some anonymous faces
are celebrating the birth of a son
a wedding that happened
some hapless eve in yesteryear
and we have our anniversary,
the one we call
9/11
thousands have penned poems about that day
usually struggling with what they had to say
I know I did
not because I was choking back tears
or harbored any fears
that more planes would crash into innocent green knolls
or ram New York’s majestic glass towers
but because of the…flowers…the flowers
cut and placed on hallowed ground
gently laid without a sound
the flowers
the flowers always pay a price
for an earthly sacrifice
placed at altars made high
and on empty caskets passing by
they neither whimper nor whine
and say not a wilting word waiting
for the anguished congregating
of those who need to find meaning
in the limits of fleeting flesh
the flowers have
long ago accepted their finite fate
but sadly it is often too late
for those who stand and weep
to somehow embrace the silent sleep
that will come to all
on anniversaries yet to be dated
and billions of others to be created
who will proudly build new towers
and need to cut sad wise flowers

smudges on the glass  
were wiped away each night
by a mute custodian

who found a biography
in each set of prints he made disappear
with clean cloth and vinegar

he could tell which ones
were made by children, dragged there
with promise of ice cream, later

oh, the young lovers' prints  
were unmistakable--eager tracks being led to more
and more promising carats

and the thin marks left by the frail
made him wonder, if this would be their last
precious purchase: a reckoning; a remorse

the cases held diamonds, rubies,
by the score, but the silent sentinel  
saw only the surface

that was his world,
one of transparency, and fickle
reflections

he reluctantly erased these fingered tales
the marks life left anon and anon, for he knew
it was his duty to wipe the slate clean

to allow resurrection,
renewed vision of a bejeweled
world, just below his sight

my feet
are numb in my boots,
I have holes in my soles, the
brown water to my ankles
but it will not freeze  
filled with gun oil,
blood and drek

I am
not sure
when I slept last,
if I ever did  
the others are there,
their eyes closed  
some sleeping  
some trying to sleep  
some trying to awake,
though they will not  

we
have yet  
to throw their bodies
on the heap

all eyes
are closed in the trench
save mine, and the sergeant
who stands like a statue  
more still than the dead  
only his eyes move
back and forth  

when
I am not looking at the wire,
the rutted field, and the ridge
where the Germans also sleep,
breathing the same foul stench,
I close my eyes, though I do not sleep,
but think of home, of Irina
I see her eyes, not the sergeant’s
and wonder if they have been closed
like mama’s and papa’s
and those beside me

I ask
the sergeant if tomorrow will be
the white flag, when we and the Germans
can retrieve the dead, from the wires,
where they hang, starved naked apes…
and when the flares fire the night sky  
I see the reflection in their wide open eyes
like the glint of light on broken glass  

I cannot
close their eyes

all is still
except for the swimming rats
and the pyres that send curling smoke
into the gray sky--neither the rodents
nor the fires utter a sound  

the sun
is surely there, somewhere silently
making its arc in our pallid sky  
but the last time I saw it
was two mornings ago,
or three, or two

when it rose,
I felt it on my face  
through the caked mud,
and blood from Ivan,
who was shot through the neck
and fell on me, and I lay still
with him on top of me,
like a thick blanket
his warm life elixir
painting my helmet
and face red, him gasping softly,
though only a few seconds
until more rounds pocked his body,
a carcass by then,
but my salvation  

would I be
the sodden sack of flesh
that covers another?
would the one who hides
under me remember my name?
and recall that I was
his salvation,
though I only a breathless
monkey, with holes in my boots  
and a **** soiled uniform  

would he
walk bent over
with the blessed cane of age
and remember, all I had done
for him, by simply dying?

I hear his barking from the other room
like a knocking on a door I can’t open    

his coughing comes in waves, drowning silence  
I clutch my own chest, “breathe”  

twice, thrice a day, I see him hobble to the bathroom,
oxygen tank behind him, his ball and chain  

there’s no ax of repentance to set him free after
fifty years under the brown leaf’s spell

not in this gray world where mindless cells multiply
and organs surrender to uninvited guests  

until one morning,  I wake to stillness--though I know
his hacking will abide forever, in memory’s vault

I took rest on the river road
by the big Platmann place,

two stout stories, white pillared and regal on this prairie

envy ate my gut most days when I passed:
a fine car, servants and the like

today though, was curiosity stirred in me
since what I happened to see, was a giant
red-tailed hawk, splayed and stuck to an outbuilding, entails dripping

an avian crucifixion, I was told

after the raptor snatched up the Platmann's tabby

the pet was not saved, by prayer or the screams of the young lass who called the cat Matilda

though a handy shotgun brought down
the bird before it reached the stand of trees

(where it would have had its furry repast)

only winged and not shot fatal
the hawk was dragged back to the shed

where a knife slit its gut, and a fire forged hammer and three penny nails did the rest

the skies did not darken, nor did the sacrificed call out to an invisible father

'tis not the way of hunters, nor their prey

I did tarry a while and wonder, if a child's eyes saw this rapacious red reaping,

or knew of the dumb desperate need for a blood cleansing

some claimed the paddies smelled like
fetid fishes, *****; some said like the dung of oxen, peasants
or other beasts who squatted there  

others whispered the fields reeked of death  
while I found no odor to be grander evidence
of life’s languorous longing for itself  

we marched those mired moors, as hunters
of invisible prey--ourselves too being stalked, or worse,
mocked by other hairless apes,  

who like we, sought light, but
could divine darkness far better, for we
knew little of night, its sacred riddles  

some said those places reeked  
of rotted flesh, the festering relics of our deeds
I inhaled deeply, slowly  

only rich, fecund stories
were revealed to me, ones I fear yet
this silent night

for John, it came with
the raucous roar of crowds when he scored
the winning touchdown; for Willie,
when he drove in the final run

for Paul, it came when he charged
a *** bunker on a chunk of rock from hell
he heard no applause--only the rat-tat-tat
of the gun that mowed him down

for Anna, it came with no
sound and fury; only a gentle thank you kiss
from her girl who told her she had been
the best mother in the world

for Rafael, his final hurrah was humble:
a smile from the lady who handed him his last check
after he mopped his last floor, cleaned his final
porcelain bowl, after a patient half century

for me, I don't know when it will be...
perhaps it occurred long ago, in an arena
or on a field I didn't recognize as a place of honor
or perchance tomorrow, when I learn to die

will I hear a fly buzz
when I…?
will my hands
be too weak to…?
once
thunderous pink anvils,
house builders
unholy home wreckers
woeful word weavers
plan writers…
now
crossed,
helpless and flaccid
hiding under hospice wool
shame covered by a thin green veil
on my antique grey chest
crossed,
my heart-beating
faintly
my eyes
scanning,
slowly
catching lonely light
missing even the fly
who is now
in another room
another world
buzzing in another’s ear

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...?

when the shining glass looks back at us
like a stalled rerun of our personal opera
of soap, and the technicolor turns to charcoal gray
we know we are coming to the end of our day

and we look to other faces,
and their “windows to the soul,”
for a reflection of who we are, or
were; they cast an obligatory glance
or do an avoidance dance, when
we give an imploring stare
to see if they know,
we are still there

each day fewer shine bright
or glitter with glee and we wonder
what happened to me, the me they saw
and sought after in the colored world
of before

others disappear into their own dark night
having long endured their inevitable plight
of the cold mirror’s still, shattering view
and disappearing eyes of all but a few
who see us yet faintly in the light
that remains

when the shining glass looks back at us
like a stalled rerun of our personal opera of soap
and the technicolor turns to charcoal gray
we know we are coming to the end of our day

and we look to smaller spaces,
those “windows to the soul”,
for a reflection of who we are,
or were
they cast an obligatory glance
or do an avoidance dance
when we give an imploring stare
to see if they know, we are still there

each day fewer shine bright or glitter with glee
and we wonder what happened to me
the me they saw and sought after
in the colored world of before

others disappear into their own dark night
long having endured the inevitable plight
of the cold mirror’s still, shattering view
and disappearing eyes of all but a few
who see us faintly
in the light that remains

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

***** and he
make their way
across the stretch
of sand

behind them,
the hard rock land
of memory

the crustaceans
will return--the tides
their clock

not he;
this march
is his last,
waves will
swallow him
gag him

while he briefly
forgets his purpose  
and clings to
this world;

soon though,
his lungs with fill
he will sink
to depths:

a blue burial,
a seaweed symphony
his dirge

the ***** return,
but not he--the ebb and flood
of waters no longer
his province

(poem's image: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1174175556043500&set;=a.102525519875181.1742.100003531994461&type;=3&theater;¬if;t=like¬if;id=14914495906541620

the lamb's lame leg, its death sentence
the rest of the herd headed up the hill, dog
driven; the shepherd, home in his hovel

they wait, the vultures; they
know no haste, though hunger pulls
them closer to the babe

abandoned by its mother, and whatever
god watches over such beasts, its breathing slows,
the carrion eaters tighten their circle

the babe kicks its three good legs
in defiance or desperation--neither the buzzards
nor I know, even though, I created her

to be devoured soon in this new grass
while the other sheep chomp the sweet swards
close to the earth, oblivious to her fate

the circle grows smaller; the creature
kicks no longer; her eyes yet blink, slower, until
the first talon tears into the left or the right

the choice matters not